THE CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 
 
 IN ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT, 
 4tjj tfje utlme of a System. 
 
PRINTED BY MORRISON AND GIBB, 
 FOR 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
 LONDON, HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO. 
 
 DUBLIN, GEO. HERBERT. 
 
 KEW YORK, .... SCRIBNER AND WELFORD. 
 
 PUBLISHERS' NOTICE. 
 
 It has been thought desirable to publish at once this volume, which com- 
 prises the u History of the Christian Philosophy of Religion from the 
 Reformation to Kant" and which is complete in itself. As will be seen from 
 Professor Flint's Preface, a considerable time elapsed between the publication 
 of the Jirst volume and the completing volume of the work in the German 
 original, but the translation of the latter is proceeding, and will be published 
 in a few months. 
 
HISTORY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 CHRISTIAN PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 
 
 FROM THE REFORMATION TO KANT. 
 
 BY 
 
 BEENHAED PUNJEE. 
 
 {Translated from tbe <3erman 
 
 BY 
 
 W. HAST IE, B.D. 
 
 a preface 
 
 BY 
 
 ROBERT FLINT, P.D., LLJD., 
 
 PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET. 
 
 1887. 
 
Leviores gustus in philosophia movere fortasse ad atheismnm, 
 sed pleniores haustus ad religionem reducere. 
 
 BACO YERULAMUS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 preface will very probably seem unnecessary. The 
 merits of Dr. Piinjer's work are so great and obvious, 
 that they can hardly fail to be recognised by all who become 
 acquainted with it. I should gladly have left it to speak for 
 itself; but, after having represented to the publishers and 
 translator the desirability of making it accessible to English 
 readers, I have not felt free to decline their request to write 
 a few lines of introduction to it in its new form. 
 
 When Dr. Piinjer died, about two years ago, he was only 
 in the thirty-fifth year of his age. It is not surprising, there- 
 fore, that his name should be almost unknown in this country 
 beyond the circle of professional theologians. But a brief 
 sketch of his life may be, on this account, all the more 
 appropriate and welcome. I derive the materials for it from 
 the necrological notice written by Dr. Lipsius, and published 
 in the fourth volume of the Theologischer Jahresbericht. 
 
 George Christian Bernhard Piinjer was born on the 7th of 
 June 1850, at Fredericksgabekoog, in Holstein. In that 
 obscure and uninteresting region his father was a school- 
 master, and there the boy grew up and was educated until 
 qualified to enter a gymnasium, when he was sent to Meldorf, 
 doubtless, in part at least, on account of its nearness. During 
 1870 and the two following years he studied theology at 
 the Universities of Jena, Erlangen, Zurich, Kiel, and again 
 Jena. He thus heard many of the most distinguished theo- 
 logical teachers of Germany. The two who exercised most 
 influence on the formation of his religious convictions were 
 Biedermann of Zurich and Lipsius of Jena, the former long 
 the ablest exponent of Hegelianism in the sphere of Dogmatics, 
 
VI PREFACE. 
 
 and the latter an equally talented worker in the same 
 department, who from Neo-Kantian principles has arrived at 
 very similar conclusions. Piinjer implicitly accepted neither 
 the speculative standpoint of the one nor the subjective 
 standpoint of the other, but he was in essential agreement 
 with them as to results. 
 
 In 1874 he took the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 
 The subject of his dissertation was " Die Eeligionslehre 
 Kants," and thus by his earliest publication he entered on 
 what was to be the chief field of his labours during the rest 
 of his life. It was the origin of the work now translated. 
 He had resolved to devote himself to the cultivation and 
 teaching of theology, and in Germany every man of sufficient 
 learning and talent who forms such a resolution has an 
 opportunity afforded him of trying to carry it into execu- 
 tion ; he has simply to show evidence of competency, and 
 go to work. Accordingly, in the summer of 1875, Piinjer 
 qualified as a Docent of the Theological Faculty of Jena. 
 The treatise which he submitted, [and which was published 
 the following year, De Michaelis Serveti doctrina commentatio 
 dogmatico-historica, consists of a careful account of the whole 
 doctrinal system of Servetus, a reasoned estimate thereof, and 
 an indication of how it was related to certain forms of ortho- 
 dox and heretical teaching. 
 
 While a student, consumption had laid its hold on our 
 author ; now on the threshold of his public career he was 
 prostrated by typhus. He recovered, and for nine years it 
 seemed as if the fever had expelled the constitutional malady. 
 He was able about Easter in 1876 to begin his lectures, and 
 until a few weeks before his death he only once required to 
 be absent from his class-room. He lectured on almost all 
 parts of Systematic Theology, on some periods of Church 
 History, and on the Philosophy of Eeligion, which exercised 
 more and more attraction on him. In 1880 appeared the 
 first volume that now published in English of his History 
 of the Christian Philosophy of Eeligion. It was at once 
 recognised in Germany to be a work of exceptional and 
 
PREFACE. Vll 
 
 permanent value. In the same year its author became a 
 professor extraordinarius. In 1881 he founded the well- 
 known and highly useful Theologischer Jahreslericht. He 
 was a leading contributor to the first four volumes, reviewing 
 in each the works which had appeared during the past year 
 on the History of Eeligions, the Philosophy of Religion, 
 Apologetics, Polemics, Encyclopaedia, Church Unions, and 
 Missions. At the same time he not only lectured assiduously, 
 but wrote largely in theological journals, in encyclopaedias, 
 etc. In fact, he must have laboured to an extent which 
 was excessive and imprudent in a man of unsound physical 
 constitution. A German privat-docent or professor extra- 
 ordinarius, however, must study to live as well as live to 
 study, and generally finds it very difficult to solve the two 
 problems combined. In 1883, Professor Plinjer published the 
 last volume of his History of the Christian Philosophy of 
 Eeligion ; and in the same year he received the diploma 
 of an honorary doctorship from the University of Heidel- 
 berg. Only a short period more of life had been allotted 
 him. Early in 1885 disease of the lungs again made its 
 presence known, and it finished its fatal work on the 13th of 
 May 1885. 
 
 The life of Piinjer was short, and poor in outward success 
 or honour ; a life of self-denial, and of toil which had no 
 reward save the consciousness of being the faithful perform- 
 ance of useful work. He died before he had even attained 
 an ordinary professorship, and before he had shown to the 
 world the full measure of his powers. Yet his life was far 
 from futile or unfruitful. On the contrary, it may justly 
 be regarded as a fine example of the kind of life which 
 has made the theology, the philosophy, and scholarship of 
 Germany the admiration of the world ; and it produced, 
 notwithstanding its brevity, much good work which will long 
 bear witness to its worth. 
 
 It was our author's intention to follow up his History of the 
 Christian Philosophy of Eeligion with a volume setting forth 
 his own view on the chief questions with which a religious 
 
Vlll PREFACE. 
 
 philosophy should deal. Death prevented him from accom- 
 plishing his purpose ; but he had so far proceeded with the task 
 that a G-rundriss der Religionspliilosophie could be edited from 
 his MSS., and this was done by Dr. Lipsius in 1886. It 
 would be unjust to take this work as a criterion of its author's 
 constructive ability. It is not what we would have been 
 entitled to expect from him if his life had been prolonged. 
 But, although inadequately developed, it is judicious and 
 instructive so far as it goes, and clearly and even popularly 
 written ; and as it forms the natural conclusion of the History, 
 it is hoped that it will be a welcome addition to the next 
 volume of this translation. 
 
 A few remarks may now be made on the work here 
 presented. It merely professes to be a History of the 
 Christian Philosophy of Religion. It does not profess to be 
 a Universal History of the Philosophy of Eeligion. There 
 have been Hindu, Jewish, and Mohammedan Philosophies of 
 Eeligion. A good account of these would be of interest and 
 value, but we can have no right to complain of not finding it 
 in this work, since Piinjer warns us by his very title that he 
 will confine his researches within the area of Christendom. 
 On the other hand, his book is not merely a History of the 
 Philosophy of the Christian Religion a History of the Philo- 
 sophy of Christianity. Koppen, Weisse, and others have 
 published what they designated Philosophies of Christianity. 
 Piinjer was entitled, in conformity with his purpose and plan, 
 to give an account of such works, if of sufficient importance ; 
 but they had no exclusive, or even special, claim to his notice. 
 He aimed at being the historian, not merely of the Philosophy 
 of Christianity, but of the Philosophy of Religion, so far as it 
 had sprung up on a Christian soil and under Christian 
 influences. The title of his work served to indicate his 
 intention, and was thus far justified. Otherwise, however, 
 it can hardly be deemed appropriate. Spinoza, the English 
 deists, Diderot, and Voltaire, for example, cannot with pro- 
 priety be held to have been Christian philosophers. They 
 certainly made no claim to be so considered. Further, 
 
EKEFACE. IX 
 
 although it is easy enough to understand how in a sense there 
 may be a philosophy of Christianity, it is difficult to conceive 
 of a distinctively Christian philosophy of religion, notwith- 
 standing that many have professed to propound a philosophy 
 entitled to be so called. Is such a philosophy anything else 
 than the true philosophy of religion, or, more simply and 
 quite as accurately, the philosophy of religion ? If not, how 
 is it a distinctive philosophy ? If yes, must it not be some- 
 thing less or other than true ? Indeed, there are no traces 
 either in the G-eschichte or Grundriss that Dr. Piinjer supposed 
 that there was any exclusively and specifically Christian 
 philosophy of religion. Hence the title of his work, although 
 it served one important purpose, would seem to have been by 
 no means a just expression even of his own thought. 
 
 Dae attention should be given to this other fact. The 
 book is merely a history of philosophico-religious theories, 
 not a history and criticism of these theories. For this limi- 
 tation there is in the present day no need of apology. The 
 historian of ideas is no more bound to constitute himself the 
 judge of their truth or falsity, than the historian of events is 
 bound to pronounce on their wisdom or folly, Tightness or 
 wrongness. The sole duty of the historian, alike of ideas and 
 events, is to give us a complete history of them such a 
 history as will of itself imply the true judgment of them. It 
 may sometimes be desirable to add critical reflections to the 
 history, but it ought to be clearly recognised that these are 
 not the history, and should not be substituted for it ; that, on 
 the contrary, the space allotted to them is space deducted 
 from the history ; and that indulgence in them is even very 
 apt to be detrimental to the truthfulness of the historical 
 representation. The characters and functions of the historian 
 and the critic are so different, that when an attempt is made 
 to act as both, the critic is not unlikely to discredit and injure 
 the historian. The best historians of philosophy and theology 
 have now, accordingly, come to dispense with philosophical 
 and theological criticism, and to confine themselves to historical 
 narration and exposition. Their motto is, as was that of 
 
X PREFACE. 
 
 Piinjer, " Darstellung, nicht Beurtheilung." He scarcely 
 needed, therefore, to give any reason for his procedure in the 
 above respect. But he gave two, and one of them has 
 afforded to his reviewers the chief matter for criticism which 
 they have found in his book. To the first, namely, that a 
 continuous criticism of the theories which he expounded would 
 have greatly increased the size but comparatively little the 
 value of his work, nothing, of course, could be objected. But 
 the second that he did not feel free to assume the office of 
 critic and judge, seeing that he could not claim to be himself 
 in possession of a complete system of religious philosophy, 
 and wished to come to history, not to impose his doctrine 
 upon it, but to learn from it was a positive temptation to 
 superficial critics to endeavour to show their superiority to 
 this, perhaps, too modest author. Hence such critics have 
 naturally spent, in the assertion and defence of the thesis, 
 that whoever ventures to write a history of the philosophy 
 of religion should have a complete philosophy of religion of 
 his own, the strength which they should have given to 
 the study of the history submitted to them. Piinjer's con- 
 fession, that he set to work on his History before he had 
 such a philosophy, has been characterized by them as naive. 
 In reality, the naivete is their own. Although Piinjer began 
 his History before he deemed himself to have thought out a 
 complete philosophy of religion, he did not begin it until he 
 had attained a wide knowledge of the phenomena of religion, 
 and of all the special sciences which deal with these pheno- 
 mena. Further, before he began to write he had come to the 
 conclusion that by the philosophy of religion, the history of 
 which he undertook to trace, could only properly be meant 
 the thorough or scientific comprehension and elucidation of 
 all the phenomena of religion. Such being the case, why 
 should he need, when he had any hypothesis, doctrine, or 
 philosophy of religion before him, to judge it by an hypothesis, 
 doctrine, or philosophy of his own ? Why should he not 
 judge it directly by the laws of reason on the one hand, and 
 by the phenomena which it professes to explain on the other ? 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 The principles of logic and the facts of experience are, in 
 reality, the only proper criteria either of our own theories of 
 religion or of those of others. To judge of other men's 
 theories by our own is an altogether illegitimate procedure. 
 It is akin to, and inevitably leads to, judging of facts by 
 theories, instead of testing theories by facts. 
 
 The merits of Piinjer's history are not difficult to discover ; 
 on the contrary, they are of the kind which, as the French 
 say, sautent aux yeux. The language is almost everywhere as 
 plain and easy to apprehend as, considering the nature of the 
 matter conveyed, it could be made. The style is simple, 
 natural, and direct; the only sort of style appropriate to 
 the subject. The amount of information imparted is most 
 extensive, and strictly relevant. Nowhere else will a student 
 get nearly so much knowledge as to what has been thought 
 and written, within the area of Christendom, on the philo- 
 sophy of religion. He must be an excessively learned man 
 in that department who has nothing to learn from this 
 book. As regards the prime quality of historical truthful- 
 ness, accuracy in reporting and reproducing what has happened 
 or been held, it may safely, I believe, be accepted as unim- 
 peachable. What Piinjer says was maintained by any one, 
 the reader may feel assured was maintained by him, and 
 substantially as affirmed. The work is also characterized by 
 an almost perfect impartiality. With the exception of the 
 harsh estimate of Modern Methodism given on p. 283, scarcely 
 a trace of prejudice is anywhere to be detected in it. A 
 great many theories are set forth in it of which its author 
 must have wholly disapproved, but the delineation of them 
 is not thereby affected, not coloured or distorted, or even any 
 the less carefully executed. Closely connected with this 
 characteristic of the work is, to adopt a convenient German 
 term, its objectivity. The historian here never obtrudes 
 himself between us and the history. He has effaced himself 
 before his subject, in order that it alone may be seen, and 
 precisely as it is. His personal feelings and convictions, his 
 subjective peculiarities and predilections, are kept in abeyance, 
 
Xll PKEFACE. 
 
 and his mind is made to serve as a pure and uncoloured 
 medium for the transmission or reflection of the objective 
 reality, matter, or contents of the history. This self-abnega- 
 tion is the supreme virtue of the historian, as without the 
 objectivity only to be obtained by it there can be no true 
 history, but merely some more or less plausible semblance of 
 it. If devoid of this virtue, a great man may possibly write 
 a great book on history, but not a great or even a good history. 
 Dr. Dorner's History of Protestant Theology is a very suggestive 
 and valuable theological work, but it has far too much of Dr. 
 Dorner's own individuality in it to be a trustworthy history. 
 The realm of historical truth, like the kingdom of heaven, 
 can only be entered through self-renunciation. And such 
 renunciation deserves all the more to be commended because 
 it is so apt to be unappreciated. The more a work of history 
 is soaked in, and saturated with, the subjectivity of its author, 
 and consequently the less truly historical it is, the more 
 popular it often is. History means " the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth," and that has little charm 
 for vulgar minds. 
 
 The criticisms which may most fairly be made on the 
 present work seem to me to be the following. First, The 
 chronology, the order of succession, of the theories described 
 is not always so carefully attended to as history requires. 
 Patritius, for example, should have been treated of before 
 Campanella, and Kamus before Taurellus. Paracelsus should 
 have been dealt with immediately after Cusanus. His 
 significance is only truly seen when his doctrines are regarded 
 as springing from sources anterior to the Eeformation. It is 
 quite erroneous to place English Deism before Cartesianism. 
 Blount should not be made to follow Hobbes and precede 
 Locke, but to follow Locke and precede Toland, or rather 
 Tindal, who is also wrongly located. More and Cudworth 
 should have been treated of before Locke. 
 
 Secondly, The method of exposition adopted by Piinjer 
 sometimes fails. Whenever he treats of a system at any 
 considerable length, he endeavours to give a careful summary 
 
PKEFACE. Xlll 
 
 of what is essential in it, so far as professedly relevant to 
 religion. , In most cases this leads to a satisfactory result ; 
 but not in all. There are systems which it is useless to 
 attempt to summarize. That of Jacob Bohme is an instance. 
 With laborious conscientiousness our author has striven to 
 give a complete account of it. Will the ordinary reader find 
 the account even intelligible ? I shall leave it to himself 
 to answer. I venture, however, to think that he would have 
 had more reason to be grateful to Dr. Piinjer had he, so to 
 speak, melted the system down in the crucible of his own 
 mind, extracted the precious ore, presented that only in his 
 book, and left the residue or slack to kindly oblivion. 
 
 Thirdly, The work of Dr. Ptinjer is lacking in recognition 
 of religious speculation outside of Germany. In fact, there 
 is no recognition in it at all of recent English, French, or Italian 
 religious philosophy. This criticism applies, of course, only 
 to the second, and otherwise the most interesting and valuable 
 volume of the work. So long as the scholars of France, Italy, 
 and England leave the composition of histories of philosophy 
 in general, and in its departments, almost entirely to Germans, 
 they must expect to see the philosophical movements in their 
 own countries largely ignored. 
 
 Notwithstanding the above and such other objections as 
 may fairly apply to Dr. Punjer's work, it is one of great 
 value, and indispensable to the student of theology and 
 philosophy. The only other history of the philosophy of 
 religion which is of any worth is that contained in Dr. 
 Pfleiderer's Philosophy of Religion on the basis of History, 
 and which has now been made accessible to English readers 
 in the excellent translation of Prof. Alexander Stewart and 
 the Eev. Allan Menzies. It is a work of distinguished ability, 
 and will be found a valuable supplement to that of Piinjer, 
 owing to its vigorous criticism of the principal modern German 
 systems of religious philosophy. It has, however, neither the 
 same fulness nor objectivity as Punjer's treatise, and cannot 
 properly serve as a substitute for it. The whole field of 
 history, for example, covered by the present volume is but 
 
XIV PREFACE. 
 
 slightly touched by Pfleiderer. Those who read the one work 
 will be the more likely, and the better prepared, to read the 
 other. The translators of both have rendered a manifest 
 service to the cause of religious enlightenment and science. 
 There need be no fear that the circulation of either work will 
 injure that of the other. 
 
 It will not be expected that I should enter on any dis- 
 cussion of the nature, limits, methods, or problems of the 
 Philosophy of Religion. I cannot, however, too earnestly 
 commend the study of it to our younger theologians. It is 
 the all-inclusive theological science, at once the foundation, 
 the vital breath, the goal and crown of every theological 
 discipline. All the special theological sciences are worth just 
 what they contribute to it, or, in other words, to the complete 
 comprehension of religion. If theology is to make real pro- 
 gress among us, old dogmatic methods of inquiry and proof 
 must be abandoned for such as are truly philosophical, and 
 the old theological system give place to another, larger and 
 richer, and organized by a truly philosophical spirit. For the 
 modern theologian, the study of the Philosophy of Religion is 
 an incumbent duty, an urgent necessity. The Philosophy of 
 Religion deals with all the root-questions of theology ; arid 
 we can as justly apply to theology as to any other kind of 
 science the dictum and illustration of Bacon " If you will 
 have a tree bear more fruit than it hath used to do, it is not 
 anything that you can do to the boughs, but it is the stirring 
 of the earth, and putting new mould about the roots, that 
 must work it." 
 
 The translation will, I have no doubt, be found well 
 executed. It is the work of a thoroughly competent scholar, 
 whose knowledge of the systems and literature of religious 
 philosophy is unequalled by any one known to me. 
 
 E. FLINT. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DEFINITION OF THE SUBJECT, AND SUEVEY TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 PACK 
 
 I. THE HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EELIGION DEFINED AND 
 
 JUSTIFIED, ...... 1 
 
 II. THE ANCIENT CHURCH, . 6 
 
 The Apologists, .... 7 
 
 Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius, . . 9 
 
 Gnosticism, ' 10 
 
 The Ecclesiastical Gnosis. Clement and Origen, . 13 
 Neo-Platonism. Ammonius Sakkas. Plotinus. Porphyry, 15 
 
 Dionysius Areopagitica, . . . . .17 
 
 Maximus Confessor. Synesius, . .18 
 
 Joannes Philoponus. John of Damascus, . . 19 
 
 The Latin Church, . . 20 
 
 Augustine, . . . . . .21 
 
 Boethius. Cassiodorus. Isidore of Seville, . . 22 
 
 III. THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 The Movement of the Middle Ages generally, . . 23 
 
 Scholasticism, ... 25 
 
 The Intellectual Enlightenment and the Religious Op- 
 position, ...... 26 
 
 Joannes Scotus Erigena, . . . . .26 
 
 Realism and Nominalism. Roscellinus, ... 28 
 Anselm, ..... 29 
 
 Universals, . . . . . .31 
 
 Albertus Magnus, ..... 32 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, . . . .32 
 
 Duns Scotus, ...... 33 
 
 Raymundus Lullus, . . . . .34 
 
 William of Occam, ..... 34 
 
 Peter D'Ailly. John Gerson. Raymond ofSabunde, . 35 
 Berengar of Tours, ..... 36 
 
XVI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Abelard, ....... 36 
 
 Averroes, ....... 39 
 
 Simon of Tournay. John of Brescain, ... 40 
 
 Roger Bacon. De tribus Impostoribus, ... 41 
 
 William of Auvergne, ..... 42 
 
 Mysticism (Bernard of Clairvaux, Bonaventura, etc.), . 42 
 
 Amalrich of Bena, ..... 43 
 
 David of Dinant. Joachim of Floris, ... 44 
 
 Beghins and Beghards, ..... 45 
 
 Meister Eckhart. (Tauler, Suso, and the German Theology}, 45 
 
 IV. TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION 
 
 The Humanists, ...... 49 
 
 Pomporiatius, ...... 50 
 
 Georgius Gemisthus Pletho, . . . .52 
 
 Marsilius Ficinus, . . , . .53 
 
 Pico of Mirandola, ..... 55 
 
 Justus Lipsius. Montaigne. (Charron, Sanchez), . 56 
 
 Mutianus. John Reuchlin, . . . .57 
 
 Erasmus. Ulrich von Hutten, .... 58 
 
 Enlightenment and Mysticism, .... 59 
 
 Petrus Waldus. John Huss. John Wickliffe, . . 60 
 
 Thomas a Kempis. John Wessel, ... 60 
 
 Division of the Subject from the Reformation Period, . 61 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION FROM THE 
 REFORMATION TO KANT. 
 
 SECTION FIRST. THE BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 I. Nicolaus Cusanus, ...... 66 
 
 II. Telesius and Cardanus, ..... 89 
 
 III. Giordano Bruno, ...... 93 
 
 IV. Thomas Campanella, . . . . .101 
 V. Nicolaus Taurellus, . . . . . .113 
 
 VI. Petrus Ramus, . . . . . .118 
 
 SECTION SECOND. THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 I. Martin Luther, . . . . . .125 
 
 II. Melanchthon, . . . . . .131 
 
 III. Osiander, Illyricus, and Orthodox Lutheranism, . . 137 
 
 IV. Ulrich Zwingli, ...... 145 
 
 V. John Calvin, . . . . . .155 
 
 VI. Protestant Controversies. Vedelius and Musaeus, . 158 
 
CONTENTS. XV11 
 
 SECTION THIRD. THE CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Aristotelianism and Ramism, . . . 168- 
 
 II. The Daniel Hofmann Controversy, . . . .178 
 
 SECTION FOURTH. THE OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN 
 PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 I. The Purely Intellectual Opposition. Socinianisru, . . 193 
 
 II. The Anabaptists. Joris. Niclas. Independentism. 
 
 Quakers, ...... 207 
 
 III. The Mystics. Servetus. Paracelsus. Carlstadt. Miinzer. . 
 
 Frank. Schwenkfeldt, 217'' 
 
 IV. Valentin Weigel, 231 
 
 V. Jacob Bohme, ...... 243 
 
 Swedenborgianism, ..... 265 
 
 Irvingism (Edward Irving), .... 267 
 
 VI. The Practical Opposition. Pietism,. . . .268' 
 
 Zinzendorf and the Moravians, .... 280 
 
 Methodism, ...... 282 
 
 SECTION FIFTH. THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 The English Eeformation. The Levellers, . . 285 
 
 Lord Bacon, ... .286 
 
 Newton. Boyle, ...... 288 
 
 The general character of Deism, .... 289 
 
 The Three Periods of English Deism, . . .289 
 
 I. The Beginnings of English Deism 
 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury, . 292 
 
 Sir Thomas Browne, . . . . 300 
 
 Thomas Hobbes, ...... 302 
 
 Charles Blount, . .314 
 II. The Full Development of Deism- 
 John Locke, ...... 315 
 
 John Toland, ...... 321 
 
 Anthony CoUins, ...... 329 
 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, ..... 330 
 
 Matthew Tindal, ...... 338 
 
 Thomas Chubb, ...... 342 
 
 Thomas Morgan, . . . . . . 345 
 
 III. Special Controversies and the Apologetic Works 
 
 1. The Controversy on Immortality ; Dodwell, . . 351 
 
 2. The Controversy on Prophecy; Whiston, Collins, 
 
 Bullock, Sykes, Jeffery, . . . .352 
 
 3. The Debate on Miracles ; Woolston, Peter Annet, . 353 
 
 b 
 
XV111 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 4. The Apologists Henry More, . . . 354 
 
 Cudworth, ...... 355 
 
 Bentley, Ibbot, Gibson, . . . .356 
 
 John Conybeare, ..... 357 
 
 Bishop Butler, ..... 358 
 
 IV. David Hume, ....... 359 
 
 SECTION SIXTH. DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 I. Descartes, ....... 389 
 
 "II. Opponents and Adherents of Descartes, . , . 392 
 
 Christoph Wittich, . . . 397 
 
 Heidanus, Deurhoff, F. A. Lampe, . . . 398 
 A. van Dale, Balthasar Bekker, . . . .399 
 
 Hermann Alexander Eb'ell, .... 401 
 
 Geulinx, ....... 402 
 
 Malebranche, ...... 404 
 
 III. Spinoza, 407 
 
 IV. Opponents and Adherents of Spinoza 
 
 Eappoltus, Blyenburg, ..... 434 
 
 Cuffelarius, Musseus, Kortholt, .... 435 
 
 Eichard Simon, Jacob Verschoor, . . . 436 
 
 Matthias Knutzen, ..... 437 
 
 Stosch (Stossius), ...... 439 
 
 Edelmann, ...... 439 
 
 SECTION SEVENTH. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 I. Scepticism Pierre Bayle, . . . .446 
 
 Le Vayer, Huet, Saint Evremont, . . . 447 
 
 II. Deism Maupertuis, ...... 453 
 
 Voltaire, 454 
 
 III. Materialism and Sensationalism 
 
 Condillac, ....... 460 
 
 De la Mettrie, ...... 461 
 
 Helvetius, Diderot, . . . . 462 
 
 D'Holbach, ...... 463 
 
 IV. The Opposition of Religious Feeling 
 
 Eousseau, ....... 468 
 
 SECTION EIGHTH. LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 General Character and Eelations of the Aufkldrung (Enlighten- 
 ment), . . . . . . .476 
 
 I. The Doctrines of Leibniz, ..... 480 
 
 II. Wolff and the Popular Philosophy 
 
 Wolff's Philosophy, ..... 515 
 
 The Popular Philosophy, ..... 524 
 
 Grotius, Pufendorff, ..... 525 
 
 Christian Thomasius, ..... 526 
 
 Eelation of the Wolffian Philosophy to Theology, . 528 
 
CONTENTS. XIX 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Canz, Eeinbeck, Kothen, Carpov, . . .530 
 
 Keusch, ....... 531 
 
 Parjes, Eibow, Schubert, Kappelier, . . . 532 
 
 III. The Aufkldrung and its Chief Eepresentatives 
 
 Sulzer, Nicolai, Basedow, ..... 536 
 
 Moses Mendelssohn, ..... 537 
 
 The Physico-theologies ; Brockes, . . . 539 
 
 J. J. Spalding, W. A. TeUer, . . . .541 
 
 Sack, F. W. Jerusalem, ..... 542 
 
 J. L. Schmidt and the Wertheim Bible, . . .543 
 
 J. H. Schulz, ...... 544 
 
 Andreas Eiem, G. Schade, .... 545 
 
 Karl Friedrich Bahrdt, . 546 
 
 Eeimarus, . . . . . . 550 
 
 SECTION NINTH. THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 The Historico- critical Movement 
 
 Wettstein, Griesbach, Eichhorn, Michaelis, . . 559 
 
 Ernesti, Semler, ...... 560 
 
 Gellert, Klopstock, ..... 562 
 
 Matthias Claudius, Teerstegen, Lavater, . . . 563 
 
 The Chief Eepresentatives of the New Movement 
 
 I. Lessing, ....... 564 
 
 II. Herder, . . . . . .585 
 
 III. Hamann, . . . . . . 607 
 
 IV. Jacobi, . . . . . .621 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 DEFINITION OF THE SUBJECT, AND SURVEY TO 
 THE EEFOEMATION. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION DEFINED 
 AND JUSTIFIED. 
 
 WHOEVER undertakes to write the History of a Science 
 is confronted at the outset with the great difficulty 
 of having to define correctly the matter that has to be dealt 
 with. The conception of a science is that about which there 
 is most dispute, and in the setting forth of which there is 
 the greatest diversity of procedure. Should, then, the ex- 
 pounder of a science pass silently over all those views of it 
 which he does not recognise as correct ? This is impossible. 
 Moreover, a comprehensive and systematic treatment of any 
 subject in a scientific way is only attained after a long 
 period of prior effort. May, then, the historical treatment 
 of a science leave all the beginnings and all the early 
 imperfect attempts in the way of scientific explanation of 
 its subject - matter unnoticed ? Certainly not. Were any 
 one, for example, to undertake to write a History of Ethics, 
 he could neither leave out of view all those precepts of 
 action that were not yet brought into the form of a strictly 
 completed system, nor could he ornit any of those systems 
 which based the Science of Ethics upon other definitions than 
 the one which he himself held to be correct. The historian 
 of a science must not merely review all the expositions of his 
 science actually presented in history, but he must also draw 
 
 VOL. I. A 
 
2 INTRODUCTORY DEFINITION AND SURVEY. 
 
 into the sphere of his exposition much that is only significant 
 as preparatory effort, as weak and unsuccessful attempts 
 towards the later form of the science. 
 
 What, and how much, should a History of the Philosophy 
 of Eeligion contain ? In point of fact the question is still 
 discussed as to whether the Philosophy of Eeligion should 
 merely give a phenomenology of the religious consciousness, 
 or should also enter into the domain of metaphysics, or in 
 addition should also apply to its own use the results of the 
 history of Eeligion. The History of the subject ought properly 
 to take all these relations into account. But if it were to 
 confine itself to an exposition of the complete systems of the 
 Philosophy of Eeligion, it could hardly begin with anything 
 before Hegel's Philosophy of Religion, or, at most, with Kant's 
 Religion within the Limits of mere Reason, and not earlier. 
 Such a limitation would withdraw from it all the philosophical 
 speculations about Eeligion which lie at the basis alike of the 
 philosophical systems and the expositions of the Christian 
 faith. This would certainly be circumscribing our subject too 
 narrowly. Hence it is necessary to adopt a wider standpoint, 
 and we must be guided to it by the proper conception of the 
 Philosophy of Eeligion, if we are to avoid running off into 
 other subjects. At first there appears to be a contradiction 
 involved in such combinations as, " Philosophy of Eeligion," 
 " Philosophy of Eight," " Philosophy of Nature," and similar 
 terms. For the characteristic of Philosophy is that it occu- 
 pies itself with the universal in contrast to the particular 
 details of the several sciences, a distinction which holds 
 whether Philosophy is defined to be the universal all- 
 embracing science as distinguished from the special sciences, 
 or as the science of the principles of Being as well as of 
 Knowing. These two sides of Philosophy, when deeply 
 apprehended, agree with each other, and the nature of the 
 Philosophy of Eeligion may be determined by reference to 
 them. It considers Eeligion in connection with all the other 
 manifestations of the spiritual life of man as well as with all 
 the other forms of existence, because it is the application of 
 
HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION DEFINED. , 3 
 
 thought to the scientific and rational comprehension of 
 Religion. Its aim is not merely to obtain empirical knowledge 
 of the forms which religion has assumed in doctrine, practice, 
 and cultus at different times and among different people ; it 
 aims at comprehending what and why religion is, and how it 
 is connected with the nature of man and his position in the 
 universe as well as its relation to the being and working of God. 
 And thus it has also to take into account how and wherefore 
 it has assumed a certain form at any particular time among 
 a particular people, and similar questions. The task of the 
 Philosophy of Eeligion is the thoughtful, rational con- 
 sideration of religion. The term " Eeligion " indicates first 
 of all a something objective, the sum of the theoretical 
 and practical propositions concerning God, His relation to the 
 world, and our own action, which are accepted as valid in a 
 particular community. These propositions claim to be divine 
 truth ; and, in the case of a right relation on the part of the 
 individual to the objective religion of his Church, they 
 correspond to the inner experience of his consciousness so 
 completely that it is only a late and far advanced develop- 
 ment of independent thinking that induces the attempt to 
 consider them objectively and without prepossession, with the 
 view of incorporating the religion which they represent, along 
 with other objects of knowledge, in the form of an all- 
 embracing theory of the universe. As regards the Christian 
 religion, it is manifest that it could only enter of its own 
 accord into such a universal system, when philosophical 
 thinking had acquired such strength among the Christian 
 peoples that it no longer shrank from boldly attempting to 
 conceive the whole of being in a speculative way. This 
 highest stage in the application of thought to Eeligion is, 
 however, prepared for in various ways. If the adherents of a 
 religion try to refute the doubts which arise here and there 
 regarding it, or strive to make what is first presented from 
 without as a doctrine and tenet a possession of their own 
 heart and a subject of personal conviction, they must then 
 advance to the consideration of it in thought. And any one 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY DEFINITION AND SURVEY. 
 
 who might undertake the task of defending the truth of his 
 religion from attack, or of making it known to the followers 
 of another creed, could not always stop at an appeal to its 
 divine origin, but must often try to show that its doctrines 
 recommend themselves to the rational thinking of men as 
 truth. Again, the examination of Religion as an objective 
 fact must always return to the subjective side, and this must 
 lead a step farther. If the modification of the human self- 
 consciousness, which we call Eeligion, precedes the establish- 
 ment of doctrines and observances as binding upon the agent, 
 we must already recognise in this fact an activity of thought. 
 As regards the result of this thinking, the contemporary 
 philosophical speculation is of importance to it as well as the 
 special character which the religion in question bears in itself 
 in the self-consciousness of the individual, and which therefore 
 asserts its influence upon his reflection. Further, the learned 
 cultivation of Theology likewise proceeds under the influence 
 of the position assigned to Philosophy, as a universal organon 
 of knowledge. All these are relations of thought to 
 Religion, which, although not yet constituting a Philosophy 
 of Religion, assuredly prepare for such a Philosophy. 
 A History of the Philosophy of Religion will, therefore, 
 necessarily have to take them all into account. And if it 
 should appear at the first glance as if we were giving much 
 which should have a place only in a History of Theology, or 
 even in a History of Philosophy, a more careful examination 
 will make it plain to every one that it really belongs to our 
 subject. For it will be seen that all this contains the begin- 
 nings of what appears afterwards only in more scientific form 
 as the Philosophy of Religion ; and although there may 
 always be dispute about individual details, yet it will be 
 evident from the whole that these historical facts ought not 
 to be passed over in silence. 
 
 This position may seem the reverse of justifying our 
 intention to begin in the exposition of the subject with the 
 Reformation. This limitation of our task, however, is not to 
 be understood as meaning that the movement of thought 
 
HISTORY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION DEFINED. 5 
 
 which comes in time to a complete Philosophy of Eeligion 
 only began at that date. But every historian has the right 
 to limit the subject of his exposition at pleasure, and the 
 Eeformation, in point of fact, indicates such a powerful 
 turning-point in the history of the Christian life, that an 
 examination of the most real efforts to apprehend religion by 
 thought may very properly commence from it. Nevertheless, 
 in order to escape from objection to this limitation, we shall 
 give at least a brief sketch of the earlier attempts of the kind. 
 But can the Philosophy of Eeligion, and consequently a 
 History of it, be justified at all ? This has been often con- 
 tested by those who see in Eeligion something that is 
 absolutely transcendent ; but certainly their view is erroneous. 
 The very question as to whether Eeligion is essentially super- 
 natural, or whether it has grown into existence out of the 
 connections of human nature and of things generally, requires 
 fundamental investigation and philosophical examination, in 
 order that a decision of it in the one sense, rather than in the 
 other, may not be arbitrarily and groundlessly assumed. It is 
 a fact and it is well for us that it is so that the vitality of 
 the religious life does not depend upon the extent of the 
 philosophical insight into the essence and nature of Eeligion. 
 Indeed, many feel no need whatever to apply their thought 
 so as to examine the doctrine of the Church, which is accepted 
 by them as objective truth, nor to analyse the inner life which 
 the presence of God makes known to them in their own 
 hearts. For such men a Philosophy of Eeligion is not 
 required. On the other hand, those who are so far dominated 
 by the interest of scientific knowledge that they can rest in 
 nothing so long as they do not comprehend it, desire a 
 Philosophy of Eeligion. For how could they exclude from 
 their striving after a conception of all things by thought, that 
 religion which is the most important interest of all ? In 
 the present age, however, it is especially the interest that is 
 concentrated in Apologetics which demands a Philosophy of 
 Eeligion. There is a double current pressing strong upon 
 the Church of Christ at present, in the practical rejection of 
 
6 INTRODUCTORY DEFINITION AND SURVEY. 
 
 religion by the uneducated masses, and in the theoretical 
 antagonism to theology of anti-religious science. The masses 
 cannot be got hold of by learned explanations, and therefore, 
 on this side, the remedy must come from active, helpful, 
 edifying love ; and if the ecclesiastical parties could but 
 resolve to join hands here like brethren, instead of wrangling 
 with each other in dogmatic rancour, it would be better for 
 our Church. The practical rejection of religion is, however, 
 not entirely independent of the theoretical antagonism. Yet 
 gradually, although slowly, do the results of scientific inquiry 
 become a common possession of the people with all that is 
 beneficial in these results. Indirectly, therefore, it is practi- 
 cally conducive to the furtherance of religious life, when the 
 justification and explanation of Eeligion are theoretically 
 established over against the attacks of science. And to do 
 this is the task of the Philosophy of Eeligion. 
 
 If, then, the Philosophy of Eeligion can assert its right to be, 
 a History of it is not at all superfluous. Any one who under- 
 takes to deal with a problem, for the solution of which the 
 greatest minds have put forth their best powers for centuries, 
 will do well before beginning his own effort to take a survey 
 of what has already been attempted. The past will furnish 
 him with much instructive guidance from many instances as 
 to which path will lead astray, and as to which will offer a 
 prospect of reaching true and permanent results. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 
 
 Christianity is the Eeligion of the redemption and recon- 
 ciliation with God received through Jesus of Nazareth. The 
 consciousness of redemption and reconciliation obtained 
 through Jesus was the new life which took root in the 
 believing followers of Jesus, and it formed their subjective 
 religion. It then became an indispensable task for Chris- 
 tians to exhibit this consciousness objectively in theoretical 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 7 
 
 expressions, relating primarily to the Person and the Work of 
 Christ, and to the nature of God and man and their mutual 
 relations. This process of giving objectivity to the religious 
 consciousness, and thus constructing dogmas, attached itself at 
 first to the Old Testament form of the Messias. Then came 
 next the immanent dialectical impulse which, affected but to a 
 small degree by the changing philosophical currents outside 
 the Church, and starting from the consciousness of the 
 redemption received in Christ, came to rest solely in the 
 system of the doctrines of the Church, when they had been 
 developed on all sides and carried out logically into authorita- 
 tive dogmas. Eedemption through Christ, the God -man, is 
 the centre of the Christian dogmas, and what they essentially 
 contained. At the same time, the consciousness of the self- 
 felt truth of these dogmas was so strong that the conflict of 
 dogmatic theology with philosophy and reason did not disturb 
 in the least the faith of those who held them. 
 
 The need of a justification of Christianity before human 
 Eeason took form at first in the early Apologetics of the 
 Church. In relation to the Jews, it was sufficient to show 
 that Jesus of Nazareth was, in fact, the Messias promised in 
 the Old Testament, but in relation to the heathen the 
 Apologists had to take their stand on the common ground of 
 natural Eeason. It may be asked in what then did the 
 Apologists consider the essence of Christianity to consist ? 
 According to their view, it consists in the knowledge of the 
 one true God and in rightly serving Him. That God is one 
 only and not many; that He is a Spirit, infinite, self- 
 sufficient, exalted above everything finite and imperishable ; 
 that He is not a product of human art, nor mortal, nor in 
 need of anything ; that the true worship or service of God 
 consists in devout sentiments of the heart and in moral purity 
 of life, and not in cruel displays, nor in abominable lusts, nor 
 vain sacrifices, these are the doctrines which we find as 
 the centre and sum of the whole Christian faith in all the 
 Apologists of the second Century. It is a meagre creed, 
 indeed, when compared with the later developments of the 
 
8 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Christian dogmas. Their Christology is put on a parallel 
 with heathen myths in order to make it acceptable. The 
 \vork of Christ retreats into the background, and it consists 
 less in redemption and reconciliation with God than in the 
 fact that Christ brought us the knowledge of the one true 
 God, and taught us how He would be honoured. This know- 
 ledge is sometimes represented as the pure and only true 
 original religion which existed in Paradise before the Fall. 
 Having been lost by sin, this religion was entirely unknown 
 to the heathen, and among the Jews it was corrupted by 
 much that was alien to it. Through Christ it was first fully 
 and completely restored again. 
 
 The second point worthy of consideration in the Apologists 
 is the arguments by which they seek to convince their 
 opponents of the truth of Christianity and of the untruth of 
 heathenism. The judgment pronounced by them on the 
 pagan philosophy is different according to their individual 
 tendencies. Tatian, with all the incisiveness of his passionate 
 nature, objects to the heathen philosophers, that the one was 
 the opponent of the other, that instead of the oneness of 
 truth, there prevailed among them but the strife and the 
 diversity of error, and that their knowledge was but vain 
 boasting and illusion. Tertullian exclaims: "What have 
 Athens and Jerusalem, what have the Academy arid the 
 Church, what have the heretics and the Christians in common 
 with one another ? " Philosophy stamps arbitrary forms upon 
 things, identifies them at one time and then separates them 
 at another, judges the uncertain by the certain, refers to 
 examples as if everything were to be made an object of com- 
 parison, and so on. The Lord Himself has called the wisdom 
 of the world foolishness, and, to the shame of philosophy, has 
 chosen what is foolish in the eyes of the world. Justin 
 Martyr, on the other hand, as the Apologist in the mantle of 
 the philosopher, along with similar judgments, pronounces 
 others that are entirely different, such as that Christianity is 
 nothing absolutely new, but that it goes back beyond Judaism 
 to the original religion. Its truth consists in the fact that in 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 9 
 
 it the Logos comes fully and wholly into active reality. The 
 very same Logos, however, has already been operative in the 
 pre-Christian world and led it to a certain knowledge of the 
 truth. He who lived with the Logos was a Christian even 
 though living as a heathen or a Jew ; and such were Socrates, 
 Heraclitus, Abraham, Elias, and others. Athenagoras refers 
 the truth in the possession of the philosophers to an affinity 
 on their part with the Spirit of God. Still more common is 
 the view that they had borrowed the best of their wisdom 
 from the Old Testament. 
 
 The utterances of heathen poets and philosophers regarding 
 the unity of God were willingly used, and they were zealously 
 gathered in order to prove the truth of Christianity. Rational 
 principles were continually brought into the field against 
 pagan polytheism. Thus it was declared that what the 
 heathen said regarding their gods was entirely unworthy and 
 contradictory in itself ; that the mythologies contained the 
 most ludicrous and unworthy and even immoral things con- 
 cerning the life of the gods and their relation to one another ; 
 that the gods of the heathen were defective, and had wants, 
 and could not live without the sacrifices and gifts of men ; 
 nay more, that they were nothing else than works of human 
 contrivance, and that they were therefore utterly unworthy of 
 reverence. Athenagoras even tries to prove that the existence 
 of two gods is contrary to reason ; for if there were two gods, 
 they must either be in the same place or in different places, 
 and either alternative is impossible. Tertullian appeals to 
 the universal consciousness with which, as with a dower, God 
 has vouchsafed to adorn the soul. In the same consciousness 
 the soul realizes certain truths, as that there exists a good, just, 
 all-knowing, and all-powerful God, to find whom it aspires 
 towards heaven ; anima naturaliter Christiana. The teaching 
 of Scripture is only a further addition to the consciousness of 
 God that springs from the contemplation of the world. 
 
 Minucius Felix, Arnobius, and Lactantius deserve to be 
 specially mentioned here. They have not inappropriately 
 been designated " Christian popular philosophers." Lactantius 
 
10 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 already reflects so much upon the nature of Keligion that he 
 even searches after the etymology of the word, and in an often 
 quoted passage he derives religio not from religere, with 
 Cicero, but from religare. Religion is thus represented as a 
 connection with God on the two sides of knowledge and of 
 worship. Minucius takes up the sceptical questionings as 
 to whether there is a God, and as to whether there is a 
 Providence ; and he already answers them with a rational 
 proof of the unity and existence of God. If we consider the 
 wise order of the universe, as in the change of the seasons, the 
 fertilization of Egypt by the Nile, and such like, we must, he 
 says, reason to a Lord and Governor as if from the appearance 
 of a well-ordered house. There is only one such Lord ; for 
 the history of the nations already teaches that a plurality of 
 governors is pernicious, and besides our immediate conscious- 
 ness knows only of one God. These three Christian writers 
 agree in their apprehension of Christianity. As a religion it 
 consists in the knowledge of the true God and in the obser- 
 vance of the right worship of God. In both relations 
 Christianity is the true religion. The heathen worship images, 
 works of human art, and lower celestial powers ; it is only 
 the Christians who know the one Supreme God. The 
 heathen seek to serve their gods by sacrifices and outpourings 
 of blood, by obscene plays and spectacles ; the Christians 
 alone perform the true worship in devout sentiment and moral 
 purity of conduct. This true religion can only be obtained by 
 revelation, and the merit of Christ just consists in the fact 
 that He has taught us the true religion. 
 
 In the earliest times of the Christian Church there sprang 
 up a movement which is rightly designated as the first 
 attempt to work out a Christian Philosophy of Eeligion. It 
 took form at first in the Church, but was afterwards expelled 
 from it as heretical. It was what is now known as Gnosticism. 
 
 In the New Testament the striving after a deeper compre- 
 hension of the religious faith already makes itself manifest. 
 Paul and Peter both speak of the Gnosis as a special gift of 
 God. Nor did the heretical Gnosis arise by merely bringing 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 11 
 
 heathen, and particularly Oriental, religions into Christianity ; 
 rather did it stand entirely on Christian ground. All the 
 representatives of this movement hold it as an indubitable 
 fact that Christianity is the highest and most perfect of all 
 religions, and that all philosophical speculation and represen- 
 tation of the world, as well as all religious history, only serve 
 to prove this significance of Christianity. The heretical 
 Gnostics certainly liberate themselves from the authority of the 
 Church, partly by declaring that mere faith is insufficient for 
 salvation, and partly by interpreting the New Testament 
 according to arbitrary allegories, mutilating it by the excision 
 of alleged falsifications, and putting a secret tradition beside it 
 as a source of knowledge of at least equal value. Gnosticism, 
 according to its general character, is speculation ; and, in 
 particular, it is a speculation which specially refers to religion. 
 Of the historical religions, consideration is given to Heathen- 
 ism, Judaism, and Christianity. They are put in relation to 
 different powers of the universal process of the world. Christi- 
 anity is referred to the Supreme God ; Judaism, to the Creator 
 of the world ; Heathenism, to matter. They indicate like- 
 wise different periods in the divine process of creation, the 
 chief turning-points of which are formed by the entering of 
 God into matter, and His return from it again. The redemption 
 through Christ, as the fundamental dogma of Christianity, 
 forms the centre of the Gnostic speculations. This redemp- 
 tion, however, is not conceived merely from the ethico-religious 
 point of view, as the redemption of men from sin and the 
 reconciliation of sinners with God, but it is regarded as a 
 cosmical process, bringing back to God, as the Infinite, the 
 finite world, which hath arisen from God, and become estranged 
 from Him. Hence all the metaphysical questions regarding 
 the relation of God to the world, the nature and origin of 
 evil, and the divine government of the course of the world in 
 history, fall within the range of the Gnostic systems. 
 
 Taken apart from the fantastic and mythological dress in 
 which they are presented, we may attempt to exhibit briefly 
 the common leading thoughts of the various and different 
 
12 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Gnostic systems as follows : The primal divine Being is 
 conceived in the greatest possible abstraction and as infinite. 
 God appears not merely as absolutely spiritual and immaterial, 
 infinite and transcendent, and therefore as incomprehensible 
 by us, but likewise as unfathomable in His essence and with- 
 out determination. With this conception of God there is 
 necessarily involved the utmost separation of Him from the 
 world. This separation shows itself primarily in the fact that 
 the Creator of the world is distinguished from the Supreme 
 God. The Creator of the world is represented at one time 
 as a lower, but not hostile power, serving the Supreme Deity, 
 and while not knowing God, yet fulfilling His will. At 
 another time the creative Power is represented as the 
 principle that is consciously hostile to God, because it is evil 
 in itself. The Supreme God thus appears as the God of 
 Christianity, and the Creator of the world as the God of 
 Judaism ; and this is the ground of the more or less direct 
 antagonism of the two religions. Further, matter, as the 
 substratum of the creation, is removed to the utmost possible 
 degree from God. It appears either as existing from eternity 
 along with God, in complete independence, and as decidedly 
 opposed to Him ; or it is represented as having issued from 
 Him by emanation, but after its emanation as forthwith opposing 
 itself independently to God. In both cases matter is the 
 ground of evil and of badness. In order to fill up the gulf 
 fixed between God and the world, a series of ^Eons was made 
 to proceed from God, which, according to their distance from 
 this primal source of all being, share to different degrees in the 
 divine perfection. These ^Eons are represented in some 
 systems as means of the divine self-revelation, and in others 
 more as the means of establishing a connection between God 
 and the world. There are not wanting points of attachment 
 in the world for this connection, although the world, on 
 account of its origin from matter, is essentially hylic or 
 material, and is consequently morally bad ; yet it is not 
 entirely wanting in germs and traces of the Pneumatic or 
 Spiritual, and consequently of moral goodness, this element of 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 13 
 
 goodness being referred to the fall of one of the ^Eons into 
 matter, or to the command of the Supreme God to create the 
 world. Some systems further derive from the Creator of the 
 world a third element, which is the Psychical, and to it they 
 assign an intermediate position. As is the case with the world, 
 so does Man likewise appear as bipartite, being hylic and 
 pneumatic ; or as tripartite, being hylic, psychic, and pneu- 
 matic. The final goal of the whole process of the world is, 
 that the Pneumatic becomes separated out from its unnatural 
 conjunction with the Hylic, and is again received into the 
 Absolute. The communication of the true knowledge of God 
 as the revelation of the hitherto unknown True God, was 
 generally regarded as the means of realizing this redemption. 
 Christ appears in all the systems as the bearer of this new 
 revelation. He is an ^Eon sent from the Supreme God ; 
 it is He who has made known to the world the Supreme God 
 and His kingdom of ^Eons ; and in doing so He used the 
 man Jesus as His medium. Christ and the religion founded by 
 Him, or the knowledge of the Supreme God which He brought 
 with Him, thus form the turning-point in the process of the 
 world's history ; and this history, since the founding of 
 His religion, leads no longer away from God, but back to Him 
 again. These systems, as the earliest products of the Christian 
 Philosophy of Eeligion, certainly deserve to be noted, and 
 it must be recognised that the strenuous mental activity 
 exhibited in them endeavoured to solve the most difficult 
 questions. The fantastic mythologies in which the unbridled 
 phantasy clothed these attempts prevented their attaining any 
 permanent result. 
 
 The heretical Gnosis was combated from two sides. An 
 empirical and realistic method contested the extravagant 
 speculations of the Gnostics by appealing to the doctrine 
 established by the authority of the Church, to the clear and 
 simple word of Scripture, and to the episcopal tradition. A 
 speculative method, again, sought to overthrow the opponent 
 with his own weapons, and to oppose an ecclesiastical Gnosis 
 to the heretical systems. This method had its seat in 
 
14 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Alexandria, and its chief representatives in Clement and 
 Origen. 
 
 The speculative method of the Church is essentially 
 different from the heretical Gnosis which it combats. In 
 the first place, the historical element of religion retreats 
 entirely into the background. This was quite natural, for 
 Christianity is no longer regarded as the highest stage of 
 a development equally embracing all the religions ; it is the 
 absolute standard or norm of Eeligion. The doctrine of 
 Christianity is the truth ; the doctrine of the Church is the 
 highest authority. Hence mere faith is sufficient for the 
 attainment of salvation, and therefore this Gnosis extends no 
 farther than the objectively established doctrine of the Church. 
 Origen accordingly subjects his own speculations expressly to 
 the ecclesiastical confession, and will only apply them to those 
 doctrines which have not yet been precisely determined 
 by the Church. And while his allegorical interpretation of 
 Scripture finds occasion for many divergent opinions in 
 doctrine, his asserted agreement with it on the whole is really 
 a fact. 
 
 Two points deserve to be here specially considered in con- 
 nection with the ecclesiastical form of the movement first, 
 the judgment pronounced regarding the pagan philosophy and 
 its relation to Christianity ; and secondly, the positions taken 
 up concerning the relation between Faith and Knowledge. 
 Christianity itself appears as a mode of knowing, or as j a 
 possession of the truth, and so far it is put on the same line 
 with philosophy. The only question remaining in reference 
 to this point can only be as to what kind of knowing comes 
 nearest the truth, so as to deserve the preference ; or, as it is 
 put, what knowledge has the greatest share in " the One Truth 
 which is geometrical truth in geometry, musical truth in music, 
 and is Hellenic truth in what is true in philosophy" ? The 
 answer to this question is undecided and different. At 
 one time Philosophy and Christianity are represented as 
 entirely equal in worth. Thus it is said, as we obtain har- 
 mony from the different strings of the lyre, mathematical 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 15 
 
 magnitudes from straight and curved lines, and such like, so 
 from a combination of all the Oriental and Hellenic systems 
 with Christianity we get the one complete truth. Again, 
 the prerogative of Christianity is indubitably maintained when 
 Clement says that philosophy has the truth, but the several 
 systems tear the one truth asunder, as the Bacchse .did the 
 limbs of Pentheus, while they yet assert that they possess the 
 whole truth ; Christianity, on the other hand, possesses the 
 truth full and entire. The distinction between them is still 
 more accentuated. Thus Philosophy is likened to the ray 
 of the sunbeam that falls through a glass filled with water ; 
 Christianity is like the unbroken ray ; both come from God, 
 but Philosophy only comes indirectly, whereas Christianity 
 comes directly from Him. 
 
 Clement, to whom Origen attaches himself throughout, 
 expresses himself regarding the relation between faith and 
 knowledge in terms that are still variously interpreted. In 
 our opinion the arrangement of his principal writings, as well 
 as the clearest of his expressions, admit only of this being his 
 view, that the Christian passes through four stages. The 
 Knowing, which forms the starting-point, is a mere external 
 acquaintance with the Gospel and the doctrine of the Church. 
 This information is next followed by Faith, which is the accept- 
 ance of this external knowledge, and the holding of it as true 
 mainly upon the authority of the Church and without a rational 
 comprehension of what is believed. The third stage is the pure 
 Moral Life, as a consequence of this belief. The goal of the 
 development is reached in the Gnosis or perfect knowledge of 
 the truth. This final knowing is primarily a rational under- 
 standing of the subject-matter of the belief. It is then, further, 
 the knowledge of all divine and human things that flows from 
 this rational understanding of the object of faith. And it is 
 completed in the immediate vision of God (Qewpia) by the 
 morally renewed man. 
 
 About the middle of the third Century the heathen world 
 braced itself up once more for a grand achievement. From all 
 the systems of the early ages the truth which they were 
 
16 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 supposed to contain was gathered, and this was brought into 
 the service of the Christian idea of redemption. Thus arose 
 Neo-Platonism. This twofold relation is its special character- 
 istic. ^Redemption and reconciliation with God had become an 
 actual reality in Christianity, and was participated in by every 
 believer. The effort exhibited the longing to escape from the 
 nothingness of finite sinful existence, and to find the highest 
 happiness in perfect union with God. This longing was the 
 psychological root of Neo-Platonism. Its aim was to still this 
 feeling by the aid of human wisdom ; and as it wanted the 
 power to produce anything new, it contented itself by borrow- 
 ing eclectically suitable thoughts from earlier systems, and 
 especially from Platonism, which it professed to restore in 
 its purity. Prepared by Ammonius Sakkas (c. 200), Neo- 
 Platonism was developed by Plotinus (205-270) on all sides 
 to a complete and closed system. All existence is referred, 
 not to two principles, but only to one. God, or the primal 
 Essence, is the simple unity that lies above all multiplicity. 
 As such, God is without thought, because thinking requires 
 plurality; and without will, because willing presupposes duality. 
 God is the absolutely transcendent One, exalted above every- 
 thing, above consciousness and unconsciousness, above rest and 
 motion, above life and being. Hence God is entirely unattain- 
 able in our knowledge. Thinking must here abandon itself 
 and become Not-thinking, if it is to apprehend God in blessed 
 vision, and unite itself with Him. But at the same time God 
 is the original source and ground of all things ; finite things 
 arise out of Him by emanation of what is absolutely simple 
 unfolding itself into an ever-advancing series of finite things, 
 that are always the more imperfect the farther they are 
 removed from God. In all things, therefore, there is only 
 one divine power and essence, but in different degrees of per- 
 fection, so that every higher existence embraces the lower with 
 itself. Finite things long for a return to their origin, and this 
 is especially true of the human soul, which, banished into this 
 earthly life as a punishment for former sin, strives to soar aloft 
 to its higher home. There are two ways of attaining to this 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 17 
 
 goal : moral action and rational knowledge. Moral action 
 consists above all in the combating of the sensuous impulses, 
 and therefore in the strictest asceticism. Rational knowledge 
 is the pure thinking of Ideas, as it is by the 1/01)9, its higher 
 part, that the soul participates in the pure Ideas. The highest 
 goal is immediate intuition of the primal divine Being. This 
 is the true philosophy, the perfection of the spirit, and likewise 
 the highest happiness. By such intuition the soul becomes 
 completely one with the primal Being, and sinks in ecstasy 
 into deity. 
 
 Porphyry (233-304), the learned editor and commentator 
 of Plotinus, brings Neo-Platonism into a still closer relation to 
 Religion. Religion and worship minister to the union of the 
 soul with God, and even in heathen doctrines and usages 
 he seeks to find a higher truth by spiritual interpretations. 
 Janiblichus (f 303), a Syrian influenced by the Oriental re- 
 ligions, turned himself still more to mythology, and came by 
 the personification of conceptions to a world of gods arranged 
 according to the system of triads. The liberation of the soul 
 is no longer man's own work, but is accomplished by the aid 
 of higher beings. The door was thus thrown open for the 
 entrance of all mantic and magic arts, for astrology and mere 
 mystic play with numbers. Neo-Platonism was thus lowered 
 to the level of theurgy by Jamblichus, and still more by 
 Proclus (412-85), until it became connected with every 
 conceivable superstition. 
 
 Neo-Platonism exerted a far-reaching influence even upon 
 Christianity. This appears most directly and most undis- 
 guisedly in the mysticism of Dionysius Areopagita. He 
 determines the idea of God in a twofold manner. On the one 
 side God lies above all determinate individual existence ; He 
 is therefore without name, for He is the infinite, mysterious, 
 supernal God ; He is supra-divine, supra-perfect, supra-inex- 
 pressible, supra-incognizable. On the other hand, God is the 
 all-nameable, and as such the starting-point and original source 
 of all things. All finite existence arises through a gradual 
 eradiation and communication of God ; and therefore God is 
 
 VOL. I. B 
 
18 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 the only true Being in all existence. But the farther things 
 are removed from God, so much the more imperfectly do they 
 image forth the primal One ; and hence evil is not a positive 
 thing, but only a defect. The first eradiation of the divine is 
 the heavenly Hierarchy, which consists of three stages, each of 
 three orders. To it corresponds the order that exists among 
 men in the three classes of the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, and 
 their parallel in three classes of the people. This hierarchical 
 order merely serves the end of attaining reunion with God. 
 The goal of an immediate union with God is not reached by 
 moral conduct, nor even by objective knowledge ; but in 
 immediate contemplation, which presupposes entire renuncia- 
 tion of individual thinking and acting. This union can be 
 participated in at every stage only by the mediation of the 
 next higher stage. The communication involved is secret, and 
 known only to the initiated, according to the habit of the 
 ancient mysteries, and it appears to run out into empty 
 formulae and allegorical interpretations of the ecclesiastical 
 symbols. Belief and knowledge, theology and philosophy, are 
 identical as regards their aim and substance. Faith is 
 an immediate certainty of the reality of the supersensible ; 
 knowing is a certainty of the same reality mediated by 
 conceptions ; the highest object of both is God. Maximus 
 Confessor, a follower of Dionysius, represents the closer attach- 
 ment of this school to the doctrine of the Church. He strikes 
 out the offensive doctrine of emanation and refers the union 
 with God, not to the activity of the Church in liturgical 
 formulae and symbolical practices, but to the moral action and 
 the pure knowledge of the individual. How circumspect the 
 Church was in its relation to Neo-Platonism, is shown par- 
 ticularly by the case of Synesius. Called to the Bishopric of 
 Ptolemais (409), this scholar of Hypatia declared quite openly 
 in what points he deviated from the doctrine of the Church. 
 " Never shall I be able to believe," he says, " that the soul is 
 later in its origin than the body, or that the world and its 
 separate parts perish together ; and in the doctrine of the 
 resurrection, which I regard as a sacred allegory, I differ 
 
THE ANCIENT CHURCH. 19 
 
 entirely from the opinions of the multitude." He declares 
 quite generally that light and truth, the eye and the people, 
 have a certain resemblance. " For as the eye cannot bear too 
 strong a light without being injured, and as darkness is more 
 wholesome to those who have diseased eyes, so do I maintain 
 that falsehood is advantageous to the multitude, whereas the 
 truth is hurtful to those who are not able to turn their mind 
 directly to the clearness of things. Should I therefore accept 
 the episcopal dignity, I must be allowed to hold by my 
 previous convictions and to philosophize within, while I out- 
 wardly expound fables to the people." 
 
 In this form the alliance with Neo - Platonism greatly 
 damaged the Church, and it therefore came soon to an end. 
 Already, as at all times, the practical ecclesiastical direction, 
 and not the speculative tendency, had gained the position of 
 chief influence upon the formation of the Church. Its home 
 was at Antioch, and it was based upon historical and philo- 
 logical exegesis. In 529 a decree of the Emperor Justinian 
 inhibited the ISTeo-Platonic philosophy on account of its oppo- 
 sition to the ecclesiastical doctrines. And now Aristotle 
 obtained always more authority in the Greek Church. This 
 was quite natural, for as soon as the ecclesiastical dogmas 
 were developed on all sides, Philosophy was no longer required 
 for the determination of their actual contents, but was only 
 needed for the formal and external elaboration of what was 
 already established. For this purpose Aristotle, the founder 
 of formal Logic, was best fitted to furnish the aid required. 
 
 The first important Aristotelian was Joannes Philoponus 
 (c. 550). He was led, by applying the Aristotelian concep- 
 tion of ovala to theology and Christology, into the heresies of 
 tritheism and monophysitism. In the dogmatic compilation of 
 Joannes Damascenus (t c. 754) the appreciation of Aristotle 
 is much more external. Nor does his Source of Knowledge 
 (7777777 7^oocre&)5) really present anything new. The third part 
 is theologically the most important (eKOeois a/cpififc TTJS 6p0o- 
 Sofou Tr/crreo)?). It contains no special investigations nor 
 any new speculations about the doctrines of the Church, but 
 
20 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 only brings together what distinguished teachers of the 
 Church before him had taught. But even as a collection of 
 what was necessary and indispensable, as a summary of the 
 principal points in the doctrines already established by the 
 Church, the work obtained afterwards a wide influence when 
 originating power had decayed. This dogmatic compendium 
 is preceded by a condemnation of 103 heresies, and under 
 the Ke$d\aia there is also presented a survey of formal 
 logic drawn partly from Aristotle and partly from Porphyry. 
 In the fact that logic is almost the only part of philosophy 
 that is taken into account, it is implied that philosophy has 
 not assigned to it the position of an independent source of 
 knowledge within theology, but that its function is that of 
 an Organon by which the theological knowledge otherwise 
 established is to be brought into a right form. Indeed, he 
 says expressly that as every artist uses an instrument, so 
 theology, the queen of the sciences, has her handmaid. As 
 physical and ethical knowledge have no value in themselves, 
 so logic is only of importance in that it gives order to what 
 is certain of itself in the divine revelation. With the dog- 
 matic theology of John of Damascus the logic and ontology 
 of Aristotle came afterwards to the West ; and they came in 
 this relation of express subserviency to the theology of the 
 Church. 
 
 The Eoman people were never inclined to speculation. In 
 consequence they have neither produced independent results 
 in philosophy, nor have they even accomplished anything 
 noteworthy in their eclectic elaboration of Greek thoughts. 
 The Eoman Church shows a similar aversion to speculation, 
 and accordingly it turns to the practical questions and 
 problems of life. The teachers of the Greek Church appre- 
 hend Christianity as a new kind of knowledge, as a deeper 
 knowledge of the truth. The Latin Fathers regard it as a 
 new power- of life, as the transforming energy of the truly 
 moral spirit. The Greek thinkers dispute about questions of 
 doctrine, the Latin Churchmen contend about questions of 
 ecclesiastical discipline and constitution. The Greeks develop 
 
THE ANCIENT CHUECH. 21 
 
 the speculative doctrines of the Trinity and Christology ; the 
 Latins unfold the practical doctrines of Anthropology. The 
 Greeks sketch, at least partly, most comprehensive speculative 
 systems; the Latins hold to the letter of what has been 
 delivered to them as the already established doctrine of the 
 Church. The only theologian of the Western Church in 
 whom are found at least the beginnings of a philosophical 
 consideration of his faith is Augustine (354-430). 
 
 In the philosophical relation Augustine attaches himself 
 essentially to Plato, or rather to Neo-Platonism. The way in 
 which he establishes the certainty of our knowledge in oppo- 
 sition to the scepticism of the Academics reminds one of 
 modern thoughts. The necessity of certain knowledge is 
 deduced from our desire of happiness ; for mere striving after 
 truth would leave us unsatisfied. The same position is shown 
 by reference to our consciousness. We only know certainly 
 that we think ; and whoever is certain even that he doubts, 
 can 110 longer doubt that he lives, remembers, perceives, wills, 
 thinks, judges, and knows. In the self-consciousness the 
 point is therefore found which no scepticism can shake. 
 From this self- certainty of the rational mind an advance is 
 then made to wider cognitions. The mind reflects upon itself, 
 and thus it distinguishes the external senses, the internal 
 sense, and the reason. To this ascending process on the 
 subjective side there corresponds a series of gradations on the 
 objective side, in the mere existence of bodies, the life which 
 embraces the lower sphere of the plant along with the higher 
 of the animal, and the rational self-conscious mind. It is 
 true that we can only believe that bodies exist; but this 
 faith is absolutely necessary, and without it we would fall 
 into worse error. Continued self-contemplation shows to us 
 likewise that our own mind is not the highest. The human 
 spirit is changeable, and therefore it must rise to something 
 eternal and unchangeable which is higher than itself. Higher 
 truths present themselves to it as its highest rules. It finds 
 the highest rules of knowledge in ideas, the highest rules of 
 beauty in ideals, and the highest rules of goodness in moral 
 
22 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 laws ; and these are more perfect than the human mind, 
 because man judges by them and does not set himself up to 
 judge upon them. These rational truths are identified with 
 the Logos, or even with God Himself. " If there is anything 
 more exalted than truth, it is God ; and if there be nothing 
 more exalted, then truth itself is God." So far, then, philo- 
 sophy, and especially the Platonic philosophy, is capable of 
 leading to God as the highest of all beings. From this point 
 of view Augustine can even say that theology and philosophy 
 in their perfection are identical, because both have to do with 
 the knowledge of God, the highest truth and the highest life. 
 But, on the other hand, he declares that philosophy is incapable 
 of attaining the highest knowledge, for she belongs at the same 
 time to the " city of the devil," which, on account of the con- 
 fusion prevailing in it, is called Babel. From the insufficiency 
 of philosophy is deduced the necessity of the divine revelation 
 which is to be accepted in faith. Faith is thinking with 
 assent. Upon faith all the relations of human society rest ; 
 and it is especially necessary in relation to divine things 
 which cannot be seen. Everywhere authority precedes 
 reason, and faith precedes insight ; but at the same time 
 authority rests upon reason, in so far as one authority is 
 preferred on rational grounds to another. Eeligion thus 
 begins with faith, that is, with recognising and submitting to 
 the authority of the Church ; but we ought to exert all our 
 powers in order to advance from faith to rational insight. 
 Apart from his peculiar anti-Pelagian views about sin and 
 grace, the system of Augustine bears a Neo-Platonic character 
 throughout, and it was especially through it that Neo-Platonisrn 
 was introduced into the theology of the Middle Ages. 
 
 After Augustine, the Raman Church has no very dis- 
 tinguished theologians to show. In the following age a wide 
 influence was exercised by Boethius, Cassiodorus, and Isidorus 
 of Seville, and they were the means on the Western side of 
 introducing Aristotle into the Mediaeval theology. Isidore 
 (t 636) is the Latin parallel to John of Damascus. His 
 Smtentiarum Libri Tres formed a text-book of dogmatics and 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 23 
 
 morals which was afterwards much used ; it contains hardly 
 anything of his own, but only puts together the most important 
 utterances of the earlier Fathers about Christian faith and 
 practice. Boethius (470-520), although himself a Neo- 
 Platonist, has deserved especial credit by his translations of 
 the logical writings of Aristotle and Porphyry. These widely- 
 spread translations were for a long time the only means 
 through which the Christian Church of the Middle Ages 
 obtained its knowledge of Aristotle, and they laid the founda- 
 tions of his influence. Cassiodorus (c. 479575), in like 
 manner, only aimed at collecting what was most needed out 
 of the investigations of earlier times. His treatise, De Artibus 
 ac Disciplinis Liberalium Literarum, which is based especially 
 upon Boethius, was adopted almost universally as a text-book 
 for centuries, and it considerably furthered the spread of the 
 Aristotelian philosophy. By these men the philosophy of 
 Aristotle was thus carried down to the Middle Ages. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE MIDDLE AGES. 
 
 The development of the Christian Church and doctrine has 
 not advanced in an uninterrupted course nor in a straight 
 line. In its own sphere it was also deeply affected by the 
 violent influences which began to break in upon the Eoman 
 Empire hardly a century after its emperors had adopted the 
 new faith. Like an all-destroying storm, the migrating 
 hordes swept over the Empire. The imperial government of 
 the world was broken to pieces, and new nations, mostly of 
 Germanic origin, divided the inheritance. In the exuberant 
 vitality of natural power they subdued the seats of the 
 ancient culture. Then there arose a spiritual conflict with that 
 culture to which they had themselves in turn to yield. As 
 settlers in the Eoman Empire, the new peoples had already 
 received the elements of a higher civilisation, and even the 
 germs of the Christian faith. This process of reception 
 
24 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 continued to go on slowly but incessantly. The hordes that 
 were victorious in the field of battle went for their religion 
 and spiritual culture into the school of the conquered nations, 
 and became like them the recipients of its spiritual life.. The 
 Eastern half of the empire, with its capital, Byzantium, held 
 out somewhat longer than the Eoman West, and even braced 
 itself in the sixth Century after severe overthrow yet again for 
 powerful deeds. But with the founding of Islam (c. 622) 
 there arose a new religious power hostile to the Christians, 
 and full of blind fanaticism. It sought to spread the sway of 
 the prophet by war and the sword. Thus the Eastern Empire, 
 and Christianity along with it, lost one province after another. 
 In the East the position of things was otherwise than in the 
 West. The hostile power that prevailed in the former was 
 not merely national, but was essentially religious ; and hence 
 the Christian faith and Christian culture were not adopted by 
 the conquerors, but violently suppressed. It was with diffi- 
 culty that the Christians here and there even maintained their 
 existence. A free development under Mohammedan oppression 
 was not to be thought of. The north of Africa and Spain, 
 the south of Italy, and Byzantium itself fell, at least for a 
 'time, into the hands of the Arabs ; and in consequence the 
 Germanic nations became almost the only representatives of 
 the Christian life and civilisation. 
 
 This revolution has to be carefully considered if we would 
 understand the spiritual life of the Middle Ages. In the 
 lease of the Germanic nations all science was historically 
 connected in the closest way with their religion. It is no 
 wonder, then, that for centuries the unity of this connection 
 continued the indubitable principle of their spiritual life. 
 Besides, the general state of civilisation among the Germanic 
 peoples must be noted. It was on the whole remarkably 
 scanty ; it had not a trace of science and culture, or of real 
 knowledge, secular or theological, empirical or speculative. 
 Christianity had taken its rise among a more highly cultivated 
 people, and it had been brought into objective forms under 
 the influence of the highly advanced civilisation of the Greek 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 25 
 
 and the Eoman world. It was only by a strong sensualiza- 
 tion of its spiritual contents that Christianity could be brought 
 near enough to the uncultured German races for them to be 
 able to receive it. And how often was the adoption of it 
 but a merely external and sometimes even a violently 
 compelled self-subjection under the formulae and practices 
 of the Church ! History has indeed furnished us from this 
 example with a magnificent proof of the educative value of 
 outward order ; but the inevitable consequence was, at least at 
 first, an unconditional belief on authority, and an accepting 
 of religion by the command of external power without inner 
 understanding of it. Slowly, however, and gradually, the 
 advancing culture of the nations emancipated itself from 
 authority, till they began to try to comprehend what they 
 had hitherto only believed. Then there could for a time be 
 nothing more thought of but how to prove what was believed 
 as infallibly certain. The idea of impartial criticism could 
 not yet be entertained. Further, the fact has to be taken 
 into consideration that religion did not present itself to the 
 Germans as a new power of life. Only after it had worked 
 for a considerable period in the life of these barbarous peoples 
 could the creative and morally vitalizing power of Christianity 
 be recognised. But at first the new religion appeared as a new 
 doctrine, as a kind of knowledge, as incontestably certain truth. 
 All these conditions taken together determined an insepar- 
 able unity of theology and philosophy, and a merely subservient 
 relation of the latter to the former. This constitutes the 
 character of that spiritual tendency in which the distinguish- 
 ing peculiarity of the Middle Ages is so frequently seen, and 
 which is still designated Scholasticism. In it likewise is 
 found the origin of two distinct currents which, along 
 with Scholasticism, move the life of that period. Opposition 
 was raised from two sides against the mingling of theology 
 and philosophy. As soon as thought acquired independent 
 strength, it could recognise no authority over itself without 
 examining it ; and the religious life, as soon as it stirred with 
 power of its own, could not respect the formulated propositions 
 
26 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 of the dogmatic theology as a restricting limit, nor could it 
 let the spirit be quenched by the letter. The former tendency 
 constituted the intellectual Enlightenment, the latter the religious 
 Opposition of the time. This opposition either broke through 
 all the established rules of doctrine and practice in the form 
 of a wild Fanaticism, or shot forth splendid blossoms in the 
 efflorescences of a profound Mysticism. 
 
 The name " Scholastics," doctores scholastici, assigned at first 
 to the teachers of the septem Artes liberates, was afterwards 
 applied to all those who were engaged in the schools with 
 the cultivation of science, and especially of philosophy. The 
 expression Scholasticism thus came to be limited to that 
 method of the Mediaeval Philosophy which put philosophy 
 altogether into the service of the established dogmas of the 
 Church. Starting from the infallibility of the ecclesiastical 
 doctrine and the essential unity of philosophy and dogmatic 
 theology, the Scholastics employed philosophy in part as an 
 Organon for the formal construction of the absolutely true 
 theology, and in part they sought to adapt it to theology by 
 the accommodation of any existing divergences between them. 
 
 Joannes Scotus Erigena (c. 810-877) comes before what 
 is properly designated Scholasticism. He made the works of 
 Dionysius the Areopagite accessible to the West by his 
 translation of them into Latin, and he also drew the chief 
 principles of his system from them. He therefore represents 
 Neo-Platonic ideas, although many Aristotelian conceptions 
 are adopted by him, and he attempts to approach the doctrine 
 of the Church. Notwithstanding this, the Church afterwards 
 condemned his doctrine as heretical (1050 and 1225). In 
 his work, De divisione Naturae, Erigena divides all existing 
 things into four classes: (1) the Nature which creates and is 
 not created ; (2) the Nature which is created and creates ; 
 
 (3) the Nature which is created and does not create ; and 
 
 (4) the Nature which neither creates nor is created. The 
 uncreated creative Being is God, and to Him alone real 
 existence belongs. God is exalted above all existence. No 
 predicate can be applied to Him, not even the designation 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 27 
 
 essentia, when strictly taken, for God is super-essential. On 
 another side God is the source arid foundation of all being 
 and essence, so that He is the substance of all finite things ; 
 God is the beginning, middle, and end of all things ; yea, 
 God and Nature are one. The Trinity can only be maintained 
 when interpreted as follows. God is one essence in three 
 substances ; as being He is the Father, as wisdom the Son, 
 as life the Holy Ghost. The eternal archetypes of things 
 constitute the created Nature, which is again itself creative. 
 Those eternal archetypes are Ideas contained in the divine 
 wisdom or the Son. They are actualized by the Spirit in 
 finite things, which are all self-manifestations of God. The 
 Nature which neither creates nor is created is identical with 
 the first nature, which is God, but not as being itself the 
 ground, but as constituting the final end of all things. All 
 physical and all intellectual Nature returns ultimately to God 
 in order to enjoy eternal rest in Him. 
 
 Under reference to the authority of Augustine, Scotus 
 Erigena asserts the identity of the true philosophy and the 
 true religion. " What else then is philosophy but an exposi- 
 tion of the rules of the true religion ? Hence it follows that 
 true philosophy is true religion, and conversely true religion 
 is true philosophy." Our philosophical investigations cannot 
 therefore come into conflict with our belief in the revealed 
 truth. In general it is true that reason has the pre-eminence, 
 if authority comes into antagonism with it. " Authority flows 
 from true reason, but never reason from authority. All 
 authority which is not justified by true reason appears to be 
 weak, whereas reason does not need the support of authority 
 if it is supported by its own powers." In particular, how- 
 ever, it is said that " nothing agrees more with the true 
 reason than the authority of the holy Fathers." The true 
 authority can never come into contradiction with reason, 
 because they both flow from the same source, which is the 
 divine wisdom. The true authority is the truth found by 
 reason, and it has been handed down to us in writing from 
 the Fathers. 
 
28 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 Scotus Erigena, however, is a solitary gleaming light, a 
 meteor which passes over the midnight sky, to vanish im- 
 mediately again without leaving a trace behind. The tenth 
 Century is notorious for its spiritual barbarism, and for its 
 utter want of science, but it is the age in which there 
 flourished crass superstition and belief in external thaumaturgy. 
 It was only towards the end of the century that an estimable 
 scholar appeared in Gerbert, who is known as Pope Sylvester 
 II. (f 1003); but he was likewise alone without worthy 
 associates or scholars. It was not till afterwards that the 
 Scholasticism grew up which can be pointed to as achieving 
 anything. At first its only productions were in theology and 
 logic, after acquaintance with Aristotle had increased. It 
 falls into essentially distinct periods. Up to the middle of 
 the twelfth Century the writings of Aristotle were known 
 only in the Latin renderings of Marcianus Capella, Boethius, 
 and Cassiodorus ; and these renderings were so incomplete, 
 that of the logical writings even the two Analytics and the 
 Topics were unknown. Plato again was known only from 
 the writings of the Church Fathers, with the exception of a 
 part of the Timceus. 
 
 The chief problem and impelling power of this first period 
 of Scholasticism (up to the middle of the twelfth Century), 
 lay in the controversy between Realism and Nominalism 
 concerning the meaning of Universals (universalia). In this 
 controversy the question is also discussed as to whether 
 Aristotle or Plato is to be recognised as the highest authority. 
 The close relation of this question to theology is apparent, and 
 it becomes manifest in the history of the time. Eoscellinus, 
 a canon at Compiegne, was accused of tritheism on account 
 of his application of the Nominalist doctrine to the dogma of 
 the Trinity. The " person " is in his view the substantia 
 rationalis, and in application to God this notion can signify 
 nothing else. The three persons are eternal, and therefore 
 there are three eternal persons. There are accordingly three 
 separate persons, although they are one in will and power. 
 In 1092, Eoscellinus was compelled to recant at the Synod 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 29 
 
 of Soissons, but he continued to hold his views, and certainly 
 in the lona fide belief that they were not contrary to the 
 doctrine of the Church. This incident decidedly contributed 
 to the result that in the next age Nominalism numbered but 
 few adherents, and most of them kept their views secret ; for 
 complete subordination was made incumbent upon all who 
 were inclined to the freer cultivation of philosophy. As 
 Petrus Damiani (c. 1050) expresses it: " Quce tamen artis 
 humane peritia si quando tractandis sacris eloquio adhibetur, 
 non debet jus magisterii sibimet arroganter arripere sed velut 
 ancilla dominae quodam famulatus obsequio subservire ne si 
 prsecedit oberret." 
 
 Anselin of Canterbury (1033-1109) exercised important 
 influence upon the formation of the ecclesiastical doctrine. 
 In his work, Cur Deus Homo, Anselm develops the theory of 
 satisfaction which was afterwards universally received, and he 
 develops it purely out of principles of reason without the aid 
 of revelation. He also gives a twofold argument for the 
 existence of God. In his Monologium he develops the 
 Cosmological Argument by rising from the particular to the 
 universal in closest attachment to the realistic doctrine 
 represented by him. Universals have not merely an existence 
 immanent in individuals, but an existence that is independent 
 of the individual things. All relative goods presuppose an 
 absolute good, and the Summum bonum is God. Every 
 existing being presupposes an absolute Being through which it 
 is ; but that absolute Being is itself through itself, and this is 
 God. The series in the scale of beings cannot go on without end ; 
 there must be a being above which there is no other, and this 
 highest Being is God. The Trinity is also construed merely 
 from principles of reason. God has created all things 
 out of nothing. Things were eternally present in God's 
 understanding, and these archetypical forms are the inner 
 "Word of God, just as thoughts are the inner word in man. 
 The speaker and the word spoken by him are two, and yet 
 in their essence they are one. Hence with this self-duplica- 
 tion there must again be connected a reconciliation and a 
 
30 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 reunion, and this is the Holy Ghost. In his Proslogium, 
 Anselm develops the Ontological Argument which seeks to 
 deduce the existence of God from the mere conception of God. 
 By God we understand the greatest thought which the mind 
 can think. " Credimus te (i.e. Deum), esse bonum quo majus 
 bonum cogitari nequit." This thought is in our intellect. It 
 is even in the intellect of the fool who says, in his heart, there 
 is no God. For when he hears the word " God," he also 
 understands by it the greatest object that can be thought. 
 This greatest object of thought cannot be in the intellect only ; 
 for in that case something greater might be thought as that 
 which was both in the intellect and in the outer sphere of 
 reality. The weakness of this argument is at once quite 
 correctly pointed out by Anselm's contemporary, Gaunilo, in his 
 treatise, Pro insipiente, when he says that Anselm confounds 
 the " in intellectu esse " arid " intelligere aliquid esse." The real 
 being of an object must first be established if we are to infer 
 its predicates from its essence. By the same manner of 
 reasoning, the existence of a perfect island might just as 
 rightly be asserted. At the same time Anselm is a decided 
 representative of the unconditional subordination of philosophy 
 to theology. Knowledge rests upon faith ; and it is not to be 
 said conversely that faith rests upon previous knowledge. 
 " .Credo ut intelligam" not " intelligo ut credam" It is true that 
 knowledge appears as higher than belief, and that it is a duty 
 to advance to knowledge. We receive the mysteries of 
 Christianity into ourselves at first by faith, but it is culpable 
 negligence if we do not strive afterwards to understand what 
 is believed. Yet it is not the free examination of the contents 
 of faith that is thereby meant ; faith has an eternal fixedness, 
 and it can neither be shaken nor can it gain a higher sted- 
 fastness by our examination. If we are not able to attain to 
 insight, we ought not to reject what is believed, but must bow 
 under the higher truth. " Christianus per fidem debet ad 
 intellectum proficere, non per intellectum ad fidem accedere, 
 aut si intelligere non valet, a fide recedere." 
 
 Scholasticism underwent an important revolution in the 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 31 
 
 twelfth Century when the Logic of Aristotle, as well as his 
 Metaphysics and Physics, became known in the Greek 
 language. The West learned of them at first through Arabian 
 and Jewish translations and renderings, and thereafter the 
 original Greek texts were brought from Constantinople to the 
 West and translated into Latin. This new knowledge seemed, 
 however, to be dangerous to the doctrine of the Church ; at 
 least it gave occasion to the movement of the Amalrichians, 
 and in a Synod held at Paris in 1209 the writings of 
 Aristotle were forbidden, and excommunication was threatened 
 against any one who might copy, read, or even possess them. 
 In 1225 this decree was so far modified that only the use of 
 the Aristotelian Metaphysics and Physics was forbidden, 
 while the employment of the Logic or Organon was allowed. 
 In 1 2 3 1 a dispensation of Pope Gregory IX. determined that 
 those books which treated of the Natural Philosophy of 
 Aristotle should remain excluded from the schools until they 
 were purged from all suspicion of containing errors. At 
 last, in 1254, the free use of the metaphysical and physical 
 writings of Aristotle was also allowed. This change of opinion 
 in favour of Aristotle was founded upon the conviction that 
 dangerous pantheistic views sprang from Platonizing modifica- 
 tions of Aristotle, whereas the genuine Aristotle was thoroughly 
 free from danger and purely theistic. Aristotle thus gradually 
 gained unlimited authority in the Church. It was usual to 
 represent him as the " precursor Christi in naturalibus" and to 
 put him on a parallel with John the Baptist as the "precursor 
 Christi in gratuitis" Aristotle was in a manner regarded as 
 the unconditional rule of truth, and his sole supremacy in the 
 Church continued undisputed for several centuries. And 
 under these circumstances some of the doctrines of Aristotle, 
 such as those concerning the soul and the eternity of the 
 world, which were contrary to the ecclesiastical dogmas, were 
 silently accommodated to the higher doctrinal truth of the 
 Church. 
 
 During this second period of scholasticism and on to the 
 restoration of Nominalism by William of Occam, the con- 
 
32 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 troversy about Universals fell almost entirely into the back- 
 ground. There prevailed an essential agreement thus far that 
 Universals have a threefold being, (1) "before things, in so far 
 as the universal conceptions are in God as typical ideas and 
 are thought by Him ; (2) in things, in so far as individuals 
 have only being and subsistence through their participation in 
 the Universal ; and (3) after things, in so far as we by the 
 abstractions of our thought form universal conceptions that 
 embrace many particulars. In respect to our present subject 
 the distinction of Natural and Eevealed Theology is especially 
 noteworthy in this period of scholasticism. The irrefragable 
 truth of the established doctrine of the Church and the mere 
 subservient relation of philosophy to it, was accepted by all the 
 scholastics at this time, and was in no way called in question 
 by them. But certain subjects were kept separate from the 
 ecclesiastical doctrine, and these were regarded as capable of 
 being attained by philosophy through the natural insight of 
 reason and from knowledge of Nature ; and they could there- 
 fore be materially demonstrated. All the other subjects were 
 excluded from such rational proof. It was necessary to accept 
 them upon the basis of divine revelation, and in relation to 
 them merely a formal use of reason was allowed. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, the Doctor universalis (1193-1280), 
 aims at excluding the specific doctrines of the Christian 
 Eevelation from the sphere of what is knowable by reason. 
 " Ex lumine quidem connaturali non elevatur ad scientiam 
 Trinitatis et Incarnationis et Eesurrectionis." The human soul, 
 according to his view, can only know that of which it has the 
 principles in itself. Now as the soul finds itself to be a 
 simple substance, it cannot think the Deity as tri-personal, 
 since it is not raised to this point of view by a special gift of 
 grace and illumination from above. 
 
 Thomas Aquinas, the Doctor angclicus (122574), was the 
 head and most brilliant representative of scholasticism, and he 
 is still regarded as a high authority in the Catholic Church. 
 He represents in like manner a precise demarcation of the 
 limits of Natural Theology as distinguished from Divine 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 33 
 
 Revelation. As regards the doctrine of God, by our natural 
 reason, and in particular by proofs & posteriori, we can attain 
 to the knowledge of what relates to the unity of the divine 
 nature. The uninterrupted chain of causes and effects in the 
 world necessarily presupposes the existence of God as a first 
 mover and a first cause. The order in the world enables us 
 to infer an intelligent orderer. The contingent existence 
 of the world points to a necessary being, and the degrees of 
 difference in the perfection of finite things points to a most 
 perfect and most real Being. God is the absolutely simple 
 form ; He is pure actuality, actus purus. We cannot know 
 the Trinity by mere reason, but only with the aid of divine 
 revelation. Neither can the natural reason know of itself the 
 doctrines of the creation in time, of original sin, of the incar- 
 nation of the Logos, of the sacraments, of purgatory, of the 
 resurrection of the body, of the judgment of the world, and 
 the twofold final state. In regard to these doctrines, reason 
 may indeed refute the objections of opponents, and point out 
 certain analogies or establish some grounds of probability, but 
 it cannot prove them to be true from its own principles. 
 The acceptance of these doctrines rests upon the recognition 
 of Revelation, and this is not founded upon the principles of 
 reason, but partly upon an internal invitation of God (interior 
 instinctus Dei invitantis) and partly upon miracles. And 
 because these doctrines of faith are not demonstrable, the 
 believing acceptance of them is meritorious, since it is in fact 
 a proof of trusting in the divine authority. Hence faith is 
 primarily a thing of the will and not of the intellect. But as 
 Nature is the preliminary stage of grace, so in like manner 
 these truths as knowable by the natural reason are the pre- 
 ambula fidd. These may certainly be proved by rationes 
 demonstrative ; but because many men are incapable of 
 grasping this demonstration, revelation has also brought them 
 by its supernatural communication to men. 
 
 Joannes Duns Scotus (1274-1308), the great opponent of 
 Thomas Aquinas, occupies essentially the same standpoint in refer- 
 ence to this distinction between Natural and Revealed Theology. 
 
 VOL. i. c 
 
34 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE EEFOEMATION. 
 
 The distinction was combated from two sides : first, from 
 the assumption that all the propositions of theology may be 
 demonstrated ; and, secondly, on the ground of the opposite 
 view, that all theological propositions are indemonstrable. 
 
 Eaymundus Lullus (1234-1315), the inventor of the "Great 
 Art," undertakes to demonstrate the Catholic doctrines merely 
 with the aid of scientific dialectics as propositions of the 
 highest rationality. Eeason is not twofold, but only one ; 
 hence there is also only one rational science. All the dogmas 
 of the Catholic Church are purely intelligible propositions which 
 can be proved by demonstration. The truths of revelation are 
 not supra-rational ; for how near does this lie to regarding the 
 supra-rational as irrational! The method of demonstration, 
 however, which Lullus applied to the conversion of unbelievers 
 and the convincing of doubters, appears to have had little 
 success. And he himself, along with this purely rational 
 demonstration, refers to the special evidence of the immediate 
 apprehension of religion. 
 
 William of Occam, the Doctor invincibilis s. Veneralilis 
 inceptor (t 134*7), was the renovator of Nominalism. Only 
 individuals, as individual things, have meaning. Universals 
 as common conceptions are only abstractions made by our own 
 understanding from these individual things (conceptns mentis 
 significantes uniwce plura singularia). Therewith the way 
 was paved for the empirical method of thought through 
 observation of individual things and the derivation of universal 
 principles from inductive experience. And thereby the 
 approach to a Eational Theology was at the same time closed ; 
 for such a theology would only be possible on the ground that 
 God, like every other individual being, could be intuitively 
 known. All knowledge which transcends experience is thus 
 to be assigned to faith. To faith also belong the precepts of 
 morality ; for, in virtue of his unlimited freedom, God could 
 also sanction other precepts as good and just. To this sphere 
 also belong all the principles of faith, and even the existence 
 of God cannot be proved either a priori or a posteriori. 
 
 Nominalism gained a wide influence, and the extent of it 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 35' 
 
 was shown by the controversy that now arose in almost all the 
 Universities between the Antiqui and the Moderni. Of the 
 latter we may here mention Peter D'Ailly (1350-1425), who 
 prepared the way for scepticism by the Nominalist assertion 
 that our own existence only, and not that of external objects, 
 is certain. John Gerson (1363-1429) may be likewise 
 mentioned as having been led by Nominalism to Mysticism. 
 According to his view, it is not worldly science and human 
 philosophy that lead to the truth, but it is receiving the 
 revelation of God in a contrite and believing heart. Gabriel 
 Biel (t 1495) was also distinguished for his clear exposition 
 of Nominalism. The Nominalistic separation of Theology and 
 Philosophy comes most decidedly to expression in Eobert 
 Holkot (t 1349) and in Eaymund of Sabundi (c. 1430). 
 In the first book of Holkot's Determinationes quarundam ques- 
 tionum (the authorship of which, however, is doubted), the fifth 
 question treated of is the Trinity, and the common distinction 
 between a logica fidei and a logica naturalis is asserted. The 
 Aristotelian logic is to be called formal, not in the sense that 
 it is valid and authoritative " in omni materia," but only as 
 being such " quae per naturalem inquisitionem in rebus a nobis 
 sensibiliter nobis non capit instantiam." A logica singularis is 
 valid in theology, for in reference to the Trinity the principle 
 applies " aliquam rem esse unam et tres," and in Christology 
 " oportet concedi contradictoria cum specificatione diversarum 
 naturarum," a principle which the philosophers did not even 
 know. Eaymund in his Theologia naturalis puts natural 
 theology by the side of revealed theology. The latter rests 
 upon immediate revelation presented in Scripture, and it 
 contains certain doctrines only thus attainable ; the former 
 draws merely from the book of Nature by means of our natural 
 knowledge, and it therefore lies nearer to us. Ascending 
 through the four stages of " Being," " Life," " Sensation," and 
 " Eeason," and supported upon external experience or observa- 
 tion of Nature, but still more upon internal experience or the 
 facts of our own consciousness, Eaymund advances proofs 
 for the existence and the triunity of God, as well as for the 
 
36 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 immortality of the soul. The goal of his theology is the 
 complete union of the loving soul with God ; and it betrays 
 the influence of mysticism. 
 
 Along with Scholasticism we early find traces of a purely 
 intellectual Enlightenment. One of its earliest representatives 
 appears in Berengar of Tours (t 1088). With regard to 
 Scripture, Berengar turns himself zealously against the 
 theologians of the letter, who have not the spirit that maketh 
 alive, nor any idea of a scientific method of interpretation. 
 They turn the Scriptures into a book of fables ; for literally 
 and verbally understood it contains a sensuous and utterly 
 untenable notion of God, with innumerable impossibilities and 
 absurdities. Tradition is uncertain, for unbounded abuse is 
 too often carried on in its name. Nor is the majority of a 
 Synod the right tribunal for finding the truth, since majorities 
 and truth fly asunder, while error and the majority are wont 
 to combine. Were all the decrees of Synods true, we would 
 have a truth that contradicted itself ; and as the later decrees 
 revoke the earlier ones opposed to them, we would thus have 
 a changing truth. Both of these positions are equally absurd. 
 Authority and truth are seldom identical, but are mostly 
 opposed to one another, and the authority is to be overturned 
 by the truth. Truth is to be sought for in reason ; it is 
 grounded in the natural organization of human nature, which 
 makes us capable of finding the truth. Hence anything that 
 is " contrary to truth " is the same as being " contrary to 
 reason," or " contrary to rational principles " and " contrary to 
 conscience." " But nobody can be contrary to truth, contrary 
 to reason, and contrary to conscience." The efforts of Berengar 
 appear to have had some success ; and even Anselm repeatedly 
 laments about unbelievers who would not accommodate them- 
 selves to the faith unless they were convinced by rational 
 grounds, about people who were bold enough to raise objections 
 against the ecclesiastical dogmas, and believers who were at 
 least unsettled by such objections. 
 
 Peter Abelard (1079-1142) was the most important 
 representative of this intellectual method and tendency. How 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 37 
 
 little he regards the tradition of the Church is shown by his 
 bold attack upon it in the treatise, Sic et Non. His funda- 
 mental principle is that insight must give a foundation to 
 faith, for without insight faith is not certain of its truth. 
 Authority may suffice so long as reason has not yet attained 
 to full self-knowledge, but now it is no longer tradition, but 
 criticism or doubt that is the way to truth. Reason is earlier 
 than any tradition ; it is the principle of unity amid the 
 divisions of authority ; it gives what is necessary in distinction 
 from the contingency of special revelations. Reason alone 
 has the right to supreme decision even in matters of religion. 
 Every alleged divine revelation must be known as true before 
 it can be held to be divine. Along with these decidedly 
 rationalistic expressions, there are found, however, also others, 
 which declare, on the contrary, that Reason is inadequate or 
 incongruent to divine things. In any case, the free exercise 
 of Reason is only for the few who have attained the maturity of 
 reason, and not for the great mass of the immature in thought. 
 Abelard also turns his attention to the religions that are 
 outside of Christianity. The heathen philosophy and poetry 
 is equally with the Old Testament a vehicle of divine reve- 
 lation before Christ. Even Prophets and Apostles have 
 borrowed much from the works of the Hellenic wisdom. It 
 is true that the doctrines of the pagan thinkers and poets are 
 referred again to the natural consciousness of God, while the 
 doctrines of the Old and New Testament are attributed to 
 immediate divine inspiration; but this difference of their origin 
 does not cause them to be reckoned as of different value. The 
 distinction consists properly in this, that what only a few 
 specially gifted individuals obtained insight into in the ancient 
 times was made universally known by Christianity. The 
 most important thinkers among the Greeks and Romans were 
 precursors of the gospel ; they were genuine thinkers before 
 Christ; but what only a few knew then has now become 
 manifest to the whole people without exception. This progress, 
 however, is accompanied by a regress that runs parallel to it; 
 for morality stood higher in the ancient times than it does 
 
38 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 under Christianity. The historical Religions have nothing 
 peculiar in them, nor anything essentially new. Christianity 
 is as old as the world. It is only the name that is new, 
 along with its wide diffusion among all peoples and nations. 
 If the heathen Wisdom and the Christian Religion are 
 essentially one, it immediately follows that they are to be 
 referred to the same source, which is the natural human 
 reason. This is done by Abelard in his Dialogue between a 
 Christian, a Jew, and a Philosopher. The Moral Law is 
 unchangeable in all men, and therefore belongs to universal 
 human nature ; it is therefore older than all that is called 
 Supernatural Revelation ; it is the sufficient rule of action, 
 and it extends to all natural religion. Hence it cannot be 
 abrogated by any authority, but is itself the supporting basis 
 of all that gives itself out as revelation. The Old Testament 
 confirms this in recording of Abel, Enoch, Abraham, and 
 others, who did not know the Mosaic Law, that they lived so 
 as to please God. The Mosaic Law contains, besides genuine 
 moral precepts that are inseparable from human nature, others 
 that were given only from regard to temporal relations, and 
 they are therefore changeable. These two elements stand 
 side by side without inner connection, and yet the whole Law 
 claims to be divinely revealed. Jesus brought nothing new, 
 but only restored the original truth. He was not the founder 
 of a new religion, but the restorer of the pure Moral Law. 
 The Sermon on the Mount contains the original doctrine of 
 Jesus ; it is essentially the renovation and deepening of the 
 eternal law of morality under continual reference to blessedness 
 as the highest good bestowed by God. The claim of Philosophy 
 to form a similar connection with virtue and morality, and 
 therefore to be completely identical with Christianity, is objected 
 to because Christianity as a historical reality stands on higher 
 ground. But the mode of proof leaves the reader in doubt as 
 to whether this is the author's true opinion. The philosopher 
 is astonished that Scripture proofs are brought forward against 
 him, and the Christian confesses openly that he has not pre- 
 sented them as his own opinion, but only as expressing the 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 39 
 
 faith of the Elders ; for himself he is at one with the 
 philosopher in not founding upon authority, but upon reason. 
 
 There were not wanting followers of Abelard's teaching ; 
 and other events of the time gave further occasion for the 
 formation of a critical attitude of mind towards the Christian 
 Religion. The unfortunate issue of the Crusades, that had 
 been undertaken from a holy enthusiasm for the honour of 
 God, could not but shake the faith of a people accustomed to 
 see the judgment of God in success. Besides, the Crusades 
 led to a closer acquaintance with other religions and those who 
 professed them, and this necessarily gave rise to a more 
 unprejudiced comparison of them. The contemporary moral 
 corruption of the Church also aroused the opposition of the 
 Cathari, and it could only be suppressed in streams of blood. 
 Moreover, Philosophy became alienated from Eeligion by the 
 wide-spreading influence of the Arabians, and especially of 
 Averroes. 
 
 Averroes or Ibnroshd (1126-98) represented a mode of 
 interpreting Aristotle which appeared to be particularly 
 dangerous to religion from its denial of personal individuality. 
 The intellect is represented as a substance completely different 
 from the soul, and there is only one intellect in all men. We 
 continue, indeed, to exist after death, but not as individual 
 substances ; we continue only as a constituent of the universal 
 understanding that is common to the whole human race. It 
 is true that Averroes seeks to avoid antagonism to religion by 
 representing religion as containing the same truth as philo- 
 sophy, but only in the form of figurative representations. 
 All religions are true in so far as they contain incitements to 
 the moral life ; nay more, they are equally true in so far as 
 they contain these incitements in the highest degree that is 
 possible for those who receive them. All religions, again, are 
 false, and even equally false ; for along with the rational they 
 also contain the irrational, and they present superstition side 
 by side with morality. They are products of natural history 
 and of the natural human reason, which, by its very idea of 
 a supernatural revelation, shows how insufficient thought of 
 
40 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 itself is. The ignorant multitude accept the precepts of 
 religion according to the letter ; the philosophers and all who 
 have knowledge pass by allegorical interpretation beyond 
 what is positive and understood as a fact of the spiritual life, 
 to what is the purely philosophical substance of the religion. 
 Hence there are many truths which hold in theology but not 
 in philosophy. 
 
 It was mainly in the University of Paris that Averroism 
 found its adherents and zealous representatives. It was 
 there that Simon of Tournay (c. 1200) first spoke forth his 
 view of The TJiree Impostors (Moses, Christ, and Muhamed). 
 Tor his proud audacity in venturing by his rational principles 
 and dialectical argumentations to weaken the Christian religion 
 even more than he had hitherto strengthened it, he is said to 
 have been punished by a sudden loss of speech. The Aver- 
 roistic distinction of a theological and a philosophical truth 
 found a point of attachment in the scholastic distinction of 
 natural and revealed theology. For this latter view also 
 recognises a twofold truth, one flowing from Natural Eeason, 
 and the other from Supernatural Eevelation. This was not 
 far from the view that turned the supra-rational into the 
 irrational, and the two truths hitherto proceeding side by side 
 into the opposites of each other. Already in 1240 a series 
 of propositions which were partly Averroistic had been con- 
 demned at Paris as antagonistic to the Christian faith ; and 
 twelve other propositions were set up against them as forming 
 a rule of faith and doctrine. In 1247, John of Brescain 
 sought to escape the accusation of heresy by alleging that he 
 had not established his propositions theologically, but philo- 
 sophically. This excuse was not accepted, and the rigid 
 observance of the limits laid down by the Faculty between 
 Theologians and Artists was made a duty in the University of 
 Paris. This was without success, for, in 1270 and 1276, the 
 Archbishop of Paris again finds occasion to proceed against 
 the University. Not less than 219 propositions are cited, 
 regarding which it was asserted that they were true in 
 philosophy, but were not in accordance with the theological 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 41 
 
 faith. Among these were the following : " God is not triune ; 
 God cannot beget one similar to Himself ; a future resur- 
 rection is not to be admitted ; there is only one intellect 
 numerically ; the world is eternal ; there are fables and false 
 statements in the Christian religion just as in the other 
 religions." It is not probable that these philosophers actually 
 included themselves among the number of believers, or that 
 they felt in themselves any breach between faith and know- 
 ledge. Probably they employed this distinction only in order 
 to bring forward in a disguised form all possible objections 
 against religion, and to show that they were at least philo- 
 sophically tenable. 
 
 The freedom of rational thinking in opposition to theology 
 was thus expressed in principle. We then find it brought 
 into application by Eoger Bacon (1214-94). This, however, 
 is not done from any wish to attack or reform theology on 
 the ground of the natural knowledge of reason. In Theology, 
 according to Eoger Bacon's view, faith stands first, experience 
 second, and understanding third. It is not Philosophy but 
 Theology that is supreme, for all the wisdom that is useful for 
 man is contained in the Scriptures. But, at the same time, 
 Eoger Bacon aimed at the knowledge of Nature, and held 
 that this was to be attained by empirical inquiry, by exact 
 observation, and by careful experience, Nature being to him 
 the only authority, induction the only method, and experiment 
 the only means of proof. Thus the world is viewed as a 
 relatively independent whole, as a certain quantum determined 
 by immanent laws, and not changeable at every moment by 
 the interference of uncalculable powers. This was a view 
 which still lay far from the ideas of that age, and it neces- 
 sarily led to further consequences. 
 
 We will merely allude to the purely intellectual and often 
 directly anti-religious tendency of the time of Frederick II. 
 This tendency is sufficiently illustrated by the work entitled 
 De Tribus Impositoribus. Comparison of the different religions 
 was then the order of the day. It sometimes led to the 
 rejection of all religion, and at other times to separation of 
 
42 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 the universal moral precepts of religion as what is essential 
 to it from its peculiar positive determination as something 
 incidental to it. In William of Auvergne (t 1249) we find a 
 view which has even been attributed to more recent times as 
 their own peculiar discovery. It was already indicated by 
 some of the Fathers of the ancient Church, and was applied 
 at least to the Old and New Testament. The view referred 
 to is the idea that the historical revelation is nothing but 
 a divine education of the human race. According to William 
 of Auvergne, the Old Testament was given as a book of 
 elements to the Jewish people, that is, to the human race in 
 its childhood. The Jewish people being incapable of attaining 
 to deeper insight and to philosophical knowledge, were to be 
 trained only to moral obedience and to learned knowledge. 
 Hence all the commandments were given as positive injunc- 
 tions of God ; and, on account of the sensuous nature of the 
 people, they were corroborated by promises and threatenings. 
 The people were, however, destined to attain gradually to 
 insight through the continuous divine guidance. Christianity 
 is the higher Revelation. It agrees partly with the Moral 
 Law of the Old Testament, and, like it, with the natural 
 moral law; and it is also partly a fulfilment of what was 
 prophetically announced, as well as a rejection of what was 
 only ritualistic. Mohamedanism is represented as an excep- 
 tion from this development ; it is even a retrogression as 
 compared with the Old Testament. 
 
 The Religious Opposition referred to made itself felt as soon 
 as the new religion laid hold of men as a new power with 
 inner irresistible energy. It was then felt that religion is 
 much too rich to be confined to the narrow formulae of a 
 dogmatic system. When such internal experience becomes 
 immediately represented in objective doctrinal expressions, it 
 produces the forms of Mysticism. In religion man feels him- 
 self one with his God. When this immediate feeling of unity 
 with God is made a principle of knowledge, we obtain the 
 expression of the essential unity of the soul with God in 
 reason and will. This principle is the centre of all Mysticism, 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 43 
 
 whether it leads in a more spiritual way to the appeal to 
 immediate revelation, or, adopting a more rational method, 
 sees in knowledge the means of attaining to complete union 
 with God. 
 
 The first beginnings of a mystical movement, after the time 
 of Scotus Erigena, show themselves in the twelfth Century. 
 They are connected with the names of Hildegard of Bingen 
 (f 1197) and Elizabeth of Schonati (t 1165). Among the 
 celebrated teachers of the Church who belong to this school 
 may be mentioned Bernard of Clairvaux (f 1153), Hugo of 
 St. Victor (t 1141), Eichard of St. Victor (t 1173), Bona- 
 ventura (f 1274). Others were excluded from the Church 
 as heretics because their fanatical views went too far. Among 
 these was Amalrich of Bena (1203). Of his doctrine only 
 three propositions have been transmitted to us with certainty : 
 (1) God is all ; (2) every Christian must believe that he is a 
 member of Christ, and this faith is as necessary to blessed- 
 ness as the faith in the birth and death of the Eedeemer ; 
 (3) no sin is imputed to those who walk in love. In these 
 propositions there is already clearly enough expressed the 
 Pantheism and the spiritualistic rendering of Christology, 
 along with the historical denial of its facts, and that moral 
 libertinism, which the later followers of Amalrich brought 
 more clearly into view. These " Amalricans," as they were 
 called, adopted, perhaps only as an external frame for holding 
 their representations, the theory of three ages of the world 
 propounded by Joachim of Floris (f 1202). This theory 
 held that the indwelling of God in Abraham was the Age of 
 the Father, the indwelling of God in Mary was the Age of 
 the Son, and the indwelling of God in the Amalricans was the 
 Age of the Holy Spirit. By this Holy Spirit they can hardly 
 have understood the natural Eeason, but rather the immediate 
 influences of the divine Spirit. They reject the sacraments 
 and all external actions, because the Spirit works inwardly. 
 The stirrings of fleshly desire within them are not sin, because 
 the Spirit of God has become flesh in them. Hence they 
 proclaimed and practised free love. 
 
44 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 At the Synod of Paris in 1209, the doctrines of Amalrich 
 and the writings of David of Dinant were condemned. Of 
 the latter we know but little. He was accused of having 
 taught that the materia prima, or the substratum of all 
 corporeal things, the vovs or the principle of all individual 
 souls, and God or the source of the heavenly Essences, were 
 one and the same, because they are indistinguishable in being. 
 The " Ortliberians " were closely related to the Amalricans. 
 They held that the external orders of the Church are of no 
 value, and that the rejection of them when conjoined with 
 rigid asceticism leads to the highest perfection, and even to 
 the reception of immediate divine revelation. Thereby man 
 is raised to God ; nay more, by a process of deification he 
 attains, as his highest goal, complete oneness with God. 
 Joachim of Floris (t 1202) represents the same tendency. 
 Founding upon special revelations of the divine Spirit, he 
 wished to carry back the priests to an apostolical abnegation 
 of the world, and by a rigid monastic life in place of fleshly 
 externalization to attain to the true inward spiritualization, 
 and thus to bring about a new period of the Church. Joachim 
 gained adherents particularly among the Franciscans, who 
 were already strongly characterized by a tendency to fanati- 
 cism derived from their founder. The outlines of Joachim's 
 Eternal Gospel may be summarized as follows. The history 
 of the Christian Church runs through three great periods : the 
 Age of the Father, extending from the creation of the world to 
 John the Baptist ; the Age of the Son, from the incarnation of 
 Christ to the year 1260; and the Age of the Holy Spirit, 
 which was regarded as beginning with that year. This last 
 period is prepared by a boundless increase of abominations in 
 the Church and life, as well as by the appearance of the 
 Antichrist, who is more or less distinctly indicated as 
 Frederick II. The characteristic of this new Age is to be 
 derived from the contemplative life in which, with the right 
 understanding of Scripture, the whole of previous history will 
 come to appear in its true light. These views were very 
 widely spread by the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, or 
 
THE MIDDLE AGES. 45 
 
 the Beghins and Beghards, after the middle of the thirteenth 
 Century. They likewise boasted of immediate revelations ; 
 and they regarded themselves, in virtue of these revelations, 
 as above the external institutions of the Church in doctrine 
 and practice. They professed to realize God in their imme- 
 diate experience, and therefore did not need religious instruc- 
 tion from others. They did not even require the precepts of 
 Christ, for what the Spirit said to them was truth. On the 
 basis of these views, the Church with its external orders was 
 violently attacked. It was declared to be a sin to confess to the 
 priest. Masses, confessionals, confirmation, ecclesiastical fasts 
 and festivals, the worship of saints, and all such institutions 
 are to be rejected. There is no sin for one who is united 
 with God ; for nothing is sinful which is not reckoned to be 
 such. 
 
 From this fanatico -spiritualistic tendency we must carefully 
 distinguish that sober and profound mysticism which culmi- 
 nated in the Middle Ages in Meister Eckhart (1260-1328). 
 He leans, indeed, everywhere on the doctrines of earlier thinkers, 
 but, with bold originality and peculiar power, he knows how 
 to breathe new life and his own spirit into the elements 
 derived from others. Eckhart seeks to comprehend the essence 
 of God as a process in which beginning, middle, and end pass 
 eternally into one another. The common principle to which 
 everything must be referred is the Essence of being. It is 
 the Primality which contains all things ; it is God in His 
 essence as the Deity. This essentiality constitutes a beginning 
 in God Himself ; it is, however, not a beginning in time, but 
 a beginning that does not begin, as the distinction of the 
 Divine Persons is present from the first in the singleness of 
 an unmodified being. The primal essence, or the Deity, is 
 therefore the all-potent possibility of all things. The simple 
 distinctionless Being which contains the ground of all existence 
 is Nature ; it is the first externalization or objectivation of the 
 essence, but it is not really a mode of being different from the 
 Essence ; it is the essence as form and image. The Essence 
 is also called " Father," and Nature is called " Word ; " but as 
 
46 INTEODUCTOEY SUEVEY DOWN TO THE EEFOEMATION. 
 
 the impersonal Word. The Deity becomes Person or God by 
 the union of Essence and Nature. This sudden starting into 
 self is cognition, and this cognition is the birth of thought. 
 God's thought of Himself constitutes the Person of the Son. 
 Father and Son now know each other as articulated and com- 
 pleted unity ; and in this knowledge the Essence apprehends 
 itself in a new form as personal Commonwill or as Holy 
 Spirit. This Commonwill is the Being of the Deity satisfied in 
 itself ; it is the love of the Father and the Son. This process 
 of self-revelation is an act that eternally renews itself, and 
 only on this ground is God the Living God. For life is a 
 circling movement in which the end continually returns into 
 the beginning, and the beginning continually resolves itself in 
 the end. 
 
 Finite things are in the Deity, and so far they have essence, 
 but all essence is grounded in God. This does not assert the 
 eternity of things, nor even the eternity of the determinate 
 ideas of individual things, but only that the Deity, as the 
 original ground of all being, also contains the possibility of all 
 things in Himself. Creation, like all revelation, is the work of 
 the tri-personal God. The Father in looking upon the Son 
 begets and brings forth the creaturely forms or the world of 
 Ideas, and after it the world of manifestation, both out of 
 nothing. As regards the order of the world, all life, according 
 to Eckhart, passes in gradual transition and enfeeblement 
 from the higher Essences to the lower. This transition takes 
 place in such a way that the higher member of the series, 
 with its essentiality, is continually in the lower member, and 
 the lower has at the same time its proper home and resting- 
 place in the higher. Hence the higher, by its influence, 
 illumines and strengthens the lower, and the lower again longs 
 to rest in the higher. The end of Creation is that the gracious 
 God may communicate Himself in the Creation, and in the 
 highest measure to man, as the image of the Trinity. Every 
 creature must be subservient and minister, in order that man 
 may reach his goal ; and, at the same time, it is man who, as 
 the higher unity of the lower creation, brings it back to God. 
 
TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 47 
 
 In order that men may be again united with God, a Man must 
 appear with this unity; and the Man who so appears is 
 Christ. Eckhart, however, lays little importance upon the 
 historical person of Christ, or upon His death ; he sees therein 
 only an example of what ought to happen with us all upon 
 the way of deification. " God has become man that I might 
 become God ; God has died that I might die to all the world 
 and to all created things." This unification with God is the 
 highest aim of our striving, but it is by no means the annihila- 
 tion of the individuality. Neither does the thinking of the 
 divine Person become the thinking of the man, nor is the 
 thinking human personality made to vanish by the union with 
 God, nor is there required any regression of the human life 
 into mere passivity. It is only the mode of cognition that 
 becomes other than it was ; it is then no longer a sensuous 
 mode of knowledge, but it becomes mediated by the nature of 
 God. Hence even our personality shall not be annulled. But, 
 as in sensuous cognition we pass so much into one with the 
 object cognized that, as Eckhart expresses it, the wood that is 
 seen is our eye, and our eye is the wood, so in this union 
 with God our personality is restored to its true personality by 
 becoming active in and with the personal God. 
 
 Eckhart founded a school with many adherents. Its chief 
 representatives were Joannes Tauler (t 1360), Heinrich Suso 
 (f 1365), and the author of the old work called the German 
 Theology. 
 
 IV. 
 
 TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 With the Middle Ages new nations appeared on the stage 
 of history. The Church, the only spiritual power which was 
 saved from the terrible catastrophe of that age, undertook their 
 education, and every impartial student must testify that it 
 achieved a great result. But as the individual outgrows the 
 instruction of his teacher, and as he ought to be led by it to 
 
48 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 recognise the truth afterwards by his own judgment, and to 
 choose the right, so it is likewise with the nations. In the 
 course of centuries the Germanic peoples had come to maturity 
 under the guidance of the Church, and now their independence 
 began to show itself. Hitherto the only spiritual interest 
 that had received effective care and furtherance was that of 
 religion, but now the spirit of the time demanded also the 
 active and thoroughly independent cultivation of the secular 
 sciences. Hitherto the Church had presented itself in the 
 sphere of religion as the Divine Institution through whose 
 mediation alone the individual could approach his God; but 
 now the religious subject claimed to be able even without this 
 intervention to obtain peace with God, and he becomes zealous 
 against the unbounded secularization that professed to be 
 divine. The liberation of the mind and the self-activity of the 
 individual indicate the fundamental tendency of the powerful 
 revolution which was effected in the fifteenth and sixteenth 
 Centuries, and which separates the Modern world from the 
 Middle Ages. We call it the Eeformation, borrowing the name 
 from its transformation of the religious and ecclesiastical rela- 
 tions ; but no side of life remained unaffected by it. An 
 important change came over the social relations with the rise 
 of the influential class of burghers, to whom commerce and 
 trade brought prosperity, while their dwelling together in cities 
 made them secure. Numerous inventions, such as gunpowder, 
 the mariner's compass, and the art of printing, aroused the 
 mind of the age, and enlarged the circle of vision. The dis- 
 covery of distant continents and of the ocean routes to the 
 East Indies and America, turned the attention to distant lands 
 and to entirely strange relations undreamed of before. The 
 science of Copernicus and Kepler compelled men to think of 
 the earth as no longer the centre of the Universe, but as a 
 planet circling around the Sun along with other planets ; and 
 this thought, in consequence, completely transformed their 
 whole view of the world. Far-reaching results were to follow 
 from the revival of the classical studies. The Middle Ages 
 had known but a few fragments of the rich treasures of the 
 
TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 49 
 
 Greek mind, and, moreover, most of them had been only 
 accessible in the Latin translations of ecclesiastical writers. 
 But when, in the fourteenth Century, the danger that threat- 
 ened Constantinople made a reconciliation with Eome appear 
 desirable, and above all, when, after the fall of the city in 
 1453, many Greek scholars found a refuge in Italy, the 
 Hellenic antiquity seemed to arise into new life. It was an 
 entirely new world which thus appeared upon the stage, a 
 world that had existed without the knowledge of Christianity, 
 and yet with a greatness of its own that commanded respect. 
 Italy was seized first by this spirit ; and fertilized by that 
 Hellenism which had just been discovered again, the Italian 
 poetry attained its highest bloom in Dante, Petrarca, and 
 Boccaccio. The liberal patronage of the highly cultured 
 Medicis made Florence long the centre of all the scientific 
 strivings of the time. The less deeply the Christian religion 
 had struck its roots in many of the minds of the age, so much 
 the greater was the temptation for them to turn with the re- 
 novation of the Hellenic spirit to a revival of paganism. 
 How frequently this occurred is shown by the general lamenta- 
 tion that the " Humanists " showed themselves particularly 
 indifferent or even hostile to religion. And even where men 
 held fast outwardly to the ecclesiastical forms, yet the inner 
 estrangement came to light in the decay of the moral life and 
 in the more confidential utterances about religion. This was, 
 for instance, the attitude of the Popes of that age. In such 
 circles even the view of religion expounded by Macchiavelli 
 (1469-152*7) found an echo. He takes good care not to 
 attack decidedly the Church and her doctrine ; he is even 
 firmly convinced of the high value of religion for the wellbeing 
 of the people. But he regards it merely from this point of 
 view, as an extremely useful means of keeping the multitude 
 in check ; and hence, being only too often invented by prudent 
 statesmen, it is worthless for all who see through this decep- 
 tion. Thomas Campanella complains in bitter words about the 
 wide spread of this view of the nature of Eeligion. 
 
 Philosophical inquiry was also influenced by the Human- 
 
 VOL. L D 
 
50 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 istic movement. The long supremacy of Aristotle, which 
 had lasted for centuries, was shaken. The attempt was 
 naturally first made to purify and animate the dry formalism 
 of the Aristotelian logic by combining it with rhetoric, and by 
 introducing examples from the writings of the ancients. This 
 effort is represented by Laurentius Valla (1407-1457), well 
 known as the first scientific opponent of the Constantinian 
 donation, and by Eudolph Agricola (1442 1485), and 
 Ludovicus Vives (1492-1540), all precursors of Peter Eamus 
 (tl572). The authority of Aristotle, however, was far more 
 endangered by a controversy about the interpretation of him. 
 Hitherto Averroes had been accepted as the only safe guide in 
 the explanation of the great Greek thinker ; he was regarded 
 as " the Commentator " par excellence, and Aristotelisra was 
 nothing but Averroism. There was still no lack of repre- 
 sentatives of Averroes, the most important of whom were 
 Gennadius, Patriarch of Constantinople (t!461), George of 
 Trapezunt (1396-1486). In the school of Padua, the 
 Averroistic doctrine held its ground till the middle of the 
 seventeenth Century. To the Humanists, however, Averroes 
 appeared as barbarous, and, in so far as they kept to Aristotle, 
 they chose for themselves at least one other leader, the 
 ancient commentator Alexander Aphrodisiensis. The Church 
 assumed the same attitude to both parties, for they both denied 
 the immortality of the soul, and it was of the utmost in- 
 difference to her that the Averroists founded this denial on 
 the unity of the intellect in all men, while the Alexandrists 
 founded it on the natural mortality of the individual soul. 
 The Lateran Council of the 19th December 1512 condemned 
 both views. 
 
 Petrus Pomponatius (14621525), a teacher of philosophy 
 and a physician at Bologna, was the chief representative of 
 the Alexandrists. He expounded his views regarding Im- 
 mortality in the work, De ImmortalUate Animce, 1516. He 
 held that what thinks and feels in man is necessarily one and 
 the same, because in one subject there cannot exist several 
 substantial forms. Thinking and willing appear as immaterial 
 
TRANSITION TO THE EEFORMATION. 51 
 
 and immortal, and the lower powers of vegetation and sensa- 
 tion as material and perishing. Hence it is doubtful whether 
 we should say that the soul is essentially mortal and only 
 relatively immortal, or that it is essentially immortal and 
 only relatively mortal. The former expression, however, is 
 more correct, because even knowing and willing are dependent 
 throughout on material impressions and corporeal organs. 
 The idea of immortality has been excogitated by prudent 
 politicians in order to give an impulse to those who can only 
 be induced to do good by the prospect of eternal reward ; 
 that he who is really virtuous will, even though believing 
 in the mortality of the soul, do what is good for its own sake. 
 The treatise, De Incantationibus s. de Naturalium Effectuum 
 admirandorum Causis, investigates the wonderful processes in 
 Nature, and declaims against the view that these are to be 
 referred to the operation of spirits, angels, and demons, for 
 everything happens from natural causes. Among these 
 natural causes the stars take the first place, and they exercise 
 a far-reaching influence upon men and their fates. Even the 
 imagination of the credulous is taken into account in the 
 explanation of cures and such like. His work, De Libertate, 
 seeks to combine the Stoical view of the world as a regulated 
 and all-comprehending cosmos with the Christian idea of the 
 Creator; and this leads to the rejection of the freedom of the 
 human will. In all these three writings Pomponatius comes 
 to assertions which are contrary to the doctrine of the Church. 
 Nevertheless he wished to subject his own doctrines to those of 
 the Church, according to the principle, "I believe as a Christian 
 what I cannot believe as a philosopher." He is therefore a 
 representative of the theory of " the double truth," although 
 it was expressly condemned by the Lateran Council of the 
 19th December 1512 in the words, "As what is true can 
 never contradict what is true, we determine that every pro- 
 position which is contrary to the truth of the revealed faith 
 is entirely false." Pomponatius tries to find a deeper founda- 
 tion for the assertion of a double truth. Eeason, he says, 
 is twofold; there is an intellectual reason and a practical 
 
52 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 reason. Philosophy rests upon the speculative reason and 
 investigates natural truths ; theology rests upon the practical 
 reason and regulates life and morals. The former is most 
 unequally distributed ; the latter is the common inheritance 
 of all men. 
 
 Besides the Church, there was another spiritual power by 
 which both the Aristotelian Schools were equally detested as 
 irreligious. This was the newly - revived Platonism of the 
 time. The first impulse to the revival of the Platonic 
 doctrine was given by Georgius Gemistus Pletho (1355-1452). 
 He came from Constantinople on the occasion of the treaties 
 of union at the Council of Ferrara-Florence, and he remained 
 many years in Italy. His exposition of Plato was, however, 
 accompanied with an obscure intermixture of Neo-Platonic 
 thoughts. In one of his writings he accentuates the dis- 
 tinction between Aristotle and Plato, and impugns the former 
 in the most important points. In the " NOJJLOI," which have 
 come down to us only in fragments, he seeks, on the basis 
 of the Platonic wisdom, to bring about a reform of the whole 
 religious, political, and moral life. Happiness is the common 
 aim of all men ; it is only the means applied to attain it that 
 are different. True happiness consists in the full satisfaction 
 of our whole nature ; and it therefore rests chiefly upon a 
 knowledge of man and of the universe. The world points 
 to a First Cause which, while an absolute identity, contains 
 everything in itself in unity, and produces everything out 
 of itself. This cause is described as the good, and it is the 
 first stage of existence. The second stage is formed by the 
 gods of the second order, that are generated immediately 
 by God as an image like to Himself, and they are compre- 
 hended in Poseidon, the cause of all forms. Among them are 
 distinguished the genuine and the bastard sons of Zeus. The 
 former, as the Olympians, beget the immortal beings, or gods 
 of the third order, divided into the stars and demons ; the 
 latter, as the Titans, with the assistance of the planets, beget 
 the mortal beings. Man is the centre between the mortal 
 and the immortal beings, for his spirit is derived from the 
 

 TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 53 
 
 Olympians and his body from the Titans. The highest virtue 
 is religion, for by it we enter into fellowship with the higher 
 gods. The struggle thus inaugurated between Aristotelianism 
 and Platonism was continued by his .follower Bessarion (1389- 
 1472), Patriarch of Constantinople, well known for his in- 
 clination towards a union with Eome. He points out that 
 Plato was more akin to Christianity than Aristotle, and was 
 therefore indispensable as auxiliary to Apologetics. He 
 also lays the foundation of a more impartial and purely 
 historical study of the two philosophers. 
 
 Marsilius Ficinus (1433-1499) obtained great influence 
 by his translations of the writings of Plato and Plotinus. At 
 his instigation Cosmo de Medici founded the Platonic 
 Academy at Florence. His own views were chiefly expounded 
 in his treatise, De Religione Christiana, and his Theologia 
 Platonica de Tmmortalitate Animorum, 1. xviii. The latter 
 work begins with the following argument : " Were man 
 not immortal, he would be the most unhappy of all beings, 
 for in this world he leads the most unhappy life on account 
 of the unrest of his soul, the weakness of his body, and his 
 many wants. It is impossible that man, who is raised nearest 
 to the Deity by religion, should fall below all other creatures 
 in respect of happiness. Hence we must ascribe to him 
 immortality." This indirect argument is accompanied by a 
 direct proof. Ascending from the lower to the higher, Marsilius 
 traverses the whole series of existences : Corpus, qualitas, 
 anima, angelus, Deus. Body is without motion, and merely 
 passive. Form or quality is active indeed, but along with 
 matter it is divisible. The Soul is always the same, only 
 it is variously active in time. Angels are likewise taken out 
 of time, and do not strive after perfection, because they have 
 already complete reality. God is the highest being; He is 
 unity, truth, and goodness in one. There is only one God, 
 and He is of infinite power. He is eternal and omnipresent, 
 and as such He moves and preserves all things. By his own 
 nature God is Knowing and Willing. He knows everything 
 in Himself, as the original source of all life, and the arche- 
 
54 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 typal form of all things ; for things are nothing else than 
 expressed thoughts of God. His Will is at once free and 
 necessary ; free, in so far as no higher power commands Him ; 
 and necessary, in so far as the sufficient ground for all action 
 lies in His own essence. In the succession of the five stages 
 mentioned above, all being proceeds from God. The soul 
 forms " the mean," and it is therefore the connecting member 
 between the higher and the lower stages of being. There are 
 three kinds of rational souls : the soul of the world, the souls 
 of the spheres, and the souls of animated beings. Three 
 principles govern the world. From God comes the Unity in 
 all plurality ; from the Spirit, comes the Order of all fulness 
 and variety; and from the world-soul comes Motion. The 
 souls of the spheres move each its sphere in its own circle, 
 and they also exercise an important influence upon earthly 
 things. All finite things, even earth and water, are ensouled ; 
 for they contribute to the generation of beings with souls. 
 All souls are immortal, because they move themselves, and 
 have a substantial existence, and are connected with the 
 divine, and are indivisible, and so on. The human soul is 
 indivisible and divine ; it is all-present in every part of the 
 body ; it is independent of matter, and is only dependent 
 on God. It is an error to suppose that there is one common 
 soul in all men, rather has every man his own particular indi- 
 vidual soul. The Soul rises through the four stages of Sense, 
 Imagination, Phantasy, and Intellect to true insight. It is 
 nourished, not by earthly matter, but by the truth, and finds 
 itself always the more, the more it separates itself from the 
 body and everything material. The striving of the soul is 
 after union with God, but this goal will only be completely 
 attained in the world beyond. Two wings carry the soul 
 towards union with God ; they are Knowledge and Action. 
 The former carries it by the way of philosophy ; the latter by 
 the way of religion, and they stand in the closest relation to 
 each other. Eeligion is entirely peculiar to man. All the 
 other endowments which distinguish man are found likewise 
 among the lower animals, but not this relation to the divine. 
 
TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 55 
 
 To man, on the other hand, religion is as natural as neigh- 
 ing is to the horse, or barking to the dog ; for it springs " a 
 Deo atque humana speciei commimi natura." Hence all 
 nations have religion, the worship of God, and belief in an 
 eternal life. The essence of religion consists in the union of 
 the soul with God ; it rests upon the essential affinity of 
 the Soul and God, and it strives everywhere to unite with 
 itself what has affinity to it. As only an eye that is full 
 of light sees light, and only the ear that is filled with air hears 
 sound, so it is only the soul that is filled with God that can 
 rise to God, and it can rise to God just so far as it is 
 illuminated by divine light and kindled by divine warmth. 
 The Christian Eeligion is the most perfect religion. In Christ 
 the eternal Word became man, and this was entirely in con- 
 formity with the nature of God, on account of the most 
 inward relationship between God and man. The end of the 
 incarnation was that man might be again raised to God by 
 the Word of God. Christ worked by His teaching and His 
 virtuous example. His vicarious sufferings are not exactly 
 denied, but they are pressed completely into the background. 
 Of the representatives of the reviving Platonism, the best 
 known is John Pico of Mirandola (1463-1494). In addition 
 to the Platonic doctrine, he sought to turn to account the 
 Jewish Kabbala, a philosophical literature of doubtful origin 
 and mysterious contents. Philosophy has the same goal as 
 theology ; and this is the highest good in perfect communion 
 with God. The writings of Moses are the source of all 
 wisdom, for all the philosophers have drawn their knowledge 
 from them. The most correct and valuable interpretation of 
 these writings is contained in the Kabbala. In order to be 
 able to make a really fruitful use of these authorities, we 
 need immediate illumination by the Holy Spirit. In the 
 substance of his doctrines, Pico moves throughout in the 
 well-known lines of Neo-Platonism. The idea of God is 
 defined on two sides. In Himself God is determined as the 
 absolutely simple and infinitely perfect Being, elevated above 
 everything that is finite and inexpressible, because He is 
 
56 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 unthinkable. In relation to things, God is represented as the 
 real immediate essence of all that exists, as the cause of all 
 things, and as the fulness of all being. Over against God 
 stands matter, as the formative object of the divine opera- 
 tions ; according to the measure of its resistance, the every- 
 where equal power of God works out in it a graded series of 
 finite beings. These fall into three Worlds, with nine orders 
 in each. In the angelic World, God Himself forms the 
 centre ; in the heavenly world, the centre is the tenth heaven, 
 the Empyrean ; in the earthly world, the central point is the 
 first matter. Man as the microcosm forms the central 
 member between the upper and the lower world ; and to the 
 three worlds correspond the three parts of His being, the 
 rational soul, the spirit, and the body. By a free decision of 
 will at the Fall, man turned himself away from God ; by the 
 redemption, he was to be led back to Him again. Complete 
 union with God is the goal towards which man, in his desire 
 after happiness, strives. The way to it is shown by philo- 
 sophy as well as by theology ; it leads, through purification 
 from the influence of sense and through the immediate 
 illumination of knowledge, to perfection, which, however, is 
 only to be really attained in the other life. 
 
 Justus Lipsius (1547-1606) is named as the renovator of 
 Stoicism, but we do not find that his efforts had much success. 
 On the other hand, the renewal of scepticism by Montaigne 
 (1532-1592) had considerable influence. According to 
 Montaigne, philosophy seeks true science and certainty. The 
 dogmatic philosophy asserts that it has reached this goal ; 
 the Academics are satisfied with probability instead of truth ; 
 the Sceptics or Tyrrhenians refrain from pronouncing judg- 
 ment. The last view is the only tenable one. All our 
 knowledge rests upon the senses ; but the senses are un- 
 reliable ; and accordingly there at once arises a conflict about 
 sense-perception. The number of the senses is limited, and 
 hence the possibility that things possess qualities which 
 necessarily remain hidden from us. Again, the senses 
 perceive only their own modifications, and hence the un- 
 
TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 57 
 
 certainty as to whether the things themselves are not perhaps 
 quite different from their appearances. Our knowledge of 
 God is still more uncertain. We know God only according 
 to our limited power of apprehension. The infinite power, 
 beauty, and goodness of God, however, bear no comparison with 
 such insignificant beings as we are. Our practical judgments 
 are just as uncertain. In nothing do we find satisfaction, but 
 we long continually for more splendid things, which, however, 
 could satisfy us just as little. In the estimate of things the 
 same difference of opinion prevails as in regard to moral 
 precepts. The voice of conscience is also dependent on 
 custom, education, and other influences. We must accordingly 
 renounce all inquiry of our own ; and hence we can obtain 
 the truth only by a believing acceptance of the divine revela- 
 tion. These thoughts were entirely borrowed from the 
 ancient Sceptics; and neither Charron (t 1603) nor Sanches 
 (t 1632), who followed in the same track, passed beyond them. 
 Humanism spread from Italy into Germany. We find its 
 indifference to what is positive in the Christian religion in 
 the confidential utterances of Mutianus (1472-1526). The 
 religion of Christ, he says, did not begin merely with His 
 incarnation, but it existed from eternity, like the generation 
 of Christ from the Father. For the true Christ, the proper 
 Son of God, as Paul says, is nothing else than the Wisdom of 
 God, which was not communicated only to the Jews in the 
 narrow region of Syria, but also to the Greeks, Eomans, and 
 Germans, in spite of the difference of their religious practices. 
 There is only one God, and one Goddess, but many forms and 
 names. This, however, is not to be proclaimed openly, but 
 must be veiled in science like the Eleusinian mysteries ; for, 
 in matters of religion, we must use the covering of fables and 
 enigmas. Acute as are the judgments which Mutian expresses 
 in his letters on the Biblical Scriptures, and all the external 
 ecclesiastical institutions, he yet takes care not to shake the 
 opinions of the multitude, for without them everything would 
 sink into chaos. John Eeuchlin (1455-1522), well known 
 from his controversy with the Dominicans of Cologne, 
 
58 INTKODUCTOEY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 furthered the study of the classical antiquity by the produc- 
 tion of a Latin dictionary and a Greek grammar. Stimulated 
 by Pico of Mirandola, he applied himself to the mysteries 
 of the Kabbala, and by his Hebrew grammar (1506) he 
 introduced the study of the Hebrew language into German 
 science. Erasmus of Eotterdam (1467 1536), by his edition 
 of the Greek New Testament, as well as by a series of 
 fearless attacks upon the worldly spirit of the Church, con- 
 tributed powerfully to bring about the Eeformation. But 
 when the Church was threatened with being driven from her 
 position as the sole mediator of salvation, he turned away 
 from the spirit which he had himself conjured up. The 
 Humanistic culture entered into the immediate service of the 
 Eeformation only in Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523). 
 
 It is but a superficial view that could lead any one to 
 derive the reformation of the Church from the Humanistic 
 movement. Their mutual furtherance of each other must 
 indeed be recognised. But it is just as unmistakeable that 
 they were two entirely independent fruits of the same revolu- 
 tion whose general character consisted in the free unfolding 
 of the spirit that had now ripened to independence. The 
 Church aimed at being the medium of salvation to the 
 individual believers as the institution appointed by God 
 Himself for this end. But from the world, which it was 
 instituted to rule and to transform into a kingdom of God, 
 the Church once and again received corrupting elements into 
 herself, so that her divine form became marred, and the vicar 
 of Christ was perverted into Antichrist. Gregory VIL, 
 along with the complete subjection of all worldly powers and 
 strivings, had likewise aimed at a lasting purification of the 
 Church. The monastic orders, and especially the Dominicans 
 and Franciscans, sought with noble zeal and transitory success 
 to stem the increasing tide of worldliness. It was all in vain. 
 In the fourteenth and fifteenth Centuries the Church presents 
 such a picture of corruption that anything more repulsive can 
 hardly be conceived. The Popes, by their moral licentious- 
 ness and frivolous unbelief, almost rivalled their most 
 
TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 59 
 
 notorious predecessors of earlier centuries. The Papacy could 
 not but lose its respect when, by the exile to Avignon, it had 
 been subordinated in an ignoble way to French influence, and 
 entangled in external controversies by a schism of thirty 
 years. The priests sank into ignorance and debauchery. 
 The whole activity of the Church was turned into a system 
 for extorting as much money as possible by the sale of 
 ecclesiastical offices, the granting of numerous dispensations 
 of various kinds, and above all by the shameless sale of 
 indulgences. Thus the salvation of the soul was bought and 
 sold, and in consequence the mass of the people sank the deeper 
 into boundless ignorance and unbridled immorality, while the 
 public worship, in consequence of the excessive adoration of 
 images and relics, as well as the complete exclusion from it 
 of the vernacular tongue, sank into mere lip-service. 
 
 Under such circumstances opposition could not fail to 
 come. But the opposition of the intellectual thinking in the 
 form of Enlightenment, and that of the immediate religious life 
 in the form of Mysticism, although strong enough to over- 
 throw the Church of the time, were incapable of creating a 
 new ecclesiastical community. The reformation of the Church 
 could therefore only proceed from an opposition of a different 
 kind. This began to work towards the end of the Middle 
 Ages, and it likewise showed a twofold aspect. At one in 
 zeal against the intolerable worldliness of the papal Church, 
 the two tendencies diverged upon the question as to what new 
 institution was to be put in its place. The one form of 
 opposition wished to maintain the divine intermediation of the 
 Church as the sole dispenser of salvation to the individual ; 
 but, while leaving the papacy and the hierarchy as a divine 
 order untouched, it aimed only at removing undeniable abuses 
 in detail. The other form of opposition impugned directly 
 the position of the Church and the hierarchy. The Church 
 was not the divine mediator of salvation, but the communion 
 of those who, in virtue of their personal faith, had become 
 participators of salvation on the ground of their personal 
 relation to God. The hierarchy was declared to rest merely 
 
60 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 upon human ordinances, and it may perhaps have still to be 
 recognised from this point of view. The source of religious 
 truth is not the tradition of the Church, but the word of 
 Scripture alone. The ground of salvation is not found in 
 external works, but in internal living faith. The former mode 
 of effort long laboured in vain, trying to effect a " reform in 
 the Head and the members," and it at least in part reached 
 its goal in the purification of Catholicism from its worst 
 outgrowths at the Council of Trent (1545-1563) by way of 
 a reaction from the formation of independent Protestant 
 Churches. The other effort attained its goal only at the price 
 of a schism which, at the first, had not been even thought of. 
 In the Waldeusian valleys of the south of France and north of 
 Italy, Petrus Waldus had as early as 1160 been zealous 
 against the abuses of the Church ; and on the ground of 
 Scripture he had demanded holiness of sentiment and life. 
 In England, John Wikliffe (1324-1384) had preached the 
 Scripture as the only source of truth, Christ as the sole 
 mediator between God and man, His death as the only 
 ground of the forgiveness of sin, faith as the only means of 
 appropriating forgiveness, the Church as the communion of the 
 saints, and our salvation as dependent solely on the divine 
 decree. In Bohemia, John Huss (1369-1416), aroused by 
 Wikliffe, gained numerous adherents to his views of reform. 
 In the Netherlands, the Brethren of the Common Life sought, 
 in all stillness, to bring about a renovation of the religious 
 life. From their midst came forth Thomas a Kempis (t 1471), 
 who by his Imitation of Christ has worked, as few have done, 
 to establish a pure Christianity in the soul within. John 
 Wessel (1419-1492) belonged to the same circle. Well 
 acquainted with all the science of his age, he came nearest to 
 Luther in his decided accentuation of the Scriptures as the 
 only source of divine knowledge, and of faith as the only con- 
 dition of justification. This movement, however, only attained 
 to the power of permanently transforming the Church when 
 Luther and Zwingli appeared. 
 
 We have thus reached the grand revolution of the religious, 
 
TRANSITION TO THE REFORMATION. 6 1 
 
 ecclesiastical, and even of the whole spiritual life which we 
 call the Eeformation. As our historical exposition is to begin 
 in detail from this point, it only remains for us to close our 
 introduction * by a glance over the division and arrangement 
 which may be best given to our material. 
 
 And, in the first place, it may be remarked that we have 
 almost completely to look away from the Catholic Church. In 
 the Council of Trent the position of that Church was so 
 based upon the principle of authority, that no room remained 
 for that freedom of thought which the Philosophy of Eeligion 
 from its essential nature cannot dispense with. The few 
 isolated attempts which have been made within the Eoman 
 Church in this direction, have only resulted from the influence 
 of certain philosophical systems that grew up on Protestant 
 soil, and they have therefore to be discussed in connection 
 with these systems. Even the Mysticism in the Catholic 
 Church since the Eeformation has been far more inclined to 
 quietism than to speculation. 
 
 The progress of philosophy which has taken place has been 
 made entirely within the range of Protestantism, and that 
 progress has been not a little influenced by its liberation of the 
 individual. The appearance of Kant forms such a decisive 
 turning-point in philosophy, that it is antecedently probable 
 that the Philosophy of Eeligion before and after Kant will 
 show an entirely different character. The following exposi- 
 tion will confirm this and justify it, so that we will consider 
 the period before Kant in the first Book, and Kant and the 
 period after him in the second. The Period before Kant may 
 be again divided into two periods. The question regarding 
 revelation, so important in relation to the application of 
 
 1 This introductory survey of the history of the subject in the Ancient Church 
 and the Middle Ages does not claim to present anything new, and it rests only 
 in part, at least as regards the Middle Ages, on special knowledge of the sources. 
 Along with a number of other works, the following may be referred to : Huber, 
 Die Philosophic der Kirch envater, Munchen 1859. H. Reuter, Geschichte der 
 religiosen Aufklarung im Mittelalter, 2 Bde. Berlin 1875-7. W. Gass, Gen- 
 nadius u. Pletho, 1844. F. Schultze, Georgios Gemistos Plethon, 1874. G. 
 Draydorff, Das System des Johannes Pico, 1858. D. F. Strauss, Ulrich von 
 Hutten, 1 Bd. 1858. 
 
62 INTRODUCTORY SURVEY DOWN TO THE REFORMATION. 
 
 thought to religion, is not closely examined by the early 
 Protestant Church. But this question is taken up afterwards, 
 and then developments become possible, such as the English 
 Deism, the French Materialism, the Philosophy of Des 
 Cartes, Spinoza, and Leibnitz, the movement of the German 
 Enlightenment, and the superseding of it by Lessing and 
 Herder, Hamann and Jacobi. In the first centuries of the 
 Protestant Church we likewise find attempts at independent 
 speculation ; but springing mostly up within the Catholic 
 Church they gain little influence. Besides these, we have 
 to consider the character of the doctrine of the Protestant 
 Church, the manifold oppositions directed against the Church, 
 and the scholastic cultivation of philosophy. The contents of 
 the several Sections in our History of the Period before Kant- 
 are thus briefly indicated. 
 
BOOK I. 
 
 HISTOEY OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION 
 FROM THE REFORMATION TO KANT. 
 
SECTION FIKST. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 THE introductory survey has already shown us Philosophy 
 in a state of profound fermentation. The authority of 
 Aristotle, after having ruled all science for centuries, was now 
 accepted only by a small band of followers. At the same 
 time almost all the systems of the ancients were renewed, 
 and even the mysterious wisdom of the Kabbala found 
 enthusiastic disciples. None of these attempts exhibits much 
 that is new or independent, and not one of them gained lasting 
 recognition. More importance must undoubtedly be attached 
 to a series of productions which we must now consider. 
 At their head stand the works of Nicolaus Cusanus, the learned 
 Bishop of Brixen. Although belonging to the fifteenth 
 century, he comes under our consideration more properly in 
 this period, because he undoubtedly formed a turning-point 
 in the philosophical inquiry of that time. Writing in obscure 
 and difficult language, and full of new verbal forms and bold 
 constructions, he puts forth laborious efforts to embody his 
 thoughts in words. In his matter, Cusanus unites in himself, 
 as in a focus, the thoughts of the Mediaeval Scholasticism in 
 their fruit, and the problems of Modern Speculation in their 
 germ. Metaphysical thought receives a new impulse from 
 Nicolaus, and the Platonic element exerts an important 
 influence on speculation. On the other hand, Telesius and 
 Cardanus founded a distinctive philosophy of Nature. It is 
 true that this Natural Philosophy, in default of exact individual 
 observation, still operates with certain universal principles, 
 but it at least directs attention to the processes in Nature, 
 and thus gives a new direction to thought. The influence 
 both of the metaphysics of Cusanus and of the natural 
 VOL. i. E 
 
66 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 philosophy of Telesius, is shown in the writings of Giordano 
 Bruno, Thomas Campanella, Franciscus Patricius, and Julius 
 Caesar Vanini. All these men worked in Italy (Cusanus also 
 living latterly at Eome), and Italy was most powerfully 
 affected by the new scientific movement. Unfortunately, I 
 am not in a position to say anything definite about the extent 
 to which their views were spread ; I cannot even find evidence 
 in detail for the natural conjecture that this philosophical 
 movement was essentially connected with the strivings after 
 religious reform. 1 An isolated position is held by Peter 
 Eamus and also by Nicolaus Taurellus, the former working at 
 Paris, the latter at Altorf. The two are at one in carrying 
 on a violent opposition to Aristotle, but Eamus aims at 
 vitalizing the purely formal and schematic Dialectics of the 
 time by connecting them with Ehetoric, while Taurellus 
 aims at making Philosophy the servant of Theology, as, 
 like the Law, it inclines us to the believing acceptance of the 
 Gospel. Eamus alone gained numerous adherents and lasting 
 influence. 
 
 I. 
 
 NICOLAUS CUSANUS (1401-1464). 
 
 Nicolaus Chrypffs or Krebs was born in the first year of 
 the fifteenth century at Kues (Cusa), a village on the Moselle. 
 His life began amid rustic surroundings, and almost in 
 circumstances of poverty. His brilliant spiritual gifts, how- 
 ever, made him rise rapidly into high position in the service 
 of the Church. At the Council of Basle, he already attempts, 
 by his " concordantia catholica" to co-operate in the generally 
 desired "reform of Head and members," not merely of the 
 
 1 Unfortunately the historians of Philosophy have hitherto greatly neglected 
 this movement, and we have as yet no adequate representation of the lives and 
 doctrines of these men. We may refer to Rixner and Siber's Beitrage zur 
 Oeschichte der Physiologic, 7 Hefte, Sulzbach 1819-26, but their exposition is 
 quite insufficient. M. Carriere's Die philosophische Weltanschauung der Refor- 
 mationszeit, 1847, in spite of great excellences, is unreliable, as the author too 
 frequently introduces his own Hegelian philosophy into the earlier systems. 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 67 
 
 Church, but likewise also of the Empire, entirely after the 
 idea of Gerson. Afterwards joining the party of Eugenius IV., 
 Nicolaus took part in the embassy to Constantinople, which 
 introduced the negotiations about union. We next find 
 him in his priestly office at Coblenz, where he performed 
 distinguished service, especially as a preacher. In 1448, 
 having been made a Cardinal, he completed the revision and 
 reorganization of the monasteries of Germany; and in 1450 
 he received the Bishopric of Brixen. After having devoted 
 himself in this office, with rare zeal, to the practical improve- 
 ment of the relations of the Church, he spent the last years 
 of his life in Eome. But although thus busily occupied with 
 the affairs of the Empire and the Church, Nicolaus always 
 found time to devote himself to the enjoyment of the work 
 of speculative thought. 1 
 
 Intimately acquainted with the achievements of former 
 thinkers, Nicolaus does not attach himself slavishly to any of 
 them ; but freely examining into what may be correct in their 
 productions, he emphatically claims freedom from all authority. 
 In the character of an " Idiotes" Nicolaus presents a man of 
 so-called common sense objecting to a "pedant " puffed up 
 with book-learning, in these terms : " You are a horse which, 
 although free by nature, is tied to its manger, where it eats 
 nothing but what is put before it. Your mind, tied to 
 authority, is nourished on strange nutriment that is not natural: 
 for, doth not Wisdom cry ? and Understanding put forth her 
 voice ? She standeth in the top of high places ; she crieth 
 at the gates, Unto you, men, I call ; and my voice is to the 
 sons of men ! (Prov. viii. 1). We do not attain to knowledge 
 by the books of men, but by the books of God, which He has 
 written with His own finger, and which are found everywhere." 
 In like manner, he says in his Sermons, that in order to 
 
 1 The Basle Edition of the works of Cusa (1565) has numerous misleading 
 errors. The Paris Edition of 1514 is much more correct. Many works have 
 been written on Cusa, and mention may particularly be made of F. A. Scharpfl's 
 Der Cardinal und Bischof Nicolaus von Cusa ah Reformator in Kirche, Reich 
 itnd Philosophic des 15 Jahrhunderts, Tubingen 1871. But a complete and 
 adequate exposition of his system is still a desideratum. 
 
68 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 attain knowledge "we do not need to take books into our 
 hands ; their number is without end, and they would lead us 
 only to unbounded vanity. Bather let every one imagine 
 that he is an Adam and alone upon the world, and let him 
 consider only the world in itself." Cusanus is accustomed to 
 designate philosophy proper as a learned ignorance, docta 
 ignorantia. This, however, does not mean a thoroughgoing 
 scepticism and despair of knowledge, but a mode of knowing 
 which is conscious that precise cognition is impossible, and 
 which, on the ground of this principle, seeks to attain an 
 approximative or conjectural knowledge (de conjecturis). 
 
 We shall consider, in the first place, the metaphysical views 
 of the learned Cardinal, and then his attempts at a historico- 
 psychological explanation of Eeligion. On the whole, we will 
 find between these two sides of his doctrine a wonderful 
 congruence, although certainly not a complete unity ; but who 
 would require from a man of the fifteenth century what is 
 even now hardly ever attained ? His metaphysical statements, 
 however, may be grouped most simply in the order which the 
 author himself observes in his Docta Ignorantia. We shall 
 therefore consider, first, his doctrine regarding God, in so far 
 as He transcends reason ; then his theory of the world, in so 
 far as all that is, is through God ; and, lastly, his view of 
 Christ, in so far as He completes the whole system by 
 mediating between God and the world. 
 
 1. According to Nicolaus, it is superfluous to prove the 
 existence of God. The finite and limited necessarily presupposes 
 something from which it has its beginning and limitation ; 
 and thus finite being is only possible if there is a something 
 limiting and grounding it. The mind has absolute certainty 
 of an absolute Unity, because it exists entirely in this Unity, 
 and is active by it. The mind cannot raise a question which 
 does not already presuppose this Unity. The question as to 
 whether it is, already presupposes its being. The question as 
 to what it is, presupposes its essence. The question as to 
 why it is, presupposes it as the ground of all things. And 
 the question as to what is its goal, presupposes it as the goal 
 

 NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 69 
 
 of all things. What is thus presupposed in all doubt, must 
 be the most certain of all things. The question regarding 
 the cognition of God is not so simply resolved. Various 
 ways lead to it, and yet the reality of it as knowledge is 
 again denied. Finite sensible things are effectuated by God ; 
 every effect is to a certain degree like its cause ; and hence 
 earthly things are signs and symbols for bringing the incon- 
 ceivable God nearer to us. This is the basis of his so-called 
 Symbolical Theology. Thus the absolute Seeing of God, which 
 is at once universal and particular, is illustrated by a picture 
 whose look is continually directed to the beholder in the 
 same way, whatever position he may take up towards it. 
 The Eternity of God is symbolized by the image of the dial on 
 which all the hours are continually present, and yet each one of 
 them is only indicated at a particular moment of time. The 
 Causality of God in His relation to the creature, is seen by 
 the image of light, which without itself being a colour yet 
 makes all the different colours arise out of itself. Ear more 
 striking and appropriate symbols are, however, presented by 
 Mathematics ; for while the forms of sense are presented in a 
 state of constant change, the abstract elements of mathematics 
 have great stedfastness and certainty. Hence, after the 
 example of the greatest of the earlier philosophers, Cusanus 
 embodies the theory of numbers in his system. God appears 
 as the absolute Unity, which is at the same time the 
 absolutely greatest and the absolutely least. And still more 
 do geometrical figures serve to make the absolute conceivable, 
 at least approximately. But in this connection, reference 
 is expressly made to the condition that we must transfer the 
 relations of finite figures not merely to infinite relations, but 
 even to the absolutely Infinite itself, which is without figure. 
 Thus God appears under the image of the infinite straight 
 line, of the infinite triangle, of the infinite circle, and of the 
 infinite sphere. Such a merely symbolical denotation of 
 God is, however, not sufficient for us ; the worship of God 
 in spirit and in truth necessarily demands positive expressions 
 regarding God. This Affirmative Theology must start from 
 
70 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 the contemplation of finite earthly things, and this contempla- 
 tion is justified inasmuch as the world is the representation 
 and the work of God. Positive names are assigned to God 
 in all His relations to the creatures. He is called " Life " in 
 so far as He is the cause of all life, and " Creator " in so 
 far as He creates all things. But it is an error to hold that 
 the attributes thus attained are real distinctions in God, 
 or to believe that the Divine Nature in itself can be thus 
 determined. In order that God may not be honoured as a 
 mere creature, our contemplation of Him must necessarily be 
 justified by the Negative Theology. God is ineffable, because 
 He is greater than everything which can be named ; and 
 hence we think of Him more correctly by the way of 
 exclusion and negation, as Dionysius, Solomon, and all the 
 Philosophers have done. To this Negative Theology, God is 
 nothing but infinity. Yet, according to Cusanus, Infinity is 
 not a negative or entirely empty notion ; but because finite 
 being is continually limited and is therefore not-being, negation 
 primarily applies to the finite, as finiteness is not-being, and 
 God as the infinite one, is thus the true, positive, highest 
 Being. Yet our philosopher will not stop even here, but 
 aims at rising by means of the Mystical Theology to a know- 
 ledge of the essential nature of God. 
 
 We know the essence of God only by the help of the idea 
 of the Coincidence of Opposites or Contradictories. Mcolaus 
 himself confesses that on his return from Greece he received 
 the principle of the coincidence of contradictories like a 
 revelation, through the grace which is from above, from the 
 Father of lights from whom cometh every good and perfect 
 gift. This principle is the key to the solution of all difficult 
 questions, "for the whole striving of our mind must be 
 directed with all earnestness to rise to that simplicity in 
 which contradictories coincide." This principle is diamet- 
 rically opposed to the principle which the understanding 
 maintains as its highest rule, namely, the Law of Contradic- 
 tion or the incompatibility of opposites ; and whoever adopts 
 this principle as the starting-point of his speculation, enters 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 71 
 
 thereby into direct antagonism with the scholasticism of the 
 understanding. 
 
 God is the infinite being ; He is therefore the absolutely 
 greatest being. As the absolutely greatest, He is all that 
 can be ; He cannot therefore be less than He is, and He is 
 thus also the absolutely least. In God then the greatest and 
 the least coincide, and God is elevated above all contradictions. 
 Contradictions and opposites occur only in the sphere of the 
 concrete, and not in what is absolutely greatest. This 
 absolute is therefore above all affirmation and negation. 
 All that it is according to our conceptions, such it is even 
 as it is not such ; and conversely. It is as the individual 
 in the same way in which it is likewise All ; and it is 
 All in the same way that it is nothing of all; and it is 
 this in the way that it is also least this. If I say that God 
 is light, this means nothing else than that God is most " light," 
 even He who is least "light." Nay more, even the most 
 general expressions, such as " substance " or " being," are not 
 applicable to God, because they involve a contradiction in the 
 implied ideas of " accident " and " not-being," which does not 
 pertain to God in the common way, or even does not pertain 
 to Him at all. This is the reason why neither Affirmation 
 nor Negation can reach the essence of God ; they both move 
 in the sphere of contradictions and opposites ; an affirmation 
 is opposed to a negation, and a negation to an affirmation. 
 The truest conception of God is therefore not such as affirms 
 both contradictories on the ground that even the contradictory 
 coincides in Him, such as that God is being and not-being, 
 or light and darkness ; but the real conception is that which 
 rejects both contradictories, at once disjunctively and copu- 
 latively. Hence the best answer to the question as to whether 
 God is, is this : that He neither is nor not-is, and that He 
 is not " is and not-is." But even this is only conjecture. 
 
 As the infinite, God is at the same time Unity. The 
 consideration of number leads to this ; for in number there is 
 not an absolutely greatest, but there is a least, which is unity. 
 God is thus at once the greatest and the least ; He is the 
 
72 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 absolute unity. God is likewise threefoldness, and He is 
 therefore triune ; He is unity as naturally prior to alterity, 
 equality as prior to inequality, and connection as prior to 
 separation. Equality proceeds out of unity by generation, 
 that is, by a repetition of the same nature. The arising of 
 connection implies procession. The teachers of the Church 
 called this unity the Father, this equality the Son, this con- 
 nection the Holy Spirit ; but like all the names of God, these 
 are also borrowed from human relations. Nor is this the only 
 definition of the divine trinity ; it is also represented as 
 follows. As intelligence, God is the subject knowing, the 
 object known, and the process of being known, in one. As 
 love, God is the loving Love, the loveworthy Love, and the 
 interunion of both. As the Creative Ground of all existence, 
 God is the capability of producing, the capability of becoming, 
 and the capability of having become, in one ; or He is the 
 absolute possibility, actuality, and the union of both. The view 
 that the oneness and threefoldness in God is of a mathematical 
 kind, is expressly repudiated ; it is a mode of life, and without 
 this triune life in God there is no eternal joy or supreme 
 perfection. As all finite things form a representative image of 
 God, they likewise bear in themselves this threefold oneness 
 representatively. From the Father they have being ; from the 
 Son, power ; and from the Spirit, activity. 
 
 God is thus in His essence the coincidence of all opposites. 
 He is the absolute unity in which the Greatest and Least, 
 Being and Not-being, Past, Present and Future, Being and 
 Becoming entirely coincide. But He is not this as being 
 absolutely void and empty, but as including everything in 
 Himself. In finite things, what constitutes their being 
 bestows upon one thing this being and on another that being ; 
 and all this is also in God, only not yet as individualized 
 opposition. God is really all that of which the possibility of 
 being can be expressed ; for nothing can be which is not God. 
 God is thus really all that is possible ; He is everything 
 complicite. All that in any way is or can be, everything that 
 is produced or is still to be produced, is contained in God as 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 73 
 
 its ground. Substances, qualities, and such like are God in 
 God ; just as when they are unfolded as creatures, they are 
 the world. Hence God is most appropriately designated as 
 "possest" that is, as potentiality and being. When God, there- 
 fore, in the beginning, wished to reveal the knowledge of 
 Himself, He said : " I am the God who is able to be everything," 
 that is, He is the actuality of all possibility. This name 
 carries us above all the knowledge of the senses, of the under- 
 standing and of the reason, to that mystical intuition which 
 is the end of all ascending knowledge, and the beginning of 
 all revelation of the unknown God. At this point we come 
 to the view given by Cusanus of the finite world and its 
 i elation to God as its absolute archetype and its infinite cause. 
 2. As infinite cause, God is the ultimate ground and Creator 
 of all finite things. He is the absolute possibility of becoming; 
 nor is He merely this, but He is also the possibility of pro- 
 ducing or making to be, which necessarily precedes becoming. 
 He is thus the absolutely active principle. Further, there is 
 no eternal matter out of which the world could be formed. 
 It is true that the world appears to be mixed up of oneness 
 and otherness, or of being and not-being ; and most of the 
 expressions used make the not-being, as hetereity or darkness, 
 appear to be something that exists by itself out of and in- 
 dependent of God. Thus it is said we have to think of the 
 universe and all the worlds as formed from a unity and a 
 hetereity that pass into one another. This unity is repre- 
 sented as an animating and formative light ; the hetereity as 
 a shadow and regression from the first and simplest mode of 
 being, and as material condensation. The universe then 
 appears under the image of two pyramids of light and of 
 darkness blending into one another. Or again, the not-being 
 is represented as without ground in itself, and as having a 
 purely contingent connection with finite things. Creaturely 
 being, says Cusa, has from God its being but not its finiteness. 
 From God the creature has the characteristics of being one, 
 distinct, and yet connected with the universe. But the fact 
 that its unity is found in plurality, its distinctness in con- 
 
74 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 fusion, and its connection in disharmony, is not in it from 
 God nor from any other positive cause, but is purely contingent 
 (contingenter ex contingenti). Hence the being of finite creatures 
 is utterly inconceivable, although they are regarded as, in a 
 manner, a mixture of absolute necessity and contingency. It 
 is to be admitted that Nicolaus, in opposition to this, expresses 
 only in an isolated way the thought that even not-being is 
 contained in the infinite possibility, or in the "possest" and that, 
 in God, not-being is all-being. Yet the opinion is decidedly 
 to be rejected which holds that there lies at the ground of 
 finite things any other being than God, whether as active or 
 as passive principle. God is rather the sole ground of all 
 existence, the creator of all finite things, He who has brought 
 them out of nothing into being. To Him are referred the 
 three productive principles of the ancient philosophers, matter, 
 form, and motion. Their eternal matter points to Him as 
 the eternal possibility of making and becoming ; their form 
 points to Him as the form of all forms, the nature of all 
 natures ; their motion points to Him as the original source of 
 all force, and as at once absolute motion and rest. Thus it 
 appears that Cusa's conception of the Creative Cause is strongly 
 influenced ~by the conception of the archetypal or ideal form. 
 
 Nicolaus usually indicates the relation of God to the 
 world by this formula : " the absolute unity is the totality of 
 all things, or their complicatio, while the finite creation is the 
 evolution of all things, or their explicatio" This expression 
 along with some others has brought upon our philosopher the 
 reproach of pantheism, and yet they are only traces of his 
 struggling with language. Looked at more precisely, he has 
 with all decisiveness repudiated all the views which were 
 afterwards branded with this name, such as that which holds 
 that all things are God. He also rejects every form of 
 emanation, whether it is conceived mediately or immediately ; 
 and all the attempts which he makes to bring the essentially 
 inconceivable How of the origin of the world as near as 
 possible to us, rest upon the fundamental view of a creation. 
 " If you consider things without God, then they are nothing, 
 
KICOLAUS OF CUSA. 75 
 
 as number is nothing without unity; if you consider God 
 without things, then He is and they are nothing." God is the 
 complicatio, the comprehending whole; the world is the 
 explicatio, or the unfolding of all. This is made more distinct 
 by some examples. Thus the point is the unity, as the com- 
 prehension or the complication of quantity ; hence there is in 
 the line, the surface, and the solid body nothing but the point. 
 Rest is the conception of motion in its unity, and hence motion is 
 the unfolding of rest. The mathematical symbols particularly 
 illustrate this. As the infinite straight line forms at the same 
 time the curved line, and the circle, and the triangle, and the 
 sphere, so is God the ground and the measure of all things. 
 According to the analogy of the infinite circle, God is in 
 everything as its centre ; He embraces all things as their 
 periphery, and He penetrates all things as their diameter. As 
 centre, He is the beginning of all ; as periphery, He is the end 
 of all ; as diameter, He is the middle of all. As centre, He is 
 the producing cause or creator ; as periphery, He is the final 
 cause or the preserver ; as diameter, He is the forming cause or 
 the governor. Nevertheless, the mode and the manner of this 
 process of embracing things in Himself, and of unfolding 
 things out of Himself, goes beyond our understanding. 
 
 As the pure faculty of seeing embraces in itself in un- 
 divided unity the acts of seeing here and there, near and 
 far, distinctly and indistinctly, so does God as the coincidence 
 of all opposites, and as the undifferentiated identity of the 
 absolute unity, include all finite being in Himself. In so far 
 as finite things are, they are from God ; they would not be, 
 and could not be, if they did not participate in the divine 
 being. Further, a cause cannot bring forth an effect which is 
 not essentially similar to itself, and the same cause must effect 
 the same thing in everything. Hence Nicolaus can say that 
 God is in the sun, in the moon, and in all things, but not in 
 so far as they are this or that determinate thing, or a parti- 
 cular object distinguished from other objects, but in so far 
 merely as they are, and are all identical with one another. 
 Again, He is not in them as the matter lying at the ground of 
 
"76 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 all things, nor yet merely as the power working in all things, 
 but as the one being in which all participate, and as the unity 
 which finds itself as such in spite of -all plurality and hetereity. 
 Hence he can say that God through all is in all, and that 
 all is through all in God, and that all is in all and every- 
 thing in everything. That is to say, there is only one being, 
 which is God ; this being is in all things, and therefore God 
 is in all things, and they are in God ; and hence all things 
 are one and the same. But they participate in a different 
 way in the one being, and therefore they are thus different. 
 
 On this position rests the fact that the world is an organism. 
 It is an ordered cosmos. The world consists of many finite 
 things which are wholly different from one another. They 
 differ so much from one another, that there cannot be found 
 two things or motions or such like that are completely 
 identical with one another. Nevertheless they form a unity, 
 since all things participate in one and the same unity, which 
 is God as the sum of all essence ; and they are different only 
 on account of the different degree of their participation therein. 
 Hence results the distinction of substance and accident, and 
 the greater or less value of substances and accidents. But 
 in this diversity there is also harmony and order, for in a 
 continuous series of gradations all finite things range them- 
 selves in connection with one another, from the lowest degree 
 of imperfection up to the highest degree of perfection, so that 
 the highest being of the lower order always coincides with the 
 lowest being of the next higher order. 
 
 But God does not enter immediately into finite existence, nor 
 do finite things immediately participate in God. As in the 
 sphere of numbers unity unfolds itself only by means of the 
 quaternary into numerical fulness, so likewise is it with 
 God. God is the first and the absolute unity. The second 
 unity is the Universe, which is the concrete unity, and only 
 through it is God in things, and do things participate in God. 
 God is the absolutely greatest ; He is the absolute maximum ; 
 and therefore He is negatively infinite, that is, He alone is 
 that which can exist in omnipotent fulness. The universe is 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 77 
 
 the concretely greatest ; it is a concrete maximum ; and there- 
 fore it is privatively infinite, that is, it is without limits, and 
 so it is the greatest possible imitation of God. The universe 
 came into existence by simple emanation of the concrete 
 maximum from the absolute maximum. The universe is like- 
 wise a unity, but a concrete unity. It is the Infinite 
 limited, the Simple compounded, the Eternal in succession ; 
 it is necessity limited by possibility. The opposites do not 
 precede it but arise along with it, and they are contained in 
 it undivided and unresolved. The universe is likewise triune, 
 but it is so only in the concrete ; that is, its unity subsists 
 only in trinity, as the whole in its parts. It consists of what 
 is capable of concreteness (contrahibile), of what makes con- 
 creteness (contrahens), and of the connection between them 
 (nexus). The Universe, as the second unity, unfolds the first 
 or absolute unity in the concrete form of the decade, that is, 
 in the totality of ten highest Universalities. 
 
 Thereby the Universe passes over into the third unity, 
 which is called the Quadrate. Here arise the genera and 
 species which are the ideas of things or the forms of the 
 world of Nature. How these arise through God, the pure 
 Spirit, is illustrated by images, such as the teaching of a 
 scholar by speech, and especially by the making of glass from 
 a glowing mass by means of blowing. The Word of God, by 
 which He creates all things, is the fulness and comprehension 
 of all ideas. As independent existences they are the 
 universals which, according to the order of nature, are before 
 things. They have concrete reality only in things ; and, in so 
 far as we abstract from things in the process of knowledge, 
 they are conceptions of the understanding. The fourth unity, 
 corresponding to the cube, is constituted by individual things. 
 The four Unities are God, Eeason, Soul, Body. To these four 
 unities correspond four Modalities of being : (1) Things as in 
 God in absolute necessity, (2) as in the universe as true 
 images, (3) as in the genera and species as forming the deter- 
 minate possibility of being this or that in reality, (4) as in 
 finite things by way of pure possibility. Hence arises the 
 
78 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 distinction of the three Worlds : (1) The highest "World with 
 God as its centre, (2) the middle World with reason as its 
 centre, and (3) the lowest World with the understanding as 
 its centre. The sphere of sense is the dense rind stretching 
 around the third world. To it corresponds our Faculty of 
 Cognition, which includes the Senses, the Understanding, the 
 Reason, and immediate Intuition. Everything is in the first 
 world, everything is in the second world, and everything is in 
 the third world, but in each world in a particular way. A 
 thing is in the first world in its Truth, in the second world in a 
 more distant Resemblance, in the third world in a most distant 
 shadowy Image. Hence we know everything either divinely, 
 as it is the truth ; or rationally, as it is, not the truth indeed, 
 but true ; or psychically, as it is probable ; or corporeally, 
 when instead of probability it presents confusedness. 
 
 3. God and the World find their reciprocal mediation in the 
 Person of Christ. In the universe as the concrete unity there 
 are, between the greatest and the least, always greater or less 
 degrees of concrete being, but these are not infinitely many. 
 Hence, in the concrete, there is no ascending to the absolutely 
 greatest, nor descending to the absolutely least. The universe 
 therefore does not reach the highest degree of the absolutely 
 greatest, nor does it exhaust the infinite, absolutely greatest 
 power of God. If we were to think of the greatest as 
 existing concretely and really in a determinate species, it 
 would be in reality all that lies in the whole possibility of 
 that species ; it would be really its highest possible perfection. 
 Such a maximum in the concrete would pass beyond the whole 
 nature of the concrete, and be its culmination ; it would not 
 be merely and purely concrete, but would be at once God and 
 Creature, absolutely and concretely, in a concreteness which 
 would have no existence of itself unless it rested in the 
 absolute maximum. Such a union would imply that what is 
 thus united in maintaining the character of concreteness, is 
 the concrete and produced perfection of a determinate species ; 
 and at the same time, in consequence of the hypostatical 
 union, it is God and all. Such a union would certainly 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 79 
 
 far transcend our understanding. It is not a unification of 
 contradictories, nor a combination of two things which were 
 formerly separated, nor a combination of parts into a whole, 
 nor a combination of form with matter ; but it is more 
 sublime than all thinkable unions. This concrete maximum 
 is to be thought as God, but so that it is at the same time to 
 be regarded as a creature, and to be so regarded as a creature 
 that it is at the same time to be viewed as the creator, being 
 both creature and creator without intermixture or composition. 
 Now it is manifest that that being could first unite with the 
 absolute which has most relationship with the totality of 
 being. This is Man, who, as the connecting member and centre 
 of the lower and the higher nature, and as the microcosm, is the 
 most fitted of all beings for elevation into the absolute unity 
 of God. Man in such elevation would be the Son of God, or 
 the Word through which everything is made ; He would be 
 the identity of being itself, without, however, ceasing to be Son 
 of man and man. This Man would be the goal and the end 
 of the creation, being before all things, and He through whom 
 and for whom all things exist. And since, without this union, 
 nothing can attain to higher perfection, it undoubtedly is 
 established as real on rational grounds. The First-born of 
 the creation, who existed before all time and before all things 
 with God, has appeared in the fulness of time in the person of 
 Jesus. 
 
 In Him we have the completion of all things, redemption 
 and forgiveness of sins. God is all in unity with the greatest 
 humanity in Jesus, without change of His essence in the 
 identity of being. The eternal Father and the Holy Spirit 
 are in Jesus ; and everything is in Him as in the Word. The 
 greatest humanity can neither be begotten in the natural way, 
 nor be entirely without participation in the nature of man ; 
 and hence it is conceived from the Holy Ghost and born of 
 the Virgin. The voluntary and undeserved death of Christ 
 on the cross as the man who alone was free from carnal 
 desires, served as a satisfaction and purification for all the 
 carnal desires of human nature. The perfect humanity in 
 
80 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 Christ has accordingly made up and completed the defective- 
 ness of all men. Christ died, yet not so that in the moment 
 of death His soul or body was separated from the divine 
 person ; in respect of the centre on which His humanity 
 rested, He remained hypostatically united with the Deity. 
 And thus Christ arose in a true, glorified, unsuffering, moveable, 
 and immortal body, in order that human nature might also rise 
 to eternal life, and that the animal and mortal body might 
 become a spiritual and indestructible body. So Jesus is the 
 mediation between God and man, the centre and at the same 
 time the completion of the whole creation. 
 
 Let us now see how, on the basis of these metaphysical 
 conceptions, Nicolaus gave form to his general view of Religion. 
 Man, as the connecting link between the purely spiritual and 
 the sensible, is a synthesis of spirit and body, which are 
 connected with one another by the soul. The Spirit is 
 immediately created by God; it is a divine seed implanted in 
 the body ; it is a substance to which movement is essential ; 
 it is the living image and reflection of God ; and hence it is 
 immortal. As our corporeal nature requires material nutriment, 
 so does our spiritual nature require spiritual nutriment. This 
 spiritual nutriment is Truth, which the spirit lays hold 
 of with eagerness. Wisdom is the immortal food which 
 immortally nourishes the spirit. This wisdom shines forth 
 from various relations, and the spirit seeks it chiefly in the 
 knowledge of God. The knowledge of the truth is a relishable 
 spirit-refreshing mode of knowing; it is realized in tasting 
 the divine love ; and it is the life and the nourishment of the 
 spirit. The rational motion within us would know the ground 
 of its life, and it finds immortal nourishment in this knowledge 
 
 o 
 
 by nourishing itself from the supreme source of its being. 
 This occupation of the mind with the spiritual and eternal, 
 this investigation of truth, is the inner essence of religion ; 
 and so Cusa identifies those who are contemplative with 
 those who are religious. 
 
 Elsewhere, Eeligion is referred to the human striving after 
 happiness. Every religion, he says, aims at happiness. " In 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 81 
 
 this there is no deception, because this hope by an inborn 
 desire is common to all ; and consequently religion, which is 
 the fruit of this hope, is in like manner innate in all." The 
 two points of view, however, coincide. The desire of wisdom 
 is the same as the desire of happiness ; for knowledge is 
 happiness, and it is so because it is union with God. God is 
 Eeason, as the knowing Eeason, the knowable Eeason, and the 
 combination of the two ; and hence the created reason can 
 attain in the knowable God to union with Him and so to 
 happiness. In like manner, the created loving Will can 
 realize a union with the God of love, and so realize happiness. 
 It is only because God is lovable and spiritually apprehensible 
 that man can become united with Him. This union, from its 
 inwardness and stedfastness, obtains the name of filiation or 
 sonship. This sonship is the highest happiness and perfection. 
 The essence of Religion is therefore the knowledge of God and the 
 happiness arising from that "knowledge in union with Him. This 
 contains what is common to all Eeligions, and at the same 
 time the diversity of their knowledge forms the ground of 
 their diversity as religions. 
 
 The essential agreement of all the Eeligions rests on the fact 
 that most of the founders of these religions sought to express 
 the eternal Word in their religious systems ; and thus the 
 several religious systems are so many expressions (guasdam 
 locutiones) of the Word of God or the eternal Eeason. This 
 is the fundamental thought of the remarkable work entitled 
 De pace sive concordantia fidei dialogus. Grieved by the horrors 
 which had been practised from religious zeal on the taking 
 of Constantinople, a devout man sees himself raised in the 
 spirit to the heavenly Council, where the departed souls, 
 under the presidency of the Almighty, resolve upon a union of 
 their religions in order that a permanent religious peace may 
 prevail, and this is grounded on the agreement found among 
 them in spite of all their differences. The highest of the 
 Angels, in an address to God, expresses himself as follows : 
 " All that the creature possesses has been given to it by God ; 
 its body formed with so much art as well as the rational. 
 
 VOL. I. F 
 
82 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 spirit which can rise in knowledge to God and become united 
 with Him in love. A great multitude, however, cannot exist 
 without producing diversity. Besides, only a few have the 
 leisure required for seeking after God by independent inquiry. 
 Hence God sent, at sundry times, various prophets and kings, 
 who instructed the ignorant people and instituted religions. 
 The people honoured their laws as if God Himself had given 
 them; and as they are wont to hold fast by a custom when it 
 has become a second nature, as if it were the truth, there arose 
 disunion between the various religious communities." " It is 
 on account of Thee, whom they alone worship in what they all 
 adore, that this rivalry consists. Each strives, in what he 
 seems to strive after, only to realize the good which is in 
 Thee. Thou, who art the Dispenser of being and life, art 
 therefore He who is sought in the different religions in 
 different ways and designated with different names, because 
 Thy true being is to all unknown and unutterable." It is 
 because there is no proportion between the finite and the 
 infinite that the creature is not capable of knowing God, and 
 only a revelation can bring him to see " that in the diversity 
 of the religious practices there is only One Eeligion." "If this 
 diversity of practice cannot be done away with, or if it be not 
 advantageous to do so, in as far as the diversity effects a 
 heightening of the honour of God owing to the zeal manifested 
 by the several countries, yet as Thou art One, so may there 
 exist one religion and one worship." 
 
 An intelligent representative of every nation is raised to 
 heaven to take part in the Dialogue, and its aim is to reduce 
 all religious differences, in consequence of a universal agree- 
 ment, to one religion. This aim is more precisely determined 
 as the reduction of the diversity of the Religions to the one 
 orthodox Faith. The Word opens the discussion. The 
 dialogue proceeds with a Greek and an Italian ; and the one 
 of them says that everything is created in wisdom, and the 
 other that everything is created in the Word. It is then 
 pointed out that they say the same thing ; for the Word of the 
 Creator by which He created all things, can only be His 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 83 
 
 wisdom. To the Arabian interlocutor it is shown that even 
 polytheists and monotheists are fundamentally at one, since 
 even the former assert one deity in which their many gods 
 only participate. The Indian learns that images and statues 
 of gods are in place as illustrative representations of God, but 
 not as objects of worship. The Chaldean, the Jew, the 
 Scythian, and the Gaul accept the Trinity in the form of 
 unity, equality, and connection, as a designation of the 
 creative fertility. Peter then explains the Christological 
 doctrines in dialogue with a Persian, a Syrian, a Spaniard, a 
 Turk, and a German. That the Word has become flesh, that 
 human nature is thus indissolubly attached to the divine 
 nature, and subsists in it alone without either of them being 
 changed, is not incompatible with the unity or the immuta- 
 bility of God. The striving after happiness is common to all 
 religions ; and this happiness is constituted by the union of 
 human life with its source, which is the divine immortal life. 
 This striving presupposes that the common human nature has 
 been raised in one person to this union with God, in order 
 that this person may become the medium to all men of the 
 ultimate goal of their longing. The universal belief that some 
 saints at least have reached eternal happiness everywhere, 
 presupposes these positions even among those who deny 
 Christ's death, resurrection, and ascension. While the Jews 
 hope for earthly goods, the Mohammedans for sensuous enjoy- 
 ments, and the Christians for spiritual bliss, they all agree in 
 wishing a happiness which goes beyond everything that can 
 be described or expressed, because it consists in the fulfilment 
 of every longing, in the enjoyment of the good at its source, 
 and in the attainment of the immortal life. The more 
 external questions of religious worship and of the Christian 
 life are explained in a discussion between the Tartar, the 
 Armenian, the Bohemian, the Englishman, and Paul. Paul 
 mainly sets up the principle that it is not works but only 
 faith that justifies, and yet that faith without works is dead ; 
 he then seeks to establish the Koman conception of the 
 sacraments, and finally counsels his hearers not to let the 
 
84 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 unity of the faith be disturbed by the diversity of worship 
 and of ceremonies. On this basis the union of the religions 
 is concluded in the heaven of reason, and the commission is 
 given to the wise to guide their nations towards the unity of 
 the true worship. 
 
 Another work of his, entitled Zte CribrationeAlc7ioran,brea,the$ 
 the same, spirit throughout. Its tendency is "to establish the 
 truth of Christianity even out of the Koran." By a reference 
 to the most important doctrines of the Christian faith, it is 
 shown that what is true in Islam springs from Christianity, 
 with which it was historically connected through the medium 
 of Nestorianism. To Islam is assigned the task of preparing 
 the Oriental polytheism for Christianity by means of its 
 monotheism, and thus to guide the Oriental peoples to Christ. 
 In like manner, the essential identity of Judaism and 
 heathenism is asserted. All believe in the one supreme God, 
 and worship Him ; but the Jews and Sissennians worship 
 Him in His simplest unity as the source of all things ; 
 whereas others, like the heathen, worship Him wherever they 
 perceive the unfolding of His deity, assigning to God various 
 names according to His various relations to the creatures. 
 
 But as in the finite world generally unity passes into 
 plurality, so is it likewise in Religion. Eeligion rests upon 
 the knowledge of God, and it is realized in four stages. As an 
 object seen in the far distance appears at first merely a thing, 
 and coming nearer it appears as a living being, and then 
 nearer still as a man, and lastly, in close proximity, is 
 recognised as a particular person, so did the truth appear 
 at first in the distance as a form of confused existence 
 in Nature ; then it appeared in the Law ; and thereafter 
 it appeared in the Son of God. The fourth stage at which 
 we will see and know the truth without mediation, as it 
 is, has yet to come. To these appearances of truth there 
 correspond as many stages of Religion; and they all rest 
 upon the working of the Word of God, but upon different 
 modes of its working. 
 
 1. The Religion of Nature rests upon the knowledge of 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 85 
 
 God which we can attain by our natural powers. All men fall 
 into the three classes of religious, servile, or ruling men, accord- 
 ing as they devote themselves to the investigation of the truth 
 or give themselves up to what is sensuous, or stand between 
 these two. The religious class, again, falls into three distinct 
 divisions. " Some apprehend religion in a lofty and noble way 
 as above all understanding and sense ; others draw it into the 
 sphere of the understanding ; others, again, bring it down to the 
 sphere of the senses. Accordingly, among all men religion is 
 found in peculiar forms ; and hence those who are spiritually 
 freer find the goal of immortality, which religion promises to 
 all men, in the life which in its purity and sublimity 
 transcends everything that the understanding and the sense 
 can grasp. Others draw happiness into the sphere of the 
 understanding, and find their goal in the knowledge and 
 enjoyment of things. Finally, others in the most irrational 
 way seek their happiness in sensuous delights. Thus the 
 unity of the religion of reason is only found in a diverse 
 otherness, and thus does the religious life fluctuate between 
 the spiritual and the temporal." The distinctions of Natural 
 Religion are still further explained. In the northern regions 
 of the earth the spirit is more in a potential condition, and is 
 sunk in sense ; the more we advance towards the equator, 
 so much the more freely does the spirit come forth. Hence 
 in India and Egypt we find Eeligion in a state of pure 
 spirituality; among the Greeks and Romans we find the 
 understanding specially developed ; and in the North we find 
 more empirical and mechanical dexterities. In addition to 
 these defects of Natural Religion, the fact has also to be taken 
 into account that the ignorant crowd blindly follow certain 
 teachers, or fall into idolatrous worship by taking the 
 unfolding of the Deity into many forms, not as an image 
 but as the truth. 
 
 The Word of God that is inscribed in Nature corre- 
 sponds to the sense of man, and cannot make him blessed. To 
 show this is the object of the Docta Ignorantia, and its 
 chief value lies in the proof thereof. All knowing is 
 
86 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 described as a comparing by means of a proportion ; it is a 
 seeking out of the unknown from its relation to what is 
 already known. Hence a cognition of God is impossible, for 
 there exists no relation between the infinite and the finite. 
 Further cognition continually moves in contradictories, 
 whereas the absolute is the coincidence of all contradictories. 
 In like manner, it is impossible to cognize the finite, partly 
 because nothing can be cognized without its cause, and God 
 is incognizable ; and partly because in the finite world no two 
 things coincide with one another, and therefore an exact 
 proportion is nowhere found. To this it has to be added, 
 that in consequence of our descent from Adam, the animal 
 nature in us has so greatly gained the predominance over the 
 spiritual, that we are entirely incapable of reaching beyond 
 the temporal to the eternal. God can therefore be known 
 only by that way which appears to all men, and even to the 
 most learned philosophers, to be wholly inaccessible and 
 impossible. This is only to be attained if we go beyond the 
 highest height of reason to that which is unknown to every 
 reason. The knowledge of God we attain only through 
 Christ. The philosophy of the Docta Ignorantia, therefore, 
 refers us to Him. At the same time, however, it shows that 
 God is in truth the goal and end of all our longing. God is 
 such indeed, only in so far as He is infinite and unknowable ; 
 for if God did not remain infinite, He would not continue to 
 be the goal of our longing. Thus Docta Ignorantia is 
 negatively and positively the way to the acceptance of the 
 perfect knowledge and religion in Christ. 
 
 2. This acceptance is prepared for by the Law and the 
 Prophets. The Old Testament contains the same truth as is 
 in Nature and Christ. And hence Nicolaus agrees with 
 Moses, not because he is a Christian and bound to the Law, 
 but because reason forbids us to think otherwise. The 
 truth, however, is in the Old Testament in a peculiar 
 form ; it is there in the form of the letter or of the Law 
 which works fear, and thus it corresponds to the under- 
 standing. Nor can the Law bring blessedness, for works 
 
NICOLAUS OF CUSA. 87 
 
 cannot justify, because we must justify ourselves by these 
 works. 
 
 3. It is therefore only the Way of Grace, or the third 
 Stage of Religion, which is Christianity, that leads to salva- 
 tion. It corresponds to Keason ; and as the senses ought to 
 serve the understanding and the understanding the reason, so 
 should Nature serve the Law and the Law serve Grace. It 
 has already been shown that we have in Christ the perfect 
 knowledge of the absolute God, and why we have such know- 
 ledge. The knowledge that is mediated by the revelation in 
 Christ likewise passes through several stages. For all the 
 spheres of knowledge, the principle holds that faith is the 
 beginning of knowing. Certain propositions are everywhere 
 presupposed as axioms which are only apprehended by 
 faith, and out of which the knowledge of the object to be 
 investigated is then developed. Knowledge receives its 
 direction through faith ; faith receives its development 
 through knowledge. This holds also of the truth itself, that 
 is, of Christ. By faith in Christ the greatest and deepest 
 mysteries of God become manifest to the childlike and humble 
 heart, because in Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom. 
 The belief in the incarnation of a Word of God forms the 
 beginning. As this sweet faith in Christ expands and 
 unfolds itself, in a gradual process of ascent, it leads us into 
 the truth itself, by which we become the children of God. 
 The starting - point is formed by hearing, which is in a 
 manner a sensuous kind of knowledge; and it may be 
 compared to the knowledge of Christ according to the flesh 
 of which Paul speaks. When we gradually attain to some 
 of the ineradicable traces of His footsteps by hearing the 
 voice of God Himself in His holy organs, we then come to 
 know God more distinctly by manifold principles of the 
 understanding. The believers ascend yet higher to simple 
 rational intuition, by advancing as from sleep to waking, 
 or from hearing to seeing, when they see what cannot be 
 revealed because no ear is able to catch it, nor any voice 
 to convey it. This is the reason why there are so many 
 
88 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 errors and irrational conceptions of God. It is because 
 many cannot rise to the highest stage, but stop short upon 
 the lower stages. 
 
 The activity of faith consists in the inward union of the 
 believer with Christ. This union is inconceivable and 
 indescribable, but it has its ground and its possibility in the 
 fact that Christ is the most perfect humanity, and therefore 
 all men are in Him and He is in all men. Faith makes the 
 individual like to Christ. He withdraws Himself from the 
 defilement of the flesh, walks with fear in the way of God, 
 and is all spirit. He rises above all that is visible ; He 
 has even power over nature, and commands the evil spirits. 
 Perfect faith is vitalized by love. As every living being loves 
 life and every thinker loves thought, so we cannot have faith 
 in Jesus as the immortal life and as the infinite truth without 
 loving Him in the highest. It is love that becomes the 
 animating principle of faith, and bestows upon it real being. 
 A great faith is not even possible without the hope of yet 
 enjoying Jesus Himself. Whosoever does not believe that he 
 will attain the promised eternal life, cannot possibly face death 
 for Christ's sake. 
 
 As the diverse finite things, notwithstanding their plurality, 
 are comprehended in the concrete unity of the universe, so 
 Christians, however diverse they may be in faith, have their 
 concrete iinity in the Church. The Church is the mystical 
 body of Christ, and it is the medium of the union of the 
 individual with Christ through the Word and the Sacraments. 
 
 4. Even the most perfect Christian cherishes hope, as a 
 longing and yet trustful outlook towards a still more perfect 
 state, and thus Christianity points to a fourth stage of know- 
 ledge and religion. This stage begins when, in complete union 
 with God, we know Him without mediation entirely as He is, 
 wholly enjoy Him without limit, and find in this enjoyment a 
 happiness which will still all our longings for ever. This 
 stage of completion will only be realized in the world beyond 
 the present. It far transcends our common understanding 
 and comprehension as well as all speech and description. 
 
TELESIUS AND CARD ANUS. 89 
 
 The Bishop of Brixen lived in friendly relations and 
 frequent scientific communication with the Benedictines in 
 the monastery of Tegernsee, and their Prior, Bernhard. Many 
 a message passed hither and thither over the great Brenner 
 highway that lay between them. At one time rare books 
 were sent for from the library of the Bishop, which the 
 monks studied and copied. At another time there passed 
 a friendly letter from the Bishop full of affection, or one 
 was received from the monks bearing their expressions of 
 reverence, and deferential requests for instruction. And, again, 
 the Bishop would transmit the works he had composed, that 
 they might first be submitted to his sympathetic friends ; or 
 Bernhard sent those he had written, composed for the elucida- 
 tion and vindication of the Docta Ignorantia. Along with many 
 friendly supporters, the doctrine of Nicolaus also found 
 opponents in Germany, such as Vench in Heidelberg, Gregory 
 of Heimberg, and others. Among his adherents were reckoned 
 some whose names are still known, such as Faber Stapulensis 
 (Jacques Le Fevre d' Etaples, 1450-1537), Professor of 
 philosophy at Paris, one of the most zealous precursors of the 
 Eeformation in France, and Carolus Bovillus (Charles Bouille, 
 1470-1553). In Italy, during the lifetime of Nicolaus, his 
 philosophy already found numerous friends and followers. 
 
 II. 
 
 TELESIUS AND CARDANUS. 
 
 Bernardinus Telesius (1508-1588) begins a new move- 
 ment in philosophy. 1 His method first drew nature into the 
 circle of philosophical speculation, with full consciousness 
 of what was new in this sphere. However imperfect the 
 beginnings of this Natural Philosophy might be, and how- 
 
 1 The principal work of Telesius is his De rerum natura juxta propria 
 principia, L. ix., Naples 1586. The accompanying and often very violent polemic 
 against the Physics of Aristotle and the later Peripatetics, which goes through 
 the whole work, fills up the greater part of it. 
 
90 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 ever much it was impeded by too close an attachment to 
 ancient philosophers as well as by the want of exact observa- 
 tion, the principle of it at least became clear, and thereby the 
 human mind broke with the past, both in its general attitude 
 and tendency. In the Procemium of his principal work 
 Telesius expresses himself generally as follows. The reason 
 why former inquirers have achieved so little is specially due 
 to the fact that they trusted themselves too much, and did 
 not consider things and their powers sufficiently. Entering 
 into a sort of rivalry with God for wisdom, they ventured to 
 investigate the principles and grounds of the world by reason, 
 and assuming that they had found what was really not found, 
 they fashioned a universe for themselves after their own mere 
 opinion. We, on the contrary, he says, have undertaken to 
 consider the world itself and its parts, in their passiveness, 
 their activity, and their working. For these will reveal the 
 essential nature of every separate thing. 
 
 In the execution of his work, Telesius certainly is far from 
 actually carrying out this programme. Following the view 
 of Parmenides, he reduces the Universe to three principles : 
 two of them being incorporeal and active, namely, Heat and 
 Cold, and one corporeal and passive, which is Matter. Matter 
 is in itself entirely inactive, inert, and wholly passive, but it 
 can be permeated and formatively modified by Heat and Cold 
 in equal degrees, being expanded by the former and condensed 
 by the latter. Heat and Cold everywhere seek to diffuse 
 themselves, and reciprocally to overcome each other ; but as 
 in this they never entirely succeed, they are limited to a 
 determinate place with the Matter that is necessary for 
 their subsistence. The sun is the bearer of heat, the earth 
 is the bearer of cold. From these, as their inexhaustible 
 sources, heat and cold diffuse themselves throughout the 
 universe, and the diversity of things rests upon the diverse 
 ways in which heat and cold are mixed. The principal effect 
 of heat is motion. Those beings that move themselves appear 
 to be animated, and hence the soul, in its ultimate relation, 
 is to be referred to heat. Sensation belongs even to inanimate 
 
TELESIUS AND CARD ANUS. 91 
 
 beings, because they are mixed of heat and cold. The soul of 
 plants and animals grows from their seed ; man, on the other 
 hand, has in addition to this vital corporeal spirit, called the 
 spiritus nervosus, a soul immediately created and infused into 
 him by God ; and this soul is incorporeal and immortal. 
 Perception and sensation rest upon the expansion and contrac- 
 tion of the vital spirit which dwells in the nerves and in the 
 brain, and is accessible to the influence of air and light. The 
 passions are related to the highest good, which is the self- 
 preservation of the spirit. Whatever subserves this highest 
 good is good, and whatever is contrary to it is bad. On the 
 basis of this principle Telesius gives a somewhat detailed 
 sketch of Ethics. The naturalism of the system, however, 
 is considerably attenuated by the position being expressly 
 emphasized that this whole creation is not the effect of a 
 reasonless contingent cause, but is the work of the will and 
 the wisdom of God who has thus arranged all things. 
 
 Those indications of the system may suffice here. The 
 Natural Philosophy of Telesius did not remain without 
 influence. His admirers and patrons induced him to give up 
 his quiet country life at Cosenza and to teach philosophy in 
 Naples. Here there gathered around him a circle of followers 
 some of whom were greatly celebrated, and they formed 
 the Cosentinian Academy, which contributed much to the 
 furtherance of the study of natural science, and to" the over- 
 throw of Aristotelianism. The writings of Telesius were put 
 upon the Index Expurgatorius, but with the addition donee 
 expurgentur. Among his opponents we may mention 
 Antonius Marta and Andreas Chioccus, and among his 
 scholars, Franciscus Patritius and Thomas Campanella. 
 
 Hieronymus Cardanus (1501-1576) deserves to be named 
 along with Telesius as one of the principal founders of Natural 
 Philosophy. 1 He was a man of an extremely restless spirit, 
 
 1 The collected works of Cardan were published by C. Spon at Lyons in 1663, 
 in 10 vols. folio. Reference is made here only to the contents of his two principal 
 writings, De Subtilitate, 1. xxi. (Lugd. 1552), and his De Varietate rerum, 
 
92 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 and of a character that was without stay or stedfastness, 
 thrown hither and thither from one position in life to 
 another, and immoderately addicted to carnal pleasure. In 
 spite of his high endowments and indefatigable industry, 
 Cardan rather led his followers astray in science, like an 
 ignis fatuus, than shone as a stedfast light. We may here 
 pass over his astrological dreams, and the principles of his 
 Chiromancy and Alchemy, which were expounded with all 
 earnestness, and in all which Cardan was truly a son of his 
 age. According to Cardan, there lie three principles at the 
 basis of all finite things : Matter, Form, and Soul. Matter is 
 everywhere, but it is nowhere without Form, which first 
 bestows upon it determinate and proper being. Matter and 
 Form are connected by the moving and arranging activity of 
 the Soul. There are three elements : Air, Water, and Earth. 
 The soul, or rather the heavenly heat, with light as its reflec- 
 tion, permeates and connects all things. Hence the universe 
 is a living organism in which every one thing is related to 
 and acts on every other. This vital heat in the universe 
 is in uninterrupted activity; and all origination and destruc- 
 tion of things is in truth nothing else than a changing 
 formation of matter, through the one form -giving heavenly 
 heat. 
 
 God is the one eternal Being that has no participation 
 in not-being. He contains all things in Himself, and rules 
 immeasurably and infinitely over everything as the highest 
 power. As the One, God is also the Good. He is the Subject 
 that knows the Object that is known, and the Love which 
 combines these two with each other. As power, knowledge, 
 and love, the one supreme God is, at the same time, a triad. 
 Man, on whose account all finite things were created, stands 
 in the middle between what is heavenly and what is earthly. 
 On this fact it rests that the position of the stars shows his 
 character and his fates. The artistic formation and the ravish- 
 ing beauty of the body are already wonderful. But what 
 especially distinguishes man is his spirit. It is not corporeal, 
 but is an inner light that illuminates itself; it is simple, 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 93 
 
 elevated above what is perishable, and immortal. This immor- 
 tality is conceived as a transmigration of souls, and according 
 as their striving is good, spirits enter into higher or lower 
 forms of life. The essential nature of the spirit consists of 
 thinking. As God is the highest Being and the giver of all 
 good, the knowledge of God is the highest goal, and the true 
 blessedness of life. All cognition rests upon the fact that we 
 become one with the object, and hence the knowledge of God 
 leads also to our becoming one with Him. To know one's self 
 and God in one's self, is the highest happiness and the true 
 wisdom. In this knowledge the human spirit is wedded to the 
 divine ; and if we worship God in purity of spirit, we will 
 become purified from all guilt and sin, will be united with 
 Him in eternal rest and joy, and will form a ray of His own 
 light, 
 
 III. 
 
 GIORDANO BRUNO l (c. 1555-1600). 
 
 The Metaphysics of Giordano Bruno rest essentially upon 
 the thoughts of Nicolaus of Cusa. In his Physics he takes 
 into account those of Telesius. His own independence as 
 a thinker comes out especially in his view of the unity of 
 
 i Bruno was born soon after the middle of the sixteenth Century, at Nola in 
 the kingdom of Naples. "While a Dominican he became equally familiar with 
 the philosophers and the poets of antiquity, but owing to the repeated collision 
 of his views with the rules of the Dominican Order, he was forced to leave his 
 country in 1580. Thereafter he led an unsettled life in Switzerland, France, 
 England, and Germany, but everywhere showed himself an enthusiastic teacher 
 of his philosophy. With the certainty of death before him, he returned to his 
 country, was seized at Venice in 1592, and after being confined eight years in 
 prison, he was burned at Rome on the 17th February 1600 as a heretic and 
 apostate. Of a poetic nature and full of lofty enthusiasm, he wrote many works 
 in high soaring verse. Bruno has also shown himself to be an acute observer and 
 a witty but caustic delineator of the weak points of others, in his Comedies 
 and Satires. A large number of his writings are of a mnemotechnic nature, being 
 continuations and improved forms of the Lullian art. For our subject the follow- 
 ing writings have to be considered : " Dialoghi de la Causa, principio et uno," 
 Venet. 1584; "Del' infinite Universo, et de' i mondi," Venet. 1584; " De 
 triplici Minimo et Mensura, etc." 1591 ; " De Monade, numero et figura, etc." 
 1591 ; " De Immense, etc." 1591. Carriere's account of Bruno may be specially 
 referred to. 
 
94 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 the universe regarded as an all-permeating world-soul. Matter 
 he regards as embraced with Form into a unity in God, who 
 is the self-knowing spirit. Individual things are conceived as 
 individually different monads. The whole of his philosophy is 
 attractive, not only from showing the pure enthusiasm of 
 an elevated surrender of self to the All-One, but from its 
 being full of fruitful thoughts, although many of them are 
 still obscure, and some of them were not clearly developed till 
 a later age. 
 
 Bruno determines the relation of philosophy to theology in 
 the usual manner of his time. The dogmas of the Church 
 are recognised as incontrovertible truth, and then they are set 
 aside without further consideration as a sort of Noli me tangere. 
 Philosophical investigation is prosecuted with entire free- 
 dom from prejudice, as if this were the one way to truth. In 
 many cases this recognition of the ecclesiastical dogma, which 
 is sometimes expressed with great emphasis, may have been 
 only an act of precaution ; but it was not so in the case of 
 Bruno, a man who owed the whole uncertainty of his life only 
 to this incautious zeal for the truth, a zeal which afterwards 
 brought him to the stake. According to his view, revelation 
 and natural knowledge cannot contradict each other, for both 
 refer to God as their one common ground. Where a contra- 
 diction appears, as in relation to the Copernican theory of the 
 system of the world, Bruno points out that Scripture gives 
 revelations only in reference to morals and the doctrine of 
 salvation, and not in regard to physics, in reference to which 
 it accommodates itself to the ideas of the time. A dis- 
 tinction between revelation and natural knowledge is founded 
 on the fact that God lies far above what is attainable by our 
 rational thinking, the true knowledge of His nature being only 
 attainable by revelation. Entirely in the spirit of Cusa, Bruno 
 also expounds a connected doctrine of God by the way of the 
 negative philosophy, and its result may be thus briefly indi- 
 cated : God is infinite, and as such He is elevated far above 
 our finite faculty of knowledge. We cannot know God from 
 effects, partly because these are very far removed from Him, 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 95 
 
 proceeding, as they do, not from His substance, but as it were 
 from His accidents, and partly because we are not able entirely 
 to comprehend even effects. As regards morals and theology 
 it suffices to know God in so far as He reveals Himself, and 
 it is the sign of an unconsecrated spirit and of boundless pre- 
 sumption, to enter upon investigations regarding things which 
 go beyond our reason. 
 
 At the same time, however, to strive after the knowledge of 
 God, in so far as Nature itself gives traces of Him or reflects 
 Him, deserves the highest praise. The conceptions of Cause and 
 Principle subserve this striving. Whatever is not itself an 
 ultimate Principle arid an ultimate Cause, has a principle and 
 a cause. In the sphere of Nature we call the internal ground 
 of a thing a principle, as that which contributes essentially to 
 its production and continues in the product ; and we call the 
 external ground of a thing a cause, as that which externally 
 contributes to the production of the thing, but remains outside 
 of the product. We call God the ultimate Principle and ulti- 
 mate Cause of all things. We accordingly thus designate One 
 Being, viewed, however, in different relations, regarding Him as 
 a principle, in so far as all things yield to Him in nature and 
 dignity according to a determinate series, and regarding Him 
 as a Cause in so far as all things are different from Him, as 
 the effect is different from the effector. 
 
 A Cause is either efficient, or formal, or final. The physical 
 universal efficient Cause is the universal Reason ; it is the 
 supreme and chief faculty of the World-Soul. The universal 
 Reason is the inmost faculty, and a potential part of the 
 world-soul ; it is an identity which fills the whole of things, 
 illuminates the universe, and instructs Nature how to produce 
 her kinds. It brings forth natural things as our reason brings 
 forth conceptions. It is the internal artist that forms matter 
 and shapes it from within. From the seed it develops the 
 stem ; from the stem it shoots forth the branches ; from the 
 branches it fashions the twigs ; and so on. There is therefore 
 a threefold Reason : the divine Reason which is all, the World- 
 soul which makes all, and the Reason of individual things 
 
96 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 which becomes all. This World-soul is both internal and 
 external cause ; it is an internal cause, as it does not shape 
 matter from without but by inherent energy, and it is an 
 external cause in so far as it has a being entirely distinct from 
 the substance and essentiality of what is produced. 
 
 The formal Cause cannot be separated from the End or 
 Final Cause. For whatever is active according to rational 
 laws, works in accordance with an idea of the thing, and this 
 is nothing else than the form of the thing itself that is to be 
 produced. The World-soul must therefore involve all things 
 in itself according to a certain formal conception, as the 
 sculptor has in him the idea of the statue. Hence there are 
 two species of forms, one according to which the efficient 
 cause works, and one which the efficient cause produces in 
 matter. The end which the working cause sets before itself is 
 the perfection of the universe, which consists in this, that all 
 forms receive actual existence in the different parts of matter. 
 And as the efficient or working Cause is universally present in 
 the universe, while it is particularly and specially present in 
 its parts and members, so is it also with its Form and its End. 
 Thus does the world-soul appear as Cause and Principle at 
 once. That it can be both is explained by the example of the 
 helmsman in the ship, and of the soul in the body. In so far 
 as the helmsman is moved at the same time with the ship, he 
 is a part of it ; in so far as he steers it, he is an independently 
 active being. In like manner the soul is on the one side wholly 
 in the body, and on another side it is a something separate 
 from the body. So it is with the world-soul ; in so far as it 
 animates and shapes, it is the indwelling and formal part of 
 the principle of the world ; in so far as it guides and rules, it is 
 the cause of the world. Hence we may think of the world 
 and its members according to the analogy of the lower animals. 
 All finite things are animate ; and this holds true not merely 
 of the world as a whole, but of all its parts, and again of their 
 parts. If, then, there is soul found in all things, the soul is 
 manifestly the true reality and the true form of all things. 
 There is one and the same world- soul in all things, but in 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 97 
 
 proportion to the different receptivity of matter, it brings forth 
 different formations or stages of soul. It is only these forma- 
 tions, which are in a way external forms, that change ; whereas 
 the Form itself, or the spiritual substance, is as imperishable as 
 matter is. 
 
 " Never doth perish the soul, but rather its earlier dwelling 
 Is changed for its new abode, in which it liveth and worketh. 
 Everything changes, but nothing perishes ever at all." 
 
 This form is not to be conceived as a mere external quali- 
 fication of matter, but we must accept two modes of being as 
 Form and Matter.. For there must be an ultimate sub- 
 stantial efficient principle in which the active capacity of all 
 things exists ; and there must likewise be a substratum in 
 which the passive capacity of all things exists. Form separated 
 from matter is one ; it is unchangeable in itself, and it is 
 through its connection with matter that it first passes into 
 plurality and difference. It is the active and determining 
 principle. The passive principle, or matter, is in its essence 
 that which is determined, and it has a capacity for receiving 
 all possible forms into itself. 
 
 There is therefore one Reason which gives everything its 
 essence ; one soul which forms all things, and fashions them 
 into shape ; and one matter out of which everything is made 
 and formed. Matter may be regarded in a twofold way, as 
 power and as substratum. As power we find it again in a 
 certain way in all things. Bruno, however, takes power in a 
 still higher and more comprehensive sense. Power is regarded 
 either as active in so far as it is efficient, or as passive in so 
 far as it is receptive, and serves as a basis for an operating 
 agent. This passive power or capacity must be predicated 
 of everything to which we attribute being ; and the passive 
 capacity completely corresponds to the active power. If, there- 
 fore, the power to make, to produce, or to create has always 
 been, so likewise the power to be made, produced, or created has 
 always been ; for the one includes the other, and necessarily 
 presupposes it. Hence the passive power belongs in the 
 same measure as the active to the supreme supernatural prin- 
 
 VOL. I. G 
 
98 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 ciple. The ultimate principle is all that can be, and it would 
 not be all if it had not power to be all. Reality and power 
 to be, are here one and the same. It is not so, however, with 
 finite things. No one of these is all that it can be ; any one 
 of them might as well not be, or as well be something else 
 than it is. It is not so with the universe. It is, indeed, all 
 that it can be, in so far as its species continue the same, and 
 it constitutes the whole of matter. But there remain in it 
 distinctions, determinations, specific differences, and individuals ; 
 nor is any one of its parts really what it could be. Hence 
 the universe is only a shadow of the primal reality and of the 
 primal power. Further, the universe is all that it can be, only 
 in an explicated, dispersed, differentiated mode, whereas the 
 highest principle is all that it can be in a single and un- 
 differentiated mode. Death, evil, errors, and defects are not 
 realities and powers, but are deficiencies and impotences ; they 
 are in the explicated things, because these are not all that 
 they might be. The first absolute principle is therefore in 
 itself sublimity and greatness, and it is so to such an extent 
 that it is all that it can be. It is the greatest of all and the 
 least of all ; it is infinite, indivisible greatness ; it is not the 
 greatest, only because it is likewise the least, and it is not the 
 least, only because it is likewise the greatest. The absolute 
 power is what can be everything ; it is the power of all 
 powers, the reality of all realities, the life of all lives, the soul 
 of all souls, the substance of all substances. What is other- 
 wise contradictory and opposite, is in this absolute power one 
 and the same ; and everything in It is one and the same. 1 
 This absolute reality, which is identical with absolute possi- 
 bility, can be conceived by the understanding only by negations ; 
 but the Scripture reveals it when it says, " as is His darkness 
 so also is His light" (Ps. cxxxix. 12). Hence the whole 
 universe as regards its substance is one ; and if we, in descend- 
 ing to finite things, come upon a twofold substance in the 
 
 1 That Bruno calls this principle "Matter," and "Matter" in this sense 
 " God," must be carefully noted in considering the question as to his Material- 
 ism. Bruno knows nothing of " Matter " in the usual meaning of the term. 
 
GIORDANO BRUNO. 99 
 
 spiritual and the corporeal, we must, however, refer them 
 both to one essence and one root. 
 
 Regarded as a substratum, matter is not the mere prope niliil 
 of many philosophers, pure naked capacity without reality 
 and without power or energy, as they represent it, but it is 
 like a pregnant female about to discharge and liberate her 
 fruit. It is not to be designated as that in which everything 
 comes to be, but as that out of which every natural species 
 arises. 
 
 Unity is thus attained. Being, the One, the Good, the 
 True, are all the same. God is the Being in all that has 
 being, the universal substance by which all things exist, the 
 essentiality of all essences, the internal creative nature of all 
 things. This One does not perish, because all existence is 
 the existence of Itself ; it neither decreases nor increases ; 
 it is not subject to change ; it is neither matter nor form, 
 because it is One and All. The conception of the Infinite 
 resolves all individualities and differences, and all number and 
 quantity, into unity. We are not farther from or nearer to 
 this identity as man than we would be as an ant or as a 
 star. The Infinite is all in all, but not wholly nor in all its 
 modes in any one individual. As the soul is indivisible and 
 is only one essence, yet is all of it present in every part 
 of the body ; so, in like manner, the essence of the universe is 
 one in the infinite, and yet is actually present in every 
 individual thing. And now we comprehend the principle of 
 contradictories which Bruno, under reference to Cusa, also 
 seeks to establish by his own arguments. The highest 
 good and the highest perfection rest upon the unity which 
 comprehends all things. The more we know this One, so 
 much more do we know All. " Praised be the gods, praised 
 by all that lives be the Infinite, Simplest, Singlest, Sublimest, 
 and Absolutest, as Cause, Principle, and One." 
 
 The All as the unfolding of the Infinitely-One, is likewise 
 infinite. God alone is absolutely infinite, because He excludes 
 every limit from Himself, and each of His attributes is one 
 and indivisible, and because He is all in all the world, and in 
 
100 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 each of its parts. The universe, whose parts are finite, is 
 infinite only in so far as it is not limited in space. The 
 development of the One is at the same time differentiation. 
 Of finite things there are not two which are completely like 
 each other ; but because they arise from the One, different 
 things are connected into order and harmony. All that is, 
 is one ; the least is one as an atom or monad ; the greatest 
 is one as comprehending all, or as the monad of monads. 
 The monads have their being from the highest Being or 
 God ; and it holds of the least as well as of the greatest 
 that it is an indivisible one, incapable of increase or diminu- 
 tion ; it is a union of all contradictories. The same infinite 
 essentiality of being enters into every individual, only it is in 
 every one in a different way. In boundless space, the primal 
 fact is the opposition of heat and cold. Heat appears in fire, 
 cold in water ; the former has its seat in the sun, the latter 
 has its seat in the earth. Life proceeds from their mutual 
 permeation. The earth, like the other planets, rolls in in- 
 finite space around the sun, and the sun too sweeps along 
 among the universal cycling movements of the stars. 
 
 Man stands in the middle between the Divine and the 
 Earthly. The soul is the formative monad in the body ; 
 around it, as the active centre, all the atoms encamp. In this 
 lies the guarantee of our immortality, which is conceived as 
 a migration of souls into higher or lower forms of existence, 
 according as we have lived well or ill. Everything strives 
 after the goal of its own nature. Man consists of soul and 
 body, and has therefore the double goal of spiritual and 
 corporeal perfection. The spirit is elevated above the body, 
 and therefore the goal of the spirit is the highest ; it is union 
 with God through knowledge of Him. God as spirit forms 
 Ideas ; the Ideas effectuate things, and our conceptions, 
 obtained from the contemplation of things, are shadows of the 
 Ideas. Knowledge passes through four stages. Starting 
 from Sense-perception, it passes through the Phantasy, and 
 again through the Understanding, till it becomes the know- 
 ledge of Keason. Keason rises to unity and recognises one 
 
THOMAS CAMPANELLA. 101 
 
 subject as the root and vital principle of all things. 
 Finally, the intuitive mind attains to the All by one Intui- 
 tion. We have to raise ourselves to this truth in order to 
 become united with God. God is likewise the good ; evil 
 does not pertain to Him, but has its principle in the finite. 
 In the moral life, we therefore also find union with God. 
 Love is inseparably connected with knowledge and action ; 
 it lays hold of the will and draws it on towards the divine 
 beauty. By love we are also raised with our thinking and 
 being to God, and are transformed into Him in whom our 
 nature reaches the ground of its existence. Thus does the 
 finite return to the infinite as to its true being, the being 
 from which it starts and into which it is raised again. On 
 two points Bruno does not give us sufficient explanation. 
 One is that theology has first to bring us the true know- 
 ledge of the divine Being, and yet philosophy is made to 
 show us the way to it. The other is that the world-soul 
 as a second unity, is expressly distinguished from God as 
 the first unity ; but it is not said how the former proceeds 
 from the latter, and many expressions leave us doubtful as to 
 whether they are meant to be applied to God or the world- 
 soul. 
 
 The Church with her strong arm seems to have checked 
 the contemporary influence of the thoughts of Giordano Bruno, 
 but their influence afterwards upon Spinoza, Leibniz, Schell- 
 ing, and others is obvious in the affinity of their systems to 
 his ideas. 
 
 THOMAS CAMPANELLA (1568-1639). 
 
 Campanella, 1 like Bruno, attaches his doctrines to the 
 Metaphysics of Nicolaus of Cusa and to the Physics of 
 
 1 Campanella was born at Stilo in Calabria. Having early reached maturity, 
 he became a preacher in his sixteenth year. Trained in the philosophy of his 
 age, Campanella became subject to doubt, and was led to give up authority and 
 examine the original and living Nature herself, and in this he specially took Telesius 
 as his guide. In his twenty-second year he already began to write out his views in 
 
102 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 Telesius, but in an entirely independent way. Wholly in the 
 spirit of modern speculation, he begins by doubting the trust- 
 worthiness of our knowledge, as narrowly limited and as 
 obscured by the medium of the senses. Hence he starts with 
 a penetrating investigation of the faculty of cognition. The 
 soul is corporeal; it is the warm, mobile, nervous spirit. 
 Things work upon this spirit, thereby assimilating it to them- 
 selves. The change thus produced remains in the spirit like 
 a scar. The active operation of perception relates to this 
 capacity of being affected, and it forms ideas corresponding to 
 those ideas which lie at the foundation of things as their 
 cause. Further, the principles of knowledge are innate in us. 
 All finite things are compounds of being and not-being, 
 and more particularly of finite being and infinite not-being. 
 Thus man is man inasmuch as humanness belongs to him, and 
 all other being is regarded as not belonging to him. This 
 not-being viewed absolutely is, however, not real or actual 
 being ; but in this way there is only the Being or God. 
 God is absolute. He is the One, the Simple, the Infinite. 
 He is the unity of all being; from His unity no individual 
 determinate being is excluded, and to it no not-being is 
 attributable. To being there belongs three Primalities 
 (primalitates) or primal essentialities : Activity, for everything 
 is because it has power or capacity to be ; Wisdom, for every- 
 thing knows about its being and its preservation ; and Love, 
 for everything strives to preserve itself. Power, Wisdom, Love 
 thus form in God a triad in the unity of being. The Not- 
 being consists of the corresponding three principles of power- 
 lessness, ignorance, and hate. As all finite things have their 
 being from God, they participate in these three Primalitates ; 
 but as they are limited at the same time by not-being, these 
 
 retirement at Balbia. From 1599 to 1626 he pined in a prison under an accusa- 
 tion of treason, but was liberated by the intervention of Pope Urban VII. and 
 brought to his Court. From fear of the Spaniards he fled to France, and died 
 in exile at Paris held in high honour. Of his numerous works we have specially 
 to note the following : Prodromus Philosophise instaurandae, 1617 ; De sensu 
 rerum et Magia, 1620 ; Realis Philosophise epilogisticse p. iv. 1623 ; Atheismus 
 triumphatus, 1631 ; De Prsedestinatione, etc. 1636 ; Universalis Philosophise, 
 L. xviii. 1638. A complete exposition of his doctrines is still awanting. 
 
THOMAS CAMPANELLA. 103 
 
 primal essentialities are present in them only in a finite way. 
 Power is directed to existence ; wisdom to truth. Cognition 
 rests upon the fact that the soul receives its objects into itself, 
 and as it were becomes the objects themselves. All cognition 
 is self-knowledge, and therefore God knows everything, 
 because all existence is contained in His being. Love is 
 directed to the good, which consists primarily in self-preser- 
 vation ; and hence the striving to escape death by the im- 
 mortality of one's name and the propagation of the species. 
 The true being and life, however, is God ; and hence the true 
 and final satisfaction of love, is participation in the Deity. 
 Because all being comes from God, there is actually neither 
 death nor evil. Death is only a transformation of the form 
 of existence ; evil is only a defect, because the limit of not 
 being continually makes its appearance as soon as plurality 
 proceeds out of unity. Evils therefore do not exist as such in 
 relation to the whole, but they have existence only in relation 
 to the parts. 
 
 The ideas of all things are in God, and by these Ideas 
 all things participate in God. His beholding of these Ideas is 
 also the production of things. God is the Subject that knows, 
 the object that is known, and the act of knowing at once 
 in one. He is in like manner the subject that loves, the 
 object that is loved, and the love, at the same time, in one. 
 From the three " Primalitates " there proceed as many effects 
 in finite things. These effects are Necessity, Fate, and 
 Harmony, to which, as effects of the not-being, there corre- 
 spond Contingency, Perchance, and Disharmony. In order to 
 form the world, God first created space as an embracing 
 receptacle, put into it the inert, invisible, corporeal mass that 
 is called matter, and superadded to their formation two in- 
 corporeal powers as active principles, namely, heat and cold. 
 Heat and cold have their seat respectively in the sun and in 
 the earth; and in conflict with each other, and by varying inter- 
 mixture, they produce out of matter all finite things. This is 
 only possible if sense and sensation belong to all things. Like 
 individual things, the world as a whole is also animated. 
 
104 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 On the basis of these views, Campanella has expressed 
 himself in detail regarding Religion in his Universalis Philo- 
 sophia, as well as in his Atheismus Triumphatus. In the 
 former treatise he has discussed Eeligion in connection with 
 his whole system ; in the latter, he has reviewed it with 
 the express intention of showing that the Eeligion of all men 
 was originally the same, and entirely conformable to Nature, 
 and that it was only split up into a plurality of religions by 
 the jealousy of sophists and the political calculation of those 
 in power. 
 
 In all things there is implanted a striving after self-preser- 
 vation. They find their essentiality actually preserved in the 
 principle that is peculiar to them. All things therefore strive 
 after this ; and this striving forms their natural religion, as 
 a return to their proper principle. Hence four kinds of 
 Eeligion may be distinguished: Eeligio naturalis, animalis, 
 rationalis, et supernaturalis. By Natural Eeligion all things 
 strive back to their Lord and Creator, and offer to Him praise 
 and worship ; as David sings, " The heavens declare the 
 glory of God," etc. Most finite things do not proceed im- 
 mediately from God, but arise through the medium of other 
 things. Hence it is that they frequently strive, not back 
 to God as the highest principle, but to what lies nearest them, 
 as heat to the sun, and water to the sea. This return forms 
 the religion of all things ; as they thus strive again toward 
 their principle, and thereby confess that out of that principle 
 no immortality or permanence can be found for their being. 
 What is called Animal Eeligion superadds the obedience which 
 the animals exhibit towards higher powers. Thus elephants 
 bow the knee before the moon, and birds sing to the rising sun. 
 
 Eational Eeligion belongs only to beings endowed with 
 reason, and who know and worship the wisdom of God and 
 God Himself. The soul likewise strives after its principle, 
 but it does not, like the most of things, strive after mere finite 
 principles, but after God Himself. Hence the soul alone 
 really attains what it strives after, namely, immortality. This 
 striving is implanted in the soul, after the analogy of all other 
 
THOMAS CAMPANELLA. 105 
 
 things, and therefore religion has not been devised from mere 
 political considerations, as the Macchiavellists, in a foolish 
 and godless way, assert. Eeligion being the return of the 
 soul to God as its principle, is much rather the " Law of 
 Nature," and on this account it is also one and the same for 
 all men. Notwithstanding the diversity that appears among 
 religions, they are, in truth, essentially identical with one 
 another. This innate Eeligion is perfect and true. It shows 
 to man the way from the world of alienation back to God. 
 It is likewise of divine origin, for, from the eternal Law 
 that "Word of God " by which God leads all things to their 
 goal there flows also the natural law of action, which only 
 becomes a positive law for the several nations by reference to 
 the contingency of their modes of life, and as such it perishes 
 with the nations. 
 
 Eeligion, in its essence, is union of the spirit with God. 
 Hence it has two sides. On the side of action, it is the 
 turning away of the heart from external sinful acts to the 
 internal life, to goodness, to the true service of God. On the 
 side of knowledge, it is insight into divine and human things. 
 It is from the combination of these two that religion attains 
 its highest perfection in the essential union of the spirit with 
 God. Eeligion is in its essence entirely inward, but this 
 inwardness necessarily demands external exhibition and active 
 manifestation in divine worship. This external activity has, 
 however, no value in itself, but is valuable only when it corre- 
 sponds throughout to the internal life. External religion is of 
 importance only for the State, which cannot continue to exist 
 without having a religious basis. 
 
 We can only love and "strive after" what we know. 
 If we are to love and strive after God in religion, we must 
 therefore know Him. And if all the religions are funda- 
 mentally one, the natural knowledge of God that lies at their 
 foundation must also be one. To this innate cognition 
 (cognitio innata) there is, however, continually superadded 
 a further acquired cognition (cognitio illata), and thus there 
 is a religion also superadded to the natural religion (religion! 
 
106 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 naturali accedit superaddita). The natural religion is true 
 and perfect, and is the same among all nations and in all 
 times ; what is superadded is subject to error, and all the 
 differences and controversies regarding religion are founded 
 upon it. We are not, indeed, able to know God as the First 
 Mover, as Aristotle alleges, but reason is spread throughout 
 the whole world, and it points to a First Eeason which is the 
 ground of all things. In like manner the consideration of all 
 forces points to a first Power, and the fulness of the various 
 finite strivings points to a first Love. Thus do we apprehend 
 God, not in the manner of Aristotle, as the soul of the world or 
 as the highest heaven, but as the supreme Being, the Good, the 
 True, the One. 
 
 This knowledge of God, however, is limited, for we cannot 
 know precisely what is elevated above us, nor can our actions 
 correspond to this knowledge. This is the ground of the 
 diversity presented by the religions. Every individual 
 honours God just as he knows Him, or as another person 
 represents Him. As most men are prevented by the occupa- 
 tions of daily life, and by their anxiety for the necessaries 
 of existence, from seeking the truth for themselves, they are 
 therefore compelled to follow others, such as their fathers or 
 lawgivers and philosophers. The various religions are thus 
 true and good in so far as they rest upon the innate knowledge 
 of God ; and they are false, erroneous, and contradictory in 
 so far as our knowledge is defective as being borrowed from 
 sensible objects. 
 
 In the very errors and the multiplicity of the religions which 
 all lay claim to the sole exclusive truth, there is implied a 
 necessity that God shall reveal Himself in a special manner. 
 A foundation is thus laid for Supernatural Eeligion. Natural 
 Religion awakens the consciousness that we need help from 
 above in order to return to God as our Principle. Eevelation 
 gives us the right knowledge of God. When internal revelation 
 prepares us for its reception, it produces illumination of know- 
 ledge, strengthening of power, and sanctification of will. This 
 revelation comes to us through angels and prophets. But as 
 
THOMAS CAMPANELLA. 107 
 
 even their appearance did not keep men from falling into 
 idolatry, God Himself became man, and even suffered death in 
 order to confirm the truth. Eegarding the mode and possi- 
 bility of an immediate revelation as a communication of true 
 knowledge, Campanella does not give us any independent 
 views of his own, but he lays down rules by which we may 
 distinguish a divine revelation from one that might be from 
 the devil. These rules are : 1. The devil continually mixes 
 truth with falsehood ; 2. The devil often pursues other ends 
 than the union of the soul with God ; 3. The devil appears 
 mostly in a hideous form, or leaves behind him something that 
 is repugnant. 
 
 We almost feel ourselves transported into the age of the 
 eighteenth century Enlightenment, when we read in Cam- 
 panella such passages as the following : " Marks by which the 
 metaphysician concludes which religion is from God, and 
 which from the devil ; " or when he tries to find out which is 
 the true religion among the many religions " by the common 
 natural reason " (per rationem communem naturalem), and 
 proceeds to prove its " rational credibility " (rationabilis credi- 
 bilitas). Of such " marks " (notse) he enumerates ten in the 
 PhilosopTiia Universalis and sixteen in the Atheismus Trium- 
 phatus. The most important of these marks are the follow- 
 ing. (1) The moral precepts must correspond to universal 
 nature, and allow no vice that is contrary to natural virtue. 
 (2) The doctrines must be credible, true, and compatible with 
 reason; and, if they go beyond reason, they must not be contra- 
 dictory or fabulous. The true faith, in fact, is not merely a 
 historical thing, but an internal affection of the mind, and it 
 makes the individual know and will the divine. (3) The 
 fact that prophets have been actually sent from God, must be 
 established by their miracles, prophecies, virtuous life, and 
 stedfast martyrdom. (4) The true religion is spread by 
 miracles and virtue, but not by arms, and to it alone does 
 God give lasting existence. (5) There can only be one 
 divine religion corresponding to human nature and perfecting 
 it ; it alone applies to the whole world, and responds to the 
 
108 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 various manners of men, and is suitable for all places and 
 times. By these marks the Christian religion is then com- 
 pared, in the several points of doctrine and of ritual, with the 
 other religions. And under reference to the distinction 
 between what is contrary to reason and what is above reason, 
 Christianity is shown on all points to be the only true reli- 
 gion. The result comes, in short, to this. There is a Law in 
 the whole world which brings men, in conformity with reason, 
 to the true life. Christianity is in harmony with this Law, 
 and it is therefore the true religion. 
 
 FKANCISCUS PATKITIUS. 
 
 Patritius (152 91 5 9 3), 1 in the introduction to hisPanarchia, 
 attains to the supreme and single principle of all things in two 
 ways. Things are either unmoved or moved ; and the latter 
 are either moved by other things or by themselves. Hence 
 there are three kinds of substances : Bodies, Souls, and Spirits. 
 Those souls whose care is the movement of the heavens and 
 the order of the world, participate in reason. This points to 
 another higher Spirit which exists independently of souls. 
 Life precedes this spirit ; Essence precedes life ; the essentially 
 One precedes essence ; Unity precedes the essentially One ; 
 and the First-One precedes all (Unum primum). Thus we 
 rise to a First-One, which is before and above all things. 
 Further, what is, is either one in its mode, so that it contains 
 no plurality ; or it is a plurality in its mode, so that it con- 
 
 1 Patritius, notwithstanding his unsettled life, of which he only spent the last 
 eighteen years in rest as a teacher of the Platonic Philosophy at Ferrara, was a 
 versatile and prolific writer. By his Delia Historia Diece Dialoghi, 1560, he 
 acquired a distinguished place among the historians of his time. In his Dis- 
 cussiones peripatetics, in 4 vols. (1571-1581), he gives an investigation, 
 unique for its time, on the Aristotelian Philosophy in its relation to Plato and 
 the older philosophers. Its purpose was to show that all that was false in the 
 system was peculiar to Aristotle, and all that was true in it was borrowed from 
 others. He also translated the Commentary of Joannes Philoponus on Aristotle, 
 and wrote important works on the Military Art and on Poetry. His principal 
 philosophical work is his Nova de tTniversis Philosophia, Ferrara 1591. It 
 is divided into four parts : Panaugia, or the Doctrine of Light ; Panarchia, or 
 Metaphysics ; Panpsychia, or Psychology ; and Pancosmia, or Cosmology. 
 
FRANCISCUS PATRITIUS. 109 
 
 tains nothing simple ; or it is at once one and many ; or it is 
 neither one nor many. Of these four possibilities one only is 
 thinkable, namely, that individual things are at once one and 
 many. This points to a higher uniting nature, which is 
 neither one nor many, but is absolutely one, and nothing else 
 but one. This one is not a body ; it is not nature ; it is not 
 the soul ; it is not the understanding ; it is not life ; it is not 
 essence ; it is not unity ; but it is the One absolutely, which 
 is the principle of all things, and therefore it is likewise the 
 First of all things. 
 
 In this First-One there is already contained everything 
 that afterwards comes out of it ; and this holds not merely in 
 possibility, but really. However, it is not yet in full unfolded 
 reality, but only as it were in seed (seminaliter). By the 
 seminal activity (actione seminali) everything proceeds from 
 the One ; and, in assuming proper independent form, the One 
 splits up into the plurality of the various genera. The order 
 and harmony in the universe, refer unmistakeably to this unity 
 in plurality. This primal one is the simplest of all things ; 
 it is out of all relations of space and of time, of rest and of 
 motion, and even of essence ; it can neither be known nor 
 named ; it is the first and absolute Good. As numbers arise 
 from numerical unity, so is this One the principle of all things. 
 Hence, in the One, all things are contained in a manner that 
 is unique (uniter, evialto^) : and the One is both One- All and 
 All-One at the same time (unomnia). This Infinite, this First- 
 One, which is at the same time All-One, we likewise call God. 
 
 This unity is, however, at the same time threefold ; it is a 
 Triunity or Trinity. The One first of all, in accordance with 
 its unity, lets One arise out of itself; this One is similar to 
 it nay, they are both essentially the same as one another, 
 and are only distinguished by the eternally processional act 
 of letting go forth and of going forth. The two form an 
 indissoluble communion with each other ; they are a Triad, 
 indicated in the ecclesiastical expression of the Trinity as 
 Father, Son, and Spirit, and in the philosophical terminology 
 as All-One, Possibility, and Spirit. 
 
110 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 It is by the mediation of this Triad that creation, as the 
 origin of the many things from the All-One, comes to pass. 
 For although all things are in the First-One, and on account 
 of this participation are complete, they do not proceed out of 
 it immediately, but only arise in a certain succession of stages, 
 each with its own degree of perfection. The first thing gene- 
 rated of the All-One is the primary Unity, called by Plato the 
 Idea of the Good, and called by the Church the Son of God. 
 This primary Unity creates with the Father the secondary 
 Unities, or the Ideas which it comprehends in itself ; for the 
 Idea of the Good cannot remain unfruitful. By its resem- 
 blance to the One it is also a unity, and in its difference from 
 the One it produces plurality. When the primary Unity 
 turns itself in essential love to the Father, there proceeds from 
 the Father the third principle, which is Being, or the Essence 
 in which all essences are contained. To this Unity of essence 
 there are attached the unities of Lives, Spirits, Souls, Natures, 
 Qualities, and Bodies. In nine stages, all being descends, 
 without gap and without leap, from the highest All- One down 
 to the lowest thing. Throughout these stages the primary 
 Unity stands in uninterrupted union with the Plurality, and 
 particularly in the order of pervasion. All higher things are 
 contained in reality in the lower, according to the measure of 
 their capacity ; all lower things are contained in the higher, 
 according to the measure of their excellence. The ideas which 
 exist by themselves in the primary Unity are intellectual con- 
 ceptions in the rational spirit ; they are efficient causes in the 
 soul ; and they are forms in matter that fill the world. 
 
 Patritius also designates the origin of the many things as a 
 creation out of nothing, in as far as no self-subsisting matter 
 lies at their foundation. He thinks of them rather as proceed- 
 ing out of God, like the word proceeding out of the mouth ; 
 and in such a way, that things out of God are no longer quite 
 the same as they were in Him. This process is effected by 
 Light. In so far as God by His infinite power gives power 
 and life to all finite things, He is fire and light. This cor- 
 poreally incorporeal Light, emanating from God, is always 
 
JULIUS (LESAR VANINI. Ill 
 
 combined with Heat ; both penetrate the universe of space, and 
 they constitute the properly efficient principle in all things. 
 The third principle, of which the effect is resistance, is Fluidity. 
 It does not interest us here to trace further how, according to 
 Patritius, the universe is constructed out of these principles. It 
 may only be further observed that the return to God is designated 
 as the end and goal of Philosophy ; and that Eeligion is not 
 specially discussed. 
 
 JULIUS CAESAR VANINI. 
 
 Julius Caesar Vanini (1585 1619) 1 met the same fate as 
 Giordano Bruno ; he was burned at Toulouse, in February 
 1619, after having been found guilty of atheism, blasphemy, 
 and other crimes. Vaiiini, however, is not to be put on a 
 level with Bruno, either as to power of thinking, or moral 
 earnestness, or in holy enthusiasm for his convictions. In the 
 first period of his life, of which the most important monument 
 is the Ampkitheatrum, he zealously combats the atheists, but 
 moves almost entirely in Cardan's circle of thought. The 
 existence of God, he argues, does not follow, as Aristotle 
 supposes, from the fact that motion requires a First Mover, 
 but from the principle that finite and contingent being incon- 
 trovertibly demands an infinite and necessary Being, or that 
 limited being demands an unlimited Being. God alone knows 
 what God is, and, if I knew it, I would be God. All that can 
 be known from His works is that God is the first all-embracing 
 Being, and hence He is the highest good. God is not an 
 essence, but Essentiality. He is not good, but Goodness. 
 He is not wise, but Wisdom. He is all, everywhere, and in all 
 things, but not enclosed by them ; He is above all things, but 
 not excluded from them. He is all, above all, in all, before all, 
 and after all. Everything finite has been created by God. 
 His creating, however, constitutes Cognition, and hence the 
 
 1 Of his writings, see particularly his Amphitheatrum ^Eternse providentire 
 divino - magicum, etc., Lugd. 1615; De admirandis Naturae Reginse 
 Deseque inortalium arcaiiis, L. iv., Lutet. 1616. Carriere, 495-521. 
 
112 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 divine Cognition, or the divine Providence, supports and 
 penetrates all things. This divine Providence is explained in 
 detail, and vindicated against the objections of Diagoras, 
 Protagoras, and Epicurus. The antagonism between divine 
 Providence and the freedom of the human will, is cleared 
 away ; and emphasis is laid upon the fact that Providence 
 relates not merely to what is general, but to what is special. 
 All human cognition rests upon the condition of becoming one 
 with the object known. Knowledge is the life of the Spirit, 
 and the knowledge of the highest truth or God is its goal and 
 blessedness. In this knowledge all men become one with 
 each other, and are, at the same time, united with God. 
 
 The chief monument of the later period of his life is the 
 treatise De admirandis Naturcc Rcgince Dewyue mortalium 
 arcanis, " Of the wonderful secrets of Nature, the Queen and 
 Goddess of mortals." It is clothed in the same literary form, 
 atheists bringing forward their objections and being refuted. 
 But not merely is the view of the world which is now pre- 
 sented fundamentally a very different one, but there is also 
 manifestly far more weight assigned to the objections of the 
 atheists than to the refutations with which they are met, and 
 which are often very weak. Moreover, the tone is so frivolous, 
 cynical, and impure, that there can be no doubt about the true 
 opinion of the author. Matter, we read, is imperishable ; it 
 is incapable of increase or diminution, but it continually 
 assumes other forms. The world is eternal, and, at the same 
 time, it possesses in its own continual productivity the 
 principle of its preservation. The soul is the material 
 " spiritus " or nerve spirit. Our condition depends upon our 
 food. All virtues or vices depend upon the good or bad 
 humours of the body. In the discussion of the religion of 
 the heathen, the assertions of the ancient philosophers are 
 indeed contested, but they are hardly refuted. Such views are 
 brought forward as that Plato identified God and the world. 
 Other philosophers would have us truly honour God only in 
 the law of Nature. Nature herself is God, because she is the 
 principle of motion, and she has written this law in the heart 
 
NICOLAUS TAURELLUS. 113 
 
 of the peoples. All other commands and doctrines are mere 
 inventions of princes and priests in order to keep the people 
 more easily in check by the hope of heavenly reward and the 
 fear of punishment in another world. Vanini proceeds to 
 refer miracles and signs to atmospheric phenomena and 
 phantasms of the imagination. The demoniacs were tortured 
 by the bad humours of the body; those who spoke with 
 tongues were seized by accesses of fever ; purgatives and 
 cooling remedies put an end to these manifestations. Vanini 
 declines to speak of the immortality of the soul " until I have 
 become an old man, and am rich, and a German." In short, in 
 the Vanini of the later period we have before us a conspicuous 
 representative of that tendency which was estranged by 
 Humanism from all religion ; and, notwithstanding his well- 
 known saying that " a straw compelled him to believe in God," 
 the accusation of atheism was not raised against him without 
 some foundation. 
 
 IV. 
 
 NICOLAUS TAURELLUS. 
 
 Taurellus (1547-1606) 1 turned also against the authority 
 of Aristotle. He found the impulse and occasion for doing so 
 in the opposition to the theory of the " double truth," which 
 was frequently maintained even in the Protestant Church. 
 He does not wish to be regarded, however, as depreciating 
 Aristotle, only he would not have him regarded as the goal of 
 the course, beyond which no one can go. Philosophy ought 
 to recognise no other authority than the Scriptures, and it has 
 to recognise this authority so unconditionally that whatever 
 deviates from the written Word of God is to be rejected as 
 
 1 F. Xaver Sclimid of Schwarzenberg has the merit of having specially drawn 
 attention to the importance of Taurellus, and particularly to his relations to 
 Leibniz in his " Nicolaus Taurellus, der erste deutsche Philosoph," Erlangen 
 1864. Schmid gives details regarding the doctrines, circumstances, and writings 
 of Taurellus. Of these writings the most important are his Philosophise 
 Triumphus, hoc est, Metaphysica Philosophandi Methodus, etc., 1573 ; Synopsis 
 Aristotelis Metaphysices ad normam Christianse Religionis explicate, emendatae et 
 complete, Hanov. 1596; Alpes Csesae, 1597; De rerum seternitate, Marpurgil604. 
 VOL. I. H 
 
114 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 error and untruth. In the preface to his TriumpJius Philo- 
 sophice, Taurellus expressly says it may cause surprise that he 
 has entitled his treatise the Triumph of Philosophy, while in 
 it he has attacked the philosophers with all his power. But 
 as nothing is true which stands in contradiction to Scripture, 
 it had pleased him to bring the matter to this issue, that after 
 the errors of philosophy were removed he might show that it 
 had gained the victory, not because it had overcome theology, 
 but because, when conquered, it had subjected itself to the 
 service of theology. Apart from Scripture, philosophy can 
 have no other authority to follow than Reason alone. 
 
 But the question arises as to whether Eeason is capable of 
 attaining knowledge of the truth. Are not our natural powers 
 so much corrupted by sin that we are completely incapable of 
 attaining to truth by means of them, not to speak of the 
 knowledge of God and divine things ? This question was 
 discussed in the age of the Reformation. Taurellus answers 
 it in the first part of his TriumpJius Philosophies, in the 
 section de viribus humance mentis. He does not specially 
 enter upon an examination of our faculty of knowledge, but 
 he shows by a long explanation in detail that knowledge 
 belongs to the substance of our mind, that sin can only corrupt 
 its accidents, and hence that our natural faculty of knowledge 
 has not suffered by sin, but is still in the same state in which 
 it was before the fall of Adam. By elucidating these two 
 points, namely, the rejection of all authority and the proof 
 that our natural faculty of knowledge is not corrupted by sin, 
 Taurellus paved the way for the establishment of his main thesis. 
 
 There is no " double " truth in such a sense that that 
 could be true in philosophy which is false in theology, or 
 conversely. "For as there is only one single principle of 
 things, and only one mind in man by which he is at once 
 philosopher and theologian, so there is likewise in one and the 
 same mind only one truth, to which there is nothing opposed 
 but falsehood." There is one mind which knows and believes, 
 and this is the human mind. Theologians have greatly con- 
 fused the subject by asserting that it is the divine mind which 
 
NICOLAUS TAURELLUS. 115 
 
 thinks and believes in us. Knowledge, like faith, belongs to 
 the substance of the human mind. Our mind is not purely 
 passive even in the process of faith as the spontaneous appro- 
 priation of the merit of Christ ; it is not a mere dead block 
 presented as such for the operation of grace. It is true that 
 we need divine grace in relation to our thinking as well as to 
 our believing, in order that it may remove the obstacles which, 
 in consequence of sin, impede the active exercise of our reason. 
 Nevertheless it is not the mind of God, but the human mind, 
 which thinks and believes. The former is the " causa 
 remotior," the latter the " causa em'ciens." There is therefore 
 one Reason whose substance is constituted by thinking and 
 believing, and there is one Grace which supports us in both of 
 these operations. In like manner, there is only one principle 
 of all things, which is at the same time the ground of all know- 
 ledge, philosophical as well as theological. Whence, then, could 
 there be a " double " truth ? 
 
 The complete subordination of Philosophy to Theology, in- 
 volving a merely negative relation of the former to the latter, 
 results from the principles of knowledge that come into 
 application in both sciences. Philosophy is the knowledge of 
 divine and human things, obtained through strict reasoning by 
 the faculty of knowledge implanted in us. Theology, on the 
 other hand, rests upon immediate divine revelation. Both 
 Eeason and Eevelation point back to God as their ultimate 
 principle ; but while Reason may err in many ways, Revelation 
 is infallible. Hence Philosophy must subject itself uncon- 
 ditionally to Theology. If a contradiction arises between 
 them, Theology claims unconditional authority, and the 
 assertions of Philosophy must be tested and altered, if need 
 be, in accordance with the positions established by Theology. 
 
 But there is also a positive relation of Philosophy to Theology. 
 On this side, Philosophy appears as a positive presupposition 
 of Theology. Knowledge is thus regarded as the foundation 
 of faith. Here, likewise, a twofold relation comes into con- 
 sideration. Philosophical knowledge is not restricted to earthly 
 things, but ascending from effects to their cause, it also 
 
116 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 embraces the existence, essence, and working of God. In all 
 these points a true philosophy must harmonize with revela- 
 tion, and to establish this harmony is the goal aimed at by 
 Taurellus in his reform of Metaphysics. One object, however, 
 belongs to the sphere of theology alone ; it is the divine Will 
 in the operations of grace. If Adam had not sinned, there 
 would have been no need of divine grace, nor would there 
 have been any theology, but only philosophy. When all men 
 have received grace, all knowing will receive its light from 
 this source ; and in this third period there will be only theo- 
 logical knowledge and no philosophical knowledge. In the 
 middle period in which we now live, philosophy has the same 
 significance as the preaching of the law ; it has to drive us to 
 despair, and thus make us inclined to receive the Gospel and 
 divine grace. It is necessary to look at these two points 
 somewhat more closely. 
 
 Philosophy attains to the knowledge of God by means of 
 ontological as well as cosmological considerations. The prin- 
 ciples of things must correspond to those v of knowledge, 
 because all knowing is innate in us. Hence the highest prin- 
 ciples of things are affirmation and negation. Simple affirma- 
 tion is God ; simple negation is pure Nothing, or the first 
 matter of the physicists. The latter necessarily presupposes 
 the former as its cause. All finite things are compounded in 
 certain masses out of affirmation and negation. God is there- 
 fore the unlimited single substance in which there is no diver- 
 sity. Finite things are something in the sense that they are 
 not manifold; but God is all, and it cannot be said that He is 
 not anything. The principle of causality, when applied to 
 this position, gives as the result that God is the principle of 
 Himself, and at the same time the cause of all things. From 
 pure nothing, God created the second matter ; and out of it, 
 by means of the forms created from nothing, He shaped indi- 
 vidual things. God, however, is not, as regards His substance, 
 the cause of the world, but He is so " per accidens," and only 
 by His free action. Examination of the world leads to the 
 same positions. Its limitedness proves that it is not eternal. 
 
NICOLAUS TAUKELLUS. 117 
 
 The fundamental error of Aristotle lies in his holding the 
 eternity of the world. But if God is not the internal or con- 
 stitutive cause of the world, but its external or efficient cause, 
 the essence of God is different from His causality. Viewed 
 as to His essence, God is substantial ; yet He is not an active 
 substance, but is activity and energy itself. This activity 
 does not consist in knowing, but in producing ; yet not in the 
 mere accidental producing of the world, but in eternal pro- 
 ducing of Himself. Hence God is the highest blessedness, 
 and therefore He is also triune. 
 
 The world is not an end in itself, but has been created for 
 man. Man finds his goal, which is happiness, in union with 
 God, and this results from the contemplation of God and the 
 righteousness connected therewith, as well as from the com- 
 mendation of God. The unity of men, as founded upon their 
 descent from one pair, is subservient to the attainment of this 
 goal. The earth, however, is not to be viewed as a place of 
 happiness or misery, but only of propagation. As soon as the 
 determinate number of men is complete, this world will be 
 annihilated and men transported into another world to enjoy 
 blessedness or to suffer damnation. Since we sin and God is 
 just, eternal damnation awaits us. This knowledge is the 
 fruit of philosophy, and it leads us to despair. We are also 
 driven to the same despair by the divine law which speaks to 
 us in the conscience. This shows the agreement between 
 science and conscience. From this despair there is no other 
 escape than that which is furnished by the Christian religion. 
 Its two main positions are the acknowledgment of our own 
 misery and the promise of divine grace, or the Law and the 
 Gospel. The Law, as expressed in the Ten Commandments, 
 is in accord with the will of God, which is engraven by Nature 
 in all men. As by corporeal relationship with one man we 
 all have become miserable, so shall we all become . blessed by 
 spiritual relationship with one man. As by the sin of another 
 we came into a state of wretchedness, so by the merit of 
 another do we attain to a state of blessedness. For Christ, 
 who was begotten by God from the Virgin, and who is there- 
 
BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 fore separated from the sin of Adam by the voluntary sur- 
 render of His wholly sinless life, has paid a ransom more than 
 sufficient for the sins of all mankind. It only remains, then, to 
 lay hold of the grace of God in faith ; for all who are saved, 
 are firmly convinced that Christ suffered death for them ; and 
 this is the substance of the Christian faith. And so Taurellus, 
 on coming to the end of his treatise, De J&fantxtafa rerum, 
 asks : " Quid igitur in hac nostra religione absurd! est ? Die 
 quaeso, quisquis es, an ulla ratio nostrse salutis esse vel 
 excogitari, quae veritati philosophicse magis sit conseritanea ? 
 Dicam ingenue, quod sentiam : si hasc non sit, nulla erit alia." 
 The fate of Taurellus is significant of the character of his 
 age. He was certainly not without scholars and enthusiastic 
 admirers of his genius. But his opponents greatly prepon- 
 derated in numbers ; and it is remarkable enough that the 
 theologians were even more violent against him than the 
 peripatetic philosophers. Scherbius, his colleague at Altdorf, 
 showed himself a fanatical Aristotelian in his Dissertatio pro 
 philosophia Peripatetica adv. Mamistas (Altdorf 1590). It 
 was asserted that Taurellus believed nothing, and was worse 
 than a Turk. He was also .branded as a Pelagian. Quenstedt 
 and Lampe number him among the Arminians. Loscher 
 reckons him among the naturalistic thinkers, who, as related 
 to the deists and Spinozists, were suspected of being atheists. 
 The Heidelberg Theologians designate him as "Atheus medicus;" 
 and from that time he appears in almost all the lists of atheists. 
 Only Boyle and Leibniz mention him with laudatory recog- 
 nition. He was otherwise either passed over in dead silence, 
 or violently consigned to oblivion by the destruction of his 
 writings. 
 
 PETER EAMUS. 
 
 Petrus Eamus (1515-72) * was the grandson of a charcoal 
 burner, and the son of a poor peasant. After years of bitter 
 
 1 Of the numerous writings of Eamus, the following deserve to be particularly 
 noted: Institutionum dialecticarum, L. iii., Par. 1552. Commentarii de 
 
PETER EAMUS. 119 
 
 poverty he found, as the servant of a student in the college of 
 Navarre, the opportunity of satisfying his burning desire of 
 learning. But after he had studied the Aristotelian logic for 
 three and a half years, he recognised the emptiness and use- 
 lessness of this hollow verbal wisdom. The reading of Plato 
 brought him to the Socratic mode of searching after wisdom ; 
 and in 1536, still a youth of twenty-one years, on his being 
 promoted to the Master's degree, he maintained the bold and 
 hitherto unheard-of thesis, " qua3cunque ab Aristotele dicta 
 essent, commentitia esse." He maintained that all that 
 Aristotle had taught was mere fable ; for, in the first place, 
 the writings attributed to him were spurious, and, in the 
 second place, these writings contained nothing but errors. 
 This attack was unprecedented in that age, and especially in 
 the University of Paris, where Aristotle was honoured as a 
 saint, and regarded as infallible. Supported by Omer Talon, 
 Professor of Rhetoric, and Bartholomais Alexandre, Professor 
 of Greek, Ramus carried out the union of rhetoric with logic, 
 and introduced Greek into the public instruction. The ad- 
 herents of Aristotle induced Francis I. to interdict him from 
 all teaching and writing on philosophical subjects. This pro- 
 hibition was, however, recalled by Henri II. in 1547 ; but the 
 conflict still went on. The whole life of Ramus is filled with 
 these wretched conflicts, and it was more as the founder of a 
 new philosophy than as a Protestant that he felt himself 
 insecure during the civil war in Paris. It is certainly estab- 
 lished that a passionate opponent, Jacques Charpentier, a 
 truculent Aristotelian, took advantage of the horrors of the 
 Bartholomew massacre to get him safely put out of the way. 
 
 If we now look at this new Philosophy somewhat more 
 closely, we cannot but wonder how a philosophy which goes 
 much further than the genuine Aristotle in empty formalism, 
 and yields but little to the formalism of the Scholastics, 
 could have called forth such a movement. Of the ancients, 
 
 Religione Christiana, L. iv., Francof. 1577. Cf. Charles Waddington, Ramus, 
 sa vie, ses Merits, et ses opinions, Paris 1855. P. Lobstein, Petrus Ramus als 
 Theologe, Strassburg 1878. 
 
120 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 it is Socrates to whom Eamus loves most to refer, and he does 
 this from two points of view. His first object is to overthrow 
 the respect for authority. In philosophy, authority is to be 
 of no account, be it what it may. Instead of blindly following 
 an authority, we ought to take our stand upon reason and 
 upon free thinking. Further, science must be directed 
 towards practical utility. Science ought to be made to 
 minister to practical applications, although not to the mere 
 trivial utilities of daily life. This follows at once from the 
 three stages of capability which Eamus distinguishes in the 
 relations of every science, and which are designated Nature, 
 Art, and Practice. This principle applies to Nature, for we 
 have received from Nature our capacity for everything; it 
 holds of Art, which reduces to conscious and universal rules 
 what we are disposed to by Nature; and it applies to 
 Practice, which is strengthened by repeated activity and habit. 
 Kamus turns his attention chiefly to a reform of Dialectics ; 
 but even apart from his judgments about Aristotle, which 
 are often extremely unjust, what Eamus tries to put in his 
 place is not at all fit to be a substitute for the Logic of the 
 Stagirite. To put it shortly, he holds that Logic should be 
 closely connected with Ehetoric. Dialectic is ars lene 
 disserendi, a guide to discoursing well ; and as such it, in 
 fact, touches none of the deeper metaphysical questions 
 which Aristotle draws into the circle of his explanations, 
 and which he treats at times with skill. Eamus really gives 
 nothing more than direction as to how to discourse well 
 about an object, to represent it on all its sides, and to main- 
 tain the reasons of it. Dialectic is divided into Invention 
 and Judgment (inventio et judicium). Invention treats of the 
 finding of proofs ; and proof is either artificial or inartificial, 
 according as by its nature it may or may not serve as 
 proof. The latter kind of proof applies to divine and human 
 testimony. The former kind of proof falls into a series of 
 classes, such as cause and effect, subject and predicate, and 
 so on. Under every kind, Eamus quotes a number of 
 examples from Latin and Greek writers, and gives a short 
 
PETER EAMUS. 121 
 
 definition, although these are mostly only verbal, such as 
 " Subjectum est cui aliquid adjimgitur," " Adjunctum est cui 
 aliquid subjicitur." The deeper question as to the grounds of 
 these proofs is not even raised. His doctrine of Judgment 
 only gives direction as to the mode of disposing judgments, 
 with rules as to the appropriate arrangement of the proofs 
 conducive to judgment. At this point Eamus attaches him- 
 self in many respects to Aristotle, and does not advance 
 beyond laying down certain rules for the rhetorical apprecia- 
 tion of proof. 
 
 We come now to the question as to the position taken up 
 by Eamus towards Eeligion. He was devoted from 1561 to 
 the Eeformed Church ; and a tour through Switzerland and 
 Germany from 1568 to 1570, brought him into personal 
 contact with the most distinguished theologians of his age and 
 communion. In the last years of his life he took a keen 
 interest in Synodical transactions connected with the arrange- 
 ments of the Eeformed Church in France. Had his life been 
 longer spared, his authority would perhaps have led to a 
 schism, for he represented the democratic constitution of the 
 Church, and Zwingli's doctrine of the Lord's Supper as against 
 Beza. His Commentarii do not contain a scientific or 
 systematic discussion of theology, but only the reflections 
 of a highly - cultured layman on the chief points of the 
 Christian faith. Attaching his reflections to the Catechism, 
 and frequently giving an explanation of it word for word, 
 although occasionally diverging and softening in detail, his 
 Commentaries reproduce, on the whole, the doctrinal system 
 of the Eeformed Church. 
 
 Eamus aimed likewise at purging theology of the subtle 
 questions of Scholasticism, and introducing a new method 
 into it. This method consists in beginning with the defini- 
 tion of each doctrine, then quoting testimonies and examples 
 from the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament, and 
 also giving quotations from distinguished poets, orators, and 
 historians taken from the whole of profane literature of 
 heathen as well as Christian origin. The object is certainly 
 
122 BEGINNINGS OF INDEPENDENT SPECULATION. 
 
 not to deduce an authority or approbation for theology from 
 these sources, nor is it merely to procure an agreeable variety 
 for readers and hearers, but it is to show that theology does 
 not lie far from man, and rather receives illumination from 
 the natural light that is found among all peoples. In 
 opposition to the arbitrariness with which every individual 
 theologian adopts a separate way of his own, Eamus aims at 
 introducing a new arrangement by discoursing first of the 
 science and then of the disciplina. This is not the common 
 distinction between Dogmatics and Ethics, but the distinction 
 already mentioned between art and practice. The science 
 falls into the doctrine of the faith, and of its active manifesta- 
 tion in law, prayer, and sacraments. Although this arrange- 
 ment is simply borrowed from the Catechism, Ramus holds 
 that the institution of it is very significant. "Whoever first 
 brings this method into theology, kindles a peculiar light in 
 which all the parts of theology can be clearly and distinctly 
 surveyed." 
 
 Theology is defined as " doctrina bene vivendi," i.e. " Deo 
 bonorurn omnium fonti congrueritur et accommodate." Lately, 
 he says, in some inconceivable way, this lene vivere or living 
 well has been made the same as recte vivere or living justly, 
 whereas it is synonymous with beate vivere or living blessedly. 
 Regarding the true meaning of the definition, we obtain some 
 light from the circumstance that God is designated the source 
 of all good things ; and still more does its meaning become 
 clear when it is immediately afterwards said that the ethical 
 philosophy of the heathen deduced and determined the happy 
 life of man from the weak powers of his nature, as if man 
 had in himself what was sufficient for the blessed life. 
 Theology teaches, on the contrary, that man is not able to 
 attain the good and blessed life of himself, but realizes it 
 only when he listens to God, and thus receives the promise 
 of the eternal fruit of heavenly blessedness. And because 
 this blessedness is not completely obtained in the earthly 
 life, faith in immortality is the groundwork of the whole 
 Scriptures and of religion. Theology is therefore the doctrine 
 
PETER EAMUS. 123 
 
 of God which is communicated by God to men, and laid 
 down in the canonical Scriptures. Its substance is the 
 forgiveness of sins by Christ. This forgiveness is embodied 
 in both Testaments, which contain throughout the same 
 thing, and are only different in respect of the extent of their 
 announcement and the degree of their distinctness. Taken 
 together, the Old and New Testaments contain the divine 
 rules for a blessed life. Hence Faith is also defined as trust 
 in God in respect of His beneficence to His Church, for it is 
 only through the Church that we can obtain salvation. 
 Works are inseparable from faith. As the fire cannot exist 
 without heat, nor the sun without light, neither can faith 
 exist without right action towards God. But being incapable 
 by nature of what is good, we only obtain by divine influence 
 the power required to perform it. The details of the theology 
 of Eamus need not be further reproduced for our purpose 
 here ; and, besides, they contain but little that is peculiarly 
 their own. 
 
 Eamism was the only philosophy that succeeded in breaking 
 down the supremacy of Aristotle. It succeeded for a time at 
 least, and it gave rise to a lasting movement through the 
 whole learned world. 
 
SECTION SECOND. 
 
 THE DOCTEINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 AEEVOLUTION of the religious life known as the 
 Protestant Eeformation took place at the same time 
 as the movement in the domain of Philosophy which we have 
 been describing, but it was entirely independent of that move- 
 ment, and was little influenced even by the free spirit of 
 Humanism. The Eeformation separated into two movements, 
 but the foundation of both of them lay in the striving to 
 obtain due independence for the individual in opposition to 
 the oppressive authority of the Eoman Church. Some of the 
 representatives of this revolution gave up all that was objec- 
 tive in the previous position, and in consequence of this 
 exaggeration of the subjective principle they were unable to 
 found a lasting Church. Others, again, accepted the historical 
 fact of the redemption by the sacrificial death of Christ and 
 the immediate divine revelation in the Scriptures, and only 
 demanded the free access of the subject to both. The 
 representatives of this position have founded a Church 
 which still exists, but they also separated into two distinct 
 communities, forming the Lutheran and the Calvinistic Ee- 
 formed Churches. The attempts to refer the separation of 
 the Lutheran and the Eeformed Churches to merely external 
 causes now belong to the past. A religious difference 
 undoubtedly lay at the foundation of this ecclesiastical divi- 
 sion. Of the various formulae that have been proposed to define 
 it, it may be most correctly determined in the following terms. 
 God and man being viewed as the two members of the religious 
 relation, the consciousness of dependence on the all-determin- 
 ing power of God and the consciousness of personal sin and 
 unworthiness of the gifts of divine grace, may be regarded as 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 125 
 
 the two fundamental feelings of religion in relation to God 
 and man. The distinction between the two communities 
 appears in this, that the former consciousness comes into the 
 foreground among the Calvinists, whereas the latter comes into 
 the foreground among the Lutherans, this consciousness in 
 each case ruling everything else. The Eeformation, as pro- 
 ceeding from the religious interest, has, on its own showing, 
 brought forth something quite different from mere philosophical 
 systems of religion. Hence there are only a few points in 
 connection with it that properly claim our attention here. 
 These are : 1. The special character of the religious life as it 
 took form in the most important personalities of the Eeforma- 
 tion, and as it received objective representation in their 
 theology ; 2. The views adopted regarding the source of reli- 
 gious knowledge and the validity of reason in matters of 
 faith ; and 3. The position taken up with reference to the 
 scholastic philosophy. 1 
 
 I. 
 
 MARTIN LUTHER (1483-1546). 
 
 Martin Luther was born at Eisleben, in Lower Saxony, 
 on the 10th November 1483. The strict training of his 
 father's house, the stern discipline he received at school, and 
 all the straitened circumstances of his outward life, had fostered 
 in Luther the spirit of the Law of fear and timidity and 
 so the consciousness of sin came to form the centre of his 
 religious life. 2 Sin was thus realized by him, not so much as 
 a contradiction to his own moral determination, as rather in its 
 
 1 The learned work by W. Gass on the History of Protestant Dogmatics 
 (Geschichte der protestantischen Dogmatik, 4 Bde. Berlin 1854-1867), has been 
 of special service in connection with what follows in this section. A good deal 
 of information has also been obtained from the works of Frank and Tholuck. 
 (G. Frank, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, 3 Bde. Leipzig 1862-1875; 
 Tholuck, Geist der Intherischen Theologie Wittenbergs, 1852 ; Vorgeschichte 
 des Eationalismus, 4 Th. 1853-1862 ; Geschichte des Rationalismns, 1 Th. 1865.) 
 
 2 Julius Kostlin, Die Theologie Luthers, 2 Bd. 1863 ; Luther's Leben und 
 Schriften, 2 Bd. 1875. 
 
126 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 antagonism to the divine law, and as having the divine dis- 
 pleasure and punishment as its consequence. It was this 
 consciousness of sin which drove Luther into a monastery, 
 and led him to seek his own justification in zealous penances 
 and prescribed works. And as the consciousness of grace 
 arose in him, not through works, but in faith, grace thus 
 constituted for him primarily liberation from the divine wrath 
 and divine punishment, and then only in consequence did it 
 become a source of strength for moral improvement. This 
 antagonism of Sin and Grace which Luther experienced in 
 himself in such violence as few other men have felt, forms the 
 centre of his whole Theology. For as the Word of God falls 
 into the Law and the Gospel, there are only two things 
 which it is necessary for the Christian to know. These are 
 knowledge of his own sin and damnation, and knowledge of 
 justification through Christ. 
 
 Grace is appropriated by Faith ; and on this was founded 
 Luther's polemic against the Koman doctrine of Justification 
 by works and self-righteousness. Faith is trustful surrender 
 of the whole personality, and in this lies the mystical element 
 in Luther. But the object of this faith is the historical Christ 
 as the indispensable mediator of grace ; and it is this that 
 distinguishes his doctrine from Mysticism. Through Christ 
 alone do we obtain grace ; and hence in Him alone is the 
 right knowledge of God, as the Triune God and as infinite 
 Love, to be found. 
 
 Christ procured grace for us, and hence He is God and 
 man in one person. Even faith is divine grace, for we can 
 do nothing in consequence of sin, all our work being evil. 
 This operation of divine grace in us, which effects the awaken- 
 ing of faith, is, however, bound to the external means of grace 
 in the Word and the Sacraments ; and this is in direct oppo- 
 sition to the views of fanatics. The fairest fruit of faith 
 is man becoming inwardly certain of faith, and becoming 
 comforted on the ground that God has forgiven him his sins. 
 The whole theology of Luther in its characteristic peculiarities 
 may thus be referred to this contrast between Sin and Grace, 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 127 
 
 and he has himself thus represented it. " We ought," he says, 
 " to comprehend the whole sum of the Christian understanding 
 in two parts, and to put them, as it were, into two sacks. 
 The sack of Faith has two pockets : in the one is put 
 this, that we are corrupted by Adam's sin ; in the other 
 this, that we are all redeemed by Christ. The sack of Love 
 has also two pockets : in the one is put this piece, that we 
 should do good to every one, as Christ has done to us ; and 
 in the other is this other bit, that we should gladly suffer all 
 kinds of evil." 
 
 The grace presented to us in Christ, and to be appropriated 
 by us in faith, is the centre of the Christian Eeligion. And 
 at the same time this grace is all that it properly contains ; 
 what does not stand in relation to it, no longer falls within the 
 sphere of religious knowledge. On this is based the separa- 
 tion that is carried through between the spiritual and the 
 secular, the heavenly and the earthly, the divine and the 
 human. In the former sphere, the immediate divine 
 revelation contained in the Scriptures is the valid source of 
 knowledge, and the divine grace is the power of action ; in 
 the latter, we follow reason and our own will. Before the 
 Fall, along with a morally pure will directed to the love of 
 God and his neighbour, man had also an unobscured know- 
 ledge of God. After the Fall it became otherwise. Our will 
 is now so corrupt that without the Holy Spirit we can do 
 nothing but sin. It is only in mere worldly things that we 
 are able to do anything, to build houses, to discharge civil 
 offices, and such like, and here we may even appropriate and 
 acquire a certain " civil righteousness." In spiritual and 
 divine things, on the other hand, man is entirely without 
 freedom, and he can do anything that is good only by the 
 help of divine grace. The same division is carried out in 
 regard to knowledge. In secular things Eeason is recognised 
 throughout, and thus Luther was able so entirely and fully 
 to give his assent to the noble arts and sciences, but in regard 
 to spiritual and divine things Eeason is viewed by him as 
 smitten with blindness. 
 
128 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 He does not entirely reject a natural knowledge of God. 
 We are able to infer from the beautiful creations of the world 
 and its wonderful, well-ordered government, to a single, eternal, 
 divine Being, as well as from the innumerable benefits which 
 we receive, to the goodness and grace of God. Allusions to 
 the Trinity are impressed even on Nature. While Adam 
 could have known the omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness of 
 God even from the tiniest floweret, we can reach but a very 
 feeble kind of knowledge, as we comprehend God neither 
 as Triune nor as Love. Nay, this natural knowledge appears 
 to be so very insufficient that it is not knowledge at all, but 
 is complete darkness. All that Eeason knows does not hold 
 in it a droplet of the knowledge of grace and truth, of the 
 depth of the divine compassion, of the abyss of the divine 
 wisdom and will. Eeason does not even know the Law rightly ; 
 for it does not understand that Love is the Law. And above 
 all, Eeason knows nothing of the fact that, or of the way by 
 which, we are to attain salvation according to God's will ; it 
 knows nothing, and will know nothing of all this. And as 
 to all that the heathen philosophers have said in their not 
 unskilful disputes about God, His providence, and His govern- 
 ment of the world, it amounts in truth to the greatest ignor- 
 ance of God and vain blasphemy. Hence he holds that " it 
 is not possible for us to comprehend even the least article of 
 faith by human reason, and that no man on earth, without 
 the Word of God, has ever been able to find or apprehend a 
 right thought or certain knowledge of God." Hence Luther 
 bows in all humility before the word of Scripture, and he even 
 describes Eeason " as Mrs. Hulda, the devil's whore," and as 
 that " vain, quarrelsome termagant Eeason." He thus drives 
 Eeason entirely out of the sphere of religious knowledge with 
 the lash of his heavy scourge, while, at the same time, he lauds 
 it as the highest gift of God in the sphere of secular insight. 
 
 Eeligious knowledge rests solely upon the immediate 
 inspiration of God objectively contained in the Word of 
 Scripture. It is not impossible that revelations may yet 
 appear, but they must authenticate themselves by the Word 
 
MARTIN LUTHER. 129 
 
 of Scripture, and they are unnecessary after the concluding 
 revelation that is given in Christ. The question as to the 
 possibility of an immediate divine revelation and the mode of 
 its happening, is not explained any more than the trust- 
 worthiness of Scripture as the documentary record of this 
 revelation is proved. Both points are still regarded as 
 entirely certain in the universal consciousness of the time. 
 Christ, and the grace procured by Him, is the centre and the 
 essential substance of revelation. Hence Luther will not 
 merely judge of the value of the several parts of Scripture by 
 the degree in which they present Christ, but he also allows 
 himself the freest judgment regarding everything which does 
 not belong to this centre. He speaks, not merely of the 
 diligent studies of the Sacred Writers, of the dependence of 
 the one upon the other, of the peculiarities of their style and 
 such like, but he distinguishes different stages of inspiration, 
 and discriminates the object of religious faith from merely 
 external and historical statements. In respect of the former, 
 all the parts of Scripture agree with each other ; but in regard 
 to the latter, he admits, without hesitation, the presence of 
 contradictions, errors, or mistakes of the text. The Scriptures 
 are only rightly interpreted when the inner illumination by 
 the Holy Spirit comes to our aid, and for this we can prepare 
 ourselves by oratio, meditalio, and tentatio. 
 
 Further, the reception of the knowledge contained in reve- 
 lation takes place by means of reason. This, however, is only 
 possible in so far as, in the process of regeneration, the reason 
 of man likewise becomes other than it was. This is desig- 
 nated by Luther at one time as an extinguishing of the light 
 of reason, and at another time as a change of the natural light. 
 But neither is this process, nor the obscuration of reason that 
 came in with the fall, described in, detail. Nor do we find 
 an exact demarcation of the spiritual and the secular spheres. 
 
 The distinction of these two spheres, however, gives the 
 deeper foundation of the proposition that something may be 
 true in theology which is untrue in philosophy, and con- 
 versely. This is the assertion of a " double truth." Against 
 
 VOL. I. I 
 
130 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the condemnation of the double truth by the Sorbonne, Luther 
 emphatically maintains that view. The proposition that the 
 Word was made flesh, is true in theology, whereas in philo- 
 sophy it is absolutely impossible and absurd. So, in like 
 manner, the inference that as the whole divine essence belongs 
 to the Father, and the whole divine essence belongs to the 
 Son, therefore the Son is the Father, is entirely correct in 
 philosophy, whereas in theology it is completely untrue. If, 
 then, a philosophical proposition comes too close to an expres- 
 sion of the Scriptures, it just means " mulier taceat in ecclesia." 
 To assert only one truth is as much as to say that " the truths 
 of faith are to be reduced under the yoke of human reason ; " 
 it is the same as " wishing to enclose the heavens and the 
 earth in their own centre, or putting them into a pepper- 
 corn." In matters of faith we must therefore turn to another 
 dialectic and philosophy, which is the Word of God, and 
 we must regard the objections of a perverse philosophy 
 as no better than a " useless croaking of frogs." It need not 
 surprise us that different things are true in theology and 
 philosophy, since, in the secular sciences and arts, there is 
 not one form of truth merely. We don't measure a quart pot 
 in the same way as we do shoes, nor with ell-wands, nor do 
 we weigh a point with scales. It is impossible then that 
 everything in theology and philosophy can be true in the 
 same manner, because the subject-matters in question are far 
 more distinct from one another than in the case of human 
 arts and sciences. 
 
 Luther was not unacquainted with the Aristotelian 
 Scholastic philosophy of his time. He was not merely trained 
 in it, and had attached himself specially to the Nominalists, 
 but he had even lectured in Wittenberg on the Aristotelian 
 dialectics and physics. But he did not know the genuine 
 Aristotle, his knowledge being derived only from the Scholastic 
 commentators. The Aristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic 
 theology were thus connected so closely with each other in 
 his view, that his opposition to the theology necessarily turned 
 him also against the philosophy. It is only on this ground 
 
PHILIPP MELANCHTHON. 131 
 
 that his unbounded zeal against Aristotle is to be explained. 
 It appeared to him that it was only by the complete over- 
 throw of the authority of Aristotle that the Church could be 
 purified. It was wrong to honour Aristotle like Christ ; and 
 Luther, even in his own drastic way, can hardly say enough 
 in condemnation of him. Melanchthon's influence may have 
 afterwards somewhat softened this judgment, but Luther did 
 not advance so far as to transform the scholastic philosophy 
 and to bring it into such a positive relation to his theology 
 as that it might subserve the connected exposition of the 
 doctrines of faith. 
 
 II. 
 
 PHILIP? MELANCHTHON (1497-1560). 
 
 MELANCHTHON 1 brought the Humanistic element into the 
 German Eeformation. This is accounted for by the fact that 
 before his acquaintance with Luther his life was devoted with 
 a purely scientific zeal to the restoration of the sciences and 
 the purification of the ancient philosophy of the schools. In 
 connection with Luther, Melanchthon came to recognise that 
 there is something higher than the restoration of the sciences, 
 and he then gave his rich gifts entirely to the service of the 
 Information. And yet he could say of himself with truth, 
 that he was almost drawn by force into the controversies of the 
 parties in the Church, and that he longed for the quiet, peace- 
 ful life of the student. His attitude towards secular science, 
 and especially towards the Aristotelian philosophy of the Schools, 
 was always a far more friendly one than that of Luther. 
 
 Having become intimately acquainted in Heidelberg with 
 the Aristotelian Scholasticism, Melanchthon turned decidedly 
 to Nominalism at Tubingen. His youthful enthusiasm was 
 at the same time given to the aspiring Humanism of the age, 
 and his desire to unite these two elements is the explanation 
 of his preference for the dialectics of Agricola. Still a youth, 
 
 1 C. Schmidt, Melanchthon's Leben und Schriften, Elberf. 1861. Herrlinger, 
 Die Theologie Melanchthon's, Gotha 1879. 
 
132 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 Melanchthon lectured at Tubingen on Virgil and Terence ; and 
 as a teacher of eloquence and history, he prelected on Cicero 
 and Livy. He even wrote a Greek grammar, and occupied 
 himself with the idea of giving a new edition of the writings 
 of Aristotle. Called to Wittenberg as Professor of Greek, it 
 was partly the reading of the New Testament and partly the 
 powerful personality of Luther that won him for the Beforma- 
 tion. The influence of the great Eeformer even brought 
 Melanchthon for a time to reject Aristotle. He exhorted his 
 students to devote themselves to the philosophy of Paul. 
 From him they will know the distinction between the true 
 Christian philosophy and the false philosophy of the Scholas- 
 tics, between what is necessary to salvation and what has 
 been devised by human wit, and which cannot comfort men's 
 hearts. In his preface to Aristotle, he declares that the 
 wisest men have always despised philosophy, not only because 
 it is of no advantage to the administration of the State, but 
 because it weakens the mind, and so on. 
 
 This mood of aversion to Aristotle was, however, but 
 transitory. Melanchthon strongly emphasizes the necessity 
 of humanistic and philosophic culture for the servant of the 
 Church, and among all the philosophers no one stands higher 
 in his view than Aristotle. Without Aristotle, the right 
 mode of teaching and of learning cannot be attained. He 
 holds the prerogative over all the philosophers of antiquity. 
 The Stoics are to be rejected on account of their principle 
 of absolute necessity ; the followers of the Academy, on account 
 of their doubts ; and the Epicureans, on account of their 
 immoral life. Plato has certainly some wise thoughts, but he 
 has not treated any part of science connectedly, and he is not 
 to be recommended because of his prejudicial influence upon 
 some of the Church Fathers, and especially upon the theolo- 
 gians. Melanchthon sought to promote the study of Aristotle 
 by lectures on the Aristotelian writings, by commentaries 
 upon them, and by discourses recommending them. But as 
 a genuine Humanist, he will also in the case of Aristotle go 
 back to the original sources; he rejects the Arabian com- 
 
PHILIPP MELANCHTHON. 133 
 
 mentators, and seeks independent explanations of the text. 
 Melanchthon was not disinclined to a certain eclecticism, as 
 when he holds that Aristotle is not to be regarded as in oppo- 
 sition to Plato, but rather to be viewed as his development. 
 Melanchthon was thus of great importance in regard to philo- 
 sophical instruction, and his text-books in Dialectics, Physics, 
 and Ethics laid the foundation for the supremacy of a somewhat 
 purified Aristotelian Scholasticism in the following age. 
 
 As Philosophy, according to Melanchthon, has a certain 
 practical value in qualifying us for any kind of work, it has 
 likewise a positive relation to Theology. In the first place, 
 it stands related to Theology as a formal organon. An 
 unscientific theology is a science full of confusion, in which 
 important subjects are not exactly explained, and in which 
 things that ought to be separated are mixed up among one 
 another, and those that ought to be connected are disjoined. 
 Dialectic and rhetoric are subservient to the purpose of formal 
 order. It is not correct to make Melanchthon identify these 
 in the manner of Eamus. Dialectic shows us how to teach 
 things correctly, orderly, and clearly, while rhetoric teaches us 
 how to discourse about things ; the former exhibits a subject 
 in naked words, whereas the latter treats of the adornment 
 of discourse. Dialectic, as the science of method, treats of 
 definition, division, and proof. An exact definition may clear 
 up much confusion in theology and settle many a contro- 
 versy. Melanchthon therefore endeavours in his dogmatics 
 everywhere to lay down clear and exactly determined defini- 
 tions, and not a few of these have become the common 
 possession of the Protestant Church and its science. As 
 regards division and proof, Melanchthon already gives a 
 completely determined scheme, which is applied, not indeed 
 by himself, but by the dogmatic theologians of the following 
 scholastic period, to the treatment of the doctrines of theology. 
 Melanchthon himself, in the later editions of the " Loci," was 
 already led by the purely methodical interest of the system to 
 incorporate several doctrines which he had previously passed 
 over. On account of this significance of philosophy as a 
 
134 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 formal organon, Aristotle is to be preferred to all other 
 philosophers, for he alone has a strict method, and studiously 
 employs definite and exactly fixed modes of expression. 
 
 Again, philosophy performs certain preliminary material 
 services for theology. Psychology contributes many con- 
 ceptions which are indispensable in dogmatics, such as " will," 
 " feeling," " desire," " freewill," etc. The immortality of 
 the soul likewise follows from philosophical principles. The 
 soul is not of an elementary nature because it has ideas, and 
 even universal ideas, such as those of incorporeal things. 
 What is not of the nature of the elements does riot perish, 
 and therefore the soul does not perish on the death of 
 the body. In view of the undeniable incongruity between 
 conduct and what befalls the individual in the present life, the 
 idea of Providence, as well as the voice of conscience, points 
 to a state of reward and punishment in the life to come. 
 
 Philosophical ethics likewise furnishes the most important 
 fundamental conceptions to theological ethics, such as " the 
 highest good," " virtue," " justice," " law," and others. At the 
 same time, the law of Nature appears, in the Loci, as a ray of 
 the divine wisdom in the human soul, although the full 
 revelation of the good is presented for the first time in the 
 Decalogue. This law of Nature already enjoins the worship 
 of the Deity, the observing, as sacred, of oaths, the customs of 
 the fathers, the supreme authority, the life of others, the family, 
 property, contracts, and promises. Upon the same foundation 
 rest also the first orders of natural right. 
 
 From physics, which contains most of the metaphysical 
 elements that Melanchthon retains, theology receives not 
 merely the general view of the world, but also a whole series 
 of expressions taken from the sphere of the so-called natural 
 theology. To this department belong, above all, the argu- 
 ments for the existence of God, of which Melanchthon 
 enumerates no less than nine. These are 1. The order, 
 regularity, and conformity to law of Nature ; 2. The existence 
 of reason, which cannot possibly arise out of irrational matter ; 
 3. The innate power of distinguishing good and evil ; 4. The 
 
PHILIPP MELANCHTHON. 135 
 
 agreement of all men as regards the belief in God ; 5. The 
 tortures of a bad conscience ; 6. The origination and con- 
 tinuance of civil Society ; 7. The series of efficient causes, or, 
 as Aristotle puts it, of mover and moved, which, as a series 
 and order, cannot be infinite, but refers to a first cause or a 
 first mover ; 8. The complete conformity to design in Nature ; 
 9. The prophetic prediction of the future. Further, physics 
 contains propositions not merely regarding the existence of 
 God, but also regarding His nature. He is one ; He is the 
 creator of the whole world and of the order prevailing in it ; 
 He is wise, just, compassionate, true, holy ; He demands 
 obedience to His will and punishes transgressors. Of the 
 definitions of God which the philosophers have laid down, 
 Melanchthon adopts that of Plato, " Deus est mens seterna, 
 causa boni in natura," that is, God is not body, but eternal 
 mind, of infinite power, wisdom, goodness, truth, justice, and 
 the creator of all good. Five arguments are adduced for 
 divine Providence 1. The useful changes of the seasons, 2. 
 the moral law that is prescribed to us, 3. the congruity 
 between conduct and its consequences, 4. the appearing of 
 heroes, 5. prophecies of the future. We also find traces of a 
 theodicy, as when certain grounds of consolation in misfortune 
 are adduced, such as the unavoidableness of misfortune, the 
 dignity of virtue in bearing it, a good conscience, the calm 
 endurance of others, the benefit to others of our suffering, or 
 its conduciveness to the common wellbeing. 
 
 The positive value of Philosophy to Theology, as thus 
 regarded, must not, however, mislead us into attributing to 
 Melanchthon the fault of confusing or mixing up the two. 
 They are regarded by him as entirely different in respect of 
 their sources of knowledge. Philosophy draws its knowledge 
 from natural reason ; theology draws its knowledge from divine 
 revelation. Hence the certainty attainable in each of them is 
 likewise entirely different. In theology, there is no room for 
 doubt, for the divine revelation is infallible. In philosophy, 
 one opinion contradicts another, and error is heaped on error. 
 Reason is completely incapable of attaining the knowledge of 
 
136 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 God, so that when any one tries, apart from God's Word, to 
 comprehend the divine nature by means of human thoughts, 
 he falls into fearful darkness. The darkening of the natural 
 light of reason belongs to the inborn results of the corruption 
 of sin. Hence whenever Melanchthon borrows any elements 
 from secular science for theology, whether from psychology, 
 or physics, or ethics, he points out that the true knowledge 
 and the complete certainty can only be obtained from 
 revelation. This antagonism is sometimes stretched, even in 
 Melanchthon, to an irreconcilable dualism. Thus he will not 
 give the literal sense of a passage of Scripture, because it 
 contradicts the judgment of reason. NOT will he allow the 
 rule that an individual cannot be compounded of two disparate 
 natures to be applied to the person of Jesus, nor is the 
 principle that nothing comes from nothing to be applied to 
 the creation of the world. Nevertheless, Melanchthon, even 
 in the case of such purely supernatural doctrines, always seeks 
 at least for analogies and for certain points of connection in 
 the domain of philosophy. It was only for a time that he 
 adopted Luther's external separation of philosophy and 
 theology, as expounded in his discussion "de discrimine 
 Evangelii et Philosophise," and so he continually asserts that 
 there is only one truth. " Una est veritas seterna et immota 
 etiam in artibus." The two are indeed separated in so far as 
 philosophy considers everything which falls under our reason, 
 while theology considers the divine revelation. But the two 
 do not contradict one another, for, although theology is the 
 higher, both in its contents and as regards its source of 
 knowledge, yet philosophy is also a positive preparation for it, 
 a " psedagogia in Christum." They are related to each other 
 as the law and the gospel. Philosophy deals with universal 
 and rationally necessary truths, while theology gives particular 
 truths and the facts of the redemption through Christ. 
 
 This friendly attitude towards philosophy on the part of 
 Melanchthon is connected with his own view of the Christian 
 religion. Melanchthon is well aware that his theology is 
 a peculiar form of the Protestant doctrine. The briefest 
 
OSIANDER, ILLYKICUS, AND ORTHODOX LUTHERANISM. 137 
 
 expression for his point of view would be that the funda- 
 mental idea of the Christianity of Melanchthon is the idea of 
 free ethical personality. This appears most directly in his 
 rejection of absolute predestination and his assertion of human 
 freedom. We are, of course, referring now only to the later 
 form of Melanchthon's doctrine. The direct influence of this 
 idea is shown in his doctrine of the subjective appropriation of 
 salvation, which rests not merely upon the action of God, but 
 upon the active co-operation of man, as well as in the doctrines 
 of the new obedience of the justified, and of the Church as a 
 communion of saints. Even the more remote parts of the 
 system are specially determined by this fundamental idea. 
 God appears pre-eminently as the spirit full of wisdom and the 
 freely creating personality ; and the trinitarian self-unfolding 
 of God is brought nearer to us by the illustrations presented 
 in thinking and willing. His Christology also strives to pass 
 beyond the Lutheran " communicatio idiomatum " to the real 
 ethical unity in the God-man, Christ. In short, if a single 
 principle is sought from which to explain the peculiar doctrinal 
 definitions of Melanchthon, it is to be found in the idea of the 
 free moral personality. 
 
 III. 
 
 OSIANDER, ILLYRICUS, AND ORTHODOX LUTHERANISM. 
 
 The heroes are followed by the Epigons. The age of quick 
 religious life and of free reformatory creativeness, is followed 
 by the period of the Lutheran Scholasticism. The question is 
 raised as to whether this scholasticism sprang from Luther or 
 from Melanchthon. In our judgment it sprung neither from 
 Luther alone nor from Melanchthon alone. From Melanchthon 
 it learned to reduce the doctrines of faith to a fixed scheme of 
 logical formulse and distinctions. From Luther it inherited 
 the respect for the external word and its main doctrinal con- 
 tents, and it added, of itself, what was most essential to the 
 system, the want of deep religious life and of free unprejudiced 
 
138 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 science. This period of Lutheran Scholasticism was introduced 
 by a series of ecclesiastical and dogmatic controversies, which 
 resulted partly in the suppression of the Melanchthonian 
 tendency, which was suspected of being Calvinistic, and it 
 partly subserved the dogmatic construction of certain points in 
 the doctrinal system. This latter function was necessary as 
 soon as the Protestant movement passed from the period of 
 conflict to enter upon that of calm self-reflection. But the 
 odious method of polemics as well as the often micrological 
 investigation of unimportant accessories, was as lamentable as 
 the narrow-mindedness which thought to secure the main- 
 tenance of pure doctrine only by suppression of the milder 
 tendency, and which thus strained the opposition of the con- 
 fessions beyond all measure. Of these controversies it is only 
 those connected with the names of Andreas Osiander and 
 Flacius Illyricus that are of any importance for us here. 
 
 1. The assertion of Osiander, 1 that justification does not 
 consist in merely declaring the individual to be righteous, but 
 in making him essentially righteous, may appear at the first 
 glance as a relapse into Catholicism. The truth, however, is 
 that this view arose from the endeavour to show an objective 
 connection between justification and the sanctifi cation result- 
 ing from regeneration ; and it stood in the closest connection 
 with the whole view of the relation of God to man, which, on 
 account of its mystical character, met with but little approba- 
 tion. Osiander asserts " a real indwelling of the triune God 
 in the religious subject, mediated objectively by the Word 
 become man and subjectively by the believing appropriation of 
 the Word ; and, according to this view, the subject is justified 
 or made righteous by this union with the absolute principle of 
 righteousness realized in faith, although the principle only 
 gradually abolishes sin in man " (Heberle). The real divine 
 life rests upon the knowledge of God, and this knowledge upon 
 the Word of God ; for the eternal Word of God, which is the 
 Son of God, is His own self-knowledge, or the totality of the 
 
 1 Cf. Heberle in Studien und Kritiken, 1844. A. Eitsclil in Jahrluclier far 
 deutsche Theologie, 1857. 
 
OSIANDER, ILLYRICUS, AND ORTHODOX LUTHERANISM. 139 
 
 ideas in which God perfectly knows Himself. This Word was 
 ideally eternal with God, and it received real existence in the 
 person of the God-man, Christ. This God-man is therefore 
 the perfect image of God. Adam was created after this human 
 nature of Christ, and therein consisted his possession of the 
 image of God. At the same time, Adam possessed before the 
 Fall a perfect knowledge of God, and became participative of 
 the divine nature through this knowledge, and he was thus 
 raised to inward fellowship with God. By sin we have lost 
 this fellowship, and in order to save us God sent Christ as a 
 mediator. Christ has reconciled us to God by fulfilment of 
 the law and the endurance of punishment, and He brings us 
 the announcement of the forgiveness of sin and justification as 
 the making man righteous. The external word is the neces- 
 sary mode in which the eternal Word works. In receiving 
 the external word into us we also receive the eternal Word into 
 us. We enter thereby into the inward communion with God 
 that corresponds to our proper nature, or are justified. This 
 justification is therefore not a mere " declaring righteous," but 
 a " making righteous," consummated by the indwelling of the 
 eternal Word in us, by which an inward union with God is 
 effected. From this, sanctification or doing good actions 
 directly follows of necessity. 1 
 
 2. The controversy of Flacius Illyricus regarding Original 
 Sin should naturally have led to the question as to whether, 
 and in what degree, our faculty of knowledge is affected by the 
 consequences of the Fall. But the controversy turned not 
 upon the doctrine, but upon the words in which it was 
 expressed, and it is a melancholy example of the empty 
 explanations to which obstinate theologians are driven by 
 their narrow adherence to mere logical distinctions. With 
 hardly a difference between them on reality, they fought with 
 unbounded vehemence over the question whether the word 
 " substance " or the word " accident " was to be adopted. 
 Flacius sometimes expressed views of general significance, as 
 that the innate knowledge of God is full of error and deception, 
 
 1 The affinity of these views with those of Servetus may suggest itself. 
 
140 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 that reason is the most obstinate enemy of God, and that it is 
 the source of all evils, without, however, drawing further con- 
 sequences from these positions. 
 
 3. The Formula Consensus or "Form of Concord" brought 
 these controversies to a certain issue. With it properly com- 
 mences the Lutheran Scholasticism as the period of the 
 "ecclesiastical dogmatics." In Joh. Gerhard (1582-1637) 
 we still find real living piety, and he has even composed 
 writings of an ascetic and edifying kind in the spirit of an 
 Arndt. Of the later theologians, Hutter, Calov, Konig, 
 Quenstedt, Hollaz, and others embody the spirit of their 
 theology in noteworthy contrast to its recognised definition. 
 Quenstedt defines theology in the same way as Konig, as the 
 practical habit of knowledge regarding the true religion by 
 which, after the Fall, man was to be brought to life by faith 
 in Christ, which proceeds from the Holy Spirit and the written 
 word. Accordingly, theology and religion still appear to be a 
 concern of life, but closer examination shows that it is only a 
 matter of knowledge. Dogmatic theology, while founded, 
 upon the Scriptures, is ruled confessionally by the symbolical 
 books, and it is elaborated down to the most subordinate 
 doctrines. God is the absolute all-conditioning Being ; accord- 
 ing to the dogma of the ancient Church, He is three persons 
 in one substance. Man was created as the image of God in 
 innocence and with the joy of Paradise, in order that, by free 
 decision for the good, he might become an eternal participator 
 of the blessed life in communion with God. The fall brought 
 Adam and his descendants under the dominion of sin, and its 
 punishment is the wrath of God and eternal damnation. 
 Moved by ineffable love, God determined to save sinful man. 
 God the Son became man in Jesus. He fulfilled the Law in 
 perfect obedience, expiated the guilt of men by His death, and 
 procured salvation for all. Awakened out of the grave, he 
 was raised to kingly dominion in heaven. In the Church the 
 Holy Spirit effects the conversion of the individual by the 
 word and sacraments in so far as he is but willing to yield 
 himself to its operation. In faith he then lays hold of the 
 
OSIANDER,.ILLYRICUS, AND ORTHODOX LUTHERANISM. J41 
 
 merit of Christ ; and, notwithstanding his sins, he is declared 
 by God out of His mere compassion to be held as righteous. 
 The culmination of the gradually advancing appropriation of 
 salvation is the mystical union with God. Faith is indeed 
 denned as a firm trust (assensus et fiducia) in the merit of 
 Christ, and sanctification is designated its fruit. But in 
 reality the interest of these theologians was so exclusively 
 occupied with the purity of their doctrine, that faith was com- 
 monly represented as merely assent to the doctrines of the 
 Church. This made no change on the distinction between the 
 Articulce fundamentales and the Articular non fundamentales. 
 It is only in respect of the latter that there is no danger to 
 our own salvation from not knowing or not accepting them. 
 The former are distinguished into doctrines which must neces- 
 sarily be known and accepted (primarii) and doctrines the 
 knowledge of which is not exactly necessary, but are such that 
 when once known they cannot be denied (secundarii). The 
 arrangement of the several doctrines under these categories, 
 however, is not fixed, but varies. 
 
 The question regarding the source of knowledge in theo- 
 logy is commonly discussed in the Prolegomena to the 
 dogmatic systems. This source is always regarded as the 
 immediate divine revelation, and the contents of revelation 
 are laid down in the Holy Scriptures. The question regard- 
 ing the possibility of a revelation is still entirely foreign to 
 that age ; it only strives, by exactly determining the nature 
 of inspiration, to exclude any doubt as to even one word of 
 Scripture not being of divine origin. Inspiration is analyzed 
 with this view into a number of distinct factors, impulsus ad 
 scribendum, suggestio rerum, suggestio verborum, dircctio animi. 
 Hence Calovius says, entirely in the spirit of the time : " Non 
 esset autem divinitus inspirata, si vel verbum in scripturis 
 occurreret, quod non sit suggestum et inspiratum divinitus." 
 Hence the immense excitement evoked in the whole Church 
 by the controversy between the younger Buxtorf and Capellus 
 regarding the integrity of the Masoretic text of the Old 
 Testament (c. 1680); and hence, too, the distrust with which 
 
142 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 the first critical investigations of the New Testament text 
 were long afterwards received. Along with the revealed 
 knowledge of God, all the dogmatic theologians, however, 
 recognise also a natural knowledge of God, which is the 
 foundation of a theologia naturalis, resting partly upon innate 
 ideas (innata), and partly upon rational examination of Nature 
 and History (acquisita). In a natural way we can thus attain 
 a certain knowledge of God, but it is mostly restricted to 
 knowing that God is ; that He is one ; that He is good and 
 just ; and that He is the rewarder of the good and the bad. 
 How little the theologians were disposed to admit more than 
 this of the natural knowledge of God, is shown by the case of 
 the mathematician Erhard Weigel of Jena. In 1679, at the 
 instance of the Theological Faculty, he was compelled formally 
 to retract anything he might have said, " as if I had unduly 
 presumed to give explanations of the Holy Scripture, or had 
 undertaken to demonstrate the Mysterium Trinitatis from 
 arithmetical principles, or had recognised in my lectures on 
 Scripture what was considered heterodox and impious in the 
 judgment of the theologians." On the other hand, it is 
 interesting to notice how the section on the natural know- 
 ledge of God gradually grows in extent and importance 
 among the dogmatic theologians. In 1676, Baier, in his 
 Disputatio inauguralis tlieologica exhibens synopsin theologian 
 naturalis collates cum theologia revelata, gives a comparison of 
 Natural and Eevealed religion, in which they are represented 
 as running parallel to each other in all points, natural religion 
 having its goal in eternal life, and is the means of attaining 
 the knowledge and service of God. On this recognition of a 
 natural knowledge of God rests the well-known distinction 
 between Articuli puri and Articuli mixti ; the latter can be 
 known by the natural light of reason, but the former only 
 from divine revelation. This view is also supported by the 
 consideration that reason and revelation both come from God, 
 and therefore cannot contradict each other; and while it is 
 true that revelation contains much that reason does not 
 comprehend, it is not contrary to reason, but only above 
 
OSIANDER, ILLYKICUS, AND ORTHODOX LUTHERANISM. 143 
 
 reason. This relation, however, applies only to reason as 
 before the Fall and after Eegeneration. The reason of the 
 unregenerate does not always respect the limits set to it by 
 Nature, and it thus occasions the actually existing contra- 
 dictions between reason and revelation. 
 
 These statements already indicate the position assigned 
 \vithin dogmatics to philosophy as the science of reason ; it 
 serves for the definition of conceptions, for the establishment 
 of lower truths, and for the refutation of the nonsensical. 
 Joh. Gerhard and Balthasar Meisner spoke the decisive word 
 on this question, and all the others followed them in essen- 
 tials. Gerhard, in his Metlwdus studii theologice (Jense 1620), 
 recognises a threefold use of philosophy within theology, as a 
 usus opyavifcos, KaTaoncevacmKos, avaGKevaa-Tiicos. Philosophy 
 serves as an organon, in so far as it sharpens the human 
 mind and prepares it for all higher studies. The concrete 
 sciences of philosophy likewise serve for the explanation of 
 some conceptions (in quorundam terminorum explicatione in- 
 serviunt). Certainly only " some " conceptions, for there are 
 conceptions in theology (mere theologici) which can only be 
 derived from the Scriptures, such as " Christ," " election," and 
 others ; and their use is only to " serve," for theology may 
 apply such conceptions according to its own principle in quite 
 a different sense from that in which they are employed in 
 philosophy. Of the instrumental Sciences of philosophy, 
 Logic furnishes Theology with rules about definition, division, 
 method, and proof, while Ehetoric gives laws of eloquence. 
 The second use of philosophy, the furnishing of proofs, 
 applies only to the Articuli mixti, and even here, not in the 
 first line (primario), but only in the second (secundario), 
 nor yet as being necessary, but only as by way of super- 
 abundance (e/c Trepiofcrta?). The Articuli puri cannot be 
 proved by principles of reason, but can only be elucidated 
 (illustrationis gratia) by analogies taken from Nature. And 
 even this must be done with such caution that the difference 
 of the two things shall at the same time be pointed out. In 
 the third place, philosophy may be used for the refutation of 
 
144 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 false opinions, yet only of those which we can judge of by 
 the natural reason, and even here only in a secondary way. 
 The meaning of the threefold misuse of philosophy, which 
 Gerhard opposes to its use, arises simply from its opposition to 
 theology. 
 
 Balthasar Meisner, in his Philosophia sobria (Giessen 
 1611), likewise finds the first use of philosophy in the fact 
 that it prepares our mind for the study of theology. This 
 preparation, however, refers only to knowledge (cognitio) and 
 not to assent (assensus), which is the work of the Holy Spirit. 
 In relation to the object of theology, philosophy serves for 
 Si$ao-Ka\ia, eXe^o?, egrjyrjcris, that is, for exposition, justifica- 
 tion, and biblical proof of the theological propositions. Only 
 the first of these needs any explanation. It finds its place in 
 reference to simple notions, such as questions and conse- 
 quences. The former are either pure, as being biblical in 
 their expression, or ecclesiastical, as being formed from the 
 language of the Church according to the sense of the Bible. 
 It is only in connection with the latter that philosophy is to 
 be taken into account. Inferences are either purely theo- 
 logical, or are only applied to theology, as for instance the 
 theologian must also know whether the powers of the soul 
 are really distinguished. Questions deal either with purely 
 theological conceptions, or partly with theological and partly 
 with philosophical conceptions; and hence the distinction 
 between qnestiones puree and questiones mixtce. The former 
 class are alone claimed by theology for itself. With regard 
 to the latter, philosophy is not merely useful for obtaining 
 insight into them (intelligentia), but is even necessary, as 
 philosophical conceptions can only be determined by philo- 
 sophy. Proof (confirmatio) is adduced in the first line by 
 theology, and proofs from philosophy are admissible only as 
 an unnecessary supplement. The more glorious the use of a 
 thing is, so much the more dangerous is its misuse. Such a 
 misuse arises when it is asserted that philosophy is sufficient 
 to lead men to the knowledge of God and to religion, or to 
 prove the propositions of faith, and above all when a 
 
ULRICH ZWINGLI. 145 
 
 supremacy over theology is assigned to philosophy by judging 
 of theological questions according to philosophical principles. 
 
 IV. 
 
 ULRICH ZWINGLI (1484-1531). 
 
 In the commencement of his treatise, De vera et falsa 
 Religione* Zwingli puts before himself the objection that it is 
 too difficult a thing to undertake to give an exposition of the 
 Christian Eeligion. He answers this objection by saying : 
 Quid facilius quisque exponat, quam religionem quam de Deo 
 et ad Deum domi habet ? " What is easier to describe than 
 the religion which every one has within himself from God and 
 in relation to God ? " Zwingli therefore consciously sets 
 before himself the task of expounding what is present in his 
 own inner life as a fact. Nevertheless, he feels himself secure 
 against the reproach of thus exhibiting only what is a subject 
 of human curiosity and of individual liking. For what human 
 wisdom hatches from itself in a deceitful way is wrongly 
 called Eeligion ; true Eeligion rests only upon the divine 
 word of Scripture. Hence two distinct questions arise : In 
 what does true Eeligion consist ? and How does man attain 
 to it? 
 
 Eeligion is a reciprocal relation ; and it therefore includes 
 two members, the one member of the relation being that 
 towards which the religion strives, and the other member 
 being the one that strives after the other through religion ; 
 the former is God, and the latter is man. In order to know 
 the essence of Eeligion, we must take both these members 
 into account, for their right relation to each other, as corre- 
 sponding to the essential nature of both, is true religion, 
 whereas their wrong relation is false religion. 
 
 1 Of Zwingli's writings the most important in this connection are his De vera 
 et falsa religione Commentarius, and his Sermonis de Providentia Dei anamnema. 
 Compare also Sigwart, Ulricli Zwingli, Stuttg. 1856. Sigwart expressly refers 
 to the dependence of Zwingli on Picus of Mirandola. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
14(5 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 The essence of God consists, first of all, in infinite being. 
 God accordingly designates Himself as " I am that I am " 
 (Ex. iii. 13), that is, I am He who is of Himself, who is of 
 His own power, who is Being Itself. These words thus 
 indicate that God is the only one to whom being belongs in 
 virtue of His own nature, while all other things derive their 
 being from Him. Hence God alone has being of Himself 
 and gives being to all things, in such a way that they 
 could not be in any way or for a moment if God were 
 not. And hence, too, God is necessarily one and infinite 
 and eternal ; and on this account He is also the highest 
 good. In Gen. i. 31, all existing things are called good, 
 whereas according to Luke xviii. 18, God alone is good. 
 These two expressions can only be united with each other on 
 the ground that all things are God, that is, that they are, in 
 so far as God is and constitutes their essence ; and so it is 
 said in Eom. xi. 36, that all things are of Him, and through 
 Him, and in Him. Again, God is the highest good, not in 
 the sense that He may be compared with other goods, and that 
 He surpasses them in worth, but in that He is solely and 
 perfectly good, whereas all things are only good in so far as 
 they are through God and participate in Him. God is not 
 good as an inert, inactive mass, but all things have motion, 
 continuance, and life through and in Him. God is what 
 the philosophers are wont to call eWeXe^eta or evepyeia, the 
 perfect all-embracing always active Power which never ceases, 
 never takes end, and is never uncertain, but which always 
 so guides, directs, and governs all things that there cannot 
 enter any want or error into the whole of things and 
 actions by which His power could be hindered or His decree 
 frustrated. 
 
 How much Zwingli is in earnest with this view of the 
 immanence and universal activity of God, is clear from the 
 fact that he shows by a detailed examination that the 
 being of finite things is not different from the infinite being 
 of God, and that secondary causes cannot be properly called 
 causes at all. All that is presented to our senses, including 
 
ULRICH ZWTNGLI. 147 
 
 the heavens and the earth, has its being, not of itself, but 
 from a higher being, that is, from God. " There is only one 
 infinite Being, so that all that is, is in Him, and that it is of 
 Him that anything is and exists. But it is not of Him as if 
 His being and existence were different from it ; and thus it is 
 established that what attains being and existence cannot be 
 anything that is not God, for He is the being of all things." 
 In proof of this proposition, Zwingli, first of all, adduces an 
 example. The earth, a plant, an animal, man, in short, all 
 that is is always, although every thinkable change may 
 occur upon it ; for what appears to us to be perishing and 
 ceasing to be is nothing but a change of the form, appearance, 
 or mode of action of that which never ceases, and which 
 always is and is in all things. As testimonies to this view, 
 there are then quoted along with the words of Scripture, the 
 relevant expressions of the heathen philosophers, and especially 
 of Seneca. Because it stands thus with things, there is like- 
 wise only one single cause of all that happens. Secondary 
 causes can be called causes only in the sense in which the 
 delegate of a person in authority is that person himself, or as 
 a hammer and chisel are the cause of a brazen vessel. As all 
 things are, subsist, live, are moved, and operate from One and 
 in One, this One is also the only and real cause of all things ; 
 and what we otherwise invest with the name of cause, is not 
 properly termed a cause, but should rather be called the hand 
 or the organ with which the eternal Spirit works, and which 
 He uses as His instrument. Secondary causes are thus 
 termed causes only by metonymy, or merely by transference. 
 Zwingli's combating of free-will was merely a consequence of 
 this view, and it is to be noted that his objections to that 
 doctrine are drawn from metaphysical and not from psycho- 
 logical considerations. 
 
 God is the highest good. In Zwingli this is the standing 
 designation of God, and it is applied to Him because He is 
 the ground of the being and working of all things. God is 
 not this, however, as being the universal matter of all things, 
 but as the infinite principle of motion and life, and hence He 
 
148 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 is also infinite intelligence and will. " Ejus sapientia cuncta 
 agnoscuntur, etiam priusquam sint, ejus scientia cuncta 
 intelliguntur, ejus prudentia cuncta disponuntur." God, in 
 fact, would not be the highest good, were He not, at the same 
 time, the highest wisdom and insight. It is true that this 
 goes heyond our finite capacity of knowledge, but we would 
 have to think of God as imperfect if we did not ascribe to 
 Him the highest wisdom. God, then, is not mere power 
 and activity, but He is also intelligence and wisdom, and 
 to these two attributes, goodness must also be added. These 
 three qualities, power, wisdom, and goodness, are inseparably 
 one in God. In this Zwingli sees an analogue of the Trinity, 
 which he receives into his system somewhat externally and 
 directly from the ecclesiastical doctrine. On the unity of 
 these three attributes, he also founds his view of Providence, 
 which controls the whole of his system. 
 
 Further, the goodness belonging to God is infinite. 
 Whereas men care only for themselves and have merely their 
 own interests in view, God, as the highest good, must neces- 
 sarily be beneficent. Nor is He so in the way in which, 
 we are so, when expecting recompense or honour for our 
 goodness, but merely in order that His creatures may be 
 gladdened by His goodness. According to the testimony 
 of Scripture, it is the sole end of creation that the crea- 
 tures shall enjoy God, their Creator and their highest good. 
 
 Of the whole creation, however, man alone is capable of 
 enjoying God. Hence he appears as the head and flower of 
 the whole material creation, and what is most perfect in 
 him is his capacity for Eeligion. Zwingli's doctrine of Man 
 becomes somewhat obscure by his not clearly distinguishing 
 between the original state and the present condition of man. 
 Man is the most wonderful of all the creatures ; he is a 
 spirit in a visible body, an intermediate creation, between the 
 beings that are purely spiritual and those that are merely 
 sensible. In his union of spirit and body, man is, as it were, 
 an. image of that union with the world into which God was 
 to enter through His Son. Man thus consists of two com- 
 
ULRICH ZWINGLI. 149 
 
 1 
 
 pletely different and hostile substances, each of which follows 
 its own nature (ingenium suum servat). The spirit loves and 
 honours the Deity to whom it is related, and strives after 
 righteousness and innocence ; the flesh turns itself back to its 
 origin, the mire and all that is base. Zwingli describes this 
 opposition in vivid colours. He even appears sometimes to 
 forget that earthly matter also comes from God and is per- 
 meated by His powers, and therefore cannot absolutely resist 
 the Spirit. The question as to why God has created man in 
 such a state of unhappiness, and put him into this intolerable 
 discord with himself, is simply turned aside by a reference to 
 the infinite power of God. The question why the spirit is 
 punished when it is overcome by the flesh, although the flesh 
 is also a part of man and was given to him by his Creator as 
 well as his spirit, is touched upon, and it is answered that 
 man falls under judgment because God has given him a law. 
 The law corresponds to the inward striving and proper cha- 
 racter of the spirit, and if man follows the flesh, he becomes 
 subject to punishment. Sin entered the world in consequence 
 of the selfishness which made Adam wish to be as God ; its 
 consequence was death and incapacity for good. For it 
 belongs to false religion to assert that man is only inclined 
 to evil ; this would amount in religion to " twisting a rope 
 out of sand or making an angel out of the devil." 
 
 The definition of Eeligion follows from these determinations 
 regarding God and man, between whom Eeligion as a reciprocal 
 relation exists. Its presupposition is sin, and the turning 
 away of man from God, which has arisen in consequence of 
 sin. Eeligion has its origin in the fact that God recalls man 
 to Himself even when fleeing from before Him. When man 
 sees his guilt, he despairs of the grace of God; but as a 
 father who, even while hating the folly or arrogance of his 
 son, yet does not hate the son himself, so God has compassion 
 on the broken heart of man, and recalls him with gentle 
 voice to Himself. Eeligion thus begins on the side of God. 
 God shows man that He knows well his disobedience, 
 treachery, and misery, and thus He brings man to despair. 
 
150 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 But, at the same time, He shows him the fulness of His 
 goodness, so that man knows that God's grace is still greater 
 than his own guilt, and that it is impossible to tear himself 
 away from Him. He who is loved by God in this way, 
 regards Him as his Father, and thereupon considers how he 
 may please God. For religiousness is known from the 
 zealous striving to live according to the will of God. It 
 is a chief characteristic of Eeligion that man discovers 
 nothing in himself that makes him well - pleasing to God ; 
 whereas he finds in God a willingness to bestow upon him all 
 things. Eeligion is thus, when expressed in more modern 
 terms, the consciousness of being completely determined by 
 God or of being permeated by His Spirit. 
 
 Eeligion accordingly rests upon knowledge, and particularly 
 upon the knowledge that God's grace and goodness are greater 
 than man's sin and guilt, so that we can be and live only in, 
 by, and with God. The second question, How does man 
 attain to Eeligion ? thus coincides with the question, How do 
 we come to the knowledge of God and man ? 
 
 Zwingli decidedly rejects the opinion that man can by his 
 own power, and through his natural faculty of knowledge, 
 attain insight into God, and thus reach true religion. The 
 knowledge of man is impossible to us, because man is adroit 
 in dissimulation, and no one shows himself as he is in truth. 
 The knowledge of God is impossible to us, because the 
 sublimity of God far transcends our weak power of com- 
 prehension. We can certainly know the existence of God ; 
 and although many wise men among the heathen, unable to 
 ascribe the fulness of perfection to one single being, assumed 
 the existence of many gods, there were others who advanced 
 to knowledge of the unity of God. The much discussed 
 passage in Eom. i. 19 says no more than that. On the other 
 hand, we cannot know the essential nature of God of our- 
 selves, any more than an insect can know the essential nature 
 of man. For the eternal and infinite God is distinguished 
 from man even far more than man is from the insect ; and a 
 comparison of any two creatures with each other would be far 
 
ULRICH ZWINGLI. 151 
 
 more in place than the comparison of any creature with the 
 Creator. Nay more, it argues the audacity of a Lucifer or of 
 a Prometheus for any one to presume to know the essential 
 nature of God in any other way than by the power of the 
 divine Spirit. Hence what is taken by the theologians from 
 philosophy as statements regarding the essence of God, is but 
 mere illusion and false Eeligion ; and if we cannot know the 
 essential nature either of man or of God in this way, far less 
 can we thus attain to knowledge of the true reciprocal relation 
 between them. 
 
 The right knowledge of God and man, and consequently 
 of the true religion, rests entirely upon divine revelation. 
 Zwingli, however, does not proceed to explain in detail the 
 nature of revelation and its relation to natural knowledge, 
 although the foregoing determination regarding the imman- 
 ence and the universal activity of God might well have led 
 him to do so. The divine revelation is primarily an immediate 
 internal illumination by the Holy Spirit of God. This illumi- 
 nation comes to man in accordance with his nature. Hence 
 Zwingli refers the law of Nature with such emphasis to divine 
 revelation. And hence this law of Nature in such forms as 
 " what thou wilt riot have done to thee, do not to any other " 
 is held to be completely equivalent to the revelation in 
 Scripture. This purely internal revelation is bound to no 
 people nor to any specially elect persons ; but as man is 
 related by Nature on the spiritual side of his being to God, 
 all men accordingly participate in this revelation. On this 
 natural illumination is founded the fact that Zwingli is able 
 to recognise Christians and believers, even among the heathen, 
 as participating in salvation ; and upon it also rest the several 
 elements of a true knowledge of God which are found like 
 scattered seeds among the heathen poets and philosophers. 
 And it is only on this ground that we understand the fact 
 that Zwingli cites the expressions of profane writers as 
 " testimonies " along with passages of Scripture. 
 
 This internal revelation is not sufficient. The dulness, 
 forgetfulness, and sinfulness of men prevent them from 
 
152 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 correctly apprehending and preserving it ; and so this universal 
 revelation does not reach its goal because man sins. For an 
 explanation of sin, Zwingli refers less to the psychological 
 principle presented in the double nature of man than to 
 the fact that sin is not dissevered from the universal activity 
 of God. Even sin has to co-operate for the realization of the 
 ultimate purpose of the Creation, namely, that finite beings 
 shall know and enjoy God as the highest good. To the finite 
 understanding, knowledge is possible only through opposites. 
 Justice would not be known without injustice, nor good 
 without evil. In this lies the necessity of sin. God, how- 
 ever, would not stop with sin, but His will was to lead man, 
 through it, to full union with Himself. In a free decree of 
 His love, equally eternal with the plan of creation, God has 
 decreed to bring back man to communion with Himself. The 
 special external revelation subserves the carrying out of this 
 decree of redemption. Zwingli has not expressly explained 
 himself with regard to the mode of this special revelation, 
 but the sobriety of his critical exegesis proves that he did not 
 recognise any specific difference in the interpretation of sacred 
 and profane writings. Nor does he designate the Scriptures 
 as holy from their being immediately inspired by God ; but 
 he does so designate those Scriptures that announce what the 
 holy, pure, eternal, and infallible Spirit means. Further, the 
 operation of the external word always presupposes the internal 
 Word. The internal revelation must first prepare the heart, 
 and only then can the external word find a good soil for 
 itself. 
 
 The special external revelation passes through two stages : 
 the revelation in the Law and the revelation in Christ. 
 When Zwingli speaks of the Law, he commonly refers not to 
 the natural law that rests upon universal internal revelation, 
 and was known also to the heathen, but to the Law of the 
 Old Testament. What was made known in heathendom by 
 God's grace only to some specially favoured men, was 
 communicated in the Jewish world to all by the institution 
 and arrangement of a Commonwealth. As regards the 
 
ULRICH ZWINGLI. 153 
 
 significance of the Old Testament Law, Zwingli contests the 
 view that it established an independent and essentially 
 valuable religion of legal obedience in such a way that man 
 could and should have attained to communion with God by 
 obeying the Law. The Law was given under the assumption 
 that man would not fulfil it. But it was not given merely as 
 a negative preparation for redemption in order to bring home to 
 man the knowledge of his sin or of his incapacity for good, or, 
 in a word, death. Instead of condemning and terrifying us, 
 the Law was to announce to us the will and inner nature of 
 God. Thus the commandment, " Love the Lord thy God with 
 all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind," 
 teaches us that God Himself loves man and all His creatures, 
 and that we ought to love Him in return. Thus by His Law 
 God communicates to us a twofold knowledge, namely, that 
 we are born to know Him, and that we are destined to enjoy 
 Him. But as God allows each of the two constituents of man 
 to work according to its proper internal nature, the spirit 
 lends its ear to divine things, while the flesh turns itself 
 away from them. If the flesh were completely to subject 
 itself, man would be an angel ; if the spirit were to degenerate 
 by combination with the flesh, man would be a beast. Now, 
 by the Law the spirit experiences a strengthening from above, 
 as even the body is, exists, and lives by the power of God. 
 The revelation in the Law is therefore in its essence quite 
 the same as the universal internal revelation ; and it is 
 likewise the same as the highest revelation of God in the 
 person of Christ. 
 
 This highest revelation is distinguished from the former 
 only by greater distinctness and certainty. In order to bring 
 men actually to communion with God, a new life must be 
 implanted in them. And this has been done by the sending 
 of Christ. Tor in the person of Christ God has become man, 
 and in Him the divine and human nature is united into the 
 unity of a personal life. As the soul and body in man, so 
 does the divine and human nature in Christ form an insepar- 
 able unity. Yet the two natures continue to be different in 
 
154 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 their essence and their mode of action. Hence the divine 
 revelation culminates in Christ, because the fulness of the 
 divine Spirit has appeared in Him ; and hence Christ is the 
 commencement of the complete unity of man with God, 
 because in Him this unity was first realized. The work of 
 Christ consists in the restoration of humanity by a newly- 
 connected relation to God, and this work is described by 
 Zwingli by the aid of the previous ecclesiastical definitions. 
 We obtain an interest in this work of Christ by the com- 
 munication of the Holy Spirit, which proceeds from the 
 Father and brings the individual to the living communion 
 with God that has its foundation in Christ. God is called 
 the Holy Spirit in so far as He effects a holy, religious life. 
 This Spirit works inwardly and immediately in the heart of 
 the individual. He is the special and immediate principle 
 of the appropriation of salvation ; all external institutions, 
 such as the Word, the Church, and the Sacraments, being 
 only means in His hand. Faith, as undivided surrender to 
 God and immediate union with God, is not at all a work of 
 man, but is the work of the divine Spirit alone. This is not 
 far from the view that lowers the historical Christ to a mere 
 visible representation of what is given by the immediate 
 operation of God, and can be produced by that operation 
 only. Zwingli, however, is far from holding this view ; but 
 it cannot be overlooked that two entirely different elements 
 of his system are here rather put externally side by side than 
 internally mediated with each other. In this connection a 
 distinction comes out even in Zwingli between the philosopher 
 and the ecclesiastical theologian. The former sees in Christ 
 only the historical embodiment and the personal representa- 
 tion of a universal process, while the latter strives to appre- 
 hend the person of Christ as of unique and peculiar significance 
 in universal history. It would lead us, however, beyond the 
 scope of our present exposition to consider these tendencies in 
 further detail. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 155 
 
 V. 
 
 JOHN CALVIN (1509-1564). 
 
 A peculiar character was impressed upon the Reformation 
 by the influence of Calvin. It consisted mainly in the great 
 emphasis that was laid upon the verification of inward holi- 
 ness in the outward life. Calvin wished to establish at 
 Geneva a community of the holy God in which in all the 
 manifestations of private, public, domestic, and civil life 
 expression would be given to the fact that its members were 
 the elect of God and the redeemed by Christ. And notwith- 
 standing many great oppositions and difficulties, his powerful 
 spirit succeeded, as far as such an undertaking can succeed, 
 in changing a great commonwealth of weak, sinful men into 
 a City of God. 
 
 It naturally fell to him as a later Reformer rather to com- 
 plete the structure of the Church's Doctrine than to lay a 
 new foundation for it. His far-reaching influence as a teacher 
 rests more upon the firmness of his inward conviction, the 
 clearness and conciseness of his representation, and the 
 rounded, systematic arrangement of his theology, than upon 
 any novelty or peculiarity in his mode of apprehension. We 
 do not find in Calvin, as we have found in Zwingli, anything like 
 a comprehensive system of philosophical and religious specula- 
 tion. His Imtitutio Religionis Cliristiance is indeed constructed 
 according to a special form. The two members of Religion 
 are God and man ; and hence the chief interest turns upon 
 the corresponding knowledge of God and man. The further 
 division of the Institutes into four parts treating respectively 
 of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and the 
 Church is borrowed from the Apostles' Creed. As these 
 two divisions cross each other, Calvin treats first of God as 
 the Creator, and of man as originally created good ; then of 
 God as Redeemer, and of man as fallen ; next of God in so 
 far as He acts subjectively in the appropriation of salvation 
 
156 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 as the Holy Spirit, and of man as laying hold of this salva- 
 tion in faith ; and lastly, he treats of the Church as an insti- 
 tution for the mediation of salvation. The knowledge of God 
 is the ultimate goal of a blessed life. There is a certain 
 knowledge of God that is innate in us, and we are also able, 
 by examination of Nature as the work of God, to know God. 
 But on account of our weakness, particularly in consequence 
 of sin, this natural knowledge of God does not suffice for 
 salvation, and we thus need the knowledge of God that is 
 immediately communicated to us in revelation. Eegarding 
 the relation of God to the world, Calvin shares the view that 
 was common to all the Eeformers, with the exception of 
 Melanchthon in his later period, namely, that everything in 
 the world is determined by the absolute power of God. We 
 do not find in Calvin any speculations about the essence of 
 God and His relation to the world as following therefrom ; 
 but, on the other hand, the view is emphatically and repeatedly 
 accentuated, that all that happens in the world is dependent 
 on the absolute decree of God, which as such is eternal and 
 unchangeable. Nor does Calvin shrink from the extremest 
 consequence of predestination in the rejection of the godless 
 and their eternal damnation. 
 
 The peculiar character of a doctrine becomes most certainly 
 and clearly known from the controversies which evolve what 
 was involved in it. 1 
 
 Calvin had already maintained the doctrine of predestina- 
 tion in all its sharpness against the view of Pighius (1542), 
 that grace depends upon foreknowledge, and that it therefore 
 supports the free co-operating will and is present to every one 
 who does not reject it, and against the view of Bolsec (1551), 
 which was essentially the same as that of Pighius. In like 
 manner, it was the question regarding the universality or par- 
 ticularity of divine grace and the question connected there- 
 with regarding the significance of the human will in reference 
 to the appropriation of salvation, that occasioned the great 
 
 1 Cf. Alexander Schweizer, Die Glaubenslehre der evang. -reformirten Kirche, 
 2 Bde. Zurich 1844-47. Die Protestantischen Centraldogmen, 2 Bde. 1854-56. 
 
JOHN CALVIN. 157 
 
 Arminian schism at the Synod of Dort (1618-19). Amyraut 
 (15961664) of Saumur tried to mitigate this same doctrine 
 of predestination, nor was he expelled from the Church on 
 account of his hypothetical Universalism. 
 
 These internal controversies of the Eeformed Church show 
 that everything was referred by its theologians to the uni- 
 versal activity of God. This is also shown by the circum- 
 stance that the chief of all the objections that were raised 
 against the Calvinist system was, that it made God the author 
 of evil. Hence we may undoubtedly characterize the special 
 religious life embodied in the Calvinistic Churches by saying 
 that in them everything is referred to the universal activity of 
 God, or that the consciousness of dependence solely on God 
 lies at the basis of everything, whereas in the Lutheran Church 
 the consciousness of the personal forgiveness of sins is the 
 essential principle, and accordingly the doctrine of justification 
 by faith alone is the fundamental dogma. The dogmatic 
 theology of the Calvinistic Church has thus to seek its sole 
 controlling principle in theology proper as the doctrine of God, 
 and it finds it in the principle of the universal divine activity. 
 It is this conviction which determines the special Calvinistic 
 doctrines. The assertion of the particularity of the divine 
 decree of grace and the redemptive merit of Christ, of the 
 irresistibility and inalienability of grace, are but consequences 
 following from the doctrine of the universal divine activity. 
 In like manner, the distinctive Christology and Sacrament- 
 arianism of the Eeformed Churches point back to the striving 
 to maintain the absolute dependence on God alone as their 
 ultimate source. 
 
 The dogmatic theology of the Eeformed Church thoroughly 
 occupies the supranatural standpoint in the very same way 
 as is done by that of the Lutheran Church. Man has indeed 
 a natural knowledge of God, both innate by innate ideas and 
 acquired from examination of the works of God. But it does 
 not suffice to give a perfect knowledge of God, and still less 
 to make known His decree of redemption and its execution 
 through Christ. Hence the revelation of God must necessarily 
 
158 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 supervene. It alone gives the right certainty to the natural 
 knowledge of God, and completes it by making known the 
 higher attributes, the Trinitarian nature, and the decree of 
 Eedemption ; and this alone suffices for salvation. On this 
 point we find in the Calvinistic and Lutheran dogmatics 
 similar definitions in almost the same terms, and yet a 
 noteworthy difference appears in the two confessions, which 
 at least explains the objection of the Lutherans that the 
 Calvinistic theologians conceded too much to reason. The 
 following formula perhaps indicates this difference in the 
 briefest way. The Lutherans emphasize the negative relation 
 of the natural knowledge of God to the revealed knowledge 
 of God, whereas the Calvinistic theologians emphasize the 
 positive relation between them. The former prefer to give 
 prominence to the fact that the natural knowledge of God is 
 not sufficient; the latter bring out the view that it is a 
 preliminary stage and a positive preparation for salvation, 
 and that it is also a form of truth. This appears most 
 unmistakeably in the keenly discussed question whether it 
 may be said that natural reason or philosophy kindles the 
 light of the Holy Spirit (philosophiarn seu rationem accendere 
 lumen Spiritus Sancti). The Calvinistic theologians generally, 
 and not merely the otherwise notorious Keckermann, are 
 wont to use this expression in order to bring out the positive 
 relation of the natural revelation to the supernatural revela- 
 tion, and of philosophy to theology, as well as to give 
 recognition to the pre-Christian religion and wisdom as a 
 certain divine revelation. It was so used perhaps with the 
 view of being able to vindicate the salvation of the noble 
 heathens, after the example of Zwingli. The Lutherans, 
 such as Gerhard, Meisner, Mentzer, and others, are just as 
 unanimous in their rejection of that proposition. They see 
 the peculiar character of the divine revelation endangered by 
 it, and too much conceded by it to the operation of the 
 natural corrupt reason. 
 
PROTESTANT CONTROVERSIES. VEDELIUS AND MUS.EUS. 159 
 
 VI. 
 
 PROTESTANT CONTROVERSIES. VEDELIUS AND Mus^ius. 
 
 The question as to how far philosophy is to be allowed to 
 influence theology, led to a controversy between the two 
 Confessions. This controversy, 1 which was always taken up 
 again, and is wearisome and unpleasing in its details, throws 
 an interesting light upon the " other spirit " which not merely 
 separated the representatives of the Eeformed and Lutheran 
 Churches on the memorable day at Marburg, but which has 
 operated up to the present time. Certainly it was only the 
 heat of the contest that could drive the combatants to such 
 extreme reproaches as that the Lutherans would give no 
 place to philosophy in matters of theology, that they only 
 asserted what stands on the Holy Scripture verbis expressis, 
 and that the Eeformed theologians assigned the supremacy 
 to philosophy even in theology. More closely considered, 
 the difference comes to far less than this, but its meaning 
 undoubtedly is what these very extravagances of expression 
 bring out, that in the Eeformed Church more was allowed to 
 the rational element than was admitted in the Lutheran 
 Church. 
 
 It is well known that the controversies between the 
 Lutherans and the representatives of the Eeformed Churches 
 took their beginning in Christology and the doctrine of the 
 Lord's Supper. This was not accidental ; on the contrary, 
 these are just the doctrines of the Christian Faith in which 
 the characteristic tendency of religion to find a connecting 
 unity for the opposition of the divine and the human comes 
 most directly to expression. Luther, influenced by mysticism, 
 
 1 The following works which brought the literature of this controversy to a 
 close, and which are instructive on account of their historical details, may be 
 referred to : Nicolaus Vedelius, Rationale theologicum, seu de necessitate et 
 vero usu principiorum rationis ac philosophise in controversiis theologicis 1. 
 tres, Geneva 1628 ; Johannes Musseus, De usu principiornm rationis et 
 philosophise in controversiis theologicis 1. tres. Nicolai Vedelii, Rational! 
 theologico potissimum oppositi, Jense 1644. 
 
160 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 here at least desired an immediate oneness of the two opposites. 
 Zwingli, holding by the universal activity of God, in contrast 
 to which all middle causes lose their significance and in- 
 dependent activity, had no interest to go beyond the sober 
 intellectual view of the Sacraments as symbolical signs, and 
 of the person of Christ as a union of the divine and human 
 in the way in which every man unites soul and body in 
 himself. Thus do we now explain the difference, but at 
 that time the matter lay otherwise. The question then was 
 not to explain why the one asserted one thing and the other 
 another thing ; the point was to prove which view was the right 
 one. The common basis for this investigation was given in 
 the fact that the Scripture alone could give the decision in 
 questions of faith. The efforts put forth with a view to the 
 interpretation of the Scripture in regard to the person of 
 Christ and the Lord's Supper, thus formed the starting-point 
 of those explanations which we are here concerned with. 
 
 It is known that Luther at the colloquy at Marburg 
 (Oct. 1529) wrote upon the table the words of the Scripture, 
 " this is my body," in order to be even outwardly reminded 
 of what he could not give up. And Luther's confession is 
 likewise known, that he would have but too gladly given up 
 the bodily presence of Christ in the Supper, but the word of 
 Scripture had been too powerful for him. In like manner, 
 the Lutherans afterwards commonly referred to the literal 
 word, and turned themselves in an unreserved polemic against 
 all attempts to interpret it in another sense. This was the 
 reason why the Eeformed theologians objected to the Lutherans, 
 that they wished to have all use of reason excluded from 
 the interpretation of Scripture, from whence it followed that 
 they could only teach what was verbally contained in the 
 Scriptures " quod totidem literis et syllabis aut verbis saltern 
 synonymis in scriptura sacra continetur." Occasion for this 
 assertion was given for instance by Chemnitius, who, in his 
 inquiry regarding the Lord's Supper, gives the exhortation 
 that we should not allow ourselves to be led away by the 
 devil, or be turned aside by profane disputations or remote 
 
PROTESTANT CONTROVERSIES. VEDELIUS AND MUS.EUS. 161 
 
 questions from the word of Christ; and he adds that the 
 importance of keeping in view only the sacred words of our 
 Saviour is shown by the repugnance of opponents to the 
 " letter," as they say. The main concern is to keep in view 
 the spoken words of the Institution (TO prjrov verborum 
 institutionis) without giving heed to the principles of physics. 
 Lucas Osiander likewise desires to give the go-by to philosophy 
 as soon as we have to do with theological questions, and he 
 holds that in considering the mysteries of religion we need 
 give no regard to the axioms of Physics. As against such 
 incriminating witnesses, it was easy for the Lutherans to 
 repudiate the assertion of the Eeformed theologians as an 
 unfounded exaggeration. Their actual procedure, no less than 
 a series of express utterances of their most distinguished 
 theologians, from Luther downwards, proved that they admitted 
 the use of reason in the interpretation of Scripture, both in 
 order to discover the correct meaning of Scripture in doubtful 
 cases, and in order to draw consequences from the transmitted 
 word. 
 
 This controversy was extremely opportune for the Catholics. 
 They took up the objection that was advanced against the 
 Lutherans from the side of the Calvinists, and on the ground of 
 it they threw out a challenge to all Protestants. The Catholics 
 certainly recognised the Scripture as the source of religious 
 knowledge, but they held that Tradition went along with it. 
 They further maintained that God had instituted a continuous 
 office of teaching, represented in the Councils or in the 
 infallible Pope, and that they had the right to promulgate 
 explanations of Scripture or continuations of doctrine with 
 binding authority. Protestants emphasized the sole authority 
 of Scripture without setting up any infallible guide to its 
 interpretation. Hence it was asserted that either the 
 individual has an entirely unlimited right of interpretation 
 for himself, or that the letter of Scripture is absolutely bind- 
 ing. At present, the former alternative is pressed against us 
 by the Catholics ; in that age the latter alternative evidently 
 came readier to hand. We find it first expressed in the 
 
 VOL. I. L 
 
162 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 " Keplique & la response du serenissime roy de la grand' 
 Bretagne" (3rd ed. Paris 1633) of the Cardinal Du Perron, 
 Archbishop of Sens. In the apologetic interest of his Church, 
 he argues that the majority of the Articles of Faith are 
 not contained with express words in Scripture, but are only 
 deduced from it by inferences. In order to reach these 
 Articles of Faith we need the instrument of reason, which 
 takes up as it were a middle place between the Scriptures 
 and inferences from them. Faith, however, thus becomes 
 uncertain and merely probable ; a certain faith only arises if 
 the Church comes as an external authority between us and 
 the Scriptures. Vedelius mentions several Jesuits who urged 
 these considerations in combating the Protestants. Gonterius 
 takes up the controversy with the Protestants on the ground 
 of the authority of the Scriptures as recognised on both sides. 
 He argues that whoever draws consequences from the words 
 of Scripture, leaves this ground and applies the principles of 
 natural reason ; and that the arguments of the Protestants 
 therefore only deserve consideration if they are found verbally 
 in the Scriptures. The Jesuit Arnold likewise proceeded in 
 a similar way. This theory was systematically developed and 
 applied in detail by the Jesuit Franciscus Veronius in his 
 Methodus Veroniana (Cologne 1628). According to his 
 view, the common principle of all the Confessions that had 
 fallen away from Eome, is that the Scriptures, as the canon 
 of all truth, contain all that is necessary for the worship of 
 God and our own salvation, and hence all the doctrines 
 relevant thereto must be measured by them as the highest rule. 
 The representatives of these Confessions are, therefore, bound 
 to form their faith out of the Scriptures in such a way that 
 it shall be verbally contained in Scripture without taking 
 from, adding to, or changing anything; and this is only 
 admissible by putting in place of the words of Scripture a 
 completely synonymous expression, whereas by the admission 
 of consequences too much would be allowed to natural reason. 
 Bartholdus Nihusius, who, it appears, went over to the 
 Catholic Church from somewhat questionable motives (1616), 
 

 PROTESTANT CONTROVERSIES. VEDELIUS AND MUS^US. 163 
 
 developes the same thought in his ATS nova (Hildesheim 
 1632), which was directed against G. Calixtus and C. 
 Hornejus. According to his own statement, he was led to 
 change his Church because the assertion made by the 
 Lutherans, that there were many dogmas contained in 
 Scripture that were contrary to the Eoman doctrine, had 
 been found by him to be false. He urges the objection 
 against the Lutherans, and especially against Calixtus, that 
 he had derived many dogmas from the Scriptures which were 
 neither contained in express words in them, nor could be 
 derived by certain inference from them. In detailed exegetical 
 argumentation, the motive of which is thus indicated, he 
 seeks to show, with remarkable subtlety, that the Catholic 
 doctrines of the withdrawal of the cup, of divorce, of 
 celibacy, and of the mass cannot be refuted on grounds of 
 Scripture. Calixtus, in a thoroughgoing reply (Tractatus 
 de Arte nova, etc., Frankf. 1652), gives consideration also 
 to the earlier representatives of his opponent's view, but 
 they appear to be known to him in part only from the 
 work of Vedelius. The other controversial writings that were 
 published on the subject are not of much importance. 
 
 The Lutherans therefore repudiated, as a groundless exag- 
 geration, the assertion of the Reformed theologians, that in 
 their interpretation of Scripture they admit no application 
 of reason and of philosophical principles, and that they fall 
 back merely upon the words of the text. In this the 
 Lutherans were undoubtedly right. The difference between 
 them only comes properly out when the question is put, Up 
 to what degree and in what way may the principles of 
 natural reason or of philosophy find application in theological 
 questions, and especially in the interpretation of Scripture ? 
 The explanations given regarding the mode of expression are 
 entirely unessential, and the principles of nature, of reason, 
 and of philosophy are held to be essentially synonymous. In 
 regard to the matter itself, it must be continually kept in 
 view that the Reformed Theologians prefer to make the differ- 
 ence as small as possible, whereas the Lutherans are disposed 
 
164 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 to increase it to the utmost. Even Vedelius, the leading 
 champion upon the Calvinistic side, admits that the Holy 
 Scripture, the mysteries, arid the Articles of Faith do not 
 require proof, and that the question of the application of 
 principles of reason is related to the theological controversies 
 only so far as concerns the establishment of the correct 
 meaning of Scripture with a view to their settlement. 
 Besides, the distinction of the questiones pierce and the 
 questiones mixtce, of which the former completely transcend 
 the comprehension of human reason, is not rejected, and 
 emphasis is laid upon the position, that in every theological 
 question the Middle Term (inedius terminus) must be taken 
 from Scripture. Further, the principles of reason are not to 
 be used as principia but as instrumenta of knowledge and 
 inference, and not primario but only secundario, or merely as 
 auxiliaries to the Scripture proof. The Scholastic method of 
 resolving theological questions by reason and without the 
 word of God, is rejected as entirely inadmissible, on the 
 ground that philosophy does not rule or direct, but only serves 
 in theology. It is held, however, that to support theological 
 positions, not only on theological grounds but also on philo- 
 sophical principles, is permissible but not necessary ; the 
 principles of reason have properly the position of being mere 
 auxiliaries of the proof from Scripture. In applying them, 
 the Middle Term must necessarily be taken from Scripture. 
 If this term is combined with the Minor, the connection is to 
 be established from Scripture, and only as it were ex abun- 
 danti from reason. If it is combined with the Major, the 
 connection is either expressly contained in Scripture, or 
 it must be got from it by interpretation and comparison of 
 passages. In the former case, the principles of reason are 
 not required ; in the latter, they are absolutely necessary. 
 This is designated by Vedelius as the subject of dispute in 
 the controversy. 
 
 Joh. Musa3us, the worthy representative of an orthodoxy 
 mitigated by genuine piety, follows the details of his opponent 
 step by step, and seeks to lay bare their defects. What he 
 
PROTESTANT CONTROVERSIES. VEDELIUS AND MUS.EUS. 165 
 
 himself represents as truth (vera sententia) shows us a deeper 
 penetration into the question and a living grasp of it. A 
 question does not become theological by the fact that its 
 conceptions are taken from Scripture, nor does a conception 
 become theological by the fact that its verbal expression is 
 taken from Scripture. The Scriptures contain many mere 
 natural truths, such as that the sun rises and sets; and it is not 
 possible that a proposition should be changed from being 
 philosophical into being theological merely on account of the 
 accidental circumstance that it has been received into the 
 Scriptures. In order that a proposition may be theological, 
 its contents must also be supernatural, and the middle term 
 of a theological inference must stand in a relation to the 
 major and minor that rests upon the peculiar divine contents 
 of Scripture and theology, and not upon the letter of the 
 Bible. In this sense all the inferences in theology must 
 have their theological character. Hence, if it is at all 
 admissible in theological inferences to take a premiss from the 
 principles of natural reason, and if the claim of the "Ars 
 nova " is to be decidedly rejected, the following law will hold 
 good : " When a universal theological premiss is connected 
 with a particular philosophical premiss, the inference follows 
 very simply by the subordination of the individual case under 
 the universal proposition." Thus all sin is forgiven on account 
 of the merit of Christ when appropriated in faith. Murder is 
 sin ; therefore murder is forgiven, etc. But if the philosophical 
 premiss is universal and the theological premiss is particular, 
 then it must be carefully examined whether the philosophical 
 principle in question is necessarily and universally valid 
 (absolute et simpliciter necessaria), or applies only to a 
 particular sphere and conditionally (secundum quid et physice). 
 It is only in the former case that a correct inference is to be 
 got by the mere subordination of the particular under the 
 universal. In the latter case, this procedure leads to the 
 greatest errors, as is proved by the example of the Eeformed 
 theologians, who infer thus : Every natural body is sensibly 
 perceived where it is really present ; Christ's body is not 
 
166 THE DOCTRINES OF THE REFORMERS. 
 
 sensibly perceived in the Lord's Supper; therefore it is not 
 really present. 
 
 The difference between the Lutheran and the Calvinistic 
 theologians thus comes out more sharply in Musaeus than in 
 the statements of Vedelius. It is evident that Musaeus touches 
 the distinction between them more correctly. This is only to 
 be explained from the fact that the controversy, as soon as 
 it was conducted on fundamental principles, culminated in 
 the question as to whether the principle of contradiction is 
 also valid in theological questions, and whether reason or 
 philosophy has the right to adjudicate on alleged contradictions 
 in theology. This point was raised of necessity, seeing that 
 the Reformed theologians, in the controversy regarding 
 Christolog}' and the doctrine of the Supper, fell back at once 
 upon universal principles, as when they argued that " the 
 peculiar essence (proprium) of one nature cannot be communi- 
 cated to another," that "every body is in a determinate place," 
 " finitum non est capax infiniti." The position of the parties 
 is quite correctly described by Vedelius, when he says that 
 the Lutherans assert there would only be a contradiction in 
 theological things if two expressions of the Word of God 
 contradicted each other, but not if the expressions of Scripture 
 were merely in contradiction with the rules of our natural 
 thinking. It is unquestionably possible for the divine 
 Omnipotence to make things which, according to our logic, 
 are contradictory to each other, be at the same time ; at all 
 events, our darkened reason may not presume to judge about 
 the mysteries of faith. To concede to Reason the right to judge 
 of contradictions in matters of faith would amount to making 
 her the mistress of theology. It would be an abuse of philosophy 
 and an absurd heresy in which Calvinists and Photinians 
 (Socinians) meet The Calvinistic theologians claim for reason 
 the right of deciding on the contradictions in any theological 
 questions, and not merely in those questions which can be 
 understood even by the natural reason, but also in matters 
 that are purely mystical. All the reasons that are advanced 
 for this position may be reduced to this one, that error is 
 
PEOTESTANT CONTROVERSIES. VEDELIUS AND MUS^US. 167 
 
 contained in every contradiction, and therefore no truth of 
 faith can contain a contradiction. While the Calvinists 
 restrict themselves to this position, they emphatically repudiate 
 the accusation of the Lutherans, that they elevate philosophy 
 to be the mistress and judge in matters of faith. Conrad 
 Hornejus, in his De Progressu Disputandi Liber (Frankf. 
 1624), tries to occupy a position intermediate between the 
 two parties. He argues that the question as to whether this 
 or that assertion contains a contradiction must be distinguished 
 from the other question as to which member of this contra- 
 diction is true and which false. Philosophy answers the 
 former question ; a special science and, in the case before us, 
 theology must answer the latter question. We have also to 
 distinguish between a formal contradiction that is clearly 
 presented in the words of a proposition, and a material 
 contradiction where the contradiction is hidden in the 
 attributed predicate. Philosophy again decides the former 
 case, while the particular science as theology decides the 
 latter. It is clear that the first distinction only carries out 
 what the Calvinists meant when they ascribed to reason only 
 the decisio and not the discretio of the contradiction, whereas 
 the latter distinction, when put in application, issues in the 
 opinion maintained by the Lutherans. The question " Utrum 
 contradictoria credi possint" was revived and discussed, without 
 any substantially new or important result, in the later 
 controversy between Christoph Matthias Pfaff (1686-1760) 
 of Tubingen and Turretin of Geneva (1671-1737). 
 
SECTION THIED. 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 I. 
 
 ARISTOTELIANISM AND EAMISM. 
 
 THE judgment formed at any time regarding the signifi- 
 cance and value of philosophy, notwithstanding the 
 often repeated distinction between philosophy in itself and 
 the particular prevailing system, is never formed independently 
 of that system. Hence, we cannot avoid giving a brief re- 
 view of the condition of philosophy in the Schools during 
 the period that we have now been considering. In doing 
 so, we may take up the subject in connection with both the 
 Lutheran and the Eeformed Churches together ; for apart 
 from the fact that the Swiss Eeformers, and especially Zwingli, 
 took a more friendly attitude towards philosophy, and that 
 Eamism strongly flourished for a period in the Eeformed 
 Church, the position of philosophy in both the Churches was 
 fundamentally the same. The aversion at the outset to all 
 secular science could not but cease as soon as the Church 
 found time to develop its own purified doctrine systematically, 
 and had occasion to defend itself from hostile attacks. The 
 attempts made at the commencement to create a new philo- 
 sophy passed almost all away without permanent influence, or 
 at least without the formation of a school. Hence there was 
 nothing else that could be done but to take up one of the 
 ancient systems; and only Plato and Aristotle could come 
 into consideration. But the history of the development before 
 the Eeformation has already shown that Plato obtained in- 
 fluence only over particular minds that had an inward affinity 
 
AEISTOTELIANISM AND EAMISM. 169 
 
 to him, and that he led them mostly to innovations and to 
 heretical divergences from the established doctrine of the 
 Church. On the other hand, we have seen that Aristotle 
 worked scholastically and far more universally from the very 
 reason that many used his Logic without accepting the essen- 
 tial doctrines of his Metaphysics, and because he was pre- 
 eminently fitted to give systematic development and formal 
 completion to a doctrine that was already established and 
 regarded as incontestable. With keen vision, Melanchthon 
 had already recognised this. Hence he urgently recommended 
 the study of Aristotle, and advanced it, according to his power, 
 by his text-books. It was thus the influence of Melanchthon 
 that helped on the Aristotelian philosophy till it flourished so 
 greatly in the German Universities of the sixteenth century. 
 For a time the designations Philippist and Aristotelian passed 
 as synonymous. 1 Alongside of this movement, Ramism 
 was more widely spread at least for a time. 2 The tour of 
 Eamus through Germany and Switzerland (1568-70) already 
 divided the representatives of science, in all the places visited 
 by him, into two hostile camps. Some received him publicly 
 as the great reformer of philosophy ; others combated him 
 as an audacious opponent of the infallible Stagirite. In 
 Heidelberg public tumults broke out among the students ; 
 and when Eamus, on the 15th December 1659, was beginning 
 to explain Cicero's oration pro Marcello, his opponents tore 
 away the steps leading up to the reading-desk, and a French 
 student supplied their place with his back. The wish of the 
 Elector to secure him as a professor of philosophy failed from 
 the opposition of the University. Beza again opposed his 
 intention of teaching philosophy in Geneva, on the ground 
 that it had been resolved at Geneva that logic and the other 
 philosophical sciences were only to be taught there by those 
 who did not diverge in the least (ne tantillum quidem) from 
 
 1 On this point reference maybe particularly made to Hermannus ab Elsvicli, 
 De varia Aristotelis in scholis protestantium fortuna, Wittenb. 1720. 
 
 2 A detailed exposition of the movement called forth by the conflict between 
 Ramism and Aristotelism is unfortunately still a desideratum. The best is 
 that of Brucker, Hist. Crit. Phil. t. iv. 
 
170 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 the opinions of Aristotle. In Strassburg, Basle, Zurich, and 
 other cities, his presence was celebrated in every possible way. 
 
 After the death of Eamus this division continued. Many 
 of his personal scholars spread his doctrines, such as Joh. 
 Sturm in Strassburg, Freigius in Freiburg, and afterwards in 
 Basle and Altdorf, Fabricius in Dusseldorf, and others. Beur- 
 husius of Dortmund, also one of his scholars, among other 
 works in explanation of the philosophy of Eamus, wrote an 
 introduction to the system with a learned comparison of the 
 Dialectics of Eamus and Melanchthon. Scribonius of Corbach 
 wrote a Triumphus Logicce Ramice. Among the theologians, 
 the most distinguished Eamists were David Chytlmeus of 
 Eostock, Caspar Pfafifrad of Helmstadt, and Piscator of 
 Herborn. Eamists taught in almost all the Universities, 
 even at Helmstadt and at Altdorf, the chief seats of Aristotel- 
 ianism. But Aristotelianism had also its valiant representa- 
 tives, of whom the most conspicuous were Caselius and Corn. 
 Martinii at Helmstadt, and Phil. Scherb at Altdorf, who, in 
 terms far from polite, refuses to allow any value to the 
 new logic, because it led men away from the truth, instead 
 of bringing them to it. Further, Jakob Schegk in Tubingen, 
 who carried on a controversy with Eamus himself, Mcod. 
 Frischlin, Zacharius Ursinus in Heidelberg, Dasypodius in 
 Strassburg, and Matthseus Dresser, may be mentioned as among 
 the leading Aristotelians. Numerous controversial writings 
 flew hither and thither, but they have only come down to us 
 in part, and they are generally quite unimportant. The 
 frequent academic disputations of the time specially formed a 
 wide field for the contests of the hostile parties. Along with 
 all this, reconciliations and mediations were also attempted by 
 the so-called Ramei mixti et syncretistce or Philippo- Eamists. 
 We may here mention only some of the most important, as P. 
 Frisius, Eud. Goclenius, Otto Casmann, Barth. Keckermann, 
 and J. H. Alstedt. 
 
 The conflict between the two schools ended with the 
 complete suppression of Eamism. In Helmstadt, a statute 
 of the year 1576 bound every teacher to teach the Aristotelian 
 
ARISTOTELIANISM AND RAMISM. 171 
 
 philosophy as veram et antiquam ; and, in 1597, the philo- 
 sophy of Eamus was expressly forbidden. In Wittenberg 
 also, where Eamism had been taught up till 1585 by some 
 private teachers in the University, it was thought necessary 
 to forbid it in 1603. In Leipsic, John Cramer, appointed as 
 public professor for expounding the Organon of Aristotle, 
 began to lecture privatim on the logic of Eamus. It was 
 only after he had subscribed an assurance that he would 
 avoid the " novum ac insolens docendi genus Petri Eami," 
 and that he would teach to the best of his power the " vera 
 sana receptaque doctrina Aristotelis," that the suspension 
 which had been passed upon him was set aside. Never- 
 theless in 1591, Cramer was deposed as a Eamist and 
 Calvinist ; and it was decreed that whoever qualified for 
 teaching in Leipsic must promise to teach nothing against 
 Aristotle. In short, about the year 1625, the triumph of 
 Aristotelianism in Germany, and especially in the Lutheran 
 Universities, was complete. The attitude of the theologians 
 was of considerable influence upon this question. It was 
 decidedly for Aristotle. This was hardly due to the con- 
 fessional opposition to the Calvinists ; for although at the 
 beginning Eamus stood in high authority in the Eeforrned 
 Church, he afterwards shared the fate of Arminius, who, with 
 the support of End. Snell, but opposed by Justus Lipsius and 
 Scaliger, wished to naturalize Eamus in the Netherlands a 
 somewhat external combination which was prejudicial to both. 
 On the other hand, the theologians objected to the Eamists, 
 that they allowed to philosophy too great an influence upon 
 theology. That this objection was justified, was shown even 
 by the semi - Eamists Goclenius and Casmann. Eudolph 
 Goclenius, the father (1547-1628), in his Problemata, Logica, 
 combats with all emphasis the extremely perverse opinion 
 that it was wrong to refer the propositions concerning God to 
 the rules of logic, and that logic was not an instrument for 
 theology, but only for philosophy ; for, he argued, we cannot 
 discourse about the former without the light of logic. Again, 
 in the Diakctica Rami, Goclenius openly says that logic is as 
 
172 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 it were a light, not merely to teach philosophical things, but 
 also to lighten up the heavenly mysteries of the sacred 
 doctrine : " Nam conveniunt notiones et termini logici divinis 
 et fidei rebus vel propriae vel analogicae." Among the 
 orthodox theologians, Goclenius was opposed in the most 
 decided way by Daniel Hofmann in his " DC usu et appli- 
 catione notionum logicarum ad res theologicas " (Frankfurt 
 1596). Hofmann accused Goclenius of equalizing God with 
 the creatures, and of being a Sacramentarian, an Arian, and 
 such like. In like manner, Otto Casmann in his Philosophies 
 et Christian.ee et verce, etc. (Frankfurt 1601), wishes the 
 mysteries of the Faith to be logically treated, and holds that 
 faith itself requires reason in order to attain to correct insight 
 into the objects of faith. Notwithstanding all the subordina- 
 tion of philosophy under theology, he derives with unusual 
 emphasis the philosophy that is attained by the use of the 
 senses and of the reason likewise from God as the highest 
 wisdom ; and hence he holds that a contradiction of this 
 theology with philosophy is impossible, and that the know- 
 ledge of it is even indispensable to the theologian. Nor 
 did Eamism fail to exercise a material influence upon the 
 theological system. We may find an example of this in 
 another semi-Ramist, Bartholomseus Keckermann . with his 
 Sy sterna ss. theologice (ed. 2, Hanovise 1607). We read here 
 not merely that " God designed to kindle in the human mind 
 the light of His Holy Spirit by the two manifestly divine 
 sciences (plane divinas) of Metaphysic and Logic ; " but that 
 the goal of religion is union with God (fruitio Dei tanquam 
 summi boni), and its fruit is practical activity in holiness, 
 appears more prominently in Keckermann than among the 
 orthodox theologians of that time, so that, notwithstanding 
 complete agreement in details, it cannot be doubted that the 
 spirit of the system is a different one. It was also a fact of 
 some importance that the Catholic opponents made use of the 
 Aristotelian logic ; and the Protestants, as J. Gerhard expressly 
 says, could only encounter them with success when they 
 appeared in the same armour. But it was the relative worth 
 
ARISTOTELIANISM AND EAMISM. 1*73 
 
 of the systems which decided the struggle ; and in this respect 
 Aristotle was undoubtedly so much the stronger that the issue 
 of the conflict could not be doubtful. Let us glance some- 
 what more closely, by way of illustrating this, at the work of 
 Alstedt which was then much used, and which has been highly 
 esteemed even by Leibnitz. It is entitled Cursus philosophici 
 Encyclopaedia, 1. xxvii. (Herborn 1631). Four preliminary 
 explanations " prsecognita philosophica " are prefixed to the 
 encyclopaedic survey, of which the first, entitled Archelogia, 
 promises to explain the principles of being and knowing. 
 But of the principles of being we learn nothing further than 
 that they fall into internal and external causes. The internal 
 causes are matter and form ; the external are efficient cause 
 and end. The former in the first line is God, and in the 
 second, man equipped with reason and the natural desire after 
 knowledge ; the latter is, at the highest, the glorification of 
 God and the perfection of man. The use of philosophy in 
 theology, jurisprudence, and medicine is a means of attaining 
 this end. Of the principles of knowledge we learn nothing 
 further than that they depend on the subject knowing, the 
 object to be known, and the particular medium of knowledge. 
 In like manner, the section entitled Hexiologia, in which he 
 treats " de habitibus intellectualibus," leads to nothing further 
 than the theological division of knowledge into supernatural 
 and natural, and the further division of natural knowledge 
 into innate and acquired. The Encyclopaedia then presents 
 the eleven theoretical sciences, which include metaphysics, 
 geography, optics, music, and architecture, next the five 
 practical sciences, including history along with ethics, and 
 finally the seven " poetical " sciences, including along with 
 logic, mnemonic, oratoric, and the lexical science. The treat- 
 ment of the details, like the general conception, is deficient in 
 depth. Such a mode of reasoning was not capable of over- 
 throwing the supremacy of Aristotle ; it could not but conduce 
 to shallowness and superficiality of judgment, and hence it 
 was opposed by all really earnest inquirers. 
 
 This period also shows an instance in which adherence to 
 
174 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 Plato led to heretical positions. Eilhard Lubinus (t 1621), 
 a professor at Rostock, in his Phosphorus, s. de prima causa et 
 natura mali tractatus (Rostock 1596), teaches that there are 
 two eternal primordial principles, "Ens et Non-ens," Being 
 and Nothing. Being or God is the efficient principle of all 
 things ; nothing is their matter. From the former they have 
 their subsistence and the good ; from the latter they have all 
 their defects, evils, and badness. The first who raised his 
 voice against Lubinus was Albert Grauer in the dedication 
 of his treatise, Absiwda absurdorum dbsurdissima (Magdeb. 
 1606); and he was followed by a whole series of famous 
 theologians. The whole incident shows, as in similar former 
 cases, that attachment to Plato is close to the danger of 
 material divergences from the doctrine of the Church, and 
 that, for the merely formal elaboration of the substance of the 
 already-established doctrine, no philosophy was more adapted 
 than the Aristotelian. This system was therefore zealously 
 cultivated. Melanchthon had already done important service 
 in the way of freeing the study of the Aristotelian philosophy 
 frcm the bondage of the mediaeval commentators, and guiding 
 a return to its sources. But in 1596, Sal. Gesner still 
 complains that " instead of the sources, any sort of text-books 
 and extracts are introduced, such as could be taught in 
 common schools or studied privately by any one," and that 
 thence arose great ignorance in physics, ethics, and meta- 
 physics. Soon, however, a deeper understanding of Aristotle 
 took its rise at Helmstadt. Nevertheless, the expositions of 
 metaphysics which were used in that period continued to be 
 wholly limited to a superficial formalism which did not 
 penetrate to the profounder questions. The oldest of these 
 is the metaphysical treatise of the Spanish Jesuit Suarez, 
 entitled Disputationes Metaphysicce (1605). Metaphysics is 
 represented as the necessary basis of theology ; for only he 
 who controls all objective knowledge can receive the highest 
 knowledge into himself. Metaphysics is to be carefully 
 distinguished from the individual sciences, such as dialectics 
 and the practical branches of science ; it treats of bein^ as 
 
AKISTOTELIANISM AND KAMISM. 175 
 
 such, and of things generally in their possible and actual 
 determinations, individuality, and differences. Unity, good- 
 ness, and truth are represented as the universal properties of 
 all that exists. Then follow explanations in detail of the 
 relation of substance and accident, and that of cause and 
 effect. Concrete being is divided into the infinite and the 
 finite, and the latter is treated according to the scheme of 
 the Aristotelian Categories. Jacob Martini of Wittenberg 
 proceeds in a similar way in his Exercitationes MetapJiysicce 
 (1608). Metaphysics, he says, is the science of being as 
 such. This being, whose real existence out of thinking is 
 simply assumed, is either simple or conjunct, whence arise 
 the distinctions of the positive and privative, of the actual 
 and potential. In detailed explanations and subtile sub- 
 divisions, the conception of causality is then analysed. In 
 this system, also, unity, truth, and goodness appear as the 
 simple properties of being. The One unfolds itself into the 
 universal and whole, differentiates itself into the individual, 
 divides itself still more into individuals, and sinks down to 
 mere numerical unity ; and hence proceed the opposites of 
 limited and unlimited, and of perfect and imperfect. Truth 
 lies at the basis of all thinking, and is presupposed through- 
 out as the agreement of things with the knowledge of them. 
 The good is the perfection that belongs to being in itself; and 
 it determines itself more closely according to the opposition of 
 the natural and the moral good. Into this scheme real things, 
 as got from empirical knowledge, are then introduced. There 
 is not much difference in the method of the other meta- 
 physicians who were much used at that time, such as 
 Christian Scheibler of Marburg in his Opus metaphysicum 
 (1636), J. Scharff (f 1660), and others. 
 
 These men attached themselves to Aristotle, but it went 
 with them as with the Scholastics of the Middle Ages. They 
 did not penetrate into the profounder and really meta- 
 physical speculations of their great master, but even in their 
 so-called metaphysical investigations they confined themselves 
 to the formalism and schematism of logic. All philosophizing 
 
176 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 was restricted to logic, and this logic did not trouble itself 
 about the questions regarding the theory of knowledge which 
 necessarily lead to metaphysics ; it only dealt with the 
 external form of the syllogism, with divisions carried out to the 
 utmost, and with the mechanical arrangement of things in the 
 formal outlines thus obtained. This is the very characteristic 
 of Scholasticism. Everything must be classified, schematized, 
 brought into the form of the syllogism, and proved according 
 to a definite form of drawing conclusions. B. Meisner having 
 raised the question in his Philosophic*, Sobria " an semper in 
 forma syllogistica de rebus theologicis disputandum sit," and 
 having answered it in the negative, Cornelius Martini of 
 Helmstadt, in his Analysis Logica (1594), assails him in the 
 most violent way with odious suspicions, intentional dis- 
 tortions, and coarse invectives ; and Meisner finds it necessary 
 to defend himself in detail in a " brevis admonitio contra 
 C. Martini maledicentiam, iniquitatem, negligentiam " (1621). 
 He shows that although every sound reasoning must be of 
 such a kind that it can be reduced to the syllogistic form of 
 Major and Minor, yet it is not absolutely necessary to bring 
 it actually into this form. The representatives of the other 
 view, however, undertook to prove everything that is possible 
 by the aid of the syllogism, a method which was satirised 
 even at that time in the ironical treatise, " Mulieres homines 
 non esse" (Paris 1693), which was often regarded as an 
 earnest production and zealously confuted. The author of 
 this satire undertook in the gravest manner to show that 
 " women are not men," by employing a syllogistic method 
 that was without a loophole and unassailable by the rules of 
 logic. 
 
 Philosophy thus entered into the closest connection, not to 
 say intermixture, with theology. To this may be referred the 
 habit, in metaphysical works, of treating the section on God 
 and His attributes in disproportionate detail. Thus J. Scharf 
 in his Pneumatica seu scientia spirituum naturalis gives a 
 detailed " natural theology." Pneumatics is the doctrine of 
 spirits, and it accordingly treats in the first place of the 
 
ARISTOTELIANISM AND RAMISM. 17 V 
 
 infinite and independent Spirit, God. Although we can 
 obtain by the light of reason only an approximate knowledge 
 of God, yet Scharf gives prolix explanations regarding the 
 attributes of God, His relation to the world, our relation to 
 Him, and so on. This treatment of Natural Theology in 
 philosophy might seem like a feeble beginning of a Philosophy 
 of Eeligion, were it not that the treatment of the subject is so 
 utterly lacking in independence. Instead of philosophical 
 expositions regarding God, we find in this section of philo- 
 sophy only an outline of the corresponding parts of dogmatics, 
 at one time under a simple change of expression, and at 
 another even without this. It is still more characteristic of 
 the amalgamation of theology and philosophy in the Lutheran 
 Scholasticism, that most of the examples employed in logic 
 were borrowed from theology. Writers, like Beckmann in his 
 De modo solvendi sopkismata (Jena 1667), were fond of 
 borrowing their examples of fallacies from the confessional 
 polemics, and examples of correct inference from their own 
 dogmatics. It is no wonder that, on their side, the theologians 
 likewise reduced all their explanations to the forms of the 
 correct syllogism. In particular, controversies were almost 
 always treated in this way, and this is another reason why 
 these writings have become so unpalatable to us now. 
 
 The results of this scholasticism may be here but briefly 
 indicated. Among the later theologians personal living 
 piety went on diminishing ; and, in the place of faith, 
 came knowledge about faith and orthodoxy, which was the 
 means of leading to those petty controversies and hair-splitting 
 distinctions that characterize the dogmatic theology of that 
 period. Disputations were carried on regarding the language 
 of our first parents and the logic of the angels. Inquiries 
 were instituted " de partu Virginis." The question was dis- 
 cussed as to whether a single drop of Christ's blood would 
 have been enough for the redemption of the human race ; and 
 among other things it was disputed whether the blood shed in 
 Gethsemane remained united with the Deity, and whether 
 Christ, at the day of judgment, would show the scars of His 
 
 VOL. I. M 
 
178 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 wounds or not. It was the age of the most violent con- 
 fessional polemics, when, on the Lutheran side, the inquiry 
 was put, with all earnestness, as to whether the Calvinists 
 should be called Christians, and it was openly declared that 
 there was more need to beware of the Calvinists than of the 
 Catholics. It was also the age in which the violent con- 
 troversy about the Kpv^fns and icevcocris in Christology led to 
 the most subtile distinctions. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY (1598-1601). 
 
 The University of Helmstadt was founded by Duke Julius 
 in the year 1576. By statute, the zealous cultivation of the 
 Aristotelian philosophy, as the " philosophia vera et antiqua," 
 was required, and the theological Faculty had at the outset 
 completely the preponderance. It was strictly devoted to the 
 Lutheran school, and Daniel Hofmann (1538-1 6 II) 1 was the 
 ruling spirit in it. Belonging at first to the philosophical 
 Faculty, he had zealously lectured on the Aristotelian ethics 
 and dialectics, but at the same time had opposed Piscator and 
 Goclenius for their unjustified intermixing of philosophy with 
 the mysteries of faith. With the accession of Duke Henry 
 Julius to the government in 1589, an entirely different 
 character was impressed upon the University of Helmstadt, 
 and from that time humanistic and philosophical studies 
 became predominant. J. Caselius (1533-1618), who was 
 greatly celebrated as a Humanist, was called from Eostock, 
 and he was followed by his colleague, Cornelius Martini 
 (1568-1621), who, with peculiar zeal and great success, 
 cultivated the Aristotelian philosophy of the schools, and 
 especially logic and metaphysics. Along with them there also 
 
 1 The fullest accounts of this Controversy are given by G. Thomasius (De 
 Controversia Hofmanniana, Erlang. 1844) and E. Schlee (Der Streit des Daniel 
 Hofmann u'ber das Verhaltniss der Philosophie zur Theologie, Marburg 
 1862). Schlee gives the external history of the Controversy, with complete 
 references to the literature. 
 
THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY. 
 
 laboured at Helmstadt the mathematician Duncan Liddel, 
 and Owen Gunther, a teacher of the Aristotelian physics and 
 a Humanist. It is possible that these Humanists were not 
 entirely without a tendency towards the anti-theological arro- 
 gance of the Italian Humanists, but this is far more strongly 
 expressed in the reproaches of their theological opponents than 
 seems to be justified by their writings as we now have them. 
 It rather appears to be indubitable that Hofmann to whom 
 Mylius applied the well-known expression, " his hand is against 
 every man, and every man's hand is against him " had been 
 roused to the combat, not only from the fact that the human- 
 istic philosophical spirit had superseded the rigidly theological 
 spirit in the University, but also from his displeasure at 
 Caselius superseding himself in the leadership of the academic 
 body. Only thus can we explain how it was that 
 Hofmann, in the struggle against the humanistic Aristotelians, 
 could enter into an alliance with the representatives of 
 Eamism which had been prohibited at Helmstadt in 1592, 
 although they were far less in agreement with him on the 
 controversy in question as to the relation of Philosophy to 
 Theology than his opponents were. 
 
 After fermenting several years, the conflict broke out openly 
 in February 1598, when Caspar Pfaffrad, a Eamist, graduated 
 as Doctor of Theology under Hofmann, then Dean of the 
 Faculty. The two set forth 101 theses, 1 in which the errors 
 of the Scholastics and Arians, as well as of the Calvinists, in 
 regard to the doctrine of God, the Trinity, and the person of 
 Christ were derived from the intermixture of Philosophy with 
 Theology. The most important of these theses ran thus : 
 " Those who claim for Philosophy a right to the glorious grace 
 of God, detract from that grace, and commit the sin against 
 the Holy Ghost by not distinguishing between what is sacred 
 and what is profane. But we admit that he who divests 
 Philosophy of all approbation, in so far as it conducts itself in 
 
 1 Propositiones de Deo et Christ! turn persona turn officiis, asserentes 
 puriorem confessionem Dr. Lutheri, feces scholasticas expurgantis, oppositse 
 Pontificiis et omnibus cauponantibus verbum Dei, Helmstadt 1598. 
 
180 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 a right way and keeps within its own limits, and who simply 
 rejects the use of it, insidiously attacks an ornament of the 
 human race, a prerogative of human life and a beneficent gift of 
 the Creator and Preserver of the world." Again, " Philosophy, 
 which is worthy otherwise of all praise, is a robber in matters 
 of Eeligion, as is clearly proved by the opposition between the 
 elements of the world and the elements of Christ." It is 
 accordingly maintained that the assertion made by Luther against 
 the Sorbonne, that the same thing is not true in theology and 
 philosophy, is well founded both in religion and in science. 
 We should therefore leave dialectics and philosophy to their 
 own sphere, and in the kingdom of faith, which lies above 
 every sphere, we should learn to speak in new tongues, 
 otherwise we shall put the new wine into old bottles, so that 
 both will be spoiled. A whole series of examples is then 
 adduced to prove that the Scholastics were brought by their 
 philosophy to their errors regarding the knowledge of God, and 
 that we ought to be carefully on our guard against Philosophy 
 in matters of faith. 
 
 Hofmann wrote a preface to these Theses, for which he is 
 alone responsible. He asserts that if any one reviews the 
 history of the Church from the beginning till that time, he 
 will observe that, next to the devil, it has never had a more 
 violent enemy than reason and carnal wisdom, and that they 
 claim supremacy in the doctrines of faith, so that their 
 violence even exceeds the inhumanity of carnal tyrants, since 
 they torture souls in the most violent manner, and draw them 
 away most forcibly from the true knowledge of God. The 
 more that human reason is cultivated by philosophical studies, 
 it marches forward the more completely armed ; and the more 
 it loves itself, so much the more violently does it assail 
 theology, and so much the more blinding are the errors which 
 it invents. Wherever we look in Christendom, a wretched con- 
 dition appears, because many theologians reduce the sublime 
 Articles of Faith to carnal wisdom, and accustom young men 
 to empty discussions. Hence Pfaffrad would bring the exces- 
 sive meddling (TroKvirpa^noavvrj) of human reason in matters 
 
THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY. 181 
 
 of faith to an end by refuting the Jesuits and Calvinists with 
 all their arts, while the Ubiquitists, who have drawn from the 
 same cistern of reason, are passed over in the meantime. 
 
 When Hofmann was called to account by the Consistory of 
 the University on the accusation of the Philosophical Faculty, 
 he expressly repudiated the explanation that he had not spoken 
 " de usu," but " de abusu philosophise," though he afterwards 
 went back to it. In a series of disputations and dissertations, 
 the controversy was carried on with unworthy invectives, and 
 it was confused, moreover, by the main conceptions such as 
 faith, reason, and others being used by the disputants in dif- 
 ferent senses. At the same time the controversy was diverted 
 from the main question regarding the right of philosophy in 
 theology to other related questions regarding the natural know- 
 ledge of God and the double truth. At last, Hofmann was 
 accused by the philosophers of having made philosophy con- 
 temptible and of having injured them personally, and, after a 
 long investigation, he was deposed from his office in 1601, to 
 which, however, he was again recalled in 1604. Along with 
 Hofmann, there come forward only two literary representatives 
 of his view, not taking into account the unimportant elabora- 
 tions of it by some of his own pupils. One of these two 
 literary representatives was Joh. Olearius, Hofmann's son-in- 
 law and colleague, but afterwards Superintendent at Halle, 
 who, in 1599, addressed an Apology to the Duke accom- 
 panied with a Disputatio theologica de philosophic pio usu 
 multiplicique abusu et sylagogia (Halle 1601). The other 
 was Gottfr. Schlliter, Superintendent at Gottingen, who, with 
 the addition of abundant material, gave an exposition of the 
 controversy favourable to Hofmann, in his Explicatio certaminis 
 quod de philosophise in regno et mysteriis fidei actione et usu 
 deque veritate duplici humana et spiritualia adjectatur (1601)- 
 On the side of Hofmann's opponents, besides those already 
 named, we may further mention Alber Grauer, General Super- 
 intendent in Weimar, who sought, in a Libellus de unica veritate 
 (1611), to defend philosophy against the objection of being 
 Socinian and Calvinistic. 
 
182 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 If we inquire into the impelling motives of this Controversy, 
 it might be at first naturally supposed that the philosophers had 
 claimed too much for themselves, and had thereby roused the 
 theologians to oppose them. This supposition, however, is 
 found to be erroneous, for the philosophers of Helmstadt do not 
 contest even the supra-rationality of theology, and they demand 
 for philosophy only the modest position of an organic and 
 materially preparative auxiliary. Owen Giinther goes the 
 farthest. In a Programme of llth March 1599, he puts forth 
 the following thoughts : God, as the highest good, wished to 
 communicate Himself by a rich outflow of His goodness to the 
 world. He put man into the middle of it as His own image in 
 order to dwell in him, and thereby to make him blessed. In 
 consequence of the fall, and as a punishment, our spirit has 
 been smitten with blindness and ignorance of the Creator and 
 His works. Our will has also been made subject to lusts 
 and to unrighteousness, yet God left us at least a trace of His 
 former glory. We know that there is a God who is the just 
 rewarder of the good and the bad. The will can also follow 
 reason and choose the good instead of the bad. The Scriptures 
 call the good the law of Nature, which is often overcome by the 
 law of the flesh to unrighteousness. Both the will and the 
 reason have become blunted and weak in the fulfilment of 
 their function, and in order to arouse them the Creator has 
 bestowed philosophy on man, which, being derived from the 
 treasury of the divine Spirit, expels our dark ignorance and 
 adjusts the obstinate conflict that is waged between good and 
 evil. The contemplation of the universe has this effect, as it 
 leads us necessarily to an indubitable conviction. From the 
 discharge of this task arises the dignity of philosophy and the 
 wrong of those who would exclude it from the Church, which 
 is a real a-KvQwv pfjo-is, not merely ignorance, but raving 
 madness. He expresses himself much more modestly in his 
 treatise entitled Theologies et Philosophice mutua amicitia 
 ostensa (Magdeburg 1600). Philosophy and Theology, he 
 says, spring both from God ; the former rests entirely upon 
 innate principles of Nature, and is partly theoretical and partly 
 
THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY. 183 
 
 practical. Theology is partly mystical and is entirely revealed ; 
 it transcends all the conceptions of men and angels, and it 
 is partly in agreement with reason. In this latter respect 
 Philosophy and Theology agree with one another, both as 
 theoretical and as practical knowledge. Philosophy gives 
 proofs, whereas Theology demands a believing assent to its 
 assertions. But even in this relation Theology is always the 
 determining standard according to the words of the Psalm, 
 " Thy word is a light to my feet." If Philosophy turns aside 
 from this rule, she becomes a deceiver, and does not deserve 
 the honourable name of Philosophy, as in doing so she is not 
 merely opposed to Theology, but to herself. For the true 
 Philosophy recognises Theology as her queen and mistress, 
 and subordinates herself to Theology as a servant. The 
 mystical Theology, however, goes beyond our reason, and 
 hence a Philosophy that is conscious of her proper limits will 
 never come into contradiction with it. 
 
 This is also the opinion of the other philosophers. They 
 all hold that Philosophy and Theology both spring from God, 
 and that the two are therefore in harmony with each other. 
 Putting a contradiction between them is the same as putting 
 a contradiction in God. This position is specially maintained 
 by Liddel. It follows that there is only one truth. Of the 
 objects of theology, there are some that we are able to know, 
 for the natural knowledge of God is also true (Rom. i. 19, 
 ii. 25). Other positions of theology as the Trinity, the Incar- 
 nation, and such like rest solely upon revelation, and cannot 
 be cognized by reason. The doctrines of the first rank can be 
 accepted merely from revelation, without the application of 
 rational principles ; in other words, they can only be believed. 
 Corn. Martini uses for this distinction the expressions, " arti- 
 culi puri aut mixti fidei, revelationis aut cognitionis," from 
 which was formed the later dogmatic expression, "articuli 
 puri et mixti." Philosophy has therefore a preparative relation 
 to theology, materialiter, and its logical laws are also applicable 
 to revealed theology, formaliter. For in theology two members 
 of a contradictory opposition cannot be true at the same time. 
 
184 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 The existence of such an opposition is shown by logic, but it 
 does not decide which member is true and which is untrue. 
 
 Turning to the view of Hofmann, we find it particularly 
 stated in the Theses mentioned above, in the Notce to Gunther's 
 Programme, and in the treatises entitled De duplici veritate and 
 Num Syllogismus rationis locum hdbeat in regno fidei. His 
 view rests on the ecclesiastical doctrine of original sin. The 
 philosophers reckoned reason as an inalienable part of the 
 divine image, or at least they regarded its obscuration as of so 
 little importance that they h%ld it could be counteracted by 
 philosophy. But Hofmann refers the corruption of the fallen 
 nature to the faculty of knowledge also, and in the manner of 
 Macius he carries his view up to the assertion that we have 
 not retained a trace of our former glory, but our mind and 
 will now bear the image of the devil. Hence Hofmann is 
 led on in some places to assert that philosophy is, even in the 
 purely secular sphere, a work of the flesh, is hostile to God, is 
 full of error, and is decidedly to be rejected. These, however, 
 were exaggerations that were afterwards retracted. On calmer 
 consideration, Hofmann admits that there is a true philosophy 
 in the secular sphere. 
 
 This Philosophy assumes the most direct antagonism to 
 Theology; instead of being a positive preparation, it is a 
 decided enemy of the Christian Faith. " Because the reason 
 of man is the chief enemy of God, the more prudent it is in 
 its natural kind, the more refractory a beast it is, and the 
 more does it set itself against the wisdom of God, which it 
 regards as folly." Hence is explained Hofmann's attitude 
 towards the natural knowledge of God. He was inclined to 
 deny it entirely. The passage in Jas. ii. 19 is explained as 
 ironical, and even Bom. i. 19 and ii. 15 are so rendered that 
 all true natural knowledge of God is called in question. But 
 Hofmann had expressed himself otherwise in the Theses " De 
 notitiis innatis" (1593), and he had finally to admit a natural 
 knowledge of God. But the objective truth of that knowledge 
 is always designated as only falsa veritas, and it is asserted 
 that " what is true in philosophy is all false in theology," " that 
 
THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY. 185 
 
 if philosophy teaches there is a God, and that He is good, just, 
 etc., this is a lie in theology," and that " if the unregenerate 
 says there is a God, etc., he lies." This position becomes 
 clear from the difference in the views held regarding the rela- 
 tion of belief to knowledge. According to Martini, belief is 
 necessarily given along with knowledge ; according to Hof- 
 mann, the heathen have a knowledge that there is a God, but 
 not a belief accompanying that knowledge. Now the philoso- 
 phers understand by truth the objective agreement of know- 
 ledge with the object known, whereas Hofmann understands by 
 it the subjective certainty which rests, not upon knowledge, 
 but upon the belief effected by the Holy Spirit. But this 
 difference does not come clearly into the consciousness of the 
 disputants, and so the controversy moves obscurely and con- 
 fusedly around the duplex veritas. Although Hofmann does 
 not therefore deny the natural knowledge of God, he reckons 
 all the propositions of theology as belonging to the mysteries 
 of faith ; he therefore decidedly rejects the distinction between 
 the articuli puri and articuli mixti, and speaks of truth only 
 where these are grasped in faith, and therefore by the power 
 of the Holy Spirit. Olearius expresses himself in like manner. 
 He admits that the heathen may indeed know God from 
 nature, yet reason is so corrupt that it regards the surest and 
 truest doctrines concerning God's nature and will, the immor- 
 tality of the soul, and such like, as lies, and so designates 
 them. 
 
 This distinction of the subjective conviction, had it been 
 clearly presented to the philosophers, would as little have 
 been repudiated by them as the distinction of the source of 
 knowledge. Philosophy rests upon natural reason ; theology 
 upon supernatural revelation. Now, in so far as the latter 
 stands higher than the former, there are propositions, such as 
 that the Word became flesh, which are absurd in philosophy, 
 and yet are entirely true in theology. Philosophers may thus 
 also speak so far of a " double truth," and emphatically repu- 
 diate a philosophical criticism of the mysteries of faith. 
 Hofmann, on the supposition that a hostile invasion of the 
 
186 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCAKTES. 
 
 sphere of theology by philosophy was to be regarded as 
 inevitable, carries the unimportant opposition between them 
 farther than was necessary. The Aristotelian philosophy, on 
 the basis of its principle ex nihilo nihil fieri, teaches the 
 eternity of the world, but theology teaches the opposite ; and 
 therefore of the two contradictory opposites, the one is philo- 
 sophically true and the other is theologically true, giving a 
 duplex veritas de uno. Generally the philosophical axioms 
 lay claim to universal validity ; but in theology they are not 
 valid. Olearius carries the thought farther. He holds that 
 such propositions as that " nothing comes from nothing," that 
 " Matter, Form, and Privation are the principles of all things," 
 that " the whole is greater than the parts," that " the sun 
 cannot stand still," and others, are propositions which philo- 
 sophy sets up as universally valid, but which are not valid in 
 theology. He enters even closer into the main point when 
 he says that philosophy mixes up God, nature, the human 
 mind, and fate with one another, or even identifies them ; 
 that by its learning it excites doubts as to the divine truth, 
 explains away the doings of God for the salvation of men as 
 fables, and by the rules of dialectic and rhetoric perverts the 
 simple truth of the Scriptures ; that in the schools the heathen 
 authors are read instead of the Bible, and so on. 
 
 Further, according to the philosophers, revealed theology is 
 above reason, but not contrary to reason. By holding fast this 
 distinction, they also demanded the application of logic even 
 to the mysteries of faith, in so far at least as it might point 
 out any contradictions. Hofmann rejects this position also. 
 In the thesis of 1598, he had desiderated " novae linguae" 
 for theology, and he afterwards combated still more emphati- 
 cally the study of metaphysics as being favourable to the 
 Sacramentarians, and of no use in Science. He also rejected 
 the theological use of philosophical formulae. He says that 
 the Apostles on the day of Pentecost did not receive instruc- 
 tion in philosophy, that philosophical technicalities and 
 " termini Scholastic! " have been, at all times, only causes 
 of theological controversies, and that to compel theology to 
 
THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY. 187 
 
 make use of the language of the schools of philosophy was an 
 " intolerable et impium onus." These expressions, however, 
 were ir part due only to the heat of the controversy, and 
 Hofmann has again at times expressed himself as entirely 
 agreeing with his opponents, that theology as a science cannot 
 dispense with syllogistic form. This holds particularly with 
 regard to the preaching of the divine word ; for Hofmann 
 maintains, against the Enthusiasts, the view of the Formula 
 Consensus, that the external word is the means of conversion 
 by God's ordinance. But he does not mean thereby a rational 
 proving of the doctrines. As in the work of conversion, 
 human reason holds an entirely positive relation, the act of 
 conversion forms a transition from the syllogismus rationis to 
 the syllogismus fidei. The former is applicable only to those 
 contents of Scripture which are subjected to reason in an 
 external service of the letter and in the refutation of heretics ; 
 but applied to the sphere of faith it leads to Pelagianism and 
 Synergism. The " syllogismus fidei " obtains its certainty 
 from the light of Christ, to which it is subordinated in obedi- 
 ence, but it is not more exactly described. The whole dis- 
 tinction, like the earlier one of the double truth of knowledge 
 and belief, is founded upon the obscure idea that the religious 
 certainty of faith, even when referring to the same object, is 
 of an entirely different kind from the intellectual certainty of 
 knowledge. This is a sort of intuitive apprehension which 
 vainly strives in Hofmann and his adherents to find clear 
 expression. 
 
 The controversy went on even after Hofmann's death, 
 although upon another stage and under a different character. 
 The adherents of Hofmann leave Helmstadt, but gather again 
 in Magdeburg. Wenceslaus Schilling (f 1637), private lec- 
 turer of the theological Faculty at Helmstadt, was excluded 
 from the University on account of " his hostile disposition 
 against the good arts (bonas artes) and philosophy." The 
 jurist and philosopher, Joh. Angelius von Werdenhagen 
 (1581-1652), who had been professor of the Aristotelian 
 Ethics at Helmstadt from 1616, was deposed from his office 
 
188 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 in 1618 on account of his violent attacks upon the indif- 
 ferentism of the Humanists and the empty formalism of the 
 theologians. Jacob Martini at Wittenberg wrote against them 
 his "Mirror of Reason (Vernunftspiegel), that is, a fundamental 
 and irresistible statement as to what reason along with its 
 perfection (called philosophy) is, how far it extends, and 
 especially of what use it is in matters of Eeligion " (Witten- 
 berg 1618). Paul Slevogt, a philosopher and poet, corrector 
 at Brunswick, may also be mentioned in this connection. 
 
 The peculiar character of this last phase of the controversy 
 comes out in the fact that the followers of Hofmann were 
 not, like himself, representatives of the great Lutheran ortho- 
 doxy, but turned to a peculiar mystical direction. In his 
 Ecclesice metaphysicce visitatio, etc. (Magdeburg 1619), and his 
 De notitiis naturalibus succincta consideratio (Magdeburg 1616), 
 Schilling goes beyond Hofmann, in so far as he rejects all 
 natural knowledge of God. He holds that God is much too 
 lofty to be known by the human understanding, that there is 
 no innate knowledge, and that the most that can be inferred 
 from Nature is that there is a God. The metaphysical defini- 
 tion of God as the Ens of whom it can only be said that it is 
 " negatio nihili," does not reach the full knowledge of God. 
 Nay more, the arguments for the existence of God, the phy- 
 sical and the moral as well as the metaphysical, are untenable 
 when submitted to criticism. Calvinism, Socinianism, and 
 Arianism are the consequences of undertaking to establish the 
 divine mysteries by metaphysical speculations. A special con- 
 troversy was carried on between Schilling and Jacob Martini 
 as to whether the immortality of the soul can be proved 
 on philosophical grounds, and it was the subject of a series 
 of somewhat un courteous controversial treatises. In his 
 " Invincible Booklet of Principles " (Unuberwindliches Chrund- 
 buchlein, Magdeburg 1617) he desiderates a simpler explana- 
 tion of Scripture, such as will leave aside " dialectical figures 
 and modes " as a roundabout babble of words, and will not 
 waste itself in mere logomachy. 
 
 Mysticism takes a still more decided form in Werden- 
 
THE DANIEL HOFMANN CONTROVERSY. 189 
 
 hagen. Eight of his Academic discourses, which he delivered 
 when a Professor at Helmstadt, are collected in his Verus 
 Christianismus fundamenta religionis continens (Magdeburg 
 1618). The scholastic theologians are opposed in the most 
 violent manner as " ratiocinistae." One is a genuine barbarian ; 
 another draws his termini from the midst of heathenism and 
 even from stony Arabia, and thus the Word of God is judged 
 contrary to His commandment, and the faith is desecrated. 
 Whoever applies Aristotle to theology, perverts the divine 
 irrefragable truth of the gospel by turning it into arbitrary 
 phantasies and empty conceits. At most, only the ancient 
 wisdom of the Egyptians may be applied to the mysteries of 
 the Scriptures. As the centre and the way of all truth in all 
 creatures is Christ, sacred things should only be spoken of in 
 the sacred words of Scripture. 
 
 Against these writers, Jacob Martini wrote his " Mirror of 
 Eeason " ( Vernunftspiegel) with great display of learning, 
 breadth of sentiment, and vigorous robustness. Its first part 
 treats of Eeason, and the second part treats of Philosophy. 
 Natural Eeason, even after the Fall, exists in man, and is 
 capable of knowing not only natural things, but also that God 
 is, that He is one, eternal, and omnipotent, although it is 
 entirely incapable of understanding the mysteries of the 
 gospel of itself. Hence we ought, as has been always the 
 case in the Church, to hold philosophy in high esteem as 
 the fairest gift of God next to His word, and to employ 
 its several sciences as much as possible in the service of 
 theology. 
 
 Paul Slevogt, in his Pervigilium de dissidio theologi et pkilo- 
 sophi in utriusque principiis fundato (1623), investigates, with 
 objective impartiality and the application of a cumbrous 
 philosophical formalism, the question as to whether the uni- 
 versally recognised Aristotelian philosophy and the only true 
 Lutheran theology agree with each other. He deals with the 
 subject in connection with four important questions. These 
 questions are : 1. Whether the immortality of Adam was 
 natural or supernatural ? 2. Whether faith is the sole cause 
 
190 CULTIVATION OF PHILOSOPHY BEFORE DESCARTES. 
 
 of justification ? 3. Whether the individual can be certain 
 of his salvation ? 4. Whether God is in any way per accidens 
 the cause of sin ? His answers come to this, that in regard 
 to all these questions Philosophy must, by its very principles, 
 stand in contradiction with Theology. 
 
SECTION FOURTH. 
 
 THE OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 DURING the age of the Reformation there arose certain 
 views and tendencies, represented by men who were 
 entirely at one with the Reformers in their decided aversion 
 to Romanism, but who were not recognised as properly belong- 
 ing to their party or cause. After the two great Protestant 
 Churches of the Lutheran and the Reformed Confessions had 
 become consolidated, the separate movements referred to went 
 on, especially in the Lutheran Church. An opposition thus 
 took form within the circle of Protestantism, and this relation 
 points to its having a certain inner affinity with the Protes- 
 tant principle ; but, on the other hand, the fact that it 
 appeared as an opposition, and was, in several instances, even 
 driven out of the Church, indicates a certain incompatibility 
 between its deviations and the historical development of the 
 Church. It is in this way that these movements have to be 
 understood. Those of them that belong to the age of the 
 Reformation itself have been stamped with the twofold 
 designation of the " Antitrinitarians and Anabaptists " and the 
 "Ultras of the Reformation." The former designation was 
 borrowed from a merely external mark, and is often inappli- 
 cable from the two terms being at times inseparable. Besides, 
 the " Anabaptists " had carried on their irregularities for years 
 before they introduced the baptism of adults. The latter 
 designation is more applicable and useful. If it be an 
 essential characteristic of Protestantism that, whereas Catholi- 
 cism subjected the individual in his need of salvation under 
 the external institutions of the Church, the Protestant 
 principle helped him to his rights by making him dependent 
 on God without the intervention of the Church, and thus 
 
192 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 founded salvation on faith alone, no one will doubt that 
 these movements were essentially Protestant. But the ecclesi- 
 astical Protestantism did not teach that the right of the indi- 
 vidual was unlimited. It retained as an inviolable reality 
 the historical fact of objective redemption by the death of 
 Christ once for all, the publication of this fact in the super- 
 natural revelation of God in Scripture, and the external 
 word and the sacraments, as the instituted means for the 
 subjective appropriation of salvation. The tendency to over- 
 throw these objective elements likewise, and to procure for the 
 individual unlimited right in belief and action for himself, is 
 what separates the movements of these " Ultras" from the Church. 
 
 Now, if everything in Religion is made to rest upon the 
 subjectivity of the individual, the question then arises as to 
 which side of it is to have special authority. Eeligion 
 may be put essentially on the same level with all manifesta- 
 tions of the spiritual life, and it will then be reduced to that 
 faculty which otherwise manifests itself as always the highest, 
 which is the natural faculty of knowledge or Reason. Or the 
 characteristic of Religion will be recognised in the fact that 
 the individual feels himself moved by a higher divine Power, 
 and sees Religion rooted in immediate divine Revelation. 
 Thus there arise two tendencies, which are at one in so far as 
 they are opposed to the objectivity recognised in the Church, 
 but they differ in that the one falls back upon Reason and 
 the other upon the immediate inspiration of the internal Word. 
 
 Besides these two, history shows us a third form of opposi- 
 tion, which arose from an exaggeration of the Protestant 
 principle in the Church itself. In opposition to the Catholic 
 Salvation by works, Protestantism emphasized the doctrine of 
 Justification by faith alone. The Lutheran orthodoxy some- 
 times carried this principle even to the assertion that good 
 works were prejudicial to salvation, and it thus evacuated the 
 essence of faith till it became a mere acceptance of the dogmas 
 of the Church. Against this tendency, the fresh pulsation of 
 the religious life set up a reaction ; it aimed not merely at 
 subduing the individual to the obedience of Christ, but at 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 193 
 
 obtaining satisfaction for the wants of the heart, and at seeing 
 in life the fruits of the inward transformation of the soul. 
 
 Thue there arose three different forms of opposition to the 
 Protestant Church. One was purely intellectual ; another 
 was mystical or spiritualistic and theosophical ; and the third 
 was religious and practical. The first culminated in Socinian- 
 ism ; the second in Jacob Bohme ; and the third in Pietism. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 
 
 In the sixteenth century, Italy was the country in which 
 the most animated spiritual life prevailed. Humanistic studies 
 flourished there as nowhere else, and even led some to make 
 a sort of a cult of pagan antiquity ; and this caused a great 
 portion of the most educated circles to turn away with proud 
 contempt from the corrupt Christianity of the Catholic 
 Church. The first efforts of independent speculation set them- 
 selves up against all authority, and opened prospects to the 
 inquiring spirit undreamed of before. But it was just in this 
 the land of her secular dominion that the Church had long 
 been using her inviolable authority. It is no wonder, then, 
 that the earliest attempts at ecclesiastical reform appeared 
 in Italy, and that all the movements in the way of refor- 
 mation elsewhere were followed here with interest and in- 
 telligence. At Naples, Eome, Venice, and indeed almost 
 everywhere, smaller or larger societies were formed that 
 cultivated the new ideas in private and turned themselves 
 away from the ancient Church. Nor need we be surprised to 
 find that just here, where the intellectual culture had risen so 
 high and was stirred by so many impulses, the ideas of 
 religious reform also assumed a peculiar character. In 
 particular, the principle of Subjectivity was here more strongly 
 emphasized, and the right of intellectual criticism was desi- 
 derated in higher measure, than elsewhere. It is well known, 
 however, that the Eoman Church succeeded in suppressing 
 
 VOL. I. N 
 
194 QPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PEOTESTANTISM. 
 
 the Reformation in Italy by the terrors of the Inquisition, 
 till but few traces of it remained. Italy has thus taken part 
 in the history of Protestantism only through a succession 
 of men who had to leave their home on account of their Faith. 
 
 The number of these Italian refugees was very considerable. 
 In many parts of Switzerland, in Zurich, Geneva, and other 
 places, and even in Niirnberg and other German cities, we 
 find independent Italian congregations. To these congrega- 
 tions came the men we have referred to, usually as their 
 preachers ; and they represent the purely intellectual opposi- 
 tion to the ecclesiastical doctrine of Protestantism. The 
 Canton of the Grisons, on account of its great political and 
 ecclesiastical liberty, as well as from its proximity, became 
 the principal refuge and resort of the Italians when they 
 were persecuted because of their faith. Here, along with 
 other quiet associates, worked Bartolomeo Maturo (t!547), 
 who was fond of plunging into theological subtilties and 
 of proposing useless questions to the Synod. Among the 
 others was Camillo Eenato, who taught that in the Sacra- 
 ments God does not operate anything in man, but that they 
 only represent what He has already worked in him. The 
 Lord's Supper is a mere commemoration of the death of 
 Christ, without any enjoyment of His body and blood ; and 
 Baptism is a testimony given by the individual of his faith, 
 and a mark distinguishing the Christian from the non-Christian. 
 Redemption does not rest on the vicariously atoning sufferings 
 of the death of Christ, but is realized within the individual 
 by the inworking of the Holy Spirit, which is represented as a 
 sudden illumination by the higher light of reason, and as a 
 transformation of the whole nature. The regenerate man is 
 free from the positive Law, and he alone will rise again. 
 Pierpaolo Vergerio appears to have maintained a marked in- 
 differentism in dogmatic things, and he was at the same time 
 of a meddlesome disposition and of boundless scepticism. 
 
 Geneva had likewise an Italian congregation, in the midst 
 of which arose frequent doubts and discussions regarding the 
 Trinity, the deity of Christ, and other mysteries of faith. In 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 195 
 
 consequence, its members put the patience of Calvin to a 
 severe trial by their sceptical questions and their heretical 
 views. Matteo Gribaldo came to Geneva every year. He 
 had been a jurist in Padua. After his' expulsion from that 
 city he had, in 1555, become a Professor of theology at 
 Tubingen, and thereafter he settled on his estate at Farges on 
 the Lake of Geneva. With regard to the Trinity, he admitted 
 that it was contrary to all conceivability that one could be 
 three, and three one. He could only think of the subject in 
 this way : that the Father and the Son were two substantial 
 things, the one a generating God, the other a generated God ; 
 the one sending, the other sent ; the Father coiyoreus, the Son 
 corporalus ; the former being in Scripture mostly called God, 
 the latter mostly called Lord. There were, therefore, two 
 Gods, of whom the one proceeded from the other. But in so 
 far as Father and Son were the same Deity and a single 
 divine Essence, it could also be said that they were both God 
 and both one. He explained the Christological doctrine in his 
 own way by teaching that as soul and body were united in 
 every man, so the divine and the human were united in 
 Christ. Giorgio Blandrata (1515-1585), a native of Saluzzo, 
 afterwards employed as a physician in the courts of Poland 
 and Siebenbiirgen, and then in Geneva, plied Calvin with his 
 sceptical questions. He would ask whether the name of God, 
 when used without any further qualification, did not refer to 
 the Father alone ? Whether we invoke the true God when 
 we pray to the Father, as the Father is only a person whereas 
 the true God is the Trinity ? Whether the Father is invoked 
 in the name of the Son in so far as the latter is God or is 
 man ? What the expression " person " properly means, and 
 whether one cannot quietly believe in a God the Father, a 
 Lord Christ, and a Holy Spirit, without entering upon specula- 
 tions regarding essence and substance of which, indeed, the 
 Scripture says nothing ? Gianpaolo Alciati of Piemont, in 
 1557, asserted that Christ was, even in his deity, less than the 
 Father ; that the whole Christ died ; and that the distinction 
 of two natures, or of a double Christ, was not founded on 
 
196 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Scripture, and was therefore to be rejected. Valentin Gentile 
 was also led to subtle opinions by attempting to comprehend 
 the mystery of the Trinity. If the Father were an 
 individuum in the substance, then we should have not a triad 
 but a tesserad. But the Father was rather the one substance, 
 and the Son the brightness of His glory ; both were true God, 
 yet not two Gods, but one and the same God. 
 
 Bernardino Occhino (1487-1564) was one of the most 
 distinguished Italian refugees. Born at Siena, he was won 
 over to the new ideas through his intercourse with Jean 
 Valdez at Naples. Having become General of the order of 
 the Capucines and a distinguished preacher, he aroused the 
 suspicion of the Inquisition by his insisting upon inward 
 simple biblical piety, until a summons to Koine to answer the 
 accusations against him drove him in flight to Geneva in 
 1542. After having spent a short time as a preacher in 
 Niirnberg and London, and then again in Geneva, he became 
 in 1554 preacher to the Italian congregation at Zurich. 
 He published Thirty Dialogues, of which the Twenty-first 
 treats of polygamy ; and, while it designates monogamy as the 
 only moral form of marriage, it yet shows that neither in the 
 Old or New Testament, nor in the decrees of the Fathers and 
 Councils of the Church, is there found an express prohibition 
 of polygamy, and therefore any one on whom God has not 
 bestowed the gift of continency may live in polygamy without 
 sin. This Dialogue excited such repugnance that, although 
 now an old man in his seventy-seventh year, he was driven 
 out of Zurich. Occhino in his Labyrinth raised certain 
 intellectual objections to the fundamental doctrine of the 
 Reformed Church as to the human will not being free. 
 Whoever asserts the freedom of the will, he says, comes upon 
 four insoluble difficulties ; but he also who denies it gets 
 involved in a fourfold Labyrinth. The result is that human 
 freedom must be recognised as an indemonstrable postulate of 
 the practical reason, and its want of freedom as a postulate of 
 the religious consciousness. Occhino, renouncing the hope of 
 a satisfactory solution of the problem, gives the practical rule 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIAXISM. 197 
 
 that we are to strive with all our power after the good as if 
 we were free ; and, on the other hand, that we are to give 
 honour alone to God as if we were not free. In his Dialogues 
 Occhino discusses the most important points of the Christian 
 doctrine, so that the doctrines of the Church are everywhere 
 defended against the objections of an opponent. But these 
 objections are so dexterous and acute, and the refutation of 
 them is so feeble, that doubts may be honestly entertained as 
 to the side on which the author's own inmost conviction 
 stands. The particularity of Grace is refuted ; Original Sin is 
 denied, because natural desire is not a sin ; the theory of 
 Satisfaction is assailed on the ground that Christ could not 
 give satisfaction to God either as man or as God, or as God- 
 man. To the question, how are our sins forgiven for Christ's 
 sake, the opponent answers : not in such a way that Christ 
 has changed God's eternal purpose to punish sin, for God is 
 unchangeable ; nor in such a way that He has brought them 
 into forgetfulness with God, for God forgets nothing ; nor in 
 such a way that He has appeased God's wrath, for wrath 
 cannot move God ; and so on. 
 
 The last who may be mentioned in this series is Lelio 
 Sozini or Socinus (1525-1562). Born at Siena of a noble 
 family, which was equally distinguished by its ancient nobility 
 and for a succession of learned jurists who belonged to it, 
 Socinus was led by an innate speculative tendency to 
 theological studies. It seems to him that the whole subject 
 of jurisprudence would float without foundation in the air if 
 it did not rest upon a positive divine basis ; and this basis 
 could only be given in the Bible : hence his study of Scrip- 
 ture. A formally juridical conception of the religious relation 
 and an unlimited scepticism, are the two characteristics of the 
 thoughts which Lelius Socinus gave rise to regarding almost all 
 the parts of the ecclesiastical system of doctrine, and which 
 were to obtain such importance through the instrumentality of 
 his nephew Faustus. Lelius, who after 1547 resided mostly 
 in Geneva and latterly in Zurich, limited himself, probably 
 from a prudent cautiousness, to putting before Calvin, Bullinger, 
 
198 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 and Gualther all kinds of subtle questions regarding the most 
 difficult problems of the faith. Thus he would ask whether 
 the resurrection of the body can be proved on rational 
 grounds ? He said that it rather appeared to be physically 
 impossible on account of the many transformations which 
 matter undergoes, and on account of the change of material to 
 which we are subjected ; further, that it was to no purpose, as 
 our salvation does not consist in corporeal things. Again, he 
 proposed such questions as the following : Whether a con- 
 fession of the Messiahship of Jesus was necessary to salvation ? 
 What was the nature and origin of repentance ? Whether it 
 was not a contradiction that our justification should be from 
 mere free grace and yet be purchased by Christ ? Whether 
 the sacraments were not mere signs through which we confess 
 and thankfully remember that God has already bestowed upon 
 us salvation and life ? On account of many accusations 
 raised against him, Lelius was compelled, in 1555, to 
 formulate a confession of his faith, and from that time he 
 regarded it as judicious to entrust his doubts only to his paper. 
 Thus it was that his literary remains became the chief means 
 of forming the views of his nephew Faustus. 
 
 In Switzerland, men with such ideas did not find a 
 permanent location. Calvin was especially zealous in his 
 efforts to purge the Church of such errors ; nor did he shrink 
 from adopting forcible measures. Most of the fugitives, like 
 Gribaldo, Gentile, Blandrata, and Stancaro, sought a refuge 
 in Poland. Here, in consequence of the peculiar political 
 relations, the greatest religious liberty prevailed. Hence it 
 was that all the oppositional elements of that period of 
 ferment gathered themselves together there. Already at the 
 Synod of Secemin in 1556, Conyza of Podlachium, who had 
 been educated in Wittenberg and in Switzerland, had openly 
 declared that the Father alone was true God and greater than 
 the Son, and that the Trinity of persons, the consubstantiality, 
 and the communicatio idiomatum, were to be rejected as mere 
 inventions of the human understanding. In this chaos of 
 ideas the most diverse views met, and it was the natural soil 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 199 
 
 for subtle assertions like that of Stancaro in 15 54, that Christ 
 was our mediator only in His human nature. Statorius 
 asserted, in 1555, that the prayer " Veni, Creator Spiritus " 
 was idolatrous, because, in the whole of Scripture, no trace 
 was to be found of the divine personality of the Holy Spirit, 
 nor of His adoration and invocation. And finally, Davidis, in 
 1578, declared that worship is not due to Christ as a mere man. 
 
 Faustus Socinus (1539-1604) was called into this chaos 
 in 1578, and his vigorous personality succeeded in bringing 
 some clearness and order into the ferment of these confused 
 and unsettled conditions. He separated out all the fanatical 
 Anabaptists, and gathered the rest into a compact community ; 
 and upon this community Faustus Socinus impressed the 
 spirit which he himself had assimilated from the writings of 
 his uncle. 
 
 The Socinian System of Doctrine l is interesting in the 
 highest degree as an essentially consistent representation of 
 Christianity on the basis of an externally juridical conception 
 of the religious relation, and of an unlimited application of 
 intellectual criticism, notwithstanding its external recognition 
 of supernatural revelation. The supranatural character of 
 Socinianism is shown by the fact that it does not recognise a 
 universal or natural religion ; nor does it speak of a relation 
 between God and man as founded in the nature of both. The 
 older Socinianism even denies all natural knowledge of God. 
 There is no innate knowledge of God, otherwise there could be 
 no people found without some notion of God. Nor can we 
 derive the knowledge of God from nature, as even Aristotle 
 was not able to recognise the working of God in individual 
 things. It is true, indeed, that Job. Crell (1590-1631) 
 
 1 As Socinianism does not recognise authoritative Confessions, even the 
 Catechixmus Racovensis enjoying no symbolical authority. its doctrinal system 
 must be gathered from the numerous writings of its chief representatives. The 
 most important of these writings have been collected in the Bibliotheca Fratrum 
 Polonorum, Irenop. 1656, 8 vols. Reference may also be made to the following 
 works : C. Ostorodt, Unterricht von den Hauptpunkten der Christlichen 
 Religion, Rakau 1604. Andreas Wissowatius, Religio rationalis s. de rationis 
 Judicio in controversus, etc., Amsterd. 1685. Fock, Der Socinianismus, Kiel 
 1847 
 
200 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PKOTESTANTISM. 
 
 afterwards brought forward another view, which sees in revela- 
 tion only a furthering and completing of what man can know 
 by his own powers. The contemplation of nature and of the 
 human world leads us necessarily, according to this view, to 
 accept a God ; and we receive in our own conscience the 
 commandments the fulfilment of which is required by God. 
 But, on the other hand, Wissowatius expressly repudiates the 
 objection that the Socinians derived religion from reason and 
 made reason the judge of religion ; and he holds that from 
 natural principles and from human reason only the natural 
 theology and religion of the so-called Deists can be obtained, 
 but not the Christian religion. The genuine Socinianism 
 decidedly desiderates a divine revelation. This revelation is 
 not regarded as some sort of internal working of the divine 
 spirit upon man, but as a purely external communication of 
 truths of a practical and theoretical nature. Such com- 
 munication of revealed truth took place sporadically in the 
 first period of the religious development of the human race, 
 which was the time from Adam to Abraham ; in the second 
 period, which extended from Abraham to Christ, Moses was 
 the medium of revelation ; and in the third period, Christ was 
 the communicator of religious truth. But as Moses was only 
 qualified for the communication of divine revelation by the 
 intercourse that he had on Mount Sinai for forty days face to 
 face with God, so Christ was qualified for this office by the 
 the so-called raptus in ccelum ; that is, shortly before the 
 beginning of his public activity Christ was raised in a 
 miraculous way to heaven in order to receive instruction from 
 God in His own person in the truths of Christianity. 
 
 This revelation is contained in the sacred Scriptures, and 
 particularly in the New Testament. Schlichting even sets 
 forth the claim that " nos ipsi apostolicse et primsevaB veritati 
 in omnibus insistere volumus ; " and the sacred writers were 
 held to have written " ab ipso divino Spiritu impulsi eoque 
 dictante." Hence it followed that the Scriptures were held 
 to be completely free from error, although this was strictly 
 maintained only in respect of the things that are essential to 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 201 
 
 salvation. No criterion is set up for distinguishing between the 
 essential and the non-essential. Whereas the older Socinianism 
 made a very limited use of this distinction, the later Socinian- 
 ism adopted it in order to set aside many inconvenient testi- 
 monies in Scripture. As regards interpretation, Socinianism 
 sets up the principles of a grammatical and historical exegesis 
 which only obtained recognition long afterwards ; but in its 
 own individual applications of them in detail it proceeded in 
 the most arbitrary way. The sacred Scripture, as divine 
 revelation, is therefore the supreme unquestionable rule in 
 matters of religion. Every law, however, requires interpreta- 
 tion and application to individual cases. The Catholics regard 
 the infallible office of the Church in teaching as the means of 
 doing this, and other Christians take other views. "The 
 Enthusiasts" find this means in the immediate inspiration of 
 the Holy Spirit in the inner word ; and others, who are called 
 by their opponents " Unitarians " or " Socinians," find it in the 
 sound reason (sana ratio). The epithet " sound " being here 
 applied to reason, in contrast to that reason which is darkened 
 by prejudice and error, and in distinction from any particular 
 philosophical system. Eeason is therefore regarded as the 
 organ by which man receives, knows, comprehends, and judges 
 the divine revelation. For this use of the term Eeason, 
 Wissowatius brings forward a series of arguments. He holds 
 that faith is assent (assensus seu persuasio); and hence he 
 desiderates intelligence and rational insight. Again, he says 
 that the object of theology is truth, and it has therefore to be 
 known ; but without Eeason, to try to know the truth would 
 be the same as trying to see without eyes. Further, he alleges 
 that faith in the Scripture rests upon rational knowledge, or 
 upon the conviction that everything that God speaks is true, 
 that the Scripture itself demands this faith, and that any one 
 who rejects it always returns in practice to it again, etc. 
 
 With all this, however, Eeason is not allowed an uncondi- 
 tional right of criticism in respect of religious truths. On 
 the contrary, it is always emphatically maintained by the 
 Socinians that religion is above reason, because it is revealed 
 
202 OPPOS1TIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 by God. Certainly religion is not contrary to reason, for 
 reason cannot be overthrown by revelation. A distinction 
 between what is above reason and what is contrary to reason 
 is attempted, by holding that it is entirely different to say 
 that a thing cannot be conceived, and to conceive that a thing 
 cannot be. It is evident that this criterion is inadequate ; and 
 when miracles are characterized as above reason, whereas the 
 Trinity, the deity of Christ, and such doctrines are regarded 
 as contrary to reason, the principle of this division lies entirely 
 in something else. In the application of this principle, reason 
 is regarded as the supreme, indisputable judge of religious 
 doctrines ; and an unlimited, intellectual rationalism is thus 
 introduced. Certain universal axioms and common notions 
 (axiomata universalia atque communes notiones) are set up by 
 reason, as being unconditionally true in relation to religious 
 doctrines. These are the simple principles of the sound human 
 understanding, but they are mostly directed against some 
 particular dogmatic conception. Such conceptions are referred 
 to, as that three times one are three and not one ; that the 
 whole is greater than its parts ; that a person who is from 
 another is not the supreme God ; and that a just one does not 
 punish a guiltless person in place of the guilty. In exegesis 
 the principle is also maintained that what is utterly contrary 
 to reason, cannot possibly stand in the Scriptures. 
 
 From this position Socinianism applied a criticism to the 
 profoundest Christian dogmas, and the formally logical acuteness 
 of it cannot be denied, however much its want of deeper 
 insight may repel us. Almost all that has been presented 
 with reference to Christianity in this connection, even to the 
 present day, may be found already contained in the writings 
 of Faustus Socinus. 1. The Trinity is contrary to Scripture. 
 Such an important dogma ought to have been quite clearly 
 and unambiguously expressed in the Scriptures, instead of 
 which it is not found either directly or indirectly. This 
 doctrine is also contrary to reason. Three persons in one 
 substance are impossible ; there is either one substance, and 
 therefore one God, or three persons, and therefore three sub- 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 203 
 
 stances and three Gods. Further, the conceptions of " beget- 
 ting " and " proceeding " are only applicable to finite things ; 
 and the Trepi^pfjcr^ is unthinkable. Nor is there any ground 
 assigned why there are not more than three persons proceeding 
 from God. 2. The deity of Christ is entirely contrary to reason. 
 It is impossible that two completely different substances the 
 one of which possesses immortality, is without beginning, and 
 is unchangeable, while the other is the opposite of all these 
 could belong to one person. Each of the two natures is 
 represented as a person, and the two natures must therefore 
 necessarily result in two persons. 3. The sharpest criticism 
 is directed against the doctrine of Satisfaction. This doctrine 
 of satisfaction is not grounded in the essential nature of God, 
 for compassion and justice are not attributes of God, but 
 determinations of His will. Further, such satisfaction is not 
 given to His compassion, because the guilt is not forgiven, but 
 expiated ; nor to His justice, because it is not the guilty, but 
 a guiltless one that suffers. Satisfaction is impossible in the 
 abstract, as well as in the concrete. It is impossible in 
 abstracto, because a satisfaction by obedientia activa and a 
 satisfaction by obedientia passiva mutually exclude each other. 
 If any one has performed everything he ought to do, he is free 
 from punishment ; and if he suffers punishment, he requires 
 to perform nothing. Again this holds, because both the pas- 
 sive obedience and the active obedience are impossible ; passive 
 obedience cannot be a satisfaction, because punishment as a 
 personal obligation is not transferable, and because one cannot 
 suffer death for many ; nor is active obedience a satisfaction, 
 because every one is already bound per se to fulfil the Law, 
 and because the obedience of one cannot take the place of that 
 of many, etc. In like manner, satisfaction is impossible in 
 concrete, and chiefly because we have brought upon us eternal 
 death, while Christ only underwent bodily death. 
 
 This formal and dispassionate intellectuality of the sana 
 ratio is also impressed on the special doctrines formulated by 
 Socinianism. It is regarded as vain speculation to examine 
 into the essential nature of God. We only require to know 
 
204 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 His will and the attributes that are related to it. The eternity 
 of God is expressly defined as an eternal duration in which 
 the natural distinctions of time into past, present, and future 
 are not annulled. Omnipotence consists in power to be able 
 to do all that God wills ; omniscience consists in God's knowing 
 how to dispose His decrees and works most fittingly, and to 
 bring them to pass according to their proper end. The justice 
 of God is the only attribute that is apprehended in a pro- 
 founder way, as the perfect conformity of the divine action to 
 the rules that follow from His essential nature. Christ is 
 mere man ; but He is more than a common man, physically 
 on account of His birth from a virgin, ethically on account of 
 His perfect sinlessness, and officially on account of the power 
 and glory bestowed upon Him after the resurrection as a reward 
 for His obedience. His office is that of a teacher, who com- 
 municates and corroborates the divine revelations. His death 
 also entirely subserves His function as a teacher. The human 
 will is free to accept or reject salvation by its own choice. 
 
 The Socinian conception of Eeligion is an external and 
 juridical one. God is the absolute Lord over us ; and on 
 account of His absolute power, He has the unlimited right to 
 do with us as His weak creatures what He will. He may 
 give us laws just as He likes, and put in prospect rewards 
 and punishments for their fulfilment or transgression. The 
 essence of Eeligion lies in the laws and the promises by which 
 God will induce us to fulfil them. Noah received the moral 
 commandment that "whosoever sheddeth man's blood, by man 
 will his blood be shed," as well as ceremonial laws which 
 partly regulated sacrificial worship and partly forbade the 
 eating of blood. Abraham promised to keep God's covenant, 
 and he received the promise of the divine blessing. Moses 
 brought man a revelation of the divine will in moral, cere- 
 monial, and juridical laws that deal with details. The 
 fulfilment of these laws was not exactly impossible, but the 
 promises of the Jewish religion referred only to the present 
 life, and they were therefore incapable of sufficiently suppressing 
 the power of the flesh, so that a perfect fulfilment of the law 
 
THE PURELY INTELLECTUAL OPPOSITION. SOCINIANISM. 205 
 
 might be attained. Hence a new religion was necessary, and 
 Christianity is this new religion. The Christian religion has 
 in fact no peculiar character in distinction from Judaism ; 
 Christianity, like every other religion, is a religion of law, 
 resting upon divine commandments and promises. The com- 
 mandments of the Christian religion are in part the Mosaic 
 commandments, with the additions and expansions given to 
 them by Christ. There are certain moral laws which are 
 peculiarly Christian, such as self-denial, the following of Christ, 
 trust in God, love to God and our neighbour. Such are also 
 the ceremonies of Baptism and the Lord's Supper, which have 
 merely declarative significance as external signs and testi- 
 monies of what has already inward existence. The special 
 promise of Christianity, which determines its high value, is 
 eternal life or endless duration. Man is, in fact, mortal by 
 nature on account of his creation from earthly matter. Be- 
 sides, by sin he has brought upon himself eternal death, which 
 is annihilation. Nevertheless man has a strong fear of death 
 and a keen longing after an endless duration. It is therefore 
 to be expected that the prospect of this glorious prize will 
 lead him to a perfect obedience. But as promises and com- 
 mands are not grounded essentially in the divine nor in the 
 human nature, but are given at will by the unlimited sove- 
 reignty of God, the Christian religion necessarily rests upon 
 revelation. And hence Socinianism declares that " the Chris- 
 tian religion is the way revealed by God of attaining to 
 eternal life." 
 
 In Poland and Siebenbiirgen, the Socinians formed a flourish- 
 ing community, and the school of Eakau enjoyed from 1600 
 a well - founded reputation. Of its important scientific 
 teachers we may here name only Christoph Ostorodt (t 1611), 
 Joh. Yolkel (t!618), Val. Schmalz (1572-1622), Joh. Crell 
 (1590-1631), Jonas Schlichting (1592-1661), Martin 
 Euarus (1589-1657), Ludwig Wolzogen (fl661), and 
 Andreas Wissowatius (t!678), the grandson of Faustus 
 Socinus. The most distinguished theologians of the Lutheran 
 and Calvinistic Churches wrote against the Socinians, such as 
 
206 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Calovius and Hoornbeck ; and so did some of the most 
 obscure of their disputants. It was the habit of the time 
 to undertake a confutation of the Socinian errors, which were 
 referred to all the possible heresies of the Ancient Church ; 
 it was at the same time regarded as a difficult task, and it 
 was prosecuted with the greatest bitterness. On this very 
 account the conflict but too frequently degenerated into un- 
 savoury wrangling, which became fatal to all scientific treat- 
 ment of profounder differences. 
 
 Socinianism existed for only a short time as a separate 
 ecclesiastical community. The political relations of Poland 
 hastened its decline. In 1638, the theological school at 
 Eakau was closed, and at the " Colloquium charitativum " at 
 Thorn in 1645, the papal legate declared that he was sent 
 only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, that is, to the 
 Lutherans and the Calvinists ; and the Socinians were 
 absolutely excluded. In 1658, the Diet at Warsaw pro- 
 hibited the confession of Socinianism and any furtherance of 
 it, under the penalty of death. There remained no alterna- 
 tive for the Socinians but to return into the bosom of the 
 Catholic Church, or to emigrate within three years. It was 
 only in some places that they could find a reception. Socinian 
 views had indeed been silently spread through wide circles, as 
 by John Biddle (t 1662) in England, and by Soner of Altdorf 
 (t!612) in Germany. Yet the Socinians could only find a 
 safe refuge in Brandenburg. Here Sam. Crell (tl747) was 
 Minister of the congregation of Konigswald near Frankfurt on 
 the Oder, and he was one of the last of the Socinian theo- 
 logians. When his daughters passed over to the Moravians, 
 the one remaining Socinian congregation at Andreaswald went 
 over also to the Protestant Church in the beginning of the' 
 present century. In Holland, the writings of the Socinians 
 were prohibited in 1599. Ostorodt and Woidowski were 
 banished, but considerable numbers of their adherents con- 
 tinued to maintain their opinions in secret in that country. 
 They were favoured by the Arminians, not on the ground of 
 their being dogmatically related to each other, but as Grotius 
 
THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND MYSTICAL OPPOSITION. 207 
 
 writes of himself, " he was not a man of that kind, that on 
 account of a difference in opinion, which was not inconsistent 
 with piety, he would be the enemy of any one, or would reject 
 any one's friendship." In the end of the Seventeenth Century, 
 the Socinians in Holland also ceased to form independent 
 communities. Their existence as members of an independent 
 Church was accordingly but of short duration and of still 
 shorter prosperity, but so much the more widely did the 
 decomposing influence of their cold intellectual criticism 
 extend. And Socinianism thus became one of the most 
 essential preparations for the later enlightenment of the deistic 
 rationalism. 
 
 II.-V. 
 
 THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND MYSTICAL OPPOSITION. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE ANABAPTISTS. DAVID JORIS. HANS NICLAS. INDE- 
 PENDENTISM. THE QUAKERS. 
 
 Wherever the Eeformation appeared, there arose tendencies 
 and movements which, while having an internal affinity to it, 
 yet fell into bitter conflict with it. Luther applied to them 
 with all appropriateness the words, " they have gone out from 
 us, but they are not of us;" and Spalatin also characterizes 
 them by saying that "wherever God builds a church, the 
 devil sets up a chapel beside it." They are usually designated 
 " Anabaptists ; " but as the movement went on for years before 
 the baptism of adults was introduced in 1524, this is a purely 
 external designation. In opposition to the absolute authority 
 of the Church, Protestantism had bound the believer to Christ 
 and to the word of the Scriptures. In the general and 
 deep fermentation of the time, there was naturally no want 
 of those who felt they were too much bound by this limita- 
 tion. The representatives of such views maintained that the 
 
208 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Holy Spirit which is poured out upon all the people, and 
 the divine revelation which every individual receives, form 
 the only authority that is to be followed. Along with this 
 principle it could not but happen that many heterogeneous 
 tendencies should appear, and that these should be but little 
 limited by the fact that the masses are fond of following a 
 conspicuous leader. Bullinger attempts to classify these 
 tendencies by saying that some of them demanded the ascetic 
 renunciation of the world, and that others depended more 
 upon millennial (chiliastic) hopes. Among the former, the 
 Separatist Spiritual Baptists would have nothing in common 
 with the world, and therefore laid down exact rules regarding 
 dress as to what material it should be made of, what was 
 to be its shape, and so on. The Silent Baptists would have 
 no more preaching of the gospel, and came to no decision on 
 any question. The Praying Baptists, who left everything 
 to God, did nothing but pray. To the class of those who 
 cherished millenarian or chiliastic views, belonged the Apos- 
 tolic Baptists, who, appealing to the letter of the Scriptures, 
 roamed about the country without staff, or shoes, or purse, or 
 money, boasting. of their heavenly commission to undertake 
 the office of a preacher, and discoursing to the people from the 
 roofs of the houses. This class also included the convulsive 
 Baptists, called also Enthusiasts and Exstatici, who boasted of 
 their ecstasies and the excellent heavenly revelations which 
 they received. The common Baptists formed the centre of 
 the whole movement ; they set themselves in opposition to 
 the excessive accentuation of the external word and the 
 ecclesiastical office of preaching, as well as to the dangerous 
 depreciation of good works. The Free Brethren, on the other 
 hand, abused the principle that the regenerate cannot sin, 
 as supplying a dispensation for the greatest moral excesses. 
 They extended the religious claim for liberty to the sphere 
 of the State and of social life, refused to pay interest or taxes, 
 wished to get rid of government, and demanded a com- 
 munity of goods and wives. They were mainly guilty of the 
 abominations of the Peasant War and of the Minister kingdom. 
 
THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND MYSTICAL OPPOSITION. 209 
 
 Such horrors excited a general repugnance to this party ; 
 but although many of them were thrown into prison, expelled 
 the country, or slain, there arose everywhere new representa- 
 tives of their ideas, and only the strictest procedure could 
 finally extirpate them. 
 
 Taken as a whole, although they are greatly mixed up, we 
 may distinguish two principal directions in these movements. 
 We may designate them respectively as the Spiritualistic and 
 the Mystical tendency. They both emphasize the inner light, 
 and boast of immediate union with God. But the former 
 founds upon a communication of God that is transitory and 
 that manifests itself from time to time in visions, ecstasies, 
 and such like ; whereas the latter asserts a continuous real 
 inworking of God in the heart of man. The representatives 
 of the former tendency commonly lose themselves in external 
 particularities, and often in such as have but little to do 
 with religion. We will, however, briefly glance at the most 
 important of them. 
 
 Of Melchior Hofmann (t 1533) we know hardly more 
 than that he entertained millenarian hopes, as did also his 
 associate Stifel, who prophesied that the end of the world 
 would take place on the 3rd October 1533, at eight o'clock 
 in the morning. Joh. Denk (t 1527) saw the fundamental 
 principle of the Christian religion in the love of man to God, 
 and this love rests on the fact that we have within us the 
 living, powerful, eternal Word of God, which is God Himself. 
 This invisible Word can be rejected or accepted by us in 
 virtue of the freedom of our will, and we are accordingly bad 
 or good. The new life by which we are good does not come 
 in by the external word of Scripture, nor by preaching, but by 
 the immediate inworking of the Divine Spirit. It is a pro- 
 gressive communication of God to man himself. It is called 
 the inner word, in relation to knowledge ; and the power of 
 the Highest, in relation to action. For the regenerate man 
 the law of the external letter is abrogated, and only the love 
 that is planted in the heart holds good. Further, the sacra- 
 ments are mere external signs, and they are unimportant to 
 
 VOL. I. o 
 
210 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 the believer. Job. Campanus (t 1578) believed that the 
 mystery of the Trinity could be made intelligible under the 
 figure of marriage, saying there was in God only two persons, 
 the Father and the Son, who were united with one another, 
 as husband and wife in matrimony. He also declared that 
 there was no sin in the regenerate. 
 
 Among the Anabaptists of Holland, David Joris and Hans 
 Niclas especially deserve to be mentioned. David Joris 
 (1501-1556), a glass painter at Delfft, maintained that he 
 was led in early life, by revelations and visions, to look for 
 the speedy return of the Lord. After the fall of Miinster he 
 became the leader of the Anabaptists. This position he won, 
 at the Convention of Bokholt in 1536, by his success in 
 bringing the different parties to an agreement. They were 
 brought to one in many important points, only differing in 
 regard to marriage and the employment of force ; and soon 
 thereafter, basing his claim upon visions, he set up as a pro- 
 phet. The centre of his preaching was that the kingdom of 
 God had come, and that the second coming of the Lord was 
 nigh at hand. According to his view, the kingdom of God 
 was to be fulfilled and realized through the three periods of 
 the world. The first period was introduced by David, in 
 whom was the spirit and power of God ; the second period 
 was introduced by Christ, in whom the whole deity was com- 
 pletely present ; and the third was introduced by David Joris, 
 upon whom the Spirit of God was to rest. Sometimes he 
 calls the second of these three persons the greatest, as he had 
 made the first his pattern, and sent the last to follow him ; 
 at other times Messianic prophecies are immediately applied 
 to Joris himself. His adherents soon fell into two parties ; 
 one of them, notwithstanding its fanatical tinge, practised 
 honesty of life; but the other, with David Joris himself at 
 their head, gave themselves to libertine excesses, especially in 
 the way of sexual indulgence. Joris was challenged to prove 
 his doctrines by the word of Scripture, but he repudiated the 
 challenge as human wisdom, philosophical curiosity, and 
 Jewish unbelief. As he asseited that his doctrine was 
 
. THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND MYSTICAL OPPOSITION. 211 
 
 immediately revealed to him from heaven, he said it also 
 required scholars who would simply believe what the Spirit 
 taught. 
 
 Hans Niclas (1502-1577) received visions as early as his 
 ninth year. A great light of the glory and clearness of God 
 in the form of a mountain encompassed him, raised him from 
 his bed, shone through him in his whole being, and essentialized 
 itself wholly with his spirit and heart. In his thirty-ninth 
 year he received a similar vision, in which God sank down 
 upon him and became entirely one siibstance with him. His 
 views were briefly as follow. In the beginning, when God 
 had created all, there was only one God and one man, and 
 God was all that man was, and man was all that God was. 
 God gave man no other law than to live with joy in the naked 
 clearness of his God. By sin the man fell into blindness, and 
 estranged himself from God. In order to save him, God 
 created a new man, Christ. He entered into the science of 
 men, and found it false and lying; and in order to redeem 
 man from all foolish wisdom, He has introduced another 
 science. His disciples have proclaimed to all the world that 
 God has appointed a day of love in order that He may judge 
 the earth on that day by a man who was to present the faith 
 to every one. That day had now come. God would now 
 fulfil all His promises, and give to the good eternal life, and 
 to the bad eternal death. All the members of Christ were 
 now to be conjoined into a real body of Christ, or into a man 
 of God, in order that in the end, as in the beginning, there 
 should be one God and one man, and all in the one body of 
 Christ. Hence Hans Mclas also distinguished three periods. 
 In the first period, the law rules under sin ; in the second 
 period, the gospel of Christ rules ; and in the third period, 
 there rules that love of which Hans Niclas was the proclaimer. 
 For although he was the least of all, and was entirely dead, 
 and was lying without life among the dead, God had wakened 
 him from the dead, had made him alive through Christ, had 
 humanized Himself with him, and deified him with Himself 
 into a living tabernacle, or a house of His dwelling, in order 
 
2l2 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 that thereby all His wonderful works might be proclaimed to 
 all the world. 
 
 Menno Simon (1496-1561) succeeded in forming a dis- 
 tinct Church out of these wildly fermenting elements, and it 
 has continued to exist till the present day. The Mennonites 
 retain the baptism of adults, but otherwise they reject almost 
 wholly the spirit of the communities from which they have 
 descended. In place of the spiritualistic appeal to immediate 
 revelation, they hold strictly to the word of Scripture, and 
 instead of unbridled libertinism, they seek their glory in a 
 quietly laborious and strictly moral life. In their case, there- 
 fore, we do not find any peculiar formation of Protestantism 
 in the sense under consideration. 
 
 In England, in opposition to the purely external reforma- 
 tion of the doctrine and hierarchy of the Church by Henry 
 VIII., the tendency towards a practical reformation of the 
 religious life likewise found expression in Puritanism. In 
 connection with it, Eobert Browne (1550-1630) founded a 
 movement which represented the unconditional rights of the 
 individual. This principle was at first applied only to the 
 external order of the constitution and worship of the Church, 
 and thus was formed Independentism or Congregationalism. 
 It claimed that every separate community should form an 
 entirely independent congregation, whose members should all 
 possess the same rights, and decide on all matters by the 
 majority of votes. In the services of the public worship 
 every brother obtained the right to speak, and all pre- 
 scribed forms of prayer and the received festival days were 
 rejected. John Eobinson spoke out the general thought of a 
 progressive reformation in the words, "I cannot sufficiently 
 deplore the state of the Eeformed Churches which have come 
 to a finality in religion, and will now not go beyond the 
 instruments of their reformation." The poet Milton (1608 
 1674) represents the deep incisive principles in religion and 
 politics that were held by this party from 1644. Their 
 political principles were deeply significant; for the ruling 
 prince was represented as only a delegate of the people, and 
 
THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND MYSTICAL OPPOSITION. 213 
 
 hence, under certain circumstances, regicide was justified. 
 Their religious principles were also distinctive, for the inner 
 word of the Holy Spirit is emphatically set above the external 
 word of the letter. As if the prediction of the prophet Joel, 
 iii. 1, were fulfilled, every one appealed to the word of the 
 Lord which he had heard as to an immediate revelation which 
 he had received, or to the Spirit of God which spake in him. 
 Those who were the subjects of grace, therefore, called them- 
 selves no longer believers, but saints ; for even in the present 
 life man must become free from all sin. With this prophetism 
 there were joined millenarian hopes of an immediately 
 approaching completion of the Church, when a life would 
 begin in the full bright clearness of the divine light, and in 
 all the power and fulness of the Spirit, realizing the age of the 
 glorious freedom of the children of God. Along with this it 
 was declared, with all definiteness, that religion is an internal 
 power of life. Eeligion is not a name but a thing, not a form 
 but a power, not an idea but a divine reality ; religion is an 
 inner power of the soul by which it is united with God in 
 holiness and righteousness. Any one has just as much of 
 religion as he has of this power ; and where this power is not, 
 there is no religion. It was openly declared that even the 
 heathen, who have never heard anything of the earthly Christ, 
 have the gospel revealed to their hearts ; and it was asked 
 doubtingly whether Christ was a historical personality at all. 
 Emphasis was laid upon the fact " that it is not the head, but 
 the heart, that makes the Christian," and faith in the recon- 
 ciliation of man with God by the death of Christ was set up 
 as the sole criterion of being a Christian ; and hence they 
 demanded from the State the universal toleration of all 
 religious parties. 
 
 This enthusiastic party of reform fought under the banners 
 of Cromwell until they obtained the supremacy, and by the 
 " Short Parliament " they carried on the government of the 
 country. Cromwell's Protectorate (Dec. 1653) saved England 
 from the threatened dissolution of all social and political order. 
 He kept the revolutionary tendencies in check, yet held fast 
 
214 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 by the principle of toleration, so that with the exception of 
 Catholicism, all the denominations were recognised in England 
 which confessed the faith of God in Christ, although they 
 might differ from each other in doctrine, worship, or dis- 
 cipline. With this period of external rest there emerged a 
 separation of the heterogeneous elements which hitherto co- 
 operated in Congregationalism. This first appeared in the 
 separation of the political and religious tendencies. The 
 adherents of the former claimed unlimited freedom of con- 
 science as an inherent right of man, and they prepared for the 
 English Deism through the medium of the Levellers. Some 
 of the representatives of the religious movement laid aside 
 the former enthusiasm, and, led by Eichard Baxter, merged 
 themselves in Puritanism. Others of them, in hostile opposi- 
 tion to Cromwell, intensified the enthusiastic millenarian 
 element, and at last found a permanent form in the Quakerism 
 that was founded in 1654 by George Fox (1624-1691). 
 
 " No, it is not the Scripture, it is the spirit ! " With these 
 words Fox interrupted a sermon on the words of the text in 
 Second Peter, " We have a sure word of prophecy," etc., which 
 the preacher was applying quite correctly to the Scripture. 
 After long years of internal struggle, this was his first public 
 appearance ; and this thought was the centre of all the 
 sermons which he preached, under many perils but with 
 rich blessing, everywhere throughout the country. He who 
 lives in the words of the Scriptures is not a Christian, but 
 only he who lives the life of the Scripture. It is not the 
 external word that is the source of salvation, but the light of 
 Christ which is in us ; it is the seed of God in us ; it is God's 
 power, life, and presence in us. This light of Christ does not 
 appear, however, as a continuous calm possession, but as the 
 sudden direct seizure of us by a higher power, and this is 
 combined with convulsive movements of the body, from 
 whence arose the name " Quakers." In Fox, however, we 
 seek in vain for clear definitions regarding the nature of this 
 Light and its relation to the natural Eeason. 
 
 When the Act of Toleration was passed by William III. in 
 
THE SPIRITUALISTIC AND MYSTICAL OPPOSITION. 215 
 
 1689, the Quakers obtained freedom to exercise their religion, 
 and they entered upon a calmer development. The chief 
 authority on the later position of the body is Robert Barclay 
 (16481690), and his Theologies vere christiance Apologia, 
 published at Amsterdam in 1676, almost obtained the 
 authority of a creed among the Quakers. He begins his 
 exposition by saying that as the highest happiness consists in 
 the true knowledge of God, the most necessary of all things 
 is a correct insight into the ground and origin of this know- 
 ledge. But we must carefully distinguish between spiritual 
 knowledge and literal knowledge, the former being the saving 
 knowledge of the heart, and the latter being the high-flying, 
 empty knowledge of the head. This latter knowledge may 
 be obtained in various ways, but the former can only be got 
 by the internal direct revelation and illumination of the 
 Spirit of God. All other knowledge of Christ and God is as 
 little true knowledge as the chatter of a parrot is the voice of 
 a man. This revelation of God by His Spirit has always been 
 the same, at the time of the creation of the world, and under 
 the Law, and now in Christianity. Hence the object of faith 
 is also everywhere the same, for it is God speaking in us. 
 
 Of this inner saving Light, it is further said that God has 
 given to every man, be he Jew or heathen, Turk or Scythian, 
 Indian or barbarian, a certain time of visitation in which it 
 is possible for him to be saved, and that for this end God has 
 bestowed on every man a certain measure of light or of the 
 Spirit. Whoever receives this Light obtains salvation, even 
 if he knows nothing of Christ's sufferings and death. This 
 Light may in fact be resisted, but no one is able to entirely 
 disregard it. Moreover, this inner Light is emphatically 
 distinguished from natural Eeason. It is an error of the 
 Pelagians and Socinians that has been caused by the devil, 
 to hold that man can follow the good in virtue of his natural 
 Light, and direct his course heavenwards. The inner Light 
 is not a part of human nature, nor is it a survival of the good 
 which we have lost by Adam's fall, and it is to be carefully 
 distinguished from the natural light of reason. It is certainly 
 
216 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 not God's proper essence and nature, but it is a spiritual, 
 heavenly, and invisible principle in which God as Father, 
 Son, and Spirit dwells ; it is an absolutely supernatural gift, 
 an inconceivable immediate indwelling of God in us. It is 
 this heavenly light by which all are called to salvation. 
 Both those who have heard the history of Christ and those 
 who have not heard it. 
 
 On the other side, prominence is again given to the position 
 that the Spirit of God as the fountain of all truth cannot con- 
 tradict the Scriptures or sound reason. The Scriptures have 
 their revelations of the Spirit of God as the saints received 
 them. Hence the Scripture is certainly the most excellent 
 book in the world, yet it is always but an explanation of the 
 source itself. However important Scripture may be as a 
 credible attestation of the revelations of the Spirit, and as a 
 mirror in which we can make ourselves certain of what we 
 inwardly experience, yet it is not to be regarded as the main 
 principle of all knowledge, nor as the highest standard of faith 
 and practice. It is the Spirit who leads us into all truth, and 
 it does not merely serve to open the Scripture to our under- 
 standing. The uncertainty of the text, the difficulty of 
 understanding it, the indemonstrableness of the Canon, are 
 likewise adduced as grounds against the sole validity of 
 Scripture. In accordance with this merely historical view of 
 Scripture as a faithful narrative of the doings of the people 
 of God, as a collection of partly fulfilled and partly yet unful- 
 filled prophecies, and as a complete statement of the most 
 important principles of the doctrine of Christ, the historical 
 Christ is relatively put into the background. It is true that 
 Barclay speaks of the Person and Work of Christ entirely in 
 the expressions of the ecclesiastical dogmas, such as that 
 Christ has offered Himself a sacrifice for us, reconciling us by 
 the blood of His cross to God. But these forms of expression 
 are again in part naturalized. He holds that no substitution 
 took place, because God never regarded Christ as a sinner; 
 that if the redemption had been finally completed sixteen 
 hundred years ago, the whole gospel with its preaching of 
 
THE MYSTICS. SERVETUS, 217 
 
 repentance would have been useless ; and that it is only the 
 inward birth of Christ in our heart that is truly atoning. 
 Besides, the doctrine of the historical Christ is completely out 
 of connection with the system, as even one who has not heard 
 the history of Christ may be saved by the Spirit of God ; 
 and in this manner he becomes, as it were, a member of the 
 Christian Church. Again, justification is not a mere declara- 
 tion of righteousness on the ground of the imputed merit of 
 Christ, but is a real process of making righteous by the true 
 atonement which Christ works in us. This birth of Christ 
 in us takes place at a definite moment, so that every one must 
 be able to assign the day and the hour of its happening ; in 
 whomsoever it is completely produced, his heart is immediately 
 united with Christ, the body of death and of sin is got rid of, 
 so that he is free from actual sin and from transgression of 
 the law of God, and becomes perfect. The sacraments are of 
 no importance either as means of salvation or as symbols of 
 salvation, but they stand on the same level with the other 
 usages of the early Church. The baptism by water that was 
 administered by John, was only a prophecy of the baptism 
 by the Spirit, and with the coming of the latter the former 
 must cease. The Lord's Supper is a mere symbol of the 
 communion with the inner divine Light, which alone is the 
 true spiritual body of Christ. The same principle of the 
 internal Light is also made to be valid in the doctrine of the 
 Church and in the order of worship. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE MYSTICS. SERVETUS. PARACELSUS. CARLSTADT. 
 MUNZER. FRANK. SCHWENKFELDT. 
 
 1. Mysticism had a close affinity to these spiritualistic move- 
 ments through their common polemic against too high an 
 estimate of the external letter, and their common inclination 
 to dive directly into the depths of the Deity. To the 
 mystical tendency we may most properly assign Michael 
 
218 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Servetus (1508-1553), the famous physician, geographer, and 
 theologian of Arragon, well known for his denial of the Trinity, 
 and for having been burned at Geneva. He is altogether 
 peculiar in his personal characteristics, and he is extremely 
 interesting in his own way. He holds a somewhat isolated 
 position, from his rejecting the baptism of children as well as 
 the doctrine of the Trinity, and his appealing neither to 
 immediate revelation nor to the insight of natural reason. 
 He held that a reform of the Church was necessary ; for the 
 papacy and all connected with it is the work of the devil 
 himself, who intruded into the Church as early as the times 
 of the Apostles, and who became particularly powerful when 
 Constantine consigned the secular sword to Pope Sylvester, 
 and when the Council of Nicea established the tritheistic 
 dogma. But it was only a definite period of 1260 years 
 that had been assigned to this supremacy of Antichrist ; it 
 was to be broken down in the year 1585, and Servetus 
 believed that he was called by God to co-operate in bringing 
 it about. This reformation of the Church was to be founded 
 upon the genuine doctrine of Christ as it is obtained by 
 correct interpretation of the Holy Scripture, and as it is 
 found in harmony with the utterances of the ante-Mcean 
 Fathers. But although Servetus emphatically blames the 
 exegesis of his opponents for their dependence upon the 
 Aristotelian philosophy and their ignorance of the Hebrew 
 language, and promises to interpret every word of Scripture 
 according to its proper meaning, his own expositions would 
 also be searched in vain for a really grammatical and 
 historical exegesis. 
 
 Looking at the spirit of the system of Servetus before 
 entering on its details, we find at once a remarkable mixture 
 of cold intellectual thinking and a profound mysticism that 
 drew its nourishment specially from Neo-Platonism. The 
 former element exhibits itself especially in criticism. With 
 unquestionable acuteness he points out the contradictions 
 which the mystery of the Trinity presses upon the thinking 
 of the un derstanding, such as that the Spirit is not a person ; 
 

 THE MYSTICS. SERYETUS. 219 
 
 that the Christology with the two natures in one person and 
 the essential equality of the Son and the Father is untenable ; 
 and that one substance and three persons is completely 
 unthinkable. The baptism of children is also opposed on 
 rational grounds. A Mysticism, reminding us at many 
 points of Nicolaus of Cusa, shows itself in all parts of the 
 circle of thought in which Servetus moved ; and drawing 
 from the depths of a truly religious soul, and equipped with 
 great wealth of knowledge, he has exhibited in his expositions 
 his inner life to others. 
 
 God is described as being in Himself far above everything 
 that is finite and limited, as not limited by space and time, as 
 not light but higher than light, as not substance but above 
 substance, as not spirit but above spirit, and indeed as above 
 everything which can be thought. On the other hand, God 
 communicates Himself to all finite things, which without this 
 would have no being or subsistence. This communication is 
 a gradual one. God communicates Himself to all things by 
 ideas, and to Christ, men, and angels in substance ; but to 
 Christ alone without measure, to men and angels in limited 
 measure by the Spirit as well by the inborn spirit as by the 
 Spirit that is supperadded by grace. Now, because God 
 communicates Himself to all things, Servetus can say that 
 the world is identical in essence with God ; God is all in all ; 
 God is everywhere full of the essence of all things ; God 
 Himself is the essence of all things, etc. Yet this is not to 
 be understood as if God were corporeal and divisible, or as if 
 He were the one substance lying at the basis of all things, 
 and these were its different forms and parts. God is the 
 Spirit who contains all forms (mens omniformis), or who 
 includes in Himself from eternity the ideas, images, repre- 
 sentations, and substantial forms of individual things. These 
 ideas are not merely the divine thoughts and patterns 
 according to which things are created, but they are essential 
 substantial forms by means of which God enters into things 
 and bestows upon them their definite individual existence ; 
 for it is the divine idea or the Deity which makes this a 
 
220 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 stone, that gold, and a third thing iron. Matter is the only 
 thing that is created out of nothing. The four elements are 
 earth, water, fire, and air, of which the latter three as the 
 higher have an archetype in the heavenly matter in God. 
 The creation of individual things takes place by the intro- 
 duction of form into matter. It is mediated by created 
 light, which has a life-giving power derived from the 
 uncreated light, and it formatively introduces into matter the 
 substantial forms of things according to the eternal ideas. 
 
 All eternal ideas are contained in the Word of God, 
 which was not separated in eternity from God, but assumed 
 independent existence at the time and for the purpose of 
 creation. In the Old Testament this Word appeared veiled 
 under manifold forms ; in the person of Christ, it became 
 man. Because the Word was to become man in Christ in 
 order to reveal God wholly and fully to us men, and because 
 the idea of man is the most perfect of all ideas, the Word 
 bore in Itself even in eternity a prefiguration or adumbration 
 of the human personality. The man Christ is as such the 
 Son of God ; He is completely identical in essence with God 
 and of the one substance. As the Word He was from 
 eternity with God ; He was the mediator of the creation of 
 the world. As man He is of divine substance ; not merely 
 in the body in so far as God in His generation represented 
 the place of the bodily father, whence are the three higher 
 elements of the heavenly substance, but He is so also in the 
 soul, in so far as the Spirit of God is inbreathed into Him 
 without measure, as well as in the spirit which was bestowed 
 upon Him. 
 
 Man consists of Body, Soul, and Spirit. The body is 
 derived from matter. The soul is only in part identical 
 in substance with the body, from whose vital warmth in the 
 blood it takes its origin ; for, on the other side, it springs 
 directly from God as an emanation from the divine sub- 
 stance or as a breath of God. Hence it is that the soul can 
 receive the holy Spirit of God in itself, which is partly born 
 in us and partly communicated to us in baptism. 
 
THE MYSTICS. PAEACELSUS. 221 
 
 Even if Adam had not fallen, Christ would have appeared 
 as the perfect visible revelation of the invisible God, in order 
 to bring eternal life and the true knowledge of God to man. 
 This was indeed the essential purpose of His mission, only 
 that under the present dispensation He had further to break 
 the power of the devil by His death and His descent into 
 hell. By faith in Christ as the perfect revelation of God, 
 we obtain justification and the true knowledge of God. In 
 baptism, our soul is essentially transmuted by the heavenly 
 elements taking the place of the earthly elements, and 
 thereby there is established a substantial community of the 
 soul with God in Christ. In the Lord's Supper our earthly 
 body is also transmuted into a heavenly body by Christ sub- 
 stantially communicating His body to us. When we are 
 thus transmuted in body and soul, the works of our external 
 conduct likewise become good and holy. 
 
 The essence of Eeligion, according to Servetus, thus consists 
 in true knowledge of God and substantial union with Him. 
 From this conception he also obtains a certain historical 
 view of religion. The heathen know of God only what the 
 innate spirit and the careful observation of Nature teach 
 them. The Jews have divine revelations, yet they are veiled 
 because Christ had not yet appeared in the flesh. The Chris- 
 tians have the perfect revelation. 
 
 Servetus belongs to the class of the solitary souls. His 
 opponents saw in him only the obstinate denier of the 
 Trinity, and it is uncertain whether his followers who were 
 most numerous in Venice really penetrated to the depths 
 of his thought. It is only in the present age that men are 
 beginning to rescue him from oblivion, and to appreciate 
 him justly. 
 
 2. Theophrastus Paracelsus Bombastes von Hohenheim was 
 born at Einsiedeln in Switzerland in 1493, and he died at 
 Salzburgh in 1541. Attaching himself to the Cabbala, he 
 founded a school that became widely spread, especially among 
 the physicians, and which fused in a peculiar way Alchemy 
 and Astrology with Theosophy. Paracelsus, as a physician, 
 
222 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 set up the principle that diseases must be studied, not in the 
 books of Galen and Avicenna, but by observation of Nature, 
 and thus he became the reformer of medicine. This position 
 is not affected by his whimsical cures and cabbalistic phan- 
 tasies, his zealous searching for the philosopher's stone, and 
 his inquiries into the influence of the stars upon human life. 
 He at first taught German at Bale, and he also composed 
 some of his writings in the German language. But as, in 
 spite of all his striving, he could not free his thoughts from 
 the fantastic superstition of an age which was just beginning 
 to apply itself to the observation of Nature, his language 
 likewise struggles in vain after the right expression for new 
 thoughts, and he coined a multitude of peculiar words which 
 greatly increase the difficulty of understanding the German 
 Theosophist. 
 
 According to Paracelsus, theology is the basis of all know- 
 ledge, even of the knowledge of medicine. The natural 
 knowledge that flows from the light of Nature does not 
 reach far. Man has all knowledge, all wisdom and art, 
 from God, and we Christians from the new birth in the 
 gospel. For everything must be founded in the gospel that 
 we teach in history, jurisprudence, medicine, and philosophy, 
 and even the heathens, like Plato, Aristotle, and others, had 
 their wisdom from above, although not from faith in Christ. 
 " The book in which is the ground and the truth and the 
 knowledge of all things is God Himself. By this knowledge 
 all things are guided and ruled and brought to their perfec- 
 tion, for it is only in Him who has created all things that 
 there lies wisdom arid the principle that is in all things." 
 Hence we must first seek the knowledge of God ; in this lies 
 the ground of all wisdom. God is the ground of all things, 
 and they are all animated. God has " not created a single 
 corpus without a spiritus which it secretly carries in it, for 
 what would be the use of the corpus without the spiritus ? 
 Nothing." All beginnings lie enclosed in the great chaos 
 from which they proceed by separation. Matter is formed 
 from salt, sulphur, and quicksilver, and its spiritus or spiritual 
 
THE MYSTICS. PARACELSUS. 223 
 
 essence is constituted by salt, sulphur, and mercury. This 
 means that, according as matter assumes the quality of being 
 solid, fiery, or fluid, it is formed by the elements of salt, 
 sulphur, and quicksilver. From the varied mixture of these 
 three elements, the different things arise ; and hence, not- 
 withstanding the diversity of all things, there is a universal 
 harmony among them. This mixture depends on the star- 
 spirit or cagaster indwelling in everything, which is the ground 
 of its predestination. These spirits have their body in the 
 constellations, and they proceed from God as the primal 
 source of all life. 
 
 Man as a microcosm has part in all the three worlds or 
 spheres which go to form the macrocosm ; that is, he partici- 
 pates in God, in the stars, and in the elements. The body is 
 formed from the elements, and is supported by elemental 
 nourishment ; and hence it corrupts after death and dissolves 
 again into the elements. The body has its proper principle 
 of life in the spiritus mtce. The soul is the sidereal spirit, 
 and it comes from the constellations. From it flow the orbs 
 and the natural sciences, in which we are dependent on the 
 influences of the stars. The spirit is, as it were, the soul's 
 soul, and it is breathed into man by God directly from the 
 substance of His nature. By the spirit man is capable of 
 receiving divine knowledge, and he receives the gifts which 
 God communicates to every one. By it he is also destined 
 for eternity. 
 
 Man is thus a being of a twofold kind. He is of an 
 animal nature, and can live to the animal spirit, and there- 
 fore be known as an animal. Hence the Baptist calls the 
 Pharisees a " generation of vipers," and Christ speaks of dogs, 
 swine, and wolves in sheep's clothing. But it was not in 
 accordance with the will of God that man should live as an 
 animal ; he was to live according to the higher nature of the 
 divine image, in order that he might fill up the place of the 
 devil and his angels. Yet man turned to what was animal, 
 fell into sin, and came under the dominion of the devil. 
 For our salvation, the Son of God, as the Word of the 
 
224 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Father, became man in Christ; and by His bitter suffering 
 and death He paid for the guilt of our sins, freed the souls 
 of believers from eternal death, and led them into Paradise. 
 Nevertheless, he who desires to live with Christ and to be 
 saved must also first suffer and die with Him ; and he must 
 be buried with Him and rise again in order to be glorified 
 with Him. An orthodox Christian must not only believe 
 that Christ was despised and mocked and buried for him or 
 for his sin, but he must believe that every one in his own 
 person must be despised, mocked, tortured, slain, and buried 
 with Christ. Imputed righteousness helps no one without 
 this fellowship in the suffering of Christ. 
 
 In agreement with these views, Paracelsus depreciated all 
 that was external in religion and the Church. He praises 
 Luther for his bold attack upon the externalized ecclesias- 
 ticism of Eome, and yet he remained a Catholic himself. He 
 says that we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven with 
 the fleshly, elemental body that perishes at death, and hence 
 we must obtain another flesh from above. We must be born 
 anew of a virgin from faith, incarnated of the Holy Ghost, 
 the third person of the Godhead who cometh after Christ. 
 Baptism serves this end ; by it we are incarnated of the 
 Spirit into that flesh in which we see Christ our Saviour, 
 and rise again from death and pass into the kingdom of 
 God. Now everything must live upon that from which it 
 has being ; and as the mortal body must be fed from the 
 natural elements, so the new birth must be fed from Christ. 
 His flesh and blood, which is begotten of the Holy Ghost from 
 the Virgin, and is therefore heavenly, is given for our enjoyment 
 in the Eucharist. In virtue of this non-mortal flesh of the 
 new birth, we will rise again at the last day with Christ. Then 
 shall we no longer rot nor be consumed, but be clarified with 
 a divine clarification, so that we may enter with Christ into 
 the kingdom of the heavens. But the damned will be 
 darkened, and suffer the punishment which God will assign 
 to them in the judgment. 
 
 The views of Paracelsus became very widely spread, espe- 
 
THE MYSTICS. CAELSTADT. FRANK. 225 
 
 cially among physicians. All the alchemists, the fantastic 
 astrologers, and naturalists of the age attached themselves to 
 him. This movement is of considerable importance in regard 
 to the history of the culture of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, but its details are of no value or interest for us here. 
 
 3. Carlstadt (t 1541) was of the men who stood near to 
 Luther, the one who gave himself up to Mysticism ; and he 
 was specially led thereby into paths which separated him from 
 the great reformer. He was a man of great erudition, and 
 his treatise on Eesignation or Self-abandonrnent (von der Gelas- 
 seriheif) shows strong evidences of the influence of Tauler. 
 Self-surrender is the renunciation of all creatureliness, and it 
 is immediately followed by the union of the soul with God. 
 The highest degree of renunciation consists in man sur- 
 rendering his own self or his personality to God, and keeping 
 himself from all godless and selfish impulses. Then does the 
 Spirit of God come into the soul and fill it completely ; for 
 faith consists in the union of the human heart with God, who 
 pours His power into it. Hence the Lord's Supper is not an 
 external enjoying of the flesh and blood of Christ, but the 
 act of internally becoming one with God. Thomas Miinzer 
 (1490-1537) also shows mystical thoughts, only they are 
 infected by an appeal to immediate divine revelation and by 
 his revolutionary ideas. Man must turn away from external 
 things, must go out of himself, and become a mere nothing, 
 in order that God may come in with His light, and possess 
 the pure ground of the soul. When man has forgotten him- 
 self and every creature, then will God pour Himself into the 
 soul and work His work in it. The letter is good for nothing. 
 " It would avail nothing even though one should have eaten 
 a hundred thousand Bibles ! " And just as little does faith 
 alone avail without moral conduct. 
 
 4. Sebastian Frank (c. 1495-1543) of Donauvorth is im- 
 portant as a historical writer of that time, although he estimates 
 the value of everything according as it is a means of education 
 and religious edification. He was also an excellent popular 
 writer, and Luther himself says of him that " he had taken 
 
 VOL. i. p 
 
226 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 the right grip of things, and that he knew how historical 
 books are most willingly read, and are greatly liked." He 
 sided with the Eeformation, inasmuch as he was a zealous 
 opponent to the papacy. He was the first to prove, and he 
 did so with great acuteness, that the twenty-five years' episco- 
 pate of Peter at Eome was but a fable. He showed that the 
 Eoman Faith had its origin from the popes and their institu- 
 tions, and was without the word and command of God. He 
 said the popes knew as little of the New Testament as a cow 
 knows about the game of draughts, or an ass does about 
 playing on the lute. Nevertheless, their over-estimate of the 
 value of the written word and their sectarian withdrawal 
 from the universal Catholic Church, separates him from the 
 Eeformers. Because the Scripture is divided in the letter and 
 is discordant, he held that the letter must give rise to heresy, 
 and that men ' can never be one, nor at one in it. The worst 
 thing that he dislikes in these and other sects is their partisan 
 separation. It is not the order to which we belong that makes 
 us pious, nor even our works, but the Spirit of Christ, as the 
 only true faith which regards all things as depending on God, 
 and which makes the person agreeable to God, so that all that 
 the person does is done by God, God mirroring Himself in the 
 person, like the sun in still water. This Christian faith is a 
 free thing ; it is bound to nothing external, and hence there 
 is one Church scattered among all the heathen, but gathered 
 together in the spirit. But do as we may, the world will have 
 a Pope, even though it should steal him or dig him out of the 
 earth. 
 
 All death in the Church comes, according to Frank, from 
 the literal understanding of the Scripture, while life rests only 
 upon the inner Word, which is the eternal Spirit of God. In 
 our relation to heaven there is something necessary that is 
 higher than a Bible, nor is it possible that the written word 
 can be God's word on account of the very change in its 
 languages and the uncertainty of its letter. The inner Word 
 is the divine Spirit, who is sent into the world, and especially 
 into every human soul. Hence faith does not consist in 
 
THE MYSTICS. FRANK. 227 
 
 holding certain external things to be true, but in living and 
 experiencing inwardly the facts of faith. Faith is the inmost 
 fact of life, and with it man surrenders himself and sinks his 
 heart entirely in God, in order that God may work in him 
 both to will and to do. In accordance with this view the 
 historical Christ is made to retreat into the background, behind 
 the eternal Christ. We ought to regard Christ not merely 
 from without according to the flesh, but we should know Him 
 in His best part as He is the word and the expressed will of 
 God. Christ in His true nature is eternal, and therefore He 
 did not come first into the world with the birth of the histo- 
 rical Christ, nor even only among the Jewish people, but He 
 also influenced many an enlightened heathen who knew nothing 
 of the historical Christ. It is not what is external and histo- 
 rical in the sufferings and death of Christ that saves, but He 
 must come into our heart, and must be united with our soul. 
 Christ must be born, live, die, rise, and ascend to heaven in 
 us. With this corresponds the general relation of God to the 
 world and to man. God is different from the things which 
 we can see, hear, touch, taste, or smell ; and He is kriowabla 
 by us, but as men we only know Him in so far as He is in 
 us. So far as it is possible to indicate afar off what God is, 
 He is an incorporeal soul diffused through all things in Nature, 
 and He essentially communicates reality and living feeling to 
 all things. The relation of God to Nature is represented by 
 the image of a juggler, who with his hand seizes a figure or 
 puppet, and moves it how and where he will, and as soon as 
 he withdraws his hand the things fall from their being again 
 into their own nothingness ; but God always remains in Nature. 
 As the air fills all and is nowhere, so is God in all things and 
 all are again in Him. The portion of life and soul which 
 God has merged in every one, is the form of God. In us God 
 first becomes determinate will. All feelings and accidents 
 which we attribute to God such as anxiety, suffering, dis- 
 pleasure, wrath, and such like are not in God, but in us. 
 As we have spectacles on our nose, so does God thus appear 
 to us through our feelings. 
 
228 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 5. The congress of theologians at Schmalkald in 1540 gave a 
 warning against the fanatical errors of Sebastian Frank and 
 Caspar Schwenkfeldt. Schwenkfeldt (1490-1562) was at 
 the beginning a zealous adherent and promoter of the Reforma- 
 tion, but he was afterwards driven to join its opponents, and 
 he was universally assailed as a fanatic, for which Luther was 
 not without blame, as he attacked him with undeserved violence. 
 He likewise objected to the over-estimation of the external 
 word in the Lutheran Church, as leading even to the assertion 
 that the preaching of a Judas Iscariot would have been just as 
 effective as that of the Apostle Paul. According to Schwenk- 
 feldt, Eeligion rests upon the inner experience of the divine 
 life. God needs no external thing or means for His inner 
 working of grace. Even Christ as in the flesh was a hindrance 
 of grace, and He was raised to heavenly being, that the Holy 
 Spirit might come to us. "Whoever wishes to proceed from 
 external things to what is internal, does not understand the 
 course of grace. The sole means of grace is the omnipotent, 
 eternal Word, as it proceeds immediately from the mouth of 
 God, and not as coming by the Scriptures, sacraments, or 
 such like. The hearing of faith is an internal inblowing of 
 the spiritual wind of God ; it is as a drop from the fountain 
 of life ; it is a secret whispering of the mouth of God. It is 
 the acceptance of the living word of God in the soul, when 
 man, along with the sinful, carnal nature is transformed. Man 
 belongs by his body to the external world, and by his immortal 
 soul to the higher spiritual world, and hence what is external 
 can alone move the external man, whereas God alone can 
 penetrate into what is internal. The first man was created of 
 the earth, earthy ; but his destination was to become perfect 
 through Christ, who alone is the image of the invisible God, 
 in order that God might wholly dwell and live in him. God 
 works in a twofold way in Nature ; after one manner in Crea- 
 tion, and after another in Regeneration. Creation brings 
 forth products which are alienated and far from the divine 
 Being ; Redemption is an activity of the divine nature, by 
 which it communicates itself in its undivided power. It may 
 
THE MYSTICS. SCHWENKFELDT. 229 
 
 be said of the creation that all creatures are in God, in so far 
 as He has arranged, ruled, and known them all ; but in the 
 redemption there is realized in a still higher sense a union 
 with God. For faith is a state of the soul entirely identical 
 with its object ; in its object it becomes completely one with 
 God, and participates in the divine nature. True faith is 
 participation both in Nature and in the divine Being, accord- 
 ing to its measure ; it is a scintillation of the eternal sun ; a 
 sparkle of that burning fire which is God. Along with all this, 
 Schwenkfeldt insists emphatically upon the verification of the 
 inward life in the strict morality of outward conduct. 
 
 In closest connection with all this stands Schwenkfeldt's 
 peculiar doctrine of the Deification of the flesh of Christ. 
 This is founded upon the view that communion with the 
 exalted Christ on the side of His body is the source of the 
 new life. It is not the suffering and dying of Christ, nor 
 generally His earthly life in the state of humiliation, that 
 stands in the foreground with Schwenkfeldt, but it is the 
 Christ who is glorified in the heavens. We ought not to preach 
 a half Christ, that is, we ought not merely to proclaim His 
 redemption and satisfaction for us, but also our regeneration 
 and sanctification, not merely Christ on the cross, but also 
 the Christ who is exalted to glory. What the Christian 
 experiences within of the influences of grace is all made up 
 of doings of the Christ who has entered into His glory, and 
 is personally ruling over His believers. It is Christ who 
 inwardly communicates forgiveness of sins. It is Christ who 
 sheds abroad the Holy Spirit with the fulness of His gifts in 
 the hearts of His believers. It is Christ who Himself com- 
 municates Himself in the undivided unity of His personal life, 
 and gives Himself as food to the hungry soul. The body of 
 Christ has also part in the heavenly glory, for His single per- 
 son may not be divided, as is done by the Lutheran doctrine 
 of the two natures and the communicatio idiomat-um. From 
 the outset the flesh of Christ was a flesh of a higher endow- 
 ment, furnished with powers of innocence and holiness; and 
 afterwards, in the resurrection and ascension, there came in 
 
230 OPPOSITION AL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 the complete deification of the flesh of Christ. Its present 
 state is designated at one time as the glory of the flesh ; at 
 another time it is described as sitting at the right hand of 
 God ; and again it is represented as anointment with a holy 
 Spirit. This Spirit is nothing but the totality of the opera- 
 tions of grace proceeding from the deified humanity of Christ, 
 for the Spirit proceeds from the body of the glorified Christ. 
 The Lord's Supper is a real communication and appropriation 
 of the glorified Body of Christ ; but this spiritual enjoyment 
 is purely internal, and needs no external mediation. 
 
 With all vehemence the Eeformers set themselves in oppo- 
 sition to these " fanatics ; " but when the Lutheran theology 
 stiffened into a rigid scholasticism, and continued to lose all 
 true life and every regard to the interest of piety, the living 
 religiousness of the time led again to similar modes of oppo- 
 sition to the worship of the letter in the Church. Among 
 the less important representatives of this tendency were 
 Aegidius Guthmann of Swabia (c. 1580), Paul Lautensack, 
 painter and organist at Niirnberg (1478-1552), and Bar- 
 tholomseus Sclei of Poland (c. 1596). The following are 
 some of their positions : " Hence it now follows incontro- 
 vertibly that the outward Christ, according to the flesh, is 
 of no use at all, with all His doing and suffering, if we have 
 not the inward Christ in us, who rightly encourages us in the 
 love of God, and makes us new and spiritual creatures," 
 " Whoever finds these the highest of all the mysteries of 
 God, has found noble pearls and the highest treasure, which 
 no man can find elsewhere than in himself." " For what is 
 outward in Nature and the Old Testament, we must perceive 
 in the New Testament in ourselves as it is fulfilled in the 
 spirit and in truth." The culmination of this movement was 
 reached towards the end of the sixteenth century in Valentin 
 Weigel. 
 
VALENTIN WEIGEL. 231 
 
 IV. 
 
 VALENTIN WEIGEL (1533-1588). 
 
 Valentin Weigel was born at Haim, near Dresden. He 
 was educated as an Electoral bursar in the Koyal School at 
 Meissen. From 1554 he studied at Leipsic, and from 1563 
 to 1567 at Wittenberg; and from that time to his death 
 he laboured as a preacher at Zschopau. As his course of 
 training indicates, Weigel was well acquainted with all the 
 logical and philosophical science of his age. This is shown 
 also by his writings, for Weigel does not disdain to quote his 
 predecessors and masters, in spite of certain attacks upon the 
 scholastic learning of the time. Of the ancient philosophers, 
 Seneca, Plotinus, and Boethius were his favourites. Of the 
 Church Fathers, Origen and Augustine were most diligently 
 studied by him, while others are at least named. Weigel 
 was quite familiar with the German Mysticism as in Tauler, 
 " the German Theology," Thomas & Kempis, and Eckard. 
 Schwenkfeldt and Sebastian Frank are rarely quoted, nor have 
 we found any quotation from Carlstadt or Nicolaus of Cusa, 
 notwithstanding undeniable points of contact with them. We 
 will endeavour to present the thought of Weigel according to 
 those writings that are recognised as undoubtedly genuine. 1 
 
 His opposition to the Church of his time is expressed 
 most plainly in the original Dialogus de Christianismo. A 
 " Hearer " or layman who is a follower of Weigel's ideas 
 converses with a " Preacher " who is the representative of 
 the ecclesiastical orthodoxy. The Christ who has passed by 
 
 1 The most important of Weigel's writings are the following : Libellus de 
 vita beata, etc.; Ein schon Gebetbiichlein, 1612; Der giildene Griff, etc., 
 1617 ; Vom Ort der Welt, etc., 1613 ; Dialogus de Christianismo, 1614 ; 
 Philosophia theologica ; IW/ nav, 1614 ; Principal und Haupt Tractat von 
 der Gelassenheit, 1618 ; Soli Deo gloria, 1618 ; Kurzer Bericht und Anleitung 
 zur Teutschen Theologey. Naturally these writings contain many repetitions, 
 but they everywhere bear evidence of a scientifically educated man who controls 
 his thought and expression. Reference iay be made to Opel, Valentin Weigel, 
 1864. 
 
232 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 death into glory comes in in the character of "Death" as 
 umpire, and agrees decidedly with the Hearer. In the last 
 chapters we are told how the Preacher peacefully dies after 
 confession and absolution; but as he had experienced no 
 penitence and expiation within, he enters into Hell, whereas 
 the Hearer, on account of his true inner life, goes to Heaven, 
 although he dies without the sacrament and lies buried in an 
 open field. The subject of the discussion is (1) the internal 
 unction and illumination by the Holy Spirit in contrast to the 
 letter of Scripture as well as to confessions and teachers, and 
 (2) the inward essential indwelling of Christ after mortifica- 
 tion of the natural flesh, in opposition to the theory of 
 imputed righteousness. While the Hearer refers to the 
 spiritual understanding of the Scriptures, the Preacher builds 
 upon the symbolical books, the current doctrines, the words of 
 wise teachers, and the science which he had learned in the 
 universities, and he indignantly asks the layman whence he, 
 an unlearned man, got his wisdom, which was not taught in 
 any pulpit whatever. The Hearer argues that we require to 
 slay our own Adam, and that Christ must be born in us and 
 be essentially united with us ; whereas the Preacher refers 
 to the justitia imputativa, saying that Christ has given 
 satisfaction for us, and that " we carouse at His expense." 
 
 The main thesis of Weigel is that true knowledge does not 
 come from without, but from within ; it does not arise from 
 what is known, but from that which knows; not from the 
 object, but, as he says, from " the eye " or the cognitive 
 subject. This proposition follows from his whole theory of 
 knowledge, which is carefully elaborated in detail. The 
 external seeing, which belongs even to " the cow grazing 
 before the gate," is to be carefully distinguished from that 
 internal seeing which is cognition. Three things belong to 
 mere external seeing, the Eye, the Object, and the Air ; 
 whereas only two things belong to the inner seeing, the inner 
 Eye and the Object. The Object is twofold, according as it 
 is infinite when it is God, and according as it is finite, which 
 is the creature. The creature again is twofold, as visible 
 
VALENTIN WEIGEL. 233 
 
 and as invisible. The inner Eye is threefold, being the five 
 Senses, with their inner unity, the Imagination, and the 
 Eeason with the understanding. The higher two of these 
 Eyes can work without the lower, but not conversely. Cor- 
 responding to them there is a threefold knowledge : sensual 
 knowledge (sensualis), directed to the external, visible appear- 
 ances of things ; rational knowledge (rationalis), including the 
 arts and sciences ; and intellectual knowledge (intellectualis), 
 relating to the knowledge of God. 1 In like manner there is 
 a threefold school, namely, that of Man, that of Nature, and 
 that of God. 
 
 All this knowledge proceeds from the Eye, and not from 
 the Object. The continually recurring proof of this proposi- 
 tion is as follows : If knowledge came from the Object, 
 then " a uniform undivided knowledge must come from any 
 one object into all the eyes which have this object presented 
 to them." In other words, the same thing would have to be 
 known in the same way by all. This, however, is not the 
 case. When several men look at the same colour, to one of 
 them it appears grey, to another blue, and to a third green. 
 If a hundred men read the same book, they have a hundred 
 different opinions about it, as is shown in the case of the 
 Bible, to which all appeal in support of their peculiar views. 
 Hence knowledge cannot come from the Object, but from the 
 Subject ; not from the Thing presented, but from the Eye. 
 Further, the following grounds are also adduced in support of 
 the position. Without internal knowledge we could not 
 assent to the judgment of another nor recognise its correctness ; 
 nor could we form an estimate of writings ; nor could we 
 learn anything by instruction from others or from books. 
 The same way from within to without is likewise prescribed 
 in Nature. The root, branches, fruits, and seed come from 
 the germ, and not from without, or from the earth and air. 
 In the creation the visible proceeded from the invisible, some- 
 
 1 In a way that reminds us of Nicolaus of Cusa, Weigel refers many theo- 
 logical controversies and accusations of heresy to the fact that many continue 
 in the sensible or rational knowledge of God, while others rise to the intellectual 
 knowledge of God. 
 
234 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 thing from nothing ; and not conversely. All diversity of 
 knowledge therefore rests, not upon the Object, but on the 
 diversity of Eyes ; for all knowledge is contained within 
 ourselves. This is the natural knowledge by which we con- 
 duct ourselves " really," that is, actively. 
 
 This knowledge reaches to God. We are able to know the 
 Creator from the creatures, as they present a shadow or copy 
 of the eternal undivided being of God. As we infer from 
 a work to its maker, or from smoke to a fire, so do we infer 
 from the creature to God, partly by negation of all imperfec- 
 tion, and partly by affirmation in the ascending and descend- 
 ing series of things. This natural knowledge of God is, 
 however, insufficient for salvation. Sometimes this position 
 is established by the imperfection of that knowledge, " for 
 we see God only from afar off, or from without, by the foot- 
 steps of the creature, which are as it were His shadow." 
 Nevertheless, when it is said again that " if Nature becomes 
 entirely silent and still, and comes to be forgotten," it may be 
 turned to a saving knowledge ; but the main ground of this 
 assertion is another reason which is often repeated, namely, 
 that natural knowledge rests upon our own self-activity. If 
 it led to salvation, then salvation would rest upon our own 
 merit, which, however, would be Pelagianism. Faith and 
 salvation are not dependent on the creature, but entirely 
 belong to God, who is compassionate in Himself ; and hence 
 we must also accept a supernatural knowledge. 
 
 The natural knowledge rests upon the light of Nature ; 
 the supernatural knowledge upon the light of faith and 
 grace. Hence the same thing appears quite different accord- 
 ing as it is viewed from the standpoint of God or of man. 
 These two points of view ought to be kept asunder and not 
 mixed or confused ; they are not hostile to one another, but 
 the natural knowledge or philosophy leads in an auxiliary way 
 to the supernatural knowledge or theology. In the super- 
 natural knowledge our relation is entirely passive ; it is 
 produced in us by God Himself; God Himself is the Eye 
 and the Light in man and through man ; and hence there 
 
VALENTIN WEIGEL. 235 
 
 is no controversy or difference among religious men in regard 
 to the supernatural knowledge, but rather is there everywhere 
 harmony and unanimity. Any difference among them is 
 founded merely on the different degree of their receptivity for 
 the divine illumination ; for man can here do nothing else 
 but stand still and keep Sabbath, or wait upon God in the 
 obedience of faith. Weigel describes this relation in his 
 " Tractate on Renunciation." It is only when man gives up 
 all things, renounces all that is his own, all his egoism, and 
 all the pleasure of the world as well as the delusion of 
 knowing anything, and when he has even abandoned this 
 abandonment so that he does not boast of it nor rely upon it, 
 only then will God wed Himself to the soul in an inward 
 conjugal communion. 
 
 The entrance of this supernatural knowledge is Regenera- 
 tion. Hence man has a twofold birth : a natural birth from 
 which all natural knowledge arises, and a supernatural birth 
 from the spirit of God which leads to supernatural knowledge. 
 Eegeneration is effected by the Holy Spirit, not by means of 
 external ceremonies, but immediately, and it is only possible 
 by the fact that all supernatural goods, or in a word Christ, 
 lie previously concealed within us. Thus does all super- 
 natural knowledge flow from what is within, because God 
 Himself is within us as our light and eye. For the super- 
 natural knowledge, the same principle thus holds good as for 
 the natural knowledge, namely, that knowledge does not come 
 from the object or from without, but from within, or from the 
 Eye. The foundation and truth of things are never got from 
 books, they remain always an uncertainty unless the Eye 
 becomes shown to us much more distinctly than all teachers 
 and their books. But " this book in me and in all men, in 
 great and small, in young and old, in learned and unlearned," 
 is the right book by which we are able to understand even 
 the Holy Scripture. " It is the light of men which lightens 
 them in the darkness, and it is the Word of God. This word 
 is the wisdom of God in man ; it is the image of God in 
 man ; it is the spirit or finger of God in man ; it is the seed 
 
236 OPPOSITION AL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 of God, the law of God, Christ, the kingdom of God ; it is the 
 wife of the life in us." 
 
 This inner word is the earlier. It is put externally before 
 the eyes and ears of man in three ways : in the law of the 
 tables, in the person of Christ, and in the preaching by the 
 office of the Spirit ; for were God's word not in us, all that 
 falls below the whole historical Christ, and all the drawing of 
 the Father to the Son, would help and profit us nothing. 
 " He who has not confession and absolution in himself by faith 
 in Christ, is helped nothing at all by confession and absolution 
 in connection with the priest." But, on the other hand, the 
 external is not entirely in vain. As there is no knowledge 
 attained without an object, so preaching the Scriptures and 
 external instruction form a useful means of awakening and 
 stimulating, in order to excite and draw forth the word of God 
 that lies hidden within us, only the Scriptures are not to be 
 regarded as if they were a vehicle on which the knowledge is 
 brought into us from without. 
 
 These positions are put into their correct light by the views 
 that are expressed regarding the relation of God to finite 
 things in general and to man in particular. 
 
 There are necessarily two beings, the perfect and the 
 fragmentary or " part-work." The perfect is the eternal, 
 self-subsisting true Being, that includes all things in Himself 
 as well when they were in secret as now when they have come 
 to the light. The imperfect " part - work " is the creature 
 which arises from the true Being. God may be compared to 
 the number one ; for the eternity of God can just as little be 
 divided as we can divide the one in arithmetic. He is one 
 without any division or multiplicity, and so much so that two 
 expressions, which, applied to earthly things exclude one 
 another as contradictory opposites, may both be applied to 
 God. Hence God is likewise the highest good, and it is only 
 in the possession of Him that our longing for happiness can 
 be stilled, whereas all finite goods are naught, and the right 
 relation to them is to be entirely without desire of them. 
 The creature corresponds to the number two, because it is not 
 
VALENTIN WEIGEL. 237 
 
 sufficient for itself, but requires God for its preservation ; it is 
 only a likeness or shadow of God, a reflection or semblance of 
 the One and the Eternal. 
 
 Finite things have been called by God out of nothing to 
 something. Accordingly, we distinguish a threefold Heaven ; 
 the highest Heaven is God ; the middle Heaven is the angels 
 or stars ; the lowest Heaven is the heavens and the earth, or 
 the visible world as formed of sulphur, salt, and mercury. 
 God dwells in a light to which no man has access. As the 
 eternal Word, He comprehends all the angels, while the 
 angels have all the creatures in themselves spiritually. As 
 the nut is said to be the tree complicite or infolded, and the 
 tree is an astrum explicitum or an unfolded nut, and as in the 
 number one the other numbers are involved, whereas two, 
 three, etc., are the number one evolved, so are all the angels in 
 God, and all things in the angels or constellations. All created 
 things do thus participate in God ; they have their very being 
 and their subsistence from Him ; for without Him they would 
 not be, nor would they be able to exist. Hence God is in all 
 things, and all things are essentially in Him. For " God and 
 His Will or Word is not only in all creatures, but is also out 
 of them, as it comprehends and includes them, and therefore 
 even a fly could not live out of God, so that all must be in 
 God in substance although not in will." Yea, even Lucifer is 
 by his substance in God, because he would otherwise not be 
 at all. Along with Being, finite things have also nothing in 
 them, because they were called out of nothing to be some- 
 thing. 
 
 By his natural birth man is composed of three parts : 
 Body, Spirit, and Soul. Body and Spirit constitute the mortal 
 part of man. The former is the tangible or sensitive part, 
 and it is taken from the earthly elements and returns to them 
 at death ; the latter, the intangible and insensitive part, is 
 taken from the stars, which therefore influence our whole life 
 in so far as that life depends on the Spirit. By his body 
 man is a microcosm, that is, he comprehends all the lower 
 creatures ; yet the body is only the external house of the man. 
 
238 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 The soul comes from the spiraculum mice, that is, it is 
 immediately inbreathed into man by God ; and on account of 
 this divine origin it has to live with God as a wife with her 
 husband. Hence man has a double nature, Adam and Christ ; 
 and natural and supernatural are both in him. 
 
 Thus was man put into, the middle between God and the 
 creature, that he might choose between good and evil. God 
 could indeed have settled him in the good without giving 
 him choice, but then man would have been just like the 
 cattle. Man did not fall by some external seduction, but he 
 carries in himself the subtle serpent. The Angel in heaven 
 and Adam in Paradise both thought : I am an image of God, 
 the Almighty, and should be as God ; but God is His own 
 master, free, without commandment or law, and loves and 
 seeks Himself; therefore, I will also turn myself to myself, 
 love myself, and have delight in myself, and so shall I also be 
 free and blessed like God. By this self-love the Angel fell 
 as well as the man, turned himself from unity to hetereity, 
 from the one to the divided, from life to death, from heaven to 
 hell. This turning from God to evil is, however, realized only 
 in the will. Even the fallen one remains, as to his essence, in 
 God, and everything viewed in its essence as Being is good. 
 This distinction is indicated by the prepositions juxta, and in ; 
 God is in those who are pious as He is one with them in 
 essence as well as in will; he is along with or beside (juxta) 
 the Devil, who has turned himself away from Him as regards 
 his will. The sinner, in his essence, must love God as his 
 origin and his true being, yet hate Him in his will ; and so he 
 finds himself in a constant conflict between love and hate, and 
 this is hell. For heaven and hell are not two separate places 
 somewhere in the universe, but we carry heaven and hell 
 within us. To live in heaven means the same as to live in 
 the will of God or to be one with God ; to live in hell means 
 to live after our own will, or to be turned away from God. 
 
 Although it thus depends only on our will whether we are 
 in heaven or in hell, yet after we have once sinned the new 
 life can only arise in us by the immediate operation of divine 
 
VALENTIN WEIGEL. 239 
 
 grace. It is preached from the pulpits that man becomes 
 just by faith, and imputation of the death of Christ ; but, in 
 truth, nothing external is of any avail, unless Christ is born, 
 dies, and rises again within us. By the immediate inworking 
 of God, the Christ in us who was overcome by sin is thus 
 reanimated again ; and for this it is required above all that 
 we mortify the old Adam, or the carnal life, with all its 
 selfishness and its attachment to earthly things. If Adam is 
 dead, then will Christ live anew ; or in other words, we will 
 be really united with God. " Christ's death and merit are 
 not imputed to any one ; but if he has Christ's death in him- 
 self, and if he is then baptized by baptism to a like death, and 
 if his whole body is crucified with Christ, then is there 
 imputation." " Faith is this, that Christ's life is ruling in us, 
 so that His spirit is in us, His flesh and blood are in us," etc. 
 " As God the Father is in Christ the Son, and the Son is in 
 the Father, and these two are one ; so is God the Son in the 
 believer, and the believer is in the Son, and these two are 
 one." " We must dwell in God and God in us ; this is the 
 eternal marriage, the heavenly marriage by which we remain 
 united and connected with God." 
 
 From these positions there follow several consequences. 
 And first of all the regenerate man must give himself earnestly 
 and diligently to the work of holiness. So long as we con- 
 tinue to live in the flesh, we cannot indeed be entirely without 
 sin, but we can turn our will away from it ; and whereas we 
 formerly sinned joyfully with our will, after regeneration we 
 do so only with deep pain and against our will. Again, the 
 Church is not a limited community enclosed in a particular 
 place with exactly defined doctrines, but in all countries and 
 among all nations wherever pious men are found who have 
 died with Christ in their own hearts, and been renewed unto 
 a holy life, they form the true Church. Even here on earth, 
 after terrible conflicts, there will come a golden age, when all 
 the sects will cease and the universal Catholic Church will 
 everywhere prevail ; when Christ will really rule ; and when 
 love for the brethren will be the highest law among men. 
 
240 OPPOSITION AL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PPtOTESTANTISM. 
 
 The historical Christ has, like the letter of the written word, 
 the significance of an external remembrance and testimony. 
 The Word was born man of the Virgin in order that God 
 might reconcile us through Christ with Himself, and might 
 show us a light, a way, a guide, a door, a pattern, or exemplar 
 as to how we should walk after Him. The depreciation of the 
 external means of grace is only in a limited measure extended 
 to the sacraments. Baptism is not a nullity, but we have to 
 obtain by it a new flesh and blood from heaven. Confession 
 and the Lord's Supper are not indeed necessary, as the believer 
 bears the true High Priest in himself, but they minister to 
 greater assurance. In opposition to the supremacy of the 
 priests, the universal priesthood is emphasized ; every believer 
 has the Christ in himself, who can forgive him his sins and 
 bestow absolution. Prayer does not procure us anything from 
 God : it would be blasphemy to assert that God, who is 
 eternally unchangeable, would be determined or occasioned to 
 do anything by our prayers. The kingdom of God, for which 
 we pray, does not lie without, but within us, and therefore 
 prayer serves as an inward monitor, and to awaken us 
 within. 
 
 Weigel remained unimpeached till his death. Entirely 
 averse to the dogmatic wranglings of that age, he appears to 
 have devoted himself chiefly to the duties of his office of 
 preaching. He subscribed the Formula Consensus without 
 hesitation, but says, " I have not sworn by the books of men, 
 but I have promised, by this subscription, to continue to hold 
 by the writings of the prophets and apostles, and never to 
 diverge from them ; and if I find anything in the writings of 
 the teachers or the Church that may be in conformity with the 
 apostolic doctrine, I will also accept it." From this point of 
 view he must also have exercised a wise silence with regard 
 to his opinions in the pulpit. Of his writings there only 
 appeared before his death an unimportant funeral sermon. 
 They were for a time only circulated in manuscript within the 
 circle of his faithful adherents. It was not till 1604-1618 
 that his productions appeared in various places along with a 
 
VALENTIN WEIGEL. 241 
 
 number of spurious writings, and it was only then that the 
 conflict about Weigelianism began. 
 
 The theological polemic carried on by J. Schellhammer, 
 Zacharias Theobald, George Eost, Lucas Osiander, and others, 1 
 does not deserve to be dealt with here, and the less so 
 because they do not enter in detail upon Weigel's doctrines. 
 To most of them, Weigel appears as a dangerous revolutionary, 
 who, like a Thomas Miinzer, aims at overthrowing the political 
 and social order. To others he is already objectionable because 
 he opposes the literal sense of the doctrines and the dogmatic 
 positions fixed in the creeds. They all rail and declaim 
 against him in the rhodomontade style of the seventeenth 
 century. 
 
 Weigelianism became widely spread. The tractates of 
 Weigel were first printed at Halle. In the Archbishopric of 
 Magdeburg many of the nobility adhered to him. He gained 
 numerous followers in Anhalt; and in the gymnasium of 
 Marburg in 1619 two teachers, named H. P. Homagius and 
 G. Zimmermann, suddenly declared themselves Weigelians, 
 and were particularly zealous against the use of profane writers 
 in the schools. They had already gained a not unimportant 
 following in Hesse, and it was only by severe measures that 
 the Landgraf could check the movement. In Worms, Stephen 
 Grunius (1623) preached regarding the division of man into 
 body, spirit, and soul. In Frankfurt-on-the-Maine, some like- 
 wise declared themselves to be Weigelians. In Niirnberg, 
 William Eo gathered a numerous congregation in 1622. In 
 the second and third decades of the seventeenth century, 
 an abundant literature appeared, which brought Weigelian 
 thoughts, without their philosophical basis and in a popular 
 form, to the knowledge of the public. This literature does 
 not contain anything new, and it mostly exaggerated, even to 
 caricature, the antagonisms of the system to learned culture, or 
 
 1 Johannes Schellhammer, Widerlegung des vermeynten Postill Valentin! 
 Weigelii, Leipz. 1621. Zacharias Theobald, Widertaufferischer Geist, Nfirn- 
 berg 1623. Georg Host, Heldenbuch vom Rosengarten, Rostock 1622. Lucas 
 Osiander, Theologisches Bedenken Vnd Treuhertzige Erinnerung. Tubing. 
 
 1624 ' 
 
 VOL. I. 0> OF 
 
 W7EESIT7 
 
242 OPPOSITION AL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 to the letter, or its appeal to immediate revelation, or its 
 astrology, or the hope of a renovation of the political and social 
 relations. This also applies to Esajas Stifel (t 1627), an inn- 
 keeper at Langensalza and his nephew Ezechiel Meth (t 1640), 
 to whom the usual Weigelian errors are imputed, as also to 
 Paul Nagel (t 1621), a professor of mathematics at Leipsic, 
 who sees a universal corruption coming in from the worship 
 of the letter by the preachers who are not taught by the 
 Holy Spirit. By the aid of the stars, he tries to spell out 
 from the Apocalypse the signs of better times. Hans 
 Engelbrecht, a clothmaker at Brunswick (t 1642), moves 
 on the same lines, only that he lays more stress on the 
 verification of faith in active love, and he claims special 
 respect for his personal character. 
 
 A movement closely related to Weigelianism, although of 
 independent origin, is represented by the Rosicrucians. In 
 the year 1614 there appeared the " Fama Fraternitatis R. C., 
 or the Brotherhood of the famous order of the E. C. to the 
 heads, estates, and learned men of Europe," prefaced with 
 a plan of a universal and general reformation of the wide 
 world. In 1615 there followed the Confessio Fraternitatis 
 R. C. In the " General Eeformation," carried out by the 
 arrangement of the Emperor Justinian, the seven wise men 
 of Greece, along with certain Eoman philosophers, are 
 represented as consulting about an improvement of the 
 world ; but they come to the view that their century could 
 not be helped. To vindicate their call they carry on 
 much talk about their trouble and labour, and give an 
 order regarding a new tax on vegetables, turnips, and parsley. 
 The Fama invites all the learned men of Europe to attach 
 themselves to the new Brotherhood for the improvement 
 of the corrupt world. Its philosophy is the head, origin, 
 and mistress of all other arts and sciences ; and it aims at 
 bringing thoroughly to light heaven and earth, and the 
 nature and being of the unique man. It is a characteristic 
 sign of that age, and of the degeneracies to which a noble 
 mysticism may lead among the masses, that this mysterious 
 
JACOB BOHME. 243 
 
 summons called forth the Eosicrucian movement. Certainly 
 there was no lack of calm intellectual judges, who doubted 
 the existence of a society of Eosicrucians, and regarded these 
 writings as composed merely in order to ridicule or befool the 
 world. But incomparably greater was the number of those 
 who everywhere inquired after that society, and expected 
 from it the salvation of the world. They all gathered around 
 the mysterious name of Eosicrucian, and there were then not 
 a few who, from an obscure longing to penetrate into the 
 depths of nature and to grasp the supernatural directly, gave 
 themselves up to boundless fanaticism and astrology. The 
 truth, in fact, was that a pious Wurtemberg pastor, named 
 John Valentin Andrese (1586-1654), had in these writings 
 sought to ridicule the fanaticism and folly of his time in 
 keen satire. And when, against all his expectation, the 
 satire was taken as earnest, and it became the very gathering 
 point of blind enthusiasts, he came forward himself against it 
 on several occasions, but in vain. 
 
 We turn now from these caricatures. Such morbid off- 
 shoots are not to be taken as our standards in judging of that 
 mysticism and theosophy which shot forth such splendid 
 blossoms in several individuals. In none, however, did it 
 appear with more magnificence and perfection than in Jacob 
 Bohme, to whom we now come. 
 
 V. 
 
 JACOB BOHME (15 75-1 6 24). 1 
 
 Bohme was born at Alt-Seidenberg in the Oberlausitz, near 
 the Bohemian frontier. He grew up amid rustic surround- 
 
 1 The works of Bohme have been used in the collected edition published at 
 Amsterdam in 1682 (Des Gottseligen, Hoch - Erleuehteten Jacob Bbhmens 
 Teutonic! Philosophi Alle Theosophischen AVerken). Compare Hermann 
 Adolph Fechner, Jacob Bohmes Leben und ScTiriften in the Neulausitz. 
 Magazin, xxxiii. 4 and xxxiv. 1, Gorlitz 1857. The work of Julius Hamberger 
 (Die Lehre des deutschen Philosophen Jakob Bohme in einem systematischen 
 Auszuge aus dessen sammtlichen Schriften, etc., Miinchen 1844) is only to be 
 used with caution. 
 
244 OPPOS1TIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 ings. On account of the weakness of his body, lie obtained 
 a good school education, yet this went only so far as the 
 school of the place could carry it. In 1589 he became 
 a shoemaker's apprentice at Seidenberg, and in 1599 he 
 became a master of the craft at Gorlitz. Bohme was 
 entirely self-taught from the time he left school. He read 
 the writings of Paracelsus, Weigel, Schwenkfeldt, as well as 
 those of Stifel, Meth, and the Eosicrucians, along with the 
 Bible ; but he received no learned culture. As he represents 
 it himself, he knew neither the language nor the writings of 
 the ancients, and in philosophy he was entirely a homo rudis. 
 He says that all that he gives he draws from the depths of 
 his own soul, or rather from the overpowering illumination of 
 the Holy Spirit ; for he speaks only from the impulse of this 
 divine Spirit and not from his own understanding. When the 
 Spirit comes upon him, he is laid hold of irresistibly ; and 
 when He has withdrawn, Bohme himself knows hardly how 
 to interpret what has been spoken through him. It is no 
 wonder that to us in these later times this interpretation much 
 more frequently fails. It is almost impossible to relish his 
 language. At one time he confuses us by the very affluence 
 of the sensuous images which are heaped up by his active 
 phantasy in order to enable us to conceive the inconceivable ; for 
 they are not often happily chosen so as to be easily intelligible, 
 and still more rarely are they consistently carried out. At 
 another time he repels us by his efforts to obtain the spiritual 
 meaning of a word of Scripture from the sound and tone of 
 its several syllables. And at other times it is almost 
 impossible for us to pick out the few grains of genuine gold 
 from the heaped-up rubbish of mere empty phantasies, or to 
 hold fast the thread of connection, through the wearisome 
 labyrinth of prolix details which skip hither and thither with- 
 out order. We might read into his mysteries the wisdom of 
 all ages if we were to proceed with Bohme according to the 
 well-known saying of Socrates regarding Heraclitus, that 
 "what I have understood of him is splendid and to the point, 
 and therefore I believe that the rest of him is likewise good 
 
JACOB BOHME. 245 
 
 and true." But it would be quite unjust, on the other hand, 
 to thrust aside all that is obscure and difficult as unintelligible. 
 As Socrates said of Heraclitus, Bohme in fact needs a " Delian 
 swimmer." 
 
 Since the time of Schelling and Hegel, it has become usual 
 to reckon Bohme among the philosophers, and to regard him as 
 a precursor of the modern speculation. Nor is this wrong ; 
 for in a mystico-theosophic way the cobbler of Gorlitz already 
 beheld in sensible intuition what Hegel long afterwards sought 
 to embrace in the conception, namely, that the finite or Evil 
 proceeds from the infinite or Good by the process of self- 
 determination, and returns again from this estrangement into 
 the same ; and we have thus the dialectical process of Thesis, 
 Antithesis, and Synthesis, or of the " In-itself, For-itself, and 
 In-and-for-itself." 
 
 We must, however, beware of overstraining this affinity in 
 thought between Bohme and these later philosophers ; and, 
 above all, it is not to be extended to the first of his greater 
 writings, which is the one most frequently used, the "Aurora, 
 or the Dawn at its Rising, that is, the root or mother of Philo- 
 sophy, Astrology, and Theology," etc., 1612. 1 This treatise 
 falls into the three parts indicated in the title. Philosophy 
 treats of the divine power, of what God is, and how Nature, 
 the stars, and the elements are qualified in the Essence of 
 God, and whence everything has its origin. Astrology treats 
 of the powers of Nature, the stars, and the elements, showing 
 how all the elements arise therefrom, how they impel and 
 govern all things, and how good and evil are effected by them. 
 Theology treats of the kingdom of Christ, how it is opposed 
 to the kingdom of hell and is in conflict with it, and how 
 men by faith and the spirit may overcome hell and obtain 
 blessedness. 
 
 Bohme starts from the view that on examination of Nature 
 we find everywhere two qualities, one good and one evil, and 
 that in this world they exist together in all powers and all 
 
 1 Aurora, oder Morgenrothe im Aufgang, das ist, Die Wurzel oder Mutter der 
 Philosophise, Astrologise, und Theologise, etc., An. 1612. 
 
246 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PEOTESTANTISM. 
 
 creatures. Thus Heat, as Light, brings life to all things, and, 
 as Fierceness, it brings corruption. The good quality alone 
 rules in the angels only, and the evil quality alone rules in 
 the devils. This Opposition in the creatures is produced by 
 the stars, whose powers control the creation, and it is not 
 effected immediately by God ; for God, although He permeates 
 the whole world as the sap does the tree, has not the opposi- 
 tion of the good and the evil in Himself, but is wholly good. 
 God the Father has in Himself all the powers which are in 
 Nature ; not, however, in such a way that each power exists 
 in Him in a particular place, but all the powers are united 
 together in the Father as one power. From this one power, 
 which is without beginning and without end, all creatures 
 have been produced. God the Son is not another God than 
 the Father, nor is He out of the Father, but He is the Heart 
 in the Father, the core in all powers ; He is a self-subsisting 
 person, and is eternally and always born of the Father. 
 Should the Father cease to bring forth, the Son would no 
 longer be anything; did the Son no longer shine in the 
 Father, the Father would become a dark abyss ; and if the 
 Father's power did not spring up from eternity to eternity, 
 neither could the divine Being exist. God the Holy Spirit 
 is a still spiration of all the powers of the Father and Son ; 
 He is the spirit of life who forms and shapes all things. 
 The Trinity is brought near to us by its likeness in man. It 
 is shown forth by the Power which is in the whole heart, and 
 the Light which is in the whole soul, and the intellectual 
 spirit of both ; and again in all things, by the power out of 
 which a body is formed, the sap or the heart of things, and 
 the forth-streaming power in it or the spirit. 
 
 The opposition of the two qualities arises through Lucifer. 
 In God there continually spring up and flow forth seven 
 Fountain- Spirits or qualities : the Sour, the Sweet, and the 
 Bitter, Heat, Love, Sound or Mercurius, and the last spirit, 
 which is called Salitter. These mutually bring forth each other, 
 and all the seven united in one another are as one spirit. 
 From the seventh Fountain-Spirit God created the angels by 
 
JACOB BOHME. 
 
 247 
 
 a process of contraction. They formed three kingdoms, each 
 under a supreme head, Michael, Lucifer, and Uriel, created 
 respectively after the form of God the Father, the Son, and 
 the Holy Spirit, and formed out of the midst of the kingdom 
 belonging to them. Lucifer was at first the most glorious 
 angel, with the most beautiful and most powerful body, and 
 with a light which was incorporated with the Heart or Son of 
 God ; but he set himself up to triumph over the divine heart. 
 Instead of obeying God, his Fountain-Spirits raised themselves 
 up and began to form a higher, prouder qualification than 
 God Himself possessed. The Fountain-Spirits then inflamed 
 themselves too strongly ; the sour quality drew the body too 
 hardly together ; the sweet water dried up, etc. Amid this 
 frantic foaming and tearing, a Son was born to Lucifer in his 
 heart, and the Spirit went out from his mouth. Lucifer, along 
 with his angels, was driven in a violent conflict from his 
 kingdom, which is the region of this world ; then men were 
 created as a compensation, and their king, born in the middle 
 of time from an angel, was to take up the place of Lucifer. 
 When, in the third birth in the region of Lucifer, God was 
 kindled into wrath, the light in that birth was extinguished ; 
 it all became darkness, and out of it was made the sensible 
 world. The first birth is that of the Son of God ; the second is 
 the proceeding forth of the seven Spirits ; the third is the con- 
 ceivability of Nature. Nature flows from a double fountain : 
 from the lovely, joyful Essence of God, and from the Wrath- 
 fire which was kindled in the fall of Lucifer ; and hence, in 
 all its parts, it is mixed of good and evil, of heaven and hell. 
 This world has accordingly a threefold birth. By its first or 
 inmost birth it is of one nature and will with the higher 
 heavens, that is, with the kingdoms of Michael and Uriel. By 
 its second birth it is found in the present bipartite or dual 
 life. The third birth is the carrying of it back to the divine 
 unity, as the clear and holy heaven which inqualifies with the 
 heart of God beyond and above all the heavens. The second 
 birth is depicted by Bohnie, under the guidance of the Mosaic 
 record of creation, in prolix and fantastic images, carried on 
 
248 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 till the fourth day, when the creation of the stars gives occasion 
 for unpalatable astrological reveries. Then the author suddenly 
 breaks off with the words : " For the devil thought of making 
 a festive evening therewith, because he saw that the day was 
 therein to dawn." 
 
 The thought that Evil has its ground in God Himself has 
 its first appearance in the writings of a later period. The 
 most important of these are entitled, Description of the TJirce 
 Principles of the Divine Nature (1618) ; Of the Incarnation of 
 Jesus Christ (1620), and High and deep grounds of the threefold 
 Life of Man (1620). The principles expounded in these 
 writings may be summarized as briefly as possible in the 
 following propositions. The first Principle is the wholly 
 universal indeterminate Will, which is therefore called the 
 Unground and Darkness ; but it bears in itself Fierceness, or 
 the longing and desiring after determinate willing. This first 
 Principle being mirrored in its Wisdom, brings forth out of 
 itself, or makes contract into itself, the second Principle, the 
 determinate separated will, the principle of Light. The first 
 Principle then imaginates itself into the second Principle, thus 
 as it were fertilizing and differentiating itself by Light, and 
 then there proceed from it the good powers and effects. That 
 is, to God the Father and God the Son there supervenes the 
 accession of the Holy Spirit to complete the holy threefoldness 
 in the Trinity. The first Principle makes the Angels proceed 
 from itself. These, in like manner, should imaginate into the 
 second Principle, Light. Instead of this, Lucifer turns himself 
 round to the ungrounded principle, to darkness, in order to 
 persist there. Thereby Fire, or Fierceness, instead of being 
 mitigated by Light, is concentrated into itself, and there arises 
 the Satanic Nature, which is wholly evil. At the same time, 
 by the upflaming of Fire and the contracting of the fervid 
 fierceness, the lower earthly Elements arose from the heavenly 
 Elements, and the formation of this earthly World was com- 
 pleted. This is the third principle. Hence the three principles 
 and the three Persons of the Trinity do not now wholly 
 coincide. 
 
JACOB BOHME. 249 
 
 These short and comparatively clear propositions do not 
 yet, however, entirely express Bohme's view. We must 
 therefore follow him somewhat farther, keeping as close as 
 possible to his own words : God is the Being of all beings, 
 and from Him all things take their first beginning. It cannot 
 be properly said of God that in Him there is fire or Sourness, 
 still less that there is air, water, or earth, but that such have 
 arisen from Him. NOT can it be said that death, or hell-fire, 
 or sorrowfulness is in God, but that such have arisen from 
 Him. The devils also have arisen, and therefore we must 
 inquire after the source, or prima materia, of badness ; for, in 
 the primal principle, all is one thing and all is made out of 
 God, out of His Essence, according to the triad. In God, 
 indeed, there is neither beginning nor distinction, but because 
 the ultimate source of wrath and of love has to become dis- 
 closed, and because they are both from one primal principle 
 or mother, and are one thing, we must speak thereof in a 
 creaturely way, as if there was a beginning. All things are of 
 God, but God has created all, not from another matter, but 
 from His own being. Now God is a Spirit, but a spirit does 
 nothing else but rise, bubble up, move itself, and always bring 
 forth itself. It has in its birth primarily three forms in itself, 
 as being bitter, sour, and hot ; of these no one is first or last, 
 but all three are only one, and they all bring forth each the 
 other two. Between bitter and sour, fire brings itself forth, and 
 thus there appear, in the first principle, likewise the four forms 
 or qualities, Sour, Bitter, Fire, and Water. The primal principle 
 of all life and of all movement consists in fierceness or fervent- 
 ness, in accordance with which God calls Himself a fiery, 
 angry, jealous God. In man, when he is angered, his spirit 
 draws into itself ; he thrills with bitterness, and unless it is 
 soon resisted the fire of wrath becomes kindled so that he 
 burns in rage ; and so is it likewise in the primal principle 
 that is the ground of the production of Nature. The first 
 Being is described as sour ; it contracts into itself and becomes 
 a hard, cold Power. On the other hand, bitterness resists and 
 pierces and rubs itself so hard that a flash of lightning flames 
 
250 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 forth in terrible fire. The fire-flash has now become primas, 
 and the matter, which in the primal principle was so hard and 
 terse, has become as if dead and powerless. When, then, the 
 Fire becomes mixed up with the sourness, there arises from 
 the ferventness a terror of great joy, and it flames up like a 
 kindled light. Thus springs up the fifth Fountain, graceful, 
 charming Love, and here there is vain caressing and love- 
 making, as when the bridegroom embraces his bride ; and 
 therefrom is brought forth the sixth form, which is Tone or 
 Mercurius. As with this gracious Love or gentle Fountain 
 the eternal light of God is born, it is the only-begotten Son of 
 the Father. In this great joy, however, the birth can no longer 
 maintain itself, but obtains the seventh form in an unfathom- 
 able multiplication, which is the Paradise or kingdom of God. 
 Further, when the heart or light of God is born in the Father, 
 there arises in the fifth form from the Water-fountain in the 
 light a most lovely, fragrant, savoury spirit, and this is the 
 procession of the Spirit from Father and Son. God now created 
 the Angels that He might rejoice in the creatures, and that the 
 creatures might rejoice with Him. Among the angels, Lucifer 
 was also created from the Eternal Nature ; he saw the birth of 
 the holy Deity, the heart of God and the confirmation of the 
 Spirit, and he was to continue an Angel. But because he saw- 
 that he was a prince in the first Principle, he despised the 
 gentleness of the heart of God, and would not imaginate into 
 that gentleness, but would rather qualify into fire - power. 
 Hence everything vanished from him ; he was spued out from 
 his princely throne, and is now unable to raise his imagination 
 any longer to God, but remains fixed in the four Anxieties of 
 the primal Principle, and therefore God has enclosed him in 
 the third Principle, or this World. 
 
 Bohme has also expressed these thoughts in a less 
 physical garb in the following way: There is an eternal, 
 unfathomable divine Essence, and in its nature there are 
 three persons. The first person is the eternal Will. This 
 Will is not being itself, but the cause of all being. There 
 is nothing before it which constitutes it, but it constitutes 
 
JACOB BOHME. 
 
 251 
 
 itself. A mere will, however, is thin like a nonentity. 
 This causalises the will so that it becomes desireful, and 
 the process of desire is a mode of imagination, as the 
 will beholds itself in the mirror of wisdom. By this 
 Imagination of the will into the eternal wisdom, which 
 is identical with it, there arises the Will's Son, the other 
 person of the Deity, who is born from eternity to eternity as 
 the heart of God, as His Word, as the Eevelation of the Being 
 of all beings, and the Power of the Life of all lives. The third 
 person is the Spirit, which proceeds out of the power of speech, 
 from the grasp of the will by the imagination ; this is the 
 Life of the Deity, a Person other than the Father and the Son. 
 The office of the Spirit is to disclose the wisdom of God. The 
 will of the heart of God laid hold of the sour fiat in the centre 
 of the Nature of the Father ; and as the figures of eternity 
 had been beheld in wisdom, they were now grasped by the fiat 
 in the Will-spirit of God, and were born and created, not from 
 alien matter, but from God's essence, or from the nature and 
 proprium of the Father. Their destination was to imaginate into 
 the nature and property of the Son, and eat of God's love and 
 essentiality in the light of His Majesty ; and they did this 
 with the exception of Lucifer, who turned himself away from 
 the light of love, and wished in the severe fire-nature to rule 
 over God's gentleness and love. He was therefore driven into 
 the eternal Darkness. The expelled spirits then kindled by 
 their imagination the nature of the Essentiality, so that earth 
 and stones were produced from the heavenly Essence, and the 
 gentle spirit of water in the qualification of fire became the 
 burning Firmament. Thereupon ensued the creation of this 
 world as the third Principle, and the devil was shut up in 
 darkness between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of 
 this world. 
 
 The theory of the Principles took a somewhat different form 
 in certain later writings. The most readable of these are 
 entitled, High and deep grounding of Six points (1620); A 
 short explanation of the following Six points ; On the earthly and 
 heavenly Mystery (1620) ; On the Election of Grace ; and Theo- 
 
252 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 sopkic questions (1624). 1 There now appears before the three 
 Principles the wholly indeterminate Unground, which embraces 
 all things and powers, yet on account of its undistinctiveness 
 it is an entirely unqualified unity. From this proceed the two 
 objective principles, the Evil and the Good : the former pro- 
 ceeding first as a consuming fire, as an angry and jealous God ; 
 and the latter second, as a lovable, compassionate God, who 
 neither wills evil nor can will it. The procession of this Love, 
 or its turning itself to the primal Ground, is the Holy Spirit 
 of the divine life. The third Principle lies in the creation of 
 the world; its exemplar or eternal model is the idea of all 
 things, and it has its primal existence in wisdom as the 
 eternal mirrored form of the primary divine principle, or the 
 Mysterium magnum. Both principles co-operate in the creation, 
 and hence good is mixed with evil in all the things in the 
 world ; that is, good and evil are not materially separated, 
 but everything is good or evil according to the centre in which 
 it has its subsistence. 
 
 There is no essence without will, but the will is the father 
 of all essence. And hence God as the ultimate ground of all 
 essences is a will. This first will, however, is an eternal 
 nothing ; it is the unground, or the eternal unity apart from 
 all possibilities and properties. It is without origin in time, 
 and without place and position, yet at the same time it is 
 out of the world and in the world, and deeper than any 
 thought can plunge. This nothing is at the same time a 
 craving after something, and as there is nothing which can 
 give anything, accordingly the craving or the nothing itself 
 must give it, and so it makes something out of nothing. This 
 is the meaning of the Magia or Mysterium magnum. What- 
 ever is something, however, or every particular thing, be it 
 divine or devilish, consists of Yes and No, of divine 
 power and light, and their object. The eternal will of the 
 divine Unground emanates from itself; Unity becomes 
 
 1 Yon sechs Punkten holie und tiefe Griindung, Anno 1620. Eine kurze 
 Erklarung nachfolgender sechs Punkten. Vom irdischen und himmlischen 
 Mysterio, Anno 1620. Von der Gnadenwahl. Theosophische Fragen, Anno 
 1624. 
 
JACOB BOHME. 253 
 
 plurality, and with plurality there, arises also distinction 
 and opposition. The distinguished many are the No ; for, 
 on account of the distinction, the emanated will is an 
 individual will which desires to be a thing of its own, and to 
 distinguish itself from identity or sameness, and which therefore 
 in Desire draws itself inward. The unity, on the other hand, 
 is an emanating Yes, which is insensient in itself and only 
 becomes manifest in the No as its object, and thus it obtains 
 something that it can will. The Nothing wishes to pass 
 out of itself that it may become manifest, and the Something 
 wishes to be in itself that it may be sentient in the Nothing, 
 in order that the unity in it may become sentient. The 
 emanated desiring individual will has several properties : 
 Sharpness, the movement of attraction, the feeling of anxiety, 
 and fire. Accordingly God is called an angry, jealous God, 
 and a consuming fire. Now, as the distinguishable will lays 
 hold of unity, there arises a fifth property in Love, which in 
 fire becomes mobile and desireful, and as a great love-fire it 
 forms the second principle. "We have thus along with the 
 Unground two principles, or two centres in one principle, as 
 two kinds of fire. The Wrath-fire in the emanated will of 
 receivability is a principle of the eternal Nature ; the centre 
 of Love, or the Word of God, is the breathing of the unity of 
 God, the foundation of power. The former is the Father, 
 the latter the Son, and the emanation of the love-breathing 
 of the life of love is the Holy Spirit. The angels were 
 formed out of the essence of both the eternal centres ; their 
 powers are the great emanating names of God, all having 
 sprung from the Yes and been led into the No. The angels 
 are the servants and instruments of God in the guidance of 
 the creatures. Their destiny was to sing in blessed joyful- 
 ness and to play in the divine kingdom of joy. Lucifer fell 
 because, raising himself above his throne, he wished to exist 
 in his own receptivity, to make the No rule over the Yes, 
 and to persist in the Wrath-fire of the first Principle. The 
 will of the ungrounded being has shaped itself from eternity 
 into a form in wisdom as a thing images itself in a mirror, 
 
254 OPPOSITION AL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PKOTESTANTISM. 
 
 and there were thus in this idea the pattern forms of all things 
 which were ever to be created, only without distinction and 
 motion. With the object of giving a revelation of Himself, 
 God has created this external world as the objective repre- 
 sentation of what is inward ; and the spirit of the stars and 
 the elements thus constitutes the third Principle. Both 
 centres have been introduced into the form of the world, so 
 that darkness and light, evil and good, are mixed in all earthly 
 things. 
 
 The other views of Bohme were little affected by this 
 modification of his theory of the Principles. In what follows 
 of our exposition we accordingly found upon all his writings 
 except the Aurora. 
 
 He regards the opinion that God is outside of the world 
 in a particular place, as a widespread but utterly carnal 
 error. Heaven and Hell are not bounded spaces above or 
 below the earth, but every man is in heaven or hell according 
 as he lets the good or the evil, the joyous will of God or the 
 selfish, individual will, rule in himself. God is and works in 
 and through us as in all things and through all things, only 
 everywhere by different powers and qualities. He also holds 
 that the opinion is erroneous that represents God, the three- 
 fold, as having first reflected as to how it was to be in and 
 with the world, and that He has in His decrees set up for 
 the creation immutable laws from without. God works in 
 the world as the sap does in the tree. Our carnal reason is 
 indeed blind, and incapable of exploring the mysteries of God 
 and of Nature ; but if we have experienced in ourselves the 
 new birth from Christ, the eyes of our spirit are opened, so 
 that in the contemplation of our Ego, of God, and the world, 
 men can know and understand what the divine Spirit has 
 been gracious enough to communicate to them through His 
 weak instrument, Jacob Bohme. When Lucifer had fallen, 
 God created nlan in order to fill up the gap that arose. He 
 created him in His own image, so that he might participate in 
 the three Principles. The body was indeed formed out of 
 the earthly matter of this world, but God breathed into it the 
 
JACOB BOHME. 255 
 
 true soul of all the three Principles in the temperament : the 
 true creaturely Fire-soul, from which God is called a jealous 
 God and a consuming fire ; the Light- world, as the kingdom 
 of the power of God ; and the Air-soul as the spiritus mundi. 
 Thus created, Adam was put into Paradise, that is, into the 
 constitution of the divine world of light that was innate in 
 him ; and in this world he was to remain. And, as every 
 life must be nourished with the food that is related to it, 
 God made a number of trees of Paradise to grow of whose 
 fruit Adam was to eat, but only with his mouth as a spiritual 
 nourishment of the divine life of light. Among them stood 
 a tree with earthly elemental fruit of which Adam was for- 
 bidden to eat. Because all the three Principles were in him, 
 each of them wished to rule over him ; his soul stood there- 
 fore between the two opposite centres of fire and light; and, 
 according to God's will, its destination was to direct its 
 imagination upon the light. But man inclined himself to 
 the spirit of this world, and thereby he became bad. Hence 
 he fell into sleep, which was alien to him by his original 
 nature. During the sleep, the Tincture, or the living spiritual 
 form, which is conceived as a medium between the merely 
 ideal being in the divine wisdom and the actual reality, and 
 which is called the Holy Virgin, then gathered itself 
 together and vanished into the heavens. Man was thereby 
 changed, and in order that he might not be completely 
 destroyed by the enjoyment of elemental fruit, God created 
 Eve from the sleeping Adam, who till then had been andro- 
 gynous. Now for the first time did men eat of the for- 
 bidden fruit ; and thereby they fell completely under the 
 influence of the earthly, and were driven out of Paradise. 
 Yet they received even then the consoling prophecy of the 
 serpent " bruiser " Christ. 
 
 God is not, as reason represents Him to us, an unmerciful 
 Being, who damns man to death on account of his dis- 
 obedience, but His will is that the sinner be converted and 
 live. For this end the Second Principle, the Light-Life or 
 the Heart and the Son of God, must become man in order to 
 
256 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 kindle again the nature that was shut up in death, with the 
 brightness of light. Already in the ideal world Christ as 
 the future Eedeemer had on this account embodied Himself 
 in the form of eternity, and in Him God has elected the 
 human race. After jthe Fall, the word of the promise, that 
 the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent, 
 was made good to the woman, thereby the holy voice went 
 out of God into the woman's deadened heavenly nature in 
 order to overpower the kindled wrath of God with the 
 highest divine love. By this voice the poor soul again 
 obtained divine life, and it was propagated as a covenant of 
 grace from man to man. In this way all men have part in 
 the word of promise and in the eternal light in Christ. 
 Nevertheless, mankind divided soon into two kingdoms, the 
 one of which turned itself more to the light and the other 
 more to the darkness. From their founders they are called 
 the Church of Abel and the Church of Cain. Eve, entangled 
 in carnal desire, hoped for an earthly kingdom, and therefore 
 believed that she had already brought forth the Bruiser of 
 the serpent in Cain ; but Cain sprang only from the selfhood 
 of the Adamic soul by carnal pleasure, whereas Abel sprang 
 from the divine desire that was produced by the inner Word 
 of God. That Abel was slain by Cain is a type of the fact 
 that Christ was to suffer death for men. Abel's place was 
 filled up by Seth, in whose race Christ was to reveal Him- 
 self in the flesh. Cain's race, on the other hand, turned 
 themselves to earthly arts. After the flood, the three 
 Principles appeared in the Sons of Noah. Shem being a 
 figure of the Light-world, Japhet a figure of the Fire-world, 
 and Ham a figure of the Outer-world. Similar representa- 
 tions of the opposition of light and darkness, of good and 
 evil, are found in Isaac and Ishmael as well as in Jacob and 
 Esau. This opposition, however, is not so extreme as that 
 the Jews alone should have part in the divine light, and 
 that the heathen should walk wholly in darkness ; but as 
 Adam proceeded from the one God into his carnal ignorance, 
 so does grace also come out of the same one God and is 
 
JACOB BOHME. 257 
 
 offered to all ignorant ones, to heathens as well as to Jews. 
 In the covenant which God concluded with Abraham the 
 heathen do not indeed share, but they certainly share in the 
 first covenant of the word uttered in grace. Paul can there- 
 fore say that God has called and chosen the heathen also in 
 the covenant of Christ ; for the purpose of grace which had 
 embodied itself in Paradise after the fall, the Promise lay in 
 them, and after this God calls them His love. The error of 
 the heathen is that they fell away from the only God to the 
 magic birth of Nature, and chose for themselves idol-gods 
 out of the powers of Nature, and that they honoured the 
 stars and the -four elements because these govern all things. 
 Those heathen, however, who from the itch of corruption 
 passed out into the light of Nature because they did not 
 know God, yet have there lived in purity, have not merely 
 discovered great wonders of wisdom, but at the restoration of 
 all beings they will also dwell in the tents of Shem. Even 
 in the Church of Abel, the kingdom of light, Christ could not 
 immediately appear in the flesh because of the universal 
 corruption. The saints of God, however, or the prophets, 
 prophesied out of the goal of the covenant, out of the 
 promised word which was again to move in the flesh. The 
 law of sacrifice is likewise nothing else than a type of the 
 humanity of Christ. What Christ did as man, when with 
 His love He reconciled the divine wrath, was realized also 
 in the sacrifices with the blood of beasts. God's Imagination 
 looked upon the blood of beasts, with which Israel sacrificed 
 through the medium of the goal of His covenant. Not as if 
 the sacrifice produced salvation without faith, but man must 
 die to the false selfhood, and turn himself with his desire to 
 God. This is indicated by the sacrifice. The fire of the 
 divine wrath of God consumed the impure substance of the 
 animal flesh, and when the Jews ate the flesh of the sacrifice 
 they ate the flesh of Christ and drank His blood in pre- 
 figure or type. 
 
 The Son of God entered into humanity completely and 
 really in the person of Christ. God was not thereby changed. 
 
 VOL. I. K 
 
258 OPPOSITIONS MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 " Certainly He has become what He was not before, but He 
 Himself has at the same time remained what and how He 
 was." The Word of God has a threefold formation : the first 
 being from eternity in the Father, a second person in the 
 Holy Trinity ; the second being assumed in the hour of the 
 salutation when Mary said to the angel, Be it to me according 
 to thy word ; and at the same moment there was assumed 
 the third form, even as if there were sown an earthly seed 
 from which a child grows. Christ is a true human creature, 
 and has also received a true human soul from Mary. Mary, 
 although in the outer flesh truly the daughter of Joachim and 
 Anna, was, by the will, the daughter of the covenant of pro- 
 mise, or the goal to which the covenant pointed, and in which 
 it was fulfilled. Hence the pure heavenly Virgin was 
 embodied in Mary ; the soul of Mary having laid hold of the 
 heavenly Virgin, and the heavenly Virgin having put on the 
 soul of Mary, as the heavenly pure vesture of the holy element 
 of a new regenerate man. Thus did Mary become the blessed 
 among women ; in her did the true nature of humanity, which 
 had died in Adam and been shut up, become again alive. 
 Christ received the earthly essences from Mary in entirely the 
 same way as every child does from its mother. He has 
 therefore all the three Principles in Himself, but in the 
 divine order and not mixed through one another; and by 
 this is explained the fact that Christ remained completely free 
 from sin. The human essences have not, however, laid hold of 
 the eternal Godhead ; nay, even the Soul and the Word are not 
 one being, but they only permeate each other, as do the 
 quality of the iron and that of the fire in the glowing iron. 
 On the other side, the union of the divine and human in the 
 person of Christ is regarded as so close, that even the 
 corporeality of Christ was all present in it. Christ has not 
 become man in the Virgin only, as if His deity sat cooped up 
 there, but Christ's corporeality is the whole fulness of the 
 heavens, which in the person is creaturely, yet lives outside of 
 the creature ; but both in one spirit and one power, and not 
 as two. 
 
JACOB BOHME. 259 
 
 The purpose of the Incarnation is to bring back man, who 
 owing to the Fall has let the spirit of this world rule in him- 
 self, to communion with God by a complete new creation 
 through the implanting of the Principle of Light. Bohme 
 expressly rejects as erroneous the view that this effect might 
 have been attained had God remained in heaven and only 
 looked upon mankind with love, as it were clothing every 
 individual with the heavenly Virgin or the pure nature of 
 man. The eternal word and heart of God must enter into 
 human flesh and into the death of the poor soul, in order to 
 take away from the flesh its power, to draw out the fierce 
 sting of hell, and to lead the soul up from death and hell. 
 The conquest of the devil and the power of death began with 
 the forty days' temptation of Christ in the wilderness. The 
 devil sought, but in vain, to excite in Christ the desire of 
 earthly bread, the spirit of pride, and the lust of universal 
 empire. The complete transmutation of the earthly being 
 into the heavenly was only possible by the Son being 
 obedient to the angry Father, even to the death on the cross. 
 The human Fire-life stands in blood, and therein does the 
 wrath of God rule ; there must therefore come another blood 
 born out of God's nature of love into the angry human blood. 
 Both of these united with one another must enter into the 
 fierceness of death, and thus the fierce wrath of God must be 
 quenched in the divine blood. The outer humanity in Christ 
 must therefore die, in order that the egoism in mankind 
 should cease, that the Spirit of God may be all in all, and 
 that egoism may be only His instrument, all living in self- 
 renunciation. The Form of love itself also gave itself up to 
 the horror of dying in order that out of Christ's dying and 
 death the eternal divine sun might arise in human quality. 
 When Christ died, He did not throw away the earthly body, 
 the quality of this world, and put on the incorruptible in 
 order that this body might live in divine power and not in 
 the Spirit of this world. Nor did the soul of Christ, when 
 released from the body, descend into hell in order to overcome 
 the devil; but when Christ laid away the -kingdom of this 
 
260 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 world from Himself, His soul penetrated into death and the 
 wrath of God, and thus wrath became reconciled in love. 
 Thus devils and all godless souls in wrath were taken captive 
 in themselves, and death was broken to pieces. But life 
 budded forth through death. 
 
 The question now obtrudes itself as to how we can become 
 participative of the new life in Christ. It is an error to hold 
 that God has from eternity destined some to blessedness and 
 others to damnation. Man is free, and can by the decision of 
 his own will choose life or death. When man has once 
 fallen he is not able to convert himself, yet he retains from 
 his origin out of the eternal scientia of the unground the 
 power to plunge into the Ground in which God brings forth 
 His word, and the soul may here be laid hold of by the grace 
 of God. This transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit 
 which works immediately in the heart, enlightening and 
 bringing it forth anew. As an external assistance, God has 
 given us His Word and the sacraments. In baptism, man 
 gives up his Adamic will to the death of Christ and desires 
 to die to his own will in the death of Christ, to rise again by 
 Christ's resurrection in a new will, and so to live and to will 
 with Christ. In the Lord's Supper the divine nature of the 
 Lord does not mingle with bread and wine, nor does Christ 
 unite Himself by His flesh and blood to the coarse carnal 
 flesh and blood of man, but by the Tincture or the heavenly 
 paradisaic power of bread and wine, Christ infuses His 
 heavenly flesh and blood into the life of man. The mere use 
 of these sacraments has as little value as the external word 
 alone has. It is not enough to go to sermon and to know the 
 lettered word. It does not make me a child of God to hold 
 it to be true that Christ died for me and rose from the dead ; 
 the devil, too, knows that, and it does not profit him. Hence 
 we ought not to wrangle and contend about mere external 
 knowledge of the word and the doctrines of religion, nor be 
 proud of that knowledge. For a Christian who cherishes an 
 ungodly will is just as much out of God as a heathen who 
 has no desire of God. And a heathen may be saved even 
 

 JACOB BOHME. 261 
 
 without the science of the kingdom of Christ if he turns to 
 the living God, and, in true confidence, gives himself up to 
 God's will. It is not on the external church of stone and 
 lime or on the word that we should depend, for learned science 
 and historical faith in the latter profit nothing. Further, the 
 forgiveness of sin is not to be thought of as taking place by 
 God putting Himself in motion on account of each individual, 
 and throwing away sin from him. God has put Himself in 
 motion from eternity only twice, for the creation of the 
 world and the incarnation of Christ, and the Scriptures say 
 that our works do follow us. By forgiveness of sin nothing 
 is therefore taken from us, nor does God come down from 
 heaven to us, but our soul is gone out from God, out of the 
 holy will of His majesty, into wrath ; and as Christ has now 
 made a way through death and wrath to the majesty of God, 
 we must turn round and enter by the wrath into the majesty. 
 The atonement has indeed taken place once for all in Christ's 
 blood and death ; but that which took place once in Christ 
 must, by the shedding of Christ's blood, take place also in me. 
 Christ has truly broken down death for us and in us, and 
 made us a way unto God ; but what does it profit me that I 
 take comfort from it and learn to know it as such, yet 
 continue shut up in dark wrath, and am bound in the chains 
 of the devil. I must enter into this way and walk in this 
 path, as a pilgrim who marches out of death into life. 
 Eegeneration is therefore realized in these two points : 
 negatively, in the mortification of the flesh and of selfish- 
 ness ; and positively, in the reception of the divine life in 
 Christ. The corrupt earthly will must die through real right 
 repentance, and enter into renunciation, into nothingness, by 
 giving up the will of the reason entirely unto death ; and it 
 must no longer will or know itself, but depend on the mercy 
 of God. For as God says, speaking through the prophet: 
 " My heart breaks, so that I must be merciful to him." In 
 this mercy of God the new man arises and grows up in the 
 kingdom of heaven and Paradise, although the earthly body 
 is in this world. Our walk and conversation, says the 
 
262 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 apostle, is in heaven, so that the new man walks in heaven, 
 but the old man in this world ; for the heaven in which God 
 dwells is in the new man. Then does the creature give up 
 its own selfwill, and sinks into the Nothing from which it 
 arose. The Something stands in torment if it has not its joy 
 in this, that the life of the Nothing may dwell in the work of 
 the Something. The means of regeneration is faith, but it is 
 not a thought or admission of history, it is a process of draw- 
 ing out of God's nature, it is the introducing of God's nature 
 by the imagination into the fire of one's soul, and putting on 
 God's nature as a body of the soul In the present life the 
 struggle between the good and bad principle continues to 
 go on even in the regenerate, and it is only under a continual 
 severe struggle that we can advance in holiness. In the 
 other world, the soul is either in light or in darkness. There 
 is thus realized a complete separation of the good and the 
 bad ; the former enjoy a blessed union with God, the latter 
 are eternally damned. 
 
 In his lifetime Bohme found many adherents, especially 
 among the noble families of Silesia and Saxony, that were 
 attached to the views of Schwenkfeldt, as well as among 
 the physicians, who were acquainted with the doctrines of 
 Paracelsus. Dr. Balthasar Walther and Abraham von 
 Frankenberg (j- 1652) of Ludwigsdorf may be mentioned. 
 Of the writings of Bonnie only two small treatises were 
 printed before his death, but his works were afterwards 
 published in Holland. They were reproduced in numerous 
 editions, and obtained a wide circulation. Bohme's views 
 thus penetrated into wide circles ; but as the fanatical element 
 gained ground, we find few who developed in any way the 
 profound and permanently valuable thoughts of their master. 
 Johann Koth intensified the dissatisfaction felt regarding the 
 corruption of the age ; he emphasized the demand that every 
 preacher must be born again and have the Holy Spirit, and 
 even increased the millenarian hopes by demanding of his 
 adherents that they should eradicate the godless by force, and 
 
JACOB BOHME. 263 
 
 set up the kingdom of God upon earth. He was kept a 
 prisoner in Holland from 1676 to 1691, but found a place 
 of refuge at Friederichstadt. Quirinus Kuhlmann, bom at 
 Breslau in 1651, and burned at Moscow in 1689 for his 
 perverse opinions, gave up his study of law because he was 
 prevented by the inner light that rose within him from 
 soiling himself with the antichristian degree of Doctor of 
 Law, and he worked thereafter for the spread of Bohme's 
 writings and views. Friederich Breckling (16291711), 
 pastor at Zwoll, exercised considerable influence upon the 
 best-known follower of Bohme, Job. Georg Gichtel (1638- 
 1710). The external work of the Scriptures falls, in his 
 view, completely below the knowledge that unfolded itself 
 within his own mind. " The gifts and powers of God lie all 
 hidden in the soul, like the seed in a field, and all that is 
 required, is that we dig with earnest prayer after it and 
 awaken it." God is represented in the Scriptures at one 
 time as an angry God, and at another as love ; but in God 
 Himself the two principles are one, and God in Himself is 
 neither good nor bad. It was by the fall of Liicifer that 
 this harmony was first destroyed, and that the strife of the 
 two principles began. The whole of history is an uninterrupted 
 conflict between them ; man must die to his own will, and, 
 in rest resigned to God, he must enter into the divine will. 
 Christ, or the holy wisdom, is then born in us, and gradually 
 drives out all darkness till the whole man is transformed in 
 body, soul, and spirit into a holy flame of love. In order not 
 to hinder this union, it is advisable to avoid the carnal 
 conjunction of marriage. The idea of a Melchisedekian 
 priesthood is specially adopted. Whoever has entered into 
 close communion with God continues to participate in the 
 work of redemption, as He offers up His life for the brethren 
 in order that God's wrath may be appeased in them. The 
 millenarian hopes again come strongly into the foreground in 
 Gichtel's views. After a changeful career, Gichtel lived from 
 1668 in Amsterdam in complete retirement. He gathered 
 around him a community of adherents, called " Angel-brothers," 
 
264 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 who afterwards spread widely, especially in the north of 
 Germany. Ueberfeld (fl732) is to be regarded as their head. 
 Christian Hoburg (1607-1675) likewise demanded inner 
 illumination by the immediate inspiration of the Holy Spirit, 
 instead of the external word of the Scripture and the worldly 
 learning of the Universities. Instead of the external imputa- 
 tion of the merit of Christ as a "gunnel and plaster over 
 all the stinking sin-sores of the unrepenting children of the 
 world," he desiderates the inward transformation and the 
 essential renovation of the man himself ; in place of incessant 
 controversies about doctrine, he will have earnest striving 
 after the true Christ in us. Angelus Silesius or Job. 
 Scheffler (1627-1677), who passed over to Catholicism, was 
 quickened by Bohme. He is well known as one of our best 
 hymn writers, and in his " Spiritual Shepherd Songs " 
 (G-eistliche Hirtenlieder) he has fondly invested the thought of 
 becoming completely one with Christ in the image of Christ 
 as the bridegroom of the soul. His mystical system has been 
 expounded in his "Cherubiuic Wanderer" (Cherulinischer 
 Wandersmann) in deeply moving language, and it diverges 
 from the kindred writings of the time by giving strong 
 expression to the thought that God first attains a distinctive 
 self-conscious existence in man. 
 
 " I know that without me God cannot live for a moment, 
 And should I perish, He must needs give up the ghost." 
 
 In England, Bohme's writings and views became also 
 disseminated ; and this was largely due to King Charles I., 
 who, after he had read in 1646 the "Forty Questions of the 
 Soul," exclaimed, " God be praised that there are still men 
 who are able, from experience, to give a living testimony to 
 God and to God's word ! " Of Bohme's writings there 
 appeared three English translations, one after another. 1 John 
 Pordage (t 1698) and Joanna Leade (t 1704) were led to 
 attach themselves to him, and the celebrated Henry More 
 (t 1687), professor at Cambridge, in his Philosophies Teutonics 
 
 1 [By Sparrow, Edward Taylor, and William Law (1764), the last being con- 
 sidered the best. T.K.] 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM AND IRVINGISM. 265 
 
 Censura, instead of the desired refutation of Bohme's views, 
 gave a comparatively undisguised recommendation of them. 
 Jean Leade became the centre of the followers of Bohme, and 
 in 1695 they attempted, under the name of the Philadelphian 
 Society, to establish a union of all the really regenerate of all 
 the churches and sects. 
 
 This may be the most suitable place for referring, in a few 
 words, to Swederiborgianism ; not as if it were to be regarded 
 as a product of Bohme's views, but on account of the affinity 
 of its fundamental characteristics with these views. The 
 dualism of Swedenborg (1689-1772) should not, in my 
 opinion, be referred to the influence of Cartesianism. It 
 rather presents the fundamental character of Mysticism in 
 the mode in which it immediately plunges into the Divine, 
 which is clothed by a sensuous phantasy in the strong colours 
 of a tangible materiality. Swedenborg receives his wisdom 
 by visions. In 1740, on the first occasion, there appeared to 
 him by night a Form clothed in purple and gleaming in light, 
 and it spake, " I am God the Lord, the Creator and Eedeemer, 
 and I have chosen thee to explain to men the inner spiritual 
 meaning of the Scriptures, and I will declare to thee what 
 thou art to write." Thereby the eyes of his inner man were 
 opened, and while his body walked among men his spirit 
 dwelled in the upper world, conversed with the spirits in 
 heaven and hell, and received instructions from them. The 
 purpose of this revelation was to found a new Church. 
 There were in fact four Churches : the first with immediate 
 revelation comes down to the flood ; the second with revelation 
 by " Correspondences " prevails in Asia and a part of Africa, 
 and is sunk in idolatry ; the third or Jewish receives revela- 
 tions by the Spoken Word ; the fourth or Christian by the 
 Written Word. This fourth Church again passes through four 
 periods, beginning respectively with its first institution ; with 
 the Council of Mcea, in which the errors of the Trinity and 
 of justification were established ; with the Eeformation, when 
 the light broke in but did not spread universally; and with 
 
266 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PEOTESTANTISM. 
 
 Swedenborg, who was to pave the way for the establishment of 
 the new Jerusalem promised in the Apocalypse. The doctrines 
 of the Trinity and of satisfaction are the two grave errors of 
 the Church. The triad of divine persons leads necessarily to 
 three Gods, notwithstanding the oral confession that God is 
 one. There is indeed a certain triunity to be recognised in 
 the Deity, namely, the unity of the first, middle, and last 
 being, or of final end, cause, and effect, or of being, becoming, 
 and existence. This true triunity is a pearl of the greatest 
 price ; by it alone do we obtain the true conception of 
 God. This triunity is first realized in the divine human 
 person of Jesus Christ. As in man soul, body, and work- 
 ing are one, so in Him there are the Father as the primal 
 Divine, the Son as the Divine human, and the Holy Spirit as 
 the processional Divine. There are accordingly three mani- 
 festations of the Deity, as creating the world in the Father, 
 as redeeming in the Son, and as sanctifying in the Spirit. 
 The redemption has a universal cosmical significance. God, 
 as substance, has likewise a form, and it is the human form ; 
 He has thus a heavenly corporeality. God created the world 
 out of His wisdom and goodness, and He enters into all 
 things, especially into men, by His powers, according to the 
 measure of their knowledge and love. Man belongs by his 
 body to the natural world, and by his spirit to the spiritual 
 world. The universe is accordingly divided into the natural 
 and spiritual worlds. These two worlds stand towards each 
 other in an entirely exact relation of Correspondence, so that 
 there is nothing in the natural world which is not also in the 
 spiritual world. As the upper world is divided into heaven, 
 an intermediate kingdom, and hell, so in like mariner the 
 lower world is divided according to the different degrees of 
 the good. Death is the transition from the one world to the 
 other ; for the spiritual world is only populated by the souls 
 of the departed, who enter there into exactly the same rela- 
 tions as they have left here, only somewhat spiritualized. 
 Hell had, in the course of time, widely extended its domain. 
 In order to repress it, God became man, a wider substantial 
 
SWEDENBORGIANISM AND IRVINGISM. 267 
 
 communication of God to humanity. We come to participate 
 in this communication of God by regeneration, a new creation 
 which is alone produced by God through the two means of 
 active love and faith. . Faith takes its stand upon the word 
 of Scripture. This word has been dictated by God Himself ; 
 but, because it was adapted to the wants of men, it has been 
 written in the prefigurative form of the things of this world. 
 The Scripture has therefore a double meaning, a natural 
 meaning and a spiritual meaning; and, by means of the 
 Correspondences, the former is transposed into the latter, for 
 the word is written in pure Correspondences. After the 
 spiritual sense had been entirely lost, Swedenborg was raised in 
 ecstasy to heaven in order that, by instruction received there, he 
 might open up to men this true spiritual Sense. With the com- 
 pletion of his principal work, the Vera Religio Christiana, on the 
 19th June 1770, the New Church, called the New Jerusalem, 
 began, and it is represented as the crown of all the Churches. 
 
 The system that took its rise from Edward Irving, and 
 which has been known since about 1825 as Irvingism, may 
 also be mentioned here. Its fundamental principle is the 
 expectation of the early reappearance of Christ. The 
 apostolic gifts of speaking with tongues and of prophesying 
 were renewed in order to separate a community from the 
 corruption of the Church, and this community is united in 
 absolute holiness with Christ, its holy and perfect head. The 
 offices of the apostolic age were also introduced again. In 
 doctrine, the only peculiar point in the system is that the 
 human nature of Christ is strongly emphasized. By His 
 being born of a woman, Christ was subjected in all points 
 to the relations and conditions of fallen human nature. He 
 was also tempted internally and externally like us ; He was 
 internally assailed by impure thoughts and impulses, yet He 
 was without actual Sin. He also fell under the power of 
 death as a man, and it was not till the resurrection that He 
 received another flesh, and was exalted to be the perfect 
 Priest of God and the Head of His Church. 
 
268 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE PRACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 
 
 There are certain manifestations of Eeligion which are 
 completely at one with Mysticism in emphasizing the internal 
 experience of Christianity instead of external acceptance of 
 the ecclesiastical doctrines, but which, at the same time, are 
 specifically distinguished from it by bringing into the fore- 
 ground the actual verification of the inner life in working 
 for the improvement of the individual and the perfection of 
 the world, instead of the idle revelling of feeling in the 
 inner vision of God. These forms of the religious life hold 
 fast by historical Christianity and the external word, but 
 they aim at completing the reformation of the sixteenth 
 century by adding a reform of the Christian life to its reform 
 of doctrine. We may designate it in this relation as the 
 " practical " Opposition, without overlooking the fact that its 
 ultimate roots are frequently found in views that are more 
 related to mysticism. The examination of this movement in 
 detail would not furnish much result for our special subject 
 of investigation, yet it cannot be passed over entirely. 
 
 It must be remarked, however, at the outset, that the 
 doctrine of the Eeformed Churches insisted strongly upon 
 sanctification as furnishing the assurance of election and 
 justification ; and where Calvin's influence was of authority, 
 the whole life of the Church was regulated in so strict a 
 spirit that the efforts we allude to did not arise in this sphere 
 as an Opposition. In England, where the Eeformation by 
 Henry VIII. was purely external, the tendency towards an 
 inward Christianity and a practical piety expressed itself in 
 Puritanism}- Its share in the political revolutions of England 
 is well known. Its most distinguished scientific representa- 
 tives were William Perkins, professor at Cambridge (t 1602), 
 
 1 H. Heppe, Geschichte des Pietismus mid der Mystik in der Reformirten 
 Kirclie, namentlich der Niederlande, Leiden 1879. 
 
THE PRACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 269 
 
 Thomas Hooker (1586-1647), and Thomas Goodwin 
 (1600-1679). The Puritans aimed at shaping the life of 
 the individual Christian according to God's Word. For the 
 true faith does not consist in holding the ecclesiastical doctrine 
 as true, or as that in which there is nothing needing to be 
 altered, but it is the inner certainty of peace with God and 
 union with Christ. The regenerate man is completely in- 
 capable of doing the works of the former life ; rather must he 
 strictly order his whole external life according to the demands 
 of Scripture ; and thus does the regenerate soul enter into a 
 union with Christ that is closer than the union of the body 
 and the soul. 
 
 The Netherlands, in consequence of their political relations 
 in the age of the Eeformation, became the country in which 
 all anti-Catholic movements found toleration. Here Cornhert 
 (1522-1590), .secretary of the city of Haarlem, an adherent 
 of " the true religion which is Christian love," declared it to 
 be his motto " that Christianity does not consist in the lip, 
 but in the life ; it is in the walk, not in the talk." l He also 
 designated the persecution of heretics as a crime in the king- 
 dom of God, for God enjoins us not only to understand the 
 good, but to do it, and the end of Christ's suffering and dying 
 is that we may become divine in Him by His active obedi- 
 ence in us. The controversy between the Arminians and the 
 Gomarists regarding predestination, with which were connected 
 the questions as to the relation of the Church to the power 
 of the State, and the authority of the written creeds, has also 
 a bearing upon our subject. For the representatives of pre- 
 destination always zealously repudiated the position that this 
 doctrine is dangerous to the striving after holiness ; and at 
 the same time their opponents, and especially Arminius him- 
 self (15601609), maintained the universality of divine grace 
 in connection with the requirement of an active verification of 
 Christianity. Arminianism is, however, not to be regarded 
 as an opposition to an already existing formation in the 
 
 1 " Dat het Christendom niet en bestaat in den mondt mar in den grondt, in 
 cle daadt, niet in de praat." 
 
270 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Church of the Netherlands, rather might the victory of the 
 Gomarists at the Synod of Dort (16181619) be regarded as 
 the introduction of a more rigid form of Calvinism than had 
 hitherto prevailed. At the time when the bitterest hate 
 divided the Gomarists and Arminians, and the interest in pure 
 doctrine absorbed everything else, there arose among the 
 Gomarists in William Tellinck (1579-1629), a preacher at 
 Middleburg, a powerful expounder of the inner Christianity 
 and of the maintenance of godliness in active life. Holding 
 decidedly by the doctrine of the Eeformed Church, and em- 
 phasizing the sole authority of the external word in opposition 
 to all enthusiasm, he, however, does not regard faith as the 
 mere holding of a thing to be true. Love is connected with 
 it in the closest way; it leads to inward fellowship with 
 Christ, and makes itself active in the mortification of the 
 natural man and progressive holiness of life. Among the 
 adherents of this movement we may here name Gisbert 
 Voetius (1585-1676), Professor and Preacher at Utrecht, 
 " who was the most conspicuous of the teachers of the power 
 of godliness." On his entering upon his office as an academic 
 teacher, he delivered a discourse, entitled De Pietate cum 
 Scientia Conjungenda (1634). He says that the only one who 
 really studies theology is he who does so with piety, and 
 therefore the students should begin and end every day with 
 God ; they should exercise themselves daily in the study of the 
 holy Scripture, in prayer, and other exercises of devotion, and 
 they should also daily turn themselves in earnest repentance 
 to God. Voet likewise delivered lectures on Ascetic Theology, 
 which led to his book, entitled ra 'AaKrjTi/cd s. exercitia 
 pietatis (1664), a collection of the utterances of Catholic as 
 well as Protestant theologians regarding " the practice of faith." 
 Coccejus (16031669), Professor at Leyden, who excited so 
 violent a storm in the Eeformed Church of the Netherlands, 
 reminds us of Pietism by his assertion that it is only the 
 believer who is a true theologian. But Pietism cannot be 
 regarded as peculiarly his own view any more than the Federal 
 Theology he expounded, which had been long anticipated. In 
 
THE PEACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 271 
 
 opposition to the ecclesiastical scholasticism which asserted 
 the supreme authority of the Scriptures in words, yet lowered 
 it by an interpretation regulated according to the ecclesiastical 
 doctrine, Coccejus aimed at developing the doctrine of the 
 Church by an unbiassed and profound assimilation of the spirit 
 of the Scriptures. Among the Coccejans there soon arose an 
 opposition, dividing them into the " Free," who specially 
 emphasized the knowledge of the Christian doctrine, and the 
 " Earnest," who demanded a practical and living Christianity. 
 At the head of the latter class stood Friederich Adolph Lampe 
 (1683-1729). The Eeformed Church in Switzerland was 
 also affected by these movements when the representatives of 
 the German Pietism extended their efforts to that country. 
 But on the whole the Lutheran Church of Germany was the 
 natural soil of what is properly called " Pietism." 
 
 Among its representatives Theobald Thamer (t 1569) stands 
 nearest in time to the Eeformation. 1 When an Army Chap- 
 lain, during the Schmalkald War, he learned by sad experience 
 that the new doctrine had not improved the morals of the 
 time. His views were met by the assertion that man was 
 wholly incapable of good, and that he could be justified by 
 faith alone. This gave occasion for the formation of Thamer's 
 peculiar doctrine. He held that man is justified by faith, but 
 not without works of love ; and that original sin only consists 
 in the want of understanding and weakness of the body. The 
 historical Christ has only value as doctrine and example, 
 whereas the true Son of God is virtue. This virtue is also 
 our reconciler ; for it is only by virtue that we can be recon- 
 ciled with God, and the doctrine of satisfaction by the death 
 of Christ is to be rejected. This virtue requires a certain 
 necessary power along with the knowledge of it, and we obtain 
 both by the indwelling power of God. The habit of holding 
 by the letter of Scripture and of the symbolical books is irre- 
 ligious. " The Jews have the Talmud, the Turks the Koran, 
 the Papists the Jus Canonicum, the Lutherans the Augsburg 
 
 1 Neander, Theobald Thamer, Berlin 1872. Hochmuth, Zeitschrift fiir histo- 
 rische Theologie, 1861. 
 
272 OPPOSITION AL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 Confession, where then is the Gospel?" There are three 
 witnesses of the truth : Conscience, Nature, and Scripture. 
 The most important is the Conscience, which is the Deity 
 Himself, and Christ dwelling in the heart and understanding, 
 and judging what is good and bad. From the contemplation 
 of Nature we can also draw the knowledge of God. Out of 
 the abundance of His goodness God has also given, as a third 
 witness, the Scripture, which, however, on the whole only 
 brings to remembrance and refers to these two witnesses. 
 The Lutherans, on the other hand, depend on a carnal notion 
 of inspiration. They think of the matter not otherwise than 
 as if God were sitting at hand with a grey beard, such as the 
 painters paint Him on the wall, and as if He laid hold of a 
 word with His hand, and laid it upon the tongue of a prophet. 
 Instead of this, it is to be maintained, not that a thing is true 
 because it stands in the Scriptures, but that it stands in the 
 Scriptures because it is true. 
 
 Johann Arndt (1555-1621), Court Preacher and General 
 Superintendent of the Church at Celle, obtained the most 
 important influence among the Pietists, especially by his 
 " Books of the True Christianity " (Bilcher des wahren Christen- 
 thums). In the godless and unrepentant life of those who 
 make a boast of Christ and His word with a full mouth, and 
 yet lead an entirely unchristian life, Arndt sees a great and 
 shameful abuse of the gospel. Therefore will he show to the 
 simple in soul that " the true Christianity consists in the 
 evincing of true, living, active faith by upright godliness and 
 the fruits of righteousness. So then we are to be named by 
 the name of Christ, in order that we may not only have faith 
 in Christ, but also live in Christ and Christ in us. So must 
 true repentance arise from the inmost principle of the heart ; 
 and the heart, the mind, and the soul must be changed, so 
 that we shall become conformed to Christ and His holy gospel" 
 His own living piety urges him to impress practical Chris- 
 tianity on his readers in this incisive popular language. His 
 work appeared in many editions, and was eagerly read, but 
 among the theologians it found almost nothing but opposition, 
 
THE PKACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 273 
 
 J. Gerhard t is the only one who praises it. A preacher of 
 Danzic declared that " he did not wish, after his death, to 
 come to where Arndt had gone ; " and Lukas Osiander of 
 Tubingen, in 1624, called it a "book of hell," which was 
 affected by no less than eight grave heresies. 
 
 Among Arndt's contemporaries and followers who shared 
 his views, mention ought specially to be made of Johann 
 Valentin Andrese (15861654), a grandson of Jacob Andrese, 
 who was celebrated in connection with the composition of the 
 Formula Consensus. Dissatisfied with the scholastic theology 
 and the confessional feuds of his time, Valentin Andrese 
 devoted the energy of his life to the composition of a series 
 of spiritual writings, and in various offices of the Church of 
 his country, to preaching that Christ of whom his heart was 
 full, and whose love constrained him to verify the faith of his 
 heart in genuine morality and virtuous conduct. Joachim 
 Betkins (t 1663) laments that Christianity had become an 
 antichristianity, because the mode of life was entirely unchris- 
 tian. For this the many unconverted preachers were to blame, 
 for an unconverted preacher cannot possibly bring a sinner to 
 repentance and faith. The importance laid on justification 
 brought it about that holiness and the true imitation of Christ 
 were but too frequently forgotten. In the seventeenth cen- 
 tury the University of Eostock was the nursery of practical 
 piety, as distinguished from a cold orthodoxy dependent on 
 the letter of doctrine. Here from 1638 laboured Joachim 
 Liitkemann, a scholar of the pious John Schinid of Strasburg 
 (t 1658), and faithful to his motto, "I will rather save one 
 soul than make a hundred scholars ; " and he became the 
 spiritual father of Scriver, H. Miiller, and John Jakob Fabri- 
 cius. In 1649, Lutkemann was expelled as a heretic, because 
 he had taught that Christ, on account of the separation of His 
 soul from His body in consequence of death, had not been 
 truly man during the three days in the grave. After him, 
 however, the Quistorps, father and son, continued the work at 
 Eostock; and the latter, in his Pia Desideria (1659), repre- 
 hended the shortcomings prevalent in the Church, the school, 
 
 VOL. I. s 
 
274 orposmoNAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 and the household. J. Meyfart, a professor at Erfurt from 
 1631, reproaches the theologians who were satisfied with being 
 able " to syllogize, declaim, and chatter pretty well," and he 
 desiderates a higher standard of morality and the increase of 
 devotion among the people by prayer-meetings, fast-days, and 
 ecclesiastical discipline. J. B. Schuppius (t 1661), who 
 became senior pastor at Hamburg in 1649, insisted with great 
 zeal on piety of heart and the fear of God, and repeatedly 
 declared that theology is almost more of an experience than a 
 science. All these representatives of Pietism and many others 
 were only precursors of its maturest formation in Philipp 
 Jakob Spener (1635-1705). 1 
 
 Spener was of a deep religious character, full of inwardness 
 and warmth, and equipped with high endowments of mind, 
 and a rich treasury of learned knowledge. Strongly influenced 
 at Geneva by the earnest spirit of the discipline of the Eeformed 
 Church, as well as by the profound mysticism of Labadie, 
 Spener began to work on wider circles after he was called to 
 the senior pastorate at Frankfurt-on-the-Maine in 1666. He 
 saw the evil of the Church in the fact that faith was preached 
 without sanctification, and justification without the right 
 fruits of godliness ; and he found the reason of this in the 
 suppression of the simple, living word of Scripture by theo- 
 logical subtleties and human dogmas. Hence it was that in 
 1670 Spener began the so-called Collegia Pietatis, assemblies 
 of limited numbers, held at first in the house, and then in the 
 church, at which religious subjects were explained by the aid 
 of edifying writings, but afterwards in connection with reading 
 of the New Testament in the unrestrained form of free con- 
 versation. With the view of working upon wider circles, 
 Spener wrote in 1675 his well-known Pia Desideria. He 
 held that in order to save the Church from its state of 
 corruption, and to carry on to completion the reformation 
 begun by Luther in the morals and the life of Christians, 
 it was necessary to penetrate more profoundly, and on all its 
 
 1 W. Hossbach, Philipp Jakob Spener und seine Zeit, 2 Aufl. Berlin 1853. 
 H. Schmid, Gescliichte des Pietismus, 1863. 
 
THE PRACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 2*75 
 
 sides, into the word of God, and to diffuse the knowledge 
 of it more universally. For this purpose private meetings 
 ought to be held, and " ecclesiolae in ecclesia " established, 
 not as separatistic conventicles, but in order to advance a 
 deeper understanding of Scripture. Men required also to be 
 reminded of the universal priesthood in order that pious 
 laymen may also cultivate religious life in the circle of their 
 house. Above all, however, it needed to be pointed out that 
 Christianity does not consist in doctrine, but in practice, 
 and hence that the main thing was to mortify one's own flesh, 
 to be zealous in good works, and to show Christian gentleness 
 towards unbelievers or false believers. Spener maintained 
 that one of the chief defects of the time lay in the training 
 of the preachers in the schools and universities, because, 
 instead of a theology being learned in the light of the Holy 
 Spirit, and received with the heart, a human philosophy of 
 divine things was impressed on the brain. He declared that 
 it was a strange judgment of God that men had taken the 
 heathen Aristotle in our schools almost as the standard of 
 truth. He held that worldly science may find an application 
 to theology only as the spoils of Egypt were applied for the 
 use of the sanctuary, whereas all care was to be given to the 
 inward piety and the godly walk of the students of theology. 
 Then would the pulpits no longer be abused, so as merely 
 to give displays of erudition in foreign languages, and 
 artificial elaborations in discourse, but the word of the Lord 
 would thus be preached simply, yet powerfully. These 
 proposals and suggestions met with approval on many sides, 
 and house meetings were instituted in many places, in 
 accordance with Spener's model. But there also soon 
 appeared, under less circumspect guidance, certain accom- 
 paniments of the movement which were emphatically opposed 
 by Spener ; such as arrogant separatism, self-righteous security, 
 unworthy hypocrisy, fanatical millenarianism, and even moral 
 aberrations. Hence numerous attacks and accusations against 
 the system were soon called forth. Spener published various 
 writings in defence, and of these his Universal Theology of all 
 
276 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 "believing Christians and upright Theologians (1680) deserves 
 especially to be mentioned, because of its presenting the always 
 recurring principle upon which he founds. The principle is, 
 that while there is a science and knowledge of divine things 
 acquired from Scripture by mere human industry, yet this is 
 not the true knowledge of God, and that the illumination of 
 the Holy Spirit is requisite for the attainment of the true 
 knowledge, but that no unregenerate man obtains this illumina- 
 tion ; and therefore, as put briefly, that it is only a regenerate 
 man who can possess the true knowledge of God, or become a 
 right theologian. 
 
 Spener was Court preacher in Dresden from 1686 to 
 1691, and there he worked in the same spirit, but limited 
 himself to preaching and the function of catechizing, which 
 he prosecuted with great zeal. Having fallen into disfavour 
 with the Court, his position became so unpleasant that a call to 
 Berlin came as a welcome release. Among the undertakings 
 which were then carried out in his spirit, the most import- 
 ant was the Collegia Philoliblica, at Leipsic, of August 
 Hermann Franke, Caspar Schade, and Paul Anton, in 1687. 
 Thereafter the newly-founded University of Halle (1691) 
 became the seat and the proper nursery of Pietism, and 
 from Halle it continued to spread over the whole of 
 Germany. 
 
 Coming now to consider the inner essential nature of Pietism, 
 we must above all keep in view the fact that Spener, anxious 
 to maintain the reputation of his orthodoxy, has repeatedly 
 asserted and shown that he did not deviate in any point from 
 the normal doctrine of the Lutheran Church. The dogmatic 
 errors which opponents .have charged him with were only 
 certain consequences of his peculiar view of religion. Starting 
 from the deep corruption of human nature, he sees the essence 
 of Christianity in a divine power which works a total 
 renovation of the inward man, and which in like manner is 
 the only source of the true knowledge of God, as well as of 
 the genuine moral life. The former position is the basis of 
 the demand for a reformation of theology, the latter for a 
 
THE PEACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 277 
 
 reformation of the Church. It is only the regenerate who 
 can be right theologians. " An unregenerate man has no true 
 light in his soul ; he may, however, have the literal truth 
 regarding the things that are to be believed in his under- 
 standing, and he may present them without theoretical 
 mistakes in an ecclesiastical form." The Christian religion 
 is a power from God, which, by internal illumination and 
 awakening, transforms and revivifies man in the centre of his 
 being ; and hence no one can proclaim the truth in divine 
 things but he who traces in himself this inner life from God, 
 who is himself moved by the power of the Holy Ghost, 
 and illuminated by His light. Above all, this holds true of 
 the theologian. It is therefore erroneous and reprehensible 
 to try to teach theology in the Schools and Universities after 
 the manner of common human knowledge, and with all 
 possible worldly sciences conjoined with it. Instead of this, 
 the main thing to do is to supplicate with zeal and prayer for 
 personal illumination, and to strive after inward personal 
 experience of the new birth and the divine life. The more 
 deeply sin is felt as a hereditary evil propagated by the body, 
 and as awful corruption that has left nothing good arid pleasing 
 to God, so much the more emphatically is it declared that the 
 regenerate man must regulate his whole life according to 
 the demands of the divine will. Perfect holiness is indeed 
 impossible ; even in the best there still remain stirrings of 
 evil, and remindings of their own weakness. Nevertheless 
 the regenerate ought to labour with careful observation of 
 themselves, and with unremitting zeal, to mortify their old 
 Adam, with his carnal desires, and to become perfect in all 
 points. Upon this requirement is founded the hope of a 
 glorious age of perfection, which the future of the Church will 
 bring when it has struggled out of its present corruption. 
 From this fundamental thought sprang all those deviations 
 from the ecclesiastical orthodoxy which were urged against 
 Spener as heresies. He held that faith appears to be more 
 important than purity of doctrine ; for faith is not merely 
 knowing the doctrine of the Church, and holding it to be true, 
 
2*78 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PEOTESTANTISM. 
 
 nor is it merely the means of receiving the objective redemp- 
 tion that is through Christ, but it is the inward reception and 
 experience of the new-created divine power culminating in 
 the inward fellowship of the soul with the Saviour, so that 
 even Luther's expression, " I am Christ," is not entirely to be 
 rejected. It is true that faith cannot be without some purity 
 of doctrine, at least in those points which relate to the work 
 of salvation ; but the assertion is false, that he only has the 
 saving faith who possesses a complete knowledge of the pure 
 doctrine in all its Articles. For it is not from purity of 
 doctrine that our salvation immediately comes, nor is it error 
 in doctrine that condemns us in itself; rather does salvation 
 come from faith, and condemnation from the want of faith. 
 Thereby Spener put dogma into the background as relatively 
 unessential for faith and salvation, without materially attacking 
 it; and he thus attained in dogmatic controversies, and in 
 relation to other confessions, a breadth which was entirely 
 foreign to that age. On the other hand, Spener's material 
 deviations from the Lutheran dogmas were unimportant ; such 
 as, that he makes regeneration proceed from the will instead 
 of the understanding ; that in the doctrine of Justification 
 he represents the beginnings of the righteousness anticipated 
 from the divine judgment as already actually present, yet 
 without attacking the theory of imputation ; that he extends 
 Sanctification to the whole conduct, and excludes all adiaphora ; 
 and that for the individual as well as for the Church, he 
 holds that there is a time of relative perfection already in the 
 present life. 
 
 Such is in brief the spirit arid the principal contents of the 
 Spener Pietism. It would be unjust to burden it with the 
 outgrowths which were afterwards connected with it, and 
 which brought the whole movement unduly into disrepute. 
 It need hardly surprise us that the straining after earnest 
 holiness did lead to external or even hypocritical semblances 
 of salvation by works ; or that the assertion of regeneration 
 as the necessary condition of true knowledge led some to despise 
 all worldly science and the office of preaching, as well as to 
 
THE PKACTICAL OPPOSITION. PIETISM. 279 
 
 separate themselves from the Church with its external worship ; 
 or that the Self-examination so much recommended, led 
 occasionally to a self-sufficient contemplativeness and carnal 
 security. Further, the millenarian and mystical elements in 
 Spener led, in the case of some who came after him, to 
 extravagances. Gottfried Arnold (t 1714), known as the 
 author of the Impartial history of the Church and of heretics, 
 turned to a contemplative Mysticism, as an immediate in- 
 tuition of God that is raised above all sensuous knowledge, 
 and imparts to man always new power for a holy mode of 
 life. The rnillenarianism of the system was developed with 
 all exactness into a comprehensive whole by Petersen (1649- 
 1727). The most violent attacks upon the Protestant Church 
 were led by Johann Konrad Dippel (1673-1734). At first 
 an orthodox theologian and then a Pietist, he published from 
 1697 a series of violent satires under the name Christianus 
 Democritus. Along with considerable talent he possessed a 
 boundless ambition, for the satisfaction of which any means 
 appeared to him justifiable, and his restless and inconstant 
 life hunted him from place to place, and from employment to 
 employment, without any satisfactory result. His writings 
 correspond to his character and life, being full of the most 
 heterogeneous views in religion, philosophy, medicine, and 
 natural science ; they are at one time inspired by a fanatical 
 mysticism, and at another guided by sober and practical 
 acuteness. According to Dippel, man consists of body, a 
 lower sensible soul, and a higher spirit. The spirit has to be 
 united with God, and the feeling of this union is man's 
 greatest blessedness. Eeligion does not consist of opinions, 
 but of a bettered heart filled with love to God and His 
 creatures, and of a pious, upright mode of conduct. He who 
 has this becomes saved, be he Jew or Turk, heathen or 
 Christian ; for God works immediately in our spirit, and not 
 by the external means of the letter or empty ceremonies. 
 
 The ecclesiastical Orthodoxy waged a violent polemic against 
 Pietism. Several hundred writings were directed against it. 
 We need not enter here upon this controversy, in which there 
 
280 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 were for the most part only individual questions examined, 
 without regard to the universal character of the movement, 
 and, besides, this was done in a manner that was far from 
 agreeable or profitable. The general result of this conflict 
 was the gradual decomposition of the rigid orthodoxy by its 
 permeation with Pietistic elements, as was shown very soon 
 in the controversy between Joachim Lange (1670-1744) 
 and Valentin Ernest Loscher (1673-1747). This controversy 
 was distinguished, not merely by the fact that its polemical 
 tone was far more intellectual than the others, that attempts 
 to reach a mutual understanding accompanied the polemic, 
 and that the opposition between Pietism and Orthodoxy is 
 everywhere exhibited as not itself the highest opposition 
 of the time. Nay more, in spite of the decidedness with 
 which the particular points at issue were examined, Loscher, 
 as a really noble representative of the ecclesiastical doctrine, 
 shows such a living, deep, inward piety, so warm a heart and 
 so open a vision for the faults of the Church, that the in- 
 fluence of the spirit of Spener upon him is unmistakeable. 
 We shall have to return to the later influence of Pietism 
 when we come to discuss the German Enlightenment of the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760) was 
 decidedly influenced by Spener. He was a man of deep 
 inward piety ; his fortunate intercourse with the Moravian 
 brothers preserved him from self-sufficient Quietism, and he 
 impressed the character of his own personality upon the 
 community of the Herrnhut Brotherhood. In Zinzendorf, even 
 more than with Spener, religion appears as the inmost concern 
 of the heart, as an immediately felt life in one's own soul. 
 It is not, indeed, loosed from the external word of Scripture as 
 the pure source of the divine revelation, but neither is it 
 restricted to any mediation by learned culture and science. 
 The opposition between sin and grace appears as the substance 
 of the inner religious life. It is a deep consciousness of one's 
 own weakness and guilt, which is hardly bearable were it not 
 accompanied with the equally powerful consciousness of 
 
ZINZENDORF AND THE MORAVIANS. 281 
 
 redemption by the bloody sufferings and the sacrificial death of 
 Christ, intensified even to a mystical self-sinking in the suffer- 
 ings and death of Christ in order to participate in the joy of 
 blessedness. The following verses express this thought with 
 a heartfelt simplicity that is truly touching : 
 
 * ' Fac, lit possiin demonstrare, quam sit dulce, te amare ! 
 Tecum pati, tecum flere, tecum semper congaudere ! " 
 
 This special character of the Zinzendorf piety comes out on 
 its own showing in the objective representation of his doctrine. 
 Christ is the centre of his doctrine, but Christ is the suffering 
 and crucified one ; and the liberation of man from the misery 
 of sin by fellowship with the death of Christ, is its funda- 
 mental idea. All speculative questions regarding the Trinity, 
 the nature of the God-man, the meaning of the Lord's Supper, 
 the Last Things, and so on, retreat into the background. Out 
 of the whole range of the Christian doctrine, it is only the 
 Person of Christ, and more particularly His sufferings and 
 death, that is treated with essential interest and in detail. 
 But this point is dwelt upon with such emphasis that 
 Zinzendorf can say with right : " the point of suffering, the 
 blood-theology, is mine ; we are the crucified Church (cruciata) ; 
 others have the unbloody, we the bloody grace." Along with 
 this is the fact that this suffering of Christ is painted vividly 
 and in a sensuous way, and the sinking into it, even apart 
 from the period of " sifting," is described with the play of an 
 almost voluptuous sensuousness which repels more sober minds. 
 From the inward fellowship with the suffering Christ, which 
 is intensified in the case of the community to the so-called 
 " special covenant," there follows for the individual a rest and 
 a peace in the heart that has received the grace of God. 
 This is usually designated " unction," and it expresses itself in 
 the outward life, both in the cheerfulness of the heart that has 
 entered into peace in Christ, a cheerfulness which is at once 
 equable and unmoved by the external accidents of prosperity 
 or misfortune, and in the earnest striving to come as near as 
 possible to perfection in the advancing sanctification of the 
 external life. This theology does not lay importance upon 
 
282 OPPOSITIONAL MOVEMENTS WITHIN PROTESTANTISM. 
 
 worldly science, nor upon the testimony of natural reason ; 
 for " the vain reason which does not understand what is 
 meant by the inbreaking of grace, or treading with the 
 feet and lying at the feet of the crucified Jesus, are com- 
 patibilia." Nor does it lay stress upon sharply formulated and 
 dialectically defined dogmas. The Moravian Brethren have 
 even collected together adherents of the different confessions 
 although under distinct tropes. Their doctrinal system after- 
 wards lost still more of its peculiar character, and Spangenberg's 
 Idea Fidei Fratrum (Barby 1778) is a somewhat colourless 
 exposition of the Protestant system of doctrine. But as a 
 nursery of inward piety and of upright life maintained in 
 rigid discipline, the Moravian community has still its import- 
 ance in the present day. 
 
 The Methodists arose in England almost at the same time 
 
 O 
 
 as the Moravians (c. 1740), and not without some personal 
 relations between their respective founders. The melancholy 
 state of the English Church, in which its own stagnation and 
 the strongly encroaching Deism were equally damaging the 
 religious life, awakened the thought, not of a reform of doctrine, 
 but of a renovation of the inner religious life. Notwith- 
 standing its peculiar violent convulsiveness in the forms of 
 repentance and instantaneous regeneration, Methodism has 
 essential points of contact with Moravianism ; for it also rests 
 upon a deep feeling of the opposition of sin and grace. Man 
 is corrupt in every capacity of his soul ; he is corrupt wholly 
 and at all points. Every man has to expect eternal death as 
 the just reward of his inward and outward godlessness. The 
 pains of hell are painted by the Methodists in the most glaring 
 colours in order to call the sinner to repentance by the terrors 
 of the judgment. For repentance is the first step to faith, 
 and it proceeds from the free resolve of man ; and faith is 
 worked immediately in our broken heart as the immovable 
 conviction that God was in Christ, and that He reconciled the 
 world with Himself ; yea, that Christ has loved me and has 
 even given Himself up to death for me. There is thus produced 
 
THE METHODISTS. 283 
 
 an entire new creation of the soul, wLich must necessarily 
 bring forth external fruits, and a gradual advancing sanctification 
 even to total redemption from all sin and to complete per- 
 fection. The later and especially the present practice of the 
 Methodists has unfortunately brought into the foreground the 
 momentary convulsiveness of repentance, which is excited by 
 all the terrors of hell, and appears outwardly in convulsive 
 starts, but is not always inwardly felt. And so much is this 
 so, that the striving after an inwardly felt and practical 
 Christianity, which was what is most justifiable in the move- 
 ment, hardly now finds a place within it. 1 
 
 1 [The translator cannot pass this concluding paragraph through his hands 
 without adding that he cannot regard it as either an adequate account of the 
 principle of Methodism, or a fair representation of its present working and 
 methods. The abnormal and extreme phases of the Methodistic revivalism are 
 sufficiently familiar to all, but the Author has been misled by them to an 
 erroneous idea of the contemporary striving and spirit of Methodism generally, 
 which is still very imperfectly represented in Germany. It has, however, been 
 thought better to reproduce the author's sketch as it is, than to modify or 
 omit it. Tn. ] 
 
SECTION FIFTH. 
 
 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 rflHE period that followed the Eeformation has this in 
 -L common with the preceding period, that theology and 
 religion entirely occupy the foreground of interest both in 
 science and life. And this was natural ; for where the revolu- 
 tion encountered the most powerful forces, the conflict could 
 not be otherwise than extremely bitter and very protracted. 
 Moreover, there arose, especially in the Lutheran Church of 
 Germany, a Protestant scholasticism which resembled in 
 many points the Catholic scholasticism of the Middle Ages. 
 Thus a new revolution became requisite in order that the 
 mind might obtain its complete freedom. This revolution 
 began in England with that movement which we are accus- 
 tomed to designate Deism. Its roots lay in the sober, 
 practical, common-sense character of the English people, and 
 its beginnings took their rise in the characteristic movement 
 of the English Eeformation. We have already had repeated 
 occasion to allude to this movement. Alongside of the some- 
 what external reformation of the Anglican Church, we find a 
 double current flowing through the time. The Puritans laid 
 peculiar stress on the practical verification of the inner 
 religious life in external sanctification and in the moral order 
 of the whole conduct, and it is manifest that this tendency is 
 not far from that which sees the essential nature of religion 
 only in the universally recognised requisites of morality, 
 because their conditions are inborn in every one. Again, the 
 Enthusiasts and their last offshoots the Quakers, with their 
 mystical character and their accentuation of the inner imme- 
 diate life of piety, appear to be far removed from the sober 
 
THE LEVELLERS. LORD BACON. 285 
 
 practical conception of Deism. Yet they also prepared the 
 way for it. By their view of the inner Light, the external 
 word of Scripture and the binding dogmas of the Church were 
 stripped of their authority. Experience, not to speak of the 
 arbitrary preference of the individual, was put into the place 
 of the objective authority, and when the religious life grew 
 cold, it resulted, as a matter of course, that the Natural Eeason 
 was regarded as the inner light. 
 
 In politics and in philosophy Deism also found the way 
 prepared for it : in politics, by the doctrines of the Levellers ; 
 and in philosophy, by Francis Bacon. 
 
 The Levellers l took their rise from the party of the 
 Independents by a separation of the political and the religious 
 elements. With the Independents the democratic doctrine, 
 according to which the renovation of the State was to be 
 effected in accordance with the principle of the Sovereignty of 
 the people, formed, indeed, a criterion for judging of religion 
 and its relation to the State : but to the Levellers, Beli^ion 
 
 ' ' O 
 
 appeared as a matter of personal freedom, and as entirely sub- 
 ordinate to the wellbeing of the State. The supreme prin- 
 ciple of the Levellers was that the will of the people is the 
 highest law of a country, and that all authorities obtain their 
 rights only through the consent of the people. On the basis 
 of this principle they wished a purely democratic constitution 
 in the State ; and they were the first to demand an absolute 
 separation of Church and State on the ground that all union 
 between them leads to intolerable constraint of conscience and 
 to endless civil misery. Every religious confession, and even 
 atheism itself, should find toleration ; and every ecclesiastical 
 community should regulate its own affairs in entire indepen- 
 dence. No binding authority belonged to dogmas, whether 
 they were founded on the divine origin of Scripture or upon 
 the constraining authority of the Church. The ultimate 
 criterion of faith was held to be the inner voice of the heart 
 and conscience of the individual ; and although certain 
 fundamental conceptions, such as the existence of God and 
 1 Wemgarten, Die Revolutionskirchen Englands, Leipzig 1868. 
 
286 THE EXGLISH DEISM. 
 
 the immortality of the soul, were decidedly maintained, yet 
 it was only the conditions of practical morality that appeared 
 to be essential in religion. 
 
 In philosophy, Francis Bacon (1 5 6 1-1 6 2 6), 1 the founder 
 of empiricism, brought about a radical reform, of the full 
 significance of which he was himself well aware. Hitherto 
 theology and philosophy had appeared mixed up with one 
 another so as to be even undistinguishable. Bacon sees in 
 this condition the false union of an ill-assorted pair, whose 
 offspring was a heretical religion and a fantastic philosophy. 
 Hitherto God had been the essential object of speculation, 
 Bacon now gives Nature this position. Hitherto philosophy 
 had been a theoretical and purely contemplative mode of 
 knowing ; Bacon will now make her subservient to the pur- 
 pose of man's dominion over Nature, and he would therefore 
 make her practical. Hitherto the syllogism and general 
 principles had been regarded as the inexhaustible source of 
 knowledge ; Bacon will now found everything upon experience. 
 Hence he does not regard it as his function to set up a com- 
 pleted system which should lay claim to perpetuity, yet might 
 be overthrown by the next comer ; he rinds his mission in 
 founding a new method by which future generations would be 
 always able to enlarge the boundaries of our knowledge. He 
 therefore directs his attack primarily against the prejudices 
 of the school as well as those of life, against the personal 
 peculiarities as well as the universal human weaknesses which 
 plunge us into a thousand errors. On the ground thus cleared, 
 he then sets up his new method of experience, of experi- 
 mental observation, and of induction. Such was the founda- 
 tion laid by Bacon of the Empirical Philosophy, which was 
 further developed by Hobbes, Locke, Berkeley, and the French 
 Materialists, and which was to find its culmination for a time 
 in the Scepticism of Hume. 
 
 As the whole of this philosophy assumed a regulative 
 position in the development of Deism, so did Bacons special 
 
 1 His most important writings are the Novum Oryanum, and the De Dignitate 
 et Augmentis Scientiarum. 
 
LORD BACON. 287 
 
 attitude towards religion work by way of preparation for it. 
 In his view, all knowledge is divided into knowledge of the 
 facts and knowledge of the causes in Nature, and between 
 them stands poetry. For poetical invention gives an image 
 of the world just as the description of nature and philo- 
 sophy do, only with this difference, that its image of the 
 world is sketched by the phantasy, and therefore does not 
 correspond to the actual, but to the wished -for state of the 
 world. This view furnishes Bacon with a criterion for judg- 
 ing of the religious myths of heathenism. He sees in these 
 myths only allegorical investments of philosophical truths, 
 and strives to explain them as such. The knowledge of 
 causes has a threefold object: Nature, Man, God. This 
 knowledge accordingly falls into three parts : the Philosophy 
 of Nature, Anthropology, and Natural Theology. Along with 
 this Natural Theology, Bacon further recognises Supernatural 
 or Eevealed Theology, but it lies beyond the sphere of philo- 
 sophical knowledge. 
 
 Natural Theology arises from the contemplation of the 
 natural order of things, and it attains to the knowledge of the 
 existence of God as an Intelligence creative and regulative 
 of the world. This conclusion is so certain that Bacon says 
 (in his Essay on Atheism) : " I had rather believe all the 
 fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, 
 than that this universal frame is without a mind ; and 
 therefore God never wrought miracles to convince Atheism, 
 because His ordinary works convince it. It is true 
 that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to Atheism, 
 but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to 
 religion." 
 
 Natural Theology, however, does not reach further than 
 this. Of God's purposes with regard to man, of His decree of 
 salvation and such like, it knows nothing. There exists no 
 relation at all between Natural and Supernatural Theology ; 
 the former can neither establish nor justify the latter, but if 
 we would pass from the one to the other, we must step out 
 of the boat of human reason and enter into the ship of the 
 
288 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 Church, which alone is enabled to keep upon the right way 
 by the Divine Compass. Theology and Philosophy are com- 
 pletely separated ; mixing them together only leads to 
 unbelief and fantastic ideas. Keligion does not rest upon 
 the light of Nature, either in the external knowledge of 
 the senses or in the internal knowledge of the conscience, but 
 upon immediate Divine revelation. This holds true of the 
 reason no less than of the will, and hence we ought to 
 believe not merely what corresponds to reason ; but the 
 more contrary anything is to reason, so much the more does 
 it correspond to the honour of God and to our duty of 
 obedience to believe it. How far the rules of reason may 
 find application in the connection and systematic arrange- 
 ment of the divine revelation, should be determined by a 
 " Divine Logic," the working out of which Bacon says is 
 still awanting. 
 
 There is no reason to doubt of the sincerity of Bacon in 
 his recognition of Eevealed Eeligion. It was but natural, 
 however, that the interest of science should turn mainly to 
 Natural Religion, and that it should obtain the chief attention. 
 This was shown among others by Newton and Boyle. Newton 
 (16421727), by his discovery of the law of gravitation, 
 opened up new paths for natural inquiry in the sense of 
 Bacon. At the same time he held firmly by the position 
 that motion could only be communicated to matter by an 
 extra-mundane being, and he sought to found a Natural 
 Theology upon it. Boyle (t 1691), the founder of the 
 Royal Society, invested a sum that was to yield fifty 
 pounds for each of eight sermons that were to be delivered 
 every year in a London church, and their object was to 
 defend the Christian religion against unbelievers on the basis 
 only of the rational principles of Natural Religion. 
 
 Such were the most important currents in the spiritual life 
 of England about the close of the sixteenth and the beginning 
 of the seventeenth century ; and such was the soil upon which 
 Deism grew up. Deism itself is not a philosophical system ; 
 it represents a special conception of life which ruled the 
 
GENERAL CHARACTER OF DEISM. 289 
 
 spiritual interest of England for almost two centuries. If we 
 inquire into its essential nature, it seems at the first glance 
 as if it first really brought forward that conception which we 
 are now in the habit of designating as " Deism " in the current 
 philosophical and religious terminology. The term is now 
 commonly applied to that view of the relation of God to the 
 world which, in opposition to Atheism, affirms the existence 
 of God, and in opposition to Pantheism, affirms the personal, 
 independent, extra-mundane existence of God, but which at 
 the same time, in opposition to Theism strictly so called, 
 denies the continuous, ever-present action of God upon the 
 world and His activity in it. According to this deistic view, 
 God called the world once for all into existence by His omni- 
 potent creative word, but then left it to itself as the workman 
 does with his finished work ; and thus the world is supposed 
 to proceed upon its course according to the laws of the causes 
 secundce that are immanent in it, without any interference 
 on the part of the causa prima. But such an identification 
 of the older English Deism with the current conception of 
 Deism is erroneous. On the contrary, several of the most 
 conspicuous English Deists express themselves most emphatic- 
 ally against this view, and repudiate it as atheistical and even 
 as irrational. Thus the example of the watch, which is 
 usually adduced as an illustration, is applied by Herbert in an 
 entirely different sense from that of the later representations. 
 He says that the Epicureans ascribe everything to chance, and 
 yet no one can conceive how under such a condition different 
 species or a fitting series of things could arise. Now, if even 
 a half intelligent man understands that a w^atch which shows 
 the hours night and day is constructed with intention and 
 great art, then any one must be completely mad who would 
 not refer this world-machine, which holds on its course not for 
 twenty-four hours only, but for many centuries, to a supremely 
 wise and powerful origin. And Hobbes expressly says that 
 it is an unworthy view of God that assigns to Him complete 
 idleness, and withdraws from Him the government of the world 
 and of the human race ; God is thus, indeed, recognised as 
 VOL. I. T 
 
90 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 omnipotent, but if He does not concern Himself about what 
 is below, then the common saying applies, What is above us 
 does not concern us. But if there is no reason why we should 
 love Him or fear Him, it would be just the same as if there 
 were no God. In like manner, Charles Blount, in the preface 
 to his treatise, De anima Mundi, declares that the view 
 referred to amounts to Atheism : " It were Atheism to say 
 there is no God, and so it were (though less directly) to deny 
 His Providence, or restrain it to some particulars and exclude 
 it in reference to others." The second article of his Short 
 Sketch of the Deistic Religion accordingly expressly declares 
 that " God governs the world by Providence." The same 
 view is expressed by Morgan in the most decided way. He 
 designates himself a Christian deist, and distinguishes himself 
 as such on the one hand from the Christian Jew or Jewish 
 Christian, and on the other from the Atheist. But he 
 designates as Atheists, not merely those who deny the exist- 
 ence of God, but all who assert that the natural or moral 
 world, after it had been once created, put into its proper order 
 and provided with certain powers, qualities, and universal 
 laws of motion, continues to exist, to move, and to develop 
 itself without any influence of the First Cause. On the 
 contrary, Morgan as a Deist teaches that God governs the 
 natural and the moral world by His continuous uninterrupted 
 presence, power, and incessant action upon both. As a chief 
 objection to his opponents, he proposes the question, If the 
 natural and essential forces of the world can maintain and 
 govern the world without God and without the continued 
 operation of the First Cause, why then could they not also 
 originally create the world ? For if the corporeal world, by 
 means of its own internal laws and essential powers, and 
 without God's indwelling and working, can continue to exist 
 but a single moment, it may be as well conceived as going on 
 a longer time, and even to all eternity. 
 
 These references may suffice to show that we would form an 
 entirely erroneous notion of the historical Deism if we were 
 to confound it with the recent conception of dogmatic Deism. 
 
THE HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT OF DEISM. 291 
 
 It would also be incorrect to impute to the whole Deistic 
 movement a hostility to religion such as we encounter, in- 
 deed, in some of its offshoots, and as we find most sharply 
 reflected in such works as Swift's Tale of a Tub and Butler's 
 Hudibras. On the whole, Deism bears an earnestly religious 
 character ; it certainly does not show an uninterrupted belief 
 in positive religion, but it does manifest an incessant searching 
 for something fixed and certain behind the positive forms of 
 religion that are recognised as untenable. All the representa- 
 tives of Deism are convinced that it is not a body of particular 
 dogmas, but at most a few general principles, not a sacrifice of 
 the understanding, but a morally regulated life, or the inner 
 power of the heart, that constitutes the essence of Eeligion. 
 All the various religions, participate, although in different 
 ways, in this one religious truth, and hence the question is 
 raised as to how these religions have arisen. It is only here 
 and there that we find the beginnings of a rational solution of 
 this question, for most of the Deists go no farther than the 
 view that the religions have arisen from priestly fraud and 
 the calculation of rulers. In like manner, they attack the 
 basis of the positive religions, but not the conception of 
 immediate revelations. But as enthusiasm for the written 
 word requires a proof and guarantee in the inner word of the 
 enlightened heart, Deism sets up certain intellectual criteria 
 by which the true revelation is to be distinguished from the 
 merely pretended revelations. We might characterize the 
 English Deism as a general movement in the way of intellec- 
 tual inquiry and investigation regarding religion, with the 
 tendency to derive all positive religions from one " natural " 
 Eeligion. It does not admit of a more precise characteristic, 
 for the answers which are given to the question which it 
 puts and investigates are as various as their starting-points. 
 Taking it as a whole, however, three phases may be dis- 
 tinguished in it. 1. Its Beginnings, as represented by Lord 
 Herbert of Cherbury, Sir Thomas Browne, Thomas Hobbes, and 
 Charles Blount ; 2. Its period of full development, as repre- 
 sented by Locke, Toland, Collins, Shaftesbury, Tindal, Chubb, 
 
292 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 and Morgan ; and 3. Its last representation in Dodvvell and 
 Hume. 1 
 
 I. 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISH DEISM. 
 LORD HERBERT OF CHEKB.URY. 
 
 Edward Herbert de Cherbury (1581-1648) 2 in his 
 principal work, De Veritate, gives the results of his theoretical 
 investigations into the nature of knowledge. These investiga- 
 tions were occasioned by the variety of the opinions then 
 existing, which caused the author to waver undecidedly 
 between one view and another. The study of the various 
 writers could not save him from this unfortunate position, for 
 they also represented various positions as the truth of philo- 
 sophy and religion, but gave no satisfactory explanation of 
 Truth itself. Hence Herbert resolved to start from a critical 
 examination of his own process of cognition " objectis libris 
 veritates nostras in ordinem digessimus." Now all true know- 
 ledge rests on the fact that objects are given under certain 
 circumstances to our faculties. The question regarding the 
 
 1 For the whole of this Section the following works are referred to : Lechler, 
 Geschichte des Englischen Deism us, 1841, a work of rare objectivity and 
 reliability ; Leslie Stephen, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 Century, 1876 ; Noack, Die Freidenker in der Religion, 3 Th. Bern 1853. 
 [Reference may also still be made to Leland's View of the principal Deistical 
 Writers, etc., 1754', etc.] 
 
 2 Edward Herbert of Cherbury was an offshoot of the noble family of the Earls 
 of Pembroke. He was equally distinguished by his chivalrous character, his 
 insatiable thirst for knowledge, and his strict love of truth. He gave up the 
 quiet life on his estates and made several long journeys through the Netherlands, 
 France, Germany, and Italy to satisfy his thirst for knowledge or to indulge his 
 longing for adventures and knightly deeds in famous military service of foreign 
 princes. In the midst of this changeful life Herbert found time to compose a 
 series of writings which show that he was a man of rich knowledge and an acute 
 thinker. The most important of his productions and his own favourite work 
 is his " De Veritate prout distinguitur a revelatione, a verismili, a possibili et a 
 falso " (Paris 1624). A further application of the thoughts of this theoretical 
 investigation relating to Religion is contained in his " De religione Gentilium, 
 errorumque apud eos causis" (London 1645). His other writings may be left 
 out of account here. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 293 
 
 nature of knowledge thus falls into a threefold inquiry (1) 
 regarding our Faculties, (2) regarding the Objects that are to 
 be known, and (3) regarding the Laws of the agreement 
 between these objects and faculties. All our faculties are 
 divided into four classes, namely, instinctus naturalis, sensus 
 externus, sensus internus, and discursus. The object of the 
 Internal Sense is the good (bonum) ; and hence the conscience, 
 as a reliable, universally - heard and universally - recognised 
 judgment regarding good and evil, is also called the sensus 
 communis of the internal sense. Eternal blessedness is the 
 highest good. The object of the External Sense is the true 
 (veruin). It is common to regard the five senses as all that 
 belongs to the External Sense, but this is false ; for to every 
 separate objective quality or differentia of external things 
 there corresponds a special faculty for receiving it in our 
 External Sense. The intellectus is described as something 
 divine, and it realizes its own truths without requiring the 
 influence of external things. These truths are represented as 
 certain notitice communes, which exist in every sane man, with 
 which our mind is as it were filled from heaven, and by which 
 it judges of the objects of this world. There is no observation 
 nor experience without these common notions ; but they are 
 silent and concealed when no external things are presented 
 to them. The proper object of the Intellectus is eternal 
 blessedness, and so much is this highest goal set before all men 
 that it is quite impossible for us to pursue what is not happi- 
 ness. We are free only with regard to the means that may be 
 adopted for the attainment of this end. Side by side with 
 this objectum proprium of the Intellect, stands also the 
 objectum commune, or the common notions that are obtained 
 by reflection (quodcunque ex reliquis facultatibus seu noeticis 
 seu corporeis conformari potest). These intellectual notions 
 are distinguished by a series of marks from the immediate 
 common notions, but they have both the same certainty and 
 truth. The application of these common notions to all the par- 
 ticular questions of whose solution our faculties are capable, 
 is the function of the fourth faculty, called Discursus (munus 
 
294 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 est ut quae circa utramque analogitim sciri possunt in suam 
 infimam latitudinem ope notitiarum communium deduceret). 
 
 How Herbert conceived of the agreement of objects with 
 these our faculties is shown most clearly by his distinc- 
 tion of a fourfold truth. 1. The veritas rei consists in the 
 agreement of the thing with itself, which at the same time 
 involves the fact that nothing can be contained in it to which 
 our faculties could not be related. 2. The veritas appar entice 
 consists in the agreement of the appearance of a thing with 
 the thing itself ; it therefore desiderates that the object shall 
 be presented to us a sufficient length of time and in proper 
 distance and position. 3. The veritas conceptus is founded 
 partly upon the healthiness of the percipient sense, and partly 
 on the fact that the faculty corresponding to the object that is 
 to be known is applied to it ; thus the infinite is apprehended 
 by us only in a finite manner, and the eternal only in time. 
 4. The veritas intellectus is the " conformitas debita inter 
 conformitates prgedictas," and it is the product and the highest 
 result of the previous truths from the combination of which it 
 springs. The true cognition is therefore founded upon the 
 intellect and its common notions (notitiae communes), and 
 these are discovered by means of the consensus universalis, or 
 the congruent judgment of all. This "consensus" is the 
 highest rule of truth even in morals and religion. For 
 Eeligion is also a notitia communis or common notion, as there 
 is no nation and no century without religion ; and religion is 
 enjoined neither by philosophy nor by priests or governments, 
 but by the conscience. 
 
 Herbert puts Religion very high. It is the chief dis- 
 tinguishing and differentiating mark of man (tanquam ultima 
 hominis differentia ; solae et ultimas hominis differentiae religio 
 et fides). Hence there are really at bottom no Atheists. 
 The so-called Atheists only object to the false and inap- 
 propriate attributes that are assigned to God, and all they 
 mean is that they will rather have no God than such a one as 
 these attributes indicate. Nevertheless, if there be irreligious 
 men and Atheists, let it only be considered how insane and 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 295 
 
 irrational those are among them who make reason the dis- 
 tinguishing mark of man. 
 
 By the rule of the " consensus universalis," the universally 
 recognised and therefore essential truths of all religions 
 are ascertained, and they are comprised in five propositions. 
 1. There exists a supreme Deity or God (esse supremurn 
 aliquid numen). This is not, however, the mere abstract 
 conception of a Supreme Being, but Herbert enumerates no 
 less than eleven attributes belonging to God. He is blessed, 
 the end, ground, and means of things, eternal, good, just, wise, 
 infinite, omnipotent, free. 2. Worship is due to this Supreme 
 Being (supremum istud numen debere coli). This worship is 
 founded upon the faith that God regulates all things, including 
 the destiny of individual men, and that He is moved by 
 prayers. 3. Virtue and piety form the most important part of 
 divine worship (virtutem cum pietate conjunctam prsecipuam 
 partem cultus divini habitam esse et semper fuisse). From 
 this point of view there then opens up through various inter- 
 mediate stages a prospect leading to eternal blessedness as the 
 last goal of things (ex conscientia notitiis communibus instructs 
 virtutem cum pietate conjunctam ex ea veram spem, ex vera 
 spe fidem, ex vera fide amorem, ex vero amore gaudium, ex 
 vero gaudio beatitudinem insurgere docetur). 4. Sins must 
 be repented of and expiated (horrorem scelerum hominum 
 animis semper incedisse, adeoque illos non latuisse vitia et 
 scelera quaecunque expiari debere ex pceriitentia). Hence 
 every religion recognises sacrifice and expiation as practices 
 which God, in His goodness, has instituted as expiations for 
 the violation of His justice by sin. 5. After this life we 
 receive reward or punishment (esse pnemium vel poeriam post 
 hanc vitam). As universal elements of religion, although 
 differing in form, there are also enumerated : faith in the 
 Supreme God ; fixed hope in Him ; love which unites man 
 with God ; a,nd virtue as the best worship. At another time, 
 he mentions only God and virtue ; or again, common concord 
 along with natural virtue. These universal truths are found 
 in all religions ; and hence Herbert can say that there is 
 
296 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 no religion or philosophy so false that it has not its truth, 
 and that in every religion there are found means sufficient to 
 be agreeable to God. 
 
 In contemplating the historical Religions, the problem is 
 thus raised as to how the manifold additions which they 
 contain besides these truths are to be explained. In this 
 connection Herbert, with fine intelligence, enters upon a 
 physico-psychological explanation of natural religion, but 
 then suddenly breaks off from his inquiry, and takes refuge in 
 the assumption of the imposture of priests and the prudent 
 calculation of statesmen, which really explain nothing. 
 
 God reveals Himself to men in two ways : inwardly, as He 
 who is eternal life and blessedness, in the desire implanted 
 in all men after an eternal life and a happier state; and 
 externally, in the wonderful creation of this world. Now 
 the ancients -sought in the world for something that was 
 eternal ; they found this sublunary world subject to change 
 and decay, but in the heaven under the stars they found 
 a relatively eternal and blessed state. Further, they attributed 
 to the stars an influence upon visible things, and therefore 
 they did them reverence, yet not as the Supreme Deity, but 
 as His servants. In short, led by the voice of their own 
 conscience and from reverence and love to God, men attained 
 to the hope of a better life, and they then gave honour in the 
 stars to the greatest works of the Supreme God ; but it 
 was God Himself whom they honoured in His works. In 
 ancient times this was the only form of religion, and it was 
 the same gods who were honoured under various names, as in 
 particular the sun was the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Baal 
 or Adonis of the Phoenicians, the Moloch of the Ammonites, 
 the Bel of the Assyrians, etc. Along with the sun came the 
 moon, the five planets, the fixed stars, and the heaven itself, 
 which was regarded as a corporeal substance ; but " in 
 corporea coeli natura animam ejus, in anima coeli Deum ipsum 
 venerabantur." The diversity in the names of God had an 
 external reason, in the fact that every one assigned a name to 
 God in his own language and as it pleased him ; and an 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 297 
 
 internal reason, in the fact that God received a special name 
 for every effect or every benefit that flowed from Him. 
 Afterwards, the gods that were honoured in all countries and 
 among all nations were contrasted as dei consentes or dei 
 majorum gentium with the particular gods as the dei minorum 
 gentium ; yet all assumed a Supreme God as the head over 
 the others, assigned to Him the highest attributes, and rever- 
 enced Him as " Optimus et Maximus." Hitherto man had 
 reverenced God in his own heart only according to the notiticc 
 communes, but now came in the falsification of the true Religion. 
 This falsification of Eeligion is at one time attributed 
 to priests, philosophers, and poets, and at other times to 
 the priests alone. Its occasion lay in the consideration that 
 as every power, such as that of the king, had an external 
 reverence paid to it by practices and ceremonies, should there 
 not also be an entirely special worship rendered to God from 
 whom everything springs ? Nay, is there not a corresponding 
 honour due even to His ministers and priests ? Hence arose 
 the worship of images in temples, groves, and upon hills ; the 
 priests regulated this worship, and promised from it all happi- 
 ness and all furtherance. Then impostors arose and asserted 
 that a star, or a sphere, or an angel had spoken with them, 
 and commanded them how the rites of worship were to be 
 performed, and how life was to be led ; but, in truth, they had 
 only spent the night in the temple, and received there any 
 such revelation in dreams. These illusions could only be 
 imposed upon the people by the priests through employing 
 prophecies regarding the future which easily found credence. 
 For if, instead of the good that was promised, some misfortune 
 occurred, it was imputed to the sin of the sufferer ; and if, 
 instead of prophesied evil, some good resulted, it was declared 
 to be a consequence of the prayer of the priest. Such super- 
 stition first arose among the Egyptians, and from them it 
 spread among all peoples. Besides, the priests added to 
 the Supreme God a whole series of other subordinate gods, 
 divided into three ranks or classes, the superccelestes, ccelestes, 
 and subcoelestes. For each of these they arranged a distinct 
 
298 . THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 cultus ; and from such fables did the priests form the religions 
 which have suppressed the chief articles of the one universal 
 Eeligion. 
 
 The heathen thus honour the same Supreme God as we do, 
 only in another way. But the One True Eeligion has not 
 become completely lost ; to the heathen also virtus, fides, spes, 
 amorque were undoubtedly the higher rules of divine worship, 
 and sacrifice was a symbol of repentance. For the more 
 intelligent at least, who have a deeper insight into them, 
 the heathen religions are likewise found to contain those 
 five fundamental Articles, but they are hidden by a mass 
 of false accessories. Herbert does not express himself 
 distinctly about Christianity, yet he indicates that it has also 
 undergone a similar process of falsification. 
 
 A revelation of God is spoken of by Herbert both in 
 the narrower and in the wider sense. In the loider sense, 
 revelation is " quodcunque ex gratia divina demandatur ; " it 
 is therefore the aid which is sent down from heaven to 
 the unfortunate in response to his prayer; it is the inner 
 experience of the activity of God in the process of faith, good 
 works, repentance, remorse, prayer, etc. Eevelation, however, 
 is commonly regarded in the narrower sense, as something that 
 goes beyond general providence, as a communication of pro- 
 positions or commandments in addition to those five Articles. 
 Herbert expresses himself with great caution regarding 
 the question whether a special revelation is requisite to salva- 
 tion, or whether the five Articles suffice, saying that every one 
 will admit that these five Articles are good, and are universally 
 accepted. Some, however, affirm that these Articles are not 
 sufficient for the attainment of salvation. Whoever speaks 
 thus, he declares, alleges in his opinion something bold, not to 
 say dreadful and rash, as the judgments of God are completely 
 known by no one. Therefore, he says, I should not like 
 straightway to assert that these Articles are sufficient, yet it 
 appears to me that the view of those who judge piously and 
 mildly of the judgments of God is more probable, if only man 
 performs what he can. For it is not in the power of every one 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HERBERT OF CHERBURY. 299 
 
 to make faith and tradition come to him, nor can any dogma 
 be added to the five Articles from right and universal reason, 
 so that man would thereby become more honest and pious, or 
 the public peace and concord would thereby be furthered. 
 Herbert does not examine more closely the possibility of 
 an immediate revelation of God ; his skepsis is only exhibited 
 in his making an effort to determine those conditions under 
 which we are alone justified in receiving a professed revelation 
 to be such, and he lays it down as implied conditions that the 
 Supreme God is wont to give oracles or to speak with articu- 
 late voice ; that the receiver of the oracle knows certainly 
 that it comes from the Supreme God and not from any good 
 or evil angel, and that he himself at the moment of receiving 
 it was not demented, drunk, or half asleep ; that the oracle is 
 handed down complete and inviolate by oral tradition or 
 writing to the after world ; and that the doctrine derived from 
 the oracle shall also so appeal to the later generations that it 
 will necessarily become an article of faith. Herbert elsewhere 
 also desiderates caution as necessary in accepting a statement 
 given out as a revelation. Our knowledge has its foundation 
 in our faculties, and revealed truth is based on the authority 
 of the revealer. Hence we can only give credence to a 
 revelation under the condition that prayer, vows, faith, in short, 
 all that Providence demands, has preceded it, and that the 
 revelation becomes by participation our own ; for what is 
 accepted from others as revealed, is no more revelation, but 
 tradition or history, which for us can only be probable as the 
 ground of its reference lies outside of us. Further, it is 
 required that it teach us something that is entirely good or 
 true, because it is only by this that a rational revelation is 
 distinguished from irrational and godless temptation ; and 
 that we can trace the breathing of the divine Spirit, because 
 it is only by this that the inner efforts of our faculty in the 
 pursuit of truth are distinguished from external revelation. 
 
300 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 SIR THOMAS BROWNE. 
 
 The Eeligio Medici of Sir Thomas Browne (1C 05-1 6 81) T 
 already contains the most important thoughts of the English 
 Deism ; but along with a penetrating scepticism, it likewise 
 gives expression to a fantastic credulity, so that the different 
 judgments that have been pronounced on the book and its 
 author need cause us no surprise. Browne uses the pre- 
 caution to explain that his purpose was not at all to lay down 
 a rule for others, or to give definite canons of religion, but that 
 he only wrote his book with the object of exercising himself, 
 and that its contents might not be forgotten. He also boasts 
 that he had smitten down all the objections which Satan him- 
 self or his rebellious reason had opposed to him by that say- 
 ing of Tertullian, " certum est quia impossibile est." To hold 
 as true what one knows to be such is a matter of conviction, 
 and not of faith ; and hence he who does not live in the age 
 of miracles is to be congratulated, for it is only in the case of 
 such a one that there is any merit in believing, because it is 
 only in his case that faith is difficult. But although the 
 author will rather shatter his own arm to pieces than dese- 
 crate a sanctuary or overthrow the monument of a martyr, 
 he nevertheless only confesses the faith which Christ Himself 
 taught, which the apostles propagated, and which the fathers 
 and martyrs confirmed. His faith may thus be assumed to 
 be the simple primitive Christianity of Christ, from which the 
 Christianity of the Church is carefully to be distinguished, as 
 it has been adulterated by the violences of Emperors, the 
 ambition and rapacity of Bishops, and the corruption of later 
 ages. He speaks much and in competent style of the conflict 
 between reason and faith. Sentiment, faith, and reason are at 
 strife with each other, and are as hostile to peace as was the 
 second triumvirate of the Eoman Kepublic. But as there 
 
 1 Browne was born in London on the 19th October 1605. He studied at 
 the Universities of Oxford and Leyden, and settled as a physician at Norwich in 
 1636. Here he wrote his chief work, the Religio Medici (1642). He was 
 knighted by Charles II. in 1671, and died on the 19th October 1681. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. THOMAS BROWNE. 301 
 
 is no holy of holies for philosophy, neither does the original 
 religion of Christ know any mysteries. Browne begins to 
 speak of " the two books " out of which theology draws, 
 the one written by God and the other by nature. The 
 relation between the two is, however, not closely explained ; 
 but as the original religion contains nothing in the way of 
 metaphysical speculations, but realizes the knowledge of God 
 from the rational contemplation of nature, so it is only the 
 uneducated crowd who behold miracles in Nature, whereas the 
 wise man perceives in it a high divine conformity to law. 
 And although Browne in his view of miracles stops at an 
 untenable half-way position, yet he not merely emphasizes 
 the fact that the providence of God is more clearly seen in 
 the regular course of nature than in miracles, but he openly 
 declares that the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah, the falling 
 of the manna, and such events, took place quite naturally. 
 As he excludes from religion all metaphysical speculations, 
 he teaches regarding God not much more than His existence, 
 to any doubt of which he had never been carried away, and he 
 even affirms that there have never really been Atheists ; and 
 he regards eternity and providence as the most important 
 attributes of God. The knowledge of the divine nature 
 or essence is reserved for God alone. All positive dogmas 
 appear as arbitrary, subjective opinions and errors. In theology, 
 he declares for keeping by the traditional way, and he will not 
 dispute about the Trinity, the incarnation, and similar subjects. 
 But as in all adiapJiora, he will have liberty to follow his 
 personal genius, he exhibits such indifference towards the 
 differences of the various Churches, that everything positive 
 is regarded by him as very insignificant. Sir Thomas Browne 
 shows throughout a want of systematic completeness in his 
 thoughts, but his widely-spread writings served to communi- 
 cate the deistic method of thinking to the widest circles. 
 
302 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 THOMAS HOBBES. 
 
 Thomas Hobbes (1588 1679) l appears as a decided 
 adherent of philosophical empiricism. He defines philosophy 
 as a knowledge of effects from their known causes, and as 
 knowledge of possible causes obtained from known effects by 
 means of correct reasonings (effectuurn ex conceptis eorum 
 causis seu generationibus, et rursus generation um quse esse 
 possunt ex cognitis effectibus per rectam ratiocinationem 
 acquisita). Beckoning or calculation is represented as the 
 method of philosophizing, for rational thinking is just a pro- 
 cess of adding or subtracting, and all syllogistic inference 
 consists of these two operations. All our knowledge is derived 
 from sensible perception. This sensible perception is described 
 as a process of sensation in a strongly materialistic way. Its 
 basis is an external body, which presses either immediately or 
 mediately upon the corresponding organ, and propagates this 
 impression by means of the nerves to the brain or to the heart. 
 Thence arises a counter-pressure in order to be freed by 
 an outward-going motion from the external pressure. This 
 motion, however, appears as an external thing, and is called a 
 sensation. Its different qualities are nothing but differences 
 of the motion in us produced by the differences in the motions 
 of external matter. The imagination is nothing but the con- 
 tinuance of the motion according to the universal law of 
 persistence. Words are mere counters, that is, arbitrarily 
 chosen designations for particular sensations. Eeason has no 
 
 1 The principal writings of Hobbes were called forth by the contemporary 
 circumstances of his country. He says himself that the third part of his 
 De Give (London 1642) was published by him because, some years before 
 the outbreak of the Civil War, his country had been violently excited by expla- 
 nations regarding the rights of the rulers and the due obedience of the citizens. 
 He hopes by it to show that it would be better to bear some inconvenience 
 in private life than to bring the State into confusion, and that the justice of an 
 undertaking should not be measured by the speeches and advice of individual 
 citizens, but by the laws of the State. His other important work is his 
 Leviathan ; or the matter, forme and power of a Commonwealth, ecclcsiasticall 
 and civill, London 1651. He also indicates its purpose to be to show that there 
 is no pretext by which infringement of the laws can be excused. 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HOBBES. 303 
 
 other function than to add or to subtract generic names. By 
 the addition of two names there arises a judgment, by the 
 addition of two judgments an inference, and by the addition of 
 inferences a proof. From the sum-total, again, one quantity 
 is found by the subtraction of others, because all thinking 
 consists in the simple processes of adding and subtracting. 
 Mathematical method is the only philosophical method, and 
 arithmetic is the model of all science. Because all thinking 
 rests upon sensation, there is no thinking and knowing but of 
 corporeal and finite things. There are only two kinds of body, 
 the natural and the artificial, the latter being those that are 
 made by the will of man. Therefore philosophy is divided 
 into the Science of Nature and the Science of the State, to 
 which Logic has to be added as the theory of method. 
 
 The same naturalism controls the views of Hobbes in the 
 ethical sphere. Here, however, it is necessary to distinguish 
 between the condition of life prior to the existence of State 
 and the life in the State. In respect of the former pre- 
 political condition, it does not sound in accordance with 
 naturalism when we read that he who is not bound by a civil 
 law sins when he acts against his conscience, for, except his 
 reason, he has then no rule for his conduct. But the notion 
 of conscience does not go far. If two or more are cognisant 
 of the same thing, they are called conscii ; and as they are 
 mutually the most fitting witnesses of their deeds, it has 
 been held in all times as the greatest crime to give evidence 
 contrary to conscience. The word conscience (conscientia) is 
 also often used of the secret knowledge of one's own acts or 
 thoughts. Eeason which, as we have already seen, is only 
 a faculty of reckoning, does not lead to any higher conception 
 of the good. It is expressly declared that there is no 
 universal rule of the good, the bad, and the indifferent, 
 derived from the nature of objects themselves. These con- 
 ceptions are entirely relative, and are significant only in 
 reference to that person who may use them. What is the 
 object of any man's desire, he calls good ; what is the object 
 of his aversion, he calls bad ; and what he despises, is 
 
304 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 indifferent. Desire and aversion (appetitus, aversio) are real 
 motions in man which rest upon the motion of the senses. 
 The goal of appetite or desire is naturally the happiness of 
 life. If there were only a universally recognised criterion 
 for the determination of what constitutes and what does not 
 constitute our happiness in life, an objective determination of 
 the good would be thus attained. But in the present life 
 there is no ultimate goal of our desire and no highest good. 
 If any one were to attain the goal of his wishes, he could 
 just as little live as if he had lost all sense and memory. 
 Happiness is rather the continual advance from one pleasure 
 to another ; and it is so for this very reason, that we do not 
 merely strive after a momentary gain, but the future calm 
 enjoyment of the object of our wish. Hence it cannot 
 surprise us when it is said to be " right " to preserve the body 
 from death and pains, to protect the limbs, and to keep oneself 
 in health. But as every individual forms his own judgment 
 about what is good, the wishes and strivings of one man 
 are diametrically opposed to those of another. And because 
 in the state of nature all men have an unlimited right to all 
 things, there results as a consequence the war of all against 
 all. This universal state of war is, however, contrary to the 
 requirement of reason, in so far as it demands the preservation 
 of the life of the individual and of the race. Hence reason 
 demands that an end be put to this state of universal war ; 
 and thus the establishment of the State, as proceeding from 
 fear and brought about by a compact, is at the same time a 
 command of natural reason. While reason thus desiderates 
 the preservation of life and the members of the body, it 
 commands the individual to seek peace, and therefore not to 
 hold by his right to all things, but in consent with others to 
 transfer his right to one will. Along with this supreme and 
 fundamental law, Hobbes enunciates nineteen other more 
 special laws, such as those relating to the keeping of com- 
 pacts, the pardon of the repentant, against ingratitude, 
 pride, immodesty, injustice, drunkenness, etc. All these 
 laws are derived from natural reason, and they should 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HOBBES. 305 
 
 lead in the interest of the individual to the founding of 
 a State. 
 
 The State is a civil person, which arises from all the 
 citizens subjecting their will to the will of one man or of 
 one assembly. It is all the same whether it is a natural or 
 a political State, that is, whether a ruler has acquired power 
 over the citizens, or the citizens themselves have transferred 
 the supreme power to one man ; in either case the holder of 
 the supreme power in the State has an unlimited authority. 
 He holds the sword of justice and of war, jurisdiction, legis- 
 lation, the nomination of officials, and the examination of 
 doctrine. And he is not at all bound to the laws of the 
 State. As soon as a State is founded, he becomes the person 
 by reference to whom conceptions are defined as good and 
 bad. As in fact the supreme law of natural reason involves 
 the founding and maintenance of a State as a necessary 
 condition for the maintenance of peace, so in correspondence 
 with the natural reason all that furthers the subsistence of 
 the State is good, and all that is prejudicial to it is bad. 
 
 This view of the State is not without an influence upon 
 Hobbes's Doctrine of Religion. While the State is formed by 
 the free compact of men, there exists before it by nature 
 another kingdom to which man belongs, and this is the 
 kingdom of God. The right of God to govern follows from 
 His omnipotence ; the duty of man to obey follows from his 
 weakness. There are, however, two kinds of natural obliga- 
 tion : in the one case, liberty is cancelled by corporeal 
 restrictions, and in this sense God rules over all men ; and in 
 the second case, liberty is annulled by hope and fear, and in 
 this sense God rules over those who recognise His existence, 
 His providence, the commandments given by Him to men, 
 and the punishments attached to their transgression. For 
 this a Word or proclamation of God is necessary. And 
 there is a threefold Word of God reason, revelation, and 
 the utterances of the prophets ; and hence we might 
 distinguish a threefold kingdom of God. But as revelation 
 is now supplanted by Scripture, Hobbes speaks only of a 
 
 VOL. i. u 
 
306 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 twofold kingdom of God, a natural kingdom and a prophetic 
 kingdom. The natural kingdom of God, however, undergoes 
 a great revolution in consequence of the foundation of States. 
 Hence there arises a tripartite division into (1) natural 
 Eeligion in the narrower sense, (2) natural political Eeligion, 
 and (3) prophetic Eeligion. The first two of these may be 
 taken together as Natural Eeligion in the wider sense, in 
 contrast to the last as Prophetic Eeligion ; and, again, the last 
 two may be taken as positive religions (formed religion), in 
 contrast to the first as natural religion in the narrower sense. 
 Natural Eeligion, in this narrower sense, is explained by 
 Hobbes on natural principles. It is proper to human nature 
 to inquire into the grounds of events, and especially into the 
 grounds of the happiness or unhappiness of oneself. When 
 men see a thing begin, they immediately infer a cause by 
 which the thing is made to begin just at this time and not at 
 another ; and if they do not know the real causes of it, they 
 assume certain causes. Hence arises fear ; for as men 
 certainly know that all things have their ground, they cannot 
 escape a constant care for the future ; but, looking ahead, they 
 are incessantly tortured by the fear of death, or poverty, or 
 misfortune, or similar things. This constant fear, arising from 
 ignorance of causes, has necessarily an object, and as men do 
 not see any other cause of their fate, they refer it to "some 
 power " or an " invisible agent." Hence an ancient poet says 
 that the gods have been made by fear. "Primum in orbe 
 Deos fecit timor." And this is correct as regards the many 
 gods of the heathen. The recognition of the one eternal, 
 infinite, omnipotent God can be derived more easily from the 
 investigation of the causes of natural things ; for if any one 
 infers from any effect which he sees to its proximate cause, 
 and then advances to the cause of this cause, and thus goes 
 deeper into the series of causes, he will at last, with the best 
 of the ancient philosophers, come to a single first Mover, that 
 is, to a single and eternal cause of all things whom all call 
 God. And this result will be reached without any thought of 
 one's own happiness, such as awakens fear, diverts the soul 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HOBBES. 307 
 
 from the investigation of natural causes, and gives occasion to 
 as many gods as there are men who form them. Although 
 by the natural light we can know that there is a God, 
 every one does not apprehend the existence of God, because 
 there are some men who direct their sense only to sensible 
 pleasure, or to the acquisition of honour and riches ; there 
 are others who do not draw the correct inferences in this 
 connection, because they either cannot or will not do it ; and 
 there are still others who are too weak to do this. 
 
 Hobbes likewise gives a natural explanation of some 
 important points in detail. We think of the substance of 
 God, he says, as the substance of the human soul, and after 
 the fashion of a man or of another body that appears in a 
 dream or in a mirror. Hence the soul is called " spirit," 
 meaning a very fine body. Yet, because the spirit is still 
 corporeal, those who have attained to the knowledge of the 
 one infinite, almighty, and eternal God rather designate Him 
 as inconceivable than describe Him as an incorporeal spirit. 
 How these invisible agencies produce their effects, most 
 men do not know, yet, without any insight into what is meant 
 by "being a cause," they often, according to some unreal analogy, 
 connect things that are unrelated. Others, again, ascribe such 
 invisible power to certain words and invocations, as for instance 
 to change bread into a man, etc. Worship can be offered to 
 these invisible powers only by signs of honour and respect, 
 such as presents, supplications, thanksgiving, invocation, etc. 
 As to the way in which such powers indicate to men what 
 is past and future, or favourable and the contrary, nature tells 
 nothing. Here, however, we have the fourfold natural germ 
 of religion : the fear of spirits ; ignorance of second causes ; 
 worship of what is feared ; and expectation of what is con- 
 tingent according to prognostications. 
 
 In the state of nature, God makes Himself known only 
 through the natural law of reason. This law relates, in the 
 first place, to the duties of men towards each other ; and, in 
 the second place, to natural worship. Honour consists in the 
 opinion which is held of any one's power and goodness. 
 
308 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 "Worship is a name for those signs by which this sentiment is 
 exhibited to others. Honour involves three states of mind : 
 Love, which relates to good sentiment ; and Hope and Fear, 
 which are related to the power of others. From these states 
 of mind there proceed external actions as natural signs of the 
 honour by which the powerful are wont to be conciliated and 
 to become kindly disposed. The end of honour in the case 
 of men is that as many as possible may obey them from love 
 and fear : in the case of God, its only end is that He may do 
 good to us. Like all other signs of the soul, so does the 
 honour or worship of God consist in words and in actions. 
 It consists in words, in so far as we assign properties and 
 names to God. The existence of God implies that He is 
 the cause of the world, and excludes the view that the world 
 is God, or God the soul of the world as well as the eternity of 
 the world. Further, it is unworthy of God to attribute to Him 
 complete inaction, and to withdraw Him from the government 
 of the world and of the human race. Neither are we entitled 
 to attribute to Him anything finite, such as a form, or to say 
 that we can grasp or conceive God with the imagination or 
 any other mental power, or that God has parts, or that He is 
 in a place, or moves, or rests. It is true that the word 
 " infinite " indicates an idea of our soul ; but when we say 
 that something is infinite, this does not express any determina- 
 tion of the thing itself, but only the impotence of our mind. 
 Above all, it is unworthy of God to assign to Him those 
 epithets that indicate a pain, such as revenge, anger, pity ; or 
 those that express a want, such as desire, hope, longing ; or 
 that love which is called fondness, or passive states. Even 
 when we ascribe to God a will, or knowledge, or insight, 
 nothing similar to what is in us should be understood thereby. 
 If we would assign to God only attributes which correspond 
 to reason, we must either use negatives, such as " infinite," 
 " unending," " inconceivable ; " or the highest degrees, as " the 
 best," " the greatest," " the strongest ; " or such indefinite words 
 as " the good," " the righteous," " the creator," " the king," and 
 so on ; and always in the sense that it is not the attributes 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HOBBES. 309 
 
 themselves that are thus designated, but only our admiration 
 and obedience. Reason admits, in fact, only one word as a 
 designation of the nature of God, and that is His Existence, or 
 simply that He is, in which it is implied that He is the King 
 as well as our Lord and Father. As actions by which God is 
 honoured, reason recognises prayer, thanksgiving, gifts, and 
 sacrifice as the expressions of gratitude ; swearing by God 
 alone, and speaking of Him with reflection. In the highest 
 degree, however, attention is to be given to the observance of 
 the natural laws ; for all depreciation of the dominion of God 
 is the highest offence, and obedience is more agreeable than 
 all sacrifice. 
 
 Along with this natural worship, which devotes words and 
 deeds to the honour of God, and which is honourable in the 
 case of any one, Hobbes also speaks of an arbitrary worship 
 which takes its acts and designations from the sphere of 
 things that are indifferent in themselves. Thus, as regards 
 the divine attributes, there is nothing that is fixed in itself, 
 because in every language the use of words and names rests 
 upon convention, and therefore it may be also altered by 
 convention. The appointment of words and actions, that are 
 indifferent in themselves, to be used in the worship of God 
 necessarily demands an authority ; in the state of nature every 
 individual may appoint these, but it is otherwise in the public 
 State. In the State the holder of power is an unlimited ruler, 
 arid he has therefore the right to arrange what words and 
 names for God shall be regarded as honourable, and what 
 others shall not be so regarded ; that is, he has the right to 
 arrange what doctrine is to be maintained and to be publicly 
 confessed regarding the nature and activity of God. On 
 the other hand, there are certain actions which are always 
 signs of contempt, and there are others that are always 
 signs of honour, and the State can make no alteration upon 
 these. At the same time, however, there are innumerable 
 things which are indifferent in themselves in regard to honour 
 or contempt. The State can make these into signs of honour, 
 and then they actually become honourable. With the forma- 
 
310 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 tion of the State, the individual has to transfer to the State 
 the right to regulate worship. Otherwise, amidst the diversity 
 of worshippers, one would regard the worship of another 
 as unsuitable and godless, whereas worship can only then 
 serve as a sign of inward reverence when all recognise it as 
 honourable. At the same time, Hobbes expressly declares 
 that the State can only prescribe the external worship and 
 never the internal faith, and that it is not necessary to obey, 
 should the State demand the dishonouring of God, or prevent 
 His being honoured. 
 
 Along with the natural word of God, Hobbes also takes 
 notice of a prophetic word, but he does not examine the 
 question of the possibility of an immediate revelation ; he 
 merely sets up a series of rules which ought to be observed in 
 testing any professed revelation. Only that is wholly a word 
 of God which God has spoken by the assurance of a true 
 prophet. Hence we must know above all who is a true 
 prophet. The people believed in Moses on account of his 
 miracles and on account of his doctrine. The later prophets 
 likewise found faith on account of their prophesying coming 
 things, and on account of the faith in the God of Abraham. 
 But it is the function of natural reason to investigate whether 
 these two things were actually founded on fact. When we 
 examine the supernatural revelation of the prophetic word, 
 we should not set aside sense, experience, and right reason ; 
 for the word of God, while it contains much that is above 
 reason, as what can neither be proved nor refuted by natural 
 reason, yet contains nothing contrary to reason. As often 
 then as we may stumble upon a passage that we cannot 
 comprehend, we must subject our intellect to the words ; for 
 the mysteries are like the pills which physicians prescribe 
 for the sick swallowed whole they are healing, but when 
 chewed they are mostly spat out again ! This subjection of 
 the intellect is, however, not to be so understood as if we 
 were held bound to assent to divergent views of Scripture. 
 This is not in our power ; only we are not to contradict those 
 whose task it is to establish doctrines. God speaks to us 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HOBBES. 311 
 
 either immediately or by means of other men. How He 
 speaks immediately to a man may be recognised by those to 
 whom He so speaks. But while it is not just impossible, it 
 is very difficult for another to know it. For if any one says 
 to me that God has immediately spoken to him, I do not see 
 how he will make it probable to me. If some one says it to 
 whom I owe obedience, then I am bound neither by word nor 
 by deed to make known my dissensi^ ; but, on the other hand, 
 he cannot constrain my belief. If some one says it who has 
 no authority, then there is no reason to believe him or to obey. 
 If some one says that God has spoken to him in a dream, then 
 he says that he has dreamed that God spake to him ; but no 
 one will hold the dreams of others to be God's word, at least 
 no one will do so if they can be naturally explained from the 
 pride and arrogance of the dreamer. When any one asserts 
 that God has supernaturally inspired him with a new doctrine, 
 intelligent men will recognise of him that he is transported 
 by the over-estimate of his own mind. Although God can 
 speak to a man in a dream or vision by a voice and inspiration, 
 yet no one is bound to believe one who asserts that God has so 
 spoken to him ; he may in fact err, and, what is still worse, 
 he may lie. The Scriptures give two signs as marks of a true 
 prophet : the annunciation of the religion which is already 
 received, and the performance of miracles ; yet not the one 
 without the other, but both of them together. 
 
 Hobbes speaks about miracles in some detail. That man 
 wonders at an event is conditioned by two things : first, that 
 he has seldom or never seen anything similar happening ; 
 and, secondly, by the fact that he cannot understand that it 
 happens from natural causes, and not by the immediate 
 operation of God. Thus it is a miracle when a horse or an 
 ass speaks, but not when a man or a beast produce their like ; 
 the first rainbow was a miracle, but the present rainbows are 
 not so. In this way ignorant men regard many a thing as 
 a wonderful miracle about which educated men do not 
 wonder, such as eclipses of the sun and moon. Again, the 
 purpose of a miracle is always to accredit the prophets and 
 
312 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 ambassadors of God, and hence creation is not a miracle. 
 Further, neither the devil, nor an angel, nor a spirit can 
 perform miracles, nor any one but God alone. 
 
 It is assumed as a historical fact without closer investiga- 
 tion that God has revealed Himself immediately to the 
 prophets, but Hobbes alludes to a double meaning of the 
 expression " Word of God." It signifies, in the first place, 
 the discourse of God, and in so far the Word of God is con- 
 tained in the Scripture. Again it means the doctrine of God, 
 and so far the Scripture is God's Word. Hobbes also lays 
 the foundation of important beginnings in the criticism of the 
 Old Testament canon ; he brings forward in particular certain 
 weighty grounds against the Mosaic composition of the Pen- 
 tateuch. By this immediate revelation, the prophetic kingdom 
 of God is founded. Although natural reason can bring man 
 to a certain knowledge and reverence of God, there is always 
 a danger of his falling into atheism and superstition. The 
 former arises from the opinions of a rationalism which is 
 without fear ; the latter arises from the fear which has 
 separated itself from right reason. Now, while the greatest 
 part of men sank into idolatry, God called Abraham to lead 
 men to the true worship. God immediately revealed Himself 
 to Abraham, and entered into a covenant with him and his 
 seed, to the intent that Abraham should recognise God as 
 his God, so as to subject himself to Him as ruler, and that 
 God, on the other hand, would give him the land of Canaan. 
 Circumcision was to serve as a sign of the covenant; but 
 besides this we find no laws that go beyond the demands of 
 natural reason. This compact was renewed with Isaac and 
 Jacob, and afterwards with the whole people at Mount Sinai, 
 and it then obtained the name of the " Kingdom." The laws 
 of this Kingdom are in part, as relating to morals, of natural 
 obligation ; in part they are derived from Abraham, as in the 
 case of the prohibition of idolatry and the law of the Sabbath ; 
 and in part they were given by God as the special King of 
 the Jews, as is the case with the political, judicial, and 
 ceremonial laws. Moses united in his person the supreme 
 
BEGINNINGS OF DEISM. HOBBES. 313 
 
 power of the State and the right to interpret the divine 
 Word. Afterwards both powers were united as of right in 
 the hand of the High Priest, but were really exercised by the 
 prophets. After the choice of a king, he exercised the two 
 powers, as the kingdom of God had been abrogated with His 
 consent. 
 
 This Kingdom of God was restored by Christ. Christ's 
 office is threefold : that of a Eedeemer, of a Teacher, and of 
 a King. The kingly office is undoubtedly the most important. 
 Christ was sent by God in order to conclude the covenant 
 between Him and the people. The kingdom of God, 
 established by Christ, does not begin till His second coming 
 at the day of Judgment. His first appearance upon the 
 earth did not yet constitute the kingdom itself, but only the 
 calling of those who will be received into the future kingdom. 
 For although His kingdom is only to come in the future, its 
 members must conduct themselves in such a manner here, 
 that they will persevere in the obedience promised by the 
 covenant. For the Christian Eeligion is also a covenant or 
 compact, God promising forgiveness of sins and introduction 
 into the kingdom of heaven, and men promising obedience 
 and faith. These are, in fact, the two conditions of entrance 
 into the kingdom of God. Obedience alone would suffice, if 
 it were perfect ; but as we are subject to punishment, both 
 for Adam's sake and on account of our own sin, we need, as 
 the condition of obedience for the future, also forgiveness of 
 past sins. Faith is a free gift of God. The only article of 
 faith that is necessary to salvation, is that Jesus is the 
 Christ ; and this article includes that God is omnipotent and 
 the Creator of the world, that Jesus Christ has risen from the 
 dead, and that He will raise up all men at the last day. It 
 is also evident that the Christian Church is completely sub- 
 ordinated to or rather incorporated in the State as the supreme 
 authority. The community of citizens constitutes the State ; 
 the community of Christians constitutes the Church. " A 
 Church and a Commonwealth of Christian People are the 
 same thing." 
 
314 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 CHARLES BLOUNT. 
 
 The writings of Charles Blount (1654-1693) contain 
 little that is peculiar or noteworthy. He gives a short sketch 
 of the Deistic Religion, and is the first to use this expression. 
 He holds that there is one supreme perfect Being, that God 
 is not honoured by images and sacrifices, for it is not external 
 rites, but only repentance and future obedience that can 
 reconcile God. He further holds that a mediator is un- 
 necessary on the ground that God must determine Himself, 
 and that such mediation would derogate as much from His 
 infinite goodness as an image would derogate from His 
 spirituality and infinity. There is nothing required but only 
 the observation of all the things that are just by nature, such 
 as the imitation of God or the practice of virtue. In another 
 place Blount enumerates seven principal points as belonging 
 to Natural Religion, which consists in the belief in an eternal, 
 intelligent Being, and the duty that is due to Him, and which 
 is communicated to us by our reason without revelation and 
 positive law. These seven points, however, differ essentially 
 from the five points of Herbert. He argues for the advan- 
 tage of natural religion over positive religion on the well- 
 known ground expressed in the following syllogism. The 
 precepts that are necessary to eternal salvation must be made 
 known to every one ; the precepts of revealed religion cannot 
 be known everywhere ; therefore it is not positive religion, 
 but only natural religion, that is necessary for our salvation. 
 Blount can refer to nothing as explaining the positive religions 
 but the imposture of selfish priests, who deformed the primi- 
 tive religion of mere rectitude by the introduction of all sorts 
 of gods and images, oracles and sacrifices, in order to guide 
 the people in leading-strings for their own advantage. 
 
THE FULL DEVELOPMENT OF DEISM. LOCKE. 315 
 
 II. 
 
 THE FULL DEVELOPMENT OF DEISM. 
 JOHN LOCKE. 
 
 The philosophical theory of Locke (1632-1704) 1 may be 
 designated Empiricism by reference to the result it attained, 
 and it may also be called Criticism by reference to the 
 method it pursued. The object and purpose of his principal 
 work was an Inquiry into the origin, the certainty, and the 
 extent of human knowledge, as well as the grounds and 
 degrees of belief, opinion, and assent. The result of this 
 examination of our faculty of knowledge is primarily nega- 
 tive. There are no "innate ideas" either of a theoretical or of a 
 practical kind. On the contrary, the soul is originally a tabula 
 rasa, like a blank sheet of paper without any lines written or 
 engraved upon it ; but it is capable of receiving all sorts of 
 impressions. All our ideas arise from Sensation, that is, from 
 external experience by means of the senses, and from Eeflec- 
 tion, that is, internal experience by means of consciousness. 
 The former process takes place in so far as the external 
 objects furnish the soul with ideas of sensible qualities ; and 
 the latter, in so far as the soul gives the understanding ideas 
 of its own operations. We obtain ideas of the Qualities of 
 bodies by impulse ; and there are various kinds of qualities 
 
 1 Locke became dissatisfied with the Scholastic Philosophy at the University 
 of Oxford, and felt himself drawn more towards Descartes. In the course of 
 his study of Medicine and the Natural Sciences he passed through an appro- 
 priate training for his later empirical inquiries. Locke formed an intimate 
 friendship with Lord Ashley Cooper, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, grand- 
 father of the philosopher of the same name, was appointed by him to important 
 political offices, and even accompanied him into exile when he retired to 
 Amsterdam. The last years of his life he spent partly in the discharge of 
 public offices as Commissioner of Commerce and of the Colonies, and partly in 
 learned leisure. His Essay concerning Human Understanding, London 1690, 
 is the most important of his works, and it has secured him a permanent place 
 in the History of Philosophy. Here we have chiefly to consider his treatise, 
 entitled The Reasonableness of Christianity, as delivered in the Scriptures, 
 1695, and his Letters on Toleration, London 1689-92. 
 
316- THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 in bodies. The Primary Qualities are Solidity, Extension, 
 Figure, Number, Position, Motion, and they are inseparable 
 from bodies in any of their states. Ideas of these Qualities 
 arise in us as copies of the objects themselves, as when certain 
 minute imperceptible particles come into our eyes and 
 propagate thence a certain motion to the brain. The 
 Secondary Qualities have nothing corresponding to them in 
 the things themselves, but are only certain powers they have 
 of producing sensible ideas in us ; and this happens in like 
 manner by the action of imperceptible particles upon the 
 soul. These ideas, however, have no similarity to the bodies. 
 Hence the soul can neither produce nor annihilate Simple 
 Ideas, but is purely passive in receiving them. On the other 
 hand, it has the power to retain the ideas that have once been 
 received, and to deal with them freely and actively. By com- 
 bination of Simple Ideas the soul forms Complex ideas ; it 
 conjoins several ideas, and thus forms notions of Relations ; 
 and it further separates one idea from the others along with 
 which it appears in existing things, and by this abstraction 
 it produces General Ideas. But in these operations the 
 soul is also so far restricted that it cannot go beyond the 
 material furnished by Sensation and Reflection. Words 
 serve as signs of Ideas, and their meaning rests merely upon 
 the free, arbitrary convention of men, and it has nothing to 
 do with the actual existence of things. Most errors and 
 disputes rest upon a misunderstanding of words. By words 
 becoming sanctioned, an error is often propagated and con- 
 firmed. Doctrines may even grow into the dignity of prin- 
 ciples in religion or morals by length of time and the agree- 
 ment of neighbours, although they have no better source 
 than the superstition of a nurse or the authority of an old 
 woman. 
 
 Corresponding to this Empiricism in the theory of know- 
 ledge, Locke, in treating of Ethics, makes the sensations of 
 pleasure and pain the criterion of what is good and bad. We 
 call good whatever awakens in us pleasure or diminishes pain, 
 and the opposite is bad. It is thus that our passions are put 
 
JOHN LOCKE. 317 
 
 in motion, for the wish for happiness determines our desire, 
 and in such a manner that on account of the different ideas of 
 happiness, different things appear as good or bad, and so that 
 a present pain determines us more strongly than a pleasure 
 that is hoped for in the future. When we are capable of 
 performing actions according to the ideas which our soul 
 forms of things in their bearing upon our happiness, we are 
 free. It is not the will that is properly free, but the being 
 who acts. Further, what is morally good and bad is not 
 objectively or in itself good and bad ; but it is the agreement 
 or the opposite of our free act with a particular law by which, 
 in accordance with the will and power of the lawgiver, 
 what is agreeable and disagreeable is connected with our 
 state. Of such moral rules there are three : the Divine law, 
 the civil law, and the law of public opinion. The Divine law 
 alone is the true test of moral rectitude, and it is communi- 
 cated to us either by the light of nature or by the voice of 
 revelation. 
 
 What then does Locke make of Eeligion in connection with 
 such views ? In the first place, his universal rejection of 
 innate ideas also applies to the idea of God. It is admitted 
 that it is one of the greatest practical truths that God is to be 
 worshipped, but neither the idea of worship nor the idea of 
 God is innate. There are peoples who do not possess this idea, 
 and besides, there are found in the creation such visible traces 
 of the wisdom and power of God that men can come to the 
 knowledge of God without having the idea innate in them. If 
 the innateness of this idea is inferred from the goodness of 
 God, which, in such an important matter, could not leave man 
 a prey to doubt and uncertainty, the reply is, that to infer 
 from what appears good to us to what God ought to have 
 done, is rash and presumptuous. Besides, there prevails the 
 greatest diversity of opinion regarding the idea of God ; and 
 the fact that the wise men of all nations have found out the 
 truth, at least regarding the unity and infinity of God, rather 
 proves that correct ideas are the fruit of reflection. Locke thus 
 designates the notion of God as a very natural discovery of 
 
318 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 human reason. The notion of God is formed in the same way 
 as the notion of immaterial spirits ; they are both complex 
 ideas made up of simple ideas of reflection. When we enlarge 
 those ideas that appear to us excellent, such as existence and 
 duration, knowledge and power, pleasure and happiness, by 
 the idea of infinity we obtain that idea which is most con- 
 formable to the loftiest being. The notion of God is thus 
 formed by enlarging the ideas which we have obtained through 
 reflection on the activities of our mind and through the senses 
 from external things, to the degree that it includes infinity in 
 it. We cannot know God's essence ; in His essence God is 
 possibly simple, but for us, in this relation, there is no other 
 idea possible but a complex one. Yet here we must not hold 
 to the idea of a body, but to that of a mind. 
 
 Locke also expresses himself regarding the ground upon 
 which the idea of God is formed. God has not left us without 
 witnesses of His existence. The truth of His existence presses 
 itself upon all, and its evidence comes up to mathematical 
 certainty, although it requires reflection and attention. Every 
 one has a clear consciousness of his own existence ; every one 
 is also certain that nothing cannot possibly produce a being ; 
 and therefore something real must have existed from eternity. 
 A thing which is produced from something else has in this the 
 source of all its powers ; and hence the eternal source of all 
 beings must necessarily also be the source of all powers, and 
 therefore must be supremely powerful. Of the two kinds of 
 beings, those that think and those that do not think, it is not 
 possible that those that do not think can have brought forth 
 those that think ; and further, as man finds in himself con- 
 sciousness and knowledge, these powers must therefore also 
 belong to the original Being, and even in the highest degree. 
 Hence there exists an eternal and most powerful Being who 
 possesses tjie highest knowledge. It is a matter of indifference 
 as to whether we call this Being God, but from this idea may 
 be derived all the attributes which we are wont to assign to 
 the Supreme and Eternal Being. Locke considers that the 
 ontological argument is not properly fitted to prove this truth. 
 
JOHN LOCKE. 319 
 
 Along with this natural knowledge of God, Locke speaks 
 also of Revelation ; but instead of investigating its possibility, 
 he only sets up certain caveats to warn and guard us against 
 the too easy acceptance of pretended revelations. After 
 having spoken of the doubtful value, and the necessity of 
 making an examination of, all historical knowledge, he proceeds 
 to show that there are propositions which are supported upon 
 mere testimony, and yet lay claim to the highest degree of 
 trustworthiness, because their testimony comes from Him who 
 can neither deceive nor be deceived, that is, from God Himself. 
 This is Eevelation. Its trustworthiness is dependent on the 
 certainty, first, that a certain thing actually is a Divine revela- 
 tion ; and secondly, that we rightly understand the meaning of 
 the expressions. In both respects great caution is required. 
 
 The relation between Eeason and Faith is explained at 
 considerable length. A distinction is made between (1) 
 rational propositions, the truth of which we can discover by 
 an examination of natural ideas ; (2) supra-rational proposi- 
 tions, or propositions above Eeason, the truth of which we 
 cannot derive from those sources ; and (3) irrational pro- 
 positions, which are inconsistent with themselves, or are 
 incompatible with clear and distinct ideas. Thus it is accord- 
 ing to reason that there is one God ; it is contrary to reason 
 that there are many Gods ; and it is above reason that there 
 is a resurrection. When reason and faith are opposed to each 
 other, by reason is understood the accepting as true of pro- 
 positions to which the mind comes by the exercise of its 
 natural powers, and by faith is meant the acceptance as true 
 of a proposition that has not arisen from rational thinking, 
 but is adopted merely on the ground of the authority of one 
 who proclaims it as a divine ambassador. In this connection 
 there are three things to be observed. In the first place, an 
 external revelation can never communicate to us a new Simple 
 Idea which we have not previously received from sensation 
 or reflection. The communication is made, in fact, through 
 language, but this is always connected with the impressions 
 given by experience. In the second place, revelation may 
 
THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 communicate to us truths which reason can attain by natural 
 means, such as the truth of a proposition in Euclid ; yet revela- 
 tion never establishes the same certainty as deduction from the 
 natural powers of reason does. Hence no revelation can have 
 validity as against the clear evidence of reason, otherwise the 
 divine revelation would contradict what flows from the faculty 
 of knowledge that is likewise given by God. As reason decides 
 in the case of a communicated revelation as to whether it is 
 really divine, the belief in it thus rests always upon reason. 
 In the third place, things that are above reason form the proper 
 objects of faith. They are therefore such things as we have 
 no ideas or only imperfect ideas of, or of whose past, present, 
 or future state we can have no knowledge, such as the rebellion 
 of a part of the angels and the resurrection of the dead. In 
 these things revelation must be of more authority than the 
 probable conjectures of reason ; but even here reason judges 
 as to whether a certain thing is a revelation as well as the 
 expressions in which it is communicated. In short, ' whatever 
 God hath revealed is certainly true ; but whether it be a 
 divine revelation or no, reason must judge." 
 
 Christianity is represented as entirely conformable to reason, 
 for nothing is requisite for a man to become a Christian but 
 repentance and faith. Locke rejects as erroneous the view that 
 all men were condemned to eternal and infinite punishment by 
 Adam's fall, and the opinion that Christ was only a teacher of 
 natural religion, from a special redemption being unnecessary. 
 Christ has delivered us from the power of death, and thereby 
 acquired for us again what we had lost by the fall of Adam, 
 namely, righteousness, happiness, and immortality. Every 
 righteous man has now again received a title to eternal life, 
 whereas the sinner is excluded from Paradise. As a substitute 
 for that obedience, which no one perfectly performs, God 
 requires along with repentance the faith or belief that Jesus 
 is the Messias. The rule of obedience is the moral law as 
 purified by Christ, and Christ has enabled us more easily to 
 fulfil it by pointing to inexpressible rewards and punishments 
 in another world. 
 
JOHN TOLAND. 321 
 
 Locke expressed himself emphatically in favour of the 
 universal toleration of other religious communities, and he 
 supported this claim by a detailed theory regarding the relation 
 of the State to the Church. 
 
 JOHN TOLAND. 
 
 John Toland (1 6 70-1 7 2 2) l was the author of Christianity 
 not Mysterious, which was published in 1696. It was only the 
 first part of a proposed larger work, which, as planned, was to 
 consist of three parts. The object of the first part was to 
 prove that the chief qualities of true Eeligion are clearness 
 and conformity to reason, and that Christianity possesses these 
 qualities. The second part was to give a rational interpreta- 
 tion of the supposed Mysteries of Christianity, and to show 
 that they were grounded in human reason. And the third 
 part was to defend the necessity and design of divine Revela- 
 tion against all the enemies of revealed Eeligion. Only the 
 first part appeared, and it falls into three sections. The first 
 section speaks of reason generally, and breathes throughout the 
 spirit of Locke's empiricism ; the second proceeds to show that 
 the doctrines of the Gospel are not contrary to reason ; and the 
 third goes on to explain that there is no Mystery or anything 
 above Reason in the Gospel. 
 
 Reason is not the soul viewed abstractly, but it is the soul 
 
 1 Toland was born in Ireland. He was the son of Catholic parents, but in his 
 sixteenth year he passed over to Protestantism, and as he had not learned ' ' to 
 subject his understanding any more than his senses to any man or society," he 
 became the chief representative and the best known writer of the Deistic school. 
 His principal work is his " Christianity not Mysterious: or a treatise showing 
 that there is nothing in the Gospel contrary to reason, nor above it, and that 
 no Christian doctrine can be properly called a Mystery," London 1696. Toland 
 had to withdraw himself by flight from the violent attacks which this work pro- 
 voked. Two phases are to be distinguished in Toland's development. In his 
 Christianity not Mysterious, which is to be regarded as the standard work of the 
 English Deism, Toland still represented a certain supernaturalism, as he does 
 not contest an immediate Divine Revelation, but openly acknowledges it, and 
 only demands that it should be in harmony with reason. In his later period, 
 as represented in his Letters to Serena (London 1704), his Pantheisticon (Cos- 
 mopoli, 1720), and his Adeisidcemon (Hague 1709), Toland turns from his 
 earlier position to a decided Naturalism. 
 
 VOL. I. X 
 
322 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 as active in a particular way. Neither is it the soul as it 
 receives ideas into itself through the senses. The simple ideas 
 which we obtain by Sensation and Eeflection rather form the 
 material upon which the activity of our Eeason is exercised. 
 Knowledge consists in the perception of the agreement or non- 
 agreement of our ideas. It is either immediate or mediate ; 
 the former constitutes intuitive knowledge, or self- evidence, 
 the latter demonstrative knowledge or demonstration. It is 
 only in connection with the latter that reason is active as the 
 faculty of the soul which discovers the certainty of doubtful 
 and obscure things by comparing them with those that are 
 completely known. What evidently contradicts our common 
 notions, or our clear and distinct ideas, is contrary to reason. 
 The ground of all right conviction is evidence, which consists 
 in the exact agreement or conformity of our ideas with their 
 objects. From this ground of conviction the means of infor- 
 mation must be carefully distinguished, and as such there are 
 experience and authority. Experience is divided into internal 
 or reflection, and external or sensation ; and authority is 
 divided into human and divine. The divine revelation is not 
 a ground of conviction, or a motive of assent, but a means of 
 instruction. Revelation is indeed the way upon which we 
 actually come to the knowledge of truths, but it is not the 
 ground on which we believe them. Hence it follows that 
 in Christianity as a divine revelation there can neither be 
 anything against reason nor anything above reason. 
 
 The assertion that things occur in revelation that are 
 contrary to reason is the ground of all absurdities, as of the 
 doctrines of Transubstantiation, of the Trinity, and so on. A 
 doctrine contrary to reason should be entirely unintelligible 
 to us, because we would have no idea of it. Further, whoever 
 says that he can accept what is a tangible error and contrary 
 to reason, if it is contained in the Scriptures, justifies all 
 absurdities ; he sets the one light in opposition to the other ; 
 and since both come from God, he makes God the author of 
 all uncertainty. Hence all the doctrines and precepts of the 
 New Testament must agree with natural reason and with our 
 
JOHN TO LAND. 323 
 
 own common ideas. And this rationality and comprehensi- 
 bility of the Christian religion is also supported by the order 
 arid method, as well as by the easy and simple style, which 
 prevails in the New Testament. 
 
 In order to prove that the Gospel contains no mystery, or 
 nothing supra-rational, it must first be settled what a mystery 
 is. By a mystery is meant, in the first place, a thing which 
 is conceivable in itself, but which for the time is veiled in 
 figurative words, or types, or images ; and it also comes to 
 signify a thing that is inconceivable by its own nature. It is 
 erroneous to call anything a mysterium as soon as we have no 
 adequate idea of all its qualities or its essential nature. As, 
 in fact, we do not know the inner essence of things, but know 
 them only in so far as their qualities stand in relation to us 
 as useful or prejudicial, in this sense everything would be 
 irrational. It would be as little correct to designate a 
 doctrine of the Christian religion as a mystery, merely 
 because we have no complete and adequate idea of it, as it 
 would be to do this with any ordinary part of nature. What 
 is revealed in religion being extremely useful and necessary 
 for us, is easily conceived, and it completely agrees with our 
 ordinary ideas. With proper examination, such doctrines 
 may be just as well conceived as natural and common things. 
 Thus with regard to God, we certainly do not know the 
 nature of His eternal essence, but we do know quite correctly 
 His attributes ; and every act of OUT religion is guided by the 
 contemplation of one of His attributes. The same limitation 
 of our knowledge to attributes is found in regard to all things. 
 In the heathen religions, Mysterium (Mvarrjpiov) designates a 
 thing that is conceivable in itself, but which is so much 
 concealed from other men that it cannot be known without 
 special revelation of it, that is, without initiation into it by 
 those who know. In the New Testament, Mysterium never 
 designates a thing that is inconceivable in itself ; it indicates 
 a thing that is conceivable by its nature, but which is either 
 veiled by figurative words and practices, or is kept solely in 
 God's knowledge, so that it cannot be known without a special 
 
324 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 revelation. Mysterium therefore at one time signifies the 
 gospel ; at another, the Christian religion ; at another, the 
 doctrines revealed hy the apostles ; and again, something that 
 is veiled in parables and similes. This view of the nature of 
 mysteries is also held by the Church Fathers. 
 
 Against this assertion, however, reference is made to the 
 nature of Faith or Belief as something that transcends 
 knowledge, and to Miracles as events that are essentially 
 inconceivable. With regard to Faith, Toland maintains that 
 the true faith is a firm conviction which rests upon previous 
 knowledge, and therefore upon the exercise of reason. God 
 does not, in fact, speak to us immediately, but we must rely 
 upon the words and writings of those to whom He may have 
 spoken. It thus becomes necessary to examine whether such 
 writings have actually proceeded from their alleged authors, 
 and whether these persons and their works are worthy of God 
 or not. Only if Faith is a conviction, founded upon previous 
 knowledge and understanding, can there be various stages and 
 degrees of faith, and only on that condition are we able " to 
 give to others a reason for the hope that is in us." That all 
 are commanded to believe under the threat of damnation, 
 necessarily presupposes that the object of faith is intelligible 
 to all. Toland does not deny Miracles as events which 
 exceed all human power, and which the laws of nature are 
 not able to bring about by their ordinary modes of operation. 
 But as what is contrary to reason is nothing at all, and is 
 therefore impossible, miracles must happen according to the 
 laws of nature, although it may be by supernatural assistance. 
 "Miracles are produced according to the Law of nature, 
 though above its ordinary operations, which are therefore 
 supernaturally assisted." Further, God allows Himself this 
 alteration of the natural course of things ; but this seldom 
 occurs, and always for a purpose that is important, rational, 
 and worthy of the divine wisdom and majesty. 
 
 If Christianity, then, is essentially without mysteries, the 
 only question remaining is, how did mysteries come into it ? 
 Jesus preached the purest morality, but when the Jews and the 
 
JOHN TOLAND. 325 
 
 heathen passed over in such great numbers to Christianity, the 
 former wished to retain their Levitical ceremonies and festivals, 
 and the latter wished to maintain their mysteries. When the 
 philosophers also became Christian, Christianity became from 
 day to day more mysterious, and it was soon intelligible 
 only to the learned. When, still later, the imperial power 
 protected Christianity, the Christian mysteries w r ere made 
 completely like those of the heathen in the preparations and 
 the stages of the process of initiation, and they were carried 
 above the sphere of all sense and all reason. 
 
 An essentially different mode of thought is expressed in the 
 later writings of Toland. The most harmless of them rela- 
 tively are the Letters to Serena (London^l704), and especially 
 the first three Letters. Serena was the intellectual Sophie 
 Charlotte, Queen of Prussia. Starting with the complaint 
 made by the recipient of the Letters, that she was greatly 
 preoccupied by prejudices, the author shows in the first Letter 
 that it is impossible to keep oneself in youth free from errors, 
 and that it is difficult to free oneself afterwards from them. 
 Even before birth a foundation is laid for them in inherited 
 propensity, and with birth there begins deception on all sides : 
 superstitious ceremonies on the part of the midwife, magic 
 words and symbols on the part of the priest, fear of ghosts on 
 the part of the nurse, stories of spectres and miracles at school, 
 etc. The most fruitful nursery of prejudices is the University. 
 The priests are driven to abstain from undeceiving the rest of 
 the people, and rather to keep them in their errors. Every 
 class and profession has its own peculiar prejudices. It is not 
 openly expressed, yet it is sufficiently indicated, that the whole 
 of religion rests upon this rotten foundation of groundless 
 prejudices. The second and third Letters discuss the origin 
 of the belief in Immortality and Idolatry. Both of these 
 beliefs arose among the Egyptians, and spread from them to 
 all peoples. The Egyptians came to believe in Immortality 
 merely from their treatment of dead bodies, and by the piety 
 with which they preserved the memory of deserving persons. 
 The honouring of the dead then became the chief source of 
 
326 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 Idolatry. All the heathen religions are distortions of the 
 natural truth of reason, and they are founded on the selfish 
 deceptions practised by priests and politicians. 
 
 Toland applies the same scanty resources to giving an 
 explanation of Eeligion in his work entitled Adeisidcemon 
 (Hague 1709). The first part proceeds to show that Livy 
 was able to give excellent psychological explanations of the 
 portenta, prodigia, etc., narrated by him, and that he regarded 
 worship as an invention of priests, and religion as a bugbear 
 prudently invented by politicians to terrify the people. The 
 second part makes the Jews Egyptians, and Moses an Egyptian 
 priest and monarch, who has expressed in the ten command- 
 ments only th,e pure law of nature. All the other doctrines 
 and practices were later idolatrous additions falsely attributed 
 to the great lawgiver himself. 
 
 Of special interest for Toland's later philosophical views are 
 the last two of the Letters, which explain the philosophy of 
 Spinoza, and his Pantheisticon (Cosmopoli 1*720). The criti- 
 cism of the philosophy of Spinoza contained in these letters 
 well deserves to be considered in the history of philosophy. 
 With no little acuteness, Toland seeks to show that the whole 
 system of Spinoza is not merely false, but unsafe, and without 
 any solid foundation. The philosopher's greatest weakness 
 was a boundless passion to become the head of a sect, to have 
 disciples, and to adorn a new system of philosophy with his 
 name. Toland hits quite correctly upon the weakest point 
 in Spinoza's system, when he shows that it teaches only one 
 substance with many attributes, among which extension and 
 thought are the most important ; yet it tells nowhere how 
 matter attains to motion, nor, like the systems of Descartes 
 and Newton, does it make God the first mover, or motion an 
 attribute of substance. Hence it is entirely impossible for 
 Spinoza to derive the diversity of the many individual bodies 
 from the unity of his substance, and to combine them with it. 
 A sure proof, he says, that even men of acute judgment are 
 led in many things by mere prejudice. 
 
 Toland, on the other hand, asserts that motion is as essential 
 
JOHN TOLAND. 327 
 
 to matter as extension and solidity, and that it is not at all 
 possible to think of matter without motion, so that motion 
 necessarily belongs to the definition of matter. There is no 
 absolute rest in the whole world. The apparent rest of indi- 
 vidual bodies only arises from the fact that opposite acting 
 forces of motion neutralise each other. If motion belongs 
 essentially to matter, it cannot possibly be outside of things. 
 In like manner, it is impossible to speak of an absolute space 
 in which the world moves as if it were contained in it, or of 
 an absolute time outside of things. Motion, however, and 
 particularly motion as essential to matter, is not merely the 
 change of place which one object assumes in relation to 
 another, it is likewise the change of the material arrangement 
 within individual things. Hence motion is the so-called 
 principium individuationis, that is, it depends upon motion 
 that the innumerable different individual things proceed out 
 of the one all-embracing matter. Upon motion, rest, form 
 and colour, heat and cold, light and sound, for all things are 
 nothing but a restless moving up and down, an eternal 
 change of matter, a universal becoming and perishing ; in 
 short, all change in things is nothing but the movement of 
 matter. Toland confesses that he is not able to explain what 
 motion is, for such simple ideas as motion, extension, colour, 
 and sound are clear in themselves, and are not capable of 
 definition. Notwithstanding this materialistic principle, that 
 motion or force is essential to matter, Toland shrinks from the 
 last consequences, which were afterwards drawn by the Trench 
 Encyclopaedists. He designates it as an extremely thoughtless 
 and inconsiderate inference that would regard a guiding Intel- 
 ligence as unnecessary as soon as we have apprehended force 
 as essential to matter. For, entirely apart from the fact that 
 God could create matter as well with motion as with exten- 
 sion, he holds that the mechanical motion of matter alone can 
 as little produce the artistically formed plants and animals, 
 as shaking letters together could form an dZneid or an 
 Iliad. 
 
 The same view is contained in the work called Panthcisticon. 
 
28 , THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 Here Toland imagines a numerous sect of Pantheists, for whose 
 assemblies, modelled after the Greek symposia, he constructs 
 liturgical forms as a substitute for the ecclesiastical worship. 
 " Swearing by the words of no one, led neither by education 
 nor custom, not hindered by inherited religions and laws, they 
 discuss without prejudice, and in the freest and calmest way, 
 all things sacred and secular. They are called Pantheists 
 because their judgment regarding the relation of God to the 
 world is the same as that of Linus : Ex toto quidem sunt 
 omnia, et ex omnibus est totum." " The universe is infinite in 
 extent and power ; it is one by the connection of the whole 
 and the collision of its parts. As a whole it is immoveable, 
 because there is no place or space outside of it. In respect 
 of its parts, it is moveable, imperishable, and necessary. It 
 is eternal in existence and duration ; it knows with the highest 
 reason, which, however, can only be called by the same name 
 as our faculty of knowledge, from a slight resemblance to it, 
 for its parts are always the same, and as parts are always in 
 motion." Everything is produced out of matter, and consists 
 of matter, which separates into four fundamental elements. 
 From the motion of these elements, and the varied mixtures 
 of matter thus arising, the different individual things are pro- 
 duced, every one of which includes both form and matter. 
 Thought is also a kind of motion ; it is a peculiar motion of 
 the brain resting upon the ethereal fire, for the ether is the 
 efficient cause of all perception, imagination, memory, and 
 elaboration of ideas. God is the " vis et energia totius, crea- 
 trix omnium et moderatrix ac ad optimum fineni semper ten- 
 dens." He may be called the Spirit or Soul of the universe, 
 but He is not to be separated from the universe itself other- 
 wise than in thought. The Liturgy of the Pantheists is a 
 worship of genius, and it is mostly borrowed from heathen 
 writers. We may only mention here, in particular, how all 
 that is positive in religion is expressly repudiated, in accord- 
 ance with the view of Cicero in his De repullica, lib. iii. : " Est 
 quidem vero lex recta ratio naturae congruens, diffusa in omnes, 
 constans sempiterna, quae vocet ad officium jubendo, vitando 
 
ANTHONY COLLINS. 329 
 
 a fraude deterreat, quae tamen neque probos frustra jubet aut 
 vetat nee improbos jubendo aut vitando movet," etc. 
 
 ANTHONY COLLINS. 
 
 Anthony Collins (1676-1729) worked for the wider dif- 
 fusion of deistic thoughts. His principal work, entitled A 
 Discourse of Freethinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of a 
 Sect called Freethinkers (London 1715), falls into three parts. 
 It shows, in the first place, the right to Freethinking generally ; 
 in the second, the right to Freethinking in religion ; and in 
 the third, it vindicates this right against a number of objec- 
 tions raised against it. The definition which Collins gives of 
 freethinking is by no means precise, and this defect shows 
 itself in the whole detail of his discussion. He defines it as 
 " the use of the understanding in the effort to find out the 
 meaning of a proposition by weighing the nature of the evi- 
 dence for or against it, and judging of it according to the 
 evident weakness or strength of this evidence." 
 
 The general right to freedom of thinking is based mainly 
 upon the consideration that any limitation of it would be 
 absurd in itself ; for if I were to restrain my thinking from 
 the free treatment of a subject, I must have a reason for this, 
 and this reason I can only assign to myself by freethinking. 
 Moreover, we have the right to seek the knowledge of every 
 truth ; for the knowledge of some truths is enjoined upon us 
 by God, the knowledge of others is required for the good 
 of the State, and no knowledge is forbidden to us. But 
 the only means by which we can attain to a knowledge of 
 the truth is Freethinking, without which science cannot 
 possibly be perfect, as without it we could not but fall into 
 the greatest errors, both in theory and in practice. 
 
 In matters of religion especially, we have the right to 
 think freely, both in regard to the nature and attributes of 
 God, and the truth and meaning of the books of the Bible. 
 And even the enemies of freethinking assert that a correct 
 
330 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 opinion in these things is absolutely necessary for the attain- 
 ment of salvation. But the best and surest means of coming 
 to truth is freethinking, and in view of the multitude and 
 variety of the professed revelations and divine command- 
 ments, it is only in this way that the one truth is to be 
 found. Freethinking is also the safest means that can be 
 used against the pernicious evil of superstition. All mis- 
 sionary activity among the heathen is based upon free- 
 thinking, because it is only thus that the heathen can be 
 moved to receive Christianity. The Bible likewise demands 
 freethinking ; it is only the priests who condemn it, and 
 they do so in part from dishonest motives. Of the objections 
 urged against freethinking, Collins deals at greatest length 
 with the objection that all freethinkers have been, in the 
 highest degree, dishonest, profligate, and foolish. In opposi- 
 tion to this view, he brings forward a succession of extremely 
 virtuous freethinkers, from the time of the Greek philosophers 
 down to his own contemporaries. 
 
 ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY 
 (1671-1713). 
 
 Shaftesbury (1671-1713) l is usually regarded as the 
 representative of " the autonomy of the moral element," that 
 is, of the independence of morality both of the institutions 
 of the State and of divine revelation. He is thus put in 
 opposition to Hobbes, who does not recognise an individual 
 morality, but sees the moral only in relation to the State ; 
 and also to Locke, who indeed admits an individual morality, 
 but finds it in relation to an alien and entirely external law. 
 
 1 This the third Earl of Shaftesbury was a grandson of the first Earl of 
 Shaftesbury, who has been referred to above as the patron of Locke. He was 
 also a statesman, and as a member of the House of Lords he was a zealous 
 defender of civil liberty, but he did not enter into any political office in order 
 that he might be able to devote himself undisturbed to his learned studies. 
 His writings were collected under the title Characteristicks of Men, Manners, 
 Opinions, Times, 3 vols. 1711. They are mostly prolix, but elegant in style, 
 and on account of the variety of the subjects and their being treated without 
 connection, it is difficult to bring his thoughts into any systematic order. 
 
ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 331 
 
 We would prefer, however, to adopt a different characteristic, 
 which appears to us to be more comprehensive and more 
 correct, as being founded upon the fact that, in Shaftesbury, 
 the idea of Beauty comes everywhere into the foreground. 
 Beauty and harmonious order form the basis of his theism ; 
 upon the beauty, which pleases every one and everywhere as 
 agreeable, rests moral goodness or "Enthusiasm." In other 
 words, the human presentation of the divine truth, goodness^ 
 and beauty is here regarded as the common psychological 
 root of art, religion, and morals, and indeed of everything 
 great that man realizes in the business of daily life or in 
 noble enjoyment. 
 
 We may begin by looking at Shaftesbury's principle of 
 Enthusiasm, and it will disclose to us the subjective origin 
 assigned to Eeligion. Enthusiasm is a fundamental impulse 
 of human nature from which none of us are free. Its object 
 is the good and beautiful, TO tca\bv /cal ayaOov, which are 
 inseparable from one another. A sort of definition of 
 enthusiasm is set forth in the statement that number, 
 harmony, proportion, and beauty of every kind possess a 
 power which naturally chains the heart and raises the 
 imagination to an opinion or idea of something majestic 
 or divine. Whatever this object may be, the thought of 
 it enraptures us so much, that without it our life would lose 
 all charm and value, arid no other interest would remain for 
 us but how to satisfy our coarsest desires as cheaply as 
 possible. This Enthusiasm has a very wide range ; even 
 the play of atheism is often not free from it; and it is 
 difficult to distinguish it from divine inspiration. This was 
 the spirit which Plato regarded as the gift of heroes, states- 
 men, orators, musicians, and even philosophers ; and every- 
 thing great that is brought forth by these men is to be all 
 ascribed to a noble Enthusiasm. This passion is the most 
 natural, and its object is the most excellent and appropriate 
 in the world. Virtue is a noble enthusiasm which is directed 
 to the most appropriate end, and it is formed according to 
 the highest pattern which is to be found in the nature of 
 
332 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 things ; and religion, as the main object of this noble 
 enthusiasm, is the basis and support of it all. Hence that 
 cold philosophy which denies the order and harmony in 
 things and rejects the admiration of the beautiful, also 
 regards religion as included among those evils which it is 
 incumbent upon us to exterminate. Subjectively, then, 
 religion is founded on Enthusiasm, as a passion for 
 all that is beautiful and sublime, implanted in our 
 nature. But it would be ill for this passion were there 
 nothing corresponding to it in the objective relations of the 
 world. If the object itself does not exist in nature, neither 
 the idea nor the passion founded upon it can properly be 
 natural, and all admiration and enthusiasm cease; but if, on 
 the other hand, there is such a passion by nature, Religion 
 is manifestly also of this kind, and hence it is natural to 
 man. 
 
 Shaftesbury therefore refers, again and again, with 
 emphasis and enthusiasm, to the harmony and order that 
 prevail in the universe, to the wise purposes which we 
 encounter everywhere, and to the established unity to which 
 the various systems and circles within nature belong. Full 
 of enthusiasm, the author pours himself forth in poetical 
 descriptions of nature, and of the harmony, order, and unity 
 that appear everywhere in it. From this point of view he 
 also reaches his theodicy. If we were to call a being wholly 
 and really evil, it must be evil in relation to the whole. On 
 the other hand, if the evil of any particular system is a good 
 for other systems, and if it is conducive to the well-being of 
 the general system, then the evil of this particular system is 
 not in itself really an evil, as little as the pain in the process 
 of teething is to be regarded as an evil in a body which has 
 been so constituted, that, without this cause of pain, it would 
 be defective, and so it would be worse without it. We cannot 
 say of any being that it is wholly and entirely bad, unless 
 we are able to prove that it is not good in reference to any 
 order or economy in any other system. Now those things 
 which stand related to one another are infinite in number, 
 
ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 333 
 
 and our mind is not capable of looking through infinity ; and 
 hence we cannot see anything completely. But we very 
 often regard what is actually perfect of itself as imperfect. 
 Notwithstanding the manifold evil which we encounter in 
 individual things, we must therefore admit it to be possible 
 that all things work together for the common well-being of 
 the great whole, and are thus truly good. If it may be so, 
 it follows that it must be so ; for all that is possible in the 
 whole will be made real for the well-being of the whole by 
 nature, or by the spirit of the whole. 
 
 From this point of view a Theodicy can only be com- 
 pleted by the aid of the conception of God. By God we 
 designate a being who is elevated to any degree above us 
 and the world, and who rules with intelligence and under- 
 standing in nature. He who does not believe in a higher 
 Being working with purpose and understanding, and who 
 believes in no other cause of things than chance, is an 
 Atheist. He who believes that everything is governed, 
 ordered, and directed for the best by a first cause working 
 with design, or by an intelligent Being who is necessarily 
 good and unchangeable, is a Theist. He who accepts several 
 higher beings working with purpose and understanding, is a 
 Polytheist. He who accepts one or more higher beings who 
 are not necessary in themselves and who do not choose the 
 best, but act in accordance with mere arbitrariness and 
 phantasy, is a Diemonist. It is manifest that it is only the 
 Theist who can adopt the inference that " as all things may 
 be good in relation to the great whole, they are also really 
 good ; " and hence Shaftesbury regards it as incumbent upon 
 himself to establish this theism. 
 
 Shaftesbury does not adduce either the cosmological 
 argument or the ontological argument as proofs of the 
 existence of God. Neither does he bring in the conception 
 of a first cause, nor of an unmoved mover ; but, faithful to 
 the ruling character of his system, he proceeds, in this con- 
 nection also, from what exists now and here, and proves from 
 the unity and harmony of the structure of the universe that 
 
334 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 it is animated and governed by One Spirit. The unity of 
 the great universe necessarily points to a universal Spirit, 
 for what hangs thus together in itself as a world, one part 
 conditioning and presupposing another, necessarily requires 
 an all-comprehending Spirit. Further, the beauty of nature 
 comes into consideration. The beautiful, the attractive, the 
 amiable, never lie in matter, but always in art and design ; 
 never in the body itself, but in the form or formative power. 
 "We cannot sufficiently admire this beauty in nature, and 
 accordingly a formative power must also reside in the world. 
 On account of the harmony of the whole, this power is one 
 only ; and on account of the beauty and harmony that appear 
 everywhere, it is a power that works with design. Hence the 
 aesthetic contemplation of nature necessarily leads to theism, 
 and theism to the faith that there is no evil in the whole of 
 the world. Eeligion is thus surely and sufficiently established, 
 both subjectively and objectively. Subjectively, in the passion 
 of enthusiasm implanted in us by nature ; and objectively, in 
 the unity and order, beauty and harmony of the Universe, 
 which on account of these qualities must be guided by one 
 higher Being working with purpose and intelligence. 
 
 Enthusiasm is the subjective source of religion ; and all 
 enthusiastic admiration is united with a sort of religious 
 reverence. As reverence is related to fear, some have made 
 fear the basis of religion. But enthusiasm is essentially of 
 another kind ; it unites in itself love and fear. A wise limi- 
 tation and moderation of enthusiasm is, however, absolutely 
 necessary, as the inclination to indulge in wonder and con- 
 templative rapture but too easily degenerates into high-flying 
 fanaticism or into servile superstition. What is usually called 
 religious zeal is seldom without a mixture of these two excesses. 
 The ecstatic emotions of love and admiration are almost always 
 conjoined with the awe and the consternation of a lower kind 
 of devotion. The heathen religions, especially in their later 
 periods, consisted almost wholly of external pomp, and they 
 were especially maintained by that sort of enthusiasm which 
 is excited by external objects that are grand, majestic, and 
 
ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 335 
 
 imposing. The Syrian and Egyptian religions tended more 
 towards a contemptible and abject form of superstition, 
 especially after the priests increased in number and power, 
 so that they threatened even to swallow up the State, and 
 from natural causes they inclined to superstition. "The 
 quantity of superstition will, in proportion, nearly answer the 
 number of Priests, Diviners, Soothsayers, Prophets, or such 
 who gain their livelihood or receive advantages by officiating 
 in religious affairs." In fact, these systems regarding the deity 
 were enlarged even by mystical genealogies, consecrations, 
 and canonizations. The Jewish religion was also strongly 
 influenced by the Egyptian religion, Abraham having received 
 from it circumcision and other practices, Joseph having 
 been raised to the rank of an Egyptian High Priest, and 
 Moses having been initiated into all the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians. In short, although he begins so rationally, 
 Shaftesbury also has recourse at last to the inadequate 
 theory of the fraud of selfish priests ; and he thus explains 
 the extravagances of the heathen religions and their super- 
 stition and mysticism by their one-sided exaggeration of fear 
 or of love. 
 
 Christianity is not dealt with in detail. Theism, however, 
 is not apprehended in such a way as to lead to the rejection 
 of revelation and Christianity, but all rests upon theism, and 
 " No one can be a well-grounded Christian without first being 
 a good theist." For the belief in divine Providence which is 
 attained by contemplation of the order of things is the basis 
 of the Christian faith. Shaftesbury does not express himself 
 regarding the specifically Christian doctrines of redemption 
 and atonement, or the historical character of Christianity, or 
 the person of Christ. Towards revelation he takes up an 
 entirely sceptical attitude. He believes in revelation in so 
 far as this is possible for a man who has never himself 
 experienced a divine communication, or been an eye-witness 
 of it. He looks with contempt upon the later miracles and 
 inspirations as a mass of devised fraud and deception. With 
 regard to those earlier times, he subjects his judgment 
 
336 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 completely to those in authority, and to the opinions that are 
 prescribed by the Law. The best Christian is a sceptical 
 C hristian. When he relies merely upon history and tradition 
 for his faith in revelation and miracles, he has only a historical 
 faith, which is exposed to many speculations and to critical 
 investigations regarding language, literature, etc. Freedom of 
 thought is therefore emphatically demanded. A Christian who 
 supposes he cannot believe enough, may, by virtue of a 
 slight natural inclination, so far extend his faith, that, along 
 with all the miracles of Scripture and tradition, he may also 
 take up a complete system of old wives' fables. This would 
 be to play the sycophant in religion and the parasite in 
 devotion, in the manner of crafty beggars who address every 
 one as " your honour," or " your lordship," and the practice is 
 founded on the idea " that were there nothing ultimately in 
 the affair, such a deception would do no harm." At the 
 same time he holds that the authority in the State must adopt 
 a religion ; and that the people must stand, in matters of 
 religion, under a certain public guidance. As there are public 
 walks side by side with private gardens, and public libraries 
 are provided along with private instruction by domestic tutors, 
 so in like manner a public authoritative religion is in place. 
 But it is irrational to prescribe limits to phantasy and 
 speculation, or to throw religious opinion into fetters. 
 Universal love appears as the main point, and it is the 
 peculiar characteristic of Christianity. The purpose of 
 religion generally is to awaken in us all moral inclinations 
 and sentiments, and to make us more perfect and accom- 
 plished in the practice of all duties ; yet this is not to be done 
 by a reference to reward and punishment, but by the inner 
 relationship between religion and virtue. The Christian 
 religion realizes this purpose in the highest degree by 
 implanting an all-embracing love. This position leads us to 
 the view taken of virtue and its relation to religion. 
 
 In his Inquiry concerning Virtue, Shaftesbury discusses at 
 length the question as to what Tightness in conduct or virtue 
 in itself is, and as to the influence which Religion has upon 
 
ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. 337 
 
 it. He is far from identifying the good and the bad with 
 pleasure and pain, or from referring them only to the State 
 and its wants. Virtue is likewise founded subjectively in 
 enthusiasm, and objectively in the unity and harmony of the 
 world. He regards virtue itself as nothing but a noble 
 enthusiasm which is directed to its proper end, and is formed 
 in accordance with that high pattern or exemplar which he 
 thinks he finds in the nature of things. There are certain 
 moral forms which work so strongly upon us, that they only 
 need to show themselves to cast down all opposite opinions 
 or ideas, all resisting passions, sensations, or mere corporeal 
 inclinations. Whether a creature is good or bad depends on the 
 inclinations and impulses by which it is guided. Inclinations 
 relate either to ourselves or to the whole to which we belong, 
 or there arise inclinations which neither further the general 
 well-being nor the private good. These latter are from the 
 outset vicious, and of the first two classes the selfish stand 
 more on the side of vice, and the benevolent more on the side 
 of virtue ; but they are not unconditionally so. Virtue is 
 rather the right condition of our inclinations, not merely in 
 reference to ourselves, but to society and to the whole, so 
 that none of them may be awanting. Their relation is to be 
 regulated according to the relation of the harmonious unity 
 which obtains objectively between the whole and its parts. 
 Hence the admiration and love of order naturally improves 
 the disposition, and powerfully furthers virtue. But at the 
 same time virtue also brings happiness along with it, and vice 
 unhappiness, which is partly proved from the inward relation 
 of the individual to the whole, but above all from the reaction 
 of our own acts upon the states of the soul. 
 
 Hence Virtue and Eeligion are fundamentally one. Virtue 
 makes us put the selfish and the unselfish impulses into 
 that relation to each other which corresponds to the objective 
 co-ordination of the individual in the whole ; religion makes 
 us view the world as a harmoniously ordered unity, regulated 
 and guided for the good of the whole by the wise and 
 beneficent God. Hence the right knowledge of God is 
 
 VOL. I. Y 
 
338 , THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 conditioned by morality ; for we only see anger and wrath, 
 revenge and terror, in the Deity when we are full of unrest 
 and terror in ourselves. It is religion that makes virtue 
 perfect. " The highest perfection of virtue rests upon faith 
 in God, for without it there can never be found so much 
 benevolence, stedfastness, and immoveable perseverance in 
 goodness, nor so much order and harmony of inclinations 
 or uniformity of sentiments and principles." 
 
 MATTHEW TINDAL. 
 
 Tindal (1656-1753) l takes the position of an adherent 
 of Locke in his philosophical views, and especially in regard 
 to the theoretical principles of knowledge. Eeason is the 
 faculty of apprehension, judgment, and inference. The object 
 of these operations is not things themselves, but only our 
 ideas of them ; and these ideas come either from sensation 
 or reflection. Hence our knowledge, as consisting in the 
 agreement or disagreement of our ideas with things, is 
 either intuitive or demonstrative. Certainty in religion 
 is also founded upon the agreement of its truths with 
 essentially clear ideas. Tindal approaches Shaftesbury in 
 the moral and practical view which he takes of religion. 
 He makes the true religion consist in the constant inclination 
 of the heart to do as much good as we are able, in order 
 thereby to promote the glory of God and our own well-being. 
 
 Tindal's diffuseness, and the want of order and definiteness 
 in his style, make it difficult to reproduce his thoughts 
 clearly and briefly. The main points expounded by him are 
 the following : True religion is always necessarily the same. 
 It consists in the observance of what the nature of God and 
 man and their relation makes incumbent upon us as duty, and 
 it is conducive to our happiness. This same goal is always 
 attained by the same means. Hence revealed and natural 
 
 1 His chief work is entitled Christianity as Old as the Creation ; or, the 
 Gospel a Republication of the Religion of Nature, London 1730. 
 
MATTHEW TINDAL. 339 
 
 religion, if they are both true, cannot differ in regard to the 
 means that are conducive to this end, but being like two 
 pieces of wood that dovetail into one another, they are only 
 distinguished by their mode of publication. If there be then 
 a true natural religion, revealed religion and Christianity 
 must also agree with it. What is contained in positive 
 religion, in addition to the rules of natural religion, is but 
 superstition. 
 
 Natural religion consists in the belief that there is a God, 
 and in the practice of those duties which arise from our 
 rational knowledge of God and His perfection, of ourselves 
 and our imperfection, as well as of the connection in which 
 we stand with God and our fellow-men. On account of this 
 purely juristic conception of religion, the expression " Law of 
 Nature " is frequently used by Tindal instead of Natural 
 Eeligion. The substance of this law, or what it contains, is 
 the honour of God and the well-being of men. God imposes 
 these duties upon us, not for His own sake, but for our sakes ; 
 yet prayer is a duty, not because any persuasion of God or an 
 alteration of His eternal providence could be attained by it, 
 but because, by its leading us to contemplate the divine 
 attributes and to know His constant goodness, it incites us to 
 the imitation of the divine perfection and to mutual love. It 
 is likewise clear that God receives nothing by our actions, 
 either agreeable or disagreeable, but that everything happens 
 for our good. Duties must also coincide with happiness ; 
 because the happiness of a thing consists in the perfection of 
 its nature, and the perfection of a rational being consists 
 in tfre agreement of all his actions with the rules of right 
 reason. " Eeligion is thus a moral mode of conduct resting 
 upon the reason of things, or upon the objective relation of 
 things to each other, having the good of man as its final end, 
 and arising from free inclination, while the moral duties are 
 regarded as commandments of God " (Lechler). This natural 
 religion has actually existed ; it has existed even from the 
 beginning of things. FTom the beginning of the world God 
 has given men a law, by the observance of which they 
 
340 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 could make themselves agreeable to Him, and with the law 
 He at the same time has given sufficient means to attain to 
 the knowledge of it. This natural religion is perfect, univer- 
 sal, and eternal. The essence of God, the nature of man, and 
 our relation to God and to other men are immutable, and so 
 likewise are the duties that arise out of these relations. God 
 would proceed arbitrarily and tyrannically, were there any 
 other rule regulating the actions required by Him than that 
 which is given by the connections between things and the 
 fitness arising therefrom. This original religion must also 
 be perfect, because it has an infinitely wise and beneficent 
 author, namely God. As perfect, it must likewise be immut- 
 able, like the wisdom and goodness of God. The perfection 
 of natural religion is further clear from the fact that God 
 implants it, even after the publication of Christianity, in the 
 hearts of men, and that the perfection of the Christian religion 
 is often proved from its conformity to natural religion. And 
 if the value of a law can be heightened by its supreme 
 internal excellence, its great distinctness and simplicity, its 
 uniformity, universality, high antiquity, and even its eternal 
 duration, all these qualities belong in a high degree to the 
 Law of Nature. Besides, the acceptance of an external 
 revelation presupposes a conviction of the existence of God, 
 a conviction which springs alone from the internal light, 
 by the aid of which alone we are able to distinguish among 
 the professed religions the one that is true from those that 
 are false. 
 
 In these positions the judgment of Tindal regarding posi- 
 tive religion is already expressed. He still stands so far 
 upon supernatural ground, that he does not at all examine 
 the possibility and truth of an external revelation, to say 
 nothing of his contesting it. Positive (instituted) or re- 
 vealed religion is true in so far as it agrees with natural 
 religion ; if it contains more it is tyrannical, because it im- 
 poses unnecessary things ; and if it contains less, it is defec- 
 tive. Thus even Christianity, however new be the name, is 
 yet as old as the Creation, and it has been implanted in us by 
 
/MATTHEW TINDAL. 341 
 
 God Himself as an innate law of human nature from the 
 beginning. Identical in their contents, natural and positive 
 religion are distinguished merely by the mode in which they 
 are communicated, The former rests upon internal revela- 
 tion, and the latter upon external revelation, but both spring 
 from God, and therefore they cannot possibly contradict each 
 other. The purpose of Christianity or of the mission of 
 Christ, was to teach men repentance, to deliver them from the 
 burden of superstition, to put the law of nature into the 
 proper light, and thus to restore natural religion and to 
 publish it again. The adulteration of natural religion by 
 superstition is not satisfactorily explained. Superstition is 
 represented as being mostly founded in the fact that man has 
 no proper and correct notions of God, but makes a god like 
 himself; but the question arises, on what is this founded ? 
 From superstition have sprung the mediating gods among the 
 heathen. Expiations and mortification have their origin in 
 the delusion that God takes delight in the pain of His crea- 
 tures. Sacrifices are also referred to the delight of a cruel 
 God in the slaughter of innocent creatures ; and here, more- 
 over, deceptive and selfish priests had their hands in the 
 game. The clergy promote superstition from a selfish interest, 
 partly by means of mysterious dogmas, and partly by pompous 
 ceremonies. Tindal does not enter in detail upon the Chris- 
 tian dogmas. He only says of the dogma of the Trinity : I 
 do not understand these orthodox paradoxes, nor yet do I 
 reject them. 
 
 Tindal designates his view as " Christian Deism," and 
 makes the difference between the Christians and the Christian 
 Deists lie in the fact that the former do not venture to 
 examine the truth of the scriptural doctrines, whereas the 
 latter, who do not believe in the doctrines because they are 
 contained in the Scriptures, but in the Scriptures on account 
 of the doctrines, have no such anxiety. 
 
342 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 THOMAS CHUBB. 
 
 Thomas Chubb (16 79-1 747) l holds religion to be the 
 ground of the divine favour. True religion is what really 
 procures us this divine favour as contrasted with that which 
 man merely imagines. This true Religion is founded either 
 upon " the moral fitness of things," that is, the objective 
 nature of things and their relation to each other, or upon " the 
 arbitrary will and pleasure of God." The former is real by 
 nature ; for it only corresponds to the character of God. It 
 appears from the whole order of nature that God should act 
 as a wise and good being. Only thus does God act justly 
 and rightly with His creatures ; only thus is man put by his 
 own nature into a position for discovering the true religion, 
 for distinguishing between divine revelation and deception, 
 and for recognising the true sense of a revelation in contrast 
 to false apprehensions of it ; and it is only thus that true 
 religion is a simple thing, everywhere the same, unchangeable 
 in time or place, and only subject to change along with the 
 nature, the relations, and circumstances of things. 
 
 These positions give at the same time a canon for the 
 estimation of Christianity. The end and aim of the appear- 
 ance of Christ was to save human souls, or to secure to men 
 the grace of God and future blessedness. In a less proper 
 sense, He wished also to promote the present well-being of 
 men, the happiness or unhappiness of this world being closely 
 connected with that of the next. This promotion of present 
 as well as future well-being does not flow, however, as is often 
 otherwise the case, from the bestowal of temporal power over 
 others, but is dependent on the condition that every individual 
 is brought to a state of mind and to a mode of conduct which 
 
 1 Chubb was a common artisan, working as a glover and also in the 
 service of a tallow-chandler. He was self-taught, but in spite of his defective 
 education he composed some of the most important of the Deistic writings. 
 The most important of his works are: "The Previous Question with regard 
 to Religion," 1725 ; "A Discourse concerning Reason with regard to Religion," 
 London 1730 ; and "The True Gospel of Jesus Christ asserted," London 1738. 
 
. THOMAS CHUBB. 343 
 
 make him a blessing to himself and the community, and which 
 also at the same time make him happy. In order to prepare 
 this happiness for men, Christ addressed Himself to men as 
 free beings, and proposed to them certain doctrines which they 
 ought to obey on the basis of their own conviction. They 
 were thus to improve themselves and become worthy of the 
 grace of God and of future happiness. To believe means to 
 follow such doctrines on the ground of real conviction ; and 
 this belief is the bond which connects one Christian 
 with other Christians, so that they are to one another like 
 brethren. 
 
 Christ has laid three truths before men. First, He enjoins 
 us to submit our heart and life to the eternal and immutable 
 laws of action that are founded in the reason of things, as the 
 only ground of the grace of God and of eternal blessedness. 
 Christ thus enjoins upon us no new way to the grace of God 
 and to eternal life, but the good old way which has held for 
 all time, of keeping the commandments, or of loving God and 
 our neighbour. Secondly, if by violation of this law we have 
 drawn upon ourselves God's displeasure, repentance is the 
 only certain ground of the divine forgiveness. It was a 
 chief part of the work of Christ to preach this gospel of 
 forgiveness by repentance and improvement. Thirdly, 
 Christ impresses upon us the fact that God will judge men 
 at the last day, and that according to their works, and not 
 from His mere pleasure He will reward some and punish 
 others. 
 
 Christianity thus consists objectively in the natural moral 
 law, and subjectively in a submission to it that is founded 
 upon conviction. Hence it does not consist in a historical 
 narrative of facts, such as that Christ died and rose again ; 
 for the gospel, in fact, was preached before all that happened. 
 Chubb takes such a sceptical attitude towards the history 
 of Jesus, that he declares it to be only " probable " that 
 there was a person like Jesus, and that He did and taught 
 in the main what is related of Him. This probability 
 rests upon the actual existence and the wide diffusion of 
 
344 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 Christianity. As for the rest, Christ was a man who was 
 born, grew up, and died like all other men ; and that He 
 declared Himself to be the Son of God only means that He 
 was one to whom the word of God came. Further, the 
 gospel does not consist in the private opinion of any of 
 the writers, as in John's doctrine of the Logos. Besides, 
 these private opinions are often abstruse and difficult to 
 understand, whereas the gospel is intelligible to the simplest 
 understanding. 
 
 As the gospel is founded upon reason and corresponds to 
 the nature of things, we might expect that it would be 
 universally received, and that it would have exercised every- 
 where its purifying influence upon the moral life. But a 
 multitude of inherited prejudices and of political and hier- 
 archical interests have been opposed to its universal accept- 
 ance. Its blessed influence has also been hindered by the 
 rise of doctrines that represented moral effort as unneces- 
 sary, such as that of the imputed righteousness of Christ, 
 and by the error that it is not moral conduct but orthodox 
 belief that makes men acceptable to God. But more than 
 all, the progress of Christianity has been impeded by the 
 intermixture of civil and Christian Societies. 
 
 Although Chubb describes Reason as entirely sufficient to 
 guide man in the affairs of religion and to obtain for him the 
 favour of God and the hope of a future life, he does not reject 
 revelation. The purpose of Eevelation is to rouse men from 
 their indolence and security, to bring them to reflect and con- 
 sider, to assist them in their inquiries and facilitate the work 
 of inquiry, to awaken in men a right feeling of the pledge 
 which is entrusted to them and of the duties which they have 
 towards God and their neighbours, to call those who walk in 
 the ways of vice to repentance and conversion, and to show 
 them the consequences of a good and a bad life with respect 
 to the pleasure and displeasure of God. But at the same 
 time the position is emphatically asserted that revelation must 
 be conformable to reason, and that reason is the only external 
 criterion by which the true revelation is to be distinguished 
 
THOMAS MORGAN. 345 
 
 from the merely pretended revelation. From this point 
 Chubb enters upon an incisive polemic against the Christian 
 
 dogma of satisfaction. 
 
 THOMAS MORGAN. 1 
 
 In Morgan (f 1743) we do not find much that is new as 
 regards general principles ; but he presents a good deal that 
 is new regarding the historical construction of religion ; and, 
 in connection therewith, regarding the criticism of the Old 
 Testament and of important Christian dogmas. The general 
 principles of his point of view are summarized by Morgan as 
 follows : 1. The moral truth of actions is founded on the 
 natural and necessary relations of persons and things, which 
 relations are prior to every positive law, and therefore cannot 
 be changed by such a law. 2. The moral truth of things is 
 the only certain criterion by which we can determine whether 
 a doctrine comes from God and constitutes a part of the 
 true religion. 3. The extraordinary powers and gifts of the 
 Apostolic Age were not restricted to persons of moral 
 character, but were also shared in by false prophets and 
 teachers. 4. Infallibility and sinlessness belong to God 
 alone, and hence those extraordinary gifts could not make 
 man infallible or sinless. 5. The doctrines and obligations of 
 moral truth may be communicated to us in various ways, as 
 by reason, by immediate revelation, and by authentic evidence 
 of such revelation. But religion is always the same, and its 
 certainty as constituted by the moral truth of its doctrines is 
 also always the same. These principles explain how it was 
 that, against all attempts to prove the truth of a doctrine from 
 miracles, Morgan emphatically declares that any acceptance of 
 
 1 Morgan was the Pastor of a Dissenting Congregation, but lost his office on 
 account of his going over to Arianism. He then devoted himself to Medicine, 
 and practised as a physician among the Quakers of Bristol ; and finally lived as 
 an author in London. His principal work is, " The Moral Philosopher. In a 
 Dialogue between Philalethes, a Christian Deist, and Theophanes, a Christian 
 Jew" (London, i. 1737, ii. 1739, iii. 1740). 
 
346 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 immediate revelation rests only upon historical faith ; that it 
 is therefore subject to careful criticism ; and that in the last 
 resort it can only be justified by the moral truth of the 
 revealed doctrines. Hence he proceeds to show that natural 
 and revealed religion, being identical in their contents, are 
 only distinguished by the fact that the former rests upon the 
 eternal and immutable principles of moral truth, while the 
 latter rests upon tradition, history, and human authority. 
 Further, Christianity contains nothing that is essentially new, 
 but is only a complete renovation and restoration of natural 
 religion. 
 
 On account of these views Morgan designates himself a 
 Christian Deist, in distinction from the Atheist on the one 
 hand, and from the Christian Jew or Jewish Christian on the 
 other. The Deist is distinguished from the Atheist in this, 
 that the Atheist completely separates God and the world, so 
 that after the creation the world is maintained and governed 
 without the influence of the first cause, and merely by the 
 forces and according to the laws of second causes ; whereas the 
 Deist asserts a constant and continual influence of God 
 upon the world. The Christian Deist and the Christian Jew 
 are distinguished by the view they take of Christianity. The 
 Deist sees in Christianity a renovation of natural religion 
 in which the various duties of moral truth are more clearly 
 exhibited, are confirmed by stronger grounds, and are made 
 easy by the promise of active assistance through Jesus .Christ. 
 Christianity is that form of Deism, or of Natural Religion, 
 which was first preached by Christ and His apostles, which 
 has come to us through human testimony, and which is con- 
 firmed by the natural truth and essential divinity of His 
 doctrines. And only because Christ has made the best 
 communication to us of this Natural Eeligion does Morgan 
 call himself a disciple of Christ and not of Zoroaster or 
 Mahomet. Eevelation is therefore nothing else than the 
 renovation or reanimation of natural religion. Nevertheless 
 its importance is very great. By it we have been raised out 
 of the state of great ignorance and darkness which cover the 
 
THOMAS MOKGAN. 347 
 
 whole world to the true knowledge of God and of ourselves, 
 including the knowledge of our moral relations and obliga- 
 tions towards the Supreme Being and towards one another. 
 Revelation has brought us from great uncertainty regarding 
 our future life and the divine providence in the government of 
 the world to clear knowledge regarding them, as well as from 
 the conceit of our own natural capacity to the humble 
 recognition of our natural weakness and of the necessity of 
 divine assistance which we are assured of as soon as we ask 
 for it. It would be very precipitate to infer that these are 
 natural truths and moral obligations which are clear of 
 themselves to reason, and which therefore do not require a 
 revelation to communicate them. The books of Euclid and 
 Newton's Principia undoubtedly contain natural truths that 
 are founded in the reason of things, but only a fool or a 
 lunatic would say that he could have learned these things just 
 as well without those books, and that no thanks were due to 
 their authors. The Christian Jew, on the other hand, con- 
 nects Christianity closely with Judaism, sees in Christ only 
 the national Jewish Messias, and would have the whole law 
 retained. 
 
 The opposition thus indicated goes back, according to 
 Morgan, to the primitive Christianity as represented by the 
 names of Peter and Paul. Morgan proceeds in detailed 
 explanations and with critical acuteness to give such an 
 exposition of the original Christian antagonism between 
 Jewish and Gentile Christians as makes him appear almost a 
 precursor of the recent critical school. On this point we 
 can only touch briefly here. The Jewish Christians are 
 represented as accepting nothing that was new in passing over 
 to Christianity except that Jesus was the Messias, and this 
 they accepted in the literal national sense. Hence they 
 demanded from all Jewish Christians rigid observance of the 
 whole Jewish law, 'and from all Gentiles the observance at 
 least of the laws of the proselytes. Paul rejected both 
 requirements, because he would not connect things that were 
 indifferent in themselves with necessary moral duties flowing 
 
3-48 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 from the eternal natural Law, and because he regarded the 
 Jewish ceremonial law as annulled. Paul was " the great 
 freethinker of that age ; " he was " the bold and brave 
 defender of reason against authority " in opposition to those 
 who had set up a godless system of superstition, blindness, and 
 slavery against all sound reason, under the specious pretext of 
 a Divine revelation. 
 
 The eternal and immutable religion of nature consists in 
 childlike love and reverence towards God, in brotherly love to 
 men, in the fulfilment of all those moral duties of truth and 
 honesty which flow therefrom, in a trustful confidence in and 
 dependence upon God, and in the constant sense of His power 
 and presence in all our actions as the rewarder of the good 
 and the punisher of the bad. Whence then has the corruption 
 of this pure, primitive religion sprung ? Morgan answers this 
 question at some length. The falling away from the pure 
 religion began among the angels even before men existed. 
 God had equipped this highest class of intelligent beings with 
 various powers and capacities, and put them at various points 
 in the government of the world, yet in such a way that He 
 retained the one undivided supremacy. At the beginning 
 this order was maintained, but afterwards the lower orders of 
 the angels turned no longer to God Himself, but to Lucifer 
 or Satan. Thereupon the Archangels demanded that all 
 supplications should be brought solely through their mediation 
 before God. In a heavenly war, Satan was then overthrown 
 with his adherents and banished to the earth. Here they 
 sought to turn man away from God. At first they persuaded 
 man that, as ministers of Providence, they had great power, 
 that God had deputed to them dominion over the world, and 
 therefore that prayers should only be directed to God through 
 their mediation. Afterwards the demons were regarded as 
 independent, and all worship and obedience were withdrawn 
 from God ; and ultimately there were other mediators and 
 intercessors, such as dead heroes and princes, interposed even 
 between these new Gods and men. The general diffusion of 
 this error is explained only by the influence of priestcraft, and 
 
THOMAS MORGAN. 349 
 
 this influence is connected with the practice of sacrifice. 
 Sacrifice was at first a purely personal action, an act of 
 obedience, or of subordination and surrender to the will of 
 God on the side of the sacrificer. As such it was agreeable 
 to God, and it availed as a means of reconciling God and 
 winning His favour. Then, because liberality passed current 
 as a sign of love to God and to men, public festivals and rich 
 banquets received pre-eminently the name of " sacrifices." At 
 first the patriarch or prince himself, as the host or entertainer, 
 supervised the festival. Afterwards certain festive speakers 
 were appointed to announce the festival, to welcome the 
 guests, and to superintend the bakers, butchers, cooks, etc. 
 These were called priests ; and, like all royal servants, they 
 were paid from the public treasury. Once established in this 
 office, they were enabled to connect all religion with sacrifices 
 and festivals, and to allot all the merit that was connected 
 with the practice of these functions. From being masters 
 of ceremonies and supervisors of festivals, they were able 
 gradually to elevate themselves to the throne of God, and to 
 make princes and people dependent upon ^them by the bless- 
 ings which they supplicated from heaven. 
 
 The first priesthood that was independent of the crown 
 and equipped with great privileges, was founded by Joseph in 
 Egypt. Thereafter Egypt became the mother of superstition, 
 the patroness of new gods, the mistress of idolatry through 
 the whole world ; for every new god was a gain to the priests. 
 During their long residence in Egypt the Jews also adopted 
 much of this idolatry, and became completely Egyptianized. 
 Hence it was not possible for Moses to communicate to them 
 the true religion unveiled, and it became necessary for him to 
 accommodate himself to their errors. Moses and the prophets 
 spake in a double sense : in a literal sense, according to the 
 errors of the people; and in a secret sense, which disclosed the 
 true religion. The matter really lies thus : the ancient 
 authors, sacred as well as profane, did not write as pure 
 historians, but as orators, poets, and dramatists. By means 
 of this style they maintained the historical truth, and yet 
 
350 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 by reference to the nearer surroundings of the action they 
 took the liberty of decorating the history with sensuous 
 images and dramatic representations, such as were agreeable 
 to the views of the people and fitted to excite their interests. 
 Morgan compares the historical narrative of the Old Testa- 
 ment with Homer's description of the Trojan war, and with 
 the writings of ^sop, Ovid, Milton, and Shakespeare. Thus 
 he lays the foundation for an incisive criticism of almost the 
 whole of the Old Testament history, in which he is not 
 sparing with reference to the 'miraculous narratives or the 
 moral character of the heroes that come into view. 
 
 Among the Christian dogmas, the doctrine of satisfaction 
 specially appears to Morgan as a coarse result of Jewish 
 superstition. His criticism of it reminds us in many points 
 of Faustus Socinus. As a Deist, Morgan indicates the 
 purpose of the death of Christ to have been (1) to manifest 
 His obedience to God, to attain the highest honour, and to 
 verify His religion ; (2) to show that there is no respect of 
 persons with God; (3) to exhibit God's absolute authority 
 and our absolute obligation to obey Him; and (4) to 
 strengthen our hope of a life hereafter. The origin of 
 the dogma of the Church is explained by a mistaken literal 
 transference of the Old Testament view of sacrifice to Christ. 
 Even in the Old Testament, sacrifice was originally only a 
 sign of repentance, and it was by priestly selfishness that it 
 was made into a means of expiation. This conception was 
 transferred by the Jewish Christians to Christ, and it was 
 necessary even for Paul to attach himself, at least in figura- 
 tive, ambiguous expressions, to this view in order that he 
 might accomplish anything. In truth, the death of Christ is 
 not the causa meritoria, but the causa effectiva of our salvation, 
 as by His death He does not justify us, but leads and guides 
 us to the right way in which we are justified and reconciled 
 with God. We say that we are justified and saved by Christ, 
 because, by His righteousness and obedience even to death, 
 He has procured the grace of God so as to establish a kingdom 
 of peace and of righteousness in the world as the most rational 
 
SPECIAL CONTROVERSIES. IMMORTALITY. 351 
 
 means of bringing men to personal faith, repentance, and 
 upright obedience ; and this is absolutely necessary in order 
 to reconcile them with God, to make the Deity gracious to 
 them, and to win again the divine favour. By a natural 
 metaphor, we accordingly call Christ our reconciler and 
 redeemer, the founder of our salvation, and the author and 
 finisher of our faith. 
 
 III. 
 
 SPECIAL CONTROVERSIES AND THE APOLOGETIC WORKS. 
 
 Before we turn to the last representatives of Deism, it still 
 remains for us to notice briefly a series of works which it 
 occasioned, and to mention at least the Apologies that were 
 written in opposition to it. 
 
 1. The Immortality of the Human Soul has been regarded 
 from of old as one of the most important religious truths. 
 Hence the strictly supranatural view of Eeligion has found 
 it difficult to admit that we can obtain the knowledge of this 
 truth without the aid of Divine revelation. Sometimes a 
 further step has been taken, and not merely the knowledge 
 of immortality, but immortality itself, has been made to rest 
 upon special divine grace. In England this latter view was 
 also asserted. Henry Dodwell (1706) proceeded to show 
 from Scripture and the oldest Fathers that the soul is mortal 
 by nature, but is made immortal by God. He held that this 
 takes place by the Divine Spirit which is communicated in 
 baptism. And because since the time of the apostles only 
 bishops have the right to administer the sacraments, only the 
 members of the English Episcopalian Church are immortal 
 and all Dissenters are mortal. Against this high-flying claim 
 of the high Episcopal party, there arose a general opposition, 
 and a series of controversial writings represented the more 
 rational view that the human soul is essentially immortal. 
 
 2. Prophecies and Miracles, from of old, have been held in 
 chief estimation as the means of proving Divine Eevelation. 
 
352 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 As Deism sought to carry back the contents of the Christian 
 Religion to the expressions of natural reason, although with- 
 out calling in question the principle of revelation, it was not 
 possible to pass over these means of proof in silence. The 
 Debate on Prophecies (1724-1728) was opened by William 
 Whiston (1667 1752). Having become embarrassed from 
 perceiving that many passages of the New Testament which 
 professed to be fulfilments of Old Testament prophecies do 
 not agree with the existing text, he asserted that the Jews 
 in the second Christian century had falsified their sacred 
 Scriptures in the original text as well as in the LXX., in 
 order that the testimonies drawn from them in the New 
 Testament might appear not to be valid. He also attempted 
 to restore the earlier text in order to prove that the prophecies 
 had been literally fulfilled. This assertion was the occasion 
 of the publication by Anthony Collins of his work entitled 
 A Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons of the Christian 
 Religion (London 1724). Such a universal intentional falsi- 
 fication of the Old Testament he held to be completely 
 incredible ; and if it had taken place, it would be impossible 
 to restore the correct text. It is admitted that the truth of 
 Christianity can be proved only on the ground of Prophecies ; 
 for as every new revelation is attached to an earlier one, so is 
 Christianity attached to the Old Testament. This proof by 
 Prophecy is not, however, to be obtained by literal interpreta- 
 tion of the Old Testament passages, but only by typical and 
 allegorical interpretation of them. To assert that they prove 
 in their literal sense what they have to prove, would be to 
 give up the truth of Christianity ; for it can be easily proved 
 that in their literal acceptance they refer to entirely different 
 things. Christianity rests wholly upon types and allegories. 
 But as Collins gives no judgment as to the value of this 
 proof, it may appear doubtful whether he holds the proof of 
 Prophecy as binding, and the revealed character of Christianity 
 as proved or not. His personal conviction was probably this, 
 that Christianity may be proved as a revelation only on the 
 ground of fulfilled prophecies ; that the fulfilment of Old 
 
SPECIAL CONTROVERSIES. MIRACLES. 353 
 
 Testament prophecies in the New Testament can be proved 
 only on the ground of allegorical interpretation ; that this 
 method is uncertain and false, and hence that it cannot be 
 convincingly and certainly established that Christianity rests 
 upon revelation. That the argumentation of Collins was 
 understood in this sense, is shown by the immense number 
 of replies which appeared in opposition to him. Only a few 
 of the positions they took up may be here mentioned. 
 Bullock combats the view that Christianity was founded 
 in a positive way upon the Old Testament, and that its 
 fundamental article was that Jesus was the promised Messiah. 
 He maintains that the references to the Old Testament had 
 merely the intention of setting aside Jewish prejudices, that 
 Christianity is a new Law proclaimed by Jesus, and that it 
 may be proved by rational grounds to be divine. Others, and 
 especially Sykes, seek to show that the Old Testament 
 prophecies were literally fulfilled in the New Testament, but 
 they have recourse to the greatest arbitrariness in carrying 
 out this thought. Others again, and in particular 'Chandler 
 and Jeffery, assert that the New Testament writers did not 
 themselves mean to narrate fulfilments of prophecies, but only 
 in a free way attached themselves to Old Testament phrases 
 and narratives. In Jeffery's Christianity the perfection of all 
 Religion, natural and revealed (London 1728), the view, 
 however, first breaks through here and there, that the truth 
 of Christianity is not lost even if the Apostles erred regarding 
 the Old Testament prophecies. 
 
 3. The Debate on Miracles was opened by Thomas Woolston 
 (1669-1731), who proceeded to apply the allegorical inter- 
 pretation, not only to all such historical facts as the entry of 
 Jesus into Jerusalem, but also to the miracles of Christ. 
 Even the history of the resurrection of Christ has no meaning 
 in its literal acceptation, but is a type of His spiritual death 
 and of His resurrection from the grave of the letter. Woolston 
 supported his recommendation of the allegorical mode of inter- 
 pretation by showing that a literal interpretation meets with 
 the greatest difficulties. The same method is pursued by Peter 
 
 VOL. I. z 
 
354 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 Annet (t 1768), who, in a series of writings, some of which 
 are composed in an extremely repulsive tone, endeavoured to 
 overthrow the credibility of the Gospel history by pointing out 
 contradictions and improbabilities in it. He likewise advances 
 from the criticism of the particular miraculous narratives to 
 the consideration of the conception of miracles. In his view 
 a miracle is not merely an unusual event within the regulated 
 course of nature, but it is a supernatural event contrary to 
 the laws of nature ; and this contradicts the wisdom and 
 immutability of God. Nor are miracles capable of producing 
 belief; it is the imagination that shows us miracles. 
 
 4. The deistic movement called forth numerous Apologists, 
 but only a few of them occupy such a general point of view 
 as to come into consideration here. Henry More and Ralph 
 Cudworth brought Platonism into the field in opposition to 
 the dissolving effects of the thoughts of Hobbes. Theophilus 
 Gale (16281678) had already made an attempt to carry all 
 the science and philosophy of the heathen back to the Sacred 
 Scripture's as their ultimate source. Henry More (1614- 
 1678) turned away from the Aristotelian Scholasticism, and 
 found satisfaction in a Platonism alloyed with Pythagoreanism 
 and Kabbalistic elements. With the conviction of the irre- 
 fragable truth of the Biblical Eevelation, he combined the 
 assertion that Pythagoras, and Plato also through him, drew 
 their wisdom from Moses. Metaphysics is the rational in- 
 vestigation of immaterial substances ; or, it is a natural 
 theology. There are four kinds of spirits : the Germ-forms or 
 the material principle which lies at the basis of the formation 
 of plants, Animal Souls, Human Souls, and the Souls of the 
 Angels. Besides these there is also a universal soul of nature 
 or World - soul, which permeates and animates the whole 
 universe. The uncreated Spirit or God is essentially dis- 
 tinguished from these created souls. His existence indubitably 
 appears from the idea of a necessarily existent being which is 
 innate in us. The constitution of the world, with its mani- 
 festation of design in the whole as well as in its parts, also 
 points to the infinite reason and wisdom of its Author. 
 
THE APOLOGISTS. HENRY MORE AND RALPH CUD WORTH. 355 
 
 Above all, however, the designed structure of our body and 
 the faculties of our mind, make us certain of the existence of 
 God.- Ralph Cud worth (161 7-1 6 8 8), 1 equipped with astonish- 
 ing learning and no little acuteness, undertook a refutation 
 of the whole philosophy of atheism, of which Hobbes 
 appears to him as a leading representative. The view 
 which is favoured by the despisers of God, that there is 
 nothing in the mind which has not been formerly in the 
 senses, is erroneous ; God in knowing Himself also knows all 
 things, and in these ideas and necessary truths we also parti- 
 cipate. Above all, the view is to be rejected which would 
 empty the notions of good and evil of all universal and 
 essential contents, and which would found them upon the 
 arbitrary institution of any will whatever. Morality is fixed 
 and natural, and it is founded in the nature of things ; for 
 no divine or human law can bind us to anything but what is 
 good in its own nature (</>u<m). The atheists, who all assume 
 an insentient and unconscious matter as the principle of all 
 things, are systematically classified according as they think 
 of matter without life, or as involving a vegetative life. The 
 former assume either certain qualities or certain atoms, and 
 thus form the Anaximandrian and the Democritie Atheists ; 
 the latter hold either that the whole of matter is animated, or 
 that its several parts are animated, and they are accordingly 
 divided into the Stoical and the Stratonian Atheists. The 
 most important of these systems are the Democritie and the 
 Stratonian ; but neither the atomism of Democritus nor the 
 hylozoism of Strato, lead by inner necessity to the denial of 
 the Deity. By the aid of a great wealth of historical material, 
 Cudworth goes on to show that the idea of God, and, in par- 
 ticular, of a single Supreme Being, is found everywhere, even 
 among the most pronouncd heathens. To this idea we are 
 led by the investigation of causes as well as by the contem- 
 plation of the design in the world. The reality of God 
 
 1 His principal work is, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, 
 London 1678. It was translated into Latin by Mosheim with notes (Jera 
 1733). [Edited along with the Treatise on Eternal and Immutable Morality, 
 by Harrison, in 3 vols., London 1845.] 
 
356 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 follows from His idea in us as well as from the existence 
 of eternal truths and innate ideas generally. 
 
 Most of the writings published to refute Deism appeared 
 as replies to Collins' Discourse of Freethinldng. Richard 
 Bentley, the great Greek scholar (1662-1742), wrote against 
 him his Remarks upon a late Discourse of Freethinking, under 
 the pseudonym " Phileleutherus Lipsiensis." He puts himself 
 in so far upon the same ground with his opponent, as he also 
 demands freedom of thinking ; and, besides, this is so univer- 
 sally admitted that it is superfluous to vindicate it. The 
 polemic is not always quite dignified or worthy, as when 
 Bentley asserts that the " freethinkers " had a personal interest 
 in denying hell, and when he advises them to put it down by 
 force. He shows, with great acuteness and superior knowledge 
 of the subject, that the definition given of " freethinking " 
 was extremely indefinite and defective, that freethinking 
 actually tends to become rash, bold, inconsiderate thinking, 
 that the diversity of opinion in religion is extremely natural, 
 and is no reason for rejecting it. He also shows that the 
 " Freethinkers," instead of only following their reason without 
 adopting any hypothesis, were from the outset convinced that 
 the soul is material, that Christianity is a deception, that the 
 Scriptures are falsified, that heaven and hell are fables, and 
 that our life is without a Providence and without a Hereafter. 
 Benjamin Ibbot, in his Boyle Lectures (1713-1714), like- 
 wise claims for reason the right to examine whether an 
 alleged revelation is really a revelation, and what is its mean- 
 ing. He only objects to Collins, that he does not love the 
 truth for its own sake, and that he does not proceed im- 
 partially. Even Edmund Gibson, Bishop of London, in his 
 Five Pastoral Letters to the People vf his Diocese (London 
 1728 ff.), concedes to reason the right to examine whether 
 the grounds in favour of an alleged revelation are convincing, 
 although he also emphasizes the demand that reason since the 
 fall, must subject itself in matters of religion to the divine 
 revelation. 
 
 Of the treatises called forth by Tindal's Christianity as old 
 
JOHN CQNYBEARE. JOSEPH BUTLER. 357 
 
 as the Creation, it may be mentioned that some of their 
 authors, such as Campbell and Stebbing, attempted to explain 
 the origin and the partial truth of natural religion by deriving 
 it from revelation. John Conybeare, in his Defence of Revealed 
 Religion (London 1732), takes the view that natural religion is 
 certainly independent of revelation and certainly true, but that 
 revealed religion is alone perfect and sufficient for salvation. 
 He gains a no small advantage over his opponent by showing 
 that Tindal plays in an extremely obscure way with con- 
 ceptions ; that he uses the phrase " Law of Nature " as 
 synonymous with " Eeligion of Nature ; " and that he calls 
 religion natural at one time because it can be known by 
 natural reason, and at another time because it is founded in 
 the nature of things, and so on. Conybeare restricts the 
 expression natural religion to the former meaning. If we 
 assume at the outset that man has a sufficient insight by 
 nature, even in this case revelation would not be superfluous. 
 It would promote our insight as a means of instruction, by 
 exhibiting a comprehensive and orderly system of doctrine ; 
 and by its appeal to divine authority, it would claim our 
 attention and respect. Further, even assuming the perfection 
 of reason, a distinction must be made between reason before 
 the fall and reason as it now is, and also between the reason 
 of the whole of mankind and that of the individual. In truth, 
 however, natural religion is perfect only in the degree in 
 which natural reason is so ; but natural reason is imperfect, 
 and therefore natural religion is so too. It is wanting in 
 clearness ; it rests upon insufficient sanctions ; it does not 
 embrace all that should properly pertain to it ; and it furnishes 
 no means for the support of virtue. Further, natural religion 
 is changeable like our reason, which is the means of know- 
 ing it, and like the relations of things. Hence we must 
 expect that a divine revelation, if there be such a revelation, 
 would contain certain positive determinations in addition to 
 those of natural religion ; and we actually find such in all 
 revealed religion. There are therefore sufficient grounds in 
 reason for accepting a special positive revelation and recognising 
 
358 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 it in Christianity. For although we owe an unlimited obedience 
 to revelation, yet reason has to examine any alleged revelation 
 as to whether its contents are consistent with certain and 
 known principles, and whether it is accompanied with 
 sufficient external evidence so that it can be received as a 
 revelation. 
 
 Joseph Butler (1 6 9 2-1 7 5 2), 1 who died Bishop of Durham, 
 undoubtedly takes the most conspicuous place among the 
 Apologists of his time. The fundamental thought that he 
 has expressed is that Natural and Eevealed Eeligion are not 
 opposites that exclude each other, but that they stand in 
 " Analogy " to one another. Butler first considers Natural 
 Eeligion. The hypothesis of a Future Life cannot, he says, 
 be in any way strictly proved, but it may be made probable 
 by examination of nature. Observation of the moral life 
 makes it probable to us that all things are guided by God 
 according to a wise Providence, and that they are governed 
 according to moral laws ; and hence the work of training the 
 human race, which is thereby begun, makes us expect that it 
 shall be continued in a future life. Christianity is represented 
 by Butler under a twofold point of view. In the first place, 
 it is a republication and external arrangement of Natural or 
 Essential Eeligion, adapted to the present circumstances of 
 men, and destined for the promotion of natural piety and 
 virtue. Natural religion teaches that the world is the work 
 of an infinitely perfect Being, and is governed by Him ; that 
 virtue is His law; and that in the future life He will deal 
 with all men according to their works. This Natural Eeligion 
 is thus taught in its original simplicity, and free from all the 
 superstition by which it has been adulterated ; and as 
 Christianity, by its miracles and prophecies, has given Natural 
 Eeligion the support of external authority, it makes the 
 reception of it easier to all men. It is also thus accom- 
 modated to the particular wants of one people and one age, 
 in order that it may thereby be brought nearer to men. 
 
 1 His principal work is, The Analogy of Eeligion, natural and revealed, to 
 the Constitution and Course of Nature, London 1736. 
 
DAVID HUME. 359 
 
 But, in the second place, Christianity contains things which 
 cannot be discovered by Eeason, and in this connection 
 natural religion is its basis, but not its whole. What is 
 peculiar and characteristic of Christianity, consists shortly in 
 this, that it teaches us to know God, not merely as Father on 
 the side of His omnipotence, but also as the Son who is the 
 Mediator between God and man, and as the Holy Spirit by 
 whose assistance our corrupt nature is renewed. From these 
 new relations to God as the Son and the Spirit, there likewise 
 spring certain obligations or positive commandments, which 
 cannot be known by our natural reason, but can only be 
 ascertained on the ground of immediate Divine Eevelation. 
 Butler then proceeds, although in a less original way, to 
 refute the objections which have been urged against a Eevela- 
 tion in general, and against Christianity in particular. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DAVID HUME. 
 
 The general significance of Hume (1711-1776) may be 
 briefly summarized by saying that in him the whole movement 
 of Deism reached its close. In the development of philosophy, 
 Locke had hitherto been the chief authority in England. 
 Hence, apart from the aesthetic theory of Shaftesbury, the 
 discussions of the Deists rested on the basis of Locke's em- 
 piricism, and they contributed little to the promotion of 
 general philosophical speculation. Hume attaches himself 
 closely to Locke, in part correcting him and in part develop- 
 ing his doctrine. In the discussions relating to religion, 
 Hume likewise brings the movement to a close. Hitherto 
 Deism had maintained an essentially supranatural character ; 
 for although it demanded rationality in revelation, and assigned 
 to rational thinking the right to decide as to accepting or reject- 
 ing it, it nevertheless founds upon the position of an immediate 
 revelation. It takes this position, however, with a difference 
 
360 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 worth noting, namely, that from the outset the function assigned 
 by it to Eevelation is to communicate to us actually new know- 
 ledge relating to those things of which we could not otherwise 
 be certain, or which we would not so easily and quickly have 
 attained to, if left to ourselves, but which reason is capable of 
 accepting and recognising as true. Afterwards, however, the 
 only function assigned to Eevelation was to guide men again, 
 in opposition to the errors that had arisen, to the natural 
 truths of reason which had been formerly known. Hume, on 
 the other hand, knows nothing of Eevelation as standing in 
 harmony with Eeason. He evidently returns to the judgment 
 of Bacon concerning the complete separation of faith and 
 reason ; but while Bacon earnestly maintained his faith along 
 with his knowledge, in Hume the element of faith is also 
 assailed and consumed by his philosophical scepticism. We 
 may well consider this point somewhat more closely. 
 
 In philosophy, as has been said, Hume attaches himself in 
 the closest way to Locke, and he proceeds to develop Locke's 
 principles. As Locke, in his theory of knowledge, had under- 
 taken a critical examination of the origin, certainty, and 
 extent of human knowledge, as well as of the grounds and 
 degrees of belief, opinion, and assent, Hume likewise proceeds 
 on the same lines in his Philosophical Inquiry concerning 
 Human Understanding (1748). He aims at giving a "mental 
 geography, or delineation of the distinct parts and powers of 
 the mind," because he sees in this the only possibility of 
 freeing the sciences at once from transcendental investigations 
 and the way " to correct all that seeming disorder in which 
 they lie involved." Hume goes even farther than this, 
 designating philosophy briefly as the " science of human 
 nature ; " he also founds his inquiry regarding morals and 
 religion entirely upon it. 
 
 In theoretical philosophy, Hume accepts it as an established 
 position that the whole material of our mental operations 
 consists in "perceptions." In this connection Berkeley had 
 already saved him the trouble of having to repeat the 
 negative criticisms of Locke regarding innate ideas, and of 
 
DAVID HUME. 361 
 
 inquiring with him into the sources of our ideas. "We may 
 observe that 'tis universally allowed by philosophers, and is 
 besides pretty obvious of itself, that nothing is ever really 
 present with the mind but its perceptions or impressions and 
 ideas, and that external objects become known to us only by 
 those perceptions they occasion." Perceptions, according to 
 the higher or lower degree of their liveliness, are divided into 
 " Impressions " and " Ideas " ; the former designate the ideas 
 and sensations that are immediately produced by an external 
 impress, the latter indicate the reproductions of these in 
 memory and imagination. 1 All Simple Ideas are mere copies 
 of simple impressions, for the understanding has no power to 
 create anything new. It is otherwise with Complex Ideas. 
 There are complex impressions to which no ideas exactly 
 correspond, and there are also complex ideas to which there 
 nre no exactly corresponding impressions. The understanding 
 has not only the capacity of recalling ideas before itself in 
 memory, but it can also combine and separate, multiply and 
 divide these ideas, in the phantasy, although it is always 
 restricted to the material which it has received from experi- 
 ence. There are certain general Principles which undeniably 
 regulate the combination of individual ideas into complex 
 ideas. The most important of them are Resemblance, Con- 
 tiguity in time or place, and Cause or Effect. 2 Along with 
 these natural relations, Hume also distinguishes certain 
 artificial relations, which are infinite in number yet may all 
 be reduced under these seven general heads : Kesemblance, 
 Identity, Space and Time, Quantity, Degrees of Quality, 
 Contrariety, Causes or Effects. 3 The three natural Eelations 
 mainly occupy him. The relation of Identity rests on resem- 
 
 1 "A11 the perceptions of the human mind resolve themselves into two 
 distinct kinds, which I shall call impressions and ideas. The difference between 
 these consists in the degrees of force and liveliness with which they strike upon 
 the mind, and make their way into our thought or consciousness. Those per- 
 ceptions which enter with most force and violence, we name impressions ; and 
 under this name I comprehend all our sensations, passions, and emotions as 
 they make their first appearance in the soul. By ideas, I mean the faint images 
 of these in thinking and reasoning." Treatise, Book I. Part I. Sec. 1. 
 
 2 Inquiry, Sect. III. 
 
 3 Treatise of Human Nature, Book I. Part I. Of Relations. 
 
362 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 blance. This relation arises when we view one and the same 
 objects at two different moments of time, and only attend to 
 its unchangeableness during the lapse of the time ; and the 
 identity of an object is thus equivalent to its unchangeableness 
 and uninterrupted duration during a received portion of 
 time. This relation of Identity has therefore a merely 
 subjective foundation, and its expression has no objective 
 significance, apart altogether from the fact that it is almost 
 always expressed where differences are present. The objective 
 validity of the conception of Substance, both as material and 
 immaterial, thereby also falls. We perceive certain qualities 
 in repeated combinations, or even in a certain constant union, 
 hence we regard their coexistence as a thing or as a simple 
 object. At the same time, however, the qualities appear to us 
 to be different and separate ; and in order to combine these 
 two things with one another, we form for ourselves the idea 
 of the one substance with its many accidents. But this idea 
 is not presented in any perception, and we have no right to 
 transfer this fiction of our imagination to the external objects 
 of perception. In other words, our conviction of the con- 
 tinued existence of the external world, as a world of external 
 bodies corresponding to our earlier and later perceptions, rests 
 merely upon our imagination, and is only attained by means 
 of that fiction. As in the case of the objectivity of the 
 external world, the immaterial substance of the soul, or the 
 personal identity of the Ego, is in like manner resolved into a 
 mere subjective fiction. There is neither an impression, nor 
 is there an idea of the self or Ego founded upon any impres- 
 sion. When I exactly examine myself, I find in fact various 
 individual perceptions, but not a separate " self," whether as 
 an independent perception along with others or in connection 
 with these. It is a purely subjective addition to the process, 
 when we connect the various independent perceptions in the 
 Ego into an imaginary unity. 
 
 The relation of connection in space and time, leads us to 
 examine its significance. The Ideas of Space and Time do not 
 arise from separate perceptions that exist along with other 
 
DAVID HUME. 363 
 
 perceptions, nor are they prior to all perception, nor are they 
 afterwards separated from perception. The idea of Space 
 arises from the perception of visible and tangible points, 
 which are distributed in a certain order, and the idea of Time 
 is abstracted from the succession of different perceptions. 
 We can neither form an idea of empty space and empty time, 
 nor the idea that space- and time can consist of infinitely small 
 parts. 
 
 The Eelation of Causality leads Hume to the inquiries by 
 which he became the precursor of Kant, and by which he 
 established his reputation in philosophy. It is Causality 
 which alone enables us to pass in our knowledge beyond the 
 immediate present perception ; that is, to infer from the 
 perceived existence of an object to the existence of an object 
 which is not perceived, as preceding or as following it. Hence 
 the knowledge that proceeds according to the Relation of 
 Causality is distinguished from other knowledge, in that the 
 former constitutes empirical knowledge or experience, and 
 the latter intuitive or demonstrative knowledge. Intuitive 
 knowledge arises when two presented objects are compared ; 
 and demonstrative knowledge arises when the relations of 
 quantity are examined in geometry and arithmetic. Intuition 
 and demonstration give certainty, whereas experience gives 
 mere probability. What is essential to experience as aided 
 by the Eelation of Causality, consists in the fact that we 
 thereby obtain a knowledge of the existence of objects which 
 are not presented to our perception at the time. Hence the 
 great question is, How, on what ground, and with what right, 
 may we infer generally from the idea of one object to another 
 that is not included in it ? It is impossible to infer to the 
 connection of one object with another merely from the idea of 
 the first object, or a priori by a mere operation of the under- 
 standing. In regard to rare and wholly new objects, this is 
 not doubted ; but with regard to the common occurrences of 
 daily life, such as, that heat melts wax, or that a ball in 
 motion communicates its motion to one at rest, we believe 
 that we are able to draw inferences a priori. This opinion, 
 
364 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 however, is only the result of a deceptive influence of custom. 
 The Eelation of Causality thus rests in every case upon 
 experience. But what does experience actually show us in 
 two things which we regard as Cause and Effect ? It is not 
 any particular quality of these objects, for anything may as 
 well be a cause as an effect. What we are presented with, is 
 rather a mere contiguity, or at most a succession of these 
 objects in space and time. Even in those cases in which the 
 Eelation of Causality meets us most directly, as in the con- 
 sciously-willed movements of the body, nothing further is 
 presented to our observation than this contiguity or succes- 
 sion in time and space. But a single observation of this 
 relation, does not suffice to lead to the knowledge of cause 
 and effect. This knowledge requires that such observations 
 should be frequently repeated. If, in a series of cases, two 
 objects continually appear in the same relation of connection 
 in space and time, the two impressions of them become 
 combined so closely with one another in our experience that 
 our imagination is determined by custom, on the repetition of 
 the one impression, to add to it the idea of the other. This 
 subjective necessitation is the only ground on which we 
 assume an objective necessary connection of the two objects, 
 and because we accept this connection we also become 
 firmly convinced that quite another significance belongs to 
 this combination of the ideas than belongs to mere images of 
 the imagination ; in other words, we think that the objects 
 really correspond to this subjective combination of ideas. 
 This conviction is founded upon Belief. We distinguish, no 
 doubt, between objects of experience and the inventions of the 
 phantasy ; but in neither case have we anything but ideas 
 before us. There must, however, be some distinction between 
 those ideas which we accept as true from their corresponding 
 to an external object, and those which we reject as untrue. 
 This distinction can only be relevant to the sensation or 
 feeling as not depending on choice, and as without refer- 
 ence to the will being connected with true ideas, but not 
 with those that are untrue. It is as impossible to explain 
 
DAVID HUME. 365 
 
 this feeling as it is to explain the sensation of cold, or the 
 emotion of anger, to a being who has no experience of them. 
 But every one knows this feeling, and is conscious of it in 
 himself. The correct expression for it is " Belief." " Belief 
 is something felt by the mind, which distinguishes the ideas 
 of the judgment from the fictions of the imagination." 
 " The sentiment of Belief is nothing but a conception more 
 intense and steady than what attends the mere fictions of the 
 imagination." This Belief is the guiding principle of our 
 whole human life. By it alone we make experiences useful 
 to us, in so far as we assume for the future the same course 
 of events which we have observed in the past ; by it alone 
 do we extend our knowledge backwards and forwards beyond 
 the sphere of the objects immediately perceived. We there- 
 fore come to a certain harmony between the course of nature 
 and the succession of our ideas, and it rests upon the habit 
 which regulates our whole knowledge and action. The 
 necessary causal connection which we attribute to things, 
 thus rests merely upon our being subjectively compelled to 
 represent two things, which we have often observed in a 
 certain particular mode of coexistence in space and time, as 
 always in that relation, and as thus connected with one 
 another. The greater or less probability of the empirical 
 inference, rests on the number of the cases in which this 
 coexistence is observed in proportion to those in which it 
 was not found. For such an inference from experience 
 always remains a probability, and it never becomes a certainty. 
 A special kind of merely probable knowledge, is that which 
 is founded upon Analogy. As yet we have been considering 
 Experience only under the point of view that the very same 
 object that we have observed hitherto in constant combina- 
 tion with another object, meets us again. But it is commonly 
 the case that it is only a more or less similar object that is 
 afterwards presented to us. The main question then comes 
 to be, How to determine degrees of similarity from identity 
 on to contrast ? For the less resemblance there is, so much the 
 more improbable does such an inference from analogy become. 
 
366 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 It is this same spirit of subjective empiricism, that appears 
 in Hume's investigation of moral questions. With penetrating 
 self - observation and careful psychological analysis, Hume 
 gives at the outset a survey of the human " Passions " as 
 forming the natural substratum of our actions. Generally, 
 he maintains and emphatically argues that the Science of 
 Ethics has no imperative or constructive character, but is 
 entirely descriptive. It has not to establish universal Laws 
 derived a priori from no one knows where ; nor has it to 
 subordinate individual cases to such laws ; it has rather 
 to examine with care the actual conduct of men, and to derive 
 from the observation of their individual actions the general 
 laws of action. The will is not a particular power, nor a 
 special faculty. " By the will I mean nothing but the internal 
 impression we feel, and are conscious of, ivlien we knowingly give 
 rise to any neiv motion of our body, or new perception of our 
 mind." It is only from the fact that there has been no 
 agreement regarding the notion of the will, that the endless 
 and still unsolved controversy regarding freedom and necessity 
 is explained. Were it not that the subject of the dispute is 
 treated in endlessly ambiguous expressions, a recognised result 
 would have been reached long since ; for as regards the matter 
 itself, the disputants are really at one. Nobody questions the 
 essential equality of all men, at all times, and in all places. 
 In like manner, nobody disputes the fact that, in human life, 
 all actions stand in constant connection with certain motives, 
 characters, and relations. The constant connection of two 
 objects is, however, the only objective relation which underlies 
 our conviction of the necessity of material events. Hence 
 there is no reason for not attributing the very same necessity 
 to human actions as to external things. In the practical 
 judgment of life and men, we are also wont constantly to 
 proceed on the assumption of necessity ; and we are only 
 prevented from keeping strictly to it by our idea that we 
 might have acted otherwise, as well as by the opinion that 
 necessity properly implies something more than a coexistence 
 in space and time that is without exception. Now it is 
 
DAVID HUME. 367 
 
 asked, By what then is our will determined ? Is it by 
 reason or by feeling ? It is not by reason ; for reason 
 has to do only with knowledge, that is, with observation 
 of the relations of certain ideas in intuition and demonstra- 
 tion, or with the establishment of facts in experience. 
 In none of these cases can reason be the ground of 
 an action. Just as little can it combat a passion, for the 
 passions belong to an entirely different side of our mental 
 life than that of knowledge and perception. Morality does 
 not therefore consist in certain relations that have to be dis- 
 covered by reason, nor in facts that have to be established by it. 
 Eather is it feeling that determines the will. Our feeling 
 moves in the opposition between the agreeable and the dis- 
 agreeable. Hence our moral judgment regarding a character 
 and an action, as well as the determination of our will to 
 action, must rest upon a feeling of the agreeable and of the 
 disagreeable. This, however, is not to be understood as if all 
 agreeable feelings excited in us the idea of what is morally 
 good, and all disagreeable feelings that of what is morally 
 bad ; but the feeling of the morally good and bad rests upon 
 a peculiar and wholly specific kind of pleasure and pain. 
 By this feeling virtue becomes happiness, and vice unhappi- 
 ness. The only question remaining relates to what it is in 
 the objective world that excites in us the feeling of moral 
 satisfaction or the moral feeling of pleasure. The reply to 
 this question is that it is what is useful for others. This is 
 reached as the result of an analysis of the universally 
 recognised social virtues. Benevolence, Philanthropy, Grati- 
 tude, and Friendship are universally esteemed on account of 
 the advantage or Utility which arises from them for the 
 common weal as well as for the individual. This holds still 
 more of Justice, the rules of which have only arisen from the 
 advantage which society and its members derive from their 
 observance. Hence even suicide is quite permissible, as 
 Hume argues at length in his celebrated Essay on Suicide. 
 Suicide is not a violation of duty towards God, because it 
 would be blasphemy to assert that the individual could thus 
 
368 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 interfere so as to destroy the divine plan of things. Nor is 
 it a violation of duty towards society, because our obligation 
 to work for the well-being of society ceases if a dispropor- 
 tionate pain is thereby prepared for us, or if we would thus 
 become a mere burden to society. Nor is suicide a violation 
 of duty towards ourselves, as no one will throw away life so 
 long as it appears worth the living. The moral estimate of 
 actions thus rests upon the specific feeling of pleasure which 
 is excited by actions that promote the advantage of human 
 society. Hence the feeling of humanity or sympathy, is 
 determined more correctly as the ultimate moral principle. 
 It has the twofold significance of giving a rule for the moral 
 judgment of all actions and characters, as well as furnishing 
 the motive of all really good actions. 
 
 Hume's Moral Philosophy, like his theory of knowledge, 
 thus forms in its own sphere, the culmination and close of the 
 preceding development of English thought. His Philosophy 
 of Eeligion holds exactly the same position and significance. 
 It grew up wholly on the soil of the English Deism, and is 
 only to be understood in connection with it ; but at the same 
 time it goes in essential points beyond it. Hence, as in his 
 theory of knowledge, Hume is here, too, not merely the con- 
 summation and close of the previous development, but he is at 
 the same time the precursor and beginner of an entirely new 
 movement, which was to be carried on and completed by the 
 labour of a later time and by the thinkers of another country. 
 
 His principal work relating to the Philosophy of Religion 
 is entitled The Natural History of Religion. At the outset, 
 Hume distinguishes two principal questions which claim our 
 attention in any inquiry with regard to religion ; the first 
 question relates to " its foundation in Reason," and the 
 second to " its origin in human nature." The main progress 
 made by Hume beyond Deism, lies in the fact that he 
 deals with the latter question independently, and that he 
 does not attempt to refer religion, after its untenableness 
 by reason has been proved, merely to priestly deception 
 which explains nothing. The first question appears to him 
 
DAVID HUME. 369 
 
 to be the most important ; and " happily it admits of the 
 most obvious, at least the clearest solution. The whole frame 
 of nature bespeaks an Intelligent Author, and no rational 
 inquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a 
 moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine 
 Theism and Eeligion." Notwithstanding this expression, 
 Hume has not regarded it as superfluous to subject this 
 question also to an incisive examination. Along with par- 
 ticular sections of the work entitled An Inquiry concerning 
 the Human Understanding, the Dialogues concerning Natural 
 Eeligion mainly deal with this subject. They were not 
 published till after Hume's death, which took place in the 
 year 1779; but they had been composed as early as 1751, 
 and after more than twenty years of preparation. 
 
 The literary form of this investigation presents it as a 
 report by Pamphilus to Hermippus regarding a discussion 
 concerning the existence and nature of God, carried on in 
 Dialogues between three friends, Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes. 
 Demea represents the belief in Eevelation ; but in the 
 philosophical relation he stands not upon scholastic, but upon 
 sceptical ground, that is, he will not establish the truth 
 of Divine Eevelation by the aid of human reason, but he 
 will corroborate the necessity of immediate revelation from 
 the fact of the insufficiency of human knowledge. Philo is 
 likewise a sceptic, but he holds fast by his philosophical 
 scepticism, and does not save himself on the sure ground of 
 revelation. Cleanthes again has good confidence in human 
 thinking. Instead of doubting of the reliability of know- 
 ledge, he will not merely criticize any alleged revelation by 
 its aid, but will also apply it so as to obtain a natural 
 knowledge of the existence and nature of God. He therefore 
 represents the so-called Natural Theology, or the Deism of the 
 time. These characteristics are manifested in the intro- 
 ductory Dialogue regarding the significance of scepticism, 
 which Cleanthes rejects as practically impossible and scien- 
 tifically impracticable, while Demea and Philo recommend it, 
 the former advocating it as a preparation to belief, and the 
 
 VOL. I. 2 A 
 
370 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 latter as the true scientific method of procedure. The exist- 
 ence of God, as the most certain of all things, is not called in 
 question in the subsequent discussion. The only question 
 treated is as to whether the proofs of God's existence are 
 sufficient, and what light falls from these proofs on the 
 knowledge of the being and nature of God. Of the traditional 
 Arguments, the Ontological Argument is not even mentioned. 
 This is quite natural, for a theory of knowledge like that of 
 Hume could recognise nothing at all in the assertion that the 
 existence of God follows from the idea of God. The Cosmo- 
 logical Argument is merely touched incidentally. Demea 
 believes that even if the arguments a posteriori were to prove 
 insufficient, yet the argument a priori would lead to the goal 
 in view. It is expressed thus. All that is, must have a 
 cause or a ground of its existence, as a thing cannot pro- 
 duce itself. In rising from effect to cause, we must therefore 
 either assume an infinite succession, which would be absurd, 
 or we must have recourse to an ultimate cause, which 
 necessarily exists, and the non-existence of which cannot be 
 accepted without contradiction ; in other words, we must 
 come to the existence of God. On the other hand, Cleanthes 
 objects that it is of itself an absurdity to try to demonstrate 
 facts, or to establish them by arguments ct priori. There is 
 nothing demonstrable but that of which the opposite involves 
 a contradiction. Anything may be thought as not existing, 
 and hence nothing can be demonstrated as existing. Further, 
 in case there were such a thing as " necessary existence," why 
 may the material universe itself not be this necessarily exist- 
 ing being ? 
 
 The greatest part of the Dialogue turns upon the Teleological 
 Argument, or, more exactly, on the question as to whether the 
 inference of design and intelligence in the origin of the world 
 is founded upon facts of experience. The 'point then is not 
 to prove the existence of God, for this stands fast, but to know 
 more exactly the nature of this original, or the nature of God. 
 Cleanthes proceeds to show that the world is an artificial 
 machine quite analogous to the products of human art ; and as 
 
DAVID HUME. 371 
 
 the likeness of the effect enables us to infer a like author, 
 we must therefore accept the existence of an intelligent author 
 of the world. Demea protests immediately against every 
 inference by analogy from man and his actions to God. 
 Philo then proceeds to argue that an analogical inference 
 in this case, in which the resemblance is so small and the 
 dissimilitude is undeniable, is far from being an inference 
 from experience. It is neither legitimate to transfer the 
 contrivance or economy of a part, such as a house, to the 
 whole of the universe, nor to apply the procedure of the 
 existing and regulated world to its mode of origin. "Can 
 you pretend to show any such similarity between the fabric 
 of a house and the generation of a universe ? " If we were 
 to judge about the origin of the universe from experience, 
 and therefore with any certainty, it would be necessary that 
 we should have been present at its origin and have seen how 
 in fact a world arises. These preliminary objections cannot, 
 however, convince Cleanthes. In vivid and rhetorical lan- 
 guage, he refers again to the fact that everywhere in nature 
 we find design in its arrangements ; and that the simplest 
 natural explanation which presses itself at once upon un- 
 prejudiced thinking, is the acceptance of a divine intelligence, 
 We ought to stop at this immediate impression, and not 
 labour to seek out sceptical objections to it. Demea brings 
 forward the view once more that God's nature is entirely 
 inconceivable, that it is presumption to wish to make God 
 accessible to our understanding, because we thereby degrade 
 God and make Him like man. On the other hand, Cleanthes 
 asserts that this mystical conception of God differs in little 
 from the view of the sceptics and atheists, and that, if it is 
 denied that God is knowable, there will not be much inquiry 
 after His existence, and the belief in God will then be but an 
 empty belief in a vague something. 
 
 And now Philo begins to give a special and systematic 
 refutation of that inference from Analogy. 1. Anthropomor- 
 phism, he says, infers that as a human work of art has its 
 ground in the plan of the artist, so does the world per ana- 
 
372 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 logiam point to an intelligent Creator and His preconceived 
 plan of the world, But it is asked what is gained hy this 
 assumption ? We see ourselves always compelled to rise still 
 higher in order to find for any cause again another cause. 
 To carry back the universe of things to a universe of ideas in 
 God, is only the first step in a regressus in infinitum. " How, 
 therefore, shall we satisfy ourselves concerning the cause of 
 that Being whom you suppose the Author of Nature, or 
 according to your system of Anthropomorphism, the ideal 
 world into which you trace the material ? Have we not the 
 same reason to trace that ideal world into another ideal 
 world, or new intelligent principle ? But if we stop, and go 
 no farther ; why go so far ? Why not stop at the material 
 world ? " This infinite regression, however, cannot satisfy 
 us ; the story of the Indian philosopher and his elephant 
 applies to it. If we are to stop at the first ideal world, why 
 not at once at the present material world ? It would be 
 better not to look beyond it. " By supposing it to contain 
 the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to 
 be God ; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine Being, so 
 much the better." As the Peripatetics found the cause of 
 an occurrence in an occult quality, so do the Anthropornor- 
 phists in like manner find the cause of order in the ideas of 
 the Supreme Being, or in a rational Power which constitutes 
 the nature of God. In the same manner the order of the 
 universe may be explained without going back to a Creator. 
 2. The Teleological Argument leads neither to the infinity, 
 nor to the perfection, nor to the unity of God. " Like effects 
 prove like causes." This is the ultimate principle upon which 
 all inferences from analogy rest, and therefore it is also the 
 principle of the teleological argument. This principle is not 
 considered in itself, but it is taken and applied strictly and 
 precisely. Now the effect in question, in so far as it comes 
 to our knowledge, is not infinite, and therefore we have no 
 ground in it for attributing infinity to the Divine Being. 
 Further, there are in nature, at least so far as our knowledge 
 reaches, difficulties, defects, etc., and therefore we cannot 
 
DAVID HUME. 373 
 
 assert that God is perfect or free from error, mistakes, or 
 inconsequences. Or, again, as a human work of tolerable 
 perfection often comes into shape after many mishaps and 
 failures in the attempts to produce it, may it not also be that 
 " many worlds have been botched and bungled throughout an 
 eternity ere this system was struck." And now as a great 
 number of men are combined in the building of a house or a 
 ship, it might also be that various deities had combined to 
 form a world. That would merely constitute so much the 
 greater a resemblance of the world to human things. Nay, if 
 the position of the Anthropomorphist is to be taken, why then 
 is it not carried out at once more completely ? " Why not 
 assert the deity or deities to be corporeal, and to have eyes, a 
 nose, mouth, ears, etc. ? " 3. In experience the principle 
 holds good, that where certain circumstances are observed to 
 be similar, the unknown circumstances will in like manner be 
 similar. The world shows much similarity to an animal or 
 organic body. We may therefore infer that the world is an 
 animal, and the Deity is the soul of the world, moving it and 
 moved by it. If the objection is raised that thereby the 
 eternity of the world is asserted, but that this position is 
 refuted by the recent origin of intellectual and material 
 culture, an escape may be found by taking up the view that 
 endless periodic revolutions follow each other, and that they 
 are guided by an eternally immanent principle of order. 
 4. As the world is much more like an animal body or a 
 plant than a human work of art, the origin of the world 
 might be much rather explained by generation or growth 
 than by intentional creation. " In like manner, as a tree 
 sheds its seed into the neighbouring fields, and produces other 
 trees ; so the great vegetable, the world, or this planetary 
 system, produces within itself certain seeds, which, being 
 scattered into the surrounding chaos, vegetate into new 
 worlds." This view certainly gives free scope to the imagina- 
 tion, but from it we see how incapable we are to determine 
 anything from experience regarding the origin of the world, 
 and how the principle of resemblance leads us astray. 
 
374 
 
 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 5. Once more, even the h}'pothesis of Epicurus might be 
 defended. If we take a finite quantity of matter that is 
 continually and everywhere moved, it must necessarily in the 
 course of time assume all possible formations. Most of these 
 would have no internal power of existence and would there- 
 fore perish, but at last there would come about one which 
 could maintain itself in being. Although accidentally arisen, 
 such an arrangement would present the appearance of an 
 adaptation of means and ends ; for were the parts not suited 
 for the preservation of the whole, the whole would in time 
 have perished. Hence the result of this discussion is summed 
 up in the view, that as innumerable hypotheses may be 
 maintained with the same probability, we must exercise the 
 reserve of the sceptic, and confess our ignorance. 
 
 Clean thes represents the deistic mode of thought of the 
 time. According to his view, Design prevails in the world, 
 and hence its origin must go back to an intelligent author. 
 In that age human happiness was regarded as the final 
 purpose of things. The Dialogues could not therefore con- 
 clude without looking at the question of human happiness, 
 or the problem of the Theodicy with reference to the 
 knowledge of the existence and nature of God. Demea 
 expresses this position thus : " I own that each man feels, 
 in a manner, the truth of religion in his own breast, and from 
 a consciousness of his imbecility and misery, rather than from 
 any reasoning, is led to seek protection from that Being on 
 whom he and all nature is dependent." Demea and Philo 
 describe alternately and with great eloquence, the misery of 
 life, the unhappiness of man, and the universal corruption of 
 human nature. But while Demea will merge this mystery in 
 the incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature, Philo borrows 
 weapons even from that position against the argument for 
 the existence of God advanced by Cleanthes, arguing that 
 the boundless misery on the earth compels us to think 
 either that God's omnipotence, or His wisdom, or His good- 
 ness is limited. For if God were of unlimited power, wisdom, 
 and goodness, the happiness of living beings would not be 
 
DAVID HUME. 375 
 
 impaired by any unhappiness. And although it may be 
 admitted that a world even under that condition mi^ht be 
 
 O 
 
 compatible with the idea of a very powerful, wise, and bene- 
 volent Deity, yet it can never furnish us with an inference to 
 His existence that is without difficulty. All evil rests upon 
 four circumstances : (1) Pain and pleasure serve to incite the 
 creatures to action, and to make them watchful in the matter 
 of self-preservation ; (2) The course of the world is governed 
 by general laws ; (3) All powers and capacities are bestowed 
 with great parsimony upon individuals ; (4) The several prin- 
 ciples of the great machine of nature do not work with com- 
 plete exactness, but exert an influence beyond the bounds of 
 their utility. This is expressed as " the inaccurate workman- 
 ship of all the springs and principles of the great machine of 
 nature." None of the four sources of evil appear to us to be 
 necessary, and hence one might be inclined to adopt the 
 Manichaean theory of a dualism in the origin of the world. 
 The universal connection of the order of the world is, how- 
 ever, hardly compatible with this view. Hence it comes as a 
 result to this, that as regards the origin of the world, the 
 happiness and unhappiness of the creatures does not appear 
 to have been taken into consideration. At the close, Clean- 
 thes and Philo come to agree in thinking that their dispute 
 was really but a dispute about words. The one admits that 
 the original intelligence is far removed from human reason, 
 and the other confesses that the original principle of order 
 has some distant resemblance to reason. Why then should 
 they still dispute ? 
 
 The eleventh section of the Inquiry concerning the Human 
 Understanding, entitled " Of a Particular Providence and of a 
 Future State," is connected by its contents with the subject of 
 the Dialogues. Hume here makes a friend take up the part 
 of Epicurus, who defends himself against the reproach of 
 godlessness in a speech delivered on the Areopagus before 
 the assembled Athenian people. The chief argument for the 
 existence of God is derived from the order of nature. In 
 every inference from effect to cause, the two must be pro- 
 
,376 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 portional to one another, and qualities may never be assigned 
 to the cause that are not necessary for the explanation of 
 the effect, and no inference may be drawn again from the 
 discovered cause to other effects than those that have been 
 observed. If we therefore suppose that the gods are the 
 authors of the existence and order of the universe, we may 
 indeed ascribe to them the particular degree of power, under- 
 standing, and benevolence which is visible in their work, but 
 never more. Further, " we can never be allowed to mount 
 up from the universe, the effect, to Jupiter, the cause ; and 
 then descend downwards, to infer any new effect from that 
 cause, as if the present effects were not entirely worthy of 
 the glorious attributes which we ascribe to that deity." Only 
 because this is overlooked is the inference made to an all- 
 good, all-wise, and all-powerful Creator, and then the effort is 
 again made backwards to explain away evil and imperfection 
 from the world. Epicurus is further represented as saying : 
 I deny a Providence, you say, and Supreme Governor of the 
 world, who guides the course of events, and punishes the 
 vicious and rewards the virtuous ; but I entirely acknowledge 
 that according to the present order of things, virtue is con- 
 nected with more tranquillity of soul, and finds a more 
 favourable reception in the world, than vice. Whether I 
 derive this perception from an experience, or refer this 
 arrangement to an intelligence acting with design, is all the 
 same as regards my conduct. The expectation of a special 
 reward of the good and punishment of the bad in addition to 
 and beyond the usual course of nature, " must of necessity be 
 a gross sophism, since it is impossible for you to know any- 
 thing of the cause but what you have antecedently not 
 inferred, but discovered to the full in the effect." It is quite 
 unreasonable to render this life only a passage to a future 
 life. " Are there then any marks of a distributive justice in 
 the world ? If you answer in the affirmative, I conclude 
 that since justice here exerts itself, it is satisfied. If you 
 reply in the negative, I conclude that you have then no 
 reason to ascribe justice, in our sense of it, to the gods." 
 
DAVID HUME. 377 
 
 If we abandon the sure path of experience, and infer by the 
 imagination to a distinct intellectual being, who produces and 
 maintains order in the universe, we maintain a principle 
 that is equally uncertain and impracticable, as such an in- 
 ference from the cause to the effect is not allowable. An 
 inference from effect to cause, and again from the cause to the 
 effect, is indeed allowable in reference to the works of human 
 invention and art. As we learn to know man in his nature, 
 motives, and qualities, from experience, our knowledge of the 
 cause in this case is not founded upon the one present effect, 
 but upon a hundred other experiences and observations which 
 justify an inference to wider effects. It is otherwise with 
 reference to the Deity. We infer a Deity merely from the 
 world as an effect, and therefore inferences drawn from the 
 Deity cannot carry us beyond the world of experience. The 
 great source of our mistakes lies rather in the fact that we 
 put ourselves in the place of the Supreme Being, and assume 
 that He will observe the same rules as we would do in His 
 place. But the analogy between the Supreme Being and us, 
 does not at all justify this assumption. 
 
 The views of Hume regarding the Immortality of the Soul 
 and Miracles, are also of interest in connection with his 
 Philosophy of Eeligion. His views regarding Immortality are 
 expressed in his Essays on Suicide and the Immortality of the 
 Soul, which were not published till after his death in 1783. 
 The contents of these Essays correspond exactly to the logical 
 consequences which result from his dissolution of the idea of 
 the substance of the soul. The inference is drawn that, 
 " Nothing could set in a fuller light the infinite obligations 
 which mankind have to Divine revelation, since we find that 
 no other medium could ascertain this great and important 
 truth." This inference, however, is only meant to soften the 
 aversion of the reader to the repulsive contents of these 
 Essays, but it will not weaken their result. Hume subjects 
 the metaphysical, moral, and physical arguments for the 
 Immortality of the Soul to a sharp criticism. " Metaphysical 
 topics suppose that the soul is immaterial, and that 'tis im,- 
 
378 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 possible for thought to belong to a material substance." The 
 notion of substance is entirely confused. We represent it as 
 an aggregate of individual qualities which inhere in an un- 
 known something. Matter and Spirit are therefore equally 
 unknown to us. We do not know what qualities belong to 
 them. At least it is only experience that can decide as to 
 whether matter may be the cause of thought. And if thought 
 is only attached to a spiritual substance which is dispersed, 
 like the ethereal fire of the Stoics, through the world, the 
 various thinking forms and existences are formed out of it as 
 from a sort of paste or clay. The same spiritual substance 
 therefore lies at the basis of the most various formations. 
 The individual form is dissolved in death ; and as we know 
 nothing of existence before our birth, in like manner the 
 existence after death does not affect us. The moral argu- 
 ments assume that the justice of God has an interest in the 
 future punishment of the vicious and the reward of the 
 virtuous. These arguments are thus founded upon the 
 assumption that God has attributes besides those that are 
 expressed in the world, and that are alone known to us. And 
 yet, if there be any purpose that is distinct in nature, we may 
 assert that the whole purpose of the creation of man was 
 limited to the present life. Only on this ground can it be 
 explained that our interest is so completely limited to this 
 world. " On the theory of the soul's mortality, the inferiority 
 of women's capacity is easily accounted for," in view of the 
 less important tasks of women. The main objection lies in 
 the fact that " heaven and hell suppose two distinct species 
 of men," the one completely good and the other completely 
 bad. In truth, however, men oscillate between vice and 
 virtue. The physical arguments, which are the only philo- 
 sophical ones, speak distinctly for the mortality of the Soul. 
 If two objects are so closely connected with one another that 
 all the changes of the one are accompanied by corresponding 
 changes of the other, by the rules of analogy we must infer, 
 that if the one is dissolved, the dissolution of the other 
 also follows. This, however, is the relation that subsists 
 
DAVID HUME. 379 
 
 between the body and the soul. Everything is in a continual 
 flux or change, and shall the soul then alone be immortal and 
 indissoluble ? Further, " how to dispose of the infinite 
 number of posthumous existences, ought also to embarrass 
 the religious theory." 
 
 Hume expresses his views regarding Miracles in the tenth 
 section of his Inquiry concerning the Human Understanding. 
 In entire conformity with the subjective character of his 
 whole philosophizing, he does not discuss the objective 
 possibility of Miracles, this being passed over as unquestion- 
 able. What he examines is their subjective credibility. The 
 positions which he maintains here are the necessary con- 
 sequences of his assertions regarding the theory of knowledge. 
 He begins with a reference to Tillotson's argument against 
 the Real Presence. " It is acknowledged on all hands, says 
 that learned prelate, that the authority, either of the Scripture 
 or of tradition, is founded merely in the testimony of the 
 Apostles, who were eye-witnesses to those miracles of our 
 Saviour by which He proved his divine mission. Our 
 evidence, then, for the truth of the Christian religion is less 
 than the evidence for the truth of our senses." But the 
 weaker evidence must yield to the stronger. In the same 
 way Hume will meet the belief in Miracles. The external 
 occasion, at least for the last revision of these thoughts, was 
 undoubtedly the excitement caused by the miracles "lately 
 said to have been wrought in France upon the tomb of 
 Abb4 Paris, the famous Jansenist," and the recollection thus 
 reawakened of the Port Eoyal Miracles. 
 
 Even experience, Hume maintains, may lead us into error. 
 Here also there are all possible degrees of conviction from the 
 highest certainty to the lowest degree of moral evidence or 
 probability. It is therefore important to bring one's faith 
 into proportion to the degree of evidence. If inferences are 
 founded upon an infallible experience, we may expect the 
 event with the highest degree of assurance ; in other cases, 
 we must weigh the opposite experiences against each other, 
 and incline to the side on which the greatest number of 
 
380. THE .ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 experiences is found, yet always only with uncertainty. This 
 is the probability which assumes an opposition of observations, 
 and according to the relation of these cases it has a different 
 degree of certainty. This position holds also where we 
 accept statements upon the testimony of others. In this 
 case the incredibility of a fact may invalidate the testimony 
 of a witness for it, however credible. Now, let us suppose 
 " that the testimony, considered apart and in itself, amounts 
 to an entire proof, but that the fact related is a miracle, in 
 that case there is proof against proof, of which the strongest 
 must prevail, but still with a diminution of its force in 
 proportion to that of its antagonist. A miracle is a violation 
 of the laws of nature; and as a firm and unalterable 
 experience has established these laws, the proof against a 
 miracle, from the very nature of the fact, is as entire as any 
 argument from experience can possibly be imagined. The 
 plain consequence is, that no testimony is sufficient to 
 establish a miracle unless the testimony be of such a 
 kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than 
 the fact which it endeavours to establish." Hitherto it has 
 been supposed that the testimony upon which a miracle is 
 founded, may rise to a complete proof. This supposition, 
 however, never holds true in fact. In the whole of history 
 there is no miracle found which was attested by a sufficient 
 number of sufficiently credible men. And, moreover, as we 
 are disposed the rather to accept statements the more they 
 contradict our other experiences, it is also shown that 
 miracles excite wonder, and astonishment, and agreeable senti- 
 ments which lead men away to accept them. Supernatural 
 and miraculous narratives are specially suspicious, in that 
 they are found most numerously among ignorant and bar- 
 barous peoples. Lastly, we have no testimony for any 
 miracle which is not opposed by an infinite number of 
 counter testimonies. Hence not only does the miracle of 
 itself annihilate the credibility of the statements, but these 
 statements neutralize each other; and in matters of religion 
 there is great diversity and controversy. Now, in so far as 
 
DAVID HUME. 381 
 
 any miracle supports a particular religion, all the other 
 religious will throw it overboard. The result then is, that 
 no testimony for any kind of miracle has ever risen to 
 probability, and still less to historical certainty. " And even 
 in that case there is a mutual destruction of arguments," and 
 " there is no testimony that is not opposed by an infinite 
 number of witnesses." If we deduct the one from the other, 
 " this subtraction with regard to all popular religions amounts 
 to an annihilation ; and therefore we may establish it as a 
 maxim, that no human testimony can have such force as to 
 prove a miracle, and make it a just foundation for any 
 system of religion." 
 
 Notwithstanding this criticism, Hume admits that Miracles 
 and deviations from the usual course of nature are possible. 
 The same holds true of Prophecies, for all Prophecies are 
 really Miracles, and only as such are they proofs of a divine 
 revelation. " So that, upon the whole, we may conclude that 
 the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with 
 Miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by any 
 reasonable being without one. Mere reason is insufficient to 
 convince us of its veracity ; and whoever is moved by Faith 
 to assent to it, is conscious of a continued miracle in his own 
 person, which subverts all the principles of his understanding, 
 and gives him a determination to believe what is most 
 contrary to custom and experience." With these words 
 Hume concludes his discussion of Miracles. We must, how- 
 ever, beware of seeing in them a personal submission to 
 the Christian faith or its Miracles. The philosopher expresses 
 himself here with his wonted circumspection and reserve, 
 convinced that every one will draw the necessary conse- 
 quences from his argument, as they apply also to Christianity, 
 without his needing expressly to point them out. 
 
 The second question, which according to Hume's view is of 
 special importance in regard to all investigation of Eeligion, is 
 that which relates to its origin in human nature. Hume 
 devoted his work entitled the Natural History of Religion to 
 the solution of this question, and it is in connection with it 
 
382 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 that we find the main advance then made beyond English 
 Deism. 
 
 Deism consoled itself with the fiction that the pure faith 
 of reason, of which Christianity appeared as a restoration, 
 actually existed at the beginning of the human race as a 
 Eeligion. It was therefore necessary for Hume to examine 
 at the outset the question as to the original form of Keligion. 
 This, he holds, was not Monotheism, but Polytheism. " It is 
 a matter of fact incontestable, that about seventeen hundred 
 years ago all mankind were polytheists ; " and that the farther 
 we are carried back by history we find men sunk the deeper 
 in polytheism, and no marks nor symptom of any perfect 
 Eeligion. It is certainly possible that in still earlier and 
 more ancient times men maintained the principles of pure 
 theism. But how improbable it is that as ignorant barbarians 
 they found the truth, and then sank into error as soon as 
 they became civilised ! On the contrary, our knowledge of 
 barbarous nations and savage races shows the improbability 
 that there should not have been in this very point a gradu- 
 ally ascending progress of mankind from lower to higher, 
 and this is confirmed by the impossibility of explaining 
 to ourselves how the purer knowledge of God had ever 
 become lost. 
 
 The original form of Eeligion, then, was Polytheism. 
 The question regarding the origin of Eeligion, is accordingly 
 determined more definitely as a question regarding the origin 
 of Polytheism. This origin is not to be found in thinking. 
 Had men been led by the examination of nature to the 
 acceptance of an invisible, intelligent Power, they could have 
 accepted nothing but a single being who bestowed upon 
 this magnificent machine its existence and order ; for although 
 not impossible, it is yet extremely improbable that the world, 
 which is arranged into a unity, should be referred to several 
 authors. Again, if we leave the works of nature out of 
 view, and follow " the footsteps of Invisible Power in the 
 various and contrary events of human life," we are necessarily 
 led to Polytheism, that is, to the recognition of several limited 
 
DAVID HUME. 383 
 
 and imperfect deities. For the course of events is so full of 
 change and uncertainty, that we cannot refer it to a single 
 intelligent Being otherwise than by assuming that there are 
 opposite purposes in Him, and a constant conflict of opposite 
 powers. The first religious ideas do not arise from " a con- 
 templation of the works of nature, but from a concern with 
 regard to the events of life, and from the incessant hopes and 
 fears which actuate the human mind." It is therefore not 
 speculative curiosity, nor pure love for the truth, that leads 
 man to accept the existence of intelligent powers. It is 
 rather " the anxious concern for happiness, the dread of 
 future misery, the terror of death, the thirst of revenge, the 
 appetite for food and other necessaries. Agitated by hopes 
 and fears of this nature, especially the latter, men scrutinize 
 with a trembling curiosity the course of future causes, and 
 examine the various and contrary events of human life. And 
 in this disordered scene, with eyes still more disordered and 
 astonished, they see the first obscure traces of divinity." 
 
 The fear and hope with which we contemplate the unknown 
 causes of our prosperity or adversity, and especially the 
 events of the future, are thus the deepest psychological roots 
 of Keligion. And there is another consideration which has 
 to be added to these. Men have the general tendency to 
 think all beings like themselves, and to transfer to every 
 object those qualities of which they are conscious in them- 
 selves. Thus we find human faces in the moon, and armies 
 in the clouds, and thus do we ascribe to everything that 
 pleases or displeases us benevolence or ill-will. Along with 
 this, it is explicable that these unknown powers from which 
 we expect the formation of our future with fear and hope, 
 likewise assume in the imagination the form of human beings. 
 Not merely are spiritual qualities, such as knowledge, and 
 will, and human affections and passions, but even the human 
 shape, is attributed to them. It is evident that these limited 
 beings can have only a narrow, limited sphere of action ; and 
 as such a being is assumed for every peculiar sphere of lite, 
 there are very many of them. 
 
884 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 It may very well be doubted as to whether the name of 
 Religion should be applied to such conceptions. We find in all 
 this nothing of what we now call Eeligion and regard as its 
 necessary constituents. These gods constitute no first principle 
 of being and thinking; they exercise no supreme universal 
 dominion ; and they pursue no divine plan or purpose in the 
 creation. Entirely unworthy representations are contained in 
 the older heathen religions ; the gods stood wholly within the 
 world as belonging to it. The question regarding the origin of 
 the world was not at all examined in these religions ; and 
 even the philosophers who were associated with these religions 
 only began with Anaxagoras, and therefore very late, to refer 
 the world to an intelligent Author. The further development 
 of these religious ideas proceeded with much arbitrariness. 
 Man is certainly inclined to accept an invisible intelligent 
 power in nature, but his attention at the same time clings 
 strongly to visible things. In order to unite both inclinations, 
 the invisible power is connected with a visible object, and 
 thus all the remarkable products of Nature herself appear as 
 real deities, such as the sun, the moon, the stars, and the 
 fountains inhabited by nymphs, etc. The partition of different 
 domains to special deities becomes the foundation of allegory, 
 both physical and moral. The god of war is represented as 
 barbarous and cruel, and the god of poetry as elegant and 
 refined. As the common deities were but little elevated above 
 man, there were also certain men regarded specially as heroes 
 or public benefactors, and held to be worthy of reverence, who 
 were raised among the gods. By this apotheosis there arose 
 a great number of heathen deities. And when sculptors and 
 painters represented the gods, an exact distinction was seldom 
 made between the god who was represented and the statue or 
 painting that represented him. 
 
 These are the general features of all polytheistic religions ; 
 and now it is asked, How did Monotheism arise out of this 
 Polytheism ? At first it might be supposed that intellectual 
 thinking and the speculative interest in the comprehension of 
 the universe, led man from the acceptance of many gods to the 
 
DAVID HUME, 385 
 
 belief in one God. This supposition, however, turns out to be 
 erroneous. In Europe, where Monotheism has already so long 
 and FO universally prevailed, if we ask a common man even 
 now why he believes in an Almighty Creator of the world, he 
 will not refer us to final causes. He will not speak to us of 
 the artistic construction of his hand, of the wonderful articu- 
 lation and flexibility of his fingers, and so on, but will tell us 
 of the sudden death of a man, or of the great drought of the 
 summer, etc. In short, the common people found their faith 
 in a divine government of the world upon extraordinary 
 incidents and marvellous events, which appear to the thinker 
 rather as counter instances than proofs of it. The wonderful 
 connection of the universe and the strict observance of its 
 established laws, which is to us one of the main arguments for 
 Monotheism, appears to the multitude rather as an argument 
 against it. Hence the origin of Theism cannot be referred to 
 the theoretical want of the speculative thinking, but is only 
 explained from universal practical reasons, from its acceptable- 
 ness to the human mind, or from " irrational and superstitious 
 principles." Polytheism already makes one of its many gods 
 the object of special worship and adoration, whether it is sup- 
 posed that the particular nation is subject to this particular 
 god, or after the manner of human relations, that the one is 
 king or supreme lord over the rest. Now, if God is regarded 
 as a special patron, or as the universal King of the gods, men 
 seek to gain His favour by very special manifestations of 
 honour to Him, and thus there arises among men a sort of 
 rivalry for the favour of God, and a hunting after the highest 
 possible expressions to use in His praise and as signs of His 
 honour. And thus do they come to the idea of infinity, beyond 
 which there is no further progress. Hence men are satisfied 
 with the knowledge of a perfect being, the creator of the 
 world, and this knowledge coincides by accident with the 
 principles of reason and true philosophy ; but this position is 
 not attained by reason, but by flattery and fear, and a pro- 
 pensity towards the most common superstition. Both among 
 savage and civilised peoples, flattery of the ruler carried to the 
 VOL. I. 2 B 
 
386 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 highest degree leads to his being designated as a real deity, 
 and to his being brought before the people for worship, and it 
 is likewise quite natural that a limited deity should be finally 
 raised to the position of the universal Creator and Euler of the 
 universe. But on account of its origin the idea of this elevated 
 deity, contradictorily enough, still continues such that human 
 infirmities, passions, and partialities are ascribed to it. 
 
 It is only by reference to this origin of Monotheism that we 
 can find an explanation of the fact that there is generally a 
 peculiar flux and reflux in connection with it, or a striving to 
 rise from idolatry to Monotheism, and again a tendency to 
 relapse from Monotheism into idolatry. " The unknown causes" 
 which control life always press in again upon the knowledge 
 of the one Supreme God ; and they are regarded as mediators 
 of a lower order, as subordinate beings between men and the 
 Supreme divinity. These half-gods or middle beings stand 
 nearer to us, and thus become the main objects of worship, 
 and thus there arises a gradual reintroduction of idolatry. The 
 religion then sinks always deeper into idolatry until a reaction 
 ensues, and it again attains to the full purity of Monotheism. 
 Thus do even Christianity and Mohammedanism fluctuate 
 between this descending and ascending movement, passing 
 from an omnipotent and spiritual deity to a limited and cor- 
 poreal deity, or even to a visible representation, and conversely 
 passing from the material image to the invisible power, and 
 even to the infinite and perfect Deity, the Creator and Euler 
 of the universe. 
 
 To this historical review Hume adds a comparison of these 
 various religions. With respect to toleration this comparison 
 turns out very unfavourably to Monotheism. Polytheism by 
 its very nature has room for other religions, and this toleration 
 has been frequently shown by it in history. Monotheism must 
 be exclusive, and shows itself repellent and cruel towards 
 others of a different faith. Polytheism has yet another advan- 
 tage. If the Deity is conceived as infinitely elevated above 
 man, this view is fitted, when connected with superstitions, to 
 plunge the human soul into the deepest debasement and dejec- 
 
DAVID HUME. 387 
 
 tion, so that mortification, expiation, and passive suffering are 
 regarded as the only actions that are pleasing to God. On the 
 other hand, if the Deity is considered to be only a little higher 
 than man, there arises the spirit, courage, self-consciousness, 
 the love of liberty, and all the qualities which make a people 
 great. Nor has Monotheism any superiority from the point of 
 view of reason. The whole mythological system of antiquity 
 appears natural and probable. Monotheism formed the funda- 
 mental principle of a national religion, and its basis so greatly 
 corresponds to sound reason, that philosophy can become 
 united with such a theological system. But as the other 
 dogmas are contained in a sacred book, the controversy against 
 reason only properly begins there, and then the irrefragable 
 principles of reason cannot be recognised in the theology. 
 Nay, even when we wonder at the impossible and fabulous 
 histories that are accepted by the confessors of the heathen 
 religions, we are deceiving ourselves from inherited prejudice ; 
 when examined in the light, Monotheism has even more 
 incredible positions. The idea of God is everywhere found 
 to be of a twofold origin. In the first place, it originates 
 in fear, then in flattery ; the former makes God appear terrible 
 and evil, the latter represents Him as sublime and good. 
 Hence there arises an irreconcilable contradiction regarding 
 the idea of God and conduct towards Him. The scanty 
 influence of religion upon morals is most lamentable. In 
 every religion the majority of those who confess it, however 
 sublime their verbal definitions of the Deity may sound, do 
 not seek to gain the favour of God by virtue and good morals, 
 but by petty observances, unmeasured zeal, and the acceptance 
 of mysterious and absurd opinions. Nay, even the greatest 
 crimes are commonly practised with superstitious piety. 
 
 Good and evil are everywhere mixed in the world, and this 
 applies also to religion. Certain advantages may be admitted 
 as belonging to its theistic form, but along with these it has 
 also its dark sides. " The propensity to believe in invisible 
 intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being yet a general 
 attendant of human nature, may be considered as a kind of 
 
388 THE ENGLISH DEISM. 
 
 mark or stamp which the Divine workman has set upon His 
 work," " but what caprice, absurdity, and immorality are 
 ascribed to Him ! " " The noble privilege of man to find God 
 in nature is replaced by sick men's dreams, or by what may be 
 regarded rather as the play some whimsies of monkeys in human 
 shape, than the serious, positive, dogmatical asseverations of a 
 being who dignifies himself with the name of rational." " The 
 whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery. Doubt, 
 uncertainty, suspense of judgment appear the only result of 
 our most accurate scrutiny concerning this subject. But such 
 is the frailty of human reason, and such the irresistible conta- 
 gion of opinion, that even this deliberate doubt could scarcely 
 be upheld did we not enlarge our view, and opposing one 
 species of superstition to another, set them a- quarrelling, while 
 we ourselves, during their fury and contention, happily make 
 our escape into the calm, though obscure, regions of philo- 
 sophy." Thus does Hume close his Natural History of 
 Religion?* 
 
 1 The best edition of Hume's Philosophical Works is that of T. H. Green and 
 T. H. Grose, 4 vols. London 1875. Reference may also be made to Friedrich Jodl, 
 Leben und Philosophic David Hume's, Halle 1872, and Edmund Pfleiderer, 
 Empirisinus und Skepsis in David Hume's Philosophic, etc., Berlin 1874. 
 
SECTION SIXTH. 
 
 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 I. DESCARTES. 
 
 DESCABTES (1596-1650) takes his place along with 
 Bacon as the founder of the Modern Philosophy ; and 
 he begins the speculative movement, as Bacon does the empi- 
 rical movement. They were both driven to their position by 
 a conviction of the uncertainty of all previous knowledge, and 
 their aim was to save the human mind from universal Doubt 
 by a new Method, as the only correct means of renovating 
 science. In this undertaking both of them continued to stand 
 upon the ground of dogmatism, and they did not advance to 
 a critical examination of our knowledge as such. Bacon finds 
 the certain knowledge that is beyond doubt in the observation 
 of nature, or in right experience. Descartes finds it in our 
 own self - consciousness. Whatever I may doubt of, I am 
 always in any case doubting or thinking, and therefore I exist 
 Hence the proposition, Cogito ergo sum, which is the Archi- 
 medean standpoint for all further investigation. I am, and, 
 in particular, I am as a thinking being ; and I am undoubtedly 
 certain of this, because I have a clear and distinct Idea of it. 
 Hence arises the criterion that what is clearly and distinctly 
 perceived is true ; and only what I clearly and distinctly 
 perceive is true. Now, in our consciousness we have a mul- 
 titude of ideas which are partly innate, which have partly 
 been formed in us by ourselves, and which have partly been 
 produced in us from without. In so far as they are ideas and 
 are only in our consciousness, they are entirely true. We go 
 on in our judgment, however, to assert their agreement with 
 external things. The question then arises as to whether we 
 
390 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 are justified in asserting this agreement. In order to answer 
 this question we must have recourse to a principle of which 
 the truth is established to us as beyond doubt. This is the 
 principle of Causality ; namely, that every effect has a cause, 
 and this cause must contain as much or more reality than the 
 effect. If we apply this principle to our Ideas, then it is 
 plain that the ideas of man, animal, and body may have their 
 foundation in ourselves. The idea of angels is compounded 
 out of the idea of God and that of mail ; it is only the origin 
 of the idea of God that needs an explanation. We cannot 
 possibly be the originating cause of this idea, for we are far 
 more imperfect than it is. Hence the existence of the idea 
 of God in our self-consciousness can only be explained if God 
 really exists without us as its cause. 
 
 This is the Argument for the Existence of God that is 
 peculiar to Descartes. It is to be carefully distinguished from 
 the Ontological Argument of Anselin, but that argument is also 
 turned to account by him. He puts it in the following way. 
 Among the various ideas which we have, we observe the idea 
 of a supremely intelligent, supremely perfect, and supremely 
 powerful Being. This idea far transcends all other ideas, and 
 we know that it includes existence as not merely possible, 
 but as entirely necessary and eternal. Hence, merely from 
 the fact that we know that necessary and eternal existence is 
 contained in the idea of a being of the highest perfection, we 
 may infer that a most perfect being really exists. For the 
 custom which we have of separating existentia from essentia in 
 all other things ought not to lead us to a similar procedure 
 in contemplating the highest Being. " Existence can as little 
 be separated from the idea of God as we can separate from 
 the idea of a triangle the fact that the sum of its three angles 
 is equal to two right angles, or from the idea of a mountain 
 the idea of a valley ; so that it is as absurd to think of God, 
 the most perfect Being, without existence that is, with 
 the want of a perfection as it is to think of a mountain 
 without a valley." 
 
 We further find the Anthropological Argument in Descartes 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF DESCARTES. 391 
 
 in the following form. Whoever knows anything more per- 
 fect than he himself is cannot exist of himself, for in that case 
 he would have given to himself all the perfections of which he 
 has any idea in himself. Again, we cannot have created our- 
 selves,, because we do not possess the capacity of preserving 
 ourselves. Hence we must have our existence from a Being 
 without us, and in particular, from that Being who bears all 
 perfections in Himself, that is, from God. Hence God must 
 exist. In both its forms the argument is founded on the fact 
 that we exist as imperfect beings, yet carry in ourselves the 
 idea of the most perfect Being; and in the one connection 
 it is inferred that God only can be the cause of this effect^ 
 and in the other connection it is inferred that we cannot be 
 that cause. " If in one of my ideas a reality is represented 
 so great that I am certain tl)at this reality cannot be contained 
 in myself either formaliter or cminenter, and that I cannot 
 myself be the author of this idea, it necessarily follows from 
 this that I am not alone in the world, but that there exists 
 another being who causes that idea." " The whole compelling 
 force of the argument lies in this, that I must recognise that 
 I myself, as I exist with the idea of God in me, could not 
 possibly exist unless God really existed ; and I mean just that 
 God whose idea is in me as one who has all the perfections 
 which I cannot conceive, but can only, as it were, touch from 
 afar with thought, and who is subject to no want at all." 
 
 The conception of God set up by Descartes follows from the 
 arguments thus advanced for the existence of God. He is the 
 most perfect Being and the cause of all existence. God is 
 designated as Substance, that is, as a being who exists in such 
 a way that no other being is required for His existence. In 
 this strict sense there is only one substance, namely, God, 
 while corporeal and thinking substances may be comprehended 
 under the common notion that they are beings that only 
 require the co-operation of God for their existence. They 
 mutually exclude each other, and neither of them can exist 
 without the other. But we cannot apply the idea of substance 
 imivoce to God and to those other beings ; for God is the 
 
392 . DESCAKTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 infinite substance, whereas they are finite substances. Des- 
 cartes further seeks to determine the nature of God from the 
 idea existing in us ; and accordingly God is eternal, omniscient, 
 omnipotent, the source of all goodness and truth, the Creator 
 of all things, and infinitely perfect. God is not corporeal, and 
 He is without sensation, for all sensation is a state of passivity ; 
 but He has knowledge and will. In general, everything is 
 carefully separated from God that appears in ourselves as a 
 defect or imperfection ; and, on the other hand, we are em- 
 phatically warned against indulging in subtle investigations 
 regarding the infinite ; for as finite beings we are not capable 
 of comprehending or thinking the infinite. 
 
 The existence of God is of so great importance to Descartes, 
 because in his view our conviction of the existence of external 
 things rests upon it alone. The perceptions of our senses are 
 deceptive, because it is only what we clearly and distinctly 
 know and think that is true. There exists no relation or 
 reciprocal interaction between mind and body as relative 
 substances, and as beings completely independent of each 
 other. Hence we cannot explain nor conceive from the nature 
 of mind or body how ideas of corporeal things external to us 
 can arise in us. But we have these ideas, and are conscious 
 of the impossibility of not having them ; and hence we have 
 them from God. Now God may indeed deceive us, if He so 
 will ; but veracity belongs above all things to His perfection, 
 and therefore God will not deceive us. Hence on our con- 
 viction of the existence and veracity of God rests our certainty 
 that external things correspond to their ideas in us. This view, 
 however, appears to exclude all error, and thus the difficulty 
 emerges that errors do yet occur, although the truth of our 
 ideas of external things rests upon the veracity of God, and 
 this leads Descartes to a somewhat artificial theory. Our ideas 
 are true as ideas in ourselves ; error only enters when the 
 judgment asserts the real existence of external things corre- 
 sponding to these ideas. The judgment is a matter of the 
 will ; the idea is a matter of the understanding. Error is 
 therefore founded on the will, and more precisely on the fact 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHEPtENTS OF DESCARTES. 393 
 
 that the will reaches farther than the understanding, or that 
 we will to know more than we can know. If we only will, 
 that is, have the will always guided by rational insight, we 
 may keep ourselves from error. 
 
 The existence of external things is thus established. Their 
 essence is defined in sharpest contrast to the essence of mind ; 
 the essence of mind is thought, the essence of external things 
 is extension. All the phenomena of minds are only forms or 
 modes of thought ; all the phenomena of bodies are only 
 forms or modes of extension. And because bodies are merely 
 manifestations of extension or magnitudes in space, there are 
 no indivisible bodies or atoms, nor is there any limit or 
 interruption of the world ; that is, there is only one infinite 
 world. Because all occurrences in the corporeal world are 
 only modes of extension, all the changes of matter and all its 
 different forms are dependent upon motion. The ultimate 
 cause of motion is God, but the quantity of motion in nature 
 remains always constant, and it is communicated by impulse. 
 All the processes in the corporeal world proceed according to 
 mechanical laws ; and these laws, in accordance with the 
 theory of vortices, explain the order of the universe. 
 
 There is only one fact which cannot be explained under the 
 rigid separation of mind and body ; it is the nature of the 
 human passions. They point with necessary force to the fact 
 that man is a unity made up of body and mind. In the 
 pineal gland as its special organ, the soul stands in connection 
 with the body. 
 
 II 
 
 OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF DESCARTES. 
 
 Descartes himself did not wish to advance with his philo- 
 sophical views too close to Eevealed Religion. "We must 
 continually consider that God is the infinite ground of things, 
 and that we are only finite. If God then reveals anything 
 regarding Himself or others that transcends the natural powers 
 of our rnind, such as the mysteries of the Incarnation and 
 
394 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA, 
 
 Trinity, we are not entitled to refuse to believe in them, 
 although we may not clearly understand them." This 
 expression, as well as his submission to the authority of the 
 Catholic Church, need not be regarded as a mere confession of 
 the lips ; the Cartesian Philosophy shows on one side such a 
 decidedly theological character that these expressions may be 
 taken as meant in real earnest. But, on the other side, it 
 shows such a decidedly naturalistic character, and betrays so 
 entirely new a spirit, that the antagonism of Theology to it 
 need not astonish us, especially in view of the fact that the 
 disciples often went farther than the masters. Eome put the 
 writings of Descartes on the Index. In Holland, Synods and 
 Universities combined to combat this dangerous philosophical 
 innovation. In France and England, in Germany and 
 Switzerland, the armouries of the mind and of force were led 
 into the field against it. It does not lie within the purpose 
 of our inquiry to follow the external course of this conflict in 
 its details. We limit ourselves to a brief summary of the 
 most important objections advanced by opponents, and will 
 then proceed to review the most important of the Cartesians. 1 
 The objections of the Opponents of Cartesianism were 
 directed not less against the general principles of the new 
 Philosophy than against its individual doctrines. Universal 
 Doubt, which was the starting-point of the thinking of 
 Descartes, at once aroused opposition. Even when it was 
 not mistakenly regarded as Scepticism in principle, it was met 
 by the unquestionably certain axiom, that it is impossible that 
 a thing can at once be and not be. At all events it was held 
 that this Doubt could only be applied to the domain of 
 philosophy ; in theology, it would destroy all faith and would 
 
 1 G. Frank, Geschichte der protestantischen Theologie, Bd. ii. 1875 (rich 
 in interesting details). F. Bouillier, Histoire de la Philosophic Cartesienne, 
 2 vols. Paris 1854 (the fullest history of the subject). 
 
 Of the Opponents of Cartesianism and their works, the following are of most 
 interest for us here : Jacob Revius, Methodi Cartesians consideratio theologica, 
 Lugd. Bat. 1648. Petrus van Mastricht, Novitatum Cartesianarum gangraena, 
 Ainstel. 1677. Samuel Maresii, Tractatus de abusu Philosophise Cartesiatiae, 
 Groning. 1670. Joh. A. Osiander, Collegium considerationnm in dogmata 
 theologica Cartesianorum, Stuttg. 1674. J. V. Alberti, A/TX^V ****, quod 
 est Cartesianismus et Coccejanismus, Lipsiae 1678. 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF DESCARTES. 395 
 
 take away all guilt from unbelief. The principle that what- 
 ever is clearly and distinctly known is true, and this only, is 
 far from clear, because clear and distinct knowledge is denned 
 most defectively, and it opens the door to all fantastic and 
 fanatical notions. The principle is also rejected on the ground 
 that any one who clearly and distinctly perceived the images 
 of his imagination would thus supersede all objective truth by 
 his mere subjective opinion, and this when applied to theology 
 assumes the peculiar character of an immediate divine revela- 
 tion. The assertion that Philosophy has the same certainty 
 as Theology, is already suspicious on account of its affinity to 
 Socinianism. It would lead to the view of a double word of 
 God, a twofold divine faith of equal authority and dignity ; 
 it would rank the philosophers with the prophets and apostles 
 of God, and promise complete freedom from error as the fruit 
 of philosophy. It is utterly intolerable that the modern 
 philosophy will no longer be the servant of theology. This 
 philosophy protests even against the name " Christian Philo- 
 sophy," under the pretext that philosophy has only to follow 
 natural reason without regard to a revelation or a positive 
 religion. Thus we should have an utterly heathen philosophy, 
 and a ceaseless conflict between it and Christian theology 
 would be unavoidable. As the assertion of this position rests 
 upon a complete denial of the obscuration of our reason in 
 consequence of sin, it will advance from the equalization of 
 philosophy and theology to the demand that philosophy shall 
 have the unlimited supremacy. This was already claimed 
 with regard to the interpretation of the Scriptures. And on 
 the ground of the assertion that the Scriptures, not only in 
 matters of natural science, but also in matters of morality and 
 faith, speak in attachment to the erroneous opinions of the 
 multitude, philosophy is proclaimed as the only infallible inter- 
 preter of Scripture ; and yet the Scriptures are entirely clear 
 in themselves, and require to be interpreted by themselves. 1 
 
 1 The work of the Amsterdam Physician, L. Meyer, PhiZosophia Scripturce 
 interpres (Eleutherop. 1666), is specially attacked again and again, and in the 
 most violent manner. 
 
396 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 Of the objections advanced against particular doctrines of 
 the Cartesians, we can only refer to the most important, 
 otherwise we would have to go through the whole of the Loci 
 of the ecclesiastical dogmatics. The argument for the existence 
 of God, derived from the idea innate in us, was violently 
 contested, but generally without being correctly understood. 
 It Was urged that the idea of God is not innate in all men, 
 for there are some men and even peoples without it. Again, 
 it was held to be untenable to infer from the idea in us to 
 real existence without us, as we might in this way assert the 
 existence of a golden mountain. Further, it was held that 
 the assertion of Descartes led to many absurdities, such as 
 that, according to it, Jews, Turks, and Heathen worship the 
 same true God as the Christians ; that the ideas of God in us 
 would be vicars or images of God, or even lower gods ; and 
 that before Descartes found his ideas, the Church had no 
 certainty for the existence of God. Again, the attempt to 
 give a definition of God was repudiated, as this would only 
 be possible if God were finite, compound, and imperfect. It 
 is false to make the essence of God consist only of thinking, 
 because the same substance is thereby attributed to God as to 
 the angels and men, whereas God is rather to be regarded as 
 Spirit and Life. To say in a positive way that God exists 
 a se ipso, to apprehend His universal presence as mere universal 
 activity, or to assert that God can do what is contradictory, 
 and that He can deceive us whenever He will, was declared to 
 be completely absurd. With regard to Creation, the Cartesians 
 excited offence by asserting that God only communicated 
 motion to matter, while chaos had produced everything out of 
 itself alone merely by natural forces ; that the creation took 
 place in the particular period of six days of twenty-four hours 
 each ; that everything was not created on account of man ; and 
 that creation and preservation were the same activity. Of the 
 physical doctrines of the Cartesians, the most contested were 
 the theories of the animatedness, the infinity, and the unity of 
 the world, as well as the conjectures that the moon was 
 inhabited and did not shine by its own light, and that the 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF DESCARTES. 397 
 
 earth moved as a planet around the sun. The purely 
 mechanical explanation of all the processes in the natural 
 world appeared to the theologians as suspicious naturalism 
 and the nearest approach to atheism. In Anthropology, the 
 Cartesian assertion, that the pineal gland was the seat of the 
 soul, excited opposition ; and still more dangerous and, from 
 its disguised Pelagianism, utterly intolerable, seemed the 
 doctrine that error has its foundation in the will, and therefore 
 cannot be completely avoided by us. The nullibitas of the 
 Angels, or the doctrine that they are not by their substance in 
 any particular place, because their essence consists of pure 
 thought, was also violently contested. 
 
 These objections, and the often passionate tone of the 
 extremely violent polemics in which they were urged, 1 show 
 at the same time that the scholastic theology of the Reformed 
 as well as the Lutheran Church did riot fail to recognise the 
 strong antagonism of the new mode of thought to that which 
 had hitherto prevailed. Although this scholastic theology did 
 not intermit its attacks, although in many points, especially 
 in certain rash consequences drawn from Cartesianism, it 
 decidedly gained the advantage, and although the secular 
 power and the venerable authority of centuries were on .its 
 side, yet it could not prevent the triumph of the new spiritual 
 force. In particular, two fundamental and general thoughts 
 of the new system unceasingly made way ; namely, that the 
 investigation of the world of nature must be separated from 
 theology and assigned to natural reason alone, and that know- 
 ledge out of clear and distinct principles is to be regarded 
 as the highest criterion of truth. The supremacy of an 
 intellectual rationalism in natural science and in theology 
 was the general result of the Cartesian Philosophy. 
 
 Among the oldest representatives of this philosophy, there 
 certainly still prevailed here and there a conservative character. 
 Christoph Wittich (1625-1688) 2 held without question the 
 
 1 In this way the palm is perhaps due to Lentulus from his Cartesius 
 triurnphatus et nova sapientia ineptiarum et blasphemiae convicta, 1653. 
 
 2 Consensus Yeritatis in Scriptura diviua et infallibili revelatse cum veiitate 
 
398, DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 most important authority and influence among the theological 
 Cartesians. He declared himself decidedly against the 
 supremacy of theology over philosophy, and against employing 
 Scripture to obtain theories about the system of the world and 
 the simplest corporeal beings. He also teaches that clear and 
 distinct knowledge is the only universally valid criterion of 
 truth, and that the natural freedom of our will is unaffected 
 by sin. At the same time, he takes up an entirely friendly 
 attitude towards theology. He holds that belief is not to be 
 withheld from the revelations of the divine Word, even if our 
 limited intellect is incapable of comprehending them ; that 
 the philosophical doctrines regarding the soul, the angels, and 
 the idea of God in us, are extremely useful for theology ; and 
 even that the most mysterious doctrines of the Christian 
 religion, such as the Trinity and the incarnation, may be 
 easily understood by the aid of the Cartesian philosophy. To 
 pass over others, it may be mentioned that the . theologian 
 Heidanus (1597-1678) belonged also to those who sought to 
 connect the ecclesiastically established doctrine as much as 
 possible with the new philosophy. Some thinkers were 
 carried by the influence of Cartesianism to mystical views. 
 W. Deurhoff of Amsterdam (t 17 1*7) 1 was one of these. He 
 held that as what was created by God is in its essence either 
 extension or thought, all men in their real being are the one 
 extension and the one mind which God originally created. 
 What comes into existence in the course of time is but a 
 modification of the one humanity originally created at the 
 beginning. The individual human mind is likewise but a 
 particular manifestation of the one mind. With these 
 thoughts he combines an entirely mystical theory of salvation. 
 The mystic Friederich Adolph Lampe and the Cartesian 
 Eoell come into contact here, and they agree at least on some 
 points. These examples prove that the reproach of enthusiasm 
 urged against Cartesianism was not entirely unfounded. 
 
 philosophica a Eenato Descartes detecta, Lugd. Bat. 1659. Theologia 
 pacifica, ed. ii. 1675. 
 
 1 Compare H. Heppe, Geschichte des Pietismus und der Mystik in der 
 Reformirten Kirche, Leiden 1879. 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF DESCARTES. 399 
 
 Far more general and more decided, however, was the 
 tendency of Cartesianisrn to a sober rationalism and to 
 intellectual criticism, a tendency which was attacked as 
 naturalism and atheism. The point at which its assault upon 
 the previous theology was most sensitively felt was the 
 demand which it raised for a philosophical interpretation of 
 Scripture. This demand was accompanied by inquiries which 
 aimed at the outset only at exposing and condemning the 
 superstition involved in all the heathen religions of the 
 ancient world. The violent and even passionate antagonism 
 aroused by these inquiries can only be explained from the too 
 well-grounded fear that such inquiry might also be directed 
 against Christianity and its holy things. Antonius van Dale 
 (16381708) attempted, in his dissertation De origine ac 
 progressu idololatrice et superstitionum (Amst. 1696), to prove 
 by detailed historical inquiry that the belief in demons and 
 spirits was as old as the human race, and had been transmitted 
 from one people to another, but had been cultivated with 
 peculiar preference by the Egyptians. Most attention was 
 excited by the work of Balthasar Bekker (1634-1698), 
 entitled " The Enchanted World." 1 The general principles 
 here put forward regarding the relation of reason to Scripture 
 are moderate throughout in their tone. Eeason and Scripture 
 are represented as the two sources of truth ; the one is not 
 subordinated to the other, but they are co-ordinate, for reason 
 speaks of things with regard to which Scripture is silent, and 
 Scripture teaches something that is not subject to our under- 
 standing. Eeason stands before Scripture, because Scripture 
 must make manifest to it that it is from God ; and again, 
 Scripture stands before reason, because God has revealed to us 
 in it what human reason never comprehends. Nevertheless it 
 happens that the two meet and join hands, yet so that reason 
 as the inferior always gives reverence to the Scripture. In 
 natural things, reason alone is the ground and rule of know- 
 ledge ; in matters of salvation, God's "Word alone is the 
 
 1 De Betoverde Weereld, zynde een Grondig Ondersoek van't gemeen gevoelen, 
 aangaande de Geesten, etc., Amst. 1691. 
 
400 DESCARTES AND SPIXOZA. 
 
 ground and rule of faith. If Scripture, then, does not speak 
 of natural things in a natural way, reason must teach us to 
 interpret it ; and if, on the other hand, Scripture speaks of 
 things of faith, reason must subject itself even although it 
 does not comprehend. The investigation of " the Enchanted 
 World" is directed to the question of belief in subordinate 
 spirits and their activity. With an astonishing knowledge for 
 his time of the history of religion, the author first examines 
 the opinions which the heathen peoples entertained regarding 
 spirits, and he comes to the result that they agree in great 
 measure with one another, and that they were led everywhere 
 to the same arts of soothsaying and magic. The opinions of 
 the Jews and Mohammedans were entirely akin, and even 
 Christianity has received from the same source its belief in 
 demons and angels. This circumstance is of itself by no 
 means fitted to recommend that belief, and still less so is the 
 general observation that the belief becomes always weaker the 
 more men advance in civilisation. Eeason, however, cannot 
 decide this question. It indeed teaches us that there is only 
 one God, and that the angels and demons cannot therefore be 
 demi-gods or subordinate gods ; but, as there are immortal 
 spirits besides God, namely, human souls, reason cannot 
 decide whether there are still other spirits, and how they act. 
 Nor does the Scripture give us much information regarding 
 the origin and nature of the angels ; and if it gives us 
 somewhat more information regarding demons, yet it is not 
 communicated in direct doctrinal form, but in occasional 
 and often extremely figurative narratives. According to the 
 Scriptures, the devil appears in a perfection which is equally 
 at variance with the loftiness of God and his own sin. The 
 angels that appear to Abraham and Lot behave themselves 
 like men. The temptation of the Lord is explained by the 
 thoughts of His own heart. Neither Job nor Paul was 
 tormented bodily by the devil, nor did the lunatics need 
 either the devil or the moon, and the demoniacs were subject 
 to a peculiar disease. Christ Himself, in driving out spirits, 
 as also elsewhere, only accommodated Himself to the pre- 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF DESCARTES. 401 
 
 judices of the multitude. Most of the passages of Scripture 
 which were applied to the devil are to be understood of bad 
 men, and it is entirely contrary to the truth of the Christian 
 faith and of true godliness to suppose that the devil goeth 
 about in the world, that he appears to men, and administers a 
 great kingdom with power and cunning. The author then 
 turns to the examination of the whole series of histories 
 drawn from the domain of witchcraft and magic, and they are 
 rejected altogether as mere superstition and the delusion of 
 timid hearts. 
 
 The attempts to sketch a complete system of Natural 
 Theology purely from philosophical principles, were historically 
 of no great influence, although in principle they had a wider 
 range of meaning. The most important representative of this 
 method was Hermann Alexander Eoell (f 1718). In his 
 inaugural dissertation as Professor of Philosophy and Theology 
 at Franecker, 1 Eoell indicates it as the task of his life to show 
 that the only true philosophy is one which, in examining the 
 things of this world, teaches us not merely their nature and 
 causes, but the cause of causes, a philosophy therefore which 
 shows us not merely the use of the goods that belong to this 
 life, but the way to the highest good. He also aims at show- 
 ing that the only perfect theology is one which illuminates 
 the too corporeal light of reason by the clearer light of 
 revelation, and which restores their original clearness to the 
 truths that are knowable by nature and are impressed upon 
 our souls but are lamentably obscured, a theology which 
 thereby completes nature. In short, his principle is the unity 
 of nature and grace, of reason and revelation, of philosophy 
 and theology. Eevelation without reason is wanting in 
 authority, and reason without revelation is wanting in com- 
 pleteness. Philosophy examines the ground, the goal, and the 
 order of things. The goal of man is happiness, which consists 
 in the possession of the highest good, which is God. The sole 
 way to God is religion, and more particularly it is rational 
 
 1 Dissertatio de Religione natural!, ed. 3, Franecker 1695 ; expanded in 
 his Dissertationes philosophic*, etc., Fraukf. 1729. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 C 
 
402 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 religion (religio rationalis) ; for it is only through the ideas 
 innate in us, and the inferences obtained from them by think- 
 ing, that we are able to attain the true knowledge of God and 
 the right religion. This natural knowledge and the natural 
 striving to apprehend the highest good and to avoid evil, form 
 the basis of every rational religion. In detail, Roell here 
 develops the same thoughts as we already find in Descartes. 
 When he comes also to speak of revelation, its existence 
 is assumed without examination. Revelation, like natural 
 religion, cannot be understood without the aid of ideas ; and 
 hence, if there are entirely new elements of knowledge com- 
 municated to us in revelation, there must likewise, as at 
 creation, be completely new ideas inscribed in us. In this 
 case it only remains to us to bring the new ideas into con- 
 nection with the other ideas, and to make ourselves certain of 
 their divine origin. If revelation communicates to us truths 
 of which the simple ideas are already known to us, we can 
 and ought to examine whether these are to be recognised 
 as divine ; that is, whether there cannot be found another 
 explaining cause of the alleged divine Word than the omni- 
 science and omnipotence of the first Being. A true divine 
 revelation can contain nothing that is contrary to reason, for 
 reason also comes from God ; yet it may very well com- 
 municate truths regarding God's nature and works which the 
 natural reason alone is incapable of ascertaining. We must 
 believe such Divine communications even if we are not able 
 to comprehend them, but even then we should seek to make 
 the meaning and the divine origin of Revelation clear to us 
 by means of rational principles. 
 
 The least satisfactory point in the system of the Cartesian 
 Philosophy, is undoubtedly the attempt it makes to bring the 
 unity of body and spirit as actually existing in man into 
 harmony with the extreme opposition to each other under 
 which they are represented. This problem gave rise to the 
 first attempts at a further development of the system. Arnold 
 Geulinx (16251669) can only explain the reciprocal action 
 of body and mind on each other by a miraculous interference 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHEEENTS OF DESCARTES. 403 
 
 of God on every occasion. Geulinx divides Metaphysics 
 into Autology, Somatology, and Theology. At the outset 
 of his Autology appears the proposition of Descartes, Cogito 
 ergo sum. This is the strong citadel that has to be maintained 
 against all sceptics, for although I do not know whether 
 things are as I think them, I know at least that I do so think 
 them ; that I think and therefore am. Now I find in myself 
 many ideas or modes of thinking which do not arise from 
 myself, for they do not appear when I will them, and they 
 corne when I do not will them. These ideas must therefore 
 be excited in me by another, and in particular and this is the 
 peculiar basis of the Occasionalism of Geulinx this Other 
 must be conscious of the fact, for without knowing how a 
 thing happens, it is not possible to effect it. This Other 
 excites these ideas nee mediante me ipso nee se ipso sed corpore, 
 neither by me as a medium nor by himself as a medium, 
 because we are both simple beings, whereas the ideas are 
 manifold. They are excited by means of the body, and in 
 particular as the ideas are very diverse they arise not 
 from the body as at rest and continuing always the same, but 
 from its movements. The body, however, and its movements 
 are entirely without the capacity to excite thoughts, and hence 
 the body is neither the efficient nor the occasioning, but 
 merely the occasional cause of our thoughts. The body, on 
 whose occasion, " occasione cv.jus" those ideas that are inde- 
 pendent of me arise in me, is my body. My union with this 
 body is not my work ; for birth and death take place without 
 my knowing and willing. It is the work of One who works 
 by means of the body and its motion upon me ; and on the 
 occasion of my willing, works in like manner upon body. The 
 Somatology of Geulinx with its explanation of body, of exten- 
 sion, of the three dimensions, of divisibility, etc., may be passed 
 over here. Nor do those points in his Theology interest us in 
 which he proceeds to show that God is the Creator of the 
 world and the powerful mover, and that He is eternal, free, 
 independent, and perfect. His essential position is that it is 
 God who has united us with our body, and He is thus Lord of 
 
404 DESCARTES AND SPINO/A. 
 
 life and of death, and in an inexpressible manner, He is our 
 Father. Further, on every occasion, in a miraculous manner, 
 He moves the body on occasion of our thoughts, and He 
 effects the corresponding thought in us on occasion of motion 
 in the body. The miraculous element in this process is not 
 at all denied or concealed by Geulinx. It is no less a miracle, 
 he says, that the tongue in my mouth vibrates when I utter 
 the word " earth," than if the earth itself vibrated. There is, 
 however, an expression found in Geulinx which belongs to an 
 entirely different circle of thought. In conformity with his 
 principle that when one does anything he must know about 
 it, God must know and will, because He works in us, and 
 therefore He must be a Mind. God alone is a true and real 
 Mind, mem simpliciter proprie et vere, whereas created minds 
 are only particular and limited minds, because they do not 
 simply think and will, non sunt mens sed mens eo usque, scd 
 cum certo limite. This is further explained as meaning that 
 they are to some extent mind, aliquid mentis, as also particular 
 bodies are not bodies, but are to some extent body, aliquid 
 corporis. These expressions cannot but remind us of Spinoza. 
 Again, it is said that " ideas and eternal truths, such as that 
 two and three are five, are in the divine mind, and in ours only 
 when we see them in God, and consequently contemplate God 
 Himself." Such expressions remind us of Malebranche. 
 
 Nicole Malebranche (1638 - 171 5), 1 as a priest of the 
 Oratorium or Oratoire, endeavours to combine the philosophy 
 of Descartes with the dogmas of the Catholic Church, and in 
 particular with the fundamental doctrines of Augustinianism. 
 With Malebranche the impelling thought is likewise the 
 question regarding the possibility of knowledge. With Des- 
 cartes he asserts the dualism of the thinking Substance and 
 the extended Substance ; and he maintains with Geulinx that 
 there is no immediate relation or direct interaction between 
 bodies and minds, but that the motion of bodies is only 
 
 1 De la Recherche de la Verite", Paris 1675, is his principal work. See 
 also his Entretiens sur la metaphysique et la religion, Paris 1688. Cf. Kurio 
 Fischer, Geschichte der neueren, Philosophic, i. 2. 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF DESCARTES. 405 
 
 an occasional cause of the activity of the mind, and that the 
 thinking of the mind is only an occasional cause of the 
 motion of bodies. Nevertheless there is actually presented in 
 knowledge an effect of bodies uptm the mind. Things effect 
 nothing ; in truth they are not causes, and are improperly 
 called causes. There is in general only one real cause, namely, 
 God. Nor can God and finite things be distinguished as 
 primary and secondary causes merely by the degree and mode 
 of their working. Things produce nothing, God alone pro- 
 duces all things. God creates bodies with rest in them at one 
 time and motion in them at another ; He creates minds with 
 sensation as well as knowledge in them, and He creates 
 the union of body and soul. The existence of the world 
 as well as its continual maintenance and existence rests upon 
 the creative activity of God ; for even the preservation of the 
 world is continuous creation. At the same time, however, 
 Malebranche is opposed to all mixing up of God and the world. 
 " The universe is in God." With this formula he indicates 
 his own view, whereas the formula, " God is in the universe," 
 is used by him to characterize the philosophy of Spinoza, \ 
 which he repudiates as atheistic. 
 
 Malebranche holds that by their own nature body and 
 mind, as independent substances, cannot act upon one another. 
 He says even that " God can unite minds with bodies, but He 
 cannot subject minds to bodies." The constant and exact 
 correspondence of the modifications of bodies and minds is 
 regulated by the general laws which God has given to His 
 world. Nevertheless experience convinces us daily that 
 our mental activity is dependent upon corporeal states. God 
 can neither will nor produce this dependence ; it cannot 
 therefore be the original state established by God, but has 
 been brought about by our free action in the fall. Even the 
 continued existence of this dependence of the mind upon the 
 body cannot be willed by God, and hence His action now aims 
 only at procuring for us again that independence of the soul 
 from the body which has been lost, or in other words, to 
 redeem us through Christ. Eeligion and philosophy are there- 
 
406 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 fore entirely one. Error, as arising from the senses and 
 the imagination, and therefore from the inconceivable depend- 
 ence of the mind upon the body, is a consequence of sin ; its 
 actual and universal existence in the present is the philoso- 
 phical proof of the Augustinian dogma of original sin. Libera- 
 tion from error by being raised from obscure and indistinct 
 ideas to clear knowledge, and liberation from sin through the 
 redemption in Christ, are the same in effect. The former 
 is the goal of philosophy, the latter is the goal of religion. 
 
 According to Malebranche, our knowledge cannot have its 
 foundation in ourselves. This follows at once from the general 
 proposition that finite things are not causes ; but it also 
 follows from the other consideration, that the knowledge of 
 God does not spring from ourselves, because finite beings 
 cannot produce the idea of the infinite. Hence the presence 
 of the idea of God in us is the surest proof of the existence of 
 God. Knowledge of bodies is only possible through ideas. 
 These ideas cannot possibly be effected by bodies, and just as 
 little can they be produced by the soul, or be possessed in the 
 form of a natural capacity. Nor are ideas innate, because the 
 world of ideas is infinite while our soul is only finite. It 
 is likewise unthinkable that God communicates to us ideas 
 individually at the moment we require them. Knowledge is 
 therefore only possible in God. This position is apprehended 
 in the following way. We know bodies by ideas ; all bodies 
 are extended, and they are nothing but extension ; and hence 
 all ideas may be referred to the ideas of extension or to 
 intelligible extension. This intelligible extension, viewed as 
 the principle of the world of ideas, is the primordial idea (idee 
 primordiale), and viewed as the creative ground of finite things 
 it is the archetype of the corporeal world (archetype des 
 corps). This idea of extension is at the same time contained 
 in the universal reason ; for in spite of all the diversities, all 
 minds are identical in this, that they know or behold that idea. 
 There is in fact only One Keason ; as only an infinite reason 
 can grasp the idea of the infinite, and as it is only under this 
 supposition that universal validity can belong to the cognitions 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 407 
 
 of the innumerable individual men. The Universal Eeason 
 and the Intelligible Extension correspond to each other. God 
 is the Universal Eeason, and along with it He is the In- 
 telligible Extension ; and therefore He is the ground of all 
 individual things. Our clear and distinct knowledge, in con- 
 trast to the unclear and indistinct knowledge of sense, is 
 the knowledge which arises from universally valid thinking of 
 reason or from ideas. These ideas are in God, and therefore 
 we are also in God, in so far as we have ideas and know 
 by them ; or conversely, we can know things really only in 
 God. This relation of the finite minds to God is certainly 
 left obscure in the System. Malebranche indicates it at one 
 time by saying that God is the place of minds, as space is the 
 place of bodies ; and at another time he says that as the 
 particular is a participation or limitation of the universal, all 
 creatures are nothing else but imperfect participations of the 
 divine Being. This is the fundamental thought of his re- 
 markable system, when we take it in its essentials apart from 
 his particular views regarding the universal activity of 
 God, and the nothingness of finite things, error being a conse- 
 quence of the subjection of the mind to the body arising from 
 sin, and true knowledge being a consequence of redemption 
 from sin or elevation to God. 
 
 III. 
 BARUCH SPINOZA/ 
 
 The Jew Spinoza may certainly be introduced into a 
 History of the Christian Philosophy of Eeligion without any 
 justification being required for doing so. For although the 
 direction of his thought was strongly influenced by the study 
 
 1 Besides the Ethica, ordine geometrico demonstrata, etc., the principal 
 philosophical work of Spinoza, we have also specially to consider the Tractatus 
 theologico-politicus, Hamburg 1670, and the Tractatus de Deo et Homine 
 ejusque felicitate, etc. The following works may be referred to : Theodor 
 Camerer, Die Lehre des Spinoza, 1877. Kuno Fischer, Geschichte, etc., ut 
 supra. 
 
408 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 of the Rabbinical philosophies, as has been lately shown with 
 much acuteness, yet his exact knowledge and high apprecia- 
 tion of the New Testament as well as of the person of Christ, 
 taken along with his exclusion from the Synagogue, show that 
 his range of vision went far beyond the limits of Judaism. 
 And as Descartes was his precursor, so we find his successors 
 among the Christian philosophers. Yet even to-day Spinoza 
 is still spoken of in many circles as a godless destroyer of 
 Religion, and still, as in earlier times, Spinoza is to some but 
 a name for the very head and front of all unbelief and all un- 
 godliness, so that a Spinozist is even regarded as synonymous 
 with a pantheist and an atheist. But whoever reads his 
 writings must feel himself beneficially influenced by the breath 
 of the deep religious spirit that permeates all his inquiries. 
 Hence it is easy to understand how not only the kindred soul 
 of Schleiennacher should call upon us " to sacrifice reverently 
 a lock to the manes of the holy expelled Spinoza," but even 
 how his opponent Jakobi could exclaim : " Be thou blessed of 
 me, thou great and even holy Benedictus ! However thou 
 mightest philosophize and err in words regarding the nature of 
 the Supreme Being, His truth was in thy soul, and His love 
 was thy life ! " 
 
 The Tractatus de intdlectus emendatione already shows this 
 religious character. In order to obtain the true and imperish- 
 able good, we must renounce the seemingly certain goods of 
 life, including the pleasures of sense, riches, and honour. 
 This is necessary in order to be delivered by love to God from 
 all selfish desires, and to be purified from all love to ourselves 
 and to finite things. For he says : " Love to an eternal and 
 infinite Being fills the soul with a pure joy that excludes from 
 it every kind of sorrow. Such a state is most fervently to be 
 wished, and to be striven after with all our power." 
 
 In proceeding to Spinoza's views regarding the Philosophy 
 of Religion, the Tractatus theologico-politicus first claims our 
 consideration. Avenarius refers the composition of it to 
 the years 165761, and therefore shortly after Spinoza's ex- 
 clusion from the synagogue in 1656. It is also probable, as 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 409 
 
 Bayle conjectures, that this Tractate has in part embodied the 
 Apology in which, as we know, Spinoza protested against the 
 condemnation of the Eabbins, and contested the right of 
 the Jewish tribunal to deal with him. It is only thus 
 that we can explain how the Tractate, which did not appear 
 till 1670, frequently assumes an apologetic turn, and is 
 specially keen in its attacks upon Judaism. And in entire 
 accordance with this view is the assurance of the author, that 
 he had already reflected long and long ago upon what he 
 had written. 
 
 Spinoza himself indicates that the object of his Tractate 
 was to oppose the mixing up of Theology and Philosophy, and 
 to separate religion and science (fidem a philosophia separare 
 totius operis pnecipuum intentum fuit). The treatise is 
 therefore at the same time an oratio pro domo, with the 
 intention of showing " that faith allows every one the greatest 
 freedom in philosophizing." The author accordingly asks the 
 reader to give his attention above all to Chapters XIII. and 
 XIV., and to subject them to repeated reflection, persuaded 
 that he had not written in order to produce something new, 
 but in order to correct what was mistaken. Between theology 
 and philosophy there subsists no connection or relationship, 
 for the two differ toto ccelo in their aim and foundation. The 
 aim of philosophy is truth; that of faith is obedience and 
 piety. The foundation of philosophy is to be taken from 
 nature alone, and it consists only in universal conceptions or 
 common notions (notiones communes), while the foundation of 
 faith is only to be found in history and the holy Scripture. 
 This is the Antithesis which Spinoza opposes to the Thesis 
 of his opponents, who hold that religion is knowledge like 
 philosophy, religion being knowledge derived from supernatural 
 principles ; whereas philosophy is knowledge derived from 
 natural principles, and hence they regarded religion as the 
 highest irrefragable authority, even in questions of philosophy. 
 In this view, however, Spinoza holds that the highest aim, 
 the supreme practical end of religion, is not kept in sight. 
 Here, in fact, the two again coincide, for both found our 
 
410 ' DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 highest happiness on love to God and communion with Him. 
 Hence the ultimate aim of both is the highest happiness in 
 communion of love with God. But in religion, obedience, and 
 in philosophy, knowledge of truth, are intermediate ends ; 
 and the starting-point for religion is in history and Scripture, 
 while that for philosophy is found in the nature of things. 
 
 If Religion is knowledge, then the Scriptures, as the main 
 documentary source of Religion, must also contain knowledge, 
 and their purpose must be to teach us knowledge. This view 
 of Scripture requires to be refuted at the outset. Spinoza 
 proceeds to show that the ultimate purpose of the whole of 
 Scripture is to teach obedience. Hence both Testaments 
 demand nothing but that man shall obey God with all his 
 heart, and exemplify this obedience in love to his neighbour. 
 This command of obedience is the sole rule of faith ; it is 
 only by it that it is possible to demand faith from all, and 
 not merely from those who have knowledge. Now it is 
 manifest that most of the expressions of a theoretical kind in 
 Scripture are referred to this faith. The aim of these 
 expressions, however, is only " to make such things understood 
 of God as being unknown would take away obedience towards 
 God, and which are necessarily accepted as soon as this 
 obedience exists " (de Deo sentire talia, quibus ignoratis 
 tollitur erga Deum obedientia, et hac obedientia posita 
 necessario ponuntur). Hence several consequences necessarily 
 follow. 1. It is not faith as such, or merely holding a thing 
 theoretically to be true, that works salvation, but only faith 
 on the basis of obedience, ratione obedientice (Jas. ii. ; 
 1 John iv. 2). Hence we ought also to judge of the faith of 
 a man according to his works. 2. The religious value of 
 dogmas is not determined by their theoretical truth, but 
 according as they incite a man to Obedience. The minds of 
 men, however, are so various, that what leads one to piety 
 excites another to laughter and contempt. Hence individual 
 freedom must prevail, in reference to dogmas, according as the 
 individual is led by one or other to obedience. 3. Only a 
 few dogmas can be established about which there can be no 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 411 
 
 dispute, and which are necessary as a condition of obedience 
 to God. They are limited to such positions as, that God, the 
 Supreme Being, is just and merciful, and a pattern of the true 
 life ; that He is one, omnipresent and omniscient, arid invested 
 with the highest power over all things ; that the right religion 
 consists only in justice and love of our neighbour ; and that 
 the obedient are saved and all others are condemned, although 
 to those who repent God forgives their sin. 
 
 The claim is set up that the Scriptures contain absolutely 
 true knowledge, and accordingly that they prescribe laws to 
 philosophy ; and this claim is founded upon the assertion 
 of an immediate divine revelation. Spinoza likewise asserts 
 a revelation, for the fundamental truth of religion, that 
 salvation depends on obedience to God, does not spring out of 
 our own insight. Our own reflection only leads us to seek 
 our blessedness in intellectual knowledge and the love of God 
 that is connected with it (intellectualis amor Dei). This 
 is the twofold ground which gives occasion to Spinoza 
 entering upon a detailed discussion of Eevelation. He rejects 
 the claim maintained by his opponents, that Eevelation 
 establishes infallible truth and indubitable knowledge, and 
 he explains that religion discloses to us a truth of which 
 philosophy knows nothing. 
 
 The Prophets are vehicles of divine revelation. The Jewish 
 people claimed that they alone had prophets ; but this claim 
 is unfounded, for divine revelation is found among all peoples. 
 The election and the privilege of the Jewish people do not 
 relate to superiority of knowledge nor to rest of soul, but 
 only to the political commonwealth and its constitution. Our 
 wishes are directed towards three things : res per primas 
 causas intelligere ; passiones domare secure ; et sano corpore 
 vivere. The first two points depend on the common human 
 nature, and the third on the institution of the commonwealth. 
 Hence it is only to the latter that the special pre-eminence 
 of the elect people can refer. The common idea of election, 
 which rejoices over one's own advantages in contrast to the 
 disadvantages of others, is founded in the human passions of 
 
412 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 self-love, of envy, and of malice ; and it has therefore nothing 
 in common with piety and love to God. In truth, the election 
 of the people referred to the external goods of fortune, and 
 these rest upon the right ordering of the civil commonwealth. 
 Laws are specially subservient to this end. Hence the 
 legislation of Moses, in so far as it had no other purpose in 
 the Ceremonial Law than to found the Jewish nation, and to 
 form in it a peculiar and exclusive national spirit, had not a 
 religious, but entirely a political character. On this side, 
 accordingly, the Jewish Religion, having the founding of a 
 national state and the external prosperity of the people in 
 view, is far removed from the true Eeligion, which sees the 
 means of blessedness in obedience to God, or in the purification 
 of the heart from all selfishness and earthly wishes. 
 
 There are therefore Prophets as vehicles of divine revela- 
 tion likewise among the heathen peoples, just as the Jewish 
 prophets also prophesied to heathen nations. In so far as 
 Revelation is the certain knowledge of something communi- 
 cated by God to men, natural knowledge may in this sense 
 also be called Revelation, for even our natural knowledge 
 depends on the knowledge of God, or on the fact that our 
 nature participates in the divine nature. It is usual, how- 
 ever, to apply the term Revelation only to what has been 
 supernaturally communicated. Such communication takes 
 place either by words or by visions, or by both words and 
 visions ; and these words and visions are either real or they 
 exist only in the imagination of the prophet. Revelation by 
 real words was communicated to Moses only, who spake with 
 God face to face as a man with his friend. Spinoza says it is 
 probable that God created a voice by which He Himself 
 revealed the Decalogue (Deus aliquam vocem vere creavit, 
 qua ipse decalogum revelavit) ; but this is a mystery. A still 
 higher degree of Revelation was communicated to Christ. 
 As God revealed Himself to Moses by the voice in the air, 
 the saving will of God was revealed to Christ without words 
 and visions, immediately by the Spirit, so that the voice of 
 Christ may be called God's voice ; and we are justified in 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 413 
 
 saying that the wisdom of God has assumed human nature in 
 Christ, and Christ has become the way of salvation. The 
 characteristic peculiarity of the prophetic knowledge consists 
 in the fact that it was communicated hy means of the 
 imagination (ope imaginationis). By what laws of nature this 
 took place, Spinoza declares he does not know. He draws, 
 however, several consequences from the fact. 1. The Prophets 
 knew much that goes heyond the limits of our intellect, " for 
 far more ideas can be formed out of words and images than 
 merely out of the principles and conceptions on the basis of 
 which all our natural knowledge is reared." Unfortunately 
 there is no further explanation or grounding of this principle 
 given, although the recognition of it excludes any criticism 
 of a professed revelation by our natural knowledge. 2. The 
 Prophets knew and taught everything, " parabolice et senig- 
 matice," and expressed everything spiritual in corporeal images. 
 3. The Imagination manifested itself in extremely different 
 ways ; in the case of very many not at all, and in the case of 
 those who were favoured with it, extremely seldom. Far more 
 important, however, is another consequence drawn by him. 
 The certainty of our knowledge does not follow from the 
 vividness of the Imagination (potentia vividius imaginandi), 
 but from the clearness and distinctness of ideas (clara et 
 distincta idea). Now, if prophecy rests upon the vividness 
 of the imagination, the prophets themselves and we still 
 more would require a reason for regarding their communi- 
 cations as true. In order to become certain of their revelation, 
 the prophets needed an external authentication or a sign 
 (signum). This sign might, however, deceive us ; and accord- 
 ingly, in order to be sure of the prophetic testimony, we 
 require above all to be convinced of the good and just habit 
 of mind of the prophet (animus ad solum sequum et bonum 
 inclinatus) ; for God cannot deceive a pious man. Hence in 
 regard to the prophets and the revelations communicated by 
 them, we have always only moral and never mathematical 
 certainty. Our faith is, in this case, founded only upon the 
 twofold moral conviction, first, of the honesty of the prophet ; 
 
414 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 and, secondly, of the fact that God does not deceive the 
 righteous man. This sign that is required by every revela- 
 tion in order to confirm it, is not to be regarded as a miracle 
 in the usual sense, as an operation of divine power to the 
 exclusion of natural laws. On the contrary, Spinoza proceeds 
 to show, under reference both to principles of reason and to 
 Scripture, that nothing happens contrary to nature, but that 
 everything takes place according to an eternal fixed order, and 
 that we know the existence, essential nature, and providence 
 of God not so much from miracles, as rather from the fixed 
 order of nature. Hence we obtain the hermeneutical principle 
 that is to be applied to the interpretation of Scripture, namely, 
 that we have carefully to distinguish between the actual 
 occurrence of a fact and the form in which it is dressed up 
 in the narrative of the writer who records it. 
 
 As the sign is given by regard to the prophet whom it 
 serves to certify (pro opinionibus et capacitate prophetae), it 
 obtains a definite, local, and temporal, as well as individual 
 stamp. In like manner, the revelation changes, not merely 
 according to the peculiar character of the different prophets, 
 but even in the case of the same prophet (pro dispositione 
 temperamenti corporis, imaginationis et pro ratione opinionum 
 quas antea ainplexus fuerat). If the prophet was cheerful, 
 victory, peace, and similar things were revealed to him ; if he 
 was melancholy, war, humiliation, and all evils were revealed 
 to him ; and thus one prophet was more adapted for one 
 revelation and another for another. If the prophet was 
 refined, he also caught the view of God in elegant language ; 
 if he was confused, he rendered it in a confused way. In 
 like manner the images in which the revelation was exhibited 
 changed. If the prophet was a shepherd, we have oxen, 
 goats, etc. ; and if he was a soldier, we have generals and 
 armies. The prophesying itself changed ; and thus the birth 
 of Christ was revealed to the Magi by the appearance of a 
 star rising in the east, while the devastation of Jerusalem 
 was revealed to the augurs of Nebuchadnezzar through inspec- 
 tion of the entrails. If it be so, then the opinion of those 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 415 
 
 is quite false who assert that the Scriptures contain truth in 
 all things, and even in those which do not belong to religion. 
 The Scriptures themselves expressly say that the Prophets 
 did not know many things. Only from this connection with 
 the personal peculiarities and human weaknesses of the 
 prophet, can the fact be explained that the Scriptures speak 
 in so many places so improperly of God. 
 
 Spinoza specially emphasizes the fact that the human side 
 in the prophetic revelation is to be largely taken into account. 
 This he does when he proceeds to lay down principles for the 
 Interpretation of the Scriptures. He complains that the 
 theologians often try rather to derive their own fantastic ideas 
 from the Scriptures, and to invest them with Divine authority, 
 than to inquire into the true meaning of Scripture. Scrip- 
 tural interpretation must necessarily be historical, for the true 
 opinion of a writer, and even of a Biblical writer, can only be 
 known if we know who this writer is, and when and under 
 what circumstances, and from what intention he wrote. Quite 
 in the spirit of a Semler, Spinoza already points out that the 
 Biblical writings have to be explained in the spirit of their 
 age and in the sense of their authors ; that the question of 
 their authorship must be investigated ; and that exact know- 
 ledge must be obtained of the historical conditions of their 
 origin, and the moral conditions and modes of culture pre- 
 vailing among the people in question. Spinoza was thus the 
 founder of a historico-critical investigation and interpretation 
 of the Old Testament. He shows that the Biblical books, 
 from the Pentateuch to the Books of Kings, do not belong 
 to the age and the authors to which they are ascribed. It 
 is probable that Ezra, the collector of the laws, may have 
 composed the history of his nation, in the form we now have 
 it, from various older historical works. In any case, the 
 Pentateuch was not composed by Moses. Before the time of 
 the Maccabees there was no Canon of the sacred writings ; 
 it was the Pharisees of the Second Temple who established 
 the Canon. 
 
 Nevertheless the Scriptures are the word of God, and this 
 
416 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA, 
 
 applies to the whole of Scripture. For although Spinoza 
 puts Christ far above the Jewish prophets, he recognises no 
 material difference between the revelation of the Old Testa- 
 ment and that of the New. The doctrine is the same, only 
 the Prophets preached religion before the coming of Christ as 
 the law of their country, and by virtue of the covenant con- 
 cluded in the time of Moses ; whereas the Apostles, after the 
 appearing of Christ, preached the very same religion as a 
 universal law, and by virtue of the sufferings of Christ. The 
 Scriptures are the word of God ; not, indeed, in the sense that 
 God has willed to communicate to man a certain number of 
 books, but because the authors of these books did not teach 
 from the common natural light, but as they were " moved by 
 the Spirit of God." In other words, they taught because they 
 had a special and extraordinary power, and because they 
 cultivated piety with special energy, and received the com- 
 munication of God. But the Scriptures are called the word 
 of God chiefly because they contain the true religion. The 
 true religion is, at the same time, the highest divine Law. 
 The divine Law relates only to the highest good. As the 
 intellect is the better part in us, our highest good consists 
 in its perfection. And as all our knowledge depends on 
 knowledge of God, our highest good likewise consists in the 
 knowledge of God. But because knowledge of what exists 
 in nature, according to the degree of its being, includes 
 knowledge of God, we therefore know God the more perfectly 
 as our knowledge of natural things is more perfect ; and thus 
 does the knowledge of natural things lead to the highest 
 good. The object of Spinoza's Ethics is to show the way 
 from natural knowledge to the intellectualis amor Dei. The 
 Scriptures teach us how to reach the same goal by obedience. 
 Eeason, which is in truth the light of the Spirit, without 
 which it sees nothing but "insomnia et fragmenta," does not 
 go so far as to determine that man can attain the highest good, 
 or be happy by obedience or without knowledge of things. 
 Nevertheless this fundamental dogma of religion is not con- 
 tested by reason, but is recognised as unquestionable ; nay, 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 4lY 
 
 when that truth which we cannot know by the natural light 
 is communicated to us by revelation, we are able to use our 
 reason so as to accept it with moral certainty. On this 
 fact the distinction between natural and positive religion 
 rests. 
 
 Natural Eeligion might be called the way that is pointed 
 out by philosophy to reach the highest good by knowledge of 
 truth. This is represented as a " natural law of God," and 
 it is essential to it that it shall hold good for all men, because 
 it is derived from the common human nature of man ; and 
 that it shall require no faith in histories, because it can be 
 known merely from observation of human nature, so that it 
 could have been known just as well by Adam as by any 
 other man, whether living in solitude or in society. Histories 
 can only be of use for the guidance of our civil life. Nor 
 can this Natural Law require any ceremonies or actions 
 which in themselves are indifferent, but are called good 
 merely because of their institution, or because they typify a 
 good that is necessary to salvation, or because their meaning 
 goes beyond human understanding. The reward of the 
 Divine Law is to know the law itself, which is God, and to 
 love it with all the heart. This leads to a series of questions, 
 two of which in particular throw more definite light upon the 
 relation of the positive religion in the Scriptures to this 
 natural religion. 1. What do the Scriptures teach regarding 
 the Light of Nature and the Law of God ? Spinoza seeks to 
 prove, by a series of passages in Scripture, that the Scriptures 
 and the Natural Light are entirely in harmony with each 
 other. The command of God to Adam not to eat of the tree 
 of knowledge of good and evil, already indicates that he was 
 to do the good from love to the good, and not from fear of 
 evil. Solomon declares quite distinctly (Prov. xvi. 22) that 
 the intellect or knowledge is the source of the true life, and 
 that unhappiness consists only in folly (Prov. iii. 13). It is 
 well for the man who has found wisdom and gained know- 
 ledge. All this is in the most beautiful harmony with 
 natural knowledge. 2. Of what use is it to know and to 
 
 VOL. i. 2 D 
 
-418 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 believe the sacred Histories ? In considerable detail, Spinoza 
 answers this question somewhat as follows : There are two 
 ways of bringing men to the conviction and acceptance of 
 things that are not clear in themselves ; the one proceeds 
 from sensible experience of what takes place in nature, and 
 the other from axioms that are clear in themselves in the 
 form of intellectual notions (notiones intellectuales). The 
 latter way frequently requires long co-ordination of percep- 
 tions, great caution, clearness, and persistency of mind, things 
 which are rarely enough found among men. Hence most 
 people will rather be taught from experience. And from this 
 it follows that whoever will communicate a doctrine to a 
 whole nation or even to the whole human race, so as to be 
 understood by all, must confirm it only by experience, and 
 conform his reasons and definitions as much as possible to the 
 intelligence of the multitude. Now as Scripture was destined 
 at the first for a whole people, and afterwards for the whole 
 human race, what it contained required also to be adapted to 
 the intelligence of the multitude, and to be confirmed by 
 experience alone. Thus does Scripture explain from experi- 
 ence even the purely speculative doctrines contained in it, 
 such as that God is ; that He has created and preserves all 
 things ; that He cares for men ; and that He rewards the 
 righteous and punishes the wicked. And although experience 
 may give no clear explanation and establishment of these 
 doctrines, yet it can teach men as much of them as is neces- 
 sary to implant obedience and reverence in their hearts. 
 Hence the knowledge of the sacred Histories, and belief in 
 them, is absolutely necessary for the people, as their minds 
 are not capable of attaining to clear and distinct knowledge. 
 Hence whoever denies these histories, because he does not 
 believe that there is a God, or that He cares for men, is god- 
 less ; but any one who does not know them, and yet, in 
 virtue of the Natural Light, knows that there is a God who 
 cares for men, and who, at the same time, leads a correct life, 
 is blessed ; yea, he is more blessed than the people, because 
 he has a clear and distinct notion that is above correct 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPIXOZA. 419 
 
 opinions. And, finally, if one neither knows the holy Scrip- 
 ture nor knows anything by his Natural Light, although he 
 may not be entirely godless or intractable, he is not a man, 
 but almost a wild beast. But if the necessity of the sacred 
 Histories is asserted, this does not mean the necessity of all 
 the histories contained in the Bible, for that would go beyond 
 the capacity of the people, and even of all men, to take in. 
 It refers only to those histories which specially put the 
 doctrines referred to into clearer light. Such narratives as 
 those relating to the disputes of Isaac, the counsels of 
 Ahithophel, and the civil wars between Judah and Israel, 
 are superfluous for this purpose. The great crowd, however, 
 from the weakness of their minds, require pastors and 
 preachers to introduce them to the right meaning of these 
 Histories. In short, the belief in historical narratives does 
 not relate to the divine Law, nor does it of itself make men 
 happy, nor is it of any use as regards the doctrine they 
 contain. Hence if any one reads the Scriptural narratives 
 and believes them, and yet gives no regard to their doctrine, 
 and does not improve his life, it is all the same to him as if 
 he had read the Koran, or the fables of poets, or common 
 chronicles. On the other hand, if any one does not know 
 these narratives, and yet has sound opinions and leads a 
 correct life, he is blessed, and has in truth the spirit of Christ 
 within him. The opposite opinion of the Jews is entirely 
 false and also contrary to Scripture, according to which true 
 opinions and the right conduct of life are of no advantage 
 in regard to salvation, so long as he receives them merely 
 from natural light and not as divine revelation. 
 
 There is a further proof adduced for this view of Scripture 
 as a remedy for the human weakness that is not able to know 
 the truth by the natural reason. It is founded on the fact 
 that religion was communicated to the oldest Jews in the form 
 of a written Law because they were then regarded as children, 
 whereas Moses and Jeremiah foretold for the future a time in 
 which God would write His Law in the heart. 
 
 So much then for the theological views contained in the 
 
420 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 Tractatus iheologico-politicm. A few words may be added 
 regarding its political side. The object of this Tractate 
 was to exhibit the complete separateness of theology and 
 philosophy, or of religion and knowledge. The mixing up of 
 these two necessarily leads to controversy, as they both lay 
 claim to the highest authority. But controversy and wrang- 
 ling endanger our external well-being, the promotion of which 
 is the chief duty of the State. Hence the State has also an 
 interest in preventing the conflict that arises between theology 
 and philosophy. This conflict, indeed, is never occasioned by 
 internal piety as a sentiment, but only by its outward practice 
 in doctrine and worship. This latter must therefore be sub- 
 jected to the command of the State ; and just because God 
 exercises no peculiar government over men, except by those 
 who exercise external authority. Further, this holds because 
 love to one's country and the well-being of the people is the 
 highest rule to which everything human and divine must be 
 subordinated. This exercise of the power of the State relates, 
 however, only to what is external ; it must allow freedom of 
 thought and of speech. 
 
 Spinoza obtained his influence upon the future by his 
 philosophical system. This System, presented in a preparatory 
 sketch in his Tractatus de Deo et homine ejusque felicitate, 
 was finally expounded in his Ethica. The far-reaching in- 
 fluence which this System has exercised upon later thinkers, 
 is frequently accounted for by the strictly logical connection of 
 its principles. And it is true that Spinoza has fulfilled the 
 demand laid down by Descartes, but not strictly carried out 
 by himself, that philosophical investigation must be conducted 
 according to a mathematical method in order to give to 
 philosophical knowledge the certainty of mathematical know- 
 ledge. Hence in the Ethica we find all the cumbrous 
 mathematical apparatus of definitions, axioms, propositions, 
 corollaries, etc., and it presents an imposing aspect to any one 
 who imagines that the mathematical method can be transferred 
 directly to philosophy. This conceit, however, vanishes as 
 soon as it is seen that in geometry the definitions already 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 421 
 
 contain everything which is developed in the series of the 
 propositions by the aid of a few axioms. Nor will it escape 
 the critical reader of Spinoza's Ethics, that here, too, in the 
 definitions and determinations that are prefixed to the whole, 
 everything is already presupposed that is seemingly derived from 
 them with a magnificent application of methodical auxiliaries. 
 
 He is most perfect and most happy who loves the intellectual 
 knowledge of God above all things ; and it is the task of the 
 Ethics to lay down the means of attaining to this end. The 
 main thoughts of the Ethics are summarised in the following 
 three propositions: (1) That we have the knowledge of God 
 only through the knowledge of things, leads to the immanence- 
 relation of God to the World ; (2) That the cognitio intellectualis 
 is the highest stage of knowledge, points to the three stages of 
 knowledge as opinio, ratio, cognitio intuitiva ; (3) That the 
 cognitio intellectualis goes along with the amor Dei, shows us 
 the close connection of knowledge and the will. Spinoza 
 also stops on the ground of dogmatism ; he gives no criticism 
 of our faculty of knowledge ; and just as little does he give a 
 psychological explanation of the religious process. Of chief 
 importance, however, especially on account of their later 
 influences, are his Definitions of the conception of God and 
 His relation to the world. 
 
 The application of the mathematical method already 
 indicates the peculiar character of the Spinozistic System. 
 In mathematics every proposition follows from a former 
 proposition, and all the deductions go back in an ultimate 
 line to a series of fundamental truths, definitions, and axioms. 
 To this there corresponds, in actual reality, the relation of 
 cause and effect ; and hence all things must be the effects of 
 an ultimate cause which is the cause both of itself and of all 
 things. In the relation of the many things to each other and 
 to the first cause, final ends find no place, but there are merely 
 Efficient Causes. Nor is there any Freedom in the sense of 
 " being able also to be otherwise," but there is only necessity, 
 which, however, is designated freedom in distinction to external 
 compulsion as a merely internal compulsion from one's own 
 
422 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 nature. The notion of the Efficient Cause is the predominant 
 one in Spinoza's System. Hence God is determined as First 
 Cause (causa prima), and the relation of God to the world as 
 that of cause to effect, or of the natura naturans to the natura 
 naturata. The full contents of these formulae are only dis- 
 closed after the explanation of Substance, Attribute, and 
 Mode. 
 
 " By Substance I understand that which is existent in 
 itself and is conceived by itself ; that is, it is that the con- 
 ception of which does not need the conception of another 
 thing from which it is to be formed." * As an effect can 
 always only be conceived from its cause, the latter definition 
 implies that Substance cannot be the effect of any Cause, or 
 be produced by any other thing. This position may be other- 
 wise expressed as follows. All that is has its being either in 
 itself or in another, that is, it is either Substance or the 
 affection of a Substance or a Mode. For " by Modus I 
 understand the affection of a Substance, or that which has 
 being and is conceived in another." 2 Now Substance is 
 earlier than its modes ; and hence a Substance cannot be 
 produced by a mode, but at most by another substance. This, 
 however, is also impossible ; for things that have nothing in 
 common with one another cannot be one the cause of the 
 other. But two or more Substances can have nothing in 
 common with each other, for they have either the same 
 attributes or different attributes ; and in the former case they 
 are only one substance ; while in the latter they have nothing 
 in common with one another. " By Attribute I understand 
 that which the intellect apprehends of Substance as constitut- 
 ing its Essence." J From this the same consequence follows, 
 namely, that a Substance cannot be produced by any other 
 thing. In other words, Substance is causa sui ; for " by cause 
 
 1 ["Per Substantial!! intelligo id, quod in se est, et per se concipitur ; hoc est 
 id, cujus conceptus non indiget conceptu alterius rei, a quo formari debeat."] 
 
 2 ["Per Modura, intelligo substantise affectiones sive id, quod in alio est, 
 per quod etiam concipitur."] 
 
 3 ["Per Attributum intelligo id, quod intellects de substantia percipit, 
 tauquam ejusdeni essentiam constitueus. "] 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 423 
 
 of itself, I understand that whose Essence includes existence 
 in itself, or whose nature cannot be thought otherwise than as 
 existing." Hence " Existence belongs to the Nature of Sub- 
 stance ; " and on this account Substance is eternal. For " by 
 Eternity I understand existence itself, so far as it is known 
 as following from the definition of the eternal thing alone by 
 necessity." Spinoza expressly guards himself from holding the 
 view that this eternal existence can be explained by duration 
 or time. The same Definitions imply that Substance is free. 
 For " that thing is called free which consists solely from the 
 necessity of its nature, and is determined of itself alone to 
 action : that is called necessary or rather compelled, which is 
 determined to existence and action by another according to a 
 certain and determinate reason." l All activity of Substance 
 rests not upon external compulsion as the influence of external 
 things, but upon the inherent immanent power and efficiency 
 of the substance itself. 
 
 All that has been hitherto said of Substance likewise holds 
 of God ; for God falls under the conception of Substance, or 
 as it is otherwise put, as it is asserted that " every Substance 
 is necessarily infinite," it follows that there can be only one 
 Substance, and therefore God Himself is the One Substance. 
 Spinoza's definition of God is as follows : " By God I under- 
 stand the absolutely infinite Being ; that is, a Substance that 
 consists of innumerable attributes, every one of which is the 
 expression of an eternal and infinite Essence." ' The con- 
 ception of " the absolutely infinite " (absolute infinitum) is 
 opposed to that of " the infinite in its kind " (in suo genere 
 infinitum). This holds of those things which cannot be 
 limited by things of the same kind, but only by things of 
 another kind. For example, an infinite body cannot be 
 limited by another body, but it may be limited by thinking. 
 
 1 [" Ea res libera dicetur, quse ex sola sure naturse necessitate existit, et a se 
 sola ad agendum determinatur. Necessaria autem, vel potius coacta, quse ab 
 alio determinatur ad existendum et operandum certa ac determinata ratione."] 
 
 2 ["Per Deum intelligo ens absolute infinitum, hoc est, substantiam con- 
 stantem infinitis attributis, quorum unumquodque seternam et infinitam 
 essentiam exprimit."] 
 
424 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 The former expression applies to that whose Essence excludes 
 all negation, and which rather contains in itself all that 
 expresses being. It is implied that God is the sole Substance 
 in this absolute or perfect Infinity ; and hence " besides God 
 there can neither be another Substance, nor can another 
 Substance than God be thought." 
 
 God is the One Substance ; and hence He exists of 
 necessity. This follows at once from the conception of 
 Substance as causa sui ; and this a priori or Ontological 
 Argument for the existence of God is undoubtedly the most 
 important element of the kind in the whole connection of the 
 Spinozistic thinking. Some further explanations, however, are 
 added to it, such as the following. Everything must have 
 a reason for its existence as well as for its non-existence ; 
 and a thing exists as soon as there is no sufficient 
 reason for its non-existence. This reason lies either in the 
 thing or out of it. God therefore also exists, unless there is 
 given in His nature or out of it a reason why He does not 
 exist. The latter position would assume a Substance which 
 had nothing in common with God, and yet occasioned His 
 existence ; the former would put a contradiction into God, the 
 absolutely infinite and most perfect being. Both alternatives 
 are absurd, and therefore God must exist. The possibility 
 of not existing constitutes a want of perfection, whereas 
 the possibility of existing is a perfection ; and hence either 
 nothing at all necessarily exists, or the absolutely infinite 
 Essence or God does so exist. More closely regarded, these 
 arguments are also founded solely on the position that God is 
 Substance, and that existence necessarily belongs to the 
 nature of Substance, and consequently to the conception of 
 God. 
 
 God is Substance, and therefore He is causa sui. Nay 
 more, God is the only Substance. But nothing exists except 
 Substances and their affections ; or to leave the more precise 
 relation of the modi to the substance out of account, it may 
 be said that nothing exists but Substances and their Effects. 
 God is therefore the cause of all things, or the absolutely 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 425 
 
 First Cause (absolute causa prima). All things are Effects of 
 God. With regard to the mode of the action of Substance, it 
 has been already determined that it acts freely, that is, 
 according to the inherent laws of its internal nature, and not 
 as compelled by external things. The same holds true of 
 God. " God acts only according to the laws of His own 
 nature, and He is compelled by no one." " There is no cause 
 which impels God to action, from without or from within, 
 except the perfection of His own nature." " God alone is a 
 free cause, for He alone exists merely in virtue of the 
 necessity of His nature, and He acts merely in virtue of the 
 same." Some call God a free cause, because He can act so that 
 something that is in His power shall not happen ; but this is 
 just the same as if we were to assert that God can act so that 
 it shall not follow from the nature of a triangle that its three 
 angles are equal to two right angles. Just as absurd is the 
 assertion that God's intellect reaches farther than His power, 
 and that He has in reality created only a portion of what 
 He could have created. " I believe I have distinctly shown 
 that from the supreme power of God, or from His infinite 
 nature, that which is infinite has flowed (effluxisse) in an 
 infinite manner, and all by necessity ; or that it always 
 follows (sequi) with the same necessity and entirely the same 
 way, as it follows from the nature of a triangle, and from 
 eternity to eternity, that its three angles are equal to two 
 right angles. Hence God's omnipotence has been active from 
 eternity, and will continue to be active to eternity." (Quare 
 Dei omnipotentia actu ab a3terno fuit et in seternurn in 
 eadem actualitate manebit.) 
 
 The " Freedom " of God is thus opposed not merely to the 
 compulsion of external influence, but equally so to irrational 
 arbitrariness of mere liking or good pleasure. Arbitrary will 
 can at most occur where there is a mode of action in accord- 
 ance with ends combined with self-consciousness and free-will. 
 But according to Spinoza, nature has no end set before it, and 
 all final causes are nothing but figments of the human brain. 
 In like manner, neither intellect nor will pertains to God. 
 
426 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 (Ostendam, ad Dei naturam neque intellectum neque volun- 
 tatem pertinere.) The will is not a free, but a necessary or 
 compelled cause, because it is continually determined by an 
 idea out of itself. Hence neither will nor understanding 
 belongs to the nature of God ; they are related to it in the 
 same way as rest and motion are ; they are related to it as 
 is everything natural that follows from the necessity of the 
 divine nature, and is determined by it in a certain way to its 
 existence and action. It is therefore entirely erroneous to 
 think of God's nature according to the analogy of human 
 nature. Those who imagine that God consists of body and 
 spirit like men, are not only far from the true knowledge of 
 God, but it is altogether an error to represent God as if He 
 were subject to human passions. " Hence, philosophically 
 taken, it cannot be said that God desires anything whatever 
 from any one whomsoever, or that anything is repugnant or 
 disagreeable to Him ; for all these are human qualities, which 
 have no place in the essence of God." Nay more, although 
 we were to ascribe understanding and will to God according 
 to the human analogy, it would still always have to be con- 
 sidered that in spite of the same names, there must exist 
 between the divine and human faculties such a difference as 
 would exclude all agreement, " and so they are as distinct 
 from one another as the dog which is a constellation in the 
 sky, and the dog which is a barking beast." In fact, while 
 our understanding comes later in relation to things, God's 
 understanding is in truth the cause of things, and is the cause 
 of their essence as well as of their existence, " which appears 
 to have been correctly observed by those who assert that 
 understanding, will, and power are one and the same in God." 
 The understanding forms purposes and represents them, and 
 the will acts in accordance with purposes ; but God has 
 neither understanding nor will, and therefore He cannot 
 possibly act according to purposes or final ends. 
 
 God is therefore the cause of things. He is not, however, 
 an external cause working according to ends set before 
 Himself, but He is the internal cause from which things 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 427 
 
 necessarily follow, according to the eternal laws of their 
 nature. " Deus est omnium rerurn causa irnmanens, non vero 
 transiens." "As regards God and nature, I entertain an 
 entirely different opinion concerning them from that which 
 the Christians of the modern stamp are wont to maintain at 
 the present day. I assert, in fact, that God is the indwelling 
 cause of all things, and not the external cause of them." 
 Hence it is likewise said of things, not merely that they 
 cannot either exist or be known without God, but that they 
 are in God (quicquid est in Deo est, et nihil sine Deo esse 
 neque concipi potest). God is therefore nothing else than the 
 ultimate ground of all things, the eternal, infinite, uninter- 
 rupted, active power of nature, from which all that exists 
 proceeds with unalterable necessity, and in which all that 
 exists is contained. Hence His activity is inseparable from 
 His existence, and God and nature are thus often regarded as 
 synonymous. " JEternum illud et infinitum Ens, quod Deum 
 seu naturam appellamus, eadem qua existit necessitate agit." 
 The essence of God is identical with His power. His power 
 is nothing but His acting power, or the immanent cause of 
 things ; and this cause of natural things is nothing but nature 
 in action ; and hence God is the same as nature (Deus sive 
 natura). Cause and effect are essentially identical ; and 
 therefore the acting (efficient) cause and the effected things, or 
 God and the world, are essentially identical. They are both 
 in fact natura, only with the difference that God is natura 
 naturans, and the world is natura naturata. 
 
 Another consequence follows as to Spinoza's conception of 
 God. God is the absolutely infinite Being. This conception 
 at once implies that this Being has numberless attributes. 
 Taking now as valid the proposition that " the more reality or 
 being a thing has, so many more are the attributes that 
 pertain to it," and converting it and applying it to God, it 
 follows that God is the infinite Being ; that is, He combines 
 all reality in Himself, or, as the latter terminology puts it, He 
 is the most real Being (Ens realissimum). A further con- 
 sequence immediately arises in the following way. Every 
 
428 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 determination of a thing is a limitation of it. A determina- 
 tion of a thing distinguishes it from another, and shows, not 
 what this thing is, but what it is not. " Omnis determinatio 
 est negatio. Determinatio ad rem juxta stium esse non 
 pertinet, sed e contra est ejus nonesse." God includes all 
 reality in Himself, there is no being which is not in God, and 
 hence there is no determination of God, but as absolutely 
 infinite Being He is necessarily also absolutely undetermined. 
 " If the nature of God does not actually consist in this or that 
 kind of being, but in a Substance which is absolutely undeter- 
 mined, His nature also demands all the predicates which per- 
 fectly express being, because this nature would otherwise be 
 limited and defective." Just because God includes all kinds 
 of being in Himself, He cannot be conceived and named 
 according to an individual determinate kind of being. 
 
 In order to represent more exactly the relation of God to 
 the world as it is given in Spinoza's system, we must enter 
 more minutely upon his definitions regarding " Attribute " and 
 " Mode " in their relation to " Substance." There is nothing 
 but substance and its modes. The one substance is God, and 
 all individual finite things are modes ; and between the two 
 stand the Attributes. An Attribute is what the understanding 
 knows of the substance as constituting its essence. Now 
 God appears as the absolutely infinite Essence, because He 
 " consists of infinitely many attributes of which each one 
 expresses eternal and infinite essentiality." Every attribute 
 thus expresses eternal and infinite essentiality ; and therefore it 
 is also said that " every attribute of a substance must be con- 
 ceived by itself." The former infinity, however, is carefully 
 to be distinguished from that of the substance ; the former is 
 merely suo genere, the latter is absolute. Hence it is not so 
 absurd as at first sight it appears " to attribute to a substance 
 several attributes ; " indeed, there is nothing clearer in nature 
 than that everything must be known under some attribute ; 
 and the more reality or being it has, so much the more 
 attributes has it which express necessity or eternity as well as 
 infinity. The Attributes are therefore the several powers 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 429 
 
 working in the substance distinguished really from one 
 another, subsisting of themselves, entirely independent of each 
 other, original and eternal. The difficulties, then, do not exist 
 for Spinoza at all which mislead his interpreters even now 
 into the rashest explanations, namely, as to how the one 
 indivisible Substance can unite in itself innumerably many 
 original powers that are reciprocally and qualitatively different 
 from each other, and therefore exclude each other ; and as to 
 how the Attribute can be conceived by itself without thereby 
 itself becoming the Substance. 
 
 In God there are infinitely many Attributes ; but we have 
 experience in particular only of two : Thinking and Exten- 
 sion. It is only of these two that we have knowledge ; for, 
 in our own nature, there work only two powers, the capacity 
 out of which ideas arise, and that out of which bodies arise, or 
 Thinking and Extension. Hence, " Thinking is an Attribute 
 of God, or God is a thinking Being," and " Extension is an 
 Attribute of God, or God is an extended Being." In this 
 connection Spinoza says not a word about the difficulty which 
 inevitably presses itself upon us, that Substance is represented 
 as having numberless attributes, and yet there are only two 
 taken into account. Do these two Attributes include the 
 others ? This would negative the independence of the 
 Attributes. Are these only the two that are active in man ? 
 This would be contrary to the view that all the Attributes 
 are active in everything. 
 
 The Attributes are entirely independent as regards each 
 other. There is no transition from the one to the other, 
 nor any reciprocal interpenetration, nor even any reciprocal 
 interaction. " The body cannot determine the mind to 
 thinking, nor can the mind determine the body to rest or 
 motion or anything else (if there be anything else)." 
 " The special existence of ideas has God as their cause, in so 
 far as He is regarded merely as a thinking Being, and not in 
 so far as He gives Himself His expression in another^ attri- 
 bute ; that is, the ideas of the attributes of God as well 
 as of individual things have not the objects which form 
 
430 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 their contents or the things perceived as their efficient cause, 
 but God Himself in so far as He is a thinking Being." But 
 because the two Attributes are attributes of one and the 
 same Substance, or because thinking substance and extended 
 substance are not two but only one, there is no thinking 
 without extension, and no extension without thinking. Every- 
 thing as an effect of the one Substance rather participates in 
 both attributes, and is at once Thought-being and Extended- 
 being, or at the same time soul and body. Hence there 
 follows also the parallelism of the two sides. The world of 
 bodies and the world of ideas are both founded in the acting- 
 power of the one substance ; and hence the world of ideas is 
 the completely faithful image of the world of bodies, and the 
 world of bodies is fashioned throughout exactly as it is 
 apprehended in the ideas. 
 
 The Substance with its attributes is God, or efficient 
 Nature. The World or effected Nature falls under the con- 
 ception of " modus." " By modus I understand affections of 
 the Substance, or that which is in another and by means of 
 which it is conceived." Instead of " affection," he also uses 
 the terms " modification " and " accident." The Modes 
 have therefore their being not in themselves but in another, 
 that is, in the substance or in God ; and particularly in such 
 a way that their being is contained and included in the 
 being and essence of the Substance, so that in the "modi" 
 the essence of the substance enters into existence in a special 
 way. The Modes are therefore the determinate, finite forms 
 of the existence of the one comprehending, all-effecting power, 
 and hence it is said that things are distinguished from one 
 another not realiter, but only modaliter. The " Modi " thus 
 arise from the divine causality. God is the cause of things, 
 and not the distant cause, but the efficient cause ; things are 
 effects of God, and special representations of His essence. On 
 the other side, the " modi " are finite things, and therefore 
 are always dependent on one another, although everything is 
 only dependent on those things that are homogeneous with it ; 
 that is, they are subject to necessity as an external compul- 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 431 
 
 sion. On the former side, they are grounded in God, and 
 are eternal ; on the latter side, they are grounded in the 
 external connection of things, and are finite. Both sides are 
 united in every individual thing ; eternity constitutes its 
 conception or essence (essentia), finity constitutes its limited 
 existence (existentia). The essences of things are eternal 
 truths ; but eternal truths do not exist for Spinoza in the 
 human spirit merely, but are distinguished even in this 
 from propositions, such as, ex nihilo nihil fit, that they 
 exist realiter. Finity, on the other hand, consists in the 
 partial negation of the existence of a nature, or in the 
 limitation of one thing by things of the same nature ; it 
 is founded in the universal course of nature and its causal 
 nexus. Every finite thing is thus grounded, on the one hand, 
 in the causality of the divine essence, which is in all things 
 as the one Substance ; and, on the other, in the causality of 
 finite things. The former constitutes its eternal essence ; the 
 latter its finite existence, or its limitedness, quantitatively as 
 having a beginning and end in time, as well as qualitatively 
 in its passivity. The two together, the eternal essentiality 
 and the finite limitedness, do not exclude each other, but 
 actually coincide with one another in the unity of the actually 
 existing finite things ; and this has its ground in the fact that 
 the natural causal nexus of finite things is also grounded in 
 God, and thus both causalities, although in a different way, go 
 back to God. But Spinoza does not spend a word on the 
 difficulty as to how the one Substance can work in such a 
 different way, and how this double causality constantly leads 
 to a single result. " Things are conceived by us as real in 
 two ways, according as we conceive them as existing in rela- 
 tion to a definite time and a definite place, and according as 
 we conceive them as contained in God and following from the 
 necessity of the divine nature. But the things which are 
 conceived in this latter way as true or real, are conceived 
 by us under the form of eternity, and the ideas of them 
 include the eternal and infinite essence of God in themselves." 
 Of Spinoza's further views, only those are of importance to 
 
432 DESCARTES AND SPIXOZA. 
 
 us here which refer to the goal of philosophy as the happi- 
 ness of man in the intellectual love of God (amor intellectuals 
 Dei). In every individual thing there is included an eternal 
 modus as its essence ; the finiteness of the individual thing 
 consists in the fact that this eternal modus is partially 
 limited by external causes, and is prevented from fully 
 unfolding itself. This principle also applies to man, and 
 upon it ultimately rests the goal which Spinoza sets up in his 
 theory of knowledge as well as in his Ethics. The goal of the 
 human mind is that it has to work itself out of its limitation 
 in finiteness to the complete unfolding and the pure existence 
 of its eternal Essence, and that it has to mount up from im- 
 perfection and want of reality to more reality and perfection. 
 
 Our knowledge rests upon ideas of the affections of bodies, 
 by which the mind perceives the affected as well as the 
 affecting body. A distinction is to be made in. everything 
 between its essence and its existence, or between its being 
 grounded in God and its being grounded in the connection of 
 finite things. Ideas refer to both of these relations, and this 
 is the basis of the distinction between adequate and in- 
 adequate ideas. Inadequate knowledge is sensible perception 
 (opinio or imaginatio). Adequate knowledge is partly rational 
 knowledge (ratio), which refers to what is common in things 
 and apprehends them as necessary effects of the divine attri- 
 butes under the form of eternity, and partly intuitive know- 
 ledge (cognitio intuitiva), which regards the essence of every 
 individual thing in all its features and properties as grounded 
 by eternal necessity in the essence of God, and which there- 
 fore contemplates it under the form of eternity. This is the 
 highest stage of knowledge, and upon it rests the immor- 
 tality of the human mind. The imagination ceases with the 
 existence of the body ; " for it is only during the existence of 
 its body that the mind expresses the actual existence of its 
 body, and conceives the affections of its body as existing in 
 reality." Yet " the human mind cannot be completely 
 destroyed with its body, but there remains something of it 
 after, which is eternal." This eternal something is the idea 
 
THE VIEWS OF SPINOZA. 433 
 
 which expresses the essence of the human body under the 
 form of eternity. The mind is thus only partly immortal ; 
 " the eternal part of the mind is the understanding ; and 
 that part of it which perishes, as we have shown, is the 
 imagination." Hence " the more things the mind under- 
 stands by means of knowledge of the second and third stage, 
 so much the greater a part of it remains after the destruction 
 of the body and is not affected thereby." The mind which 
 continues to endure, is therefore no longer the same individual 
 thing that it was during the existence of the body ; and the 
 minds that continue to exist, can only be distinguished from 
 each other by the amount of adequate knowledge they have 
 appropriated. Nevertheless, Spinoza assigns to them personal 
 self-consciousness ; for the stronger any one is in knowledge 
 of the third stage, so much the better conscious is he of him- 
 self and of God. 
 
 According to Spinoza, "intellectus et voluntas unum et 
 idem sunt," that is, knowledge and will are inseparably united 
 with each other ; and hence the ethical life must necessarily 
 develop itself in exact parallelism to the intellectual life. To 
 inadequate knowledge corresponds the dominion of the im- 
 pure passions ; to adequate knowledge there corresponds the 
 control of these passions by the pure self-activity of the 
 mind. Out of the intuitive knowledge there is developed, in 
 the ethical sphere, the intellectual love of God. This love 
 rests on the fact that man rejoices when he contemplates 
 himself and his active power, and that he knows God as the 
 ground of this power and the joy connected with it, and 
 accordingly loves God as the cause of this joy. " From the 
 third stage of knowledge there arises, of necessity, a rational 
 love of God (amor Dei intellectualis) ; for from the know- 
 ledge of this stage there arises joy accompanied with the idea 
 of God as its cause ; and this is love to God, not in that 
 we imagine Him as present, but in that we rationally con- 
 ceive the eternal being of God, and it is this which I call 
 rational love of God." This love is eternal, as is the know- 
 ledge from which it flows. It may attach itself to all ideas 
 
 VOL. I. 2 E 
 
434 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 and to all the affections of the body ; it is identical with the 
 love with which God loves Himself and men ; it is the 
 foundation of the continued striving after perfection. This 
 love is at the same time the highest good of man ; it is 
 true blessedness, and therefore the ultimate goal of our 
 striving. " Our happiness, or our blessedness and freedom, 
 consists in constant and eternal love to God ; and this love or 
 this blessedness is called in the holy Scriptures a glory, and 
 not unjustly so, for it is the true satisfaction of the soul and 
 the highest triumph of the mind." " This love is a part of 
 the infinite love with which God loves Himself. For this 
 love is an activity by means of which the mind contemplates 
 itself and at the same time knows God as the cause of the 
 mind ; it is therefore an activity by means of which, in so 
 far as He gives Himself expression in the human mind, 
 God contemplates Himself, and at the same time beholds 
 Himself as the Cause of Himself." 
 
 IV. 
 
 OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 
 
 The views of Spinoza, especially regarding religion, lay so 
 far from the modes of thought of his time that they could not 
 but excite the most violent antagonism. 1 And it is intelli- 
 gible, although it is also lamentable in the highest degree, 
 that a correct understanding of his doctrines rarely preceded 
 this opposition. The first assaults were directed against the 
 early Tractatus theologico-politicus. Already in 1670, Fre- 
 dericus Eappoltus, Professor of Theology at Leipsic, in his 
 Oratio contra naturalistas, reckoned Spinoza among the deniers 
 of God. Van Blyenburg, in his treatise De veritate reliyionis 
 Christiana (Amstel. 1674), objects to Spinoza that he even 
 
 1 On the History of Spinozism, see Antoninus van der Linde, Spinoza, seine 
 Lflire und deren erste Nachwirkungen in Holland, Gbttingen 1862 ; and P. 
 W. Schmidt, Spinoza und Schleiermacher, Berlin 1868. 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 435 
 
 subjects God to necessity, and thus makes Him completely 
 impotent. This objection was met by Cuffelarius in the only 
 apology of that age for Spinoza's views. In his Specimen artis 
 ratiocinandi, etc. (Hamburg 1684), it is urged that, accord- 
 ing to Spinoza, necessity does not mean the dependence on 
 external things, but the state of being conditioned only by 
 the internal essence of the being in question, and therefore 
 that the necessity attributed to God does not detract from His 
 perfection and power. J. Musaeus, in his dissertation entitled 
 Tractatus theologico-politicus, etc. (Jenae 1674), begins with 
 some bitter invectives against the inexpressibly bold man who 
 sees in free philosophical inquiry a remedy for the contro- 
 versies of theologians, and who even dares to doubt of the 
 divine inspiration of the prophets and apostles. He then 
 proceeds to a fundamental refutation. With far more candour 
 than the men already referred to, he transports himself into 
 the peculiar circle of thought of his opponent, and although 
 his exegetical proof is somewhat weak, and his explanation of 
 natural right and sovereign authority is not always tenable, 
 it deserves attention that he places religion in the inner life 
 of the soul : yet not merely in obedience, but essentially in its 
 proper kind of knowledge. He specially objects to Spinoza 
 that he had left the most important part of Christianity out 
 of account, namely, the reconciliation with God by the atone- 
 ment. Musaeus characterizes his own standpoint by the 
 way in which he defines faith, not as " sentire de Deo," but 
 as " Assentiri propter divinam revelationem." In point of 
 fact, the polemical writings directed at that time against 
 Spinoza are not worthy of much consideration. The tone in 
 which it was customary to speak of him in learned circles, is 
 shown especially by Chr. Kortholt, who in his De tribus 
 impostoribus magnis liber (Kiloni 1680) accused him of com- 
 pletely identifying God with the universe, and putting God as 
 regards finite things into the relation of a whole to its parts ; 
 and he reckons Spinoza along with the two other arch- 
 impostors, Herbert and Hobbes, among the most shameless 
 enemies of religion. When the Mhica appeared, the philo- 
 
436 DESCAKTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 sophers, and especially the strict followers of Descartes, 1 like- 
 wise set themselves in opposition to the new philosophy. 
 They take their starting-point from the substantiality of the 
 individual subject or personal ego, which appeared to them to 
 be too much endangered by Spinoza's doctrine of the " all- 
 unity," and this at least indicates their interest. The number 
 of these polemical writings became so great that Janichen 
 published a special Catalogus Scriptorum anti-Spinozianorum. 
 
 If these Opponents were not capable of refuting Spinoza's 
 philosophy, neither, on the other hand, were its Adherents 
 competent to obtain for it a more general acceptance. The 
 principles of a historico-critical investigation of the Bible, 
 laid down in the Tractatus theologico-politicus, first exerted an 
 influence upon theology, although it is still undecided as to 
 whether the pioneer work of Richard Simon (1638-1712) 2 
 in this direction was directly determined by it. The theolo- 
 gians were thus already roused into anxiety lest Spinozism 
 should overthrow religion. And this anxiety could not but 
 be strengthened by the way in which the adherents of the 
 new philosophy, instead of working for its further scientific 
 development, brought some of its positions like a new gospel 
 to the knowledge of the people, a gospel which had certainly 
 hardly anything in common with that of Christ. This 
 antagonism to the prevailing contemporary theological modes 
 of thought was the reason that " Spinozist " came to be 
 regarded as a term of reproach, and synonymous with atheist, 
 naturalist, and similar terms. It is owing to the attitude thus 
 taken up that a just estimate and a scientific appreciation of 
 Spinoza's thoughts only date from the efforts of Jakobi and 
 Less ing. 
 
 In Holland, Jacob Verschoor (f 1700) 3 of Flushing, after 
 having been refused entrance into the office of the ministry, 
 
 1 We may name two of them, Velthuysen and Wittich (Lambert Velthuysen, 
 Tractatus de cultu natural! et origine moralitatis, etc., Roterod. 1680 ; Chris- 
 toph Wittich, Anti-Spinoza, Amst. 1680). 
 
 2 Histoire critique du Vieux Testament, Paris 1680. 
 
 3 Compare H. Heppe, Geschichte des Pictismus und der Mystik in der 
 reformirten Kirche, p. 375 ff., 1879. 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 437 
 
 gathered a number of adherents around him from 1680. 
 His main doctrines are as follow. All that happens takes 
 place according to unalterable fate and by necessity. God 
 Himself is not free, for His will is necessarily determined by 
 the nature of His essence. There is no distinction between 
 good and evil : and hence man is not obliged to improve his 
 mode of conduct. God is not angry at sin, because His 
 honour is not violated by it. Hence Christ by His death has 
 not made satisfaction to the justice of God, but only shown 
 that God willingly forgives sin. After Christ's death, those 
 ordained to blessedness no longer commit sins of their own ; 
 but any one who believes that he has sinned shows only his 
 unbelief thereby. The true belief and the true conversion 
 consist in the man who believes he is a sinner returning from 
 this conceit, attaining an immoveable confidence in the forgive- 
 ness of sin that is guaranteed since Christ's death, and con- 
 sequently being comforted with the sense of his salvation. 
 In Germany, Matthias Knutzen, 1 the head of the sect called 
 " the Consciences " (Gewissener), appears unquestionably to 
 have followed the principles of Spinoza's Tractatus theologico- 
 politicus. Born at Oldensworth in 1646, where he early lost 
 his parents and was then brought to an uncle in Konigsberg, 
 from whom he ran away twice, Knutzen continued for a time 
 to lead the adventurous life of a wandering scholar. We find 
 him at one time acting as a tutor, at another prosecuting his 
 studies at a university, and again roaming aimlessly about 
 and begging for the means of support, but everywhere raising 
 subtle questions regarding philosophy and theology. When 
 he made his occasional attempts at preaching the means 
 of violently attacking the worldly disposition, ambition, and 
 greed of the preachers of the time, the authorities made 
 
 1 Compare Johann Musseus, Ableinung der ausgesprengten abscheulichen 
 Verlaumdung, als ware in der ftirst. Sachs. Residentz und gesammte Univer- 
 sitat Jena erne neue Sekte der sogenannten Gewissener entstanden, etc., Jena 
 1674. Knutzen's Chartaquen are appended to the second edition (1. Gesprach 
 zwischen einem Gastwirth und dreien ungleichen Religionsgasten zu Altona ; 
 2. Gesprach zwischen einem Feldprediger, Namens Dr. Heinrich Brummer und 
 eiuein Musterschreiber ; 3. Ein lateinischer Brief). 
 
438 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 inquiry into the origin of his title as master and licentiate. 
 Knutzen escaped by flight from the discovery of his decep- 
 tion, and in the autumn of 1674 he came to Jena, where he 
 circulated several tractates, after which his sect, called " the 
 Consciences" numbered adherents in all the great cities, there 
 being seven hundred in Jena alone. Knutzen afterwards 
 appeared in Altdorf, and later again in Jena, and thereafter 
 he disappeared without leaving a trace of himself behind. 
 
 Knutzen's doctrine, however, is not to be regarded as much 
 more than a freak ; it is of some importance as an opposition 
 to the rigid orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, but insuffi- 
 cient as a starting-point for any vital reform. He represents 
 the Bible as being wrongly referred to divine inspiration, for 
 it contains the greatest contradictions (e.g. 1 Kings vii. 26 
 and 2 Chron. iv. 5). In respect of its form, it is wholly 
 confused and without order, having neither grace nor colour 
 in its expression, while assertions that are quite silly may be 
 proved from it, e.g. that there are dragons and four-footed 
 beasts in heaven. In short, the ambiguity and indefiniteness 
 of the expressions of the Bible show that this book cannot 
 possibly be regarded as a source of higher knowledge and of 
 correct moral principles. Hence to us who are " conscience- 
 sure," the knowledge, not of one, but of many is available ; 
 this is common science or conscience (scientia, conscientia, 
 coujunctim accepta). This conscience, which the good mother 
 has implanted equally in all, is, says Knutzen, our Bible ; and 
 with us it takes the place both of the secular government and 
 the clergy. If we have done evil, it is more to us than a 
 thousand tortures, whereas it is heaven when we have done 
 good. From it follows the supreme principle of the sect : Live 
 justly and honestly, and give every one his due. Hence 
 there follow these further consequences : (1) There is no 
 God; (2) there is no devil, for according to Luke viii. 33 the 
 devil has been drowned; (3) governments and preachers are 
 useless, and must be got rid of, for Conscience is the only 
 legislative and judicial power; (4) marriage is not a morally 
 necessary institution, and there is no difference between 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 439 
 
 marriage and fornication ; (5) there is only this earthly life ; 
 with death all is past. 
 
 Among the extremest Spinozists is commonly reckoned 
 Friederich Wilhelm Stosch or Stossius. His Concordia 
 rationi's et fidei sive Harmonia philosophies moralis et 
 religionis Christiana (Amstelodami 1691) gave great offence, 
 and was suppressed by the employment of harsh measures. 
 The offence is easily understood. It is not only declared that 
 all that is taught in the Scriptures, as in the history of 
 angels and demons, is to be regarded as dreams and visions, 
 phantasies and morbid conditions, inventions and deceptions. 
 It is openly declared that the soul is not a separate substance, 
 but only consists of a peculiar fermentation of the blood and 
 of the secretions, and that the thinking mind consists in the 
 brain and its organs, which are variously modified by the 
 inflow and circulation of a fine matter. The distinction 
 between good and evil appears as a merely relative one, and 
 at the most it is conformed to the utility of man. The 
 supposed freedom is mere deception, and the assumption of a 
 future life is entirely groundless. The Christian religion only 
 prescribes the law of nature. These expressions do not show 
 a very close connection with Spinoza, and this is even less so 
 in regard to the conception of God that is set up. God is 
 indeed represented as unica et sola substantial,, and as infinitum, 
 cogitans, et extensum; yet He commonly appears as the creator 
 and first mover of the world. Nevertheless, numerous refer- 
 ences point to the influence of Spinoza, and reference to the 
 work is accordingly in place here. 
 
 Johann Christian Edelmann (1698-1'76 I 7) * was an enthu- 
 siastic adherent of Spinozism, in decided opposition to the 
 
 1 With regard to the development of Edelmann we refer to his Autobiography, 
 edited by C. R. W. Close (Berlin 1849), and to his Unschuldige Wahrheiten 
 (after 1735). For a knowledge of the last phase of his doctrines, the following 
 works require to be considered : Moses mit aufgedecktem Angesichte, von zwei 
 imgleichen Briidern, Lichtlieb uud Blindling beschauet, etc., 1740; Abge- 
 nbthigtes, jedoch Anderen nicht wieder aufgenbthigtes Glaubensbekenntniss, 
 1746. Cf. also Pratje, Historische Nachrichten von Joh. Chr. Edelmann's 
 Leben, Schriften und Lehrbegriff, 2 Auf. Hamburg 1755. Bruno Bauer, Ein- 
 fluss des Englischen Quakerthums auf die deutsche Cultur und auf das englisch- 
 russische Projekt einer Weltkirche, Berlin 1878. 
 
440 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 then generally accepted Leibniz - Wolffian philosophy. But 
 he was too obscure and confused to exercise a permanent 
 influence, and the age was so averse to such views that 
 Edelmann was compelled to move restlessly from one place 
 to another in search of protection and a safe residence. The 
 sale of his Moses, which was planned for twelve " views," was 
 prohibited, after the appearance of the first three, by the 
 imperial fiscal, and his writings were burned by the public 
 executioner in Hamburg and other places. Trained in Jena, 
 especially under the theologian Buddeus, who was a bitter 
 opponent of Wolff, Edelmann was at first filled with a "just 
 aversion for the so-called orthodoxy " by Arnold's Impartial 
 History of the Church and of Heretics, and was inclined " the 
 longer the more to the side of the Pietists." After a closer 
 connection with Zinzendorf had broken down, and the zealous 
 reading of the writings of Dippel had carried him further in 
 the views of the Pietists, Edelmann went, in 1736, to 
 Berleburg, where he laboured on the Berleburg translation 
 of the Bible, and found protection for several years. But the 
 English Deists always gained more influence upon his mode of 
 thinking, and the more that Pietism degenerated into fanaticism 
 and effeminate sentimentalism. In consequence, Edelmann 
 withdrew himself the more from it, especially after his meeting 
 with the celebrated new prophet, Johann Friederich Eock, in 
 1*737. He then wrote against his former associates a tractate 
 with the title, " Blows upon the fools' back," etc. 
 
 He had stumbled accidentally on the proposition of 
 Spinoza, " Deum esseritiam rerum immanentem, non transeun- 
 tem statuo," that is, God is the essence of things in such a way 
 that He is permanently in the most inward presence with 
 them, and is not absent or separated from them. To Edelmann 
 this proposition appeared so conformable to the majesty of 
 God, that he could not conceive how Spinoza could be regarded 
 as an atheist, and he became desirous to know his writings 
 more exactly. On the 24th June 1740, he obtained the 
 wished-for books, and turned himself at once to the Tractatus 
 thcologico-politicus. On the 1st November 1740, he already 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 441 
 
 wrote the preface to the first part of his Moses with unveiled 
 face. This title indicates the unprejudiced examination of the 
 Scriptures, for " to lift the curtain drawn by Moses " means 
 to take away from revelation its unfounded authority. Thus 
 Edelmann says : " I propose to peep under the veil of this 
 famous leader of the Jews, and to give twelve views in succes- 
 sion somewhat more exactly than has been hitherto done." 
 The first " view " or section was to show that we have in our 
 time as little remaining of the true writings of Moses as we 
 have of his natural dead body. With skill and some knowledge 
 of the subject, he proceeds to show that the Bible itself tells of 
 lost parts and narratives, and that Ezra had made an entirely 
 new Bible. But from the fact that the Bible is not unmuti- 
 lated, it is not to be inferred that the truths it contains are not 
 inspired by God. All truth is inspired by God, whether it 
 stands in Ovid or the Bible ; for there is only one Spirit of 
 truth, who communicates of His gifts to every one. " On the 
 other hand, Master Stockfinster (Block-window) arid his official 
 brethren pretend that the Holy Spirit has dictated all the 
 words of Scripture to the pens of the Biblical scribes, as the 
 schoolmaster at Rumpelskirchen does to the peasant lads whom 
 he is training to be learned Jackanapes, so that, under fear of 
 punishment, they could not have written a single false word in 
 the Bible ; but such men must know little of the spirit of the 
 living God, and they ought therefore to be justly ashamed of 
 lying so shamelessly before people who are better acquainted 
 with this great Being," etc. The word of the living God is not 
 without us, but is nigh to us in our mouth and heart. In so 
 far as the Bible contains truths, it is a token that the spirit of 
 the living God has formerly spoken to men, but it is only fit 
 for fools and unthinking beasts to suppose that it has now 
 crept out of us into the dead letter. What does not run 
 counter to the perfection of God and the nature of things, 
 is truth. It is similar with the Creeds. "The Bible is a 
 collection of old writings, the authors of which have written 
 according to the measure of their knowledge of God and of 
 divine things ; " and hence it is neither the only nor the chief 
 
442 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 source of our knowledge of God ; for the God who entered in 
 earlier times into such confidential intercourse with men, and 
 who wills that all come to the knowledge of the truth, cannot 
 possibly speak to us merely through foreign and entirely 
 unknown languages, or through a multitude of ignorant and 
 divided interpreters. Kather does God speak so distinctly in 
 the conscience of all, that we can know quite infallibly, at 
 all times and in all places, whether we do right or wrong. 
 
 The second " view " presents the doctrine of God and His 
 relation to the world. It is entirely the doctrine of Spinoza 
 which Edelmann expresses here and elsewhere ; and he also 
 takes up the writings of his spiritual associate Knutzen. He 
 cannot understand how Spinoza can have been stamped as 
 an atheist. " For he expressly makes God the cause of all 
 things, not in the way that an artist produces a work and 
 then afterwards goes away from it and leaves it to the 
 management of others ; but, as he distinctly confesses, God has 
 produced His works in such a way that He continues always 
 essentially present in all things, and by His very existence 
 causes it to be' that they are what they are. Wherefore 
 Spinoza rightly calls God the being and essence of all things, 
 and our present godless and stupid Christianity could not 
 have better betrayed itself than by its representatives agreeing 
 to make this man an atheist." " We are the brooks, God is 
 the spring. We are the rays, He is the sun. We are the 
 shadows, He is the substance." As the sun, by the effusion 
 of its rays, makes the day, but the day could not be without 
 the existence of the sun ; so does the permanent life of our 
 God make creatures without intermission, but so that they 
 could not continue without His enduring essence and existence. 
 Yet just as the sun and the day are different, so are God and 
 the creature. " Matter is nothing but the shadow of the great 
 Substance of our God." But as the substance of the shadow 
 continually emanates from the being and substance of the 
 body without our yet being made into what is thus but 
 shadowy, so God does not become a material thing by the fact 
 that the substance of matter continually streams and emanates 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 443 
 
 from His incomparable essence. God is the all, yet not as 
 that which is subject to inconstancy and transitoriness ; He is 
 that which gives and maintains the being and essence of all 
 things. As no one denies that something exists, there are no 
 atheists. God has understanding and will, but only in so far 
 as these are found in the creature. God and the world are 
 eternally identical. The creatures are modifications of God, 
 and in particular the soul is a ray from God and is therefore 
 immortal with Him. There are no supernatural things or 
 miracles, otherwise we would have to assume, either that 
 there is another being besides God, or that the one God is 
 changeable. 
 
 The third " view " is turned against the Leibniz- Wolffian 
 philosophy, with its assertion of a contingent best world among 
 all possible worlds. " A philosophy which does not guide man 
 as to how he may again attain to the forfeited identity with 
 God, but only flatters Him with empty titles, and pretends to 
 him that he lives already in the best world, is a frivolous 
 deception, which it is not worth a rational man lending his 
 ear to." It is the greatest " Philomory " or Love of folly that 
 has ever been ; and they who follow it are poor, bewitched, 
 and deluded people. 
 
 So far the Moses. We may add some further points from his 
 other writings. " Nothing has been given to me as the rule of 
 my faith and life but my reason ; I must judge everything in 
 the world by it, and even the Bible, if I arn to draw any 
 advantage from it. I am otherwise worse than a beast, which 
 cannot be compelled by anything in the world to believe that 
 it is eating oats when it gets chopped straw." Along with 
 reason and nature, internal feeling also appears as a source of 
 our knowledge, for what I feel inwardly cannot possibly be 
 otherwise than I feel it. Of the positive revelation of God by 
 prophets, it holds true that God cannot speak otherwise to a 
 man than in accordance with the ideas which his heart is 
 capable of forming regarding Him at the time ; for otherwise 
 our words would not agree with our thoughts, and God would 
 speak otherwise to us than as He appears to us, which is con- 
 
444 DESCARTES AND SPINOZA. 
 
 trary to the immutable truth of God. Our idea certainly never 
 reaches the true conception of God ; for all that men upon the 
 earth can ever think, speak, or write of this great Being is but 
 a fragment. Hence we may indeed mutually explain to each 
 other our views of God, but may never compel any one to accept 
 them without investigation as infallible. For the same reason, 
 we ought not to seek the knowledge of God from other men, 
 but to open the eyes of the soul, and attend to the testimony 
 deposited in our heart and conscience ; we ought thus to see 
 how God manifests Himself in all nature, or in ourselves and 
 in other things. God has not given a positive law ; this would 
 not be worthy of God's majesty, and it would be inconceivable 
 by us and therefore useless. The law of nature binds us, and 
 the practice of it is true religion. Obedience to the voice of 
 God in the conscience produces a true heaven, and disobedience 
 to it produces an inexpressible hell. As the Spirit continues 
 to exist, this heaven and this hell last beyond the grave. 
 Christ was a true man as we are : like to us in all respects, but 
 equipped with exceptional gifts and virtues. It is only on 
 account of this excellence that He is called " Son of God." 
 Christ did not wish to found a new religion, or any external 
 religious ceremonies, but to show the nugatoriness of external 
 religion and the foolishness of hatred on account of a difference 
 of religious opinion. He thus intended to abolish all religious 
 wranglings, to restore universal love, and to guide men to the 
 worship of God in spirit and in truth. Like all other positive 
 religions, Christianity is also a superstition. The Trinity has 
 been constructed out of the fables of the heathen and the 
 Jews. The doctrine of the fall of the first man, of original 
 sin, and of the darkening of reason, is but vain falsehood. 
 There are no devils or angels. The Christian " doctrines " of 
 the order of grace and the operations of grace, are partly fable 
 and partly deception. As the world is eternal, the doctrines 
 of the second coming, of a day of judgment, and such theories 
 are absurd. Marriage cannot subsist along with true moral 
 discipline and chastity. Christ is called Saviour and Eedeemer 
 " because He sought to redeem those who could understand and 
 
OPPONENTS AND ADHERENTS OF SPINOZA. 445 
 
 grasp His doctrines, from the yoke of their oppressors who 
 fattened on their sins." " And this, His inestimable merit, 
 I do in no way deny, but I turn it in such a way to account 
 that all those who tell me the opposite of God, and who 
 undertake to charm one of His own creatures into an offen- 
 sive and pernicious idol, are confidently regarded by me as 
 ignorant ninnies, and notwithstanding their obstinate ortho- 
 doxy, as antichristian belly - slaves, and as anything but 
 servants of my Jesus." " Christ has not merely risen in the 
 spirit, but He also comes again daily in many thousands of 
 His witnesses to judge the living and the dead. The judgment 
 begins in the case of every man when he begins to know God." 
 "What ignorant priests have hitherto dreamed about their 
 so-called devils, to terrify the rabble, are most absurd and most 
 irrational lies." And these things have been invented to the 
 detraction of the Creator. 
 
SECTION SEVENTH. 
 
 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 Eighteenth Century is designated by the French, by 
 preference, as the philosophical century. We do not 
 indeed owe independent thoughts or any permanent furtherance 
 of speculation to that age, yet philosophy then controlled the 
 interests of all circles in France as it has never done before or 
 since. From another point of view, it is common to designate 
 the philosophical movement of France as materialism. This 
 is correct enough if the designation is used to indicate the 
 general character of the spirit that dominated the century, but 
 it is wrong if it means to assert the complete homogeneity of 
 all the phenomena that then appeared. For, more exactly 
 regarded, there are four different currents of philosophical 
 thinking that may be distinguished in successive periods as 
 well as by distinct facts. 1. In the first place, we have 
 Scepticism as represented by Bayle. 2. Then comes the 
 Deism that was grounded on Newton's Natural Philosophy 
 and proclaimed by Voltaire. 3. Next, we have the Material- 
 ism of De la Mettrie and others. 4. And, lastly, we have 
 the Eeaction against it that was grounded on immediate 
 Feeling as represented by Jean Jacques Rousseau. 1 
 
 I. 
 
 SCEPTICISM. PIERRE BAYLE. 
 
 Scepticism seems to be the form of philosophical activity 
 that corresponds to the character of the French people. In 
 
 1 In connection with this Section, compare Hettner, Literaturgesehichte des 
 18 Jahr. ii. 1860; and F. A. Lange, Geschichte des Materialisraus, 3rd ed. 
 1876. Noack, ut supra. 
 
SCEPTICISM. PIERRE BAYLE. 44? 
 
 the period of the transition from the ancient to the modern 
 world, it is in France that we specially meet with the renova- 
 tion of Sceptical thoughts ; and even yet, all who have won an 
 enduring place among the French in the History of Philosophy 
 are inclined to this tendency. At first, however, the French 
 thinkers employed their Scepticism in order to bring men to 
 accept revelation as the only certain truth. Frangais de la 
 Mothe le Yayer (15881672) regards all knowledge as 
 uncertain, because neither the perceptions of sense nor the 
 axiomatic principles are free from deceptions. Hence the 
 greatest happiness of our mind consists in an immoveable rest 
 in theoretical questions and in moderation in practical matters. 
 This conviction is likewise pre-eminently fitted to prepare us 
 for the reception of religion. Since we cannot rely upon the 
 Sciences, we are inclined to submit ourselves of our freewill 
 to the divine revelation, and in this consists the meritoriousness 
 of faith. Pierre Daniel Huet (1630-1721), in like manner, 
 on account of the uncertainty of knowledge, sees the only 
 acceptable philosophy in Pyrrhonism. The insight that we 
 know nothing, is the best preparation for the faith by which 
 we receive the truth that God Himself communicates to us. 
 Saint Evremont (1613-1703) turns himself against the 
 doctrines of positive religion. Full of wit and satire, he 
 combats the dogmas and the ambition of the Catholic Church, 
 yet acknowledges that Christianity is the purest and most 
 perfect religion, because it preaches the purest and most 
 perfect morality. 
 
 Pierre Bayle (1647-1706) was the most important of the 
 Sceptics of his time. He is not, like the earlier sceptics, 
 sceptical as a philosopher ; as a philosopher he is essentially 
 an adherent of Descartes. Bayle is a sceptic of his own 
 kind, and of a peculiar mental tendency. He is fond of 
 pointing everywhere to difficulties, and of bringing forward 
 contradictions ; yet his object is not to solve them, but to 
 persist in an unsatisfying ignorance, and, in spite of all his 
 acuteness and his astonishing knowledge, he stops everywhere 
 without reaching fixed results. Nor does he employ his 
 
448 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 scepticism in order to bring men from the ignorance of natural 
 knowledge to the irrefragably certain truth of the divine 
 revelation : rather is his sceptical thought especially directed 
 upon revelation. Bayle points out again and again that the 
 doctrines of our faith are incompatible with the knowledge of 
 our reason, although always with the assurance that revelation 
 claims to be believed. 1 
 
 The most difficult problem, according to Bayle, is the 
 repeatedly discussed question : How is the belief in an 
 almighty and all-good God compatible with the fact of evil ? 
 On the side of Eeason, the often repeated result is that the 
 acceptance of two divine beings, one good and one evil, gives 
 a better explanation of the actual relations of the world ; but 
 Eevelation, which is undoubtedly certain, teaches the existence 
 of only one divine Being. If we start from the conception of 
 God, Eeason leads us a priori to the acceptance of only one 
 God, but it is otherwise if we would explain the facts presented 
 in experience. Man is undeniably burdened with a multitude 
 of physical evils; arid this suffering is completely inconceivable 
 if we assume only one God, who is at the same time all- 
 powerful and all -good. But if we regard physical evil as a 
 consequence of moral evil, the question then arises, whence 
 comes moral evil ? To say that God has permitted it, but not 
 caused it, is a mere empty play of words ; for, seen in the 
 light, such permitting is nothing else than effecting, as it is 
 only by the entering of a definite efficient cause that a definite 
 reality can arise out of a multitude of possibilities. God also 
 foresaw the danger of sin in any case ; and if He did not avert 
 it, He acted as wrongly as a mother would who might allow 
 her daughters to go to a dangerous dance. It is also an 
 untenable evasion to say that God would have injured human 
 freedom by fixing man in the doing of what was good; and the 
 
 1 Besides the Dictionnaire, the following of Bayle's writings are taken specially 
 into account here : Commentaire philosophique sur ces paroles de Jesus-Christ, 
 Contrain-les d'entrer, ou Traite" de la tolerance Universelle, ed. ii., Rotter- 
 dam 1713. Re'ponse aux questions d'un Provincial, Rotterd. 1704. Regarding 
 Bayle, see Ludwig Feuerbach, Pierre Bayle, 2 Ausg. 1844. Jeanmaire, Essai 
 sur la Critique religieuse de Pierre Bayle, Strassbourg 1862. 
 
SCEPTICISM. PIERRE BAYLE. 449 
 
 Church universally teaches that the angels and the saints 
 cannot sin, and that God's grace co-operates in the regenerate 
 without denying freedom in any of these. The assertion is 
 also false, that the good is only known from contrast with the 
 bad, and that it can only be borne mixed up with it ; as is 
 also the pretence that evil exists in order that the wisdom of 
 God may shine forth the more. This latter position would be 
 just the same as if the head of a household were to break the 
 legs of all the members of the house in order to exhibit to 
 them his healing art. In short, to our reason, the evil that 
 actually exists is inconceivable if we accept only one God 
 with perfect power and perfect goodness. If we maintain the 
 unity of God, we must think of either His power or goodness 
 as limited. On the other hand, the mixture of good and evil in 
 nature as well as in the actions of men is very simply explained 
 if we regard the world as the work of two powers, one good 
 and one evil, and that they have concluded a compact with 
 each other as to how far the influence of each should extend. 
 
 The same contradiction between knowledge and faith is 
 shown by Bayle in other points. In science, it holds as an 
 incontrovertible truth that two things that are not different 
 from a third thing are equal to one another ; but the dogma of 
 the Trinity subverts this proposition. It is an undeniable 
 truth of reason that the union of a human and a rational soul 
 constitutes a person ; but the dogma of the Incarnation contra- 
 dicts this truth. In our natural knowledge, the principle 
 holds good that no body can be in more places than one at the 
 same time ; but the dogma of the Lord's Supper teaches the 
 opposite, so that we do not know whether we are not at this 
 moment in the most different places. The same opposition of 
 Eeason and Revelation is shown in the sphere of morals. 
 Among the Christian nations, the moral requirements of 
 religion do not at all prevail ; on the contrary, the law of 
 honour, regard to public opinion, selfishness, and similar 
 principles determine our conduct. Nay, while many men 
 accused of atheism deserve all recognition on account of their 
 strict morality, there are some of the persons in the Bible that 
 
 VOL. i. 2 F 
 
450 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 are held up to us as models who were guilty of the gravest 
 moral offences. Moral philosophy teaches that it is a sin not 
 to prevent an evil deed if we can ; dogmatic theology makes 
 it no objection to God that He did not prevent sin. Moral 
 philosophy teaches that no one is guilty of an action that - took 
 place before he existed ; dogmatic theology makes us all 
 sharers in the guilt of Adam's fall. In order to bring out the 
 opposition between faith and knowledge in the greatest possible 
 sharpness, Bayle sums up the principal contents of theology 
 in seven propositions, and sets over against them nineteen 
 philosophical propositions indicating their incompatibility by 
 the antithetical form in which they are presented. 
 
 Theology and Philosophy are thus as contrary to each other 
 as day and night. It is impossible to combine them either by 
 the distinction of a double truth or by the evasion that the 
 doctrines of the faith are not contrary to reason, but only above 
 reason. There is nothing left, then, but to choose between 
 the two, and either to follow natural reason or supernatural 
 revelation. On this point Bayle generally expresses himself 
 as if he regarded the choice as in no way doubtful. He says 
 that a true Christian can only make himself merry about the 
 subtleties of philosophy; for faith raises him far above the 
 regions in which the storms of controversy rage. In matters 
 of religion we ought therefore not to enter at all upon 
 principles of reason, but simply to believe ; the more the 
 object of faith transcends the natural powers of our mind, so 
 much the more meritorious it is to believe. Philosophy is 
 never able to lead us to the truth ; revelation alone can do 
 this. This revelation is contained in the Scriptures, which 
 have been verbally inspired by God, and hence they are to be 
 respected as the infallible source of truth. 
 
 It appears to me, however, to be extremely improbable that 
 this was Bayle's real opinion. In the first place, as has been 
 said, he did not proceed in his scepticism as a philosopher ; 
 he despairs of our natural knowledge, less on account of the 
 untrustworthiness of its foundations, than because its clearest 
 propositions are subverted by the definite dogmas of faith. 
 
SCEPTICISM. PIERRE BAYLE. 451 
 
 Again, he shows how to trace out all the instances which 
 speak against a dogma, with an acuteness that can only 
 proceed from the interest of personal conviction. And above 
 all, he expresses himself quite otherwise in the beginning of 
 his Commentaire Philosophique. In the first chapter of this 
 work, Bayle undertakes to show generally that the light of 
 nature, or the universal principles of our conscience, are the 
 first rules of all interpretation of Scripture, and especially in 
 matters of morality. It is true that he protests against the 
 view of the Socinians, who interpret the Scriptures only by the 
 light of nature and the principles of metaphysics, and who 
 reject everything that does not agree therewith, such as the 
 Trinity and the Incarnation. But he holds that there are 
 certain axioms which one cannot repudiate, such as that the 
 whole is greater than its part, that if equals be taken from 
 equals the remainders are equal, that two contradictories 
 cannot possibly be true at the same time, or that the essence 
 of a thing cannot subsist after its destruction. Although the 
 opposites of these propositions were to be found a hundred 
 times in Scripture, or were seen to be confirmed by a thousand 
 miracles, they would not be believed ; but it would rather 
 be supposed that the Scriptures spoke metaphorically and 
 ironically, or that the miracles were performed by a demon, 
 than it could be believed that the natural light erred in these 
 principles. Above all in moral questions, reason has the 
 same importance. All moral laws are subject to the natural 
 idea of equity as it is inborn in all men, so far of course as 
 that idea is not darkened by regard to personal advantage and 
 the customs of the country. Adam had certainly the con- 
 sciousness of good before God spake to him ; and after the 
 fall this inner light was necessary as a criterion in order to 
 distinguish the divine revelation from devilish suggestions. 
 All dreams and visions, as well as all appearances of angels 
 and miracles, must be tested by the natural light. So it is 
 with the Law of Moses, for it is only on account of its agree- 
 ment with the natural law that it could be recognised as a 
 positive law. As in geometry a proportion that has been 
 
452 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 proved from unquestionable principles becomes a principle in 
 regard to other propositions, so in like manner the positive 
 law when it was once verified by the natural light could also 
 hold as a rule. Hence before Moses revelation could only be 
 tested by the natural light, but after Moses by the natural 
 light and the positive law. The two must necessarily agree, 
 as they both come from God, who cannot contradict Himself. 
 The gospel is also a rule which is verified by the clearest 
 and distinctest ideas of the natural reason, and it therefore 
 deserves to be accepted as a rule and criterion of truth. At 
 the first glance it appears, indeed, as if many laws of the 
 natural reason were contrary to the gospel, such as the 
 right to defend ourselves when- we are attacked, or to take 
 vengeance on an enemy, etc. In truth, however, it is only 
 our natural judgment that is corrupted by self-love and bad 
 habit, whereas Christ lays down for us the true laws of 
 reason, which we must approve on earnest examination. 
 
 Regarding the essential nature of Religion, Bayle expresses 
 himself in the following way. By the clearest and distinctest 
 ideas we are conscious that an absolutely perfect being exists, 
 who governs all things and is to be worshipped by men, and 
 who rewards some actions and punishes others. In like 
 manner we are conscious that the essential worship of God 
 consists of inward actions or in acts of the spirit. Hence 
 it follows that the essence of Religion consists in the judgments 
 which our mind forms regarding God, and in the affections of 
 reverence, fear, and love which our will feels towards Him, so 
 that a man, when alone, can thus without any external action 
 satisfy his duty to God. Commonly, however, the internal 
 condition of the mind, in which religion consists, expresses 
 itself in external signs of reverence ; but without the internal 
 sentiment, such external actions have no greater value than if 
 a complement were made to a statue in consequence of a gust 
 of wind. Briefly, then, religion is a specific conviction of the 
 soul, which brings forth in the will the love, reverence, and 
 fear that are due to the Supreme Being, and the external 
 actions corresponding to them. 
 
DEISM. VOLTAIRE. 453 
 
 An immediate consequence of these positions is the prin- 
 ciple of Toleration. The one right way of evoking religion 
 can only be by calling forth certain judgments and feelings in 
 the soul. By forcible external measures the external actions 
 in question may indeed be constrained, but the proper senti- 
 ments cannot be effectuated. Hence it is not possible to take 
 the words of Jesus literally when He says, " compel them to 
 come in" (Luke xiv. 23). Instead of persecuting those who 
 confess other religions, as is often done in the most cruel way, 
 we ought to practise unlimited toleration towards all. This 
 is not to be done as if all religions were true, but because no 
 one but God has a right to control the conscience. Even 
 an erring conscience has the right to demand liberty and 
 unlimited toleration. History also shows that religious in- 
 tolerance has had the most dreadful consequences, whereas the 
 State has been found to flourish under the peaceful toleration 
 of different religions. 
 
 II. 
 
 DEISM. VOLTAIRE. 
 
 The Spiritual development of France in the Eighteenth 
 Century was influenced by nothing more powerfully than by 
 the increasing acquaintance with England. Buckle asserts in 
 his History of Civilisation in England, that at the end of the 
 Seventeenth Century there were hardly five persons in France 
 who understood the English language ; whereas, during the 
 two generations between the death of Louis XIV. and the 
 outbreak of the Eevolution, there was scarcely a Frenchman 
 of distinction who did not visit England, or at least learn 
 English. In England at that time, however, Deism prevailed 
 as the result of the impulse that proceeded from Newton and 
 Locke, and this deism was forthwith transplanted also to 
 France. 
 
 Pierre Louis de Maupertuis (1699-1759) first represented 
 Newton's Natural Philosophy in opposition to that of Descartes. 
 
454 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 He also drew from it its logical consequences as regards 
 religion and morals. In his Essai de cosmologie, Maupertuis 
 turns himself against those who employ the doctrine of final 
 causes to prove the existence and the wisdom of God from the 
 most unimportant trivialities, such as the folds in the skin of 
 the rhinoceros, as well as against those who deny all final 
 causes and regard the world as a mere mechanism. He seeks 
 the Supreme Being in the primary laws which He has given 
 to nature. The motion of the material world must have a 
 mover as its cause, and this mover must be almighty and all- 
 wise, because the scientific examination of nature shows that, 
 in the economy of nature, only the least possible expenditure 
 of means is applied for every end. In his Essai de la 
 philosophic morale, Maupertuis finds the wisdom of life in the 
 attainment of happiness, and happiness in the practice of the 
 love of God and our neighbour, as required by Christianity. 
 
 Voltaire (1694-1778), during a long life, by his poetry 
 and prose, and with earnestness and caustic wit, naturalized 
 the philosophical and theological views of the English Deism 
 in France. Poor in thoughts of his own, he gained by the 
 power of his words the widest influence upon his con- 
 temporaries ; and he has thus been justly designated by his 
 great countryman Comte as the founder of the profession 
 of the Journalist. Voltaire himself summed up his religious 
 convictions by saying, " we condemn Atheism, we abhor 
 Superstition, we love God and the human race, this in a few 
 words is our creed." The several members of this confession 
 may serve as a guide in the following exposition of Voltaire's 
 views. 
 
 1. Voltaire is still regarded by some as an Atheist, and yet 
 he has very decidedly repudiated atheism and repeatedly 
 asserted the existence of God. The attempt has been fre- 
 quently made to weaken Voltaire's argumentation for the 
 existence of God by the assertion that it was not meant in 
 earnest, but was only occasioned by regard to the utility or 
 indispensableness of a belief in God for the order of the 
 political and social life. His moral argument appears indeed 
 
DEISM. VOLTAIRE, 455 
 
 to support this assertion. Bayle had asserted that a State 
 composed of Atheists might exist, and Voltaire admits this in 
 the case of philosophers ; but adds that if Bayle had to govern 
 even but five or six hundred peasants, he would forthwith 
 preach to them a God who rewards and punishes actions, 
 because a retributive God is absolutely indispensable for the 
 common weal. Without such a God we would be without 
 hope in our misery and without remorse in vice. 
 
 " The sacred truth goes still beyond man's highest thought, 
 Yet forms the bond of States, and guides to what we ought ; 
 It chains the evil-doer, but lifts the righteous head," etc. 
 
 In connection with such expressions the well-known saying 
 of Voltaire is especially noteworthy, that if God did not exist 
 it would be necessary to invent Him (si Dieu n'existait pas, il 
 faudrait 1'inventer). This has been interpreted as if Voltaire 
 regarded a belief in the existence of God as necessary indeed 
 from practical considerations, but was himself not convinced of 
 it. Yet he has immediately added to these words, " mais toute 
 la nature nous crie, qu'il existe ; " and Voltaire is so firmly 
 convinced of the existence of God from reasons of the under- 
 standing, that he declares it is only such as have lost all sound 
 human judgment who can suppose that mere matter is suffi- 
 cient to produce sentient and thinking beings. Of the arguments 
 then current for the existence of God, Voltaire rejects the 
 aryumentum e consensu gentium, because he denies the univer- 
 sality of the idea of God. He, however, repeatedly brings 
 forward the Cosmological Argument : I am, therefore there is 
 existence. What is, is either of itself or from another. If 
 anything exists of itself, it is necessary and eternal, and there- 
 fore God exists. Does anything exist through another, then 
 this other thing exists by a third thing, and so on, until we 
 come to God. If we will not accept a God as the ultimate 
 cause of all other existence, we have an endless screw, which 
 is an absurdity. But while this argument inevitably leads to 
 a being who exists of itself, and who is therefore eternal and 
 the ground of all things, it is equally unjustifiable on the 
 basis of this argument to assert the personality of God. 
 
456 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 Voltaire prefers the Teleological Argument. This argument 
 presupposes the existence of ends or design in nature. In 
 this connection Voltaire, indeed, with his biting satire blames 
 the way in which many physico-theologians endeavour to 
 prove the existence and the wisdom of God from the most 
 petty and often the most entirely mistaken relations of design 
 in nature ; but, in opposition to Spinoza, he represents the ends 
 and purposes of God in nature so decidedly, that he even 
 makes nature complain that she is called " Nature," when in 
 fact she is art. " If we see a beautiful machine, we infer 
 an intelligent and skilful constructor of it. And in view of 
 the wonderful world, will we set ourselves against the accept- 
 ance of a creative master of it ? " As it would be absurd in 
 the presence of a watch to deny the existence of a watchmaker, 
 so it would be ridiculous not to infer from the constitution 
 of the world a wise maker of it. This inference cannot be 
 invalidated even by evil, as Voltaire either simply denies its 
 existence, as in his early years, or exculpates God from it, as 
 after the catastrophe of Lisbon in 1755. 
 
 But although the existence of God is firmly established 
 according to Voltaire, he does not consider himself justified in 
 saying anything regarding the essential nature of God. Philo- 
 sophy is not able to say what God is, why He acts, whether 
 He is in time and in space, whether He has acted once for all, 
 or acts without intermission, and so on ; for in order to know 
 this, one would need to be God Himself. On account of evil, 
 Voltaire is inclined to think of God's goodness as infinite, but 
 His power as limited. His utterances regarding the nature of 
 the soul are undecided as to whether it is an independent 
 immaterial substance or not. And hence his utterances regard- 
 ing the future existence of the soul are also undecided. Such 
 a future existence is improbable on the principles of natural 
 science ; yet a belief in it is indispensable, not merely for the 
 moral conduct, but also for the inner needs of the heart. 
 
 2. " We abhor all Superstition." This is the second article 
 of Voltaire's creed. The struggle against Superstition formed 
 the work of Voltaire's whole life. Almost everything appeared 
 
DEISM. VOLTAIRE. 457 
 
 to him to be superstition which has ever been taught by a 
 positive religion, not merely the Eoman hierarchy, with its 
 meaningless institutions and its oppression of believers, but 
 also the most important dogmas of the Christian Church, as 
 the Trinity, the incarnation, and others. In his Epistle to 
 Urania he describes the God of the Church as a tyrant whom 
 we must hate. This God created men like Himself in order 
 to humiliate them the more; He has given us corrupt hearts, 
 that He might have the right to punish us. Seized by a 
 sudden fit of repentance, He makes the waves of the sea 
 destroy the work of His hands ; but instead of better men, He 
 only lets a race of horrid robbers, dishonourable slaves, and 
 cruel tyrants arise. Yet the same God who drowned the 
 fathers will die for the children. Among a most wretched 
 people, the byword of the other nations, God Himself becomes 
 rnan, undergoes the weaknesses of childhood, and after a 
 wretched life, suffers the punishment of a shameful death. 
 And yet His death is without avail ; even after He has shed 
 His blood to extinguish our misdeeds, He continues to punish 
 us for sins that we have never committed. Numberless 
 peoples have been lost simply because they have not known 
 that once on a time, on another side of the world, in a corner 
 of Syria, the son of a carpenter died on the cross. In this 
 picture I do not recognise the God whom I ought to worship. 
 God does not need our constant worship. If we can offend 
 Him, it is by doing injustice to men. He judges us by our 
 virtues, and not by our sacrifices. Jesus is represented as an 
 unknown individual from out of the dregs of the people ; he 
 was a man of energy and activity, and above all, of irreproach- 
 able morals, and he possessed the gift of winning adherents. 
 The morality preached by him was certainly good, but good 
 morality is always and everywhere the same. The miracles 
 ascribed to him may be partly later inventions and may partly 
 rest upon the deception by which Jesus sought to win the 
 superstitious people to his wholesome doctrine. Jesus was an 
 honest enthusiast and a good man ; he had only the weakness 
 of wishing to make himself spoken of, and he did not love 
 
458 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCtf. 
 
 the priests. It never came into his mind to found a new 
 religion. Jesus is used as the pretext of our fantastic doc- 
 trines and our religious persecutions, but he is not their author. 
 It was under the influence of the Alexandrian Platonism, and 
 with the help of a whole series of delusions and inventions, 
 that Christianity first arose as a distinct religion. The 
 disciples from being deceived became knaves ; they became 
 falsifiers, and maintained themselves by the most unworthy 
 frauds. The foundations of the Christian religion are nothing 
 but a web of the most commonplace deceptions that proceeded 
 from the most wretched of the canaille, of which alone the 
 adherents of Christianity consisted for centuries. At first they 
 attempted to carry on with the assertion that God had raised 
 Jesus from the dead. When this coarse piece of jugglery 
 succeeded, a sketch was drawn up of his legendary life, with 
 all its miracles. Writings after writings were invented, and, 
 in short, the first four centuries of Christianity form an unin- 
 terrupted succession of falsifications and pious frauds. The 
 whole history of the Christian Church shows us an increasing 
 series of aberrations of the human mind. The massacres and 
 slaughterings which Christian intolerance has exhibited in all 
 ages have cut off about ten millions of men. The doctrine 
 of the Church is distorted with abundance of the crassest 
 superstition which puts the civilised nations deep below the 
 savages. They have even given God a mother, a son, and a 
 supposititious father. It has been asserted that he died a 
 shameful death, and it has been taught that gods can be made 
 of meal and such like. Thus did Voltaire incessantly combat 
 the Christian Church with the terrible weapon of his irony, 
 because he saw in it only the bearer of superstition and fana- 
 ticism. It is to the Church that his well-known saying is to 
 be applied, " Ecrasez 1'infame." 
 
 3. If we now ask, What are the contents of the true reli- 
 gion of reason which the philosopher would put in the place 
 of the corrupt superstition of Christianity ? the answer does 
 not include much. The true religion contains nothing but 
 the general worship of God and love to the human race. The 
 
MATERIALISM AND SENSATIONALISM. 459 
 
 term " Christian," which has now come into general use, may 
 remain ; and if it cannot now be otherwise, God may be even 
 worshipped through means of the name of Jesus, but the 
 intolerable burden of unintelligent dogmas must be taken from 
 us. To worship God, the Supreme Being, as the cause of our 
 existence and the rewarder of our actions, and to love men, 
 this is the religion of philosophy. " Leave your monastic 
 prisons, leave your contradictory and useless mysteries of 
 faith, as but the objects of universal laughter. Preach God 
 and morality, and I will guarantee that there will be more 
 virtue and more happiness on the earth." 
 
 III. 
 
 MATERIALISM AND SENSATIONALISM. 
 
 Newton and Locke may be regarded as the intellectual 
 leaders of the English Deism. Their thoughts were adopted 
 without any essential change in France, and they gave rise to 
 views which were in the main identical with Deism. What 
 was peculiar in the way in which they were developed in 
 France arose from the conditions of the time. The leading 
 principle of Newton's Natural Philosophy is that motion 
 proceeding according to definite laws is known as an insepar- 
 able quality of bodies or matter. This principle does not 
 itself decide as to whether motion is communicated to the 
 material world by a higher power external to it, which is 
 God ; or whether it belongs to matter by nature, and there- 
 fore indwells in it from eternity. Newton asserted that 
 every moved body points to an immaterial being who has 
 given motion to matter. In England, this view was 
 universally accepted by the Deists with the single exception 
 of Toland, who, as we have seen, asserts that motion belongs 
 to matter by nature, and that thought is but corporeal motion. 
 In France, however, the view that motion is a quality 
 inseparable from matter found numerous adherents ; and 
 what Locke had only thrown out as a casual remark, that 
 
460 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 whoever asserts that God was not able to give matter the 
 capability of thinking would limit His omnipotence, was 
 accepted as an indisputable fact by the Trench materialism 
 and atheism. 
 
 Locke's theory of knowledge had put an end to the 
 assumption of innate ideas ; and the founding of all insight 
 upon sensation and reflection had called in question the 
 universal objective significance attributed in morals to the 
 conceptions of good and evil. The moral elements were 
 thus referred to the various individual sensations of pleasure 
 and pain. The English Deism followed Locke's doctrine, 
 only the attempt was made to restore to the moral conceptions 
 their objective and universal validity, and this was mostly 
 done by the assumption of 'an innate moral sense. With 
 regard to morals, the French materialism went back to Locke 
 himself; and as to the theory of knowledge, it developed his 
 Empiricism into Sensationalism. Etienne Bonnot de Condillac 
 (1715-80) considers it as the fundamental error of Locke 
 that he set up two different sources of knowledge in Sensation 
 and Eeflection, instead of recognising that our knowledge 
 rests only upon sensations or the immediate feelings of the 
 senses. Eeflection, instead of being an independent source of 
 knowledge, is only the channel through which ideas come 
 into our mind. In his Traitt des Sensations (1754), Condillac 
 describes, by reference to a gradually animated statue of a 
 human being, which is equipped with all the senses but is 
 yet unaffected by any impression, the gradual growth of our 
 mental activities. Of the senses, touch alone gives us 
 presentations of external objects or ideas ; the other senses 
 only give presentations of our own states or sensations. All 
 the mental activities are composed of Ideas and Sensations. 
 Perception is the mere receiving of ideas and sensations. 
 The liveliness of these excites our Attention. Past perceptions 
 leave traces behind, which gives Memory ; and if these traces 
 are as lively as were the impressions themselves when 
 present, we call them Imagination. Comparison of different 
 impressions by memory and imagination leads to conceptions, 
 
THE MATERIALISM OF LA METTRIE. 461 
 
 judgments, and feelings of pleasure and pain. These feelings 
 excite the passions, and consequently the will. Thus the 
 whole mental life is gradually built up out of the simple 
 elements of the immediate sensations. It was only a small 
 step farther on the path thus entered upon, when Cabanis 
 (1757-1808) openly declared that "the development of the 
 organs of the body and the development of the sensations and 
 passions correspond so exactly and completely to one another 
 that the doctrine of bodies, the doctrine of knowledge, and the 
 doctrine of morals, are only the three different branches of 
 one and the same science, namely, the universal science of 
 man." 
 
 Among the most important representatives of the French 
 materialism, we have first to mention De la Mettrie (1709- 
 1751). In his two works, Histoire Naturelle de I'dme (1749) 
 and L'komme Machine (1748), he holds that the senses are the 
 only ways to knowledge. It is absurd, he says, to assume 
 an extramundane God in order to explain motion. Like 
 motion, sensation is also absolutely essential to matter, and, 
 indeed, whatever has sensation must be material. The 
 inconceivability of this assumption should not lead to its 
 rejection. It is only faith that can convince us of the 
 existence of an immaterial soul, whereas science only takes 
 the corporeal organization into its view. The natural moral 
 law knows only the one precept, " Not to do to others what 
 we do not wish them to do to us." It rests only upon the 
 fear of our losing everything were this commandment 
 disregarded. It is probable that a Supreme Being exists, 
 but the necessity of a cultus does not follow from this 
 existence. As regards our own rest, it is absolutely a 
 matter of indifference for us to know whether there is a God 
 or not, and whether He has created matter or not ; it is 
 a purely theoretical truth that is without influence upon 
 practice. The world, however, will never be happy so 
 long as it is not atheistic. For it is only under atheism 
 that theological wars and other abominations will cease ; and 
 only then will men, following their individual impulses, 
 
462 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FEANCE. 
 
 attain by the pleasant path of virtue to happiness. Lamettrie 
 develops his moral theory in his Discours sur le bonheur. The 
 happiness of man rests upon the feeling of pleasure ; and 
 every kind of pleasure is equally justified in principle, although, 
 in accordance with individual differences, one prefers one 
 pleasure and another another. As we are only bodies, the 
 highest mental enjoyments rest upon the sensible feelings of 
 pleasure. The conception of virtue is merely relative, and is 
 only determined by regard to the well-being of Society. The 
 stings of conscience are to be repudiated, because we always 
 act of necessity. This eudsemonistic morality is further 
 developed by Helvetius (1715-1771), whose standpoint is 
 sufficiently characterized by the cynical thought of his 
 proposing to reward virtue and valour by the enjoyment 
 of the most beautiful women. 
 
 One of the most influential advocates and leaders of 
 materialism was Denis Diderot (1713-1784). At first, the 
 representative of a theism that believed in revelation, then an 
 enthusiastic adherent of a deistic religion of reason, Diderot, 
 about 1753, entered the lists in the cause of materialism. 
 He regards matter as existing from eternity and not as created 
 by a God external to it. The whole of matter is filled with 
 activity and sensation ; it is universal sensibility. " If faith 
 teach us how all living beings have proceeded from the hand 
 of the Creator, the philosopher rather forms the conviction 
 that nature has had its proper material elements from eternity, 
 and that these combined with each other, because this com- 
 bination lay in their possibility. This embryo, sprung from 
 the elements, has passed through a series of transformations 
 and forms, and has finally risen through a constant series of 
 stages to motion, sensation, thinking, and passion, to speech, 
 law, science, and art, just as it will, perhaps in the future, 
 pass through other hitherto unknown developments." The 
 soul is not an independent immaterial substance, but is only 
 the highest product of the incessantly changing mixture of 
 matter. There is no freedom of the will nor immortality. 
 What is advantageous or prejudicial to the advantage of all 
 
DIDEROT. VON HOLBACH. 463 
 
 is good or bad. In this spirit the well-known Encydopedie 
 was conducted. It was published from 175 6-1 7 6 6 by Diderot, 
 assisted by numerous collaborateurs holding the same opinions. 
 The fincycloptdie, on account of its general circulation, obtained 
 the greatest influence over the thought of that time. 
 
 The work which sums up and in a manner concludes this 
 movement is the Systeme de la Nature, 1770, of the German 
 Baron von Holbach (1723-1789). It falls into two parts ; the 
 first deals with general fundamental principles and anthro- 
 pology, the second with theology. We may here pass over 
 the first part, which only sums up, in a final manner, what 
 was advanced by numerous materialistic writers to explain 
 the world and man, nature and morals, from matter and its 
 motions. The second part, consisting of thirteen diffuse 
 chapters, combats the conception of God and religion as the 
 main source of all corruption. 
 
 If men had the courage to subject their religious opinions 
 to an exact examination, they would find that they are 
 void of all reality, and are nothing but phantoms which owe 
 their origin to ignorance, and are rooted merely in a morbid 
 phantasy. As soon as man enters into life, wants begin to 
 make themselves felt, and all passions and strivings, all 
 thinking, willing, and acting, are the necessary result of the 
 stimuli given to us by these wants. It is these wants of 
 human nature that have also given occasion to the origin 
 and development of the idea of God. Were man always 
 contented, he would give himself up to the undisturbed 
 enjoyment of the moment; but along with his regularly 
 returning wants, there are also innumerable evils and mis- 
 fortunes which make him feel his impotence. The more the 
 experience of man increases, the more he learns to protect 
 himself against such evils, and the more do his courage and 
 security grow. But where the clearness of his thinking is 
 obscured, and the impulse to action is compelled to fruitless 
 striving, then is he mastered by his imagination which 
 magnifies all things, and his ignorance and weakness then 
 become the foundation of all superstition. When man saw 
 
464 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 himself exposed to destructive forces whose starting-point he 
 could not find on the earth, he turned his look to the 
 heavens, as if the residence of these hostile powers must he 
 there. Fear and ignorance thus brought men at first to the 
 idea of a Deity ; and as all national cults fall into times of 
 general oppression, the individual likewise created the un- 
 known powers under whose influence he believes he stands 
 in moments of pain and fear. 
 
 Now man always judges of what he does not know by 
 what he does know ; and thus he attributes to that unknown 
 cause human intelligence and understanding, human designs 
 and purposes, and human desires and passions. He then invokes 
 these supposed powers in prayer, seeks to win their goodwill 
 by self-humiliations and the presentation of gifts, builds them 
 temples and surrounds them with everything which appears 
 to them valuable and precious ; and thus does worship arise. 
 The supervision of worship was usually assigned to the 
 elders among the people. They added all sorts of formulae 
 and ceremonies, sacred legends and institutions, and thus 
 with the priesthood there arose a fixed order of worship and 
 doctrines of faith. As the idea of the Deity is rooted in 
 ignorance of nature, the study of nature leads to the destruc- 
 tion of this idea, and it is to be hoped that in the future all 
 superstition will give place to a better understanding of 
 principles, to insight, and to experience. 
 
 The elements of nature, according to D'Holbach, were the 
 first gods. All nature and its several parts were raised into 
 personal beings by the help of poetry, and thus mythology 
 arose. The people did not see through these allegories, but 
 worshipped mere personifications as real persons. Later 
 thinkers then separated nature from her own internal power, 
 and raised this activity to a separate being which they called 
 God, yet without having any clear ideas of such a being. 
 An unknown power was thus preferred to one that was 
 known ; for man does not heed what lies at hand, but rather 
 turns away to the mysterious, which gives a welcome employ- 
 ment to his imagination. And now men vied with each 
 
DIDEROT. VON HOLBACH. 465 
 
 other in decorating this self-created Being with the most 
 inconceivable attributes, but they could only excogitate 
 mysterious words without meaning. As man knows nothing 
 except nature, he was compelled to transfer the qualities of 
 nature, and especially of man himself, to God, only that these 
 were increased to infinity. As man believes that the principle 
 moving his body is a spirit or an immaterial substance, he 
 likewise thinks of God as a spiritual or immaterial essence. 
 The perception of opposite effects in nature leads to the 
 assumption of different gods ; and, in particular, the opposi- 
 tion of the useful and the prejudicial leads to the assumption 
 of a good and an evil Deity. On the other hand, the view 
 that God is the soul of the universe leads to the unity of 
 God ; but even then it is imagined that God has distributed 
 the cares connected with the government of the world 
 among a whole series of lower gods. And because it is 
 believed that man cannot soar to the Supreme Being without 
 intermediate connecting members, the assertion is made of a 
 whole series of divine beings. In order to escape the difficulty 
 that the one God, who is equipped with infinite goodness, 
 wisdom, and power, brings forth the most contradictory effects, 
 certain hostile powers are assumed, which, although subordi- 
 nated, are yet capable of destroying God's purposes and plans. 
 
 This conception of God is found to be absolutely unten- 
 able. But then came the theologians who interdicted the use 
 of reason and withdrew God always more from the intelli- 
 gence of men in order that they might alone interpret the 
 will of this inconceivable Being. The theologians persuaded 
 men that the right faith consists in the humble acceptance of 
 mysterious and inconceivable religious truths, and that the 
 denunciation of reason is the most agreeable sacrifice that can 
 be brought to God. The universal inclination to regard the 
 inconceivable as venerable, is the root of the fantastic pro- 
 perties with which theology decorates the nature of God. 
 All these qualities are merely negations, and ought to raise 
 God above the sphere of human comprehension ; they are 
 only negations of the qualities which man perceives in him- 
 
 VOL. I. 2 G 
 
466 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 self and in the beings that surround him. Hence God is 
 called infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and immaterial, without 
 its being considered that nothing positive can ever proceed 
 from a union of negative attributes. Now, as such a process 
 of abstraction always volatilizes the idea of God more and 
 more, and withdraws it from man's circle of vision, the 
 attempt is made to bring God nearer to us in another way, 
 namely, by His moral qualities. These are all derived in 
 reality from the human modes of being and acting, although 
 men thereby fall inevitably into contradiction with the 
 metaphysical qualities already attributed to God. As the 
 human perfections are further transferred in the highest 
 degree to God, the most incompatible predicates are put 
 together, and a conception of God is obtained which is 
 refuted every moment by experience. " foolish rashness 
 which arbitrarily creates a Lord of nature and equips Him 
 with human qualities, impulses, and inclinations in order to 
 mirror itself in this self-created being ! " The most powerful 
 objection to the theological conception of God is the actual 
 existence of evil. This compels us either to assume two 
 opposite principles, or to admit that God is alternately good 
 and bad, or that He acts by necessity. An exact examina- 
 tion shows irrefutably that the moral qualities can just 
 as little be united with each other as with the metaphysical 
 qualities. God is not omnipresent, if He is not also present 
 in the man who sins ; He is not almighty, if He admits evil 
 into the world ; He is not infinite, if a nature different from 
 His can exist along with Him ; He is not unchangeable, if 
 His sentiments can change. Eevelation likewise contradicts 
 the justice, goodness, and unchangeableness of God. For it 
 presupposes that God for a long time reserved the knowledge 
 necessary to salvation ; that, full of partiality, He directs His 
 communication only to a few men ; and that He conceals His 
 will at one time and communicates it at another. The 
 traditional Arguments for the existence of God prove nothing. 
 In expounding them, the author shows a certain acuteness, 
 although he rarely rises above a shallow reasoning, and he is 
 
DIDEROT. VON HOLBACH, 467 
 
 not without skill in pointing out the difficulty of a convincing 
 demonstration. In his view an appeal to the order and 
 harmony of the universe appears the weakest argument of 
 all ; for this order and harmony are the necessary result of 
 the laws of matter itself. If it is said that a creature cannot 
 be without a creator, it is overlooked that nature is not 
 created, but has existed from eternity. The internal self- 
 active power of the elements is the properly formative 
 principle in nature, and along with it a special ordering and 
 moving principle is neither necessary nor admissible. 
 
 As the Deity thus exists merely in the phantasy of man, 
 the colouring of his individual character must naturally be 
 communicated to this object. Man's God will accordingly 
 undergo all the changes of his organism and of his internal 
 states ; He will now be a cheerful, benevolent, philanthropic 
 being, and again a gloomy, misanthropic, cruel being, according 
 to the momentary mood in which man finds himself. But is 
 not that a strange God which must feel every moment the 
 changes of our organism ? Again, if men will fall back upon 
 natural religion or the empty belief in the existence of 
 God, they commit the greatest inconsequences. If it is 
 believed at all that God exists, then everything must also be 
 believed that His ministers say of Him, and the worst super- 
 stition is not more incredible than the God in whom this 
 superstition is rooted. What is thus devised is as little 
 capable of degrees as the truth itself; and hence the most 
 superstitious among the superstitious is more logical than those 
 who first assume a God and then are unwilling to draw 
 the necessary consequences of that assumption. For is there 
 a greater miracle than the creation out of nothing ? or a 
 more inconceivable mystery than a God whom our knowledge 
 cannot reach, and who would yet be recognised ? or a greater 
 contradiction than an all-wise and almighty architect who only 
 builds in order to pull down ? But although the existence of 
 the theological God and the reality of the attributes assigned 
 to Him were to be recognised, nothing would follow therefrom 
 to justify the worship of God which is represented as our 
 
468 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 duty. What cause have we to fear God, if He is infinitely 
 good ? What reason have we to be concerned about our fate, if 
 He is infinitely wise ? Why should we storm Him with prayers 
 and inform Him of our wants, if He is all-knowing ? Why should 
 we erect temples to Him, if He is omnipresent ? Why should 
 we present Him offerings and gifts, if He is the Lord of all things ? 
 Like all other opinions and institutions, Eeligion must also 
 be judged in the last resort by its practical utility. Eegarded 
 in this light, Eeligion falls under a still severer condemnation. 
 In particular, it has completely undermined morality ; it has 
 founded the moral laws upon the will of God, and thus 
 subjected them to all the variations of the divine caprice ; it 
 has represented actions which should be reprobated, as directly 
 commanded by God; it has called forth the cruellest persecutions 
 and slaughtered numberless men in bloody wars. The priests, 
 instead of being models of morality, have always distinguished 
 themselves by their rapacity, ambition, intolerance, and similar 
 qualities. In politics, religion has also produced the most 
 pernicious effects, and it has strongly hindered the progress of 
 the human sciences. Hence it is an indispensable duty to 
 remove delusions which are only fitted to destroy our rest 
 and our peace. But although there are atheists, and although 
 atheism is absolutely unprejudicial to morality, it is still 
 improbable that whole nations will make it their confession. 
 The idea of God is rooted too deeply in our whole manner of 
 thinking for the majority of men ever to get rid of it. The 
 continuance of the customary notions suits the convenience of 
 most men better than passing into a new mode of thinking ; 
 and hence atheism is as little suited to the people as would be 
 the pursuit on their part of philosophy generally. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE OPPOSITION OF EELIGIOUS FEELING. EOUSSEAU. 
 
 The last remark and others of the kind, such as that men 
 prefer the most incredible fables to the clearest utterances 
 
THE OPPOSITION OF KELIGIOUS FEELING. EOUSSEAU. 469 
 
 of reason in matters of religion as by an irresistible necessity, 
 might well have led the author of the Systeme de la Nature 
 to the conjecture that religion is founded more deeply and 
 more certainly in the nature of man than merely on fear 
 and ignorance. At all events, his hope that the advancing 
 enlightenment would put an end to religion has not been 
 hitherto fulfilled. On the contrary, there arose among his 
 contemporaries one who enthusiastically proclaimed the truth 
 that Eeligion lived in his heart and could not be set aside 
 by any cold reasoning. This was Jean Jacques Eousseau 
 (17121778). The same course was taken here as appeared 
 repeatedly in the case of the German " Enlightenment." The 
 first opponents of the empty Enlightenment and naturalistic 
 rejection of religion did not go beyond the immediate feeling 
 of the religious life in the individual himself. Positive 
 religion, both in its origin and its special value, still continued 
 to be unintelligible to them. 
 
 Eousseau, starting from humble and limited circumstances, 
 and rising to literary celebrity after long hard struggles and 
 not without many aberrations, is known as the enthusiastic 
 Apostle of Nature. He wished for himself a life in and with 
 the beauty of nature, undisturbed by the noise of cities and 
 by the showy glitter of modern civilisation. He saw in the 
 secular sciences a dangerous enemy of natural morality ; he 
 regarded property and civilisation as the first foundation of 
 social inequality and its lamentable consequences ; and he 
 recognised in nature the only sure guide in education. He 
 thus went back directly to what is of nature, and his view of 
 religion as we find it especially expressed in the Confession of 
 the Savoyard Vicar, an episode of his Emile, corresponds to 
 this position. As the Vicar is not led by scientific criticism 
 to his doubts about the doctrine of the Church, but by 
 the contradiction of his celibacy to the law of nature, he will 
 not found his newly -won conviction upon scientific principles 
 but upon the infallible voice of his heart. This position 
 separates him from the natural religion of a Voltaire, with 
 whom he in fact essentially agrees, but his conflict is hardly 
 
470 ." THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FRANCE. 
 
 less against positive religion than against atheism and 
 materialism. 
 
 The Vicar, led to doubt by the reason indicated, could, 
 however, not remain in this state ; for it is intolerable to 
 doubt of things the knowledge of which is of importance 
 to us. The philosophers, however, proved themselves to be 
 incapable of giving help. Proudly and peremptorily they 
 assert everything without proving anything whatever. The 
 human mind is entirely inadequate to understand the world, 
 and it is only our pride that makes us obstinately defend our 
 own opinion as true. Hence it is necessary to limit our 
 inquiries to what immediately concerns us, and instead of 
 external authorities, to follow the internal light and the 
 immediate conviction connected therewith. The first truth to 
 which I cannot refuse my assent is this, that I exist and have 
 senses by which I become affected. I feel that the objects of 
 my sensible perception are external to me, and hence the 
 existence of an external material world, when I reflect upon 
 the objects of my sensible perception, is as certain to me 
 as my own existence. I become conscious of myself in the 
 process of judgment as an active and intelligent being. This 
 power of thinking, however, is entirely different from sensa- 
 tion ; for while it is not in my power whether I will feel 
 sensations or not, it entirely depends upon myself as to 
 whether I will investigate more or less what I feel. What- 
 ever philosophy may say, I lay claim to the honour of think- 
 ing. No material body can move itself and think ; but 
 because I think and am free in my actions, I am animated by 
 an immaterial substance. 
 
 In external material things I observe motion and rest ; 
 and rest appears as their natural state. Motion is partly 
 communicated and partly voluntary. I am immediately 
 certain of voluntary motion, because I feel that the motions of 
 my body depend merely on the will. Inanimate bodies again 
 have motion, not of themselves, but from a will which moves 
 the system of the world. How a will produces a corporeal 
 action is to me inconceivable, but that such takes place I learn 
 
THE OPPOSITION OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. ROUSSEAU. 471 
 
 by experience in myself. I know the will as a moving cause, 
 whereas to conceive of matter as a producing cause would be 
 to conceive an effect without a cause, or to conceive nothing. 
 If moved matter shows me a will, then does matter when 
 moved according to certain laws show me an intelligence or 
 an intelligent being. The final end of the universe is con- 
 cealed from us, yet everywhere I find order and harmony ; 
 the part subserves the whole, and the whole again serves 
 the part. It is not possible that this harmoniously ordered 
 world can be the last result of accidental combinations in 
 which matter moved by blind forces makes trial of itself ; 
 it necessarily points to an intelligent cause. This Being, who 
 moves the system of the world and arranges things in order, I 
 call God. It is rash to rationalize about the nature of God. 
 A wise man will never enter on such thoughts but with 
 trembling, and in the assurance that he is not in a position to 
 fathom them. I do not even know how God has created the 
 world, for the idea of creation goes beyond my understanding ; 
 but I believe it in so far as I apprehend it. Without doubt, 
 God is eternal ; and although my mind cannot grasp the idea 
 of eternity, yet I conceive that He has been before all things, 
 that He will be so long as they exist, and that He will 
 still be when everything has passed away. If I thus discover 
 the various attributes of God, of which I have no definite idea, 
 it is done by necessary inferences or through the good use of my 
 reason. If I say that God is such and such, I feel it and 
 prove it to myself ; but I do not therefore conceive any the 
 better how God can be so. 
 
 If I now consider the position which is assigned to us as 
 men in the universe, I find that we unquestionably occupy 
 the first rank, and that everything is made for us and is 
 related to us. In view of this there then arises in my heart 
 a feeling of thankfulness and praise towards the author of my 
 being, and from this feeling springs my first homage to the 
 beneficent Deity. I invoke the Supreme Power, and I am 
 moved by its benefactions. It is not necessary that I be 
 taught this worship ; it is prescribed to me by nature herself. 
 
472 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY IN FKANCE. 
 
 Is it not a natural consequence of self-love to honour what 
 protects us, and to love what wishes our well-heing? But the 
 more I strive to contemplate God's infinite being, so much 
 the less do I conceive it ; and the less I conceive it, so much 
 the more do I worship Himself. I humble myself and say : 
 " Being of all beings, I am because Thou art ; I rise to my 
 source when I unceasingly meditate on Thee. The worthiest 
 use of my reason is to annihilate itself before Thee. It is the 
 rapture of my mind, it is the very stimulation of my weak- 
 ness, when I feel myself oppressed by Thy greatness." 
 
 God who can do all things can only will what is good. 
 Goodness and justice are therefore the two attributes which 
 we must necessarily assign to God. Evil seems to speak 
 against goodness, but the principle of evil lies in man, 
 who, by his freedom, chooses what is bad, and thus draws 
 evil as a punishment upon himself. It is urged against 
 Justice, that the just man has so often experience of what is 
 bad on earth, while what is good happens to the unjust. 
 This fact, however, only shows that there will be a compen- 
 sation in the future life. Although I had no other proof of 
 the Immortality of the Soul than the triumph of what is bad 
 and the suppression of what is just in this world, this alone 
 would keep me from doubting of it. Above all, however, 
 I feel by my very vices that I now only half live, and that 
 the life of the soul only begins with the death of the body. 
 In the life beyond, the remembrance of what we have 
 done here will constitute the happiness of the righteous 
 and the torture of the wicked, although it is hard for 
 me to believe that the tortures of the godless will be 
 eternal. 
 
 The fundamental rules of my conduct I likewise find 
 inscribed by nature with indelible lines in the depths of my 
 heart. All that I feel as good is good ; and all that I feel as 
 bad is bad. The conscience never deceives us, but is to the 
 soul the same as instinct or natural impulse is to the body. 
 We feel not merely what promotes our own happiness to be 
 good, but also what conduces to the happiness of others. 
 
THE OPPOSITION OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. ROUSSEAU. 473 
 
 This is the notion of the good that is everywhere the same, 
 and which history shows us, in spite of the vast variety of 
 manners and characters among all nations and at all times. 
 " Oh, conscience ! conscience ! Divine impulse ! Immortal 
 and heavenly voice ! Sure guide of an ignorant and limited 
 but intelligent and free being, infallible judge of good and 
 bad, making man like to God, Thou dost constitute the 
 excellence of man's nature, and the morality of his actions. 
 Without Thee I feel nothing in myself which raises me above 
 the brutes, except the melancholy privilege of straying from 
 error into error by means of an understanding that is without 
 a standard, and a reason that is without a principle ! " 
 
 This emphatic struggle against atheism and materialism, 
 and this decided testimony for religion as immediately felt 
 in the heart of the individual, are accompanied with a hardly 
 less earnest opposition to every positive religion. 
 
 They see, Eousseau thus makes his Vicar speak, they 
 see in my preaching only Natural Eeligion ; it is but seldom 
 that any other is required. No foundation for any other 
 requirement is seen ; for it is not possible that I can be 
 punished if I serve God according to the knowledge which He 
 gives to my mind, and the feelings which He inspires in my 
 heart. It is impossible that I can get a purer morality 
 and a purer faith from a positive doctrine than from the good 
 use of the powers of my soul. Kevelations only lower God 
 by giving Him human passions. Instead of purifying men's 
 ideas of the great Being, they only confuse particular doctrines, 
 add absurd contradictions to the inconceivable mysteries which 
 surround Him, and make men arrogant, unbearable, and cruel. 
 The diversity of religions, instead of being removed by 
 revelation, rests upon it ; for as soon as it occurred to men 
 to make God speak, every individual made Him say what he 
 wished. If, on the contrary, men had only listened to what 
 God says to the heart of man, there would never have been 
 more than one religion on the earth. 
 
 The various revealed religions all raise the same claim. 
 Every one claims that it alone possesses the truth, and that 
 
474 THE EIGHTEENTH CENTUKY IN FRANCE. 
 
 all the others are false ; and yet they all ground this claim 
 upon the authority of their own priests and fathers. In 
 support of the belief that something is a divine revelation, I 
 am always presented only with human testimonies. Men 
 inform me what God has said ; men give narratives of the 
 accompanying miracles ; but as miracles are far less suited to 
 lead us to God than the inviolable order of nature, so does 
 the irrationality of the revealed doctrines encumber their 
 acceptance. Eeason teaches that the whole is greater than 
 the part ; revelation teaches that the part is greater than the 
 whole. Ought I then to assume that God contradicts 
 Himself when He says something in revelation that is 
 different from what he says in reason ? And yet the 
 proclaimer of revelation would move one to accept it by 
 grounds of reason. Further, it is to be noticed that revela- 
 tion can only be communicated by books to the after 
 generations ; nay more, by books written in dead languages. 
 Does it correspond to the goodness of God to make the 
 knowledge of the true religion so difficult, and to make it 
 dependent on accident ? But although I cannot admit that 
 the Scriptures are an infallible and necessary revelation, yet 
 I confess that their majesty astonishes me, and that the 
 holiness of the gospel speaks to my heart. The books of the 
 philosophers, with all their pomp, how small are they when 
 compared with it ! Can He whose history the gospel relates 
 be a mere man ? Can a book which is at once so sublime 
 and so simple be indeed the work of men ? 
 
 I worship God in the simplicity of my heart, and only 
 seek to know what is important for my conduct. In regard 
 to those doctrines of faith which have no influence upon 
 actions, I give myself no trouble. I look upon all the 
 separate religions as so many sacred institutions which 
 prescribe in every country a uniform mode of honouring God 
 by a public worship, and which have their foundation in the 
 climate, in the form of government, in the characteristics of 
 the people, or other local causes. I regard them all as good, 
 if God is worshipped in them in a becoming way, but the 
 
THE OPPOSITION OF RELIGIOUS FEELING. ROUSSEAU. 4*75 
 
 essential worship is the worship of the heart. The true 
 duties of religion do not depend on the institutions of men. 
 An upright heart is the true temple of God ; and in every 
 country and in every sect, to love God above all things, and 
 one's neighbour as oneself, is the sum and substance of 
 the law. 
 
SECTION EIGHTH. 
 
 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 A UFKLAKUNG (" Intellectual Enlightenment " or " Illu- 
 -^- minism ") is the term which is used to designate the 
 leading characteristics of the spiritual life of Germany about 
 the middle of the last century. But it is difficult to settle 
 the precise meaning of this expression * with which at that 
 time the related expresssion Aufhellung, or sometimes also 
 Aufheiterung, was used as interchangeable. Moses Mendels- 
 sohn describes the aim of Aufklarung or "Enlightenment" 
 to be "rational knowledge and the capability of rational 
 reflection upon the things of human life, according to the 
 proportion of their importance and their influence on the 
 destination of man." According to Kant, "Enlightenment" 
 is " the issuing of man from a pupilage which is due to 
 himself." And this pupilage is " the incapability of using 
 his understanding without the guidance of another." The 
 essential nature of Enlightenment or Illuminism accordingly 
 consists in the liberation of the understanding from the 
 sway of authority when it has become certain of itself. The 
 authority to be got rid of is that of the ecclesiastical dogma, 
 
 1 [It is practically impossible to give an exact and adequate rendering of the 
 German term Aufklarung by any one available English equivalent. It is usually 
 represented by " Enlightenment, " or "Illuminism," or "Illumination;" but 
 none of these terms carries the historical connotation of the original, and any 
 one of them by itself would be occasionally misleading. In these circumstances 
 it has been thought advisable to retain the German term where it is important to 
 indicate precisely the historical movement described in this Section, and only 
 to use " Enlightenment," or " Illuminism," or " Intellectualism " as its 
 equivalent when it is sufficiently accurate. The term Aufklarung (literally, a 
 "clearing up*) is now commonly adopted in the literary usage of English 
 writers on this phase of German thought. It will be evident from what follows 
 that, in connection with the Philosophy of Religion, the term may be taken 
 generally as a technical designation for the intellectual, and mainly negative, 
 stage of the German Rationalism of the 18th century before Kant. TE.] 
 
LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 477 
 
 and it has to be set aside by the unlimited supremacy of the 
 natural reason or of the sound human understanding. This 
 definition must here suffice. Anything more precise would not 
 give room for the various currents that are found within the 
 period of the Aufkldrung. It at least indicates the two most 
 important characteristics of the movement, namely, that religion 
 and theology entirely control the interest of the time, and that 
 intellectual reflection is brought into the field against them. 
 
 This " Enlightenment " or " llluminism " is thus in brief 
 the German parallel to the English Deisrn and the French 
 Materialism. The movement appears in Germany later than 
 the English and the French movements, because the German 
 people were then behind the other nations in all departments 
 of the spiritual life, mainly in consequence of the thirty 
 years' war. Accordingly, if the ultimate principle of the 
 Aufkldrung lies in the universal advance of the mind as it 
 ripens to independence, the question as to its causes need 
 only take primarily into account the occasions that come into 
 view. Among these, we consider that too little importance is 
 commonly laid upon the dissolving influence of Socinianism. 
 Although Socinianism was persecuted by the Church and 
 the State with equal zeal, its intellectual and juridical con- 
 ception of religion, and its cold rational criticism, found not a 
 few friends in Germany, some of whom belonged to the learned 
 circles. That elements akin to it were at least not entirely 
 awanting, is shown by the work entitled De tribus impostoribus, 1 
 and the " Correspondence regarding the nature of the soul," 2 
 a purely materialistic production which was much discussed 
 in its time. Nor is the influence of other countries to be 
 under-estimated. France was regarded at that time by the 
 higher classes in Germany as the model that was worthy of 
 imitation in all questions of the spiritual life. Hence not 
 only were French savants attracted by Frederick the Great 
 to his Court, but their writings were also much read in 
 
 1 Cf. Gen the, De impostura rdigionttm, Leipzig 1833. . 
 
 2 Briefwechsel uber das Wesen der Seele. Cf. F. A. Lange, Geschichte des 
 Materialism, 3 Aufl. i, 319. 
 
478 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLAKUNG. 
 
 aristocratic circles. The English Deists worked more upon 
 the learned circles. Their writings were numerously diffused 
 in the original, as well as in French and German translations, 
 and they were incisively discussed in the widest read reviews, 
 j such as the Leipsic Ada Eruditorum and Loscher's Unschul- 
 dige Nachrichten. They were also violently attacked in 
 special treatises, and especially in academic disputations and 
 programmes, and were even made the subject of special 
 lectures in several Universities. In the Netherlands, partly 
 /in consequence of the toleration of all ecclesiastical parties 
 prevailing from the time of the Eeformation, partly on 
 account of the weakening of the ecclesiastical orthodoxy that 
 arose with Arminianism and Coccejanism, and partly under 
 the influence of the speculations of Descartes and Spinoza, 
 there sprang up an earnest but unbounded criticism, which 
 exercised no small influence upon the German theology. In 
 Germany itself, the ecclesiastical orthodoxy had already lost 
 its supremacy, less from the isolated efforts of mystics or 
 fantastic doubters, than from the influence of Pietism. Slowly 
 yet constantly and generally, had this process of dissolution 
 advanced during the course of the Seventeenth Century, so 
 that, in the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, the supre- 
 macy of Pietism was universal, and the last really orthodox 
 dogmatic that of Hollaz appeared in 1707. But the cold 
 intellectual Enlightenment that empties religion of its peculiar 
 contents and the deeply inward Pietism are direct opposites, 
 and their irreconcilability soon enough showed itself. They 
 found their common enemy, however, in the ossified orthodoxy 
 of the Seventeenth Century ; and in overcoming this ortho- 
 doxy, Pietism did no little to prepare for the Aufkldrung. In 
 another way it also contributed to call forth this movement. 
 The principle of Spener, that piety ought to be a principle of 
 life permeating all things, was carried by its later advocates 
 to the extreme of a contempt for all science. Francke, who 
 made it the object of his scientific activity to make the theo- 
 logians Christians rather than to make the young Christians 
 theologians, expresses his principle by saying that "a grain 
 
LEIBNIZ AND THE GEKMAN AUFKLARUNG. 4V 9 
 
 of living faith is to be reckoned higher than a hundredweight 
 of mere historical science, and a drop of love is to be regarded 
 as higher than an ocean of the knowledge of all mysteries." 
 According to the known law of development, this onesided- 
 ness could not but call forth a counter onesidedness. Laying 
 stress merely on piety thus led to laying stress merely upon 
 intellectual insight. The repeated attempts to bring about 
 a union of the different confessions, although without success, 
 may also have co-operated in preparing for this movement. 
 At least it is a fact that the violent attacks of the time were 
 directed against Indifferentism as well as against Naturalism, 
 Atheism, Deism, and Pantheism. The most dangerous repre- 
 sentative of this tendency appeared in Ericus Friedlieb, 1 
 who asserted that faith does indeed demand a science of the 
 understanding, but only a little is required, and that need not 
 be according to any definite formula. In order to be saved, 
 he held that we must indeed confess the Christian religion, 
 but it is not necessary to belong to a particular sect, or to 
 accept its brain-formulas ; it is enough to know that Christ is 
 the saviour of the world, and that God, for His sake, forgives 
 us our sins, and bestows power to be good. Above all, a 
 distinction must be made between brain-belief, as a mere 
 acceptance of certain doctrines, and the true faith of the 
 heart, which is known by love to God and our neighbour and 
 the denial of oneself. 
 
 As the English Deism was determined more precisely by \ 
 the philosophy of Locke and the natural science of Newton, 
 as the Dutch Criticism was determined by the speculations of 
 Descartes and Spinoza, and as the French Materialism was led 
 by the dissolving scepticism of Bayle, so does the German 
 Illuminism receive its characteristic stamp from the system 
 
 1 Under the name of "Ericus Friedliebins " there appeared in 1700 an ') 
 
 " Untersuchung des indifferentismi religionvm, de man fur halt, es konne ein I Jo* < 
 jeder selig werden, er habe einen Glauben oder Religion, welch& er wolle." -V^ u/ * / 
 The real author was the jurist Jakob Friedrich Ludovici. Cf. v Walch, Einlei- ^v yr 
 tung in die Religions-Streitigkeiten ausser der Evangelisch-Luthenschen Kirch?., I ^ t ^ 
 . v. The same *" 
 
 Latitudinarianism." 
 
 Th. v. The same position was combated in England under the name of /W" 
 
480 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 of a philosopher who preceded it. This philosopher was 
 Leibniz. The philosophy of Leibniz may appropriately be 
 regarded as a grand apology or speculative construction of 
 the Christian religion ; and in my opinion, the strictly logical 
 connection and the profound movement of thought that 
 characterize the Leibnizian system is overlooked when its 
 undeniably Christian character is referred to mere accommo- 
 dation. In consequence of this influence, the German 
 Aufkldrung, in so far as it stands under the influence of 
 the philosophy of Leibniz as popularized by Christian Wolff, 
 presents a character that is throughout friendly to religion. 
 Certainly its distinguishing character is not supra-naturalistic. 
 For although the possibility of revelation remains uncontested, 
 yet every alleged revelation is subjected to the test of a series 
 of criteria ; and in fact all religious utterances are referred as 
 regards their origin to reason, and as regards their contents 
 to natural religion, and consequently to the principles of 
 natural morality. Naturally men were not wanting who 
 went beyond this position ; but as they were combated on 
 all sides, they may be regarded as mostly attaching them- 
 selves to the foreign influences. This may suffice as a pre- 
 liminary sketch of the course of the following exposition. 
 
 GOTTFRIED WILHELM LEIBNIZ. 
 
 "We find the key to the philosophy of Leibniz 1 in his 
 definition of the conception which stands in the foreground 
 of the philosophical inquiry of the time. This conception 
 was that of Substance. The Materialists asserted that there 
 were only corporeal substances. Spinoza asserted a single 
 substance with infinitely many attributes, of which, however, 
 thinking and extension are the only two that are known to 
 
 1 Leibniz's works, as referred to here, are edited in 2 vols. by Erdmann 
 (1840). Cf. Zeller in his Geschichte der deutschen Philosophic, 2 Aufl. 1875, 
 and Kuno Fischer, ut supra. A. Pichler, Die Theologie des Leibnitz, 2 Bde. 
 1869-70. 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 481 
 
 us. Descartes assumed an infinite substance which is abso- 
 lutely independent and is the ground of all things, and two 
 finite substances that are entirely independent of each other, 
 but are established by the infinite substance, namely, body 
 and mind, or extended and thinking substance. Leibniz, 
 however, recognises that as Materialism is refuted by the 
 undeniable fact of self-consciousness and thinking, so is 
 Descartes refuted by the circumstance that bodies and their 
 phenomena, especially resistance, impenetrability, and inertia, 
 cannot possibly be explained by extension alone. He accord- 
 ingly goes back to the conception of Force. Immaterial force 
 is the only thing that is real and truly essential in all things; 
 this force, however, is active, constantly and unceasingly 
 active, and matter is only the appearance or effect of 
 immaterial force. The rigid opposition between thinking 
 and extension is thus set aside, and in contrast to the 
 dualism of Descartes a single principle is gained for the 
 explanation of the world. If, with Spinoza, one substance 
 only is asserted, we would have to conceive of individual 
 things as entirely without power and without effect. In 
 order to escape this consequence, Leibniz asserts, on the 
 contrary, that every individual thing rests upon a force that 
 is special to it, and that it is a distinct substance; for as 
 many things as there are, there are just as many forces or 
 just as many substances. But it must be well understood 
 that it is not the compound things as we find them in com- 
 plexes of more or fewer parts that are thus regarded as 
 substances. On the contrary, every simple thing that is not 
 compound, and which is therefore no longer divisible, is a 
 force or substance ; for whatever is active is as such properly 
 a substance. And if everything is a substance, the diversity 
 of things (meaning, of course, simple and not compound things) 
 can only rest upon the diversity of substances. Hence there 
 are not merely infinitely many substances, but there are also 
 infinitely diverse substances, equipped with their individual 
 characteristics. For substances as thus defined, Leibniz intro- 
 duces the expression " monads." Monads are single substances, 
 VOL. I. 2 H 
 
482 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLAPJJNG. 
 
 and they are infinite in number ; they are not compound but 
 simple, and they are therefore real unities. They are points, 
 but they are not physical points as corporeal and divisible 
 magnitudes are: nor are they mathematical points without 
 real existence ; but they are metaphysical, or substantial and 
 essential points. They accordingly approach the nature of 
 atoms, but they are distinguished from atoms, partly by their 
 quality as points being actually indivisible, and partly by 
 their active forces. Further, they are not indifferent as 
 regards their form, but are essential or substantial forms ; and 
 hence they are specially determined in themselves as distinct 
 individual things. These Monads form the fundamental prin- 
 ciple of the metaphysics of Leibniz. 
 
 Monads are immaterial forces. Such Monads are presented 
 immediately in our own consciousness, in the percipient opera- 
 tions of the mind. Now we have to choose between two 
 views : either the mind alone has perceptions, and then we 
 have the rigid contrast of mind and body as in Descartes ; or 
 we assert the essential identity and the thorough analogy of 
 all things, and then all substances must be conceived as per- 
 cipients. Leibniz can only accept the latter view. He is 
 led to the same result by another consideration. Everything 
 is an individuum, that is, it has a distinctive form founded in 
 its unique connection of the manifold into unity. But every 
 form points to a perception, it being all the same whether this 
 is realized as conscious in us or as unconscious in things. For 
 " the passing state, which embraces and apprehends a plurality 
 in unity, or in a simple substance, is just what is called Per- 
 ception, and it must be distinguished, as afterwards becomes 
 clear, from Apperception or Consciousness. And here lies the 
 main error of the Cartesians, that they have reckoned the 
 Perceptions of which there is no Consciousness, as nothing." 
 
 The Monads are thus percipient beings. If Perception 
 constitutes the essence of the Monads, their individual 
 differences can only be founded in the differences of their 
 perception, that is, in the different degrees of its distinctness. 
 The most important distinction is that between Perceptions 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 483 
 
 and Apperceptions, or between unconscious and conscious ideas. 
 The latter are the special prerogative of minds, but it is at the 
 same time erroneous to ascribe to minds none but conscious 
 perceptions. Apart from this, the perceptions are clear at one 
 time and obscure at another, according as they avail to 
 cognise the object, and to distinguish it from other objects, 
 or not. The clear perceptions again are either distinct or 
 confused, according as we can distinguish the several marks 
 in them or not. 
 
 The object of this perception is not the percipient Monad 
 alone by itself, but every Monad embraces in its perception 
 all other individuals, or the whole universe as well. For no 
 Monad can exist alone, and its individuality just consists in 
 this distinguishing relation of it to all other Monads. Hence 
 every Monad is a representing thing ; it is a mirror of the 
 universe, not as if the universe entered into it through 
 windows from without, but in virtue of its own essential 
 power of representation. 
 
 " This bond or this accommodation of all created things to 
 everything, and of each thing to all the rest, brings it about 
 that every simple substance has relations which express all 
 the other substances; and it is in consequence a perpetual 
 living mirror of the universe." The individuality and per- 
 fection of the Monads are thus determined by the degree of 
 the distinctness with which they represent or mirror the 
 universe in themselves. It is only by means of this perception 
 and representation that any influence of the different Monads 
 upon each other becomes possible. It consists in giving 
 regard to the rest of the universe in the activity of the 
 Monad ; for things as substances are entirely independent 
 of one another ; and hence can they neither by external 
 influence nor by external assistance exercise an influence upon 
 one another. 
 
 Monads are active forces or efficient powers. At the same 
 time, every Monad is individual ; and it is thus limited 
 self-activity. A Monad is therefore a union of active force and 
 of limitation or passive force. Activity is the ground of all 
 
484 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 perfection, passivity is the ground of all defect or imperfection. 
 Matter rests upon passive force or passivity. The form or 
 the soul rests upon active force or activity. Hence as we 
 distinguish in every Monad active and passive force, so also 
 do we distinguish in it soul and body. Their reciprocal 
 relation rests therefore neither upon immediate influence nor 
 upon the immediate guidance of God, nor upon the pre-estab- 
 lished harmony, but on the fact that every Monad has, according 
 to its peculiar individuality or the degree of its perfection, a 
 definite measure of active force and an exactly corresponding 
 measure of passive force, so that it is a determinate union of 
 soul and body. If the active force or the soul changes, there 
 results co ipso a change of the body. Now, in the sphere 
 of bodies, the mechanical explanation, from the conception 
 of causes, holds good ; and in the sphere of soul, the 
 teleological explanation from the conception of ends holds 
 good, because the soul is in fact a self-active force, and every 
 self-active force proceeds by setting before it ends. If body and 
 soul are immediately one in a single body, or if every Monad 
 is an animated body, the dualism of efficient and final causes, 
 and of the mechanical and teleological explanation of nature, 
 is thus removed and their unity is immediately given. 
 
 The same position becomes clear from a consideration of 
 Monads as representative beings. Every Monad represents 
 the universe, and with a degree of distinctness that is peculiar 
 to it. Excepting God, a perfectly clear and distinct represen- 
 tation of the universe is proper to no Monad ; but to all there 
 is only a more or less confused or obscure representation. 
 This want of distinct representation is the principle of matter 
 or of body, whereas distinct representation is the principle of 
 form or the soul. Both distinctness and indistinctness of 
 representation come together in a quite definite way in a 
 definite degree of perfection; and hence the mysterious 
 harmony of soul and body. 
 
 The same holds true of organic bodies as complexes of 
 Monads. One Monad in fact determines others in so far as 
 in it there is a clear and distinct representation of what these 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 485 
 
 obscurely and indistinctly represent. Now, if there is in a 
 Monad a clear and distinct perception of what takes place in 
 more imperfect Monads, they form together a complex of 
 Monads, or an organism. The Monad with the clearest and 
 distinctest representation forms the Central-Monad or Soul ; 
 while the Monads with obscure or confused representations, 
 which are only connected with each other through their 
 relation to that Central-Monad, form the body. In these 
 organisms, and particularly in man, the relation of body and 
 soul is, of course, entirely the same as in the simple Monads. 
 A corporeal mass therefore exists only as a confused represen- 
 tation, yet not existing merely in our representation ; but, as the 
 confused or obscure representation is as such the foundation 
 of what is material, material bodies are likewise a " pheno- 
 menon bene fundatum." 
 
 Monads are active forces or efficient powers. As a con- 
 stantly operating power, a Monad is in a process of perpetual 
 change or in perpetual development. According to its inter- 
 nal characteristic, it is engaged in a continuous striving to 
 exchange its present state for another. This striving is called 
 by Leibniz " Appetition." " The action of the internal prin- 
 ciple which effects the change or transition from one percep- 
 tion to another may be called Appetition." Perception and 
 Appetition thus constitute together the characteristic nature 
 or the individuality of the Monads. 
 
 These two elements, however, do not stand in an exclusive 
 relation to one another. Every development is directed 
 towards a goal ; every striving will attain a purpose. Such 
 goal and purpose, however, only exist as they are perceived, 
 and thus can only operate as perception. In the perception, 
 there must therefore be already present in the beginning of 
 the development what the Monad becomes in the course of it. 
 It is not indeed present as a conscious or distinct perception ; 
 for, as the essence of the Monad consists in perception, its 
 development is only a development into always clearer and 
 distincter perception. But as unconscious obscure perception, 
 or as capacity or disposition, the goal of the development is 
 
486 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 already contained in the beginning. The conception of 
 development accordingly now becomes clear. It is not 
 merely a change of the Monad, but a perpetually advancing 
 change. It is not founded on external causes, which in 
 general cannot work upon a Monad, but in an internal 
 principle. Besides this principle of change, there must, 
 however, also be " un detail de ce qui change, qui fasse pour 
 ainsi dire la specification et la vari^te des substances simples;" 
 that is, some particular thing which changes, and which, so to 
 speak, constitutes the specification and the variety of simple 
 substances. " This particular thing must include a plurality 
 in unity or in simplicity." In other words, development is 
 nothing but the unfolding of the specific nature of the Monad 
 realizing itself through a series of regulated actions ; or it is 
 the realization of its original endowment. " Every Monad 
 contains in its own essence the law of the constant succession 
 of its actions ; it contains in itself its past and its future." 
 Every form of manifestation or stage of development is the 
 result of all the earlier and the cause of all the following 
 forms or stages. " As every present state of a simple 
 substance is the natural consequence of its past, the present 
 is pregnant with the future." 
 
 Here again we have the same unity of the mechanical and 
 the teleological explanation. Development is continually 
 directed to an end, and it is therefore always a working in 
 accordance with purpose ; it is an activity that strives 
 towards a goal. At the same time, however, the development 
 is founded entirely in the specific internal condition of the 
 Monad, that is, in its constitution or obscure perceptions ; and 
 thus it is also sufficiently explained causally. There is 
 therefore no opposition between efficient causes and final 
 causes, or between a mechanical and a teleological view of 
 the world ; in the immanent development the two are 
 immediately one. 
 
 According to the degree in the distinctness of their per- 
 ceptions, we have to distinguish as the most important classes 
 of Monads, Bodies, Souls, and Spirits. Spirits are Monads 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 48? 
 
 with self - consciousness ; they are Monads that know and 
 will. But although this is the distinguishing prerogative of 
 Spirits, unconscious perceptions are not to be denied to them, 
 as Descartes does. Between these main classes, however, 
 there are again found stages of transition ; and, as the 
 inventor of the Differential Calculus 1 teaches, they occur in 
 infinitely small differences, for nature is not inclined to make 
 a leap ; she forms a continuous series. The members of this 
 series may be far from one another, and they may also be 
 very different from one another, as their differences are merely 
 quantitative and not qualitative, and they are besides connected 
 by a series of intermediate members. But however this may 
 be, there yet exists between them the highest harmony and a 
 thoroughgoing analogy. Analogy and continuity are thus the 
 two great laws which govern the graduated realm of the 
 Monads or the Universe. The former law establishes the 
 unity, the latter the variety of things, and both together 
 constitute the Law of Harmony, which, according to Leibniz, 
 governs all things in the universe. Harmony is the expression 
 which Leibniz uses for the highest Order that embraces the 
 world. It implies a fulness of beings entirely independent 
 and individually different, which by their powers and actions 
 stand in a universal harmony. This view is essentially 
 different from that of Spinoza. Spinoza establishes the order 
 of the world realiter. According to Spinoza, individual things 
 without any independent significance and power all proceed 
 from the one substance as the cause that effects everything ; 
 according to Leibniz, the order of the world is an ideal bond 
 which embraces all the fulness of self-active individual things 
 into a universal harmony. This harmony appears in the 
 system of Leibniz under a twofold point of view. It is 
 regarded first as a natural order, indwelling in the Monads, 
 founded in their immanent natural constitution and the 
 advancing development which is founded thereupon, as a 
 
 [ 1 This designation suggests a celebrated controversy, with regard to which 
 reference may be made to Ueberweg's careful and candid summary in his 
 History of Philosophy, vol. ii. pp. 98-100. TR.] 
 
488 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 " parfait accord naturelle ;" and, in the second place, it is viewed 
 determined and arranged beforehand by God, or as a divine 
 Law or Pre-established Harmony (harmonie pree*tablie). It 
 is false, however, as we shall afterwards see, to designate this 
 double mode of view as an opposition. Leibniz has even 
 been blamed on the ground that what in the spirit of his 
 system necessarily appears naturalistic as immanent order of 
 nature, has been introduced by him by mere accommodation 
 to the ideas of his contemporaries in a teleological form as a 
 divine arrangement or pre-established harmony. To him such 
 an opposition has no existence; on the contrary, the harmonious 
 order of the world, in so far as and because it is natural 
 law, is at the same time also divine arrangement and 
 predetermination. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of the Metaphysics of Leibniz. 
 Only a few points may be further noticed from the several 
 departments of science, especially such as bear upon the 
 treatment of the religious questions. 
 
 With regard to Physics, it follows from the definition of 
 the Monads as original substances that they can neither be 
 derived from natural elements nor be resolved into such 
 elements. Apart from the fact that they are called by God's 
 creation into existence from nothing and return into nothing 
 by His annihilation, they are eternal. Further, all Monads 
 exist together from the origin of the world, or, in other words, 
 the sum of the forces contained in the world continues eternally 
 the same. Along with the Law of Continuity, this is the 
 second of the two laws upon which Leibniz's dynamic 
 explanation of nature rests. The philosopher thus set up 
 that law of the Conservation of Energy which plays at present 
 so great a part in natural science, only he did not yet clearly 
 distinguish between elasticity and vital force, and he wanted 
 the means of verifying the law by experiments. 
 
 In the theory of Knowledge, Leibniz could not but oppose 
 
 the empiricism and sensationalism which were advocated at 
 
 r the time, especially by Locke. If the mind be a complete 
 
 f tabula rasa, and if all knowledge comes only from external 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 489 
 
 impressions, then the direct and immediate influence of exter- 
 nal bodies upon our mind must be presupposed as an indis- 
 putable fact. Leibniz, however, rejects this supposition. He 
 emphatically opposes the view that a monad, such as the soul, 
 is capable of receiving external influences, and he holds that 
 everything is to be explained from its internal development. 
 Accordingly Leibniz found it necessary to return to " innate 
 ideas ; " but he was compelled to admit to Locke that these 
 are not present in our mind as clear conscious ideas or as real 
 facts, and he seeks the solution of the difficulty in the view 
 that innate ideas are in us as virtual knowledge or as uncon- 
 scious ideas, but become developed into clearly conscious ideas 
 with the general development of the soul. It is no difficulty 
 to our philosopher that this capacity must realize itself without 
 the influence of external things, and yet realize itself in some 
 and not in others. For he holds that this distinction is 
 grounded in the different degree of appetition which dwells in 
 the individual monads. The denial of external influence does 
 riot, however, at all involve denial of the distinction between 
 sensible perception and thinking. The difference between these 
 two is also recognised by Leibniz, only he does not make per- 
 ception either the efficient cause of thinking or the elaborated 
 object of thinking. Perception is the preliminary stage of 
 thinking, and hence it is prius in time ; the two are dis- 
 tinguished only as the more imperfect and the more perfect 
 perception, or as confused and distinct representation, and the 
 continuity of the development demands this gradual transi- 
 tion as necessary to knowledge. Hence Leibniz agrees with 
 Empiricism in accepting the well-known Aristotelian maxim, 
 nihil est in intellectu quod non erat in sensu, " there is nothing 
 in the understanding which was not in the sense ; " but he adds 
 very significantly, nisi intelledus ipse, " except the understand- 
 ing itself." Although sensible perception in the usual sense, 
 as the receiving of an impression produced from without, is 
 thus denied, Leibniz distinguishes between rational truth and 
 empirical truth, the former being necessary and the latter con- 
 tingent. At first this may appear as a contradiction, but it is 
 
490 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 explained by the following consideration : We are not a single 
 monad, but a complex of monads ; and our soul, as a self- 
 conscious mind, first knows itself and then all the things with 
 which it stands in connection, although but darkly or con- 
 fusedly. The former knowledge gives the rational truths, 
 which are founded in pure thinking, and which form universal 
 and necessary cognitions ; the latter gives the empirical truths, 
 which rest upon perception and relate to individual and con- 
 tingent cognitions. This distinction may also be derived from 
 the essence of the individual monad. Every monad, as has 
 been already shown, is a limited self-activity, a combination of 
 activity and passivity. The agreement of the thing with itself, 
 or its ideal and merely possible existence, rests upon the active 
 force of the monad ; while the agreement of the thing with 
 other things, or its real existence, rests upon its passive force. 
 For each of these two classes of truths, Leibniz lays down a 
 universal proposition as an ultimate principle : the rational 
 I truths rest on the principle of Identity, the empirical truths 
 on the principle of Sufficient Eeason. The axiom of Identity 
 says nothing more than that everything must agree with itself, 
 and therefore that nothing can unite contradictory marks in 
 itself, and that no proposition can be true which includes a 
 contradiction. By its very nature this axiom can only serve 
 for those judgments which express in the predicate the same 
 thing as' is contained in the subject ; and these are identical or 
 analytical judgments. These judgments, however, say nothing 
 regarding the existence of the thing, but only that if the 
 subject exists, it has this or that predicate ; for example, if a 
 triangle exists it has three angles. Such judgments therefore 
 assert only the abstract logical possibility of things. On the 
 other hand, the second axiom refers to actual things, and states 
 that each of these has its sufficient reason, and must therefore 
 be known from the principle of causality. The conception of 
 causality, however, is itself prior to experience. " Our infer- 
 ences are grounded upon two great principles, the principle of 
 contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason. There are 
 thus two classes of truths, rational and real ; the rational truths 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 491 
 
 are necessary, and their opposite is impossible ; real truths are 
 contingent, and their opposite is possible." These theoretical 
 principles of knowledge, as we will afterwards show, are 
 important in relation to Leibniz's Theology. The knowledge 
 of God rests upon actual truths or truths of fact ; for " the 
 ultimate ground or cause must consist of a necessary being, 
 from whom, as its source, the stream of things arises, and this 
 is the being we call God." Upon this distinction of rational 
 and real truths, rests the further distinction of doctrines that 
 are contrary to reason and doctrines that are above reason. 
 Whatever contradicts a rational truth is contrary to reason, 
 and is therefore impossible ; whatever contradicts a real truth 
 is above reason, and is therefore possible. 
 
 Leibniz also founds ^Esthetics upon his own special 
 principles. Our ideas relate, at the highest, to the form, 
 order, and harmony of things. If these ideas are per- 
 fectly clear and distinct, they constitute philosophy ; but if 
 they have not yet risen to consciousness, we are still living in 
 crude desire and in the enjoyment of sense. Between these 
 two stages there is a clear-obscure point of transition ; and 
 here arises the Form-feeling of the aesthetic ideas. 
 
 With regard to Ethics, Leibniz, in accordance with his 
 principle of the universal analogy, cannot possibly put the 
 subject in rigid opposition to physics. All monads are in a 
 condition of perpetual development and continuous striving. 
 Now there is no striving without a goal, or without an idea of 
 this goal, only the distinctness of this idea may vary. If the 
 idea is unconscious as a mere form of nature, the striving is a 
 blind force. If the idea is conscious, but is only obscurely 
 felt, the striving is obscure instinct. If the idea is conscious, 
 and if it is clearly and distinctly conceived, the striving is 
 will. These are all only variously complete stages of the same 
 universal development. Hence it is at once seen to be im- 
 possible that there should prevail in one sphere that necessity 
 of causes which is without exception, and in another the 
 groundless arbitrariness of self-chosen ends, or freedom, in the 
 usual sense of free-will for choice. Again this is not possible 
 
492 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 from another reason. Active striving, and consequently the 
 will, is always determined by its idea ; but this idea is not 
 arbitrarily received from here or there by groundless choice, 
 but is necessarily grounded in the natural capacity of the 
 monad or in its degree of perfection. In short, the develop- 
 ment in question, and consequently the will, is in no way 
 caused by external influences or even at all influenced by 
 them ; it is nothing but the immanent evolution, or the 
 realization in detail of what is already contained in germ in 
 the natural individuality of the monad. Hence the will is 
 never to be regarded as empty, but is always determined and 
 directed to a determinate object ; and hence there is no 
 freedom of will in the sense of an absolute indifference, as 
 if we could have wished and done just as well something else 
 instead of what we actually will and do. Our will is rather 
 constantly and wholly determined, and is specially determined 
 by internal inclination, which is founded in the natural con- 
 dition of the particular individuality. This is the decided 
 view of individuality which appears in Leibniz. When he 
 protests against holding the view that our will is subject to 
 necessity, he is so far right in that he thus decidedly separates 
 his position from the determinism of Spinoza. For he does 
 not, like Spinoza, make the will be determined by the mechan- 
 ism of nature and be therefore externally compelled ; he sees 
 the ground of its determination only in the nature of the 
 willing subject itself. But when he proceeds to argue that 
 various decisions are possible in themselves, and that the 
 actual decision has only become a reality by the act of 
 choosing out of the possibilities, this is mere word-fencing. 
 These possibilities in fact only exist in so far and because 
 there is a possibility, according to the principle of identity, 
 that my nature might be different from what it is. This 
 particular nature, however, has no possibility to will or to act 
 otherwise, but it must necessarily so will and act. It is well 
 known how the representatives of the German Enlightenment, 
 intelligibly enough from the point of view of the wisdom of 
 the sound understanding, gave up determinism, and keeping 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 493 
 
 to the phrase, freedom of the will, raised it to one of their 
 fundamental truths. 
 
 Along with the question regarding the freedom of the will, 
 there stands in the foreground of ethical investigations the 
 other question as to the supreme Principle of Morals. This 
 principle, according to Leibniz, is of course innate in man, 
 although it slumbers in us at first as an unconscious capacity, 
 and only gradually enters into consciousness. Hence it must 
 be that idea which the will always follows, or what excites the 
 strongest inclination in it ; for " the will always follows the 
 greatest inclination." Now an agreeable idea works more 
 strongly upon the will than one that is disagreeable, and a 
 higher degree of agreeableness is stronger than a lower degree. 
 That inclination therefore is the strongest which is attracted 
 by the idea of the highest persistent joy or by happiness. The 
 striving after happiness is the fundamental innate tendency of 
 human nature, and it rules all our inclinations. " That is good 
 which ministers or contributes to our joy, and an evil is what 
 prepares us pain." The highest good is what prepares happi- 
 ness as lasting highest joy. This purely eudaemonistic and 
 individualistic moral principle receives, however, higher and 
 more universal contents. Joy and pain are thus defined : 
 " Joy is a feeling of perfection, and pain a feeling of imper- 
 fection." The striving after happiness is therefore nothing 
 else than a striving after our own perfection. The degree of 
 perfection is determined by the distinctness of the perception 
 and the perfection itself, as the perfection of our being consists 
 in perfectly clear and distinct perception, or in the perfect 
 illumination of the mind. The striving after happiness is 
 therefore a striving after a perfect mental development. Thus 
 the true freedom is given at the same time, as the will that is 
 conformable to reason is truly free ; for " to be determined to 
 the best by reason is the highest degree of freedom." The 
 more the mind is illuminated, so much the more perfect a 
 mirror of the universe it is. A wholly illuminated mind will 
 clearly and distinctly mirror the whole universe, and be clearly 
 conscious of its connection with all other beings. For this 
 
494 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 perfect being there is no longer any joy or pain egoistically 
 referred by it only to itself ; the happiness of such a being 
 consists wholly in sympathetic joy at the happiness and at the 
 perfection of all other beings, and especially of men ; or, in a 
 word, it consists in love. For " to love means to rejoice at 
 the happiness of another ; or what is the same thing, it is to 
 regard the happiness of others as one's own." Thus does the 
 originally eudsemonistic and egoistic principle of morals 
 become a comprehensive principle of enlightenment and 
 universal philanthropy. 
 
 As we regard Liebniz as pre-eminently the founder of the 
 German Enlightenment, we may also here sum up his views 
 regarding immortality as being in place beside the theory of 
 freewill and happiness. At the outset, it may be mentioned 
 that Leibniz adduces some arguments for immortality which 
 stand in no relation to his own system, but are almost even 
 inconsistent with it. The desire after happiness and the dis- 
 inclination to unhappiness, are implanted in our nature. 
 Happiness is nothing but lasting joy ; but our joy here below 
 is not lasting, because we are exposed to many accidents. The 
 existence of God, however, makes it enough to be virtuous in 
 order to be happy ; for if the soul follow reason and the 
 commandments given by God, it is sure of its happiness, 
 although it cannot be found in this life. The greatest happi- 
 ness here below consists in the hope of future happiness. 
 Further, in the case of most men, it is only the thought of 
 eternity that is able to keep them faithful to virtue, if regard 
 to the life in time does not incite them to it. It is only the 
 fear of punishment that can keep many from crime, and only 
 the hope of reward that can strengthen them to struggle for 
 right and truth. It is also inconceivable that the wise and 
 just God will not reward goodness and punish evil in a future 
 life, seeing that in the present world there remains so much 
 that is unequalized. The consideration that the immortality 
 of the soul is an innate idea, already corresponds to the spirit 
 of this system. It is represented as the foundation of all 
 theology. Without it even the doctrine of Providence would 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 495 
 
 be useless ; all natural theology would be vain ; and nothing 
 could be done against atheism. 
 
 It is only by proceeding from his conception of the Monad 
 that \ve obtain a correct insight into Leibniz's doctrine of 
 Immortality. It is an essential characteristic of substance 
 that it does not perish. Descartes had also maintained 
 immortality in the sense of the imperishableness of substance ; 
 but as he teaches only two substances, body and mind, and 
 makes individual things, and consequently individual bodies 
 and minds, arise out of these substances, he does not thereby 
 exclude the view that things pass through numberless trans- 
 formations ; that matter which now forms a human body 
 perhaps belonged earlier or will belong later to a block of 
 stone or a plant ; and that the soul which now constitutes my 
 ego, has perhaps already belonged to a thousand others or will 
 belong to thousands more. Not so Leibniz. To him every 
 monad is a substance, and every monad has at the same time 
 a determinate individuality of its own. Hence in his view the 
 imperishableness of substance implies at the same time the 
 continued existence of this determinate definite individuality. 
 Every monad, as we have seen, is an ensouled body ; and 
 hence souls cannot exist without bodies, nor bodies without 
 souls. Every monad is an individual thing, that is, a deter- 
 minate soul with a determinate body ; and hence the direct 
 passage of the soul out of one body into any other, or a metem- 
 psychosis, is impossible. " As regards the transmigration of 
 souls, I am far from holding this doctrine of Pythagoras, which 
 van Helmont the younger and some others have wished to 
 revive ; for I maintain that not merely the soul as such, but 
 the very same indimduum, continues to exist." The Monad, 
 however, is engaged in passing through a perpetual develop- 
 ment. Because of the inseparable unity of soul and body, this 
 development can only be a development of both, including the 
 body. In other words, the soul, when developed to a higher 
 degree of perfection, must necessarily obtain a more perfect 
 body ; it cannot attain this by metempsychosis, and hence it 
 can only be through gradual transformation of the body. 
 
496 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Both these points of view demand a perpetual metamorphosis 
 of the body. And hence death is not the separation, nor birth 
 the union, of a soul and a body. They are severally but 
 " the going out of and the entering into a special form of this 
 advancing matamorphosis ; death is the assumption of the 
 chrysalis form and is decrease, birth is unfolding and increase." 
 Hence in the strict sense of the term there is neither a 
 complete generation nor a complete death, such as would 
 consist in a separation of the body from the soul. What we 
 call generations are developments and enlargements. What 
 we call death are chrysalizations and diminishings. If there 
 is no first birth, either by way of the origination of an indi- 
 vidual nor of a union of body and soul, the whole individual 
 must have existed from the beginning. It did not indeed 
 exist in the form of its later development, but as a capacity or 
 preformation. In this capacity the individual itself exists; 
 and by means of generation it is only made capable of a great 
 metamorphosis of form. Outside of the order of generation we 
 see similar things : as when worms become flies, or caterpillars 
 butterflies. This capacity, however, itself constitutes a living 
 body ; and thus Leibniz, under reference to numerous authorities, 
 assumes " that the souls which once on a time become human 
 souls, have existed in the seed like those of the other species, 
 and that they have always existed in the form of organized 
 bodies in ancestors up to Adam, or from the beginning of 
 things." He found this view confirmed by the contemporary 
 discovery of the so-called spermatozoa by Leuwenhoek. 
 
 This is the so-called natural immortality, or as Leibniz puts it, 
 imperishableness(indefectibilitas), from which the so-called moral 
 immortality, that is alone called immortality (immortalitas) by 
 Leibniz, is strictly distinguished. The former belongs to all 
 beings, the latter only to men. This is not to be taken as if 
 a new principle came in here; it holds because the monads 
 last and persist in their special individuality, and because men 
 as persons or moral beings are essentially distinguished from 
 the lower beings. The immortality of man is therefore also 
 entirely of a special kind. Man is a being with self-conscious- 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 49*7 
 
 ness and memory : and these prerogatives of his spiritual 
 personality remain after the natural death. With the identity 
 of the self-consciousness, the moral identity is also immediately 
 given. The continuity of the development of itself excludes 
 the idea that any state or activity can ever be entirely without 
 subsequent effect, or be as it were completely extinguished. 
 Hence it is also impossible that the guilt of our sin and its 
 consequence in the consciousness of guilt and its internal 
 torment, can cease. And thus Leibniz, quite in the spirit of 
 his system, comes to the assertion of the eternity of punish- 
 ments. These indeed are not external, corporeal punishments, 
 but it is inexplicable how Leibniz, from any other reason than 
 too great an accommodation to the doctrine of the Church, 
 could say regarding Purgatory, to which the reference is 
 limited : "I do not give up the view that a certain temporal 
 punishment after this life is very rational and probable." The 
 good also obtain a heavenly reward : and as goodness consists 
 in the enlightenment of our mind, the heavenly reward consists 
 in the blessed vision of God, who is Himself the light of our 
 soul and the only immediate object of our knowledge. Our 
 happiness hereafter will consist in making constant progress 
 to new joys and perfections, of which the joy and the satisfac- 
 tion which arise from earnest scientific investigation of the 
 works of God in this life are only a foretaste. For " we know 
 not how far our capacities and our cognitions may be extended 
 in the whole eternity that awaits us." At the same time, 
 however, it is declared that as God is infinite and we are 
 always but finite, our knowledge of God can never be entirely 
 perfect. On account of the necessary connection of the soul 
 and the body, the continued existence is naturally related 
 also to the body. "The soul always retains even in death an 
 organized body." The possibility of the continued existence of 
 the body is founded upon the view of a " seed " already 
 referred to. Or, as Leibniz also says, every body of men 
 and of animals, no less than of plants and of minerals, has a 
 germ of its substance which is so subtle that it remains even 
 in the ashes of things that are burned, and contracts as it were 
 
 VOL. I. 2 I 
 
498 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 into an invisible centre. Or, as he says again, there is in 
 every body a sort of substance-blossom which is given in birth 
 and remains always preserved without increase or diminution. 
 Even a cannibal contains within him only his own substance- 
 blossom, as he whom he eats retains his, without there being 
 any mixture of them. And as death is in general but the 
 laying aside of a particular phenomenal form of the body and 
 at the same time the unfolding of a new form, so it is with 
 the death of man. Leibniz, however, is too reserved and sober 
 in his expressions to give more precise statements regarding 
 the state of this body which must correspond naturally to the 
 perfection of the soul belonging to it. 
 
 Thus far we have not yet mentioned the Theology of 
 Leibniz, not because we agree with those who make his 
 theology directly contradict the monadology, or at least allow 
 only a loose connection with it ; but, on the contrary, in order 
 to make the close connection and the exact correspondence 
 of both come closely into view. We will begin with the 
 Arguments for the existence of God ; then we will consider 
 his doctrine of the nature of God and His relation to the 
 world ; and finally, we will take up his views regarding the 
 essence of religion and the relation beween revelation and 
 reason. 
 
 The knowledge of God, according to Leibniz, is of the 
 greatest importance. This holds not merely in reference to 
 religion, but generally because it is impossible to love God 
 without knowing His beauty. This knowledge is of the 
 greatest value for science. " The knowledge of God is not 
 less the principle of the sciences than His being and will are 
 the principle of things. It amounts to a consecration of 
 philosophy when its waters are made to flow from the fountain 
 of the attributes of God." The happy life is also conditioned 
 by this knowledge. So far from its being the case that " the 
 thought that there is no God has never made any one tremble, 
 but the thought that there is such a Being has done so." 
 Leibniz regards it as the loss of a great good if there is no 
 God, as we can only find true happiness in love to Him. Of 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 499 
 
 the Arguments for the Existence of God, Leibniz regards the 
 Ontological Argument of Descartes as incomplete. It infers 
 from the idea of the most perfect Being to His existence ; for 
 if He did not exist He would not be perfect ; and hence His 
 existence is necessary. In this, however, it is assumed that 
 an absolutely perfect being is possible ; if this possibility is 
 admitted, the argument stands, but if it is denied, it falls. 
 This defect Leibniz seeks to get rid of by completing the 
 Ontological Argument by the Cosmological Argument, which, 
 however, under his hand passes into the Teleological or 
 Physico-theological Argument. Individual things can only be 
 explained by the conception of causality, which is the principle 
 of all empirical truths. Everything must have its sufficient 
 reason ; and guided by this axiom we are led at last to a 
 Being who is the cause of all things, and who is therefore not 
 caused by another, but exists merely of Himself. If we start 
 from the contingency of finite things, we come to a necessary 
 Being ; and if we take their unity of design into account, we 
 come to a single and all-wise Being. Upon this turn of the 
 argument, which closely coincides with the idea of the pre- 
 established harmony, Leibniz lays the greatest importance. 
 "It is clear that the harmony of so many beings which exercise 
 no mutual influence upon each other, can only spring from a 
 general cause which directs all things, and which must com- 
 bine infinite power and wisdom in itself to predetermine their 
 harmonious orders." The argument from the eternal truths, 
 set forth by Leibniz, is only a special application of this 
 argument. There are eternal truths ; these can only exist in 
 the understanding of an eternal and necessary Being ; there- 
 fore this Being or God must exist. His most characteristic 
 argument for the existence of God lies, however, in the 
 position that the doctrine of monads necessarily implies it. 
 The law of continuity rules in the world of monads ; and in 
 infinitely small differences the graduated realm of the monads 
 advances from lower forms to higher. Every monad is 
 involved in a process of development, and is thus striving 
 after a higher monad. It is therefore wrong to regard man 
 
500 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 as the concluding member of the series of stages in this realm, 
 although he is the most perfect of the beings given to us in 
 experience. In like manner, our soul, far from being the last 
 of all, finds itself rather in the middle of things, from which 
 position we can descend and ascend. There would otherwise 
 be found in the realm of things an error " that some philo- 
 sophers call a vacuum form-arum" These higher beings we 
 certainly cannot know distinctly, but we must postulate their 
 existence on the ground of the law of continuity ; and we 
 may also infer by the law of analogy that they are more 
 perfect individuals, more finely organized beings, higher 
 spirits, more transparent bodies. In short, they are " genii." 
 Leibniz only indicates as possible the view that after death 
 we are transformed by the process of metamorphosis into such 
 genii and ascend to always higher perfection ; but the repre- 
 sentatives of the German Enlightenment were fond of dwelling 
 upon this idea. With the very same necessity, according to 
 the law of continuity, we must conceive the graduated realm 
 of the monads as closed by a supreme power, which no other 
 power transcends ; that is, by a supreme Monad which is the 
 last end and the highest goal of the universal striving of all 
 the other monads. This Supreme Monad is God. 
 
 Those positions already contain the most important deter- 
 minations given by Leibniz regarding the nature of God. As 
 a Monad, God is a simple, independent, individual Being ; that 
 is, there is only one God, and He is absolutely distinct from 
 the world. " It is absurd to assume only a single active 
 principle as the world-soul, and only a passive principle as 
 matter." Let us remember that every monad is a limited 
 self - activity, a union of activity and passivity, and that 
 perfection rests upon activity, and imperfection, and particu- 
 larly matter, rests upon passivity. The more perfect the 
 monad is, so much the greater is its active power, and so 
 much the less is its passive power. In the highest monad or 
 God, there is therefore only activity and no passivity ; He is 
 without limit and without matter. " God alone is a substance 
 truly free from matter, because He is pure activity (actus 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 501 
 
 purus), and without any passivity, such as everywhere 
 constitutes the nature of matter." Hence God is immaterial ; 
 He is pure thinking ; He is without limit ; He has therefore 
 nothing out of Himself that can be independent of Him ; He 
 is the sum of all realities ; in short, He is the absolutely 
 perfect Being, "For perfection is nothing but greatness of 
 positive reality taken in the exact sense, without any of the 
 limits and bounds of things. But where there are absolutely 
 no limits as in God, there the perfection is absolutely infinite." 
 
 As the absolutely perfect Being, God is elevated far above 
 all other beings, including the human mind. Yet God is a 
 monad. He is not therefore exempt from the law of analogy; 
 and although Leibniz declares that " the idea of the infinite is 
 not formed by an extension of the finite idea," yet the attri- 
 butes of God are to be known by our raising the powers of 
 our soul to the highest potence, although it may only be by 
 an analogy widened to the utmost difference. Every monad 
 is an active power, and in the form of perception and striving 
 we have this active power in man as understanding and will. 
 When these are potentiated to the highest perfection, we get 
 the divine attributes of omnipotence, wisdom, and goodness. 
 " In God there exists the Power which is the source of all 
 things, and the Knowledge which embraces the world of ideas 
 down to its least parts ; and, finally, the Will which produces 
 changes or creations according to the principle of the Best. 
 And this corresponds exactly to what constitutes the funda- 
 mental powers in the created monads, namely, the power of 
 perceiving and striving." Of these attributes, however, in 
 correspondence with the whole character of the system, it is 
 wisdom which is mentioned most. 
 
 The relation of God to the world is determined primarily 
 to be that God has created the world. This groundedness of 
 things in God goes so far that even the possibility of things is 
 grounded in God ; for if God did not exist, nothing would be 
 possible, as even what is possible from eternity is included in 
 the ideas of the divine intellect. God is thus as the Supreme 
 Monad, and not merely the end and the goal of all finite 
 
502 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 monads. He is at the same time as highest Power their 
 ultimate sole-sufficient cause ; and in this relation lies the 
 highest union of final causes and of efficient causes. Things 
 do not arise by emanation from the being of God, nor are they 
 to be regarded as a product of His development. Such a 
 development is excluded in the case of the highest Monad ; 
 for development consists in a capacity, or in merely obscure 
 and unconscious perceptions being worked out to greater 
 clearness, but the highest Monad is clear and distinct percep- 
 tion through and through without any obscure capacity. 
 Things are therefore created by God, and they are created out 
 of nothing. Accordingly, the creation of things is not neces- 
 sary, but free. This, however, is not to be misunderstood. 
 Leibniz expresses himself frequently to the effect that God, 
 before the creation of the world, viewed as present in His 
 understanding all the innumerable possible worlds, and out of 
 these He chose the most perfect. This free choice, however, 
 does not imply that God might just as well have created 
 another world. This very God must create this very world, 
 and could create no other world ; this is the main argument 
 for the philosopheme of " the best world." But this necessity 
 was not a metaphysical one ; that is, the creation of another 
 world would have included no contradiction, and therefore 
 would not have violated the axiom of identity. It is, how- 
 ever, a moral necessity ; that is, it would have contradicted 
 the laws of the divine will, that act according to ends and 
 always carry out what is best and perfect, either to create no 
 world or to create another world. On this moral necessity 
 rests physical necessity, or the fact that in nature everything 
 must have its sufficient reason. The world created by God 
 likewise needs to be preserved by Him. Leibniz decidedly 
 opposes the opinion that nature can develop herself in virtue 
 of indwelling forces, and that she does not need the assistance 
 of God. Eather do all monads depend on God as they have 
 their origin in Him ; and although we do not comprehend 
 how this is in detail, yet the scholastics have very correctly 
 understood that preservation is nothing but a constant 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 503 
 
 creation. The preservation of things is conceived as a con- 
 stant divine influence upon the creatures. Leibniz, however, 
 protests decidedly against the view that God is to be 
 regarded as thereby making from time to time a correction 
 on His work, and that such had become necessary. 
 
 It seems as if there could be no place for Miracles along 
 with the Pre-established Harmony, but it is only apparently 
 so. Leibniz indeed emphatically exhorts us not to assume a 
 .miracle without reason when the natural explanation involves 
 difficulty ; and he cannot recognise the wonderful facts re- 
 corded of the angels as true miracles, because these are 
 naturally explained by the higher perfection of the genii. 
 How much importance Leibniz puts on the reality of miracles 
 is clear from his question : " Would it not amount to making 
 God the soul of the world, if all His actions are natural 
 like those which the soul performs in the body ? God thus 
 becomes a part of nature." Miracles, although they are con- 
 trary to physical necessity, are possible, because the moral 
 order of nature stands higher than its physical order. God 
 has also instituted the physical order, and not without 
 reason ; but the universal reasons for the good may in certain 
 cases be outweighed by more important reasons of a higher 
 order. As the higher order is also comprehended in God's 
 plan, it is not correct to speak of arbitrariness on the part of 
 God ; for " miracles a] so belong to the universal order, are 
 conformable to the plan of God, and are contained in the con- 
 ception of this universe which is the result of the divine 
 plan." Miracles, instead of being opposed to the order of the 
 world, are thus included as possible in God's plan of the 
 world; and God had resolved to perform them when He 
 chose this world. These miracles indeed are not subservient 
 to the preservation, or even to the correction of the work of 
 creation, but only to redemption. " If, then, God works 
 miracles, this does not arise from the requirements of nature, 
 but those of grace. To judge otherwise would be to have a 
 very poor idea of the wisdom and power of God." It is 
 further to be noticed that miracles do not contravene physical, 
 
604 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN" AUFKLARTJXG. 
 
 but metaphysical necessity; and they are thus only above 
 reason, but not contrary to reason. It is clear that the whole 
 justification of miracles rests upon the distinction of physical, 
 moral, and metaphysical necessity. 
 
 The actually existing world has been chosen with moral 
 necessity out of the innumerable possible worlds, and it has 
 been realized by God ; and hence it is completely dependent 
 on God, and it is also the best world. 
 
 Determinism necessarily follows from the pre-established 
 harmony which does not allow the least deviation from the 
 plan that has been established. " Out of numerous possi- 
 bilities God has chosen that which He knew to be the most 
 suitable. But when He has once chosen, everything is com- 
 prehended in His choice, and nothing can be altered ; for He 
 has foreseen everything and arranged everything once for all." 
 
 Optimism is a necessary consequence of determinism. The 
 world rests upon God's decree, and God's will is perfect, that 
 is, it involves essential union of the highest power and the 
 highest wisdom ; and hence the world must be perfect, or at 
 least be as perfect as possible. In other words, the world 
 must be the best of possible worlds. This is shown a priori 
 in two ways : from the conception of God and from the con- 
 ception of the world. God's power is sufficient to perform 
 what He wills ; His perfect understanding excludes all decep- 
 tion as to what is truly good ; and His perfect will is always 
 determined by what is perfect or best. Hence, in accordance 
 with His own nature, God must necessarily have created a 
 perfect world, or at least the best possible world. If we 
 start in our reasoning from the world as the sum-total of all 
 things, then viewing it merely as real, it is contingent, and 
 other worlds than it are possible. But the fact can only rest 
 upon an act of choice that of numberless possible worlds just 
 this one has become real ; this choice must be occasioned by 
 a sufficient reason; and this reason can only lie in the 
 superior excellence of the real world, or in the fact that it is 
 the best of all possible worlds. 
 
 This assertion, however, seems to be contradicted a pos- 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 505 
 
 teriori by the fact that there is in this world so much imper- 
 fection, evil, and sin. How is this undeniable fact to be 
 reconciled with that assertion of the best world ? This ques- 
 tion has earnestly occupied Leibniz from the beginning to the 
 end of his philosophical career, and his Thtodice'e is specially 
 devoted to the solution of it. The result of his examination 
 of this question shortly is, that the evil in the world can 
 detract so little from its perfection that, in spite of all its w 
 evils, this world is more perfect than any other world would 
 be even though it contained less evil, because it would also as 
 regards perfection necessarily stand below the existing world. 
 Evil is distinguished into metaphysical, physical, and moral. 
 Metaphysical evil consists in imperfection or want ; and this 
 imperfection is absolutely inseparable from the nature of 
 finite things, so that whoever would require God to call 
 creatures without imperfection into existence, would demand 
 from Him nothing else than that He should create no creatures 
 at all. Of metaphysical evil it is to be said that it has no 
 causa efficiens but only a causa deficiens, because it consists in 
 a deficiency, and it is necessary in an unconditional or meta- 
 physical sense, because no creature by its very idea can be 
 without deficiency or want. Physical and moral evil follow 
 as necessary consequences from metaphysical evil. Acting 
 and willing follow from power, and from a limited power 
 there can only proceed limited action and limited will. 
 Physical evil is limitation of action, and moral evil is limita- 
 tion of will, and they are both accordingly conditioned, or 
 physically necessary. Imperfection is therefore only a want 
 of perfection ; pain, as a feeling of imperfection, is only a 
 want of joy as the feeling of perfection ; and the bad is only 
 a want of the good. In short, evil is not opposed to good as 
 an independent power, but it is subordinated to it as mere 
 defect, and it stands continually under the supremacy of the 
 good. Nay more, evil appears even as a necessary condition of 
 the good, as in a musical composition dissonances are often 
 requisite to bring about a satisfying impression on the whole ; 
 or as in a picture what appears a dull and artless daubing of 
 
 
 OF THE 
 
506 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 colours in detail is conducive to the harmonious effect of the 
 whole. The perfection of the world consists in nothing else 
 than in the perfect harmony of the universe, and in the 
 universal progress to higher perfection. Harmony requires 
 that there should exist beings of the most various degrees of 
 perfection, and therefore also such as are affected with imper- 
 fection. Development consists in the gradual stripping off of 
 imperfections in order to rise to higher stages. Hence no 
 objection can be made to God because of evil, for "the 
 creatures have their perfection from God, and their defects 
 from their own nature, which cannot be without limitation. 
 And it is just in this that they are distinguished from God." 
 God Himself, however, cannot change metaphysical necessity, 
 that is, He cannot think things otherwise ; and as the will is 
 guided by wisdom, neither can He will them otherwise than 
 as their perfection allows. As their idea includes imperfec- 
 tion or evil, He can only think and will them along with this. 
 The same holds also of moral evil or the bad. We have 
 already seen that Leibniz decidedly denies human freedom in 
 the sense of a groundless or irrational choice. Responsibility 
 for what is bad is not thereby taken away from us ; but as 
 freedom is as decidedly affirmed in the sense that all com- 
 pulsory external influence is repudiated and the grounds of 
 our actions are found merely in our own proper nature, man 
 is thus alone responsible for his sin. 
 
 Such is a brief outline of Leibniz's system of philosophy, 
 which is religious through and through, and the question 
 now comes as to how he judges regarding Religion itself. 
 As already stated, all monads are viewed as going through a 
 constant development, and every development has a deter- 
 minate goal set before it. Development is thus a striving 
 towards a certain goal. We have seen that God as the 
 supreme Monad is this goal. All monads thus represent God 
 and strive towards Him. 1 This representation and striving, 
 however, come first to consciousness in man; they are first 
 
 1 This view is at least the logical consequence of the system, and is in corre- 
 spondence with it. Leibniz says in the Monadologie ( 83) "that souls in 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 50 7 
 
 felt and consciously present in him. Now, as has been 
 already shown, all conscious perception of another being leads 
 to love, and thus the conscious perception of God and the 
 striving after Him lead to love of God. And this love to 
 God, which consists in the felt striving after God, and which, 
 from the essential connection of willing and knowing, can* 
 never be without knowledge of God, is the simple element 
 which forms the psychological foundation of all religion. As in 
 all monads, according to the degree of their perfection, there 
 is more or less actual perception of God and striving towards 
 Him as the highest end, and as this first comes into conscious- 
 ness in man, religion is to be regarded as a prerogative of 
 man above all the lower creatures. Hence God stands in a 
 much more inward relation to man than to these creatures. 
 God stands related to the lower creatures or the corporeal 
 world as the former and architect of the world (inventeur et 
 architecte). On the other hand, minds or spirits enter into a 
 certain communion with God ; He stands related to them as 
 a prince to his subjects or as a father to his children. Spirits 
 feel themselves, on the one hand, subject to God, because they 
 are finite while He is infinite ; and, on the other hand, they 
 feel themselves related to Him, because both God and man 
 are spirits, and men as intelligent spirits are created accord- 
 ing to the will of God. " Spirits are capable of entering into 
 communion with God, and God is related to them, not only 
 as an inventor to his machine (which is his relation to the 
 other creatures), but also as a prince to his subjects, or better 
 still, as a father to his children. The assembly of spirits 
 therefore constitutes the city of God, or the most perfect 
 State that is possible under the most perfect monarch." 
 According to this distinction between the relation in which 
 God stands to the lower creatures and the relation in which 
 He stands to spirits, Leibniz contrasts the " moral world " or 
 the " kingdom of grace " with the merely " natural world " or 
 
 general are living mirrors or images of the universe of the creatures, but the 
 spirits are also images of the Divinity Himself, or of the very Author of 
 Nature," etc. 
 
508 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN ATJFKLARUNG. 
 
 the " kingdom of nature." " This city of God, this truly 
 universal world, is a moral world in the natural world. It 
 is the most sublime and divine of the works of God, and in 
 it God's glory truly exists ; for there would be no glory of 
 God at all were not His greatness and goodness known and 
 admired by spirits." " And as we have already established a 
 perfect harmony between the two kingdoms of nature, known 
 as that of efficient causes and final causes, we must here 
 also bring into relief another harmony between the physical 
 kingdom and the moral kingdom of grace, or between God as 
 the architect of the machine of the world and God as the 
 monarch of the world of spirits." 
 
 (p 1 1 Eeligion is love to God resting upon correct ideas of God. 
 
 In this Leibniz comes into contact with the mystics, yet his 
 
 agreement with them is not so great as some expressions of 
 
 ! the work Theologia, Mystica might lead us to suppose. The 
 
 " internal light " of which he speaks is not a supernatural 
 
 Cl^TX illumination, but is natural reason. Love to God is the 
 
 k v \/r jJf^^ 
 
 highest joy and blessedness of man, and religion in this love 
 >X^ comes into contact with morality, the highest goal of which is 
 happiness. All love is happiness, because it is joy in the 
 happiness of another. Now God is the most perfect object 
 of our love, and hence love to Him is the greatest happiness. 
 Everything else must accordingly be sacrificed to this happi- 
 ness and to this love. " Every act by which we prefer our 
 enjoyment to that which corresponds to the honour of God 
 and His good pleasure, as reason and faith teach us to know 
 them, is actually a real union with God, even although there 
 may be a thought inexpressly of its revocation ! " Love to 
 God leads by necessity to true love for oneself and one's 
 neighbour, because the kingdom of His spirits cannot be 
 separated from God. Eeligion in its exercise or practical 
 application thus leads necessarily to morality. " Can it 
 be believed that Christians have actually imagined they 
 could be devout without loving their neighbour, or be pious 
 ^ I without loving God ? " Here we find the scientific establish- 
 V nient of the assertion which we have already met with in the 
 
THE DOCTKINES OF LEIBNIZ. 509 
 
 English Deists, and which constitutes one of the most essential 
 principles of the German Enlightenment, that true religion 
 cannot, in fact, be contrary to morality. 
 
 Leibniz does not express himself regarding worship and 
 ceremonies in connection with natural religion. The thought 
 does not appear to have occurred to him that love to God 
 requires another external representation than moral action. 
 Nor is there anything more implied by the statement in the 
 Systema Theologicum, that " every religion requires that God 
 be worshipped in an assembly of men (in ccetu hominum)." 
 The form of worship established in the Catholic Church is 
 assailed in the -strongest terms. Leibniz sees in it merely a 
 support of superstition and a means of leading the people at 
 will by the aid of their easily excited phantasy and of turning 
 them away from what is essential. Ceremonies appear to 
 him a bad substitute for the fulfilment of real moral duty, and 
 they are therefore extremely pernicious. " Piety has, contrary 
 to the intention of our divine Teacher, been reduced to cere- 
 monies, and His doctrine has been burdened with formulas. 
 These ceremonies were often little fitted to serve virtue, and 
 the formulas were often very obscure." 
 
 Eeligion is love to God, and love is not possible without j 
 knowledge. Hence religion is not possible without know- 
 ledge of God ; and the more perfect the knowledge of God 
 is, so much the more perfect also is religion. It is upon 
 this that the confidence of Leibniz and the early Enlighten- 
 ment rests, that religion and culture, theology and philosophy, 
 are in no respects opposites, and hence their demand for the 
 enlargement of knowledge even in religion. The idea of God 
 is felt within us in consciousness, and thereby it becomes 
 faith. The knowledge of God belongs to the ideas that are 
 innate in us ; it is always present in us, but it is developed 
 gradually according as our knowledge in general or our nature 
 is developed. The thought is approached that this is the basis 
 of the agreement and the difference of many religions, and 
 that in so far as the consciousness of God lies at the basis of 
 them all, they are identical; while in so far as the conscious- 
 
510 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 ness of God lies at the basis of each of them at a special 
 stage of its development, they form the different positive or 
 historical religions. This thought is at least approached and 
 almost touched by Leibniz, but it was not clearly expressed 
 till much later. 
 
 Our knowledge of God is partly grounded in ourselves, and 
 thus religion is natural ; and it is partly realized by external 
 communication, and thus religion is historical or positive. 
 Eegarding this communication of the knowledge of religion, 
 a distinction must be made between the first communication 
 on the part of God and its conveyance through other men, 
 or between immediate and mediate revelation. " Kevelation 
 is an extraordinary communication of God. ) But a man 
 inspired by God can communicate to others no new simple 
 idea, because he can only employ the words, or external signs, 
 or their combination, which awaken in us simple ideas such 
 as are ordinarily connected with them.^J Whatever may have 
 been the new ideas that the Apostle Paul may have received 
 when he was carried into the third heaven, all that he could 
 say of them is that they were things which no eye had seen, 
 nor ear heard, and which had not entered into the heart of 
 man. Suppose there were creatures in Jupiter with six 
 senses, and that God conveyed to one of us in a supernatural 
 way the idea of their sixth sense, he could not convey it by 
 words to other men. We must therefore distinguish between 
 original and traditional revelation (revelation originelle et 
 traditionelle). The former is an impression which God 
 immediately makes upon the mind, and to which we can 
 set no limits ; the other only comes by the usual channels 
 of communication, and cannot give new simple ideas." 
 
 An immediate revelation is declared by Leibniz to be 
 entirely possible. Its possibility rests upon the essential 
 relationship of the nature of God to the nature of man, which 
 makes the reception and the understanding of divine com- 
 munications possible to the latter. This question, however, is 
 not discussed in detail. On the other hand, Leibniz expresses 
 himself several times at length to the effect that prophecies do 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 511 
 
 not at all contradict the pre-established harmony that is 
 asserted by him. Indeed he has always said that the present 
 goes pregnant with the future, and that however distant things 
 may be from one another, so complete a connection subsists 
 between them, that whoever might be acute enough might read 
 the one in the other. As there may perhaps be in another 
 world dogs with so fine a nose as to scent their game thou- 
 sands of miles away, so there may perhaps also be in the 
 universe a planet where prophesying is more common than on 
 ours. Eegarding visions and revelations, we ought not to 
 decide cavalierly, but if we meet persons endowed with such 
 powers, we ought to preserve them like a curiosity or an 
 object for a cabinet, and to admire the nature of the human 
 mind, all the powers of which we do not know. 
 
 Eevelation, however, attaches itself to the nature of the 
 prophet. Visions stand in relation to the natural disposition 
 of the persons to whose spirit God accommodates Himself, 
 because He does not work superfluous miracles. This was 
 also the case with the actual prophets, so that we must almost 
 imagine that Ezekiel had studied architecture, and had been a 
 court engineer, because he sees such fine buildings in his 
 visions. On the other hand, a prophet belonging to the 
 country, like Hosea or Amos, sees only landscapes and rural 
 images ; whereas Daniel, who was a statesman, expresses the 
 regulated order of universal monarchies. But notwithstanding 
 this, the great prophets, and especially those who teach the 
 detail of the future, need supernatural gifts; for it is impossible 
 that a human rriind, however acute, should be here sufficient 
 of its natural power, because every particular event of nature 
 depends on the co-operation of an endless number of causes. 
 
 Mediate revelation specially requires to be tested in order 1 
 that we may not fall from easy credulity into unbelief, or take 
 the illusion of an evil genius, or our own false apprehension, 
 for the will of God. Eevelation must therefore carry certain 
 marks in itself, and these are usually called motives of credi- 
 bility. If it is without these, we may with a good right 
 refuse to give credence to it, only if a command neither con- 
 
/ 
 
 512 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 tradicts reason nor another revelation it is safer to follow it. 
 The miracles of the teacher of the religion and the holiness of 
 his doctrine, are regarded as such marks ; and the possibility 
 of any revelation is specially in its favour. 
 
 The relation of Revelation to Reason is such that the prin- 
 ciples of reason should determine us to a believing reception 
 of the revelation, and that the contents of revelation can 
 never be contrary to reason, although they may be above 
 reason. To believe a thing is not merely to repeat it and to 
 adopt it without reflecting earnestly upon it ; and hence intel- 
 ligent men have always rightly regarded those with suspicion 
 who asserted that they did not need to trouble themselves in 
 matters of faith about reasons and proofs. "Whoever is in 
 favour of this blind belief has no reason for preferring the 
 Bible to the Koran, or to the ancient books of the Brahmins. 
 The contents of revelation are not contrary to reason, but they 
 are above reason. They cannot be contrary to reason; for 
 one truth can never contradict another truth, and therefore the 
 truth of reason can never contradict the truth of revelation. 
 Further, our conviction can have no firmer ground than 
 demonstration, and if a revelation is contrary to the truths 
 resting on demonstration, it can never reckon upon being 
 accepted with full conviction. Revelation may well go beyond 
 reason. The truths of reason are of two kinds. Some of them 
 are the eternal truths of geometry, of logic, and of metaphysics, 
 which are absolutely necessary, and which accordingly can 
 never be contradicted by faith. The other truths of reason 
 are the positive truths, or the laws which God has given to 
 nature, and which He can also dispense with. Revelation 
 may contradict such truths. Further, right reason is to be 
 distinguished from perverted reason ; the former forms a 
 chain of truths, the latter is altered by prejudices and passions. 
 Reason, however, has to avoid and to correct such errors and 
 deceptions by its own power. 
 
 Leibniz believes that he has thus proved that Theology and 
 Philosophy do not all stand in antagonism to each other. " To 
 renounce reason in matters of religion is, in my eyes, almost a 
 
THE DOCTRINES OF LEIBNIZ. 513 
 
 sure mark either of a wilfulness which borders on fanaticism, 
 or what is still worse, of hypocrisy." Philosophy, however, 
 has no right to set itself in opposition to religion and its 
 revelation. There is a whole sphere that lies between what 
 is necessary and impossible, or between what must happen 
 according to a logical necessity and what cannot happen 
 according to the same necessity, and this embraces the whole 
 of the region of facts which depends only on physical neces- 
 sity. Here reason cannot refute revelation. This distinction 
 between what is against reason and what is above reason 
 became the shibboleth of the whole of the German Aufklarung. \ ^ 
 Leibniz reckons the most inconceivable Christian dogmas I ^ 
 among those things which are, merely above reason, such as 
 the Trinity, transubstantiation, incarnation, etc. The German 
 Aufklarung always contracted the boundary of this sphere, \ 
 
 I 
 
 until the whole distinction was dissolved, and the inherent 
 spirit of criticism historically carried itself out to com- 
 pleteness. 
 
 Eeligion, as love to God, leads to action as well as to 
 knowledge. This action coincides with what is required by 
 morality, and the knowledge leads to certain theoretical prin- 
 ciples or dogmas. The doctrines of natural religion relate to 
 the divine nature and to man. The belief in the existence of 
 one God and the immortality of the human soul constitutes 
 the whole sum and substance of natural religion. Knowledge 
 and moral action are the purer forms in which religion is 
 found in a select few. The great crowd, however, always 
 pervert the true fear of God into formalities. These formali- 
 ties are likewise of a twofold kind : formulae of faith corre- 
 sponding to knowledge, and external ceremonies corresponding 
 to conduct. If these formalities were of such a nature that 
 they were conducive to the knowledge of the saving truth and 
 the practice of right conduct, they would be quite good, and 
 the striving of Moses and of Christ, who was the founder of 
 the purest and most enlightened religion, was directed towards 
 them. The heathen had only one kind of formalities, namely, 
 religious ceremonies, while they had no articles of faith, 
 
 VOL. i. 2 K 
 
514 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 They did not know whether their gods were actual persons or 
 mere signs and symbols of natural powers ; their mysteries 
 consisted only of secret institutions, which were often ludicrous 
 and absurd. Abraham and Moses established among the 
 Hebrews the belief in one only God as the origin of all that 
 is good and the creator of all things. For although among 
 other nations wise and prudent persons spake in a similar 
 way of God, they did not succeed in making men follow them 
 and receive their doctrine as law. Moses, however, did not 
 bring the doctrine of immortality into his law, although it 
 accorded with his opinions, and was virtually taught. Jesus 
 Christ first took away the veil and taught that the immortal 
 souls enter into another life, and there receive rewards cor- 
 responding to their deeds. Christ turned natural religion 
 completely into a law, and gave it the authority and validity 
 of a public doctrine. He alone did what so many wise philo- 
 sophers had laboured in vain to accomplish ; and the religion 
 of the wise became the religion of the whole people. Even 
 Mohammed did not depart from these important doctrines of 
 natural religion, but brought them to the distant peoples in 
 Asia and Africa, who, in their heathen superstition, were 
 opposed to the Christian truth. In regard to the knowledge 
 of God, Christianity stands higher than Judaism. Christ has 
 brought to perfection what was begun by Moses. He has 
 made God not only the object of our fear and reverence, but 
 also of our love and heartfelt affection. This true religion, 
 which is natural religion made into a universal law by Christ, 
 was afterwards again corrupted and falsified. " Godliness has 
 been turned into ceremonies quite against the opinion of our 
 divine Master, and doctrine has become encumbered with 
 formulae." 
 
 These are essentially the views expressed by Leibniz 
 regarding the several positive religions. That his statements 
 are defective is evident enough. We are left in the dark 
 as to whether in the beginning of history natural religion 
 prevailed purely by itself, so that heathenism is to be 
 \ regarded as a corruption ; or whether the law of development 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 515 
 
 rules here also. Nor do we learn anything as to whether and 
 where a divine revelation has actually taken place. Moses 
 and Christ, although divine prophets, are still represented 
 only as founders or rather renovators of natural religion. It 
 thus naturally became the task of the German Enlightenment 
 to shell out natural religion in its greatest possible purity 
 from the later corrupted form of Christianity. As regards 
 the historical mode of viewing religion, the German 
 Aufkldrung did not advance essentially beyond the position 
 of its founder until the time of Lessing. 
 
 II. 
 
 WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Leibniz continued throughout his life to be an aristocrat 
 even as a thinker. His thoughts, indeed, found a response in 
 a small circle of select spirits, but were not able to become a 
 universally ruling power. His views, however, came to be a 
 power after his death in consequence of their being popularized 
 by Christian Wolff (1679-1774). 1 Wolff himself zealously 
 asserted the independence of his philosophy, and was indignant 
 at his scholar Bilfinger because he used the expression 
 " Leibniz - Wolffian philosophy." An impartial historian, 
 however, must acknowledge that Wolff " has not established 
 one new point of view of general importance," but that he 
 borrowed all the important thoughts of the philosophy of 
 Leibniz. His systematizing, however, is mainly his own, and 
 it is not to be reckoned as a slight merit. Leibniz, as is well 
 known, has expressed his thoughts without systematic order 
 in a series of letters, and in treatises that are often of small 
 extent, and not without repetitions in one place and lacunae 
 in another. The application of his principles to the several 
 sciences is also wanting. Wolff, possessing only a logically 
 
 1 Of Wolffs writings we have specially to consider here his Theologia 
 naturalis methodo stientifica pertracta, 1737, and his VernuTtftige Gedanken 
 von Gott, der Welt und der Seek des Menschen, 3 Aufl. 1725. Cf. Zeller, 
 ut supra. 
 
516 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 clear and dry mathematical understanding, but without any 
 original faculty of his own, has arranged the fragmentary 
 thoughts of his master into a system, and constructed a formal 
 whole out of them. He has also cultivated the several 
 sciences, with the exception of ^Esthetics, from the point of 
 view of this system. He defines philosophy to be "the 
 science of the possible, as regards how and why or wherefore 
 anything is possible ; " and he thus again sets up philosophy 
 as the all-comprehending and universally-established queen of 
 all the separate sciences. Moreover, Wolff wrote mostly in 
 German, and he thereby introduced philosophy to wider circles 
 of readers. 
 
 It is not possible to systematize, and especially to popularize, 
 a philosophy in detail for wider circles of readers, without 
 adopting a correspondingly superficial treatment of it. We 
 find this in Wolff, yet it is to be remembered at the same 
 time that the profoundest work of Leibniz, his Nouveaux Essais 
 sur VEntendement, was not published till 1765, after Wolff's 
 death. We have seen how Leibniz, along with the clear and 
 distinct knowledge in which he sees the foundation of all 
 theoretical and practical perfection, likewise attributes great 
 importance to obscure and confused knowledge. Wolff speaks 
 only of the former, and thus intellectual enlightenment is the 
 high goal to which his whole striving is devoted. Hence he 
 demands nothing more urgently than distinct conceptions and 
 fundamental proofs; for philosophy ought to deduce all its 
 principles by correct inference from irrefragable principles, or 
 in other words, it must proceed according to the mathematical 
 method. Within this intellectual enlightenment there is, 
 however, a certain dualism which distinguishes Wolff in a 
 manner that is not to his advantage. 
 
 Leibniz likewise recognises the promotion of happiness by 
 knowledge, but to him the two are identical and immediately 
 one. With Wolff, science has to serve the external end of 
 making men happy, and what he misses in the previous 
 philosophy is not only evidence, but above all practical 
 utility. Leibniz distinguishes empirical knowledge from 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 517 
 
 rational knowledge, but it is Wolff who on this basis first 
 carries out the separation of rational and empirical science, as 
 in rational and empirical psychology and theology. Leibniz 
 finds the essential nature of all things in the activity of per- 
 ception, the limitation of which by individual determinate- 
 ness gives the matter or the body of all monads. Wolff 
 distinguishes in things as two different elements: (1) the 
 matter which gives body extension with its power of resist- 
 ance, and (2) an active power which is not exactly percipient, 
 or matter, substance, and moving force. Leibniz everywhere 
 refers the harmonious combination of individual things into a 
 universe to the pre-established harmony ; Wolff only applies 
 the doctrine to the union of soul and body, while with regard 
 to the lower corporeal beings he has recourse to physical 
 influence. In Wolff the harmony of the world appears no 
 longer as the natural immanent order of the world, but as an 
 order introduced into the world externally by God. God 
 foresaw into what sort of circumstances every body would 
 come, and He constituted the human soul so that it would 
 bring forth of its own essential power all its sensations and 
 perceptions in the corresponding order. God likewise foresaw 
 what external movements of the body man's soul, in virtue of 
 its freedom, would desire, and He constituted the machine of 
 the human body so that it would perform of itself at the right 
 time the corresponding motions. The end which controls 
 everything is no longer the immanent end or purpose, but a 
 purely external one ; and in place of the immanent conformity 
 to design, there comes in the common external utility. The 
 highest that man now experiences is the useful ; and therefore 
 the value of all things is measured by the direct or indirect 
 advantage which man draws from them as that which most 
 appeals to the " sound human understanding." 
 
 This is the general character of the Wolffian system in its 
 relation to the philosophy of Leibniz. The system itself falls 
 into Pure Philosophy and Applied Philosophy. The former 
 has to do with the Deity, the human soul, and the corporeal 
 world, and it is thus divided into Theology, Psychology, and 
 
518 LEIBXIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Cosmology, to which Ontology is prefixed as an exposition of 
 what belongs to existence generally. Applied Philosophy 
 lays down precepts for cognition in Logic, and for action in 
 Practical Philosophy, which is subdivided into Ethics, Politics, 
 and Economics. 
 
 Wolff' carefully distinguishes Natural Theology from the 
 revealed knowledge of God. The former is founded merely 
 upon our natural knowledge, while the latter is exclusively 
 based upon Scripture, but the former serves as a preparation 
 and introduction to it. Natural Theology has to prove the 
 existence of God, and to develop His attributes. In doing 
 so it pursues a twofold way. Proceeding a posteriori, or 
 from experience, Wolff infers the existence of God by the 
 Cosmological Argument, and in such a way that the con- 
 tingency of the world is specially accentuated. Hence this 
 Argument as presented by Wolff is commonly designated the 
 Argumentum e contingentia mundi. It proceeds as follows. 
 If anything exists, it must have its sufficient reason ; now we 
 at least exist ; and therefore we must have a sufficient reason. 
 This reason does not lie in us, but out of us. This other 
 being may also have its sufficient reason out of itself. But 
 if we go on farther, we must at last come to a Being which 
 has the sufficient reason of its existence in itself, because 
 otherwise everything would be without ground or reason. 
 This ultimate Being is the Ens necessarium, which does not 
 need for its existence the power of another being, but exists 
 of its own power, and is sufficient of itself for its existence ; 
 it is Ens a se. This necessary Being is not the world, nor its 
 elements, nor the soul, but an extra-mundane Being, which is 
 the ground of the existence of the world, or God. 
 
 Wolff proceeds & priori to prove the existence of God by 
 the Ontological Argument from the conception of the most 
 real being. The most perfect Being, Ens perfectissimum, is 
 that Being in which all realities dwell in the highest degree. 
 Such a Being is unlimited, unchangeable, infinite, and without 
 any want. Whereas in a finite being the various states of 
 which it is capable by its nature can only arise one after the 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 519 
 
 other, an infinite Being can only have necessary and un- 
 changeable determinations ; that is, its states are all present 
 in it at the same time. This most perfect Being is God, and 
 hence all realities are in God. And as this also implies 
 necessary existence, God necessarily exists. Because God 
 necessarily exists, His existence is not dependent on another 
 being ; He exists merely of His own power. Hence God is 
 Ens a se. Here the ct, priori investigation of the second part 
 of natural theology flows wholly into the & posteriori result of 
 the first part, and the further details of both are essentially 
 the same. 
 
 The Ens a se has not arisen and cannot perish ; it has no 
 beginning and no end of being ; it is Ens primum et ultimum, 
 that is, it is eternal. It is not compounded nor corporeal, for 
 all that is compounded and corporeal arises and perishes ; it 
 is " Ens Simplex et corporeus esse nequit." The visible world 
 and all its parts have not their being of themselves, and hence 
 the Ens a se must be distinguished from these things. In 
 this Being all other things have the sufficient ground of their 
 existence, and therefore all those attributes must be ascribed 
 to it in which the sufficient ground for the existence of the 
 world lies. This is the most important canon for obtainment 
 of the attributes of God. God is thus the Ens a se, and contains 
 the sufficient ground for the existence of this world and of 
 our soul. Hence He is constantly active power, whence He 
 is also called living, and life is ascribed to Him. In this 
 power the ground must lie for the fact that this world is, 
 instead of its not being, as well as the fact that it is just this 
 world that exists and not another. The reason of this latter 
 fact cannot lie in those points in which the various worlds are 
 like each other, but only in those in which they differ from 
 each other. Hence God must have represented all possible 
 worlds to Himself, and have chosen out of them the one that 
 has become real. Accordingly reason and freewill belong to 
 God, and thus God is a spirit (spiritus independens). All 
 realities that belong to us as spirits must also be ascribed to 
 God, only not with those limitations that follow from our 
 
520 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 fmiteness. This is the second canon for obtaining the divine 
 attributes. 
 
 In- wearisome detail Wolff then treats of the attributes 
 which constitute the being of God as a spirit. These attri- 
 butes are reason and will. God's knowledge, as distinguished 
 from that of man, is not merely a capacity, but it is actus. It 
 is not obtained by senses and imagination, but is purely 
 rational, and consists in the contemplation of the ideas that 
 are eternally and unchangeably present in God as the mundus 
 intelligibilis. God knows not only what is real, but all that 
 can be known. He knows everything at once. In the least 
 part of the world He knows at the same time the whole world. 
 He knows what is most individual, and also the veritates 
 universales. In short, the manner of the divine knowledge 
 is elevated above all our conception. 
 
 The power of God is the capability of making real what is 
 possible in itself. For as the knowledge of God is limited to 
 what is knowable in itself, so is the divine nature limited to 
 what is possible in itself. God can neither will nor realize 
 anything that is impossible, but this is no limitation of His 
 omnipotence. As regards what is possible, there must also be 
 a definite reason why God wills anything, or does not will it. 
 Of the many possible worlds, God has willed and realized this 
 world only because it is the best. The evil in the world is 
 not an objection to this fact. A distinction must be made 
 between what is absolutely bad and what is relatively bad ; the 
 former cannot be avoided in a finite world, the latter does not 
 exist in the actual world. God's power, which is limited only 
 by what is impossible in itself, therefore extends much farther 
 than God's will, which is constantly put into activity by some 
 particular reason. God can likewise make all the other 
 worlds real, etc. 
 
 This external relation between divine power and divine 
 will forms, according to Wolff, the basis of the possibility of 
 justifying miracles and immediate revelation. God can 
 perform miracles to whatever extent He may will. God can 
 do what goes beyond the power of all nature. He can 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 521 
 
 annul the order of nature whenever and as often as He 
 will. The question as to how a miracle is compatible with 
 the order of nature, is explained by Wolff, in his cosmology, 
 in a somewhat unsatisfactory way. By miracles, he says, are 
 meant those changes of bodies which cannot be explained by 
 the way in which their parts are connected with each other, 
 or by their qualities and laws of motion. A miracle does not 
 contradict the nature of that body in which it takes place, for 
 in that case it would be impossible. If a miracle takes place, 
 its occurrence is possible according to the nature of things, but 
 natural causes, or the so-called causce efficientes sufficientes, are 
 not capable of realizing it. Hence every natural effect would 
 be a miracle if it took place without a sufficient natural cause ; 
 and therefore we know a miracle primarily from the want of 
 a natural cause. A miracle goes beyond the powers of nature, 
 and must therefore be effected by a Being external to the 
 world ; but as nature is controlled, not by an absolute, but 
 only by a relative necessity, such a miracle is impossible. The 
 whole point is that God likewise receives miracles into His 
 eternal world-plan. 
 
 On this position is also based the possibility of an imme- 
 diate revelation, for such a revelation is only possible by a 
 miracle. The further consideration also comes in, that it is 
 not impossible that God should reveal His will to men. God 
 knows by what words His will must be made known, and He 
 also knows with what words or signs He must represent it in 
 order that the recipient of the revelation may know what God 
 wills. But Wolff endeavours to establish various criteria by 
 which every alleged revelation ought to be tested. Divine 
 revelation must have certain contents which it is necessary 
 for man to know, but which it is impossible to know in 
 another way. This follows from the fact that God never does 
 anything superfluous ; but it would be superfluous to reveal 
 things of which the knowledge was either not necessary to 
 man, or attainable without this means. It is. however, tenable 
 that there may be certain things contained in a divine revela- 
 tion as concomitants of it, such as we may know even by the 
 
522 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 right use of reason. Besides, every revelation desiderates a 
 miracle ; a miracle is a great change of the material world ; 
 and hence God has recourse to this means only from entirely 
 special reasons. Hence revelation must contain mysteries, as 
 things which go beyond reason, but which are nevertheless 
 possible. NOT is an alleged revelation to be regarded as such 
 so soon as it can be shown that the recipient has come to it 
 by the natural powers of his mind. Further, the divine 
 revelation may not contradict the divine attributes ; for God 
 wills what is becoming to Him, and hence, in His attributes, 
 there must lie the reason why He wills this and not that. 
 The divine revelation can relate only to what is knowable, 
 and hence it cannot contain contradictions ; and just as little 
 can it contradict necessary truths, although it may contradict 
 contingent truths. It can contain nothing which contradicts 
 reason or experience, or propositions which are demonstrated 
 from the principles of reason, or facts that are established by 
 trustworthy experience. The knowledge that is founded upon 
 reason and experience is raised above all doubt; but God 
 cannot possibly plunge any one in error ; and hence such 
 knowledge and revelation must harmonize with each other. 
 The divine revelation can prescribe nothing that is contrary to 
 the law of nature, or to the essence and nature of the soul. 
 For what corresponds to the right of nature corresponds also 
 to reason ; and as revelation cannot be opposed to the latter, 
 neither can it be to the former. The nature of the soul, 
 again, is unchangeable ; and hence it is impossible to com- 
 mand anything that is opposed to it, such as that food and 
 drink which taste agreeably shall not taste agreeably. In the 
 divine revelation the individual things must be said with 
 words or exhibited in signs, so that the receiver of the revela- 
 tion may know that the opinion of God is really contained in 
 it ; and hence neither more nor fewer words may be employed 
 than are necessary to know God's judgment, and only those 
 that are subservient to this purpose. Hence in revelation 
 God cannot presuppose that other conceptions are connected 
 with the words than the man addressed himself has. Where- 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 523 
 
 fore God in His revelation must employ the ideas that are 
 taken from present things, and observe the rules of grammar 
 and rhetoric. 
 
 We do not find in "Wolff any application of these criteria 
 to the positive religions. He indeed supports the affirmations 
 of his natural theology point after point by statements of 
 Holy Scripture, but all that was accomplished afterwards by 
 the Aufklarung in the way of a shallow and emptying criti- 
 cism of Christianity rests in principle upon these criteria. This 
 is the reason why they have been reproduced here in such 
 detail. 
 
 In his views regarding the relation of God to the world, 
 Wolff also attaches himself essentially to Leibniz, but he strongly 
 externalizes his doctrine. God has created the world out of 
 nothing, so that all being, as regards its internal possibility, 
 depends on the intellect of God ; as regards its external possi- 
 bility, it depends on His will; as regards its existence, it 
 depends on His power ; and as regards its future duration, it 
 depends on His unalterable decree. God perceived all worlds, 
 chose out of them this world as the best, and by a miracle 
 created it and the order that prevails in it. In his deter- 
 minism as in his optimism, Wolff agrees entirely with Leibniz, 
 yet he speaks at times as if God could not have created the 
 world, and he recognises innumerable miracles as well as 
 divine permission and assistance. The manifestation of the 
 divine glory appears as the final purpose of the world, to 
 which everything else is subordinated as a means, and yet 
 this conformity to design is quite externally apprehended. 
 This is seen, in the first place, in reference to the ground of 
 the world ; for instead of referring to immanent order and 
 harmony, Wolff lets us see divine purposes in everything that 
 arises from the nature of things. Again, this holds regarding 
 the goal of the world ; for although it is said " that God has 
 not made everything in the world merely to please us," yet 
 usefulness for men and animals is to be regarded as an accom- 
 panying purpose in the divine plan of the world. And 
 indeed the ultimate end of the world lies only in man, because 
 
524 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 God can only reach through him His purpose to be known 
 and worshipped as God. This thought is beaten out till it 
 becomes trivial in his " Eational Thoughts on the purpose of 
 natural things," 1 so that the whole constitution of the earth 
 appears as nothing else than "a means arranged by God to 
 attain all that is necessary for our wants, our convenience, 
 and our delight." Thus the interchange of day and night is 
 lauded because men and animals can refresh themselves at 
 night by sleep, and because the night is subservient to certain 
 pursuits, such as the catching of fishes and birds, which 
 cannot be well carried on by day. 
 
 The allusions of Leibniz to the nature of religion are in no 
 way taken up by Wolff, to say nothing of their not being 
 further developed. To Wolff, as to the theology of his time, 
 Eeligion is simply a " modus Deuni cognoscendi, colendique." 
 
 The soul is a simple substance, and can therefore only have 
 arisen by creation ; and as the creation of all things happened 
 at the same time, it could only have come into being at the 
 creation of the world. Souls have existed from that time in 
 an imperfect unconscious state, until they attained to human 
 existence. In death, human souls are not annihilated, but 
 continue to be immortal with full consciousness of their 
 former state, whereas the souls of animals come to an end. 
 Practical philosophy is likewise founded entirely upon the 
 natural being of man. It is only when we act according to 
 the natural destination of our bodily and spiritual powers 
 that we can attain the end of our existence, which is advanc- 
 ing perfection combined with always increasing happiness. 
 This moral law also springs from God ; but God could give 
 no other law of action than what is an eternal, necessary, and 
 unchangeable condition of the furtherance of human nature. 
 
 Along with the Wolffian philosophy, there was another 
 movement which co-operated in promoting Enlightenment. 
 It embodied the tendency which was averse to all profound 
 inquiries, and especially to the syllogistic procedure of the 
 
 1 Verniinftige Gedanken iiber die Absicht der natilrlichen Dinge. 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 525 
 
 school with its mathematical demonstrative method, and it 
 worked out a universally accessible Popular Philosophy on the 
 basis of the utterances of the sound human Understanding. 
 This movement first showed itself in the department of 
 Natural Law. Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) had already led 
 the way in this direction, and he was also known as a 
 theologian by the philologico-historical exegesis of his Anno- 
 tationes to the Old and New Testament, and by his widely- 
 circulated apologetic work, De veritate religionis Christianas 
 (1627). In his De jure belli et pads libri tres (Paris 1625), 
 Grotius endeavoured to make the knowledge of right inde- 
 pendent of the precepts of divine revelation. The preserva- 
 tion of society in conformity with human reason is the source 
 of natural right ; for as society rests upon a social impulse 
 peculiar to man, so does the natural right of society rest 
 upon principles which man carries internally in himself. But 
 it is expressly recognised that these natural principles are 
 implanted in us by the will of God, and thus is right also 
 indirectly referred to him. The chief follower of Grotius in 
 Germany was Samuel Pufendorf (1632-1694). His conflict 
 was mainly carried on with the " peripatetic knights " or the 
 learned " school-foxes," who wished to judge of everything in a 
 scholastic way by their infallible master Aristotle, and who 
 fell into the greatest embarrassment whenever his schematism 
 left them in the lurch. In like manner, he is zealous against 
 the demand of an exclusively Christian philosophy. He holds 
 that this demand rests upon an unjustifiable mixing up of 
 theology and philosophy ; for the predicates of orthodoxy 
 and heterodoxy should have no application to philosophy. 
 Pufendorf distinguishes Natural Law, Civil Law, and Moral 
 Theology. All the three sciences have to deal with the 
 knowledge of Right and Law, but each of them draws its 
 knowledge from a special source, and deals with a particular 
 form of duty : Natural Law, on the basis of natural reason, 
 deals with the duty of sociality ; Civil Law, on the basis of 
 the ordinances of the legislator, deals with the duties of the 
 citizen to the State : moral theology on the basis of the 
 
526 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 divine revelation, as contained in the commandments of Holy 
 Scripture, deals with the duty of the Christian towards God. 
 Natural Law is therefore not opposed to the injunctions of 
 theology ; but there are certain of its demands, however, 
 which it does not take into consideration. But so far as we 
 can know the existence and the will of God by the powers of 
 natural reason, the natural law of Eight also leads by itself to 
 certain duties towards God. On account of these positions, 
 Pufendorf had to undergo many attacks ; but such a work as 
 that of his contemporary Valentin Alberti, entitled Com- 
 pendium juris naturae, orthodoxce theologice conformatum, etc. 
 (Leipsic 1678), still entirely shows the spirit of the Mediaeval 
 jurisprudence. The source of the knowledge of Eight is here 
 referred to the remains of the divine image, or rather the 
 orthodox dogma of the state of innocence. 
 
 Christian Thomasius (16551728) likewise started from 
 juristic studies, but he proceeded to take up the struggle in 
 all the departments of the spiritual life against old traditional 
 prejudices and unjustifiable authorities. He began his career 
 at Leipsic with lectures upon Grotius and Pufendorf, but 
 according to his own confession the latter had brought him 
 to the conviction that the theologians unanimously maintain 
 many things that belong to ethics or to jurisprudence. Being 
 thus liberated from the oppressive anxiety of being con- 
 demned for heresy, he proceeds to liberate natural right from 
 the bonds of theological authority. The light of nature 
 and the light of revelation are different sources of truth. 
 Theology draws from Scripture, philosophy from reason ; 
 philosophy aims at the earthly well - being of men, and 
 theology at his heavenly well-being. In like manner, right 
 and morality must be sharply distinguished. What is right 
 or just (justum) consists in our doing to no one what we do 
 not wish that he should do to us ; what is becoming 
 (decorum) consists in our manifesting to others what we 
 wish to be done by them to us ; and what is moral (honestum) 
 consists in our doing ourselves what we find laudable in 
 others. What is right therefore relates to outward peace, 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 527 
 
 and can be constrained ; what is moral refers to inward peace, 
 and cannot be constrained. This reform of jurisprudence led 
 Thomasius farther. The greatest evil in this connection was 
 that the " school-foxes " compelled everything to go into the 
 strait-jacket of the syllogism, and that they would determine 
 everything according to the empty schematism of Aristotle. 
 In order to break its supremacy, he laboured to introduce a 
 universally intelligible and useful philosophy, which would be 
 available, not merely for the school, but also for the higher 
 life of business. Thus arose his Introductio in philosophiam 
 aulicam (Leipsic 1688), with his directions to think rationally, 
 to live rationally and well, and such like. Its philosophical 
 value is very small, but it was highly conducive to its 
 purpose, which was to " enlighten." Averse to all logical 
 rules and to all scholastic formalism, Thomasius in his 
 struggle against tradition and prejudice appealed only to the 
 utterances of " the sound human understanding " as to that 
 which enlightens every one whose understanding is not led 
 too much astray by alien knowledge. " What agrees with 
 reason is true, what does not agree with it is false." This is 
 given as the extremely simple criterion of truth. A philo- 
 sophy of the sound human understanding naturally strives 
 after the widest diffusion that is possible. Hence it is not 
 surprising that it was Thomasius who broke down the barrier 
 which then separated the learned circles from the unlearned 
 in the Latin language, by his giving lectures in the German 
 language, and by the founding of German scientific periodicals. 
 In his religious views Thomasius shows considerable varia- 
 tions. At first he attached himself warmly to the Pietists, 
 but less from internal affinity to them than because they both 
 saw their common enemy in the ecclesiastical orthodoxy. 
 " Devoted to the religion which the Apostle strives to 
 impress upon his Corinthians in the passage in which he 
 so greatly glorifies love and so highly estimates good works," 
 Thomasius demands from the State toleration of the various 
 religious communities. He also shows considerable insight in 
 his relations to Mysticism, but afterwards, under the advancing 
 
528 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 influence of the empiricism of Locke, he turned more and more 
 towards Naturalism. 
 
 This eclecticism of the sound human Understanding was 
 specially influential in opposing the universal diffusion of the 
 views of Wolff. For although Thoinasius also reckons the 
 Piamists, Philippists, and Cartesians with the " School-foxes" 
 or the old Aristotelians, it was only the latter that really came 
 into consideration, and they had long since lost their former 
 authority. Hence but a few decades passed until the 
 struggle which specially turned about the question as to 
 whether the theory of pre-established harmony or that of 
 physical influence was to be received tended decidedly in 
 favour of Wolff'. Ludovici, the historian of the Wolffian 
 philosophy, by the year 1737 already knows of one hundred 
 and seven literary Wolffians. 1 All the universities and all 
 the schools were dominated by them ; the whole of the sciences 
 were cultivated in accordance with the mathematico-demonstra- 
 tive method, and according to the criterion of the principle of 
 the sufficient reason. Such a wide diffusion of a system is, 
 however, always connected with a corresponding superficiality 
 of treatment, and from the Wolffian philosophy there was 
 thus developed about the middle of the century that eclectic 
 Popular Philosophy which chiefly characterizes the German 
 Enlightenment. 
 
 The relation of the Wolffian Philosophy to Theology still 
 remains to be considered. In theology there were then two 
 Schools : the Orthodoxy which was dying out, and the 
 Pietism which was striving to obtain the supremacy. The 
 Wolffian philosophy had points of contact with both. With 
 orthodoxy it represented the strictly scientific method against 
 the mere pectoral theology of pietism ; and with pietism it 
 demanded the liberation of the subject from the fetters of 
 the ecclesiastical authority. At the same time, however, its 
 thoroughly rational character separated it from Orthodoxy as 
 
 1 A more detailed exposition of this subject would be out of place here. 
 Keference may be made to Zeller (Op. cit.) and Benno Erdmann's Martin 
 Knutzen und seine Zeit, 1876. 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 529 
 
 well as from Pietism. It is no wonder then, notwithstanding 
 a transitory friendliness, that it ultimately fell out with them 
 both. 
 
 The Orthodoxy of the beginning of the Eighteenth Century 
 can hardly be compared with the powerful ecclesiastical 
 Theology of the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, which 
 ruled without limit. Bather is the coarse remark of Edel- 
 mann not entirely without truth, when he says that " the 
 Lutheran sect must have rotted in its own dung, had not 
 the Wolffian philosophy taken pity on this pig- sty, and 
 brought the sin-filth which these swine had now deposited 
 for two hundred years in their common dunghill, among the 
 necessary things in the best of worlds." It is only from this 
 internal decay of ecclesiastical orthodoxy that we can explain 
 how, in its struggle for existence against Pietism and the 
 Naturalism that was always gaining ground in consequence 
 of the Socinian reaction of the English and French influences, 
 it laid hold of the Wolffian philosophy with its mathematico- 
 demonstrative method, as a sure anchor of safety. Wolff had 
 indeed left supernatural revelation unaffected, and hence a 
 series of theologians laboured more or less to prop up a 
 moderate supranaturalism upon the Wolffian rationalism, and 
 to prove the doctrines of the Church by means of the principle 
 of the sufficient reason. Pieligion appears in them, as to 
 Wolff, wholly as a " modus Deum cognoscendi colendique." 
 Ptevelation is shown to be necessary from the limitedness of 
 the human faculty of knowledge, or as springing from the 
 divine omnipotence and compassion. A series of rational 
 criteria serve to test true revelation, and to distinguish it 
 from merely alleged revelations. The conception of the 
 suprarational serves to remove the antagonism between reason 
 and revelation. The universal principles, the introductory 
 inquiries regarding revelation and reason, the propositions 
 regarding God's existence and nature, and regarding providence 
 and anthropology, all gain in range and depth, while the 
 specifically Christian doctrines retreat considerably into the 
 background. 
 
 VOL, L 2 L 
 
530 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 We may now approach the most important of the theological 
 Wolffians somewhat more closely. Gottlieb Canz (t 1753) of 
 Tubingen 1 sought to prove the agreement of philosophy with 
 the fundamental truths of the Christian religion point by 
 point ; for grace does not annul the powers of Nature, but 
 improves them by furnishing a new light in holy Scripture. 
 To subordinate the truth communicated to us by God through 
 the instrument of reason to that which is directly presented 
 to us by Eevelation, would be the same as to make the water 
 dug out of the earth a servant of the water that falls as rain. 
 In this spirit Canz wrote a continuation of Eeinbeck's " Con- 
 templations on the divine truths contained in the Augsburg 
 Confession," 2 a work consisting originally of four parts. This 
 continuation is of wearisome length. By a popular mode of 
 rationalizing, Canz labours to make the Biblical doctrines 
 at least probable. Kothen, a Protestant preacher at Geneva, 
 published, in 1736, a treatise on "the excellence and the 
 usefulness of the Wolffian philosophy in the confirmation and 
 practice of the Christian religion." It professes to furnish the 
 best means of refuting Scepticism, Materialism, Idealism, 
 Spinozism, Fatalism, Deism, " the common religion of people 
 of a worldly disposition and of sensualists," Manicheeism, 
 Rationalism, Fanaticism, Predestinationism, Socinianism, and 
 Freethinking. Jakob Carpov of Jena (t 1768) proceeds in a 
 thoroughly scholastic way to maintain revealed theology on 
 the foundation of natural theology. 3 He argues that it is 
 possible in itself that God reveals or immediately communi- 
 cates definite truths to men. In virtue of His omniscience, 
 God knows all the words and signs by which things must be 
 brought to human cognition. In virtue of His omnipotence, 
 He is able to produce sounds in the air like those by which 
 we speak, or motions in the ear such as the voice excites, or 
 to produce immediately in our mind perceptions of the things 
 
 1 Units Philosophic Leibnitiance et Wolffiance in theologia, 1733. Philo- 
 sophies Wo.lffi.ance consensus cum theologia, 1735. 
 
 2 Betrachtungen uber die in der Augsburgischen Confession enthaltenen 
 gtittlichen Wahrheiten, Frankf. 1733. 
 
 3 Theologia revelata dogmatica methodo scientifica adornata, 1737. 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAE PHILOSOPHY. 531 
 
 that are to be known. The reality of an immediate revelation 
 may be also inferred from principles of reason, at least with 
 great probability. Moved by pity, God's will was to rescue 
 men from their guilt, but He could not do this otherwise than 
 by Himself becoming man, and doing satisfaction for men. 
 Our natural reason perceives this, but does not recognise the 
 time and the other circumstances of this divine satisfaction. 
 It is extremely probable that God has come to the help of this 
 defect by the aid of immediate revelation. As God generally 
 can do nothing without a reason (sine ratione), certain rational 
 criteria for revelation may be also set up. Eevelation must 
 communicate to us truths which it is necessary for us to 
 know, but which it is impossible for us to know in any other 
 way. The former condition holds only of the means of 
 reconciling man with God, the latter only of suprarational 
 truths, which, however, cannot be in contradiction with 
 themselves nor with the truths of natural reason. And 
 because these truths go beyond reason, they can only claim 
 to be received when they are accredited by miracles. Above 
 all, however, they must correspond to the divine perfection. 
 Carpov, at the close of his inquiry, enumerates ten criteria 
 by which a revelation must be tested. Tried by these criteria, 
 it results indubitably from rational grounds that the holy 
 Scripture is in truth a divine revelation. Having attained 
 to this position, Carpov then moves pretty much in the 
 traditional paths of the ecclesiastical orthodoxy, although not 
 entirely without some softening of certain doctrines that 
 were especially repulsive to intelligent thinking. Eeusch, 
 who also belonged to Jena (t 1758), 1 proceeds in an entirely 
 similar way, only that in dogmatic theology he brings the 
 regard to happiness into play. There is no happiness without 
 
 1 The title of his principal work is of itself characteristic. It runs in full as 
 follows : Jo. Petri Reuschii Introductio in theologiam revelatam sen theologin 
 revelatcp. pars generalis, qua necessari-us religionis verce ac felicitatis nexus, 
 dogmatum Christiana, rdwionis concordia cum veritatibus naturaliter cogniti* 
 atqm religionis electio rationalis ad Chrutianam determiiiata in luce ponuntur 
 Uemque libri canonici religionum qua perhibentur revelatce recensentur. Jenae 
 1744. 
 
532 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 religion, and hence there must exist a necessary connection 
 between them. Eevealed religion is not contrary to natural 
 religion, but is rather supported by rational principles, as all 
 rational criteria show Holy Scripture to be a true revelation. 
 On the other hand, one of the most important sources of our 
 happiness, the reconciliation of man with God in the atone- 
 ment, is known to us only through revelation. 
 
 Some of the Wolffians even ventured to apply their mathe- 
 matical method of proof to the profoundest mysteries of the 
 Christian religion. Carpov thus deduced the satisfaction 
 worked out by God become man. But these attempts were 
 mainly directed to the doctrine of the Trinity. Darjes 
 (t 1791) of Jena, at the first a zealous Wolffian, though 
 afterwards alienated from the school, attempted in 1735 to 
 prove the "pluritas personarum in Deitate ex solis rationis 
 principiis methodo mathematicorum," but the theologians 
 found no fewer than twenty-two errors in his treatise. 
 Eeinbeck deduces the Trinity from the idea of the supreme 
 good as inclined to communicate itself. Eeusch seeks to 
 comprehend it by a comparison with the three grades of 
 human cognition and will, the first of which comprehends 
 all possibilities, the second brings these possibilities into 
 definite order, while the third chooses one possibility as the 
 best. 
 
 Along with these Wolffian theologians, there may also at 
 least be named Eibow (t 1774), who, at Gottingen, applied 
 the Wolffian method to the art of preaching ; and Joh. Ernst 
 Schubert (t 1774), who, in a more popular way, tried to 
 make the doctrines of the Church acceptable by at least 
 probable arguments. This alliance between Orthodoxy and 
 Wolffianism was utterly contrary to nature. Even if the several 
 doctrines remained unaffected in their expression, they yet 
 lost, not only their supernatural character, but even their 
 religious character. With a correct instinct Kappelier pro- 
 tests against this in his Epistle directed against Darjes, where 
 he says : " Nunquam concedemus, mysteria ex solis rationis 
 principiis demonstrari posse, quod nee concessit unquam nee 
 
WOLFF AND THE POPULAR PHILOSOPHY. 533 
 
 coricedere potest verus pbilosophus aut theologus, ne dicam, 
 verus Christianus." History also showed very soon that this 
 alliance was untenable. In spite of its temporary apologetic 
 value as against the naturalistic views which were always 
 coming more forward, the alliance only formed a transition to 
 the " enlightened " evisceration of the Christian religion in the 
 popular theology. 
 
 The Wolffian philosophy fell very soon into conflict with 
 pietism. This was inevitable, for the antagonism between 
 the immediateness of faith and the trustworthiness of know- 
 ledge, according to tbe demonstrative mathematical method, 
 could not be concealed. The external course of the struggle 
 is well known. Wolff was compelled by an order of the 
 Government in 1723, under threat of the halter, to leave 
 Halle and the Prussian territory within forty-eight hours ; but 
 seventeen years afterwards, in 1740, he was recalled in the 
 most honourable manner. Our attention may be briefly 
 turned to the questions discussed in these controversies. 1 
 The objections to Wolff's philosophy rested partly on a com- 
 plete misunderstanding of it, and the controverters of it 
 everywhere kept to details, without entering upon the proper 
 spirit of the system. These objections in essential were such 
 as the following : It was objected that the simple elements 
 of the world and the souls of animals, as well as of men, and 
 even God Himself, were designated as essentially the same, 
 and as differing from each other only in degrees, and particu- 
 larly as percipient substances. This definition of God as a 
 substance that always perfectly perceives the world, was objected 
 to as far from exhausting the nature of God, and as putting 
 Him too much on the same stage as other things. The best 
 and most current arguments for the existence of God were 
 said to be laid aside as insufficient by this system ; and as 
 
 1 As regards the controversial writings then published, reference may be made 
 to Joachim Lange, Ausfiihrliche Recension der wider die Wolffianische Meta- 
 physik auf 9 Universitdten und anderwdrtig edirten sdmmtlichen 26 Schriften : 
 mit dem Erweise, etc., Halle 1725. Carl Giinther Ludovici, Sammlung und 
 Aiiszilge der sdmmtlichen Streitschriften wegen der Wolffischen Philosophie, 
 etc., 1737, 1738. 
 
534 LEIBNIZ AND THE GERMAN AUFKLAUUNG. 
 
 the argument brought forward by it instead of these was not 
 at all demonstrative, it was alleged that this only abetted 
 atheism. Again, it was said that atheism was advocated by 
 the assertion that it was only its abuse that was dangerous to 
 morality. Further, the eternity of the world was taught in 
 the system, and, instead of divine Providence, it maintained 
 the necessity of all things, doctrines that destroyed religion 
 from its foundation. As the soul had no power to work upon 
 the body, and the body was incapable of communicating 
 influences to the soul, man thus became a double machine, 
 so that even the speaking of the mouth and the writing of 
 the hand go on of themselves without being guided by rational 
 thoughts of the soul. And, in general, the fanciful notion of 
 a pre-established harmony was the source of all the errors of 
 the Wolffiaus. As the actual world, with its evil and its sin, 
 was designated as the best of worlds, God was thus made the 
 author of sin. Miracles were spoken of in such a way that 
 they might just as well be denied. Morality was completely 
 undermined, partly by the denial of human freedom, partly by 
 the assertion that the moral law rests upon its own internal 
 truth, and would therefore exist without a belief in God, and 
 partly by the setting up of false ethical principles. 
 
 Such is an anthology of the most important objections that 
 were raised against the Wolffian philosophy. Every one 
 sees how truth and falsehood are here largely mixed together, 
 and at the same time how great was the bitterness of the 
 opponents of the system, and how correct was their instinct 
 (for it can scarcely be called insight) as to the antagonism 
 between their mode of thought and that which was now 
 coming up. Nevertheless, the new system triumphed, and 
 even Pietism was not able to prevent the advance of the 
 popular theology. 
 
THE AUFKLARUNG AND ITS CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES. 535 
 
 III. 
 
 THE AUFKLARUNG AND ITS CHIEF REPRESENTATIVES. 
 
 The "Wolffian Philosophy had also to yield to the process 
 which has repeatedly shown itself in history, according to 
 which a philosophical school, when it has universally prevailed 
 for a considerable time, begins to lose its scholastic exclusive- 
 ness and its strictly scientific character. It is thus that a 
 philosophical system gradually becomes mixed with hetero- 
 geneous elements that were at first zealously combated, until 
 it loses its peculiarities in the practical application of its 
 principles to the special questions of science and of life. It 
 was thus that the Popular Philosophy of Germany arose about 
 the middle of the last century. 1 Its special character may be 
 defined both in a formal and material relation. In the 
 formal relation, its character was manifested in a disinclination 
 to all scholastic or rigidly scientific modes of proof; and in 
 the material relation, its character was exhibited in its giving 
 constant regard to human happiness as the ultimate practical end 
 of life. The cumbrous garb of the mathematico-demonstrative 
 method is completely stripped off, and the most difficult 
 questions of science and of life are explained in the elegant 
 form of an easy-flowing, and often even aphoristic reasoning. 
 It is not speculative principles, but current opinions and the 
 natural judgment of the sound human understanding, that are 
 recognised as the highest criteria of truth. In short, a 
 philosophy, not for the school, but for life and for the world, 
 is striven after, or rather it is no longer a special philosophy, 
 but a universal wisdom that is desired. 2 Viewed as to their 
 contents, all subjects of investigation are determined by regard 
 to their usefulness, and as such human happiness appears to 
 be the highest good. Hence it was that the consideration of 
 the personal ego came so strikingly into the foreground, as 
 
 1 A brief characteristic is sufficient for our examination here. But see the 
 detailed exposition of Zeller, Op. cit. 248 ff. 
 
 2 In this relation the title of Eugel's work, Dei- Philosoph fur die Welt 
 (Leipzig 1775), universally read at that time, is of itself characteristic. 
 
536 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 was seen in relation to life in the innumerable self-examinations, 
 confessions, and confidential correspondences of the time. 
 The same characteristic is shown in the sphere of science by 
 the preference for psychological investigations. 1 In the study 
 of nature purely physical inquiry falls into the background, 
 and everything is measured by its usefulness to man. Thus 
 Sulzer, in his " Moral reflections on the works of Nature " 
 (2nd ed. 1750), in this way finds the advantage which is 
 furnished by the contemplation of natural things in the 
 encouragement they give to praise the Creator and to grow in 
 virtue. He will not speak of the physical foundations of 
 nature, but only of final causes. " The will of the beneficent 
 Creator was to furnish men with nourishment and pleasure ; 
 and therefore He commanded nature that she should not bring 
 forth all the plants at once, but in succession ; for the former 
 method would not have been suitable to any of the purposes 
 mentioned." The vegetable kingdom has been constituted as 
 it is " in order that men and animals might have nourishment, 
 and that along with nourishment men should also have as much 
 pleasure and delight as possible." Socrates was the model 
 and the shining example of these lovers of wisdom, and they 
 felt anything that derogated from his fame as an attack upon 
 themselves. 2 Mcolai was specially identified with the efforts 
 to carry on this literature, and in his " Universal German 
 Library " ! he made the whole German literature pass for 
 several decades before his judgment-seat. Like every philo- 
 sophy that is directed to life, this system also matured a 
 Psedagogic of its own. Its leading expounder was Basedow 
 (fl790), a man who, like Eousseau, was forced to a conscious- 
 ness of the value of a good education by his own want of 
 training. Happiness is regarded by him as so certainly the 
 
 1 We only refer to the following, giving their works : Karl Franz v. Irving, 
 Erfahrungen und Untersuchungen iiber den Menschen, 4 Bde. Berlin 1772- 
 1785. Tiedemann, Untersuchungen iiber den Menschen, 3 Bde. 1777. 
 Nicolaus Tetens, Philosophische Versuche uber die menschliche Natur, 2 Bde. 
 1777. J. G. H. Feder, Untersuchungen uber den menschlichen Willen, 4 Bde. 
 Berlin 1779-93. 
 
 2 Cf. Eberhard, Neue Apologle des Socrates, Berlin 1772. 
 
 3 Allgemeine Deutsche ffibliothek. 
 
REPRESENTATIVES OF THE AUFKLARUNG. MENDELSSOHN. 537 
 
 goal of human life, that he maintains that all are obliged to 
 accept as true all propositions which are so closely connected 
 with human happiness that it could not exist without them. 
 Such truths appear to him to be the existence of God, the 
 divine providence in the government of the world, and the 
 immortality of the human soul ; and it is a " duty of belief " 
 to accept them. 
 
 Moses Mendelssohn (1728-1*786) is unquestionably the 
 noblest representative of the German philosophy of Enlighten- 
 ment. The son of a poor Jewish schoolmaster of Dessau, he 
 went to Berlin, and there, impeded by poverty as well as by 
 his nationality, he yet acquired the scientific culture of his 
 time under indescribable difficulties. Even then he remained 
 in the humble position of a book-keeper, yet he won the 
 universal esteem of all Germany, not less by his mild and 
 estimable personality than by his literary activity. 1 As a 
 philosopher he belongs entirely to the popular philosophy of 
 the German Aufkldrung. He starts indeed from the Leibniz- 
 Wolffian philosophy, but the cumbrous scholastic terminology 
 is replaced by an extremely flexible and easily intelligible 
 language. The sound understanding and the reason are 
 expressly declared to be one and the same, and they are only 
 distinguished in that the human understanding makes rapid 
 steps by means of feeling, and goes quickly forward without 
 any fear of falling, whereas reason feels about as it were with 
 its staff before it ventures a step. Both of them may turn 
 into side paths, but as reason finds it far more difficult to get 
 right again, the wise thinker will not trust reason when it falls 
 behind the sound understanding or diverges from it, but will 
 rather follow the sound human understanding itself. With 
 regard to the subject of philosophical inquiry Mendelssohn 
 says : " This is the way which philosophy, as universal wisdom, 
 should always take. It should begin with an examination of 
 external objects ; but every step it takes, it must turn its 
 look to man, towards whose true happiness all its efforts 
 should be aimed." 
 
 1 His collected works have been published in seven vols., Leipzig 1843. 
 
538 THE GERMAK AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 The truths of natural religion are especially subservient to 
 this end ; for " without God, providence and immortality, all 
 the goods of life have, in my eyes, a contemptible value. 
 What is more wretched than a man who sees annihilation 
 approach him with strong steps ? " Mendelssohn's philoso- 
 phizing is therefore directed in the first line to the establish- 
 ing of these truths. In the form of a Dialogue and in the 
 spirit of Plato, he seeks in his Phddon (1767) to prove the 
 Immortality of the Soul on philosophical grounds. The soul 
 is a simple substance, and as such it cannot cease by dissolu- 
 tion, but only by annihilation. An annihilation of the soul 
 would only be possible by the direct interference of the 
 Deity, or by a miracle ; but it is inconceivable that God 
 should perform a miracle for this purpose. Besides, the 
 future duration of the soul is also supported by the striving 
 after ceaseless perfection implanted in men, as the hindrance 
 of this striving would be incompatible with the goodness and 
 the wise providence of God. On the same ground, it is also 
 impossible that souls should fall after death into a sleep-like 
 state ; but if the soul continues to exist, it must continue to 
 think and to will. During the last years of his life Mendels- 
 sohn devoted the first hours of the day which was all the 
 time that a violent nervous disease left him for literary work 
 to the composition of his Morning Hours}' Along with 
 metaphysical explanations, he here enters upon a detailed 
 examination of the question as to the existence of God. The 
 idea of an absolutely perfect and necessary Being must be 
 developed with mathematical strictness. In doing so, we 
 may by inferring from the conditioned to the condition, and 
 from the actual to the necessary, start either from the external 
 sensible world, or from our own Ego. The former procedure 
 is objectionable, as the objective reality of a material world is 
 called in doubt. The latter leads to the conviction of the 
 existence of God, as the contingent changes of the Ego can 
 only be conceived as the effects of a necessary being, to whom 
 knowledge and the faculty of approbation, or reason and will, 
 
 1 Morgenstunden, 1785. 
 
THE PHYSICO-THEOLOGIES. BROOKES. 539 
 
 belong in the highest degree and without limitation. Besides, 
 \ve may also venture to infer from the conception of mere 
 possibility to the reality and necessity of the corresponding 
 being. A most perfect being is possible, for it is only affirma- 
 tions and negations that contradict each other, and it contains 
 no contradiction to say that all realities are affirmed of such a 
 being. Now, this being cannot have the ground of its exist- 
 ence in another being, because it would then be contingent, 
 and therefore not perfect ; and hence it must exist of itself or 
 necessarily. 
 
 Theology was also seized with this spirit of enlightenment 
 and popularization. In consequence of the predominantly 
 teleological contemplation of nature, physico-theology flourished 
 at that time in a way in which it has never done before nor 
 since. On the basis of the principle of the sufficient reason, 
 an argument was advanced for the existence of an almighty, 
 all-wise, and all-good God, borrowed from a thoroughly ex- 
 ternal study of nature in every one of its smallest depart- 
 ments. There thus arose about the middle of the Eighteenth 
 Century numerous works in the department of physico- 
 theology, such as Petino-theologies, Ichthyo-theologies, Acrido- 
 theologies, Testaceo - theologies, Insecto - theologies, Phyto- 
 theologies, Litho-theologies, Hydro-theologies, Pyro-theologies, 
 Astro-theologies, Bronto-theologies, Chiono-theologies, Sismo- 
 theologies, and Melitto-theologies. Of the writers of such 
 works, we may only mention B. H. Brookes, who, in the nine 
 volumes of his Earthly Pleasure in God, 1 sets forth in truly 
 prosaic verses his "physical and moral contemplations on 
 the three kingdoms of nature." It is not so much the con- 
 formity of the internal constitution of the individual things 
 of nature to design as their usefulness to man that inspires 
 him to a deep-felt praise of the divine power and wisdom. 
 Thus 
 
 " In the bodies of the chamois God hath put such organs good, 
 That they fear no plunge or fall, and go where'er they would." 
 
 1 Irdisches Vergniigm in Gott. 
 
540 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 But the main thing here too is 
 
 " That they to us so useful are : 
 
 Good for phthisis is their tallow ; for the sight their gall is good ; 
 And chamois flesh is good to eat, they heal the dizzy with their blood ; 
 Nor less of use their skin. Does not this beast show clear, 
 With His wisdom and His power, the love of the Creator here ? " 
 
 The universal striving after popularity led in theology as 
 well as in philosophy to a phenomenon peculiar to that time 
 in the so-called popular or practical Dogmatics, which not 
 merely in its form of exposition, but also in its contents, 
 evacuated the substance of what was hitherto known as Dog- 
 matics. Thus Griesbach 1 defined the popular dogmatic theology 
 as the sum of the truths which have an intimate bearing upon 
 the moral improvement and happiness of men, as these are to 
 be realized by the religion of Jesus, but with the exclusion of 
 all learned speculations. Eeason already tells us that there 
 is a God who governs the world in order to promote the 
 virtue and happiness of His rational creatures. We realize 
 happiness in the feeling of increasing perfection, but moral 
 goodness without religion continues to be extremely defective 
 and inconstant. The voice of reason is the voice of God in 
 nature, yet an immediate revelation is not merely possible, 
 but is even probable ; for experience teaches that if reason is 
 left to itself, the truths of religion fall short of completeness, 
 correctness, certainty, and universal effectiveness. An alleged 
 revelation, however, can only be regarded as true if it does not 
 contradict natural religion, if it is conformable to the dignity 
 of God, if it is conducive to the ennoblement and the happi- 
 ness of men, and if there is no ground for suspicion of fanati- 
 cism or fraud against those who first proclaimed it. Judged 
 by these criteria, the doctrine of Jesus is shown to be true. 
 
 The importance laid upon practical utility is clearly enough 
 expressed even in the title of the work of the venerable 
 
 1 Anleitung zum Studium der populdren Dogmatik, besonders fur kunftige 
 Religionslehrer, 4 Aufl., Jena 1789. Similar works are the following : Less, 
 Christliche Religionslehre oder Versuch einer praktischen Dogmatik, Gottingen 
 1779. Niemeyer, Populdre und praktische Dogmatik, 1792. Ammon, Ent- 
 wurf einer wissenschaftlich praktischen Theologie nach den Grundsdtzen des 
 Christenthums und der Vernuvft, Gottingen 1797. 
 
J. J. SPALDING. W. A. TELLER. 541 
 
 Johann Joachim Spalding (t 1804) "on the usefulness of the 
 office of preaching." 1 Eeligion, in his view, is virtue and joy 
 on account of God, and virtue is represented as the necessary 
 condition of this joy. The ethics of Christianity is just the 
 same as that of the pure reason and of the original nature of 
 man, only it possesses greater definiteness, is more easily 
 understood, and makes a more living impression'. Now the 
 preacher is, in the first place, a servant of his religious 
 society, he teaches religion and spiritual happiness, and is a 
 friendly guide to rest of heart and joyous hope. The 
 preachers likewise serve the State ; for they are the proper 
 depositaries of public morals, and without morals no State 
 can subsist. In another work, entitled " Eeligion a concern of 
 man," 2 the same author answers the question as to whether 
 religion belongs to those things that relate to the essential 
 nature of man and its original unalterable purpose, and 
 whether on this account it is of much concern to a thinking 
 man ? Exact self-observation shows us, in the first place, the 
 desire after happiness, and then, as something higher, the 
 fundamental feeling of morality. Our nature itself thus 
 shows us that morality is to us the best means of attaining to 
 happiness. Eeligion, with its thought of an omnipresent and 
 omniscient Lawgiver, and of the wise government of the world 
 and the beneficent providence of God, serves in a high degree 
 to support the only worthy purpose of humanity, that is, to 
 heighten the activity of the moral feeling and to satisfy the 
 desire of happiness. On account of this intimate and import- 
 ant relation to the highest purposes of humanity, religion 
 deserves the utmost consideration, only we must be on our 
 guard against profound speculations as well as sensational 
 faith ; for both of these are without value as regards the pro- 
 motion of Christianity. Wilhelm Abraham Teller (t 1804), 
 starting from the idea of the perfectibility of Christianity, in 
 his " Eeligion of the Perfect," 3 distinguishes the three stages of 
 
 1 Von der Nutzbarleit des Predigtamtes, 1772. 
 
 2 Religion fine Angdegenheit des Menschen, 3 Aufl., Berlin 1799. 
 
 3 Religion der Vollkommentn, 1804. 
 
542 , THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 absolute historical belief, of the belief of reason, and of the 
 purely rational Christianity. This last stage, the comprehen- 
 sive alliance of the virtuous sentiments, alone corresponds to 
 the destination of man, as it fills the soul with agreeable 
 emotions and sensations, and furnishes the means of strengthen- 
 ing ourselves to the practice of all the virtues. It was the 
 object of his "Dictionary of the New Testament" (1772) to 
 guide to this religion of the perfect as it is in Scripture ; and 
 by the aid of a very arbitrary exegesis this work naturally 
 explains in a very rationalizing way, or rather sets aside, 
 everything that is inconceivable, from the demoniacs up to 
 the Trinity. Sack (t 1786) was connected with these two 
 authors by similarity of opinion, as well as by his position as 
 a consistorial councillor in Berlin. He likewise represented 
 virtue as the essential element of religion, and divine revela- 
 tion as a confirmation of natural religion. 
 
 The most distinguished among the popular theologians of 
 that time was the Abbe Joh. Friedr. Wilhelm Jerusalem 
 (t 1789). His "Meditations on the most important truths of 
 religion" (1744) were much read as a book of edification, and 
 they were translated into almost all the European languages. 
 Natural or rational religion is likewise, in his view, what is 
 essential, and its essential parts are constituted by our recti- 
 tude and God's assurance of His grace, especially regarding 
 eternal salvation. Eevelation is not denied, but it is only an 
 extraordinary instruction given by God regarding natural 
 religion ; it is an assisting and promotion of reason, a more 
 rapid bringing of it to a goal which it would either not have 
 attained at all by itself alone, or would only have done so 
 after long round-about ways. Of the narratives of Scripture, 
 some are treated as useful ; others, like the taking away of 
 the golden and silver vessels by the Israelites, are excused ; 
 and others, such as the speaking of the ass, are regarded as 
 untrue. 
 
 This popular literature gives us a better knowledge of the 
 spirit of the theology of its time than can be got from the 
 more scientific works on dogmatic theology. In these works 
 
 ! 
 
THE POPULAE LITEEATUEE. 543 
 
 a peculiar method was generally observed. The old dogmatic 
 theology of the Church was retained as a framework or as a 
 "basis, and where its definitions were too much in contradiction 
 with the author's own views, they were silently passed over, as 
 in the case of the dogmas of the Ubiquity and the Descent into 
 hell ; or they were emptied of their mysterious contents by 
 intellectual interpretation. Thus the fall was explained as the 
 eating of a poisonous fruit ; original sin was rendered as 
 defective disposition, and the doctrine of satisfaction was 
 brought down to a morally meritorious sacrifice. At other 
 times the ecclesiastical dogmatics were got rid of by going 
 back to Scripture. Great arbitrariness prevailed in the 
 interpretation of Scripture. Inconvenient doctrines were 
 explained away on the ground of ignorance of languages, mis- 
 understanding of words, or accommodation to contemporary 
 prejudices. No attempt was made to comprehend dogmas 
 that appeared unintelligible. Eeligiori was regarded through- 
 out in an entirely intellectual way. And because the sound 
 human understanding appeared to be the highest power in 
 knowledge, yet as its one-sided intellectualism was unable to 
 grasp the darker side of the life of the human mind in feeling 
 and sensation, the dogmas had also to give way. It was only 
 a certain unintelligent awe, the natural effect of the long 
 supremacy of the ecclesiastical doctrine, that restrained a 
 decided assault upon them and the open rejection of 
 them. 
 
 Nor was this entirely awanting, although it proceeded less 
 from the Wolffian, or the Popular Philosophy, than from the 
 influence of the English and the French freethinkers, or from 
 the influence of such men as Dippel and Edelmann. Yet it 
 borrowed from that philosophy not a few of its weapons, and 
 especially the universally-applied principle of the sufficient 
 reason. It would indeed have been inconceivable if only the 
 supernatural possibility, and not also the thoroughly rational 
 reality, of the Wolffian system had been brought into applica- 
 tion. The first product of this movement was the so-called 
 Wertheim Bible (1735). The author, Johann Lorenz Schmidt 
 
544 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 (t 1751), undertook to translate the Bible and to explain it 
 according to the principle that in revelation only that can be 
 accepted as true which does not contradict reason. Instead 
 of transporting himself into the thoughts and the poetical 
 spirit of the Bible, he treats it as a text-book of the Leibniz- 
 Wolffian philosophy, renders it in the dullest prose of a cold 
 intellectuality, and puts general intellectual conceptions into 
 the place of its images and similes. Johann Heinrich Schulz, 
 known as the " pigtail " preacher of Gielsdorf, Wilkendorf, and 
 Hirschfeldt, has embodied his thought in a systematic form in 
 his " Philosophical meditation on theology and religion in 
 general, and on the Jewish in particular" (1784). 1 According 
 to Schulz, the first fundamental rule of the understanding is 
 that all that exists must have its cause. Thus arose the belief 
 in a supreme Being who is the universal cause of all things in 
 the world, an idea which men borrowed from themselves and 
 from their own operations. A series of lower gods was added 
 to this highest God, and they were quite different in different 
 countries. Moses, probably the child of the first innocent love 
 of an Egyptian princess, reared in all the wisdom of the 
 Egyptians, and intimately acquainted with the conditions of 
 the wilderness, took advantage of the ignorance and credulity 
 of the Jewish people to impose upon them a religion invented 
 by him, and to procure for himself the position of the highest 
 and only mediator. The character of Jehovah appears always 
 just as the passions of Moses would make and have Him to be, 
 full of the desire of revenge, bloodthirstiness, and the lust of 
 murder. From the butchery of men that was usual among 
 the Jews, all the human sacrifices of the other peoples have 
 taken their origin. By this conception of Jehovah the 
 character of the whole Jewish nation was determined to the 
 most inhuman cruelties, so that their history is a register of 
 deeds of violence and inhumanity. Jesus of Nazareth was 
 shaped upon the formative wheel of nature into the happiest 
 genius, but His doctrine does not contain a single clear con- 
 
 1 Pbilosophische Betrachtung liber Theologie und Religion uberhaupt und 
 uber die Jiidische indoiiderheit, 1784. 
 
 
ANDREAS EIEM. 545 
 
 ception of the nature and being of God. He says, indeed, that 
 God is a spirit ; but a spirit is only a chimera, because it is 
 never the object of our sensible perception. His instruction 
 aimed only at awakening the conviction that all the wants of 
 all the beings existing in the world, are provided for in the 
 best way. And yet we cannot know from whence this 
 beneficent and necessary connection between causes and 
 consequences takes its rise. The conception of Jehovah must 
 be given up. If you would form an idea of the Supreme 
 Being for your own consolation, conceive of Him rather as a 
 Father who knows the wants of His children, and who is as 
 willing as He is able to help them with the wisest goodness. 
 Yet is this but a figurative idea which we make for ourselves, 
 because our phantasy will positively have a certain goal. 
 The only rational conception of the word " God," is that of 
 the sufficient ground of the world. In this strictest sense, no 
 man is an atheist. In comparison with one another, however, 
 all are atheists ; for on account of their individual differences, 
 they all diverge from one another in their special ideas of the 
 Deity. Whereas the universal reason leads only to the 
 general conception of the sufficient ground or principle of 
 things, it is the different phantasies of individuals that first lead 
 to particular ideas of God. Hence it is completely absurd to 
 blame or to persecute any one on account of. atheism or his 
 divergent idea of God, while at the same time Eeligion as 
 distinguished from natural morality leads partly to useless 
 ceremonies, and partly to actions that are most pernicious and 
 most prejudicial to human society. 
 
 Andreas Eiem, preacher at Friederichswald and then at 
 Berlin, likewise showed his zeal in several works against the 
 foolish and unintelligent doctrines of the religions which 
 prudent priests have devised for their own advantage. " No 
 class of men has ever been so pernicious to the world as the 
 priesthood. There were laws at all times against murderers 
 and bandits, but not against the assassin in the priestly garb. 
 War was repelled by war, and it came to an end. The war of 
 the priesthood against reason, has lasted for thousands of years, 
 
 VOL. I. 2 M, 
 
546 THE GEKMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 . and it still continues to go on without ceasing." George 
 Schade, in his " Immutable and eternal religion of the oldest 
 investigators of nature and of the so-called adepts," 1 etc. 
 (1760), also proceeded to show that natural religion is 
 sufficient, and he declares that all who assert a supernatural 
 revelation are godless impostors. We may pass over other 
 representatives of this view, as they are of no importance 
 with regard to the solution of the problem of the Philosophy 
 of Eeligion. But reference has still to be made to the 
 theologian who was, as it were, the Enfant terrible of the 
 German Aufklanwg, and whose changeful life passed through 
 its various transformations. This was Karl Friedrich Bahrdt 
 (1 741-1 792). 2 Endowed with remarkable gifts, Bahrdt at 
 first attached himself in philosophy and theology to Crusius, 
 and in spite of his youth he became a distinguished teacher 
 and preacher in Leipsic, working as an opponent of the 
 Wolffian philosophy and a zealous defender of orthodoxy. 
 But the public offence which he excited by his dissolute 
 life compelled him to leave Leipsic. In 1769 he became 
 Professor of Biblical Antiquities at Erfurt, and two years 
 later Professor of Theology and Preacher at Giessen. Bahrdt 
 himself says he would have continued faithful to orthodoxy 
 all his life, had he not had to endure so much hostility from 
 the theologians. It was in consequence of these attacks that 
 the destruction of positive religion became the remaining 
 purpose of his life. On his entering upon his office at 
 Giessen, Bahrdt did not hesitate to remove the scruples about 
 his orthodoxy by delivering a " Christful " sermon in the style 
 of Lavater, with frequent invocations of Christ and a loud 
 unimpeachable confession of the chief doctrines of Lutheranism. 
 
 1 Unwandelbare und ewige Eeligion der altesten Naturforscher und sogen- 
 annten Adepteu, etc. 
 
 2 Bahrdt has given an account of his life and efforts with great frankness in the 
 Geschichte seines Lebens, 4 Th. Berlin, 1790-91. His writings fill 120 volumes. 
 We may only mention : Die neuesten Offeribarunyen Gottes in Briefen und 
 Erzdhlungen, 1772-75. Brief e iiber die Bibel im Volkston, 1782. Aurfuliruny 
 des Plans und Zu-ecks Jesu in Brief en fur wahrheitsiichende Leser, 1784-86. 
 Katechismus dcr natiirlichcn Religion, 1783. Kirchen und Kitzeralmanach, 
 1781. 
 
BAHRDT. 547 
 
 He certainly declares that at that time he was still very 
 orthodox. " My belief in the divinity of revelation, in the 
 immediate mission of Jesus, in His miraculous history, in the 
 Trinity, the operations of grace, natural corruption, the justifi- 
 cation of the sinner by laying hold of the merit of Christ, and 
 especially the doctrine of satisfaction, seemed still unshaken. 
 My reason had only been arrested and occupied by the thought 
 of how Three persons could be in one God." Bahrdt, how- 
 ever, made progress in Giessen, in the way of " Enlighten- 
 ment." The doctrine of the Trinity fell ; Christ appeared as 
 a mere man immediately endowed with divine wisdom, and 
 called God because God worked in Him and by Him ; the 
 Holy Ghost was regarded as a mere power of God. He then 
 threw overboard the doctrine of the Atonement, and especially 
 the view of an angry God and an external satisfaction of 
 Christ for us, under the influence of a naturalist who was 
 travelling through the district. When he had come to see this 
 doctrine as a most pernicious and damnable error, Bahrdt says 
 he felt himself as if new-born. From this newly-gained 
 knowledge flowed his treatise entitled " The Latest Kevela- 
 tions." l In consequence of the persecution thereby excited, 
 he withdrew from Giessen, and in 1775, following the invita- 
 tion of Herr von Salis, he undertook the supervision of a 
 Philanthropin at Marschlinz in Graubiindten. Next year we 
 rind him acting as General-superintendent at Diirkheim in 
 the Hardt, in the Principality of Leiningen-Dachsburg. On 
 this occasion he gives instructive directions as to how a 
 preacher may obtain matter when his reason has happily 
 rejected all positive truths, such as the Trinifey, the Atone- 
 ment, supernatural Grace, Original Sin, and eternal punishment 
 in Hell, and when he only still maintains the immediate 
 mission of Jesus, the divinity of the Scriptures, and the truth 
 of the Biblical history. At the request of his patron, Bahrdt 
 set about establishing a Philanthropin in the Castle of 
 Heidesheim, and in order to obtain foreign pupils he made a 
 journey to Holland and England. During his absence the 
 
 1 Die neuestt'ii Offenbarungen. 
 
548 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Imperial Chancellor, on the 27th March 1779. prohibited him 
 from publishing books regarding religion, or teaching and 
 preaching, under the threat of heavy penalty. Bahrdt then 
 wrote his " Confession of Faith," which was delivered to the 
 Imperial Diet at Regensburg, but saved his person by going 
 to Halle. Here the theological Faculty, with Semler at its 
 head, opposed his admission. This has wrongly been made a 
 ground of reproach against Semler. What separated the two 
 was not a difference of theological opinion, but the matter of 
 morals. The excellent Semler, a man of irreproachable 
 purity of character and scientific earnestness of investigation, 
 and the frivolous Bahrdt, a man without principles in science 
 and life, licentious and scandalous in his conduct, could not be 
 friends. Bahrdt obtained the right to deliver Lectures in 
 Halle on philosophy and Humaniora ; and he lectured on 
 everything possible with much applause. But the Minister 
 Zedlitz had vainly reminded him " that you must now be 
 extremely cautious in your conduct in order not to make it 
 be believed that the free mode of thinking has not sprung 
 more out of the desires of the heart than out of the convic- 
 tion of the understanding." In 1787, Bahrdt bought a 
 vineyard at Halle, and became an innkeeper. Having been 
 punished by imprisonment as the author of a pasquil against 
 Wollder's religious Edict, Bahrdt lived dissolutely to his end, 
 and died of the consequences of his excesses, a worthy 
 conclusion of such a life. 
 
 In Halle, Bahrdt lost the last remains of belief. In his 
 " Letters on the Bible in a popular tone," he seeks to prove 
 that all that is miraculous and supernatural in the Bible is a 
 mere colouring of the narrative, and that it comes from the 
 remains of the Jewish superstition of the narrators. At the 
 same time, he touches on the thought which afterwards 
 became so important, " that such miraculous circumstances, 
 even in the case of Christ, had been invented out of enthu- 
 siasm for the most sublime teacher of mankind, and especially 
 the circumstances regarding His coming and His superhuman 
 origin." Naturally Bahrdt was not able to appreciate the 
 
BAHRDT. 549 
 
 full value of this thought. Christ, " the greatest and most 
 venerable of mortals," had planned, " by the founding of a 
 secret society, to preserve and propagate among mankind the 
 truth that had been suppressed by priests and priestcraft." 
 The whole of His sufferings was a well-devised plan, a part 
 which Jesus carried through dexterously and happily with the 
 greatest sacrifice, up to the time of His reawakening. By 
 this means the disciples were to be cured of their hope of an 
 earthly Messias. 
 
 Bahrdt's " Catechism of Natural Eeligion " may un- 
 doubtedly be regarded as the coarsest product of the platitudes 
 which were matured by the German Aufkldrung. Eeligion 
 is practical knowledge of God ; theology is only a theoretical 
 knowledge of God. The Trinity and similar doctrines merely 
 belong to theology. If religion is founded upon a rational 
 contemplation of our own mind, and of the other things in 
 the world, it is called natural ; if it falls back upon immediate 
 revelation, it is supernatural or revealed. Such a revelation 
 is, however, improbable, whereas reason leads by necessity to 
 the acceptance of God, especially because it is only by 
 accepting the existence of God that the authority of the moral 
 law becomes compatible with the impulse towards happiness. 
 Christ pursued no other end than to restore the suppressed 
 reason to its rights against the claims of the priests, and 
 to advance men in their happiness by proclamation of the 
 truth. The most fruitful sources of this truth are nature and 
 history ; the former teaches me the wisdom, love, and veracity 
 of God ; the latter shows me human actions with their con- 
 sequences. In both, I know the providence of God as it 
 pursues wise and beneficent purposes with the creatures. 
 The bad are not bad, but are poor sick creatures. Evils are 
 inevitable consequences of the imperfection of the finite, and 
 are not to be referred to the wrath of God, because God as 
 pure love is never angry. On this fact is founded our love 
 to God as the conviction that God will always give us what 
 is for our happiness. This belief gives me rest even in death, 
 as I expect from my Creator, beyond the grave, a more perfect 
 
550 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 life and a higher degree of felicity. Besides this knowledge 
 of God, knowledge of ourselves and knowledge of men are 
 likewise conducive to happiness. 
 
 Happiness consists in contentment and cheerfulness of mind. 
 It is founded upon the consciousness of those actions which 
 gain the approbation of God and the approval of our fellow- 
 men. Its foundation is health of soul and body. The health 
 of the body rests especially upon regular evacuations and per- 
 spirations. Hence Bahrdt does not shrink from the coarseness 
 of laying down the rule that we should accustom the body to 
 evacuate itself early in the morning, and that we should not 
 take cold drinks when full of sweat, nor go into a current of 
 air. In this way rules are given about food and drink, fresh 
 air, cleanliness, sleeping, calling in the physician, etc. The two 
 hundred and fortieth question of this section runs as follows : 
 Does inoculation with the pox belong to the duties towards 
 thy children ? This question is affirmed, and a number of 
 reasons are assigned for the view. Virtue is the means of 
 happiness, especially as justice and common usefulness. Only 
 fanatics and imbeciles have doubted that the virtuous man 
 may enjoy sensible pleasures ; but the question is, how to 
 enjoy pleasures rightly ? Hence Bahrdt gives the exhortation 
 to scan all possible pleasures and not to enjoy them too pre- 
 cipitately, to heighten all enjoyments to the utmost, and to 
 accustom oneself to all the joys that God supplies to men. 
 Such is the gospel of the theological public-house keeper of 
 Halle. 
 
 It is more pleasing to turn our attention to the man who 
 may be regarded as the culmination of the German Aufklarung, 
 and who, with all the keenness of his criticism, wins the 
 affection of his readers by the irreproachable purity of his 
 moral character and the profoundly religious earnestness of 
 his investigations. We refer to Herrmann Samuel Beimarus 
 (1694-1768). In his much-read treatises "On the chief 
 truths of Natural Beligion," 1 Beimarus moves entirely in the 
 
 1 Abhandlungen von den vornehmsten Wahrheiten der natiirlichen Religion, 
 Hamburg 1754. The first sentence of this work gives the best characteristic of 
 
KEIMARUS. 551 
 
 thoughts of the Leibniz- Wolffian philosophy. Men and animals 
 do not owe their origin to themselves nor to the corporeal 
 world. The corporeal world is lifeless in itself, and has 
 therefore received its existence and its qualities in time from 
 an independent eternal Being. It does not exist for the sake 
 of itself, but only on account of living beings. 
 
 " Whoever would know the world as to what sort of thing 
 it is, must take into account its use for living beings as a part 
 of its explanation, and of its essential conception." With well- 
 known prolixity, Keimarus then proceeds to show how every- 
 thing in the world, the greatest as well as the least, is sub- 
 servient to our advantage. The independent necessary Being 
 that has created the world is God. We know His attributes 
 by rational inferences deduced from the conception of God, and 
 by experience from the works of God. Among these attributes 
 wisdom and goodness are conspicuous, as they appear in the 
 wise constitution and perpetual guidance of the world. Here 
 Keimarus combats the materialistic Atheism of Lamettrie and 
 Maupertuis, as well as the pantheistic atheism of Spinoza. In 
 like manner, he combats the naturalism of Eousseau, in 
 connection with his consideration of man and his special 
 prerogatives ; and he refutes the objections of Bayle, in his 
 consideration of the most perfect world. Immortality is 
 taught with special emphasis, and it is founded partly upon 
 the essential nature of man as a simple immaterial substance, 
 and partly upon the purpose of God in the creation, His 
 providence over men, His justice, our desire of happiness, and 
 other grounds. In considering Eeligion, prominence is also 
 given to the condition that it is conducive to our happiness. 
 It is only Keligion that leads parents to take upon themselves 
 the burden of rearing and training their children. Eeligion 
 alone makes the existence of human society possible. Eeligion 
 
 it: "Whoever has a living knowledge of God is justly regarded as having a 
 religion ; and in so far as this knowle Ige is obtainable by the natural power of 
 reason, it is called a natural religion." " Such a knowledge of God will be 
 living in itself, that is, it will be active, and will bring about a pleasurable 
 insight into the connection of things, a willing impulse towards virtue, and 
 undisturbed contentment of mind." 
 
552 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 heightens our joys by limiting sensual enjoyments and intro- 
 ducing higher pleasures ; it alone brings satisfaction to our 
 natural powers in accordance with their laws and ultimate 
 purpose, and creates true lasting contentment. 
 
 On the basis of these presuppositions Eeimarus, however, 
 comes to an entirely different judgment regarding miracles and 
 revelation than his masters did. The assumption of a miracle 
 in the once created world, is at variance with the moral neces- 
 sity that is founded upon the providence of God which is 
 strongly emphasized. It is also at variance with the divine 
 intentions, which can have created nothing without a purpose. 
 " The divine insight is at the same time a constant motive for 
 the divine will to keep the world unaltered in all its reality 
 and permanence. For if God's decree were changed by actual 
 events and their means, He must also have other motives for 
 this than He had at the beginning. Consequently He would 
 thereby Himself declare His previous knowledge and decrees 
 to have been not good and wise. He would thus have erred 
 and chosen badly, either at the first or at the last ; and this is 
 contrary to the infinite perfection of God." " The ordinary 
 maintenance of nature cannot be such a (miraculous) effect of 
 divine power ; rather would it be contradictory of it." " If, 
 then, God did everything directly and by miracles, He alone 
 would do everything ; and why should He then have under- 
 taken a creation of finite things ? If He checked every 
 moment the energies of created substances and the laws of their 
 nature, why should He have given them these energies and 
 laws ? The more miracles He did after the creation, so much 
 the more would He again overthrow nature, and He would thus 
 have created it in vain, and would not be maintaining it. In 
 performing miracles, He would make it appear either that He 
 had not comprehended the natural means that were possible 
 for His purpose, or He would be often changing His purpose 
 and working against His own influence in the maintenance 
 of nature." 
 
 Without miracles, no Eevelation ! We already know this 
 principle from Wolff. If Eeimarus, then, being on the whole 
 
REIMARUS. 553 
 
 a decided disciple of Wolff, denies miracles, will he be able 
 and willing to hold by Eevelation ? How he really thought 
 on this question, none of his pious readers could certainly 
 divine ; for his " Apology for the rational worshippers of 
 God " l only became known after his death. It was a work to 
 which Keimarus had devoted the earnest reflection and the 
 strenuous industry of his leisure hours during the lifetime of 
 a generation, and he explained his views with regard to 
 positive religion in it without reserve. 
 
 The substance of this work may be indicated in brief as a 
 criticism of the Biblical revelation. As a Christian, Keimarus 
 indeed accepts it. But on what ground is he a Christian ? It 
 is really only because his fathers and grandfathers had believed 
 this or that. A rational man should not found his belief and 
 the hope of his salvation upon such an accident. He must 
 examine with his reason and without prejudice this paternal 
 religion, which being purely accidental may just as well be 
 false as true. It is, however, declaimed from the pulpit that 
 Eeason, being corrupted by the fall, is, as it were, thoroughly 
 incapable of judging about divine things. Yet those theolo- 
 gians themselves contradict this principle when they declare 
 that the doctrines of other churches are contrary to reason, 
 and support the doctrines of their own churches as much as 
 possible on grounds of reason. In proceeding to examine 
 divine revelation, Keimarus first points out with emphasis 
 that there is no immediate revelation, but only a mediate 
 revelation given to us, the credibility of which we must 
 exactly investigate according to all the rules by which the 
 truth of any human testimony is investigated. For the rest, 
 he holds entirely to the criteria of revelation which had been 
 already set up, although not applied, by Wolff. We can only 
 
 1 Schutzschrift oder Apologiefur die vernunftigen Verehrer Gottes. It is well 
 known that the first fragments of this work were published by Lessing in his 
 Btitrage zur Geschichte der Lileratur aus den Schatzen der Herzogl. Bibliothek 
 zu Wolfenbuttel. A complete reprint of the work was begun by W. Klose in 
 Niedner's Zeitschrift fur historische Theologie, 1850-52. A comprehensive 
 analysis of the whole work is given by 1). F. Strauss in his Hermann Samuel 
 Peimarus mid seine Schutzschrift fur die vernunftigen Verehrer Gottes, Leipz. 
 1862 (Gesammelte Schriften, Bd. v.). 
 
554 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 recognise, as the messengers of a divine revelation, such men 
 as agree in their discourse and action with its purpose, and 
 not such as show impure human purposes, or even act im- 
 morally. We can only accept as divine doctrines and precepts 
 such as correspond to the nature of God and are subservient 
 to the perfection and happiness of man ; and we cannot accept 
 such doctrines and precepts as contradict themselves or other 
 revealed truths, and especially the divine perfections and the 
 laws of nature. What cannot be accepted as divine revelation 
 according to these principles, cannot be accredited either by 
 the assertion that it is divine revelation or by a miracle. For 
 " what is contradictory cannot be resolved by any miracle, nor 
 can vices be miraculously transformed into virtues." And 
 " what is in itself impossible and absurd, and what, in any 
 other history, would be called falsehood, deception, violence, 
 and cruelty, cannot become rational, honest, permissible, and 
 right, by having added to it the words : ' Thus saith the 
 Lord.' " 
 
 When these principles are applied to the representatives of 
 the Old Testament revelation, the patriarchs before Moses by 
 no means appear as messengers of revelation. They do not at 
 all think of how to propagate a saving religion, but attend to 
 their cattle and their fields. In the history of Noah and 
 of the flood there are found innumerable contradictions and 
 impossibilities, such as natural history, architecture, and other 
 circumstances show us in connection with this narrative. In 
 the history of Abraham we find innumerable divine manifesta- 
 tions, miracles, commandments, and institutions, but they have 
 all worldly things as their subject, and are without influence 
 as regards a saving religion. Nor is this history without its 
 contradictions and moral offensiveness. In this way the 
 whole of the Old Testament is examined as to whether it 
 indeed contains divine revelation. The answer does not turn 
 out very favourable. There is no history in which miracles 
 are so accumulated and so carried to excess ; nor is there any 
 history " which is so full of contradictions, or in which the 
 name of God has been so frequently and shamefully abused ; 
 
REIMARUS. 555 
 
 for all the persons who are here brought forward as men of God 
 cause utter offence, repulsion, and aversion by their conduct, 
 to a soul that loves honour and virtue." " There is not found 
 any one whose * proper and earnest purpose had been to 
 propagate a true knowledge of God, virtue, and piety among 
 men ; to say nothing of the fact that we seek in vain for a 
 single great, magnanimous, and beneficent action in the whole 
 of it. The history consists of a tissue of utter follies, infamies, 
 deceptions, and cruelties, of which selfishness and ambition 
 were mainly the motives.' What is said in it about super- 
 natural inspiration, revelation, prophecy, and miracles, is mere 
 delusion, deception, and abuse of the divine name." 
 
 Nor can the doctrines of the Old Testament be regarded as 
 springing from divine revelation. The doctrine of God and 
 our duties, is crushed into the background by the mass of 
 ceremonial commandments, whereas in the communication 
 of a true religion there should have been explained the 
 nature, existence, and attributes of God and His works and 
 purposes in the creation. Hence it will astonish no one to 
 find that the Scriptures of the Old Testament arose gradually, 
 came accidentally to higher authority, and were only after- 
 wards made divine. The Scriptures of the New Testament, 
 even though their origin from apostles and the disciples of 
 apostles were to be admitted, have no claim to divine inspira- 
 tion, but were written in an entirely human and occasional 
 way, and were not recognised till afterwards as canonical. 
 Hence they require to be historically interpreted. The 
 doctrine of Jesus is to be carefully distinguished from that 
 of the apostles. The sum- total of the doctrine of Jesus 
 was shortly this : Eepent, for the kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand. The preaching of repentance contains great, noble, 
 and even divine doctrines that are valid for all times and 
 peoples. But Jesus connected it with the intention of 
 establishing a kingdom of heaven, that is, a worldly kingdom 
 with eternal power and glory, such as the Jews expected. 
 Jesus did not mean to introduce any new religion. The 
 original plan of Jesus was frustrated by His death. His 
 
556 THE GERMAN AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 resurrection was devised by the disciples. The testimony 
 of the Eoman watchers was invented, the testimony of the 
 disciples regarding the appearances of the risen Christ comes 
 to nothing on account of its contradictions, and the testimony 
 from the Old Testament prophecies is untenable, like the old 
 Jewish interpretations of Scripture. From mere necessity, 
 and on account of their disappointed hopes, the disciples 
 worked out a new system. With the minority of the Jews, 
 they now read out of the Old Testament that Jesus had come 
 to atone for the sins of the whole world by His sufferings and 
 death. They stole the dead body, and asserted that Jesus 
 had risen again, and that after forty days He had ascended 
 to heaven, from whence He will soon come again to hold 
 judgment and to establish His kingdom. They retained the 
 beautiful rational morality of their master ; but, accommodating 
 themselves to the characteristic weakness of men, they added 
 all sorts of unfathomable mysteries and miraculous aids. In 
 addition to the great enthusiasm of the apostles, the propaga- 
 tion of Christianity was specially promoted by the introduction 
 of the community of goods, by chiliasm, and by the so-called 
 miraculous gifts. Paul then brings the apostolic doctrine to 
 a close. " See now," says Eeimarus, " whether the whole 
 doctrinal system of the apostolic Christianity does not rest 
 from beginning to end on utterly false positions, and specially 
 upon positions which constitute the foundation and essence of 
 this religion, and with which it must stand and fall." 
 
 As in the case of the history and doctrines of the Bible, 
 the doctrinal system of the Protestant Church is likewise 
 subjected to a sharp criticism. The original perfection and 
 the fall of man are contrary to the divine nature. The 
 doctrine of original sin, is " but intelligible words in which 
 nothing can be thought without manifest contradiction." 
 The doctrine of the work of Christ and the imputation of 
 His merit, appears to Eeimarus to be just as incomprehensible ; 
 and, above all, the eternal damnation of unbelievers appears to 
 him to be entirely contradictory of the goodness of God and 
 His purposes with men. 
 
EEIMAEUS. 557 
 
 Reimarus, however, is not even satisfied with applying the 
 criteria of a divine revelation set up by Wolff to the revelation 
 presented in Christianity, and thus dissolving it. He further 
 proceeds to show the impossibility of such a revelation at all. 
 A revelation which all men could believe in a well-founded 
 way, might, in the first place, be immediately communicated 
 to all men ; but this would be a constant miracle, and as such 
 it would be opposed to the divine wisdom. In the second 
 place, such a revelation might be addressed to individual 
 persons among all or among some nations ; but in that case 
 the divine revelation would have to be accepted upon human 
 testimony, and such testimony is uncertain. Hence this 
 method is also contrary to the divine wisdom. In the third 
 place, one people only, at certain times and through certain 
 persons, might have received the revelation. This hypothesis 
 has some advantages in its favour. But it maintains the idea 
 of miracles, and such revealed knowledge is necessarily obscure 
 and inconceivable, and it also becomes uncertain on account 
 of false prophets and the human testimony of tradition. The 
 universal diffusion of it is also impossible on account of the 
 diversity of languages, the limited diffusion of true religion, 
 and the difficulty of independently examining Scripture. 
 Hence it is entirely incompatible with the goodness and 
 wisdom of God, that the acceptance of this revelation should 
 be the necessary and only means of salvation. The revelation 
 in nature, or natural religion, is much rather to be regarded as 
 constituting the necessary and sole means of salvation. 
 
SECTION NINTH. 
 
 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUXG. 
 
 LKSSING. HERDER. HAM ANN. JACOBI. 
 
 T^HE German Aufkldrung was strongly influenced by the 
 Philosophy of Leibniz. This influence, however, did 
 not proceed directly from the genuine expositions of Leibniz 
 himself, but from the form his Philosophy assumed as 
 popularized by Wolff. This popular form of the system, 
 when compared with the original exposition, was, from the 
 outset, defective in two respects : it under - estimated the 
 value of History, and it ignored the importance of Uncon- 
 scious Feelings. In both of these relations we find certain 
 other currents flowing along with and supplementing the 
 philosophy of the Aufkldrung, although they were not im- 
 portant enough to be able to change the general characteristic 
 of the age. In relation to the Christian Eeligion, one of 
 these currents of thought laid the beginnings of a historico- 
 critical investigation of the documentary sources of our 
 Eeligion, in order to incorporate them generally from a 
 wider point of view in the connection of the historical pro- 
 cess of growth and event. The other current, that flowed 
 in opposition to the negative treatment of the Christian 
 doctrines by the emptying method of the intellectualism of 
 the German Enlightenment, brought forward the immediate 
 Feeling of the pious soul ; and in the consciousness of this 
 certain and inalienable possession, its aim was to reject all 
 intellectual examination of religion by reflective thought. 
 The former method is essentially based upon the intellectual 
 principle of the AitfMarung. It was from this movement that 
 the critical method obtained the degree of freedom in relation 
 
WETTSTEIN. EICHHOEN. MICHAELIS. 559 
 
 to revealed Eeligion that made a criticism of its sources 
 possible ; and with it, it shared the conception of religion 
 as a moral doctrine, and its high estimation of the so-called 
 Natural Eeligion. In the course of time, however, this 
 historical method of inquiry gradually, yet constantly and 
 necessarily, passed beyond the standpoint of the Aufklarung. 
 The latter method of appeal to immediate Feeling stands 
 higher than the critical method, inasmuch as, having a 
 profound sense for the essential nature of religion, it is 
 decidedly opposed to mere intellectual Enlightenment; but 
 as it stops at what is immediately felt, and sees in every 
 effort of thought an attack upon the inviolable sanctuary of 
 religion, it is likewise incapable of understanding Eeligion, 
 and of doing justice to its historical forms and development. 
 
 The historico-critical movement found its first representa- 
 tives in the theology of Holland and of England. In 
 Germany, "Wettstein (t 1754) first began to restore the 
 original text of the New Testament from a vast number 
 of various readings that had been handed down, and this 
 effort came into hard collision with the old ecclesiastical 
 notion of inspiration. He was followed by Griesbach 
 (t 1812), who declared that a supernatural revelation was 
 not merely possible, but probable and desirable, and only 
 desiderated that it should not contradict any truth of natural 
 religion. By a classification of the manuscripts of the New 
 Testament, he turned the lower criticism into new paths, and, 
 at the same time, founded the criticism of the synoptic 
 Gospels, the traditional harmony of which appeared to him 
 to be impossible. Eichhorn (( 1827) then began to subject 
 the New Testament Scriptures to the same unprejudiced 
 historical criticism as the products of the profane writers. 
 The same thing was done for the Old Testament by Joh. 
 Dav. Michaelis (t 1791), the learned founder of a systematic 
 Textual Criticism, and in his work on the Mosaic Law, 1 also 
 the beginner of an unbiassed and purely historical examination 
 of the Old Testament history. In contrast to the hitherto 
 1 Mosaisches Eeclit, 1770. 
 
560 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 common dogmatic exegesis, Job. Aug. Ernesti (1707-1781) 
 became the founder of the historico-critical method of inter- 
 pretation. He was essentially a philologer, and in his 
 Institutio interpretis N. T. (1761) he defines interpretation 
 as the art of exactly and completely communicating the 
 thoughts of others as contained in any discourse. The 
 interpreter should never aim at anything else than to receive 
 completely into himself, and to correctly reproduce the 
 meaning which may lie in the given words according to the 
 intention of the writer. The relation of the words to the 
 ideas and things is mediated by language, but this finds its 
 proper application in every passage according to the relations 
 of its origin and its purpose. Interpretation must therefore 
 be not merely grammatical, or determined by the general 
 rules of the language in question, but it must also be 
 historical, that is, it must take into consideration the 
 historical origin of the writing that has to be explained. 
 
 JOHANN SALOMO SEMLER (1725-1791) is the most im- 
 portant name in this series of critics. Praised by some as 
 the father of the modern theology, condemned by others as 
 the man with whom the falling away from the faith of the 
 fathers became universal, honoured as an individual by all 
 who strove for a rational view of religion, and regarded in 
 his old age with distrust on all sides, Semler presents two 
 aspects which it is difficult to reconcile with each other in an 
 objective estimate. From his pietistic training he retained 
 a living internal religiousness, but the acuteness of his critical 
 understanding made him give up many of the objective 
 doctrines of the Church as soon as his personal piety 
 no longer depended upon them. An indefatigable worker, 
 yet without a sense for system, he produced no fewer than 
 171 works. His works are entirely wanting in form, being 
 in part mere extracts or summaries of books interpolated 
 with critical remarks ; but he thus gave the impulse to new 
 inquiries in almost all the departments of theology, although 
 he has nowhere produced anything complete in itself. In 
 his criticism of the text and his judgment of the canon, 
 
 i 
 
HISTORICAL CRITICISM. SEMLER. 561 
 
 Semler attaches himself wholly to the writers just mentioned. 
 The canon is not original, but is a product of history, and 
 should not therefore be regarded as the basis of the Christian 
 faith. A book of Scripture is not divine because God has 
 composed, written, or inspired it, or because it stands in the 
 canon ; but it stands in the canon because men held the 
 judgment that this book served to promote their perfection 
 and happiness. This is properly what is divine in Scripture, 
 yet all the Biblical writings contain many things which have 
 a purely historical and accidental significance, and contribute 
 nothing to the promotion of human perfection and happiness. 
 This historical view makes the Biblical Scriptures appear as 
 occasional writings which were written at a particular time, 
 under particular circumstances, and for a particular purpose. 
 The books of the New Testament arose out of the original 
 opposition and the later reconciliation of a more Jewish and 
 a more heathen, or more liberal, party in the primitive 
 Christianity. Hence arises the demand for a historical 
 exegesis in the interpretation of these books. In the depart- 
 ment of Church History, Semler strove mainly to reach an 
 understanding of the original Christianity from the relations 
 of its time, and to attain a more correct appreciation of 
 heretics. In the History of Dogmas, he wanted the power 
 of recognising what was always permanent and everywhere 
 the same, while he is fond of pointing out the external 
 changes in the dogmatic definitions, and the influence of the 
 private opinion of a conspicuous teacher of the philosophic 
 views of the age, and of local and temporary circumstances. 
 Dogmas have merely a local value to the Christian Church, 
 as a means of distinguishing the members of one local religious 
 community from those of the others. In Dogmatic Theology, 
 Semler's weakness lay in the want of a philosophical view of 
 the religious material, and it shows itself plainly. Usually 
 he only contrasts the dogma in its historical form with his 
 own divergent " mode of expression," and leaves the reader 
 to choose between the two. The only point that specially 
 deserves attention is his distinction of public and private 
 VOL. i. 2 N 
 
562 THE OPPOSITION TO THE ATJFKLARUXG. 
 
 religion, an obscure anticipation of the distinction between 
 theology and religion. At the basis of both lies the historical 
 religion, or the history and doctrine of Jesus in its literal 
 form. Public or social religion is the local and temporal 
 representation of it as it is expressed in the particular dogmas 
 of the creeds, and as it must be taught and believed by the 
 members of a particular church, or ecclesiastical community, 
 for the sake of external order. Moral or private religion 
 is determined by the different moral development of the 
 individual, in accordance with which the application of the 
 Biblical doctrines to his heart is different. Social Eeligion 
 requires dogmas and the external agreement of all its 
 members, whereas Private Eeligion requires the greatest 
 liberty, 
 
 It may appear strange, yet it is a fact, that along with the 
 universal striving after Enlightenment, there moved by its 
 side an obscure dreamy fanaticism of a fantastic kind, such 
 as had rarely been seen before. Semler himself made 
 attempts at gold-making, especially towards the end of his life. 
 Alchemistic studies, searching for the philosopher's stone, 
 intercourse with spirits, and the mysterious cultivation of 
 secret societies, were then quite in vogue. All this reflected 
 the natural reaction of the life of feeling in man from the 
 dry cold reasoning of the understanding. This movement 
 manifested itself in relation to religion in such a way that 
 the inward life of feeling directly exhibited itself, without 
 being misled by the criticism of the understanding. Thus 
 Gellert (t 1769), in spite of all the defects that attached to 
 him as a poet, cannot be denied the merit of having, as an 
 apologist of Christianity in word and life, brought close to 
 his time the religious and moral thoughts that constituted 
 his own inmost life. With a far grander poetical flight, 
 Klopstock (t 1803), in his Messias, sang the reconciliation 
 of man, and carried away his contemporaries in rapturous 
 enthusiasm. Matthias Claudius (t 1815), as the " Wandsbeck 
 Messenger," in a soberer way gave his testimony to the 
 revelation that spoke in nature and history to his receptive 
 
LAVATER. 563 
 
 soul, and not without some keen slashes at the philosophy 
 which had remained strange in him. The pious Gerhard 
 Teerstegen (t 1769), by profession a weaver of silk ribbons, 
 also worked upon wide circles and showed many the way to 
 Christ by his quickening "Hours of Edification." In like 
 manner, Jung-Stilling (t 1847) exercised a kindred influence, 
 and his rock - fixed confidence in divine providence gave 
 occasion to the remark of Goethe, that " the wonderful man 
 believes he only needs to throw the dice and our Lord God 
 must set them for him." To this circle Joh. Caspar Lavater 
 (t 1801) also belongs. To him Christianity was real 
 communion with God, realized inwardly in the heart of man ; 
 the Bible was the record of the divine revelation ; and Jesus, 
 the first incomparable Son of the eternal invisible Father, the 
 most direct revelation of God. Along with this religious 
 inwardness, Lavater, however, possessed an openness for all 
 secular relations and sciences, and this enabled him also to enter 
 into connection with circles that were indifferent to religion. 
 
 Each of the two movements thus described, produced two 
 distinguished men who prosecuted reflection about religion so 
 far that they demand consideration in detail. LESSING- and 
 HEEDER were the chief representatives of the historicb-critical 
 school, while HAMANN and JACOBI represent the inward 
 feeling of the heart in relation to religion. 1 
 
 1 Pfleiderer's History may be compared with what follows in this Section. 
 (Otto Pfleiderer, Religionsphilosophie auf geschichtlicher Grundlage, Berlin 
 1878.) [The Philosophy of Religion on the Basis of its History. By Dr. 
 Otto Pfleiderer, Professor in the University of Berlin. Translated by Alexander 
 Stewart, M.A., and Allan Meiizies, B.D. ; vol. i. 1886; vol. ii. 1887.] 
 Pfleiderer puts Leasing beside Kant as a representative of the Critical 
 Philosophy of Religion. This appears to me as unintelligible as that Herder 
 is brought in between Hamann and Jacobi as a representative of the Mystico- 
 intuitive Philosophy of Religion, and that Fries was only mentioned [in the 
 First Edition] in an appendix to Jacobi, and dismissed in a few lines. The 
 more I owe to the penetrating and clear exposition of Pfleiderer, so much the 
 greater was the temptation to state at every point wherein I differ with him. 
 Nevertheless, keeping faithfully to the principle observed in the whole of this 
 work, I have avoided all special assent or polemic, although the expression of 
 my expositions is frequently determined by agreement with Pfleiderer or by 
 opposition to him. The order of my arrangement, as well as the divergence of 
 my exposition in detail, must be left to vindicate itself. 
 
564 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUKG. 
 
 I. 
 
 GOTTHOLD EPHRAIM LESSING (17 2 9-1 7 8 1). 1 
 
 Was Lessing a Spinozist ? This question, as is well known, 
 was keenly discussed soon after Lessing's death, between 
 Jacobi and Moses Mendelssohn, and it cannot be passed over 
 even yet. Jacobi, referring to a conversation which he had 
 had with Lessing, in connection with Goethe's Prometheus, 
 regarding the relation of God to the world and the freedom 
 of the human will, asserted that Lessing was a Spinozist. 
 Mendelssohn, who saw in this statement a grave charge 
 against his friend, wished to save him from this reproach, and 
 so he hit upon the idea of a " purified Spinozism." If, how- 
 ever, we remember how little knowledge Mendelssohn had of 
 Spinoza, and how much Jacobi was inclined to identify all 
 the systems of philosophy that were based on reflection, 
 notwithstanding their wide differences, with Spinozism, we 
 shall be inclined to give little importance to that controversy, 
 without doubting the fidelity of the statement or the scientific 
 character of the conversation. However, let us look at it 
 somewhat more closely. The conversation turned around two 
 points : the acceptance of an extra-mundane personal God, 
 and the freedom of the human will. Jacobi believes in an 
 intelligent personal Cause of the world ; Lessing confesses 
 that the orthodox conceptions of the Deity are unpalatable to 
 him, and that he knows nothing but / KOI irav. Lessing 
 will have everything worked out naturally, and cannot 
 conceive an extra-mundane personal Deity otherwise than 
 as affected with dreadful weariness. Jacobi feels himself free, 
 
 1 The philosophical and theological writings of Lessing that we have to take 
 into consideration are contained, in greater completeness than in any of the 
 former editions, in Hempel's Ed. of Lessing's "Works, xiv.-xvii. These 
 volumes are also published separately. "Lessing as a Theologian" has 
 become an extremely favourite theme for Essays and Lectures ; but notwith- 
 standing the enormous number of such productions, we still want a purely 
 objective exposition of the subject, equally just to it in the way of praise and 
 blame. 
 
LESSING. 565 
 
 but notwithstanding this immediate feeling, cannot suppose 
 that our thoughts only proceed side by side with the emotions 
 without determining them. Lessing, on the contrary, desires 
 no freewill, but, as an honest Lutheran, will hold by " the 
 error and blasphemy, more brutal than human, that there' is 
 no freewill." These are the several points that are touched. 
 Every one knows, however, that the denial of a personal 
 extra-mundane God, and of the freedom of the human will, is 
 identical with Spinozism only in the view of Jacobi, who 
 also declared in this conversation that he knew no doctrinal 
 system that agreed so much as the Leibnizian with that of 
 Spinoza. In order to determine Lessing's philosophical stand- 
 point, we must therefore necessarily go back to his own 
 writings. 
 
 And, at the outset, it must not be overlooked that Lessing 
 was a critic and not a systematizer. No systematic thinker 
 could say with Lessing that "it is not the truth in the 
 possession of which a man is, or supposes himself to be, but 
 the honest effort which he has put forth to come by the truth, 
 that constitutes the value of the man. For it is not by the 
 possession of truth, but by the pursuit of it, that the powers 
 are enlarged ; whereas the possession makes a man quiet, 
 inactive, indolent, and proud." No systematic thinker can 
 so greatly doubt of the capability of our human knowledge 
 that revealed religion becomes by him most suspected just on 
 account of that by which it knows itself most, that is, on 
 account of its undoubted possession of the truth of immortality. 
 One of Lessing's well-known utterances was, " If I should call 
 myself after any one, I know no other" (that is, no other 
 than Spinoza) ; and his repudiation contained in these words, 
 of being the scholar of any one, is to be accepted. Herder 
 has rightly remarked that Lessing was " not created to be an 
 ist of any sort, whatever letters might be prefixed to 
 this termination ! " In philosophy, Lessing was also but a 
 " Fragmentist ; " and he was so on a double ground materially, 
 because to his practical and active mind purely speculative 
 investigations appeared to be superfluous; and formally, 
 
566 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 because, notwithstanding all his logical acuteness, his lively 
 intellect wanted patience for methodico-schematic thinking. 
 The most important thoughts of Leasing, however, undoubtedly 
 point to a relationship with Leibniz, and to dependence 
 upon him. 
 
 Lessing early applied himself to the study of Leibniz, and 
 with great zeal. In order to ' defend Leibniz against the 
 covert attack of the Berlin Academy, he wrote, along with 
 Mendelssohn, the treatise entitled " Pope, a Metaphysician." l 
 He holds that every page written by Leibniz is, as such, 
 worthy of publication. He speaks of Leibniz in terms of the 
 greatest respect, and says that if Pope had followed Shaftesbury 
 in the explanation of evils, he would have come incomparably 
 nearer the truth and nearer Leibniz ! Leibniz is defended 
 from the objection that he has accommodated his system to 
 the most heterogeneous doctrines and prejudices, while he is 
 praised on account of his grand way of thinking and his art 
 of striking fire from every stone. The most important of 
 Lessing's thoughts point to Leibniz, as may be seen by 
 referring merely to his " Christianity of Reason." 2 Here it 
 is held that the one sole perfect Being has from eternity con- 
 templated what is most perfect, that is, Himself. In the case 
 of God, thinking, willing, and creating are one ; and hence God 
 likewise creates what He conceives. Now God may conceive 
 things in two ways : first, He may conceive all perfections 
 at once, and Himself as their sum; that is, God created 
 from eternity a being to whom none of His perfections was 
 awanting. This is the Son of God or God Son. This Being 
 is an identical image of God, and hence there is the greatest 
 harmony between God and His Son ; and this the Scriptures 
 call the Spirit which proceeds from the Father and from the 
 Son. This harmony is likewise God, and all the three are 
 one. Again, God thought of His perfection as divided ; that 
 is, He created beings, every one of them having something of 
 His perfections. These beings together constitute the world. 
 Because it is created by a most perfect God, this world is the 
 
 1 Pope, ein Metaphysiker. 2 Das Christenthum der Vernunft. 
 
LESSING. 567 
 
 most perfect of worlds ; that is, it is an infinite series of 
 members in which, in infinite degrees of more and less 
 perfection, all the members are arranged in a series without 
 leap or gap. God only creates simple beings, and there 
 exists among them a comprehensive harmony which explains 
 all the processes in the world. With the different degrees of 
 perfection these beings also possess different degrees of the 
 consciousness of this perfection, and of the capacity of acting 
 in accordance with it. Hence the latter are moral beings 
 whose law of action is just this : " Act in accordance with thy 
 individual perfections." Apart from the attempt to construe 
 the Trinity, all the fundamental thoughts here remind us of 
 Leibniz. All created things are simple beings, and, in 
 particular, simple percipient beings. Finite things are 
 different according to infinite differences in their degrees of 
 perfection. God is the highest and most perfect Monad. 
 The world, and all that happens in it, is held together by 
 harmony ; and the striving after perfection is the principle of 
 our actions. 
 
 Lessing also agrees with Leibniz in accepting the theories 
 of determinism and the perfection of the world. In losing 
 freedom, he believes we lose nothing that we can use for our 
 activity here, or for our happiness there. " Compulsion and 
 necessity make the idea of what is best operative ; how 
 much more perfect are they to me than a bald faculty of 
 being able to act under the same circumstances, in one way at 
 one time, and in another way at another time. I thank the 
 Creator that I must, even must do what is best ! " In regard 
 to the perfection of the world, it remains doubtful in the 
 system of Leibniz, whether the perfection of the world advances 
 or remains identically the same ; or, in other words, whether 
 the highest perfection is the ultimate goal of its development, 
 or this exists from the beginning. Lessing decides for the 
 view that the world was as perfect from the beginning as a 
 world can be. He does not, however, undertake to show this 
 perfection in detail, nor to establish it against all objections 
 by a Theodicy. 
 
568 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLAKUNG. 
 
 As regards the Soul and its Immortality, he also attaches 
 himself closely to Leibniz in the fragment, That there may be 
 more than five senses for man. The soul is a simple being, 
 which is capable of infinite perceptions ; yet as a finite being 
 it is not capable of these infinite perceptions at once, but only 
 gradually in an infinite succession of time. Now it is not 
 conceivable that this capacity should have been given to us 
 without its also becoming developed. Hence it is absolutely 
 necessary to accept the doctrine of a future life. In order 
 that we may obtain more ideas in that life, we shall perhaps 
 receive another organization, or more senses. We have now 
 five senses, but as we have only gradually come to them, there 
 is nothing to prevent our receiving still more. And as, in 
 fact, the whole material world is animated, the particles which 
 serve the soul in any one sense constitute homogeneous com- 
 binations of original materials, and every sense corresponds to 
 a particular collection of matter ; and so there are as many 
 senses possible as there are homogeneous masses in the 
 material world. There are, however, more than five of these. 
 With the establishment of the doctrine of Immortality, there 
 stands in close connection his defence of the eternity of hell 
 punishments, in the treatise entitled " Leibniz on eternal 
 punishments." Not as if Leibniz, and Lessing along with 
 him, represented the ecclesiastical doctrine, according to which 
 there is in the future world a final twofold state, that of the 
 blessed in heaven and of the damned in hell, while they are 
 both separated in space by an impassable gulf. But in con- 
 trast to the shallow view of an equally blessed state of all in 
 the world to come, Leibniz sees in the ecclesiastical doctrine, 
 albeit in the sensible form of an exoteric dogma, a profound 
 truth, which is thoroughly related to his esoteric doctrine. In 
 attachment to Leibniz, Lessing represents the same view in 
 opposition to Eberhard's Apology of Socrates, which 011 the 
 basis of illuminative eclecticism asserted the salvation even 
 of the heathen, in opposition to the ecclesiastical orthodoxy. 
 The great esoteric truth, in respect of which Leibniz found it 
 advisable to support the common doctrine of eternal damna- 
 
LESSING. 569 
 
 tion, is that there is nothing insulated in the world, nothing 
 without consequences, nothing without eternal consequences. 
 Hence moral conduct, or good and bad actions, cannot be 
 without their consequences. This is certainly not held in 
 such a way as to mean that in the other world there are two 
 separate places, one for the blessed and the other for the 
 damned, but it means that the good which every one has in 
 himself is his heaven, and the evil is his hell. Nor is there 
 between the two an absolute separation ; but as there are 
 infinitely many degrees of perfection, so are there also in- 
 finitely many stages of happiness passing gradually into each 
 other, from the heaven of the blessed to the hell of the 
 damned. And even if, by a gradual development, all ulti- 
 mately attain to perfection and consequently to happiness, 
 yet the eternal punishment of sins consists at least in 
 this, that they delay the attainment of this end. With 
 so much of agreement, not much is to be laid on the 
 fact that Lessing conceives of this immortality more 
 under the form of the metempsychosis, holding that our 
 soul has already been several times on the earth in 
 different bodies and under different circumstances of life, 
 and that in the future it shall also pass through similar 
 transmigrations. 
 
 Lessing is thus essentially a follower of Leibniz, but not of 
 that Leibniz whom Wolff had made current in the language of 
 his time. Lessing returns to the genuine Leibniz whom he 
 discovered in his own writings, making an exact distinction 
 between Leibniz's exoteric and esoteric forms of doctrine. But 
 even here he is not a mere reproducer. This is seen when we 
 look away from minor points. Thus it is that Lessing makes 
 individuality (the high estimate of which he had learned 
 from Leibniz) to be the highest criterion of action in the 
 practical sphere, and that he does not recognise Leibniz's 
 distinction between truths that are above reason and truths 
 that are contrary to reason, but, in accordance with the 
 rationalism of the Aufklarung, he subjects everything to the 
 decision of the human understanding. The main difference 
 
5*70 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 between the two turns upon the ev KOI irav. Leibniz com- 
 monly apprehends God as the first and most perfect monad. 
 The finite monads are independently by themselves out of 
 God ; and it is only incidentally that another view is indi- 
 cated when he designates God as the central monad, and 
 thus as the soul, while all existing things are regarded as the 
 body. Lessing, in his essay " On the reality of things out of 
 God," already declares that he can form no conception of such 
 reality. If things are called the complement of possibility, 
 there may or may not be a conception of this in God. No 
 one will assert the latter alternative, but if it is admitted that 
 there is a conception of things in God, this implies that all 
 things are really in Himself; for as soon as God has a con- 
 ception of the reality of things, they are no longer really out 
 of Him. Or if it is said that the reality of a thing is the 
 sum of all the possible determinations which may belong to 
 it, this sum must necessarily also be in the Idea of God. Nor 
 is the distinction between things and God done away with, if 
 the conceptions which God has of real things are these real 
 things themselves. Even as such they continue to be contin- 
 gent, while necessary reality belongs to God. While decidedly 
 repudiating an extra-mundane personal God after the manner 
 of the human personality, he always lays emphasis upon the 
 ev Kal irav, but in doing so he is still very far from the 
 genuine Spinozism. 
 
 This sufficiently indicates Lessing's relation to the Auf- 
 klarung. He stands wholly upon the ground of the Aufkldrung. 
 This was due not merely to personal friendship with the chief 
 leaders of that enlightenment, but the whole character of his 
 own efforts brought him to it. Hence arose his incessant 
 struggle against all the prejudices that were consecrated by 
 age, and hence his tendency to investigate everything critically 
 and to put it into a new light. Yet because Lessing did not 
 stop at the exoteric wisdom in Leibniz and its representation 
 in Wolff, but pressed into its esoteric elements, he took up 
 two thoughts which had been completely lost by the German 
 Enlightenment : the idea of Individualism and the idea of 
 
LESSING. 571 
 
 Development. Whatever exists has already, as such, a claim 
 to be examined with care ; and Lessing, like few of his age, 
 understood how to transport himself into other thoughts and 
 times, and correctly to appreciate other kinds of manifestations, 
 however strange they might be. 
 
 In entire correspondence with this position is Lessing's 
 attitude towards the religious Enlightenment of his time. 
 From his youth Lessing had zealously studied theological 
 controversies, and even when theology was given up as a pro- 
 fessional study he retained a living interest in it, so that he 
 could afterwards justly say of himself that he had not wished 
 controversy, and yet did not need to shun it. He was com- 
 pletely at one with the Aufklarung in the rejection of 
 Orthodoxy. "What are the orthodox to me? I despise 
 them as much as you do," Lessing writes to his brother. Yet 
 he respects the orthodox system on account of its complete 
 logical connection, and in certain dogmas, notwithstanding 
 their untenableness before the understanding, he even divines 
 a deeper hidden truth, but without making any attempt to 
 explain this irrational investment of such higher truths, or to 
 represent it as a universal law. Hence the modern theology 
 of the Enlightenment is still more repugnant to him. " What 
 is our new fashionable theology compared with orthodoxy, but 
 liquid manure compared with dirty water ? A final under- 
 standing had been, thank God, very much come to with 
 orthodoxy ; a separating wall had been drawn between it and 
 philosophy, behind which each of them could go its own 
 way without hindering the other. But what is done now ? 
 This partition is torn down, and under the pretence of making 
 us rational Christians, they are making us extremely irrational 
 philosophers." " We are agreed on the fact that our old reli- 
 gious system is false ; but I should not like to say with you 
 that it is a patchwork made by dabblers and half-philosophers. 
 I know nothing else in the world, in which the acuteness of 
 the human mind has been more exhibited and practised. A 
 patchwork made by dabblers and half-philosophers is the reli- 
 gious system which they would now put in the place of the old 
 
572 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 one, and with far more influence upon reason and philosophy 
 than the old system pretended to." If we ask, however, 
 for the new system that Lessing would substitute in place 
 of orthodoxy and of the Enlightenment, the answer cannot 
 satisfy us. It is possible that Lessing kept silent on much 
 which his age did not yet seem mature enough to receive ; 
 it is also probable that his power went only the length of 
 criticism, and soon found its limit in the attempt to create 
 what was new. 
 
 The earliest theological writings of Lessing are very tame. 
 His Saving of Cardanus (1770) aims at showing how weak 
 were the grounds on which Cardan had been accused of 
 atheism. His Saving of the " Ineptus Religiosus " shows that 
 the said work directed against Syncretism was entirely 
 satirical, and therefore was not a bad, godless book ; and 
 his Saving of Cochlcens discusses the suggestion that the 
 schism of the Eeformation was merely a consequence of an 
 accidental jealousy between the Dominican and Augustinian 
 orders. The Berengarius Turonensis seeks, by reference to a 
 manuscript discovered in the Wolfenbiittel Library, to prove 
 that Berengar completely expounded the later Lutheran 
 doctrine of the Lord's Supper. His Thoughts on the 
 Moravians^ (1750) lay stress upon a practical Christianity; 
 man was created for action and not for rationalizing, but on 
 that very account he inclines more to the latter than to 
 the former. From this perversion of what is essential, 
 arises the decay of philosophy as well as of religion. 
 This explanation, however, is not accompanied by any 
 exact definition, and therefore it remains without value as 
 regards his conception or apprehension of the nature of 
 religion. Moreover, this treatise, with some others to be 
 afterwards mentioned, remained unprinted till after Lessing's 
 death. 
 
 All the more violently, however, was the controversy 
 kindled when Lessing published, in 177478, a series of 
 " Fragments of an anonymous (writer) " in the " Contributions 
 
 1 Gedanken liber die Herrnhuter. 
 
LESSING. 573 
 
 to History and Literature." 1 It is now universally recognised 
 that these were fragments from the " Apology for the rational 
 worshippers of God " 2 by H. S. Reimarus. We may refer to 
 these writings, as far as regards the contents of the " Frag- 
 ments." They relate to " the Toleration of the Deists ; " " the 
 decrying of reason in the pulpits ; " " the impossibility of a 
 revelation that all men could believe in a rational way ; " " the 
 crossing of the Israelites through the Red Sea ; " " that the 
 books of the Old Testament have not been written to reveal 
 a Religion ; " " the history of the Resurrection ; " and the 
 "purpose of Jesus and of His disciples." Lessing did not 
 entirely agree with the author, and accordingly he added his 
 " counter-positions." The numerous attacks upon the work 
 were, however, for the most part directed as much against 
 Lessing as against the unknown author. Lessing then took 
 up the conflict, and in particular he turned upon Goze. 3 
 
 We may pass over the details of this controversy and 
 examine its ultimate results, or more properly, the general 
 theological propositions which Lessing propounded and repre- 
 sented. The question first treated turned upon the correct 
 relation between religion and the book of religion, or the rela- 
 tion between Christianity and the Bible. Orthodoxy and 
 the Enlightenment were at one in regard to this general 
 question. Reimarus and Goze so completely identify the 
 two, that every attack upon the Bible was also regarded 
 by them as an attack upon Religion. On the basis of this 
 common assumption, Orthodoxy starts from the position that 
 Christianity is true, and infers from it that the Bible is true ; 
 
 1 Fragmenten eines Ungenannten. 
 
 2 Apologie oder Schutzschrift fiir die vernunftigen Verehrer Gottes. 
 
 3 Johann Melchior Goze was the Senior Pastor of Hamburg. Poor Goze, as 
 represented by Lessing, was "held up as the bearer and type of all narrowness 
 of mind and hostility to science." But Goze has also found his " Saving" (cf. 
 Rope, /. M. Goze, zur Rettung Goez, 1860). However, as long as the excessive 
 over-estimate of the merits of Lessing in relation to the Philosophy of Religion 
 lasts, his often more rough than real polemic, and the empty evasions with 
 which it turns away from the main question, "What Religion does Lessing 
 understand by the Christian Religion, and to which he confesses himself to 
 belong ? " will be too much admired in a one-sided way, for justice to be done to 
 his opponent. 
 
574 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 whereas the Enlightenment starts from the position that the 
 Bible is for many reasons, or at least in many points, not 
 true, and it infers that Christianity is therefore likewise 
 untrue, or at least is incredible. Lessing seeks to shift the 
 position of the whole controversy by calling in question the 
 common assumption. The book of religion, he says, is not 
 religion, the Bible is not Christianity ; and therefore attacks 
 upon the Bible are not, eo ipso, also attacks upon Christianity. 
 Lessing was well aware of the bearing and range of his 
 assertion. Religion is in his view the palace in which man- 
 kind have lived from of old in comfort and undisturbed ; the 
 religious book is the ground-plan according to which the 
 palace was built. At present this ground-plan is so much 
 over-estimated that, in case of a conflagration, the attempt 
 would not be made to extinguish the fire, but only to save 
 the plan. Lessing would make a distinction between the 
 Bible and Christianity. He would rather not acknowledge 
 the Bible as the sole foundation of our most holy religion 
 than give up religion to irresoluble difficulties. 
 
 Lessing has briefly summarized his thoughts on this subject 
 in the following ten axioms : " 1.' The Bible manifestly 
 contains more than belongs to Eeligion. 2. It is a mere 
 hypothesis that the Bible is equally infallible in this ' more 
 than Eeligion.' 3. The letter is not the spirit, and the Bible 
 is not Religion. 4. Consequently, objections against the 
 letter and against the Bible are not on that very account 
 likewise objections against the spirit and against religion. 
 
 5. Further, there was a Religion before the Bible existed. 
 
 6. Christianity existed before the Evangelists and the Apostles 
 had written. It was a good while before the first of them 
 wrote, and a very considerable period passed before the Canon 
 came into existence. 7. However much may, therefore, 
 depend on these writings, yet it is not possible that the whole 
 truth of the Christian Religion should rest upon them. 8. 
 If there was a period in which the Christian Religion was 
 already widely spread, and in which it had already won so 
 many souls, but in which, however, not a letter was yet 
 
LESSING. 575 
 
 written of that which has come down to us, it must also be 
 possible that all that the Evangelists and the Apostles have 
 written might again be lost, and yet the Eeligion taught by 
 them would still subsist. 9. Eeligion is not true because the 
 Evangelists and Apostles taught it, but they taught it because 
 it is true. 10. What has been transmitted in writing must 
 be explained by its internal truth, and all the writings 
 transmitted to us cannot give any internal truth to a thing 
 if it does not posses such truth ! " 
 
 The Bible then is not religion, and this is historically 
 proved by the fact that Christianity existed before any of the 
 Evangelists and Apostles had written anything. The first 
 summary of the Christian faith was the Regula fidei. The 
 writings of the New Testament arose afterwards, and quite 
 gradually. We may here, however, pass over the hypothesis 
 of Lessing regarding the origin of the Gospels. Christianity is 
 thus shown to be older than the Bible ; and hence it is not 
 Christianity that is dependent on the Bible, but the Bible 
 that is dependent on Christianity. In other words, the Bible 
 is not the foundation of Christianity, but its original docu- 
 mentary record. The Biblical Scriptures are occasional 
 writings, composed under particular circumstances and for 
 definite purposes, and they thus contain very much that is 
 accidental and indifferent as regards religion. Hence the 
 Bible contains more things and other things than belong to 
 religion, and for these it does not possess the same authority 
 as for what properly belongs to religion. 
 
 The controversy between Lessing and Goze, turned around 
 the relation of the Bible to Christianity ; whereas the con- 
 troversy between Lessing and Schumann, turned upon the 
 significance of Miracles and Prophecies for the truth of the 
 Christian religion. The treatise " Concerning the proof of 
 the Spirit and of Power" was directed by Lessing against 
 Schumann. Lessing here starts from the point of view that 
 a distinction must be made between prophecies of which we 
 ourselves experience the fulfilment, or miracles which have 
 been seen with our own eyes, and narratives of fulfilled 
 
576 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 prophecies or miracles that have already taken place. If I 
 had lived in the time of Christ, and if I had seen how pro- 
 phecies of undoubtedly ancient origin were fulfilled in His 
 person, or how He performed miracles Himself, I would at 
 once have subordinated my understanding to His. Or, if 
 prophecies regarding the Christian religion were still fulfilled 
 at present, and if miracles were done by Christians as in the 
 time of Origen, I would at once recognise the proof of the 
 Spirit and of Power. But in the present day this proof has 
 neither spirit nor power, but has sunk down into human 
 testimonies as to spirit and power. Seeing that the truth of 
 the miracles is no longer established by current miracles now, 
 and seeing that we have only narratives of miracles, although 
 these may be completely consistent as narratives, they cannot 
 oblige one to believe in other doctrines; for if a historical 
 truth cannot be demonstrated, neither can anything be 
 demonstrated by historical truth. In other words, contingent 
 historical truths can never become the proof of necessary rational 
 truths! 1 Further, what is meant by believing a historical 
 truth ? It means nothing else than to recognise this truth, 
 and to raise no objection against another person building 
 another historical proposition upon it. If I have nothing to 
 object historically to the statement that Christ raised a dead 
 man and rose Himself from the dead, I am quite willing to 
 believe that the disciples regarded Him on that ground as the 
 Son of God ; these truths belong to one and the same class. 
 This, however, cannot oblige me to believe that God has a 
 Son of the same substance with Himself, and that Christ is 
 this Son. That would amount to deriving the obligation to 
 believe something against which my reason rebels, from the 
 inability to raise any strong objection to the testimony of 
 some one; and this is accordingly a /tera/3a<7t9 et\ % d\\o 
 761/09. Nor does an appeal to the inspiration of Scripture 
 give any help, for even this is only historically certain. It is 
 
 1 This principle is still proclaimed in the present day as the highest wisdom, 
 and yet Lessing might even then have advanced from his view of history as a 
 development, to a more correct appreciation of historical facts. 
 
LESSING. 577 
 
 thus always necessary to leap from a historical truth over to 
 an entirely different class of truths, and by reference to the 
 former to transform all my metaphysical and moral concep- 
 tions. "This is the broad foul ditch over which I cannot 
 pass, however often and earnestly I may have attempted the 
 leap." Thus miracles and prophecies, of which I have only 
 historical information, cannot oblige me, although their his- 
 torical truth is quite indubitable, to accept doctrines of another 
 kind. The doctrines themselves can only lead me to accept 
 them. 
 
 The Book of Eeligion is thus not the foundation, but the 
 documentary record of Eeligion. Miracles and Prophecies, or, 
 in short, historical facts, are no sure proof of the truth of a 
 religion. The religion must be founded upon itself; the 
 truths of religion are internal truths or truths of reason. This 
 negative characteristic leads beyond the distinction of Eeligion 
 and the Bible and the repudiation of the historical proof of 
 the Spirit and of Power, to a distinction between the 
 Christian Eeligion and the Eeligion of Christ. And this 
 positive determination leads to inquiries into the nature of 
 Eeligion. 
 
 The distinction thus referred to, is discussed in the 
 Fragment entitled The Eeligion of Christ. Whether Christ 
 was more than man, is a problem ; but it is made out as a 
 fact, that He was truly and really man. Hence the Eeligion 
 of Christ and the Christian Eeligion, are entirely different 
 things. The Eeligion of Christ, is that religion which He 
 himself, as a man, recognised and practised, and which every 
 man must wish more and more to have in common with him, 
 the higher he thinks of the man, Christ. The Christian 
 Eeligion is that religion which accepts the position that Christ 
 was more than man, and which makes Him as such the object 
 of worship. It is inconceivable that these two religions can 
 exist in Christ as in one and the same person, since the 
 doctrines and principles of both are hardly to be found in one 
 and the same book. The Eeligion of Christ is contained in 
 clear and distinct words in the Bible ; the Christian Eeligion. 
 
 VOL. I. 2 
 
578 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARTJNG. 
 
 is so ambiguous that hardly two men are agreed on the mean- 
 ing of a passage. Lessing, however, does not go beyond these 
 allusions. He does not state, either definitely or precisely, 
 what belongs to the Eeligion of Christ, nor does he explain 
 on what grounds accidental or necessary, and in what way 
 the Christian Religion has entered into the place of the 
 Religion of Christ. 
 
 The explanations of Lessing regarding the essential nature 
 of Religion, are in like manner unsatisfying. He says that 
 the truths of religion are eternal truths, or truths of reason. 
 This position is regarded by him as established beyond doubt. 
 It follows necessarily from the fact that religion is neither 
 based upon the religious book, nor upon miracles and pro- 
 phecies, and that I must therefore accept it because it is true 
 in itself and because its truths are evident to my reason. 
 This follows from the fact that Lessing aims at spreading the 
 Christianity of Reason ; and he lays stress upon the fact that 
 what all the religions have in common cannot be without a 
 foundation in Reason. But the question then arises as to 
 what sort of truths these truths of religion are. Are they 
 theoretical truths or practical truths ? There is much to be 
 said for the latter alternative. Lessing himself breaks a lance 
 for the Moravians, because they turn away from the commonly- 
 trodden path of rationalizing, to the only correct way of action. 
 He wishes " that all whom the Gospel of John separates, may 
 be again united by the Testament of John." 
 
 By the " Testament " of John is meant the words which the 
 Apostle, towards the end of his life, was in the habit of speak- 
 ing in the assemblies of the Church. " Little children, love 
 one another." This alone appears to him to be enough ; it is 
 sufficient if it is carried out. " It was this Testament of 
 John by which formerly a certain salt of the earth swore. 
 Now this salt of the earth swears by the Gospel of John ; and 
 it is said that it has become a little musty in consequence of 
 this change." Lessing decidedly rejects the view that the 
 Christian doctrines of faith must necessarily be added to true 
 Christian love, in order that any one may be a Christian. And 
 
LESSING. 579 
 
 if we think of his Nathan the wise, it appears entirely beyond 
 doubt that in Lessing's view the true religion is identical with 
 morality. On the other hand, if we consider his Education of 
 the Human Race, there are certain truths of reason, or theo- 
 retical truths, which are of main importance to religion, and 
 the universal and unmistakeable publication of them consti- 
 tutes the chief significance of Christianity ; and, in particular, 
 such are insight into the unity of God and the immortality 
 of the soul. So little does the question regarding the psycho- 
 logical nature of religion come into the circle of Lessing's 
 inquiry, that he puts these statements side by side with each 
 other without even indicating any mode of combining them. 
 
 True religion, according to Lessing, is therefore eternal 
 rational truth. Hence there arise two questions : first, Does 
 religion rest merely upon reason without revelation ? and, 
 secondly, How do the positive religions with their contents, 
 in part undeniably contrary to reason, arise ? 
 
 Leibniz, in entire consistency with the connection of his 
 system, distinguished between propositions that are above 
 reason and propositions that are contrary to reason. A 
 Eevelation may not contain the latter, but it will contain the 
 former. Wolff then proceeded to determine in detail the 
 distinguishing marks of what should be regarded as revelation. 
 According to this canon, the representatives of the Enlighten- 
 ment, in accordance with their personal predilections, struck 
 out at one time more, and at another fewer of the positions 
 of the Christian revelation as contrary to reason, without, 
 however, in principle denying revelation itself. Here, too, 
 Lessing goes farther, by calling in question the assumption of 
 the supra-rationality of Eevelation that lay at the foundation 
 of the discussion. Eevelation certainly goes beyond the 
 natural knowledge of its recipients, but it does not go beyond 
 reason as such ; it communicates knowledge to men which 
 they certainly would not have had otherwise at that time, 
 but it is knowledge which they could attain to by their 
 natural reason in the course of time. Eevelation is thus 
 entirely rational. Lessing proceeds to show this ; and, using 
 
580 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 a figure already found in the church fathers, he represents it 
 as the Education of the Human Eace. All education is 
 education to something which is its goal, and it is therefore 
 a development. This is the chief thought of Lessing's 
 Education of the Human Race. 
 
 Education is revelation happening to the individual man ; 
 and Eevelation is education which has happened and still 
 happens to the human race. Education gives man nothing 
 that he could not have of himself, only it gives it quicker and 
 easier. In like manner, Eevelation gives nothing to the 
 human race to which human reason would not come if left 
 to itself, only it gives it the most important things sooner. 
 As is the case with parents and teachers in connection with 
 education, so must God likewise have observed a certain order 
 and proportion in connection with Eevelation. The first man 
 was indeed already furnished with the conception of one only 
 God, but human reason when left to itself divided the single, 
 incommensurable One into several more commensurable indi- 
 viduals, and thus sank into polytheism and idolatry. In order 
 to bring men again to the right way, God chose a single people 
 to be the subjects of His special education, and He particu- 
 larly chose the Israelites as the people that was most un- 
 polished and barbarized. To this people, God made Himself 
 known at the beginning merely as the God of their fathers, 
 authenticated Himself by miracles as a God who was more 
 powerful than any other, and thus accustomed the Israelites 
 to the conception of the one God. This conception of God as 
 one only was, however, based entirely upon the idea of His being 
 the most powerful, and it was still far removed from the true 
 transcendental conception of the one only God. In this lay 
 the foundation of the frequent apostasy of the Israelites, when 
 another God appeared to them as the most powerful God. In 
 moral respects, such an uncultivated people could only be 
 educated by immediate sensible punishments and rewards. It 
 would have been a pedagogic error if God had at once pro- 
 ceeded to reveal to the people the immortality of the soul and 
 a future life, as their reason was not yet sufficiently grown for 
 
LESSING. 581 
 
 these truths. Meanwhile the other nations of the earth had 
 advanced upon their own way by the light of reason. Most 
 of their stopped behind the chosen people, and some out- 
 stripped them : which, however, proves nothing against 
 Eevelation. Nor does the fact that the doctrine of the 
 immortality of the soul, and of rewards and punishments in 
 a future life, is not contained in the Old Testament, prove 
 anything against its divineness. An elementary book for 
 children may well pass over in silence some important parts 
 of science and art, only it may not contain anything that bars 
 the way to them. During the exile the Jewish people came 
 into contact with the wise Persians, and as they measured 
 Jehovah with the Being of all beings, there resulted the first 
 mutual service between Eeason and Eevelation. Hitherto 
 Eevelation had led Eeason, now Eeason enlightened Eeve- 
 lation. In the light of the Persian Eeligion, with its pure 
 conception of God, the Jews saw in the Jehovah of the 
 Old Testament no longer merely the most powerful national 
 God, but in truth the one and only God. The Jews were 
 also made acquainted with the doctrine of the immortality of 
 the soul among the Chaldeans and Persians, and especially in 
 the schools of the Greek philosophers in Egypt. And now 
 they found in the Old Testament at least prefigurations, 
 allusions, and indications pointing to this faith. But every 
 elementary book exists only for a definite time, and the Old 
 Testament too had its time. Then came Christ, and He 
 plucked the exhausted book of elements out of the hands of 
 the child. 
 
 The Jews had come so far in the exercise of their reason, 
 that they required for their moral actions nobler and worthier 
 motives than temporal rewards and punishments. And so 
 Christ became the first trustworthy practical teacher of the 
 immortality of the soul. The disciples faithfully propagated 
 this doctrine, spreading it among all nations, but mixing it up 
 at the same time with other doctrines, the truth of which was 
 less evident, and the advantage of which was less important. 
 The New Testament Scriptures were the second and better 
 
582 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 elementary book written for the human race. As we can now 
 dispense with the Old Testament in reference to the doctrine 
 of the unity of God, and as we begin to dispense even with 
 the New Testament in reference to the doctrine of the immor- 
 tality of the soul, may there not be likewise contained in it 
 other truths which we may wonder at as revelations, till 
 reason teach us to comprehend them ? For example, the 
 doctrine of the Trinity may perhaps tell us that God cannot 
 possibly be one in the sense in which finite things are one ; 
 that His transcendental unity does not exclude a kind of 
 plurality ; and that God has a most perfect representation, or 
 an equally perfect form, or a Son-God. In like manner, the 
 doctrine of Original Sin, may perhaps tell us that man on the 
 lowest stage is too little master of his own actions to be able 
 to follow moral laws. Similarly the doctrine of the Atone- 
 ment may teach that God might, nevertheless, give man moral 
 laws, and, instead of excluding him from all moral happiness, 
 would pardon all transgressions by reference to His Son as 
 the independent sum of all perfections, in which relation every 
 imperfection of the individual disappears. We should not be 
 prevented from speculating about such mysteries of religion. 
 They are, in short, like the arithmetical example which the 
 master puts down for his pupils in order that they may be 
 able thereby to be guided in some measure in their calcula- 
 tions ; such speculations are fitted as means to raise the 
 human race to the highest stage of enlightenment and purity. 
 This stage we have not yet attained, but we shall attain it. 
 All education has a goal, and so has that of the human race. 
 This goal of the race, is the age of a new eternal gospel which 
 is promised to us by the elementary books of the New Testa- 
 ment. Its nature consists in this, that men will do the good 
 because it is the good, and not because arbitrary rewards are 
 attached to the doing of it. And though it may perhaps still 
 be long till this goal is reached, yet, "Go on Thine own un- 
 searchable way, Eternal Providence ! Only let me not despair 
 of Thee because of this unsearchableness ! Let me not despair 
 of Thee, even although Thy footsteps should appear to me to go 
 
 i 
 
LESSING. 583 
 
 backwards ! It is not true that the shortest line is always 
 the straight one ! " 
 
 Thus does Lessing express himself, but it may be 
 questioned whether this is his real opinion. He 'does not 
 enter upon any inquiry into the possibility and the manner 
 of a Eevelation. Again, Lessing, entirely in the spirit of the 
 Aufklarung, finds the nature and significance of Christianity 
 in nothing else than in insight into the unity of God and the 
 immortality of the soul, with retribution in the other world 
 for the actions done here. Further, in his view Christianity 
 is not the goal of the religious education ; it is not the 
 perfect religion, but is destined to perish like the Jewish 
 religion. It may be asked, Is all this only exoteric truth, 
 and has Lessing kept the esoteric truth to himself ? Has he 
 perhaps himself acted in accordance with the rule which he 
 lays down thus : " Beware, thou who art more capable, thou 
 who dost tread on the last page of this elementary book and 
 art aglow, beware lest thy weaker fellow-scholars may mark 
 what thou scentest from afar or already begin'st to see ! " 
 The latter view appears to us the more probable, yet who can 
 assert it or prove it ? In that case, he could not speak 
 literally of a revelation. It would only be rational insight 
 and knowledge to which at first only certain individuals, 
 and then the mass, attained by means of it ; Judaism and 
 Christianity would thus be grounded only upon human 
 reason and not upon a divine activity in revelation ; the 
 human reason here only struck into a different path. Whence 
 then could come the pretence of a divine revelation and the 
 belief in such a revelation ? 
 
 However this may be, Kevelation, according to Lessing, 
 contains, in any case, only what is essentially rational. But 
 the religions as they actually exist, or the so-called positive 
 religions, contain much that is indifferent to religion as 
 arbitrary prescriptions for belief and action. What is the 
 relationship between these two things ? Lessing again and 
 again, and always more sharply, blames men for commonly 
 putting too much value upon these externalities. Many a one 
 
584 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLAHUNG. 
 
 is a Christian who is not called such, while many only assume 
 the very easy confession of religious doctrines as a matter of 
 conscience, instead of the fulfilment of the more difficult 
 duties. In his dialogue entitled Ernst und Folk, he shows 
 that what is essential in Freemasonry, is founded on the 
 nature of man and of civil society, and may therefore be dis- 
 covered by our own reflection, but that the peculiar words and 
 signs and usages are not Freemasonry. It appears to be the 
 ideal task of Masonry to show that those who in every positive 
 religion have risen above the prejudices of the crowd, may 
 unite in order to get rid to the utmost of the separations by 
 which they become so alien to each other. Accordingly, 
 tolerance is an always recurring demand of Lessing, but it is 
 founded not so much upon a relative estimation of every 
 positive religion as upon non-estimation of all the positive 
 religions. The value of the positive religions is therefore 
 small ; and all the statements of Lessing regarding them tend 
 to depreciate their value, and none of these to establish them 
 positively. Whence then did the positive religions arise ? 
 In his introduction to the Education of the Human Race, 
 Lessing puts the question, " Why will we not rather see in all 
 the positive religions nothing but the order of march in 
 which the human understanding in every place could solely 
 and alone develop itself, and is still to develop itself further, 
 than either smile or be angry at any one of them ? " 
 It thus appears as if he regarded the positive religions as 
 necessarily founded in the nature of man and its develop- 
 ment. In the treatise itself, however, we find this thought 
 carried out only in regard to the religious truth in Judaism 
 and Christianity, and therefore by reference to the various 
 degrees of natural religion, but not in respect of what is 
 properly positive. This treatise at least cannot lead us to 
 suppose that Lessing afterwards gave up the view which is 
 expounded in an Essay On the Origin of Revealed Religion, 
 written from 1755 to 1760. 
 
 The sum-total of the contents of Natural Religion, accord- 
 ing to this Essay, is to acknowledge one God, to form the 
 
HERDER. 585 
 
 most worthy conceptions of Him, and to give regard to these 
 in all our actions and thoughts. Every man is bound to 
 follow this natural religion according to the measure of his 
 powers ; and as these powers are different, so likewise is the 
 natural religion of the man. For the purposes of the civil 
 union, instead of this diversity, unanimity must be intro- 
 duced, and men must come to agreement with regard to 
 certain things and conceptions, and attribute to them the 
 same importance and necessity as the religious truths which 
 are naturally known possess in themselves. This Positive 
 Eeligion received its authority, as revealed, from the person 
 of its founder ; it is indispensable, and it is inwardly true in 
 so far as Natural Eeligion is modified in it by the accidental 
 conditions of the State to which it may be subservient. 
 Hence all Positive Religions are equally true and equally 
 false. The best Positive Religion is that which contains 
 the fewest conventional additions to Natural Religion. 
 
 II. 
 
 JOHANN GOTTFRIED HERDER (1744-1803). 1 
 
 Of the contemporaries of Lessing, there was hardly one so 
 closely related to him as Herder. The relationship between 
 them, however, left room for wide diversity in their 
 views. The difference between them comes out clearly at 
 the outset, as we are accustomed to see in Lessing the acute 
 logical critic, and in Herder the refined congenial interpreter 
 of popular poetry. The affinity between them, however, 
 relates mainly to their general philosophical view of the 
 
 1 Of Herder's writings the following come specially into consideration here : 
 "Aelteste Urkunde des Menschengeschlechts," 1774-76. " Vom Geiste der 
 Hebraischen Poesie," 1782-85. " Briefe iiber das Studium der Theologie," 
 1785. "Ideen znr Philosophic der Geschichte der Menschheit, " ' 1784-87. 
 "Seele und Gott," 1787. " Christliche Schriften," 1797. "Briefe zur 
 Beforderung der Humanitat, " 1793-97. Cf. A. Werner, Herder als Theolog, 
 Berlin 1871. 
 
586 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 world. Herder's main efforts were directed towards tracing 
 out the first stirrings of the human mind in the oldest 
 monuments of history and poetry. With rare intelligence, he 
 can think himself into the circumstances and the modes of 
 thought of long past ages and of the most different peoples, 
 and he knows how to bring their oldest monuments in poetry 
 and history near to his own time and people. Thus does 
 Herder renew the stress laid by Leibniz upon individuality 
 and the appreciation of the dim knowledge in the sphere of 
 feeling, in contrast to the all - levelling and extremely un- 
 historical view of history characteristic of the Aufkldrung. 
 And thus does he open up to his age, in the Voices of the 
 Peoples? the means of understanding the most distant products 
 of poetry, including the Bible. For it was Herder who 
 along with the non-dogmatic criticism of the Neology and the 
 historical criticism of Ernesti, Michaelis, and Semler pointed 
 emphatically to a historico - sesthetic appreciation of the 
 Bible. 
 
 Turning to Herder's philosophical view of the world, we 
 should not be led astray by his expressions of attachment to 
 Spinoza. For even Herder did not advance to an objectively 
 correct understanding of Spinoza, but rather represents a 
 " purified Spinozism," the main features of which were 
 borrowed from Leibniz. 
 
 At first we find Herder standing in the closest relation to 
 the Aufkldrung. In 1767 he writes full of friendship and 
 esteem to Nicolai, saying that Berlin was the first place in 
 which he wished to be, because the spirit of the Berlin 
 savants worked sympathetically upon him. In the same year, 
 he writes entirely in the sense of the Aufklarung to Kant, 
 telling him that he had undertaken the office of the ministry 
 because he knew, and daily experienced, that it was the best 
 means of bringing culture and intellect to the excellent part 
 of mankind that we call the people. And even afterwards, 
 when this friendly relation was dissolved, Herder continued 
 to retain from the Aufkldrung the position, that all the 
 
 1 Stimmen der Volker. 
 
HERDER. 587 
 
 development of man, including religion, was put at its highest 
 in its relation to happiness. 
 
 With his friend Jacobi, Herder finds himself at one in 
 opposition to the empty intellectual philosophy of the 
 Aufklarung, which believes that it can derive everything 
 from conceptions and demonstrations. In sharp words, he 
 turns against the appeal to the common human understanding, 
 as when he says : " If any one, when his shoe presses upon 
 his corn, refers at once to the common human understanding 
 and human feeling, he does not truly honour the genius of 
 humanity which he transforms into his own corn." In like 
 manner, he says that human understanding and human feeling 
 " are something else than your own nightcap." In his 
 Metakritik he decidedly opposes " that human cognition 
 which is apart from and before all experience, and those 
 sensible intuitions which are apart from and before all 
 sensible perceptions of an object," etc. If we overlook the 
 excited and unworthy tone of this production, remembering 
 that in his " Letters on Humanity " the same Herder speaks 
 of the same Kant in terms of the greatest reverence and 
 esteem, a correct estimate of it is only possible by rigidly 
 separating Herder's own views from his attacks upon Kant. 
 In the former there is much that is valuable ; in the latter 
 there is awanting even the first indispensable condition of 
 such an attack, namely, a correct understanding of his opponent. 
 A single glance at Herder's discussion of Kant's Deduction of 
 the Categories and of his Idealism, leaves no doubt of this. 
 In regard to the function of philosophy, Herder is also at one 
 with his friend Jacobi. Philosophy has to unveil existence, 
 or to teach us to know what there is in qualities and relations, 
 and how it exists. Metaphysics is After-physics; in other 
 words, Metaphysics ought continually to hold on by Physics, 
 and not to go beyond its discoveries. Actuality, reality, or 
 active existence, is the chief conception ; philosophy has to 
 investigate this and to keep by the things of nature. 
 
 But this agreement does not go further. Herder protests 
 decidedly and above all, against the view of an extramundane 
 
588 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 God. " I do not understand," he says, " what you good 
 people would have with this ' existing out of the world.' If 
 God does not exist in the world, everywhere in the world, and 
 even everywhere without bounds and whole and indivisible, 
 then He exists nowhere. There is no space out of the world ; 
 space only arises in so far as there arises a world to us as an 
 abstraction of the phenomena. Limited personality is as 
 little applicable to the infinite Being as that personality 
 arises in our case only by limitation. In God this illusion 
 falls away ; He is the highest, most living, most active One." 
 " With the personal supramundane and extramundane God, 
 I can get on as little as Lessing does. God is not the world, 
 and the world is not God ; this is certain. But neither with 
 the ' extra ' nor the ' supra,' as it seems to me, is there any- 
 thing indicated. When we speak of God, we must forget all 
 the idola of space and time, or our best effort is in vain." 
 
 Even the personality of the world-cause is rejected. None 
 of the meanings of the word " person " (as mask, or as per- 
 sonal status, or as delineated character) can be applied to 
 God. As little as God looks upon the person, so little does 
 He play the part of a person and affect personality, or have a 
 personal mode of thinking that separates and contrasts Him 
 with others. He is. No one is as He is. A negative 
 answer is also given to the question as to whether " the 
 highest intelligence requires the term ' personality,' so that 
 unity of self-consciousness should constitute personality ! " 
 And to his friend Jacobi, Herder objects, " You will have 
 God in a human form as a friend who thinks of you. Eeflect 
 that He must then also think humanly or limitedly of you, 
 and if He is partial in favour of you, He will be partial 
 against others." Against such a separation of God and the 
 world, Herder always returns again to Lessing's confession, 
 ev Kal irav ; and Spinoza's Philosophy appears to him the 
 only philosophy which is completely at one with itself. It 
 is certainly a very purified Spinozism that is proclaimed by 
 Herder. According to Herder, Spinoza is not an atheist ; for 
 " the Idea of God is to him the first and last, and even the 
 
HERDER. 589 
 
 onlf- one, of all the ideas to which he connects the knowledge 
 of the world and of nature, the consciousness of himself and 
 of all things around him, and of ethics and politics." Spinoza 
 is not a pantheist ; " for his infinite and most real being is as 
 little the world itself as the Absolute of reason and the End- 
 less of the imagination are one ; " and the accusation against 
 him is wrong, " that he encloses his God in the world, and 
 identifies Him with the world." Spinoza is not a fatalist ; for 
 he does not speak of a blind external compulsion, nor does he 
 subject God to a fate, " but I think that everything follows 
 as necessarily from the nature of God as any one can think 
 it follows from the nature of God that God knows Himself." 
 Spinoza does not teach a God that works blindly without 
 insight, but among all perfections, thinking and wisdom also 
 belong to Him. Spinoza does not attribute extension to God, 
 but, compelled by the mode of expression adopted by Descartes, 
 he only chooses an unsuitable expression for the thought that 
 the corporeal and the spiritual worlds are both representations 
 and unfoldings of one and the same Divine Being. 
 
 Herder's philosophical views may be reduced to the follow- 
 ing thoughts. God is power or force, as all that exists ; but 
 God is the Primary Power, the All-power of all powers, the 
 Organ of all organs. Finite things are also powers or forces, 
 but only as effects, as limited manifestations or representations 
 of the One infinite Power. Thus " the highest Existence has 
 given to His creatures what is the highest ; He has given 
 them reality, existence." Hence Herder will know nothing 
 of a demonstration of the existence of God ; but in existence 
 or what is itself real even though it were only a stalk of 
 straw the existence of God appears to him as given with 
 immediate certainty. In like manner he repudiates the 
 comprehending of God as an act of conception ; we do not 
 even know with regard to finite power what it is in its 
 inmost nature, to say nothing of the divine primary Power. 
 As it is impossible for us to think anything as nothing, it is 
 in like manner impossible for us to think that God is not ; 
 for His existence forms the ground of all things. God is 
 
590 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 thus the first and the most original of all that is. This is 
 specially evident in the case of our soul. For even without 
 taking into view the origin of the powers which think, act, and 
 work in the soul, their connection is ahead}' proof enough of 
 an essential ground of an inner truth, harmony, and perfection 
 included in its very existence. Because there is a reason, or 
 a connection in what is thinkable according to unchangeable 
 rules, there must likewise be an essential ground of this con- 
 nection. This self-subsisting truth dwells in everything that 
 exists, whether it is viewed objectively or subjectively. God 
 is thus the inner necessary being in all real existence. 
 
 God is the primary Power ; He is the All-power ; and 
 hence He is not a transitory, but an abiding and immanent 
 cause of all things. But it does not follow from this fact 
 that the world is equally eternal with God. The eternal 
 might of God freely creates, has created, and will create, 
 because, as an eternally working might, it can never be idle. 
 The existence of the world, however, rests upon a succession, 
 and although this succession is endless, the world is not on 
 that account eternal. Endless succession and eternity are 
 too frequently confounded with each other, and it is forgotten 
 that all things in the succession of time are conditioned as 
 being dependent on one another and entirely dependent on 
 the cause which produced them, so that none of them can be 
 compared with the eternal existence of God. 
 
 God is thus primarily power or might. This might, how- 
 ever, is not without wisdom. The rules in our soul, according 
 to which we perceive, separate, conclude, and combine, are 
 divine rules. There are pure truths only if " that Being, 
 which is the cause of my reason and every reason, knows 
 these inner laws of thought in the most eminent way, and 
 this could not but make His operations fundamental laws of 
 existence." God possesses all perfections in the most perfect 
 way ; and hence He cannot be without thinking, which is 
 the most excellent perfection. This is to be taken indeed 
 with the distinction that the derived understanding can only 
 understand what is given to it, whereas nothing is given to 
 
HERDER. 591 
 
 the original thinking power, but everything proceeds from it. 
 Further, God is not a mere collective name for all the 
 powers of understanding and thinking that only really exist 
 and think in the individual creatures. God is therefore as 
 essentially an infinite and original power of thought as He is 
 the infinite power of action. The highest power is necessarily 
 also the wisest. The norm for this wisdom can only be 
 given in goodness ; and hence power, understanding, and good- 
 ness are inseparably united in God. 
 
 The highest power, goodness, and wisdom being thus one 
 in God, He therefore works with necessity, that is, according 
 to the eternal immanent laws of His nature. Spinoza 
 accordingly is right in his polemic against final purposes, for 
 these are nothing but weak reflections and modes of repre- 
 sentation, arbitrary conceptions, and capricious choices of 
 will (velleitates). God is not to be considered as first delibe- 
 rating and choosing with reference to what He does ; His 
 working has flowed forth as an effect from the nature of the 
 most perfect being ; it was unique of its kind, and nothing 
 else except it was possible. And hence the world is not the 
 best because He, as it were, chose it from among worse 
 worlds, but because He could produce nothing bad according 
 to the inner necessity of His essential nature. The many 
 anthropopathies are also a defective element in the Leibnizian 
 philosophy. In Leibniz himself, this was indeed only too 
 strong an accommodation to the weak understanding of the 
 multitude ; but his followers afterwards made this mere 
 vesture of the idea the chief matter. While Leibniz him- 
 self, by the system of moral necessity, excluded all arbitrari- 
 ness from God, his followers constructed a multitude of empty 
 physico-theologies, teleologies, and theodicies. God, however, 
 works according to inner necessary laws of His existence, that 
 is, according to the most perfect goodness and wisdom. In 
 the whole universe, which down to its least connections forms 
 only one system, the wisest goodness is manifested according 
 to immutable inner rules ; and in this whole we may indeed 
 inquire after wise purpose. But if this purpose is sought in 
 
592 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 individual things, we necessarily fall into absurdities, or we 
 must have recourse to secret decrees of God. In the sphere 
 of individual things, it rather holds true that " every real 
 law of nature that is discovered is a discovered rule of the 
 eternal divine understanding, which could only think truth 
 and only realize reality." 
 
 According to this view of things, there is no room for 
 Miracles as interruptions or violations of the connection of 
 nature. On this point we must not be misled by the fact 
 that Herder deals with the conception of miracle as the 
 mirabile, or the object of the faith of earlier ages and peoples, 
 and that he thus treats of it with deep penetrating intelli- 
 gence, and with a certain predilection and indulgence. The 
 Deity manifests Himself in infinite powers or forces in an 
 infinite way ; that is, He reveals Himself organically. The 
 expression " organic powers " indicates that the inner and 
 the outer, the spiritual and the corporeal, are always together ; 
 there is no power without an organ, no mind without a body. 
 The whole world is nothing but an expression, or an exhibi- 
 tion of the reality of the eternally living and active powers 
 of the Deity. In all things there are such living organic 
 powers ; and in every point of the creation they work in 
 accordance with the most perfect wisdom and goodness. The 
 simple laws, in accordance with which all the living powers 
 of nature form their thousandfold organizations, are reduced 
 to the following three : 1. Persistence of being, or the in- 
 ternal continuance of every being ; 2. Union with its like 
 and separation from its opposite ; 3. Assimilation with itself 
 and reflection of its being in another. 
 
 The Powers which rule the universe, when exactly regarded, 
 are one ; for they are all nothing but reflected expressions, 
 exhibitions, or modes of manifestation of the one divine 
 Power. Hence, in Herder's view, all the sharp contrasts 
 which are seemingly found in the finite world disappear. He 
 knows nothing of the question how God works upon and by 
 dead matter. For matter is not dead ; it lives ; and manifold 
 living powers work in it, in conformity with their internal 
 
HERDER. 593 
 
 and external organs. " In the matter which we call dead, 
 there are at every point not less and not smaller divine 
 powers at work." As the partition wall between the inorganic 
 and the organic is thus broken down, so do the sharp separa- 
 tions raised between the different kingdoms of life fall away. 
 " Only one principle of life appears to rule in nature : it is 
 the ethereal or electrical current which in the stalks of the 
 plant and in the veins and muscles of the animal is elaborated 
 finitely, and always more and more finely in the nervous 
 structure, and which at last kindles all the wonderful 
 impulses and psychical powers whose working in animals and 
 men fills us with astonishment." It is only from this funda- 
 mental thought that we can get to a right understanding 
 of Herder's " Ideas for a History of Mankind ; " : for it is 
 only from this principle that we are justified, in the considera- 
 tion of Human History, in starting from the position of our 
 earth among the other celestial bodies, from the changeful 
 history and finite formation of our planet, and from the 
 influence of the condition of the soil and climate, and of the 
 flora and fauna, upon the development of men. In this 
 principle also lies the basis of the scientific grounding of 
 Physiognomies, as indicated by Herder; it is the ground of 
 the demand that every Psychology must be at the same time 
 a physiology ; it also justifies the rejection of the definition 
 of the soul as an immaterial substance, and it gets rid of the 
 difficult question as to the reciprocal action of the soul and 
 the body. It is likewise upon this principle that Herder's 
 special theory of knowledge had to be reared. Further, it 
 is on this ground that Herder rejects the Pre-established 
 Harmony of Leibniz, which he seems, however, only to have 
 known in Wolffs externalized representation of it; and it is 
 on this standpoint that he teaches the so-called Physical 
 Influence. 
 
 Notwithstanding this general identity, however, all things 
 are essentially different from one another. Each individual 
 thing is a special exhibition or production of the divine 
 
 1 Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit. 
 VOL. L 2 P 
 
594 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Power ; everything has an entirely unique individuality. At 
 every point of the creation, in the essential nature and 
 properties of everything, the whole God is indeed manifested, 
 but yet only in so far as He could become visible and energic 
 in any particular symbol or point of space and time. " Every 
 power is by its nature an expression of the highest might, 
 wisdom, and goodness, according as this could exhibit and 
 manifest itself at that position of the universe, that is, in 
 connection with all other powers." For every being is what 
 it is ; and we are modes of existence or individualities. 
 "Every one has and is a special mode of being, or has a 
 peculiar individuality of his own." The principle of our 
 individualization lies deeper than the understanding pene- 
 trates ; it lies as conception and as feeling, involved in the 
 very word " Self." Self-consciousness, self-activity constitutes 
 our reality, OUT existence. This holds not merely of us as 
 men, but all things like us, are " various modes of existence 
 with various kinds and degrees of self-consciousness ; they are 
 modifications of reality, going deeper and deeper downwards, 
 and higher and higher upwards." 
 
 In the world there are innumerable degrees of perfection 
 from the lowest up to the highest. There is thus found, in 
 fact, through the whole series of all the creatures a gradually 
 ascending progress of organization, from the stone to the 
 crystal, from the crystal to the plant, from the plant to the 
 animal, and from the animal to man. We thus find every- 
 where an ascending series of powers which exhibit themselves 
 in an ascending series of organized forms. As men we occupy 
 the highest stage, because there dwells in us with inner 
 consciousness a living expression of the three highest divine 
 Powers : might, understanding, and goodness. Here, how- 
 ever, at this highest stage, there is no dualism of body and 
 soul, but in our whole being and nature we are only power 
 and activity; and as there is here everywhere one and 
 the same life, and therefore imperceptible transitions, no 
 psychology is possible which would not be at every step also 
 a determinate physiology. Our whole life rests upon the 
 
HERDER. 595 
 
 stimulus of external things. However, we do not experience 
 by it the internal states of nature, but only how we animate 
 them with our sensations ; and thus this, at least, human 
 truth is the highest of which we are capable. The senses 
 take in what is external ; the nerves guide and combine it in 
 the inward sphere. Thought is the power of forming unity 
 out of the manifold that streams into us. Cognition and will 
 are one and the same power ; and hence there is no room for 
 the freedom of the will in the usual sense of a faculty of 
 choice. 
 
 What once exists, cannot cease ; for existence is an indis- 
 soluble conception. All the efficient and living powers in the 
 world of creation, continue to exist. No power can perish. 
 We have no example in nature of the perishing of a power ; 
 nor have we a conception of it in our soul. " If it is a 
 contradiction that a thing should be or become nothing, it is 
 still more a contradiction that a living active thing in which 
 the Creator Himself is present, and in which His divine 
 power is manifested as indwelling, should turn itself into 
 nothing." In the created world there is therefore no real 
 death, no ceasing or vanishing of what has once existed. 
 Visible death is indeed undeniable, because it is presented in 
 our daily experience ; but it is in reality nothing but a trans- 
 formation, and this transformation is a necessary condition of 
 life. Moreover, because only living powers or forces work in 
 the world of creation, there is no rest in it ; for a power 
 ceases as soon as it rests. Powers, as forces, thus continue 
 always to work ; and this continuous working is at the same 
 time a continuous advancing according to inner eternal rules 
 involved in the process. The more a power works, so much 
 the more does it expand its limits, and at the same time 
 impress upon others the form of its own power and beauty. 
 The universal progress of the universe therefore involves the 
 fundamental law that order rises out of chaos, and that active 
 powers spring from slumbering capacities. Hence there exists 
 nothing in the Kingdom of God that is really bad ; there is 
 only limitation or opposition. But as limitation is insepar- 
 
596 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 able from every existence in time and space, what exists as 
 opposite must help and further itself ; and even the errors of 
 men must, in the view of an intelligent mind, he conducive 
 to what is good, according to laws of reason, order, and good- 
 ness. Universal progression to higher stages of organization, 
 is thus the law which rules the universe. This progress is 
 only possible through seeming death, by what appears again 
 disappearing ; and every limited being, considered as an 
 appearance or manifestation, already brings with itself the 
 germ of destruction. But although the visible organ is 
 annihilated, the invisible power or force is not thereby 
 destroyed. The apparent death is only the effect of an 
 eternally-young, restless, yet lasting power, which passes from 
 one organ into another, and which shows its activity in this 
 very transformation. If the flower dies, the internal living 
 power which produced it, shrinks into itself, in order to show 
 itself yet again in young beauty of the world. To be changed 
 thus means to press on to new life, and towards the power of 
 new youth and beauty. This change, however, is at the same 
 time an onward movement out of chaos into order ; it is an 
 inward increase and beautification of the powers that exist in 
 new enlarged bounds, according to rules of harmony and order 
 which are always more and more observed. 
 
 On this principle, our hope of immortality is grounded. 
 The belief in a future life is necessary and natural to men. 
 It is necessary, that they may not sink down altogether and 
 in despair, or become in their abominations worse than the 
 beasts ; it is natural, because they cannot but think of them- 
 selves as continuing to exist in their operations and powers. 
 The hope of immortality is connected with religion ; yet 
 religion, too, gives only hope, confidence, and belief, but no 
 demonstrative proofs. Such proofs cannot be based upon the 
 simple immaterial nature of the soul, for physics knows 
 nothing of such a nature ; nor can it be founded upon 
 Bonnet's " germs," for no one has discovered in our brain a 
 spiritual brain as the germ of a new existence ; at the highest 
 it is supported upon the analogy of nature. All the working 
 
 i 
 
HERDER. 597 
 
 powers of the world continue to exist. It is impossible, then, 
 that our soul alone should cease : that soul which is the purest 
 and most active power, the power which can know God, and 
 love Him, and imitate Him. All things transform themselves 
 into higher stages of perfection ; it is impossible that our soul 
 alone can be excluded from this development. On the 
 contrary, the progress towards true humanity, which begins 
 here below, must continue to go on after death. When the 
 present circle of the activity in which the soul now works, is 
 destroyed, it cannot fail to obtain a new organ, new thinking 
 powers, and a new connection with the world for new activity. 
 And as thus a continuous progression must be assumed, 
 Herder decidedly rejects Lessing's hypothesis of a transmigra- 
 tion of souls. Such an hypothesis is the idea of men who 
 are still confined to the mere conditions of sense. 
 
 Herder's conception of Eeligion, rests upon these general 
 philosophical views. " We are men, and as such, methinks, 
 we must learn to know God as He has really given and 
 exhibited Himself to us. Through conceptions we receive 
 Him as a conception, and through words as a word ; through 
 perception of nature, through the use of our powers, through 
 the enjoyment of our life, we enjoy Him as real existence full 
 of power and life." This proposition presents us Herder's 
 view in its briefest expression ; for to become aware of the 
 power of God working in us, and to feel ourselves in the 
 inmost recesses of the heart as a member of the divine order, 
 is religion. Eeligion is the inmost consciousness of what we 
 are as parts of the world ; it is the consciousness of what we 
 ought to be and have to do as men. Hence religion is 
 neither an empty service of ceremonies, nor an indifferent 
 repetition of doctrines or prayers ; it is an inward light, a 
 conviction of the heart; and in Christianity as its highest 
 form it is humanity. Hence Eevelation is not external and 
 supernatural, but is a purely immanent education of mankind. 
 And hence of the religions, we are not to consider one as true 
 and the others as false, but all are true as corresponding to 
 the stage of the spiritual life of man at its time. 
 
598 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 It is erroneous, with the Aufklarung, to regard the essence 
 of Christianity as contained in the enlightenment of the system 
 and in speculation ; Christianity is more than this, or rather 
 it is something different from this. Herder devotes a special 
 treatise, entitled "Of Eeligion, doctrinal Opinions and Usages," 1 
 to the refutation of this error. Eeligion is a thing of the soul, 
 or of the inmost consciousness ; it is the marrow of the senti- 
 ment and disposition of a man, even as a citizen and a friend ; 
 it is the most careful conscientiousness of his inner conscious- 
 ness ; it is the altar of his heart. Eeligion is conviction ; it 
 demands belief, builds upon belief, produces belief; it has 
 therefore nothing to do with doctrinal opinions, regarding 
 which conflicts and disputations can be carried on. To im- 
 pose doctrinal opinions upon a man as a religious duty, 
 amounts to jesting with the words belief, faith, religion, and 
 even to annihilating religion itself. An appeal to divine 
 revelation does not alter this position ; for religion is only a 
 real thing if it becomes rny conviction and binds my heart 
 and conscience. The Old Testament, Christ Himself, and the 
 Apostles know nothing of such over-estimation of doctrinal 
 opinions, and such opinions only arose when Christianity 
 became a State religion. Such doctrinal opinions have indeed 
 their value, as evidences of the progressive striving of the 
 human mind and as explaining the opinions of a teacher, 2 but 
 they can never become Eeligion. 
 
 As regards Christianity, Herder then attempts to separate 
 the true religion from the mere doctrinal opinions, and this 
 separation assigns even the most of the Apostles' Creed to the 
 sphere of dogma. He sums up the result of a detailed 
 examination in the following terms : " The Christian creed, 
 when freed from doctrinal opinions, thus confesses the follow- 
 ing points as irrefutable and indestructible. 1. The great 
 Eule of Natural Eeligion : Follow faithfully and willingly the 
 laws of creation, preservation, and providence; they are the 
 
 1 Von Religion, Lehrmeinungen und Gebrauchen. 
 
 2 This explanation of the genesis of Dogma from explanatory reflection on 
 what is felt in the heart, is frequently found indicated in Herder, but it is 
 nowhere expounded in detail. 
 
HERDER. 599 
 
 laws of an almighty, wise, and beneficent Father. 2. The 
 highest Bule of men and of the religion of the nations : Work 
 and overcome with love, even to death. Sacrificing love 
 brings salvation to the human race, for it is a whole and you 
 belong to the whole. 3. The inmost Eule of the religion of 
 experience : Be faithful to thy conscience, the Spirit of God 
 speaks in it. Follow every leading towards what is good, and 
 never despair of a communion that strengthens thee ; believe 
 in a rising out of weakness, even out of death ; believe in 
 a never-interrupted march of progress; believe in an ever- 
 increasing salvation for the good ; believe in consequences 
 eternally rewarding every one that is good." Everything else, 
 including all the definitions about the nature of God, as to 
 how He is present in space, whether He is within or external 
 to the world, what He did before the creation, and how He 
 created out of nothing, with all the formulae as to how Jesus 
 was the Son of God, whether He was eternally conceived or 
 generated, whether He was spoken or born, along with all the 
 determinations regarding the Spirit as a divine person and His 
 mode of working, all this belongs to the class of doctrinal 
 opinions that are without value. " Eeligion is a thing of the 
 conscience, of truth. Who is not ashamed before himself, 
 when he appears with a quasi-satisfaction before God and 
 feels himself as a hypocrite and a formalist ? " Herder makes 
 the very same distinction between religion and the symbolical 
 usages ; indeed, it is in these actions that what is alien, mis- 
 leading, and oppressive in the doctrinal opinions which have 
 been devised, first becomes rightly observable. He regards it 
 as certain without further proof, that religion is not identical 
 with any mode of worship that is void of thought and of 
 soul. 
 
 Herder accordingly holds a very poor opinion of Dogmatics 
 and of the theological system. With bitter irony he refers 
 to the most varied attempts that have been made in the 
 course of time to bring the Christian doctrine into a closed 
 system, from philosophical points of view. How many empty 
 images of the human phantasy have thus penetrated into the 
 
600 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Christian religion ! And how was anything else possible ? 
 Philosophy oversteps its own boundaries when it undertakes 
 to establish a priori a history which is authenticated by 
 written documents. Dogmatic theology steps into the fore- 
 ground as soon as religion is intellectually apprehended. It 
 was therefore in the closest connection with this opposition to 
 intellectualism, that Herder was the first to assign again to 
 the Bible its proper position. The Bible ought to form the 
 starting-point in the learned studies, as well as in the prac- 
 tical activity, of the theologian. Thus far Herder is a Biblical 
 theologian. 
 
 The Bible is not regarded by him as a code of doctrine 
 communicated by God to men in a supernatural way, and 
 hence as infallible throughout. At the outset, Herder ex- 
 plains that he entirely agrees with Lessing in holding that 
 Eevelation is older than the Scriptures. Although he puts 
 the origin of the Scriptures into a very early period, he yet 
 makes the basis of our Gospel the regula fidei precede 
 the Scriptures of the Old as well as the New Testament. 
 Further, he decidedly repudiates the current assumption of a 
 supernatural inspiration of the Scriptures. It is a low mode 
 of the thinking of later times that regards the individual who 
 was moved by the Spirit as having been an "organ-pipe 
 through which the wind blew, or a hollow machine from 
 which all proper thoughts were taken away." " It is difficult 
 to think of anything else in human nature than itself; indeed, 
 this state is hardly thinkable even as a solitude," for every life 
 shows itself only by the working that is natural to it. In 
 the songs, and, above all, in the enterprises and deeds that are 
 ascribed to sacred inspiration in the Old Testament, we there- 
 fore also see the powers of the inspired individuals in their 
 most joyous play. The word " inspiration " is thus referred 
 quite irenically to the salutary conception that the Deity has 
 caused men to be born with pre-eminent gifts and with dis- 
 tinguished powers as men of God. The assistance which the 
 Deity vouchsafed to them was no wild ferment, no unnatural 
 excitement and exaltation, and still less any checking or 
 
HERDER. 601 
 
 maiming of their powers. On the contrary, it was an awaken- 
 ing, a furtherance, a stimulation, or an animation of these 
 powers, whatever might be their kind. The power of God 
 worked through their spirit, yet not by exciting disturbance 
 or uproar in their minds. 
 
 It was impossible for Herder to judge otherwise about 
 inspiration, as he neither knows nor will know anything of an 
 external revelation, any more than of an opposition between 
 the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, or between revelation 
 and reason, or nature and grace. This was quite natural 
 according to his views ; for where on the one side all the 
 powers and operations of nature are divine, and on the other 
 side there are no operations of God outside of nature, there is 
 no room for such a distinction. Moreover, it would conflict 
 with the providence of God, which does not relate to in- 
 dividual things, but consists in the constant co - operating 
 presence of God in our life, and of which we become aware in 
 conscience and reason. 
 
 Eevelation and reason are related to each other as mother 
 and child, and hence it is not possible that they can contra- 
 dict each other. Eeason is the natural use of the powers of 
 our soul. The formed reason, however, does not fall from the 
 heavens, but reason needs guidance and instruction by positive 
 communications. God taught us to use it ; for from the 
 first moment God watched over His darling, giving him oppor- 
 tunities to test and to form his powers. To these first be- 
 ginnings of a training by God the relationship of the oldest 
 traditions undeniably refers. 
 
 Afterwards, Eevelation attached itself to the history of a 
 single people. Here then reason and revelation separate, yet 
 not as hostile powers, but in the way of abstraction and history. 
 Abstraction, however, has no laws for history, for no history 
 of the world stands upon abstract grounds & priori. More- 
 over, nature is also a Scripture, a very legible writing of God 
 to men. But although nature is the work of God, yet there is 
 much required to understand this work, and to find its author 
 lii it. Hence revelation serves for the interpretation and 
 
602 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 explanation of nature. This voice of God came and created 
 wise men of God, holy and pure souls, who received it and 
 communicated it to others. Thus the book of sacred nature 
 and of conscience was gradually deciphered, elucidated, and 
 explained from page to page by the commentary of tradition. 
 Thus did it happen among all the peoples, but chiefly among 
 the elect people of God. 
 
 The position is emphatically affirmed and repeated by 
 Herder, that Christianity and its preparation in the Old Testa- 
 ment do not rest upon conceptions and principles & priori, 
 nor even upon poetical inventions and mythologies, but upon 
 history and fact. This is not to be understood as if the 
 miraculous in this history could convince us of the truth of 
 religion. Belief is conviction, whereas miracles, being at the 
 same time long past and only announced to us as such by 
 others, can effect nothing in the way of conviction. " The 
 miraculous ought not to become thy religion." Just as little, 
 however, may the miraculous in history make that history 
 appear incredible ; for the probable is not always the sign of 
 the true. In regard to the resurrection of Jesus, Herder 
 makes an effort, in roundabout and very obscure expressions, 
 to maintain the fact, holding that if the resurrection were an 
 illusion or a deception, Christianity would be so too, without, 
 however, decidedly recognising the miracle. The ascension he 
 puts upon a level with the taking up of Enoch and Elijah, 
 but he leaves the how entirely in suspense. 
 
 Herder proceeds to show that Eevelation is not an external 
 communication of doctrines, but immanent inworking upon 
 the whole spiritual powers of man. This he does in his 
 treatise " Of the spirit of Christianity." The powers of nature 
 are primarily the breath of God, yet not as if God were 
 the soul of the world, but they are so as His word of power. 
 And because man unites in himself the noblest powers of 
 the creation, he appears as animated by the breath of God. 
 Further, as the noblest powers of man, namely, his under- 
 standing, wisdom, and will, are revealed by discourse, the dis- 
 course of the prophets and sages was designated the word of 
 
HERDEK. 603 
 
 God. All the pre-eminent powers of the soul are called gifts 
 of the Spirit of God, and the Gospels designate by the term 
 Spirit of God the sum of all powers, including the noblest 
 gifts and talents. It is therefore diametrically opposite to 
 the Biblical view to regard the Spirit of God as opposed to all 
 the natural talents. The Spirit of God is a life that com- 
 municates itself. The miracle of Pentecost did not consist in 
 the gift of speaking in foreign tongues, but in the fact that the 
 disciples with inspired enthusiasm proclaimed that what the 
 Old Testament promised had now appeared. All so-called 
 miraculous gifts, are resolved into a divine intensification 
 of the natural powers and capacities of man. Instead of 
 assuming supernatural operations of grace, before which we 
 are merely to stand still, it is more correct to apply the natural 
 powers in joyous activity. The result will not fail to show 
 itself ; and yet it is the Spirit of God that animates and 
 heightens all natural gifts. 
 
 Eeligion, then, is purely human. This is clear from the 
 facts that the beginnings of religion coincide with the be- 
 ginnings of the spiritual life of man ; that the various 
 religions correspond as stages of educative revelation to the 
 degrees of the human development; and that Christianity, 
 which is the highest religion, coincides throughout with the 
 highest blossom of the natural human development, or in 
 a word, with humanity. 
 
 Eeligion is the oldest and holiest tradition of the earth. 
 However different the external manifestations of religion may 
 be, its traces are found among the most uncivilised peoples. 
 It was not invented, but tradition is the propagating mother, 
 not only of their speech and scanty culture, but also of their 
 religion and sacred usages. The symbol is the means of 
 tradition ; and in his treatise on the " Oldest Eecord," Herder 
 gives us an example of how he believes that he can discover 
 such a symbol in the oldest religions. The priests were the 
 original sages of the peoples, but when they lost the sense of 
 the meaning of the symbol, they became dumb servants of 
 idolatry and speaking liars of superstition. The divine rules 
 
604 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 of humanity lie already at the basis of all development of 
 human nature. 
 
 With regard to the first beginnings of religion, Herder 
 emphatically combats the derivation of it from fear, and 
 refers it instead to the reverential awe before nature, and to 
 wondering inquiry after a cause. A sort of religious feeling of 
 Powers working invisibly in the whole chaos that surrounds 
 us, must necessarily precede the formation and connection 
 of abstract rational ideas. This feeling, however, rests 
 upon the recognition of the one in the many, and upon the 
 idea of the invisible in the visible through the connection of 
 cause with effect. The chief gift of man is the understanding, 
 and its function of tracing out the connection of cause and 
 effect. Even the most savage peoples sought for a cause. 
 Where they found no visible originator, they believed in 
 an invisible one ; and although they kept more to the occur- 
 rences than to the essence of nature, and more to its terrible 
 and transitory than to its joy-giving and lasting side, and 
 although they did not subordinate all causes to a single cause, 
 yet this attempt was religion. " Thou didst raise man so that 
 he, even without knowing and willing it, did search after the 
 causes of things, did guess out their connection, and did thus 
 find Thyself, Thou great connection of all things, Thou Being 
 of all beings ! " Herder, in his Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, 
 accordingly tries to derive the Old Testament narrative of the 
 creation from the reverential and wondering contemplation of 
 the dawn. 
 
 At the beginning, the whole of nature was thus filled with 
 gods, and all individual things were referred to divine in- 
 fluences. Further questions regarding the origin of things 
 led to a Cosmogony and Anthropogony, and to a Philosophy 
 regarding the evil and the good in the world. The first crude 
 Eeligion was accordingly followed by a sort of historico-physical 
 philosophy. This philosophy was necessarily mythical, as 
 the answer to those questions could only be taken from the 
 doctrines of the older tradition. Every nation thought of the 
 origin of the world and of the human race in the conceptions 
 
HERDEK. 605 
 
 of its religion, and at the same time these theological tradi- 
 tions were entirely national. "The world, and the human 
 race, and the people, were thus construed according to the 
 ideas of the time, of the nation, and of the culture of each 
 particular people ; in the least and in the greatest, their ideas 
 were national and local. The Scandinavian built his world 
 out of giants. The Iroquois made tortoises and otters, the 
 Indian elephants, and lastly, the negro a cow's horn full of 
 dung, into the machines of what he wished to explain to 
 himself." All nations form documentary records according to 
 the religion of their country and the tradition of their fathers, 
 and they compose them according to their own ideas in poetical 
 language. From this point of view. Herder has opened up 
 new paths for the understanding of the Old Testament. He 
 likewise made valuable contributions for his time towards 
 explaining the historical origin of the Gospels. 
 
 Eeligion is purely human ; it is the highest humanity. 
 On the side of the understanding, Eeligion shows itself in 
 so far as it seeks the cause for effects, and the invisible one for 
 the visible many. At the same time, however, Eeligion is an 
 exercise of the human heart, and the purest direction of its 
 capacities and powers. " True Eeligion is a childlike service 
 of God ; it is an imitation of what is highest and most beauti- 
 ful in human form ; and it is consequently the most inward 
 contentment and the most active goodness and philanthropy." 
 This is also the reason why there is found in all religions, 
 more or less, a resemblance of God to men ; for either man is 
 elevated to God, or the Father of the worlds is brought down 
 to man. " The purest Humanity can alone be thy religion, 
 and the religion of man ; and it is given to thee in this 
 religion as what is highest, summum Jiumanum, rectum, pium, 
 as the highest tendency and destination of thyself and of 
 human nature." 
 
 Herder gives but few indications of his views regarding 
 the different Eeligions. Eevelation is education, partly in 
 nature and partly in history ; and hence the distinction of 
 natural and social religion, or of the Eeligion of nature and 
 
606 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 the Eeligion of society. Of the individual it is said, that 
 " in order to enjoy the Deity in Christ, thou must thyself be 
 a man of God ; that is, there must be something in thee that 
 becomes participative of His nature. Thou enjoyest God 
 always only in accordance with thy inmost self." This 
 principle, however, is not applied to the historical religions. 
 Where Herder mentions these, he seeks to find the identical 
 and common element in their variety. The leading and 
 fundamental thoughts for a contemplation of these as stages 
 in the process of the development of humanity, are stated, but 
 they are not carried out in detail. 
 
 Christianity, as the complete and perfect religion, is true 
 humanity. Christ is wholly like the Old Testament prophets ; 
 He was a man animated by the spirit of God. Among all the 
 noble forms of the men who have been the organs of God, he 
 is truly the organ of organs, yet God speaks through him 
 " only as an organ in so far as He was a mortal man." 
 Nature left man standing half way ; then Christ appeared and 
 brought what other sages had already taught as true of 
 religion, into one human and universal religion that binds 
 heart and conscience together. Christianity is humanity ; 
 for humanity is nothing but the full vigorous unfolding of all 
 the noble impulses and powers of human nature. And as 
 the spirit of God constitutes this better divine part of man 
 and animates all natural powers, Christianity is likewise 
 nothing but the simple pure religion of man. The doctrine 
 of Jesus is simple. It is this : God is your Father, all ye are 
 brethren to one another. This involves the imitation of God 
 as an ideal of righteousness and justice, and as universal 
 goodness and magnanimity. At the same time, it connects 
 men together as brothers of a noble race, divine in nature and 
 kind. The question is put as to whether any one can be an 
 upright man without religion ? Herder answers this question 
 by saying " genuine religion cannot be without uprightness ; 
 the inmost uprightness is religion, and in religion it is 
 manifested." "The pure religion of Christ is the same as 
 conscientiousness in all human duties, with pure human 
 
HAMANN. 607 
 
 goodness and greatness of soul." " How did Christ name 
 himself ? He called himself the Son of man, by which he 
 meant a simple, pure man. When purified from dross, his 
 religion can be called nothing but the religion of pure human 
 goodness, or the religion of man." 
 
 Herder's historical position and importance have thus been 
 briefly indicated. His merit, as compared with the tran- 
 scendent intellectualism, lies in his having been in earnest 
 with the immanence of the divine activity in religion, and in 
 his having emphasized the fact that the whole man in all his 
 powers and impulses is animated and elevated by that 
 activity. His limitation lay in the fact that, in order to 
 maintain the unity of human nature, he rejected even the 
 conceptual distinction of the different powers of the soul, 
 and thus shut himself off from a deeper insight into the 
 psychological character of religion. 
 
 III. 
 
 JOHANN GEOEG HAMANN. 
 
 
 
 It is extraordinarily difficult to form a correct judgment 
 regarding Hamann (1 7 3 0-1 7 8 8). 1 At the outset his life 
 makes an unsatisfactory impression. His youthful training 
 was guided with more zeal than intelligence by his father, a 
 burgher of the olden school, a man of a simple, honourable, 
 pious, and solid nature. At the university, Hamann studied 
 all possible science from " a sort of magnanimity and sublimity, 
 and not for bread, but as inclination led him and for amuse- 
 ment." He failed in an engagement as a tutor from the 
 difficulty of the circumstances, and not from his own fault. 
 The inclination " to try my freedom in the world " made him 
 suddenly go to London as a merchant in connection with the 
 business of his friend Berens. Notwithstanding the obscurity 
 
 1 We use the works of Hamann in the edition of Moritz Petri (Hannover 
 1872), but we must confess that the accompanying explanations do not seem to 
 us to be always clear. 
 
608 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 which rests upon this enterprise, we know that Hamann 
 neglected his business and gave himself up to a wild life. 
 On the very brink of the abyss he retreated into himself and 
 was converted. Having returned to Germany, he spent the 
 leisure of several years in the house of his father, and gave 
 himself to the strenuous reading and study of an astonishing 
 multitude of books. He looked with contempt upon office 
 or position, till want drove him to accept the post of the 
 manager of a warehouse. Under oppressive relations "he 
 shoots forth like a palm tree," and notwithstanding constant 
 cares and frequent sickness, he found strength and time for 
 engaging in literary work, and for carrying on a refreshing 
 interchange of thought, both written and oral, with all the 
 important men of his time. Yet even on this picture, 
 pleasant though it be on the whole, there falls a dark shadow. 
 That Hamann, who knew how to discourse so finely and 
 profoundly on marriage, lived with his father's nurse^ an 
 honest but uneducated woman as the mother of his four 
 children in so-called " conscience-marriage," or in other words, 
 in open concubinage. 
 
 In the course of his life there thus lie certain elements 
 unmixed beside each other, some of which invite us to the 
 highest estimation of his personality, while others draw us to 
 severe condemnation of it. In like manner, the style of 
 Hamann's writings may easily lead us into confusion. He 
 writes an extremely obscure style that can at times hardly be 
 unravelled. He confesses himself that he was no longer able 
 to understand some of his own earlier writings, because the 
 allusions to his reading at the time were no longer present to 
 him. He himself calls his style a " locust style," and desires 
 to have readers " who can swim," that is, who can catch the 
 right connection between apparently unrelated thoughts. 
 Such obscure writings, however, have naturally a twofold fate, 
 according to the readers who take them up. Some shrink 
 from the effort required to trace out the hidden passages of 
 thought in the author, perhaps consoling themselves with the 
 foolish declaration that the writer did not well understand 
 
HAMANN. 609 
 
 himself, and then laying the matter that has not been under- 
 stood aside as a book that is without meaning. Others, by 
 incessant efforts of thought, advance at least so far as to 
 understand something, and then conclude to what has not 
 been understood ; and although they do not understand it, 
 they read what is finest and best at their command into the 
 author, and extol him to the skies. As Goethe says, " there is 
 much profundity thought in here." It is only in this way 
 that the entirely opposite judgments regarding Hamann can 
 be explained. 
 
 In truth, none of these extremes is correct. Hamann is 
 indeed a prophet of something better, but he is only a prophet. 
 He is a genius, but he is without clearness ; he shows a dark 
 fermenting of thought, a mysterious reference to what is higher 
 and better, but he is without the capacity of definitely 
 grasping it and bringing it forth in clear expression. He 
 turns away with repugnance from the Aufkldrung, with its 
 shallow sobriety and empty platitudes, and he points to the 
 only sources of truth ; but it is impossible for him to present 
 them to himself or others in a clear, intelligible form. 
 
 Hamann completely understands the emptiness and 
 jejuneness of the mere enlightenment of the understanding. 
 He recognises the great deficiency of Nicolai in his being 
 entirely incapable of historical investigation, and of distinguish- 
 ing the different periods of history. He reproaches the 
 Enlighteners for that in their superficial intellectuality they 
 recommend us to believe in nothing but what can be heard, 
 or laid hold of with the hands. " The soundness of reason is 
 the cheapest, most arrogant, and most brazen self-glorification, 
 by which everything is already assumed which was to be 
 proved, and by which all free investigation of truth is 
 excluded more violently than by the infallibility of the 
 Eoman Catholic Church." Hamann directed his treatise, 
 entitled "A little Essay on great problems," against the 
 way in which the sound reason was glorified in a French 
 production entitled Le Bon-Sens. The last fruit of all philo- 
 sophy is the recognition of human ignorance and weakness, 
 
 VOL. i. 2 Q 
 
610 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Our reason is given to us, not in order to bring us know- 
 ledge, but to bring us to the conviction of how unreasonable 
 our reason is, and to "show us that our errors do increase by it 
 as sin increased by the Law ; in short, reason is a "schoolmaster 
 unto Christ." The main error of the Understanding consists 
 in this, that it is the great alchemist that tears asunder what 
 necessarily and inseparably goes together, or that it insists 
 on merely considering the individual dead members, which 
 only in their original order constitute a living organism. 
 With sovereign contempt, Hamann gives his judgment about 
 all the philosophers. According to his own confession, indeed, 
 he stands before Spinoza like the oxen before the mountain, 
 and he tortured himself with him for years in vain ; and yet 
 Spinoza's philosophy is regarded by him as a Dead Sea apple, 
 as a lying system, as an outgrowth of our corrupt nature. In 
 the same depreciatory way he pronounces judgment on 
 Lessing and Voltaire ; and even Hume and Kant find only a 
 partial grace before his judgment-seat. 
 
 Hamann holds that the enlightenment of the Understanding 
 lias no right to judge particularly about Religion. Its much 
 vaunted toleration is nothing but unlimited indifference 
 towards the Gospel. Its endeavours to find the chief truths 
 of Natural Eeligion already contained in the heathen 
 mysteries, and on the other hand, to explain everything else 
 in Christianity as pure nothing or mere ambiguity, recall the 
 passage 2 Mace. i. 20, where it is related that Nehemiah 
 sent out the descendants of the priests who had concealed the 
 sacred fire to fetch it again, but they found only thick water. 
 Hamann satirically calls the religion of the strong intellects 
 an oven of ice. He blames the exegesis of- his time for 
 exposing the spirit of prophecy pitifully and shamefully 
 covered with the rags of the old local prejudices of the old 
 Jewish orthodoxy, while in a Draconian style it breaks the 
 rod upon every prejudice of our ecclesiastical orthodoxy that 
 lies in its way. While Christianity is divested of all its 
 specific and characteristic marks and doctrines, and is reduced 
 to mere morality, or to the universal truths of natural religion 
 
 I 
 
HAMANN. 611 
 
 it is emptied of its true and sublime contents, so that no one 
 can conceive how such a Christianity can have produced the 
 effects that lie before us in history. " A reason which 
 confesses herself to be the daughter of the senses and of 
 matter, lo ! that is our religion ; a philosophy that reveals 
 to men their calling to go upon all fours, is the nourishment 
 of our magnanimity. The denial of the Christian name is a 
 condition without which no one may venture to lay claim to 
 the title of a philosopher." The illuminative theism, with 
 its argumentation to this effect : " Something is made, con- 
 sequently there is a something which is not made, and 
 consequently this something has made that other something ! " 
 makes God a mere something, and divests Him of all the 
 attributes that are of value for us. " In general, Eeligion 
 has been more desecrated than built up by the Exchange- 
 Bank of reason ; and the usury which is driven by a trans- 
 position of words from which no one without a hocus-pocus 
 can draw any more meaning than he is in a position to put 
 into them enriches indeed the dealers in doves, but at the 
 cost of the spirit which is the Lord." 
 
 This opposition to the Aufklarung will only become fully 
 intelligible to us, when we observe what Hamann himself 
 would make the principle of all philosophy and religion. His 
 objection to the intellectual Enlightenment is that it separates 
 what should necessarily go together, that, like a chemical re- 
 agent of the very highest strength, it resolves into their ideal 
 vanity all the metal of the profoundest and sublimest matters 
 in sciences whose unity intuitively and naturally forms the 
 maximum of all mysteries. Hence he will verily contemplate 
 this coherence of things ; he will take as the starting-point 
 of all thinking the human individual viewed as an original 
 microcosm, as an immediate unity of all opposites, and as an 
 actual union of all contradictions. For it is only this unity 
 of opposites that constitutes life ; it is only the knowledge of 
 this unity that is true knowing ; it is only the " coincidentia 
 oppositorum " that is the tenable foundation of all philosophy. 
 Truth aims at apprehending life; life is the unification of 
 
612 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 contradiction, and hence truth is also conditioned. The 
 Philosophy of the Understanding, with all its striving after 
 empty abstractions, cannot apprehend this, and for this very 
 reason it is not truth. Such a philosophy is either spiritual- 
 ism, or materialism. Man, however, includes both of these 
 philosophies ; he is body and soul, sense and reason, in one. 
 Language is an incontestable evidence of this unity ; it is at 
 once sensualized thought and embodied mind. These contra- 
 dictions are united in the human individual. This position 
 explains the stress laid by Hamann upon genial intuitiveness 
 as contrasted with the strict rules and prescriptions of the 
 understanding. " What is it in Homer that makes up for 
 ignorance of the rules of art which have been thought out 
 after him by Aristotle ? and what is it in a Shakespeare that 
 compensates for ignorance or transgression of those critical 
 laws ? The unanimous answer is that it is Genius." This 
 principle of genius was what made Socrates ignorant without 
 harm, for he had in him the right knowledge ; this genius 
 elevates a man even above the strict precepts of the cold 
 doctrines of ethics, for it is a higher law in the heart of man. 
 The human individual as an actual unity of contradictions 
 and opposites, is defined by Hamann as the principle of philo- 
 sophy. Jacobi calls him the Pan of all contradictious, and 
 writes of him as follows : " It is wonderful in what a high 
 degree he unites all extremes in himself. Hence from his 
 youth he has had a dislike at heart to the principium contra- 
 dictionis, as well as to that of the Sufficient Eeason, and he has 
 always gone after the Coincidentia oppositorum. He enjoys 
 with equal rapture, the most different and heterogeneous 
 things whatever is only beautiful, true, and whole of its 
 kind, whatever has a life of its own, and whatever betrays 
 fulness and virtuosity. To him omnia divina, et humana 
 omnia." Hamann himself writes to Herder : " Jordani Bruni 
 principium coincidentice oppositorum is in my eyes of more 
 value than all Kant's Critique." To him Kant was nothing 
 but a " great analytical chemist." The most important of 
 his objections to the Kantian Critique is the following : If 
 
 
HAMANN. 613 
 
 Understanding and Sense both belong to our natural history, 
 and have perhaps grown out of one common root, we ought 
 not so to separate and isolate them. Hamann writes further 
 to Eeichardt : " Ah, if you knew what a world of ergos lies, 
 according to my taste, in the phrase homo sum ! " 
 
 The same human individuality, as a unity of all opposites, 
 is also, according to Hamann, the foundation of religion. 
 And because the emptying of religion by the Aufklarung, rests 
 upon its one-sided relation to our cognition, Hamann's view 
 of religion is likewise determined by this opposition. " The 
 ground of religion lies in our whole existence, and it goes 
 beyond the sphere of our powers of cognition, which, taken 
 all together, constitute the most contingent and most abstract 
 mode of our existence. Hence the mystical and poetical vein 
 which is found in all religions, and hence their foolishness 
 and offensive form in the eyes of a heterogeneous, incompetent, 
 icy, beggarly philosophy, which is not ashamed to attribute to 
 its pedagogic art the higher destination of our lordship over 
 the earth." Hamann can therefore designate an old fanciful 
 idea often heard of by him, as " incredibile sed verum." Lies 
 and romances must be probable as hypotheses and fables ; but 
 not so the truths and fundamental doctrines of our faith! 
 Wherefore he can also say : " The theory of true religion is 
 not only conformable to every child of man, and is inwoven 
 in his soul, or can be restored again in it, but it is as insur- 
 mountable to the bold giant and stormer of heaven as it is 
 unfathomable by the deepest digger and miner of thought." 
 
 What has already been stated, contains Hamann's principle 
 of knowledge. Mediate knowledge through the understanding, 
 is repudiated, because it separates what coheres, and hence it 
 cannot grasp life as the unity of contradictions. Thus there 
 remains only immediate knowledge, or the direct apprehension 
 of what is presented to us in the inmost sphere of our being, 
 or in feeling. Hamann uses for this cognition the expression 
 " belief," and in this relation he regards himself as at one with 
 Hume. But whereas Hume will apprehend by belief only 
 the actual reality of external objects, Hamann uses the term 
 
614 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 " belief " without distinction to designate entirely different con- 
 victions. Our own existence, and the existence of all things 
 out of us, must be believed, and can be made out in no other 
 way. What is more certain than man's end, and of what 
 truth is there a more universal or a more authenticated know- 
 ledge ? No one, however, is so prudent in believing such a 
 truth so Moses gives us to understand as he who is taught 
 by God Himself, to consider that he must die. What one 
 believes, does not therefore necessarily need to be proved, 
 and a proposition may be ever so irrefutable without on 
 that account being believed. " Belief is not the work of the 
 reason, and it cannot therefore succumb to any assault of 
 reason, because belief is as little produced by reason as are 
 tasting and seeing." " As belief belongs to the natural con- 
 ditions of our cognitive powers, and to the fundamental 
 impulses of our soul, every universal principle rests upon a 
 good belief, and all abstractions are and must be arbitrary," 
 etc. Belief is thus an immediate conviction resting upon the 
 feeling of our Ego, and it relates to the reality of external 
 things, as well as to the correctness of the general utterances 
 of the understanding, and to moral as well as religious truths, 
 all in and with each other unseparated. 
 
 Every belief points to a revelation ; for belief is a living 
 experience, and we experience given facts. Such facts must 
 be given by some one who reveals himself through them. 
 Belief thus leads by necessity to divine Eevelation. And 
 as Belief is related without distinction to very different things, 
 the same holds true of the revelation of God ; and Hamann 
 does not at all attempt to distinguish the revelation of God in 
 nature, in history, and immediately in ourselves. " Expe- 
 rience and Eevelation are one and the same ; they are the 
 indispensable wings or crutches of our reason, if it is not to 
 continue lame and to crawl." " According to the ideas of 
 Klopstock, physical waking consists in the state of a man who 
 is conscious of himself. This, however, is the true sleep of 
 the soul. Our spirit is only to be regarded as awake when 
 it is conscious of God, and thinks of Him and feels Him, and 
 
HAMANN. 615 
 
 when it recognises the omnipresence of God in and around 
 itself, in the same way as the soul of a waking man expresses 
 its supremacy over the body, and the body expresses the 
 impressions of a spiritual will." Our understanding can think 
 nothing that has not been formerly in the senses ; but all 
 sensible experiences are designated as divine revelation. God, 
 in fact, reveals Himself to man in nature and His word. The 
 two revelations explain and mutually support each other, and 
 they cannot be in contradiction, whatever may be made of 
 them by the expositions which are given by our reason. 
 Hence the knowledge of nature and history, forms the two 
 pillars upon which true religion rests. On the other hand, 
 unbelief and superstitious belief are founded upon shallow 
 physics and shallow history. A Newton will be as strongly 
 moved qud physicist, by the wise omnipotence of God, as a 
 historian will be by the wise government of God. God 
 reveals Himself. " The Creator of the world is an author." 
 God has willed to reveal Himself to men, and He has revealed 
 Himself by men. Hence in accordance with His wisdom, He 
 has founded upon the nature of men the means of making 
 this revelation useful to men, and of diffusing and propagating 
 it among them. It corresponded to His wisdom to give this 
 revelation at first to a single man, then to a race, thereafter 
 to a people, and only in the end to all men. " In our belief 
 there is united only heavenly knowledge, true happiness, and 
 sublimest freedom. The sciences of the reason, of spirits, and 
 of morals, are three daughters of the true science of nature, 
 which has no better source than revelation." Hamann sees 
 no other distinction between Natural and Eevealed Eeligion 
 than " between the eye of a man who sees a picture without 
 understanding the slightest thing of painting and drawing, or of 
 the history which is represented, and the eye of a painter ; or 
 between the natural hearing and the musical ear." Hence it 
 is a mere prejudice when we limit God's working and influ- 
 ence to the Jewish people. God has merely made clear to 
 us by their example, the secret, the method, and the laws of 
 His wisdom and love. At the same time we find in the 
 
616 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 histories, laws, and usages of all peoples, the sensus communis 
 of religion. " Everything lives, and is full of allusions to our 
 calling and to the God of grace." Paul likewise teaches that 
 God has given the heathen as good a witness and testimony 
 of Himself, Acts xiv. 17. He gave them good things, and not 
 merely rain and fruitful seasons, but the influences of the 
 spirit which communicates to us good thoughts, motions, and 
 counsels, and which are ascribed in a pre-eminent manner to 
 the Jews. Even the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, is 
 put by Hamann on entirely the same line with the universal 
 activity of God in the creation and preservation of the natural 
 world. Thus in his second " Mite to the latest German Litera- 
 ture," he says : " For the hairs of our head, even to the changing 
 of their colour, belong to the date of the divine Providence. 
 Why then should not the straight and crooked dashes and 
 lines of our symbolical and typical, though not hieroglyphical, 
 manuscript be the counter forms of a Theopneustia (2 Tim. 
 iii. 16), of an unknown central power in which we live and 
 move and have our being, of an ethereo-magnetic electricity 
 which penetrates to the simplest substances of the whole 
 universe ? " Hamann expresses his j udgment regarding the 
 Canon in the fourth of his " Hierophantic Letters." " As little 
 as the translation of the LXX. Interpreters can become 
 canonical by the passages quoted from it by the Evangelists 
 and Apostles, just as little do I entrust this power to canonize a 
 book to the church Fathers and Councils." Christ Himself refers 
 only to the testimony regarding Him which is contained in the 
 Scriptures. And so the Spirit He promised, does not need the 
 testimony of the oldest nor of the latest church Fathers. 
 
 God thus gives revelation in Nature, History, and Scripture. 
 Our function is to decipher and to read it. For it is the 
 greatest contradiction and misuse of our Eeason, if its object 
 is to reveal itself. In fact, the merely human reason is not in 
 a position to grasp and to judge the divine revelation. It is a 
 foolish presumption to make our limited taste and our own 
 judgment the test of the divine Word. This presumption 
 was quite common in the Aufklcirung, and it led to the rejec- 
 
HAMANN. 617 
 
 tion of revelation and to the emptying out of all positive 
 religion. But " the subject here discoursed of is not a revela- 
 tion such as a Voltaire, a Bolingbroke, or a Shaftesbury would 
 find worthy of acceptance, and which at the most would give 
 a satisfaction to their prejudices, their wit, or their moral, 
 political, and epical caprices ; but we speak of a discovery of 
 truths whose certainty, credibility, and importance formed a 
 matter of interest to the whole human race." From the pre- 
 sumption referred to, there flowed an entirely false view of the 
 Bible. Is it not otherwise incredible that men should have 
 sought in the books of Moses for a history of the world ! It is 
 forgotten that the books were to be received by Jews, and 
 accordingly that many circumstances must be in close and 
 special relation to that people. It is ridiculous for any one 
 to demand that Moses should have explained himself regard- 
 ing nature in accordance with Aristotelian, Cartesian, or 
 Newtonian conceptions, or that God should have revealed 
 Himself in the universal language of philosophy. It is always 
 difficult to transfer the figures and idioms of one language into 
 another. How much more difficult is it, then, to make things 
 intelligible and conceivable by us when they lie far beyond the 
 sphere of our conceptions ! The revelation of God in Nature, 
 History, and Scripture, can only be understood by a kindred 
 mind. With regard to all other writings, it is admitted that 
 they must be read with and in the spirit of their authors, and 
 why should not this hold with respect to the Bible ? As our 
 religious books lay claim to the highest inspiration, they ought 
 also to be read in the spirit of that adorable God who is hidden 
 from us. As Julius Csesar can only be properly read by a 
 mind that has been so taught that it can say of itself, " I am 
 a soldier ; " so only he can read the Scripture who can discern 
 in himself something of the breathing of the divine spirit. 
 
 From his conception of belief and of revelation, as constitu- 
 tive factors belonging to one another and exactly corresponding, 
 Hamann reaches an understanding of the nature of religion, with 
 regard to which he stands entirely alone for his time. God is the 
 cause of all effects, be they great or small ; and hence every- 
 
618 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 thing is divine. But, in like manner, everything divine is also 
 human. " This Communicatio of divine and human idiomatum 
 is a fundamental law, and is the chief key of all our knowledge 
 and of the whole visible economy." On the basis of this 
 universal union of the divine and the finite, there is realized 
 in man an entirely special participation in the divine nature 
 as a coming down of God to man and a raising of man to God. 
 This fellowship or communion, as a divine incarnation and a 
 human deification, is the essence of all religion ; and it is 
 realised at the highest in Christianity. Union with the Deity 
 is the essential element in all religions, and it is what is 
 common to heathenism and Christianity. They both represent 
 it in a symbolical way, under the image of the corporeal union 
 of the sexes. The theism of the Aufldarung, from its not 
 understanding " the eternal, mystical, magical, and logical circle 
 of human deification and divine incarnation," cannot therefore 
 embrace the two. " The first syllable and ray of the gospel 
 mystery of the destination of man to crvvOpovio-^u), or a par- 
 ticipation of the divine nature, which is not merely figurative 
 but corporeal," was put by God even into the mouth of Lucifer, 
 the preacher of lies. But the means by which we come near 
 to the heavens, is " not a tower of reason," but is the " coming 
 down of God to the earth." " God will Himself be near to us, 
 and He comes into our heart, not only to make a paradise 
 out of it, as out of the waste and empty earth, but even to 
 erect there the tabernacle of heaven itself." This mystery 
 of the real communication of God to man, is symbolically 
 represented in a thousand mythological names, idols, and 
 attributes. The revealed name of this mystery, is the one 
 unutterable secret of Judaism. Even the unbelief of philoso- 
 phical knowledge has still a dim presentiment of it in the 
 striving to be like God. This striving, however, from its neither 
 knowing nor wishing to know anything of a coming down of 
 God to us or an incarnation, leads to " the oldest bosom-sin, 
 that of self -idolatry." Lucifer uses reason and Scripture to 
 work against the purpose of Jesus and His disciples, when 
 man assigns divine attributes to the oily idol Eeason, and 
 
HAMANN. 619 
 
 makes himself equal to God. The heathen, even the wisest 
 of them, are men who go backwards ; that is, they have no 
 knowledge of God according to the depth of the misery into 
 which human nature had fallen. For " polytheism had turned 
 the temple of nature, and the mysteries had turned the temple 
 of the body, into the sepulchre or murderer's vault " of the 
 mystery of the union of God with men. Mystagogy is a 
 necessity ; and it is grounded " in the nature of man and his 
 relation to the Ens entium." " But because this is also an 
 ens rationis, the revealed name of the thing, tear e'fo^z/, 
 became the one mystery of Judaism, and the irp6\r)*fyi<$ of His 
 concealed name became the thousand - tongued mystery of 
 Heathenism." " This unity of the head, as well as this divi- 
 sion of the body in its members, and its specific difference, is 
 the mystery of the kingdom of heaven, from its genesis up to 
 its apocalypse ; it is the focus of all the parables and types in 
 the whole universe ; it is the Histoire gtntrale and Chronique 
 Scandaleuse of all epochs and families." Hence Hamann 
 determines the relation of Judaism and Christianity far more 
 correctly than his contemporaries. Judaism is a preliminary 
 stage of Christianity; for Judaism is prophecy, hope, arid 
 longing for a coming time of salvation in the kingdom of 
 heaven, whereas Christianity consists in fulfilments and sacri- 
 fices done and accomplished by God for the best interest of 
 men, in the highest good bestowed by Him, and in the per- 
 formance of divine deeds and works, and in institutions for 
 the salvation of the whole world. Christianity is fulfilment 
 and completion. What lies at the basis of all religions, and 
 as a dim presentiment even in heathenism, is fulfilled and 
 completed in Christianity. The incarnation of God has been 
 realized ; the Deity has taken flesh and blood to Himself, and 
 thereby the possibility has been given for realizing the longed- 
 for union of man with God. "The mustard seed of the 
 Anthropomorphosis and Apotheosis hidden in the heart and 
 mouth of all the religions, appears here in Christianity in the 
 greatness of a tree of knowledge and of life in the midst of 
 the garden. Every philosophical contradiction and the whole 
 
620 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 historical riddle of our existence, with the impenetrable night 
 of its terminus a quo and its terminus ad qiiem, have been 
 resolved by the record of the Word become flesh." 
 
 But although Hamann thus endeavoured to attain a deeper 
 conception of the nature of religion and the peculiar essence 
 of Christianity, he was far from receiving and holding the 
 ecclesiastical doctrines just as they were. Not as if he stood 
 in conscious opposition to them and had partly, or even entirely, 
 rejected them. As he does not separate in revelation the 
 natural from the supernatural, or what is revealed in nature 
 from what is given in history, and as to him the most unim- 
 portant element in Scripture accordingly appears as eternal 
 truth, although he can well distinguish them at other times, 
 Christianity in consequence is to him absolutely the truth. 
 In the zeal of his opposition, he even designates the most 
 incredible doctrines as the highest truth. But as the letter of 
 Scripture and historical faith in it can neither be the key nor 
 seal of the spirit, in like manner the letter of doctrine, or the 
 dogma, is to him of little authority. For "the pearl of 
 Christianity is a hidden life in God, a truth in Christ the 
 mediator, and a power which consists neither in words and 
 usages, nor in dogmas and visible works, and which in conse- 
 quence cannot be estimated according to a dialectical or ethical 
 standard of sight." On account of this high estimation of 
 the inner life, Hamann could not lay much value upon what 
 was external. Accordingly he was able even to say that sound 
 reason and orthodoxy were at bottom, in reality and even in 
 etymology, synonymous terms ; and that our salvation depended 
 as little on the stages of rationality and orthodoxy as genius 
 does upon industry, or good fortune upon merit. Jacobi 
 accordingly says of him : " To him, as to the author of the 
 Epistle to the Hebrews, the true faith to which he appeals is 
 Jujpostasis. Everything else, as he audaciously says, is but the 
 holy excrement of the Grand Lama." Hence Hamann can 
 even reckon dogmatics among the institutions of the public 
 education and administration, which as such are subject to 
 the will of the magistrate But these are neither religion 
 
JACOBI. 621 
 
 " nor are they the wisdom which cometh from above, but they 
 are earthly, human, and devilish, through the influence of 
 Eoman Cardinals or Eomanic Ciceroni, of poetical father 
 confessors or prosaic belly -priests, and from the alternating 
 system of a statistical equilibrium and preponderance, or of 
 armed tolerance and neutrality." We seek in vain for a 
 further development of this thought in Hamann. 
 
 IV. 
 
 FRIEDRICH HEINRICH JACOBI. 
 
 Jacobi (1743 1819) l was from childhood "a visionary, 
 a fantastic dreamer, a mystic." Even when a boy, he took more 
 delight in the exercises of prayer with a pious maid-servant of 
 the family than in playing games with his comrades ; and 
 working on difficult religious problems, he then reached certain 
 peculiar views of eternity and endless duration from which, 
 according to his own confession, he never entirely detached 
 himself again. In his early years he was somewhat alienated 
 from the sciences, and it was not till afterwards in Geneva that 
 he made a closer acquaintance with philosophy. Geneva was 
 at that time one of the most important nurseries of the French 
 sensationalism and materialism ; and it was only from this 
 side that Jacobi learned at first to know philosophy. Both of 
 these impressions remained ; and as Jacobi did not find in 
 himself any way of reconciling the conflicting wants which he 
 felt in the desire and longing of his pious soul and the intel- 
 lectual striving after clear knowledge, he gave in his philosophy 
 a scientific grounding of this discord. To himself personally, 
 however, the stirrings of the pious soul were of far more 
 importance than the cognitions of the understanding; and 
 hence his philosophy decided this conflict between faith and 
 knowledge, or between feeling and insight, in favour of faith or of 
 feeling. For philosophy continued to be the chief employment 
 
 1 Friedrich Heinrioh Jakobi's Werke, 5 Bde. Leipz. 1812-20 ; and Eberhard 
 Zirngiebl, Fr. H. Jakobi's Leben, Dichten und Denken, Wien 1867. 
 
622 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 of Jacobi's life ; and as the duties of his calling left him leisure, 
 he devoted to it his quiet peaceful life at Pempelfort in the 
 circle of dear friends, until in 1804 he removed to Munich as 
 the President of its Academy. At the same time his philosophy 
 was a representation of his purely personal conception of life, 
 to a degree that holds of hardly any other system. 
 
 Before passing to the exposition of Jacobi's views, we must 
 direct attention to a change in the terminology employed by 
 him ; for if it be not observed, his writings may appear to be 
 quite confused. In his earlier period, extending to about 1800, 
 attaching himself to the terminology in common use, Jacobi 
 called the Understanding the faculty of abstraction, which is 
 inseparably connected with perception, while Eeason was repre- 
 sented as " the mere faculty of conceptions, judgments, and 
 inferences, which hovers over the sphere of sense, and which 
 can reveal absolutely nothing directly from itself." While, 
 therefore, the Understanding elaborates the impressions of the 
 senses into representative ideas, the Eeason seeks to cognize 
 the particular in the universal by conceptions, or to deduce the 
 particular from the universal. Accordingly " he called what is 
 not Eeason by the name of Eeason, and what is truly and 
 really Eeason the faculty of the assumption of what is true, 
 good, and beautiful in itself with full confidence in the objec- 
 tive validity of this assumption was represented by him, 
 under the name of the ' power of belief/ as a faculty above 
 Eeason." Then came Kant. He vindicated the ideas of 
 Freedom, Immortality, and God as belonging only to the 
 Eeason, but in such a way that the theoretical Eeason is 
 incapable of reaching the knowledge of them, and it is only 
 the practical Eeason that demands their acceptance. From 
 that time, or from about 1800, Jacobi calls Eeason the faculty 
 of " rational intuition," by which the knowledge of the super- 
 sensible is immediately given to us. Eeason and the senses 
 are the two sources of knowledge, and between the two stands 
 the Understanding, as a mere faculty of abstraction and 
 reflection. 
 
 In order to estimate Jacobi's position correctly, it is neces- 
 
JACOBI. 623 
 
 sary carefully to separate his opposition to the previous 
 Philosophy of Keflection from the attempt to found a special 
 Philosophy of Belief or Feeling of his own. It is in the 
 former relation that his enduring merit lies, although his 
 polemical effort as often happens shot somewhat beyond its 
 mark. Jacobi was the first to bring the opposition to the 
 limited enlightenment of the understanding to scientific expres- 
 sion, and to formulate it precisely. On the other hand, as 
 regards the tenability of the positive assertions of Jacobi, it is 
 possible that opinions will long continue to be divided. 
 
 The function of Philosophy, according to Jacobi, is "to 
 exhibit in the most conscientious way humanity as it is, be it 
 explicable or inexplicable." This involves two things. In 
 the first place, philosophy has primarily, and even exclusively, 
 to deal with man and his being. Nature is of no importance 
 to Jacobi and his philosophy. He does not go further than 
 the assertion of the reality of the external world, in opposition 
 to the purely subjective idealism ; and even this is done mainly 
 with the view of liberating man from the incessant doubts of the 
 truth of his ideas. From the reality of external things and 
 their connection with us, the objectivity of Space and Time 
 is maintained against Kant. Nature does not further interest 
 Jacobi ; for " Nature conceals God, because she everywhere 
 reveals only fate or an uninterrupted chain of mere efficient 
 causes, without beginning and end, and never producing what 
 is from God alone, and what presupposes freedom, namely, 
 virtue and immortality." A second and more important point 
 also follows from the above definition. It is the function of 
 philosophy to reveal Existence, that is, to make it known ; it 
 has to show forth existence, not to demonstrate it. " The 
 greatest merit of inquiry, is to unveil and to reveal Existence. 
 Definition is its means the way to its goal its proximate, 
 not its ultimate end. Its ultimate end is that which cannot 
 be defined, the insoluble, the immediate, the simple." 
 " Philosophy must begin with measure and number, or gene- 
 rally with what is determinate ; for it is only the determinate 
 that can become determining for what is indeterminate. Our 
 
624 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 conceptions are purely reciprocal conceptions : Unity pre- 
 supposes totality, totality plurality, and plurality unity. Unity 
 is therefore the beginning and end of this eternal circle, and 
 it constitutes individuality, organism, object- subjectivity." 
 " We live, think, and feel as individual things." This existence 
 is presented to us primarily in man, in our own self-conscious- 
 ness. Hence follow two consequences : first, that all the 
 Existence which we accept must be given or involved in 
 our existence, or in self-consciousness, on which position 
 Jacobi gives his special grounding of the reality of God as 
 well as of external things; and secondly, that everything which 
 we find posited with or given in our own Existence, or in self- 
 consciousness, is also regarded and known as existing, and 
 hence Jacobi's decided repudiation of the Philosophy of the 
 Understanding or of Eeflection. 
 
 The faculty of Eeflection, or the abstracting Understanding, 
 is found in man. Upon this faculty, as the ultimate and sole 
 principle, the Philosophy of the Understanding or of Eeflec- 
 tion is founded. Since Aristotle, the endeavour has arisen to 
 subordinate immediate knowledge to mediate knowledge, the 
 faculty of perception to the faculty of reflection, the archetype 
 or ideal to the ectype or copy, the essence to the word, the 
 reason to the understanding. " It was held that nothing 
 should thenceforth pass as true but what could be demon- 
 strated or twice shown : alternately in perception and in con- 
 ception, in the thing and in its image or the word representing 
 it ; and in this word only, the thing was regarded as truly 
 lying and as really known." Almost all the philosophers 
 down to Kant, then attempted to produce the system -of 
 Metaphysics out of Logic by the aid of rnere logical 
 forms. Even Spinoza, Leibniz, and Wolff sought to obtain 
 philosophical knowledge from definitions, inferences, and 
 demonstrations. 
 
 But this Philosophy of Eeflection comes to nothing. It is 
 the function of philosophical knowledge to make existence 
 manifest, and in particular and specifically to reveal original 
 existence. On both of these sides, the Philosophy of Eeflection 
 
JACOBI. 625 
 
 is incapable of solving its problem. It can neither apprehend 
 nor demonstrate existence as objective reality, and it is incap- 
 able of grasping what is original, individual, and positive in 
 existence. 
 
 The Philosophy of the Understanding can neither appre- 
 hend nor demonstrate existence, that is, objective reality. 
 The understanding is the faculty of abstraction and reflection ; 
 it only elaborates the material which is furnished to it by the 
 senses. It is beyond all doubt and no one requires any 
 proof of it that we have sensations, that is, that things 
 appear to us as external to ourselves. The understanding, 
 however, never gets beyond these sensations, and it is impos- 
 sible for it to grasp the things themselves, that is, to reach 
 objectively real existence. Further, what justifies us generally 
 in asserting such an existence ? What justifies us in assuming 
 that things are not mere phenomena in ourselves, and are not 
 at all ideas of something external to us ; or in assuming that 
 phenomena relate to real external beings that have actual 
 existence in themselves ? Doubts may be brought forward 
 against this view, such as it is impossible to refute by rational 
 principles. Nay more, this assumption is founded upon an 
 unjustifiable interchange of the principium generationis and 
 the principium compositionis ; or in other words, of the objec- 
 tive conceptions of " cause " and " effect " with the subjective 
 conceptions of "principle" and "consequence." For it is 
 only because of this that the subjective act of becoming 
 conscious of the manifold in a representative idea, or the pro- 
 duction of a conception, is identified with the production of 
 the things themselves. Kant has proved with irrefutable 
 clearness that a demonstrative proof of the existence of an 
 objectively real world outside of our representations, is entirely 
 impossible; and he shows the same with regard to the 
 existence of God. It is impossible to prove existence by a 
 demonstration because of the nature of demonstration itself. 
 To demonstrate cognitions, is in fact the same as to deduce 
 them, or to refer them to something which is still more valid 
 and more true than themselves ; for the ground of any 
 VOL. I. 2 K 
 
626 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 demonstration is necessarily above what is proved. If, then, 
 real existence, or the objective reality of things, is to be 
 demonstrated, something would have to be found outside of it 
 by which it could be tested, as the conception with the thing, 
 or by which it could be covered as one figure does another in 
 geometry ; and therefore there would be required " a real thing 
 external to the real thing in question, which would have to be 
 more real than this real thing, and which yet at the same time 
 would only be the real." And if the existence of a living 
 God were capable of being demonstrated, " then God Himself 
 must derive Himself from something which we could become 
 conscious of as His ground, and thus He would be capable of 
 being evolved out of His principle. For the mere deduction 
 only of the idea of a living God out of the conditions of the 
 human faculty of knowledge, does not lead to a demonstration 
 of His real existence. So little is this the case that, on the 
 contrary (even its complete success being assumed), such a 
 deduction necessarily destroys the natural belief in a living 
 God, for the increase and confirmation of which the philo- 
 sophical demonstration was sought; for it makes it be seen 
 with the greatest clearness how the idea in question is an 
 entirely subjective product of the human mind. It is a pure 
 mental formation which it necessarily constructs by its own 
 nature, and which therefore perhaps, but only perhaps at the 
 highest, is a representation of the truth, and consequently 
 no mere figment ; and it is perhaps even still more but a 
 mere subjective formation, and consequently it may really only 
 be a figment." The result of such arguments is entirely 
 negative ; and the ultimate consequence of all the demonstra- 
 tions of the understanding, comes to be : Denial of the 
 objective reality of the world, Idealism, Nihilism, and the 
 Denial of the existence of God, or Atheism. 
 
 Further, the Philosophy of Eeflection cannot grasp what is 
 original, or what is singular in existence. It is incapable of 
 doing so, because the Understanding advances to identity, and 
 accordingly dissolves all that is singular or peculiar, and 
 because it rests upon the principle of Sufficient Reason, a 
 
JACOBI. 627 
 
 principle which leaves nothing that is inconceivable and 
 original. 
 
 The Understanding is the organ and principle of the 
 Philosophy of Keflection. The Understanding is the mere 
 faculty of conceptions and of the process of again becoming 
 conscious of perceptions in conceptions. The senses do not, 
 in fact, receive what is original, as it is in its own singular 
 existence. But the simple, unchangeable nature of the 
 understanding, is at the same time opposed to the manifold 
 and changing nature of what is given by the senses. The 
 understanding seeks to cancel and annul all plurality and 
 manifoldness ; it is the faculty of connection by which all 
 things are identified with each other, and by which the mani- 
 fold is minimized and simplified, or, if possible, obliterated 
 and annihilated. The senses by themselves are aroused by 
 external objects, whereas the understanding tends to return 
 into its own homogeneous nature, or to pure consciousless 
 consciousness. It is only from the counter-movement of 
 the simple nature of the understanding, in opposition to the 
 manifoldness of what is sensible, that conceptions arise. The 
 understanding does not occupy itself with what is sensible in 
 order to arrange, to co-ordinate, or even to determine it 
 which, indeed, would be to cause it, or to bring it forth origin- 
 ally ; " the understanding proceeds only towards un- deter- 
 mining, un-individualizing, de-essentializing, and de-realizing." 
 The understanding thus seeks to comprehend the manifold 
 details of the sensible in ever wider circles of conception, 
 and, if possible, to ascend even to the widest conception of 
 all which embraces everything individual under it, but which, 
 on that very account, is an empty nothing. The activity of 
 the understanding exhausts itself in positing pure unity an 
 empty idem est idem in the formation of identical judgments. 
 But identity is destruction of what is particular ; it is the 
 removal of what constitutes diversity. Hence we have singular 
 conceptions only of figure, number, position, motion, and the 
 forms of thought. Qualities are therefore entirely inconceiv- 
 able and unknowable by us. We assert that we know them 
 
628 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 when we have reduced them to figure, number, position, and 
 motion ; but in thus reducing them, we have dissolved the 
 qualities as such. 
 
 The knowledge of the understanding, rests upon the prin- 
 ciple of Sufficient Reason as its ultimate principle. " The 
 Law of Causality resolves itself into the proposition : Nothing 
 is unconditioned. There is nothing that is highest, supreme, 
 and first ; there is no starting or absolute beginning." Hence 
 the understanding, which operates with the law of causality, 
 can neither reach the Unconditioned upwards, which is God, 
 nor that which begins downwards, or the positively given, 
 the singular, or the original. We conceive a thing when we 
 can deduce it from its proximate causes, that is, when we 
 can see into its immediate conditions in a series. It is thus 
 that mechanical connection is established ; as the mechanism 
 of its origin in the case of a circle, and the laws of their validity 
 in the case of the syllogistic formulae. But in this process the 
 essence of the things, their qualities, and their inner real 
 being remain as unknown to us as they were before. On 
 these points, there does not fall the slightest light from the 
 principle of Sufficient Reason. 
 
 In this rejection of the Philosophy of Reflection, Jacobi 
 saw an ally in Kant ; but it has to be carefully observed that 
 he so regarded him only in this negative relation, and he 
 considered him only as an ally. Kant overcomes the Dog- 
 matic Philosophy by means of his Critical Philosophy ; Jacobi 
 protests against the emptiness of the Philosophy of the 
 Understanding on the basis of his living feeling, which showed 
 him the supersensible in man as real. Kant proceeds to 
 demonstrate ; Jacobi merely exhibits those facts which are 
 real in the living personality of man, although they are 
 inexplicable to the Philosophy of Reflection. Jacobi's view 
 was firmly established before Kant's critical works appeared, 1 
 and was only influenced by them in its expression, but 
 not in its matter. This is the twofold material and 
 
 1 Jacobi's Allwill appeared in 1775-76, and liis Woldemar in 1777-79 ; Kant's 
 Kritik d. r. V. (Critique of the Pure Reason] appeared in 1781. 
 
JACOBI. 629 
 
 chronological reason for putting Jacobi before Kant, and not 
 after him. 
 
 Kant's attention was mainly directed to a critical examina- 
 tion of our faculty of cognition. This faculty consists of 
 Sensibility, Understanding, and Eeason. The Sensibility 
 believes that it perceives external objects, yet in truth it 
 does not reach to the thing-in-itself, but phenomena only 
 are given to us. The Understanding, according to laws 
 immanent in it, elaborates the material which is furnished 
 to it by the sensibility. Accordingly, the Understanding can 
 never go beyond or transcend what has been given to it by 
 the sensibility. In like manner, the pretension of Eeason, 
 that it can obtain new cognitions by further elaboration of 
 the conceptions of the Understanding, and in particular that 
 it can rise to the knowledge of the unconditioned, or to the 
 ideas of God, Freedom, and Immortality, is entirely ground- 
 less. Sensible being is nothing but the result of the common 
 activity of the senses, of the imagination, and of the under- 
 standing ; it is produced by continuous action, that is, it arises 
 without subsisting, and its subsistence is an illusion. On this 
 very account, however, the individual is compelled to imagine 
 the subsistence of things before they thus arise in himself; 
 and this constitutes the birth of the idea of the Unconditioned 
 and the Absolute. But these ideas of God, Freedom, and 
 Immortality, although we form them inevitably and necessarily, 
 and even ascribe them to a special faculty of Eeason, have no 
 objective reality at all, and are rather full of contradictions 
 and unrealizable. By the Practical Eeason, and as its pos- 
 tulates, and therefore on the basis of a rational belief, Kant 
 afterwards brings in these ideas again. 
 
 Jacobi entirely agrees with this dissolution of the Philosophy 
 of the Understanding, which had thought to attain the highest 
 knowledge merely by demonstrations. And in this respect 
 he expresses himself in the strongest manner regarding the 
 philosopher of Konigsberg, recognising him as the greatest 
 thinker of his time. This, however, does not hinder him from 
 exercising on other points a sharp, and often also an acute, 
 
630 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 criticism. In the first place, he finds fault with Kant for hav- 
 ing assumed with regard to sensible things that at least their 
 existence external to us, is taken as incontestably certain. It 
 is entirely against the spirit of the Kantian system to say that 
 objects make impressions upon the senses, that they thereby 
 excite sensations, and that in this way they produce repre- 
 sentational ideas. But at the same time it cannot be seen 
 how without this assumption Kant's Philosophy can find an 
 entrance to itself, and yet it is flatly impossible with this 
 assumption to remain in it. The transcendental Idealism of 
 Kant, with its assertion of an unknowable thing -in -itself 
 as the ground of our sensations, is entirely inconsequent. 
 The formation of conceptions, according to the system, is 
 also called in question. It proceeds from three qualitative 
 infinite unities and numerical identities : Space, Time, and 
 wholly pure Original Consciousness. The third of these is to 
 be viewed as containing synthesis without antithesis, the 
 former two as containing antithesis without synthesis. From 
 their union conceptions are formed. Hence everything rests 
 upon the intellectual synthesis, which stands wholly alone 
 per se, independent of the imagination and perception. It is 
 therefore " nothing but the copula in itself ; it is a mode of 
 connection that is independent of subject and predicate, and 
 without anything that has to be connected ; it is an 
 "is," "is" "is" without beginning and end, and without 
 "What," "Who," and "Which." Pure conceptions cannot be 
 represented in thought by themselves alone, and hence it is 
 not possible that they can condition empirical conceptions or 
 make them possible, and it cannot be discovered how they can 
 grasp the finite or receive it into themselves. Further, Kant's 
 establishment of the Ideas as practical postulates, is not left 
 unobjected to by Jacobi. After it has been shown to us 
 by Kant himself that these Ideas are formed by ourselves, 
 that they are only formations or products of our freely creating 
 phantasy, nay, that they are even unthinkable, he cannot 
 possibly be justified in requiring us to suddenly regard these 
 Ideas on practical grounds, as objective realities. And this 
 
JACOBI. 631 
 
 can the less be so, the weaker the foundation of the whole 
 practical philosophy is, as soon as one goes with Kant in deny- 
 ing Freedom. Even according to Kant's own view, practical 
 philosophy is " an impossible hypothesis, an unthinkable, 
 chimerical, and merely subjective object." Kant, in demand- 
 ing that the ideas which had been dissolved as theoretical 
 cognitions shall be accepted as practical postulates, overlooks 
 the fact that " Eeason, as certain as it is reasonable, can learn 
 to think nothing that is unthinkable, and that the greatness 
 of the need does not remove the impossibility of bestowing 
 objective existence upon certain Ideas when their subjective- 
 ness has been put beyond all doubt." Kant has therefore dis- 
 solved all objective certainty in his theoretical philosophy, and 
 in his practical philosophy he only reaches life again by falling 
 away from his principle. This appears to Jacobi a new proof 
 of the fact that we must seek a new faculty of cognition, for 
 even Kant only reaches the Ideas by a rational belief which 
 rises above all the knowing of the Understanding. Accordingly 
 we must either perish in mere subjective illusion, " or knowledge 
 must be obtained in contrast thereto from a Faculty to which 
 what is true in and above phenomena, makes itself known in 
 a manner that is inconceivable to the Senses and the Under- 
 standing." 
 
 Jacobi thus finds an inconsequence in Kant's assumption 
 of an unknowable but objectively real Thing-in-itself as the 
 ground of phenomena; and hence Fichte's thoroughgoing 
 Idealism could not but appear to him to be the only logical 
 outcome of the Kantian Philosophy. He praises Fichte's 
 system as the one which was complete above all others, and 
 as irrefutable on account of its internal consistency. On the 
 other hand, the " Ideal-Materialism " of Schelling appears to 
 him to be only a falling back into Spinoza. 
 
 Spinozism is regarded by Jacobi as the model system of a 
 logical Philosophy of Eeflection. It is an undeniable merit of 
 Jacobi that he again called attention to Spinoza ; and he under- 
 stood him at least better than most of his contemporaries, 
 such as Mendelssohn and Herder. According to Jacobi's view, 
 
632 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 Spinoza started from the ancient principle a nihilo nihil fit, and 
 hence he knows no creative transition from the infinite to the 
 finite, no causce secundce, no emanating, but only an immanent 
 " Ensoph," no extramundane, but only an immanent and 
 externally immutable cause of the world, which is also one 
 and the same with all its effects. Being, the sum-total of finite 
 entities, or substance, is God ; this is the only real " Ens 
 reale prseter quod nullum datur esse," and hence it is Deus or 
 Natura. God, according to Spinoza, is the identity of what 
 is not distinguishable ; He is without understanding and will, 
 which belong only to finite beings. The will is not free, but 
 all finite things are completely and perfectly contained in 
 God. The personality of God, the freedom of the will, and 
 final causes, are the three points with respect to which Jacobi 
 takes decided objection to the philosophy of Spinoza. But, at 
 the same time, he asserts that there is no understanding that 
 is faithful to itself and proceeds with correct sequence, that 
 can come to any other result. " With pure metaphysics we 
 can never gain the advantage over the reasons advanced by 
 Spinoza against the personality of God, freewill, and final 
 causes." " There is no other means of safety from the steep 
 heights of Metaphysics than to turn our back upon all philo- 
 sophy, and to throw ourselves overhead into the depths of 
 faith." Hence it suits Jacobi to see in the various systems 
 of philosophical reflection chiefly their affinity with Spinozism. 
 Even the Leibniz- Wolffian philosophy, with the Enlighten- 
 ment that was founded upon it, was to him at bottom 
 Spinozism, and it was only on this account that he could 
 deceive himself with regard to the Spinozism of Lessing. 
 
 Spinozism is the same as Atheism. This identification of 
 these systems was early maintained by Jacobi. It was the 
 interest he had in examining the ontological argument for the 
 existence of God that led him to the study of Spinoza, and he 
 soon recognised that Spinoza did not hold God to be extra- 
 mundane, but only regarded Him as the sum-total of all 
 things, or as the universe. Hence, according to Jacobi, 
 Spinozism is Atheism or Cosmotheisni ; for a God who is not 
 
JACOBI. 633 
 
 personally outside of the world is as good as no God. The 
 existence of God cannot be reached from this point of view ; 
 for the conception of the cause can only coincide with that of 
 nature herself, and the understanding can only apprehend the 
 unconditioned as the indeterminate or as the ev /cal irav. All 
 Philosophy of the Understanding is thus atheism. At the 
 same time, it is fatalism ; for every logical philosopher of the 
 Understanding, who everywhere applies the principle of the 
 Sufficient Eeason, must, like Spinoza, deny freedom. " Every 
 way of demonstration leads on to fatalism." 
 
 Spinozism is therefore the completest system of the Philosophy 
 of the Understanding. But Fiehteism is also designated as 
 such, although it is Idealism, while Spinozism is Materialism. 
 How, then, is this possible ? It is very simple ; for the one 
 is but the converse of the other. The Philosophy of the 
 Understanding puts all its notions in the intellectual Ego. 
 The choice, then, is presented of either regarding the Ego as 
 what exists and the notions as merely subjective productions 
 of it, or of ascribing being to things and considering them as 
 the principle of thinking. The former view gives idealism, the 
 latter gives materialism. Each is incontrovertible within its 
 own sphere ; they both, however, belong to the reflective 
 Philosophy of the Understanding. 
 
 This Philosophy of the Understanding, or of Eeflection, is 
 not in a position to explain or define real existence. How, 
 then, is such a philosophy possible ? A twofold illusion 
 deceives the demonstrators. In the first place, they are 
 misled by the belief that by continued abstraction of the 
 understanding we can really reach the conception of the 
 Unconditioned. In the process of abstraction the particular 
 is let go and the universal is kept, and it necessarily appears 
 to be more unlimited ; and thus the conceit is formed that the 
 conception of the Unconditioned must result by abstracting 
 from all limits. In truth, however, we only thus obtain a whole 
 that is void of material, and is therefore without limit ; it is 
 completely indeterminate ; it is pure negation or pure nothing. 
 This Unconditioned is then apprehended as the ground of 
 
634 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 things, and from the All, which is without any distinguishing 
 quality, the real world with an infinite manifoldness of deter- 
 minate qualities, is made to proceed. This first illusion is 
 forthwith supported by a second. In sensible perception we 
 always see what is complete and perfect preceded by some- 
 thing that is incomplete and imperfect ; we see formlessness 
 precede form, heedlessness precede reflection, desire precede 
 law, and crude want of morals precede moral practice. Being 
 deceived by this, it appears to us as possible that a determinate 
 being may arise out of that nothing of the understanding. 
 
 The Philosophy of the Understanding does not satisfy the 
 mind, for it cannot explain personal existence. But, as we 
 have seen, it is the function of Philosophy to unveil existence, 
 and in the last resort it has not to do with logical truths, but 
 with historical truths. " Truth is clearness, and it is related 
 everywhere to reality, to facts." The most immediate reality 
 is our personal existence ; and the person is at the same time 
 the subject of knowledge. Hence no knowledge is of value 
 which is prejudicial to the personal Ego ; for " it is a thought 
 of high and pregnant meaning that development of life is 
 alone development of truth, and that truth and life are both 
 one and the same." " The Originator of the world must have 
 given to every being as much truth as He assigned to it of life." 
 It is the business of philosophy to exhibit the individual life. 
 But individual life rests upon two factors : upon conscious- 
 ness or the ideal, and upon the real or actual object of the 
 Ego ; by the former we exist for ourselves, by the latter we 
 exist in ourselves. Each of these factors may be made the 
 starting-point of philosophy. If we start from the ideal, or 
 from intelligence, we come to Spinozism. If we start from 
 the real, or from life as it specially expresses itself in free 
 action, we come to Platonism. The decision as to which of 
 these two philosophies is chosen, is not made by the understand- 
 ing on the ground of principles, but is only determined by the 
 peculiar character of the philosophizing individual, according 
 as the energy of life or the power of the understanding con- 
 trols him. In other words, it depends on the man's whole 
 
JACOBI. 635 
 
 soul ; for philosophy does not strive after truth in general, 
 but after a definite truth that will satisfy the head and the 
 heart. Truth is loved and sought, not as something alien and 
 disproportionate to man, or as destroying him and his spiritual 
 existence, but it is sought and loved for the sake of what it 
 contains, because of this being something that is decided, most 
 specific in itself, and tending to elevate the spiritual existence 
 of man. Man can neither seek nor love a truth that slays 
 him, that even annihilates him. 
 
 Hence Jacobi is clearly conscious that the principles of the 
 understanding, or demonstrations, are not capable of showing 
 the truth of one system in preference to another. For him- 
 self, however, he can only choose Platonism in accordance 
 with his own peculiar personality. He cannot let go his hold 
 on independence, self-subsistence, and freedom ; he cannot be 
 consoled with a God who would only be a blindly working 
 Nature ; he cannot let go the conviction that a breath of this 
 free Euler of the world dwells in us with the free personality, 
 and that having this breath in us we are more than mere 
 nature. And hence Jacobi cannot be the friend of a science 
 for which personality, freedom, and the revelations in the soul 
 of a supramundane God have no importance, a science whose 
 goal is that there is no God, and which even declares virtue 
 to be incompatible with itself, or even denies it altogether. 
 With this conviction, he would of necessity have to give up* 
 everything that lends substance and value to his life; he 
 would have to surrender the " I am," " I act, produce, bring 
 forth ; " he would have, in a word, to give up free personality 
 and his own reality. Therefore he turns his back upon this 
 philosophy in spite of the systematic, firmly closed, and 
 rounded form in which it appears in Spinozism. And as 
 Spinozism bears itself as if it alone possessed the right know- 
 ing, and complete and all- comprehending knowledge, Jacobi 
 often designates this turning away from it as a turning away 
 from science generally. Accordingly, it is the proud boast of 
 Jacobi that he does not shrink from the Salto mortale, but 
 calmly flings himself headlong out of the sphere of science 
 
636 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 into that of faith, and that he always finds the courage to 
 oppose his Nescience, or Not-science, to the false science of the 
 time. 
 
 But what is to be said for this Not-science in opposition to 
 Science, for this Platonism in opposition to Spinozism, for this 
 Philosophy of Feeling in opposition to the Philosophy of 
 Understanding or Keflection ? This question still remains 
 for us to answer. 
 
 The Understanding is not capable of grasping reality, either 
 on the side of its existence or on the side of its originality and 
 specific nature. If we are not to be entirely cut away from 
 reality, there must therefore be another faculty of our mind 
 which makes it known to us. This is the faculty of Percep- 
 tion, for to perceive is to take something as true, or to hold it 
 as real. This perceptive faculty is twofold, according as it is 
 sensible or rational. The sensible faculty of perception has 
 for its object sensible things ; it is, in a word, the senses. The 
 rational faculty of perception has for its object the supersen- 
 sible, and according to Jacobi's later terminology it is 
 Eeason. Both of these faculties are in us, and do not go out 
 of us ; but both the sensible and the supersensible are given 
 to us in ourselves or in our self-consciousness. 
 
 According to Jacobi, the definitions laid down regarding the 
 mutual relations of Sense, Understanding, and Eeason are of 
 ^little interest to us. Sense and Understanding are never 
 without each other. The former furnishes the material, in 
 impressions received from without and in sensations ; the 
 latter supplies the form, in the innate conceptions of the 
 Understanding ; while from the co-operation of the two, the 
 particular or empirical conceptions of the Understanding arise. 
 " There is necessarily understanding along with sense ; a 
 sense which were only sense, is not a thing at all, just as a 
 knowledge that were mediate through and through, is likewise 
 a nonentity." The two are as necessarily together, as the soul 
 and the sense together constitute a unum per se or an indi- 
 vidual. The Understanding as the universal is the same in 
 all men, and hence our individual characteristics by nature 
 
JACOBI. 637 
 
 rest merely upon the peculiarity of our faculty of sense ; or 
 in other words, the individual peculiarities of our thinking 
 depend upon sensible perception. The characteristic superi- 
 ority of man over the lower animals is constituted by self- 
 consciousness, or by what he expresses as the Ego. We 
 attain the expression of the " I " and " Me " through the 
 faculty of perceiving ourselves ; that is, through a sense by 
 which we perceive not merely the qualities of things, but also 
 our own qualities in relation to the senses. This faculty of 
 self-perception is Reason, and " it is solely and alone by the 
 proprium of Eeason that man is elevated above mere animal 
 being." " If we look away from this property, which essen- 
 tially distinguishes the human species from the animal species, 
 and which absolutely and exclusively belongs to the former, 
 and if we assign to the human species only the reflective con- 
 templation of one and the same sensible matter as is presented 
 likewise to the more perfect animals through their senses, then 
 man is really distinguished from the brute only in stage or 
 degree, and not in nature or kind. Under that supposition the 
 superiority of the human understanding over that of the lower 
 animals, is but the superiority of an eye provided with a 
 microscope or a telescope over another eye that is not fur- 
 nished with this aid." One of the chief merits of Jacobi lies 
 in his having thus emphatically referred to this fact that had 
 been overlooked by the previous philosophy, and had therefore 
 not been explained by it, and in his having pointed out that 
 man is not to be regarded as a higher species of animal ; nor as 
 a modus, that is, a member in the mechanical connection of 
 nature, as Spinoza holds ; nor as a monad, that is, a member in 
 the graduated order of nature, as Leibniz holds ; but that an 
 absolutely differentiating characteristic belongs to him. This 
 is Eeason ; and Eeason is primarily the consciousness of the 
 mind, or the self-consciousness by which the Understanding, 
 which is inseparably connected with it, is illuminated and 
 becomes conscious of itself. But it is, at the same time, the 
 faculty of the supersensible and a source of the new sublime 
 cognitions : God, Freedom, and Immortality. 
 
638 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLAEUNG. 
 
 Man thus possesses a special faculty of perception by which 
 he becomes aware of things, or takes them to be real. But 
 the question then arises, What convinces him that these things 
 are real, and that this perceiving is not an illusion, but is a 
 real process ? This conviction, according to Jacobi, is entirely 
 immediate ; our certainty that our perceptions are not empty 
 images of our imagination, but that objective reality cor- 
 responds to them, is founded upon belief. In fact, every 
 immediate certainty is " belief." 
 
 Jacobi writes on this point to Mendelssohn as follows : 
 " We are all born in belief and we must remain in belief, as 
 we are all born in society and must remain in society. We 
 may strive after certainty, if certainty is not already known 
 to us beforehand ; and how can it be known to us otherwise 
 than by something which we already know with certainty ? 
 This leads to the conception of an immediate certainty 
 which not only requires no demonstrations, but absolutely 
 excludes all demonstrations ; it is itself solely and alone the 
 idea that corresponds to the thing it represents, and it therefore 
 has its ground in itself. The conviction that is produced by 
 demonstrations, is a certainty at second hand ; it rests upon 
 comparison, and can never be certain and perfect. Now, if 
 every case of holding a thing to be true which does not arise 
 from rational grounds, is to be called Belief, the conviction 
 that springs from rational grounds must itself come from 
 Belief and receive its power from Belief alone, that is, it must 
 arise from the mere authority of Eeason for which it gives 
 the principle." All our objective knowledge, that is, all our 
 certainty of the reality of what is immediately given to us 
 merely as sensation, and which is therefore only in our own 
 consciousness as a determination of it, rests upon Belief. In 
 other words, it rests upon a unique and peculiar feeling of our 
 soul, which marks one sensation as corresponding to objective 
 reality, in distinction from another as an empty product of 
 our imagination. " All reality, including both the corporeal 
 reality which manifests itself to the senses and the spiritual 
 reality which reveals itself to the reason, is only accredited to 
 
JACOBI, 639 
 
 man by feeling ; there is no confirmation or verification of it 
 out of or beyond this." This Feeling cannot be voluntarily 
 called forth by us, but is inseparably connected with percep- 
 tion. Upon this immediate feeling Belief rests, and this belief 
 is " the element of all human cognition and activity." " Belief 
 is a primary light of reason. Eradicate original Belief, and 
 all science becomes hollow and empty. It may indeed sough 
 like the wind, but it cannot speak or answer. This Belief is 
 a faith or firm confidence in what is not seen." With full 
 right, Jacobi refers for the support of this view to Hume, who 
 founds upon Belief even our conviction that there are objects 
 external to our perceptions, and that a real relation of cause 
 and effect corresponds to our inferences of causality. 
 
 This Belief is directed, first to our own Ego and its states ; 
 secondly, to external sensible things; and thirdly, to the 
 supersensible. 
 
 The substantial Ego is a fact of consciousness and not a 
 product of the understanding. The " is " of the reflecting 
 understanding is always only a relative " is," and expresses no 
 more than the mere identity of one thing with another in 
 conception, and not the substantial " is " of Being. This real 
 being or Being as such makes itself known only in feeling. 
 In feeling, man is immediately conscious of his real being or 
 his empirical particularity. " He finds himself as this Being, 
 by a feeling of essentiality that is immediate and independent 
 of the remembrance of past states ; he knows he is this one 
 and the same individual, who neither is nor can be another, 
 because immediate certainty of mind is inseparable from the 
 mind, from selfhood, from substantiality." This founding of 
 the self-consciousness upon belief, does not relate merely to 
 our mental being ; the existence of our own body can like- 
 wise only be believed. This assertion Jacobi finds warranted 
 by the authority of Descartes and some of the later philo- 
 sophers. The reality of our own Ego thus rests upon belief 
 or immediate feeling. The validity of this principle is so 
 certain that it is applied not only to our own existence, but 
 also to our states of existence, or to the qualitative peculi- 
 
640 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 arities of our nature. I am in the state in which I perceive 
 or feel myself. 
 
 In self-consciousness, or in the immediate feeling of our- 
 selves, the feeling of Freedom prominently asserts itself. 
 " Freedom does not consist in an absurd faculty or power of 
 deciding oneself without reasons, nor even in the choice of 
 what is better among useful things, or of rational desire." 
 Jacobi expressly declares himself to this effect, and yet in his 
 polemic against the determinism of Spinoza and Leibniz it is 
 this conception of freedom that is presupposed. " This freedom 
 essentially consists in the Will's independence of desire." We 
 are conscious of our action and of its intention. We feel that 
 our actions do not happen by necessity, or only as the result 
 of co-operating natural powers, but that they are done with 
 freedom. We call ourselves free in so far as a part of our 
 being does not belong to nature, and has not sprung from it, 
 nor has been received from it ; but distinguishing ourselves 
 
 / o o 
 
 from nature, we raise ourselves above it, use it and master it, 
 tear ourselves away from it, subdue its mechanism by our 
 free power, and make it serviceable to us. Production in 
 nature is blind, reasonless, necessary, and mechanical; the 
 mind alone invents and produces with intention. Hence the 
 belief in human freedom is also closely connected with the 
 truth of the human personality; nay more, the consciousness 
 of personality stands and falls with that of freedom. Desire 
 is grounded in nature; for desire and aversion are merely 
 natural, mechanical expressions of the reaction of our living 
 nature upon the impressions from without. The freewill, as 
 pure self-activity born of the spirit or mind, is therefore will 
 as independent of desire. Freedom is certainly denied by the 
 Philosophy of the Understanding. This philosophy asserts 
 that human action rests entirely upon mechanical necessity, 
 and that the feeling of freedom rests merely upon illusion, an 
 illusion which has been called forth by the fact that our 
 acting is always accompanied by thinking. This thinking is 
 in truth only an accompaniment, and not, as we are so inclined 
 to persuade ourselves, the original ground of the action. This 
 
JACOBI. 641 
 
 assertion cannot be refuted by the principles of the under- 
 standing, but an irrefutable immediate feeling testifies against 
 it. Who, indeed, would really like to suppose that Homer, 
 Sophocles, Pindar, and bards like Ossian and Klopstock, that 
 Aristotle, Leibniz, Plato, Kant and Fichte in short, all poets 
 and philosophers of whatever name, and all legislators, artists, 
 and heroes had brought forth their works blindly and com- 
 pulsorily ; that in the last resort they produced these works 
 in consequence of the natural mechanism and in the series of 
 the necessary connections of cause and effect, while their 
 intelligence had only acted throughout the part of an on- 
 looker as an accompanying consciousness. Whoever asserts 
 this, is beyond the reach of controversy. But our innermost 
 feeling revolts against it; an insuppressible feeling tells us 
 that our actions are free and original. There is no more 
 solid conviction than that I do what I think, instead of that 
 I think what I do ; and in spite of all science we must and 
 will persist in this belief. This feeling of freedom is the 
 ground and fountain of the whole of the philosophy of 
 Jacobi, as he himself says. " This must continue to be the 
 root of philosophy. Human knowledge starts from revela- 
 tion ; reason, in fact, reveals freedom in revealing providence ; 
 and all the branches of science shoot up from this root." 
 
 With this belief in freedom, several things are at once 
 given to us. We feel ourselves free, that is, we feel our- 
 selves in the spirit to be independent of the mechanism of 
 nature ; we therefore feel ourselves belonging to nature as 
 well as to mind. " The union of natural necessity and 
 freedom in one and the same being, is an absolutely incon- 
 ceivable fact ; it is a miracle and mystery like creation itself." 
 Nevertheless this union is a fact; it really exists whether 
 it be conceivable or not. Man just constitutes this incon- 
 ceivable but undeniable dualism. In connection with nature 
 he is a nature - being, and is subject to the conditions of 
 nature ; in connection with God he is a God-being, and is 
 elevated above nature. He is neither of these two alone, but 
 both natures are united in him into an original and indis- 
 
 VOL. I. 2s 
 
642 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 soluble synthesis. Man as this real unity of the divine and 
 the natural, is a citizen of two worlds, a world of complete 
 independence and a world of equal dependence. Hence man 
 points by his proper being to something else, and in par- 
 ticular he has a twofold relation to what is without him, to a 
 nature that is below him and a God who is above him. 
 " The mind of man is certain in itself, but it m eds to add to 
 its consonant the vowel of nature and God, in order to express 
 his existence ; " or in other words, the belief in our freedom 
 necessarily carries with it a belief in nature and in God, as 
 realities existing out of us. 
 
 Hume had already grounded our conviction of the real 
 existence of external things upon an immediate feeling, or upon 
 Belief. Jacobi refers to him, but gives the thought a deeper 
 foundation. He says : " It is by belief we know that we 
 have a body, and that other bodies and other thinking beings 
 are external to us." " All that we feel is only our body in 
 such or such a state ; and in feeling it affected in one way or 
 other, we become aware, not only of its changes, but of some- 
 thing else which is quite different from these, and which is 
 neither merely sensation nor thought, but other real things, 
 and this with the same certainty as that by which we per- 
 ceive or become aware of ourselves ; for without ' Thou ' the 
 ' I ' is impossible." In other words, in the process of sensa- 
 tion we have not a sense of ourselves in general only, but we 
 always feel ourselves along with certain particular qualifica- 
 tions, or as determined in one way or other. This leads us 
 to the immediate conviction that along with the changes of 
 the Ego there is also given a real ground of these changes 
 external to us. Hence the principle " without ' Thou ' there 
 is no ' I ; ' " and hence, too, the assertion that " we become 
 aware of other real things in perception with the same cer- 
 tainty as that with which we become aware of ourselves." 
 
 It is with the very same belief that we also apprehend the 
 reality of God. It has already been shown that, according to 
 Jacobi, the existence of God cannot be demonstrated ; for to 
 demonstrate means to derive something from its conditions, 
 
JACOBI. 643 
 
 but God is the unconditioned. The Cosruological Argument 
 is also rejected. " The inference from the unfathomableness 
 of Nature to a cause outside of it which produces it and must 
 have given it beginning, was, is, and remains a defective 
 inference that cannot be justified philosophically." Never- 
 theless Jacobi advances a consideration that is entirely similar 
 to it when he argues that every system, even the least, 
 requires a spirit or mind to unite and move it, or a Lord and 
 King of life ; and hence the system of all systems, the 
 universe of beings, must be moved and held together by a 
 Spirit. " This spirit is Creator, and His creation is that He 
 has constituted souls, founded finite life, and prepared 
 immortality." The conviction of the existence of God is 
 founded upon immediate certainty, or upon Belief. " Man 
 finds God because he can only find himself along with God." 
 " We know of God and His will because we are born of God, 
 are created according to His image, and are of His kind and 
 race. God lives in us, and our life is hidden in God." 
 " Created after the image of God, God in us and above us 
 archetype and ectype separated and yet in inseparable 
 union, this is the knowledge which we have of Him, and it is 
 the only possible record; thus does God reveal Himself to man, 
 livingly, progressively, and for all times." And hence it is also 
 said that " the belief in God is not a science but a virtue." 
 
 The knowledge of God is thus a form of immediate know- 
 ledge grounded upon belief, and from this it follows what sort 
 of knowledge it is. As in the case of external things, we are 
 well convinced by belief that they are and that they produce 
 sensations in us, but do not comprehend the how of this 
 production, so it is with regard to God. We have no clear 
 conception of God that exactly corresponds to Him ; the 
 understanding comprehends only the conditioned) and hence 
 " a God who could be known would be no God at all." Nay 
 more, God is not merely inconceivable, but a conception of 
 Him is impossible ; for the understanding strives to merge all 
 that is particular and immediate in the undetermined identity 
 that is formed by it. 
 
644 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 There is only one determination of the conception of God 
 which Jacobi dwells upon with emphasis again and again : 
 it is that of personality. God alone is the One who is one 
 only ; He is the All-one ; He is not an individual being 
 conditioned by a preceding and concomitant existence, but He 
 is the alone perfect Being, the only truly real Being. It is 
 false, however, to assert that because God is not an individual 
 of or under a species, that He is without personality ; or in 
 other words, that He is without self-consciousness and without 
 reason, or even that He is as one who is not, that is, without 
 life. " For a being without selfness, is utterly and universally 
 impossible. But a selfness without consciousness, and again 
 a consciousness without self - consciousness, without sub- 
 stantiality and at least the capacity of personality, is as 
 completely impossible. The one as well as the other is but 
 the sound of a word without a thought. Hence God, if He 
 is not a spirit, is not ; He would thus be the non-existent in 
 the highest sense ; and He has not a spirit if He is without 
 the fundamental property of the spirit, which is self-conscious- 
 ness, substantiality, and personality." A God who is not 
 thought of according to the manner of men, is to Jacobi no 
 God ; and the denial of anthropomorphism amounts to 
 atheism or fetichism. And notwithstanding the half-pan- 
 theistic sound of his expression, that " we are, we live, and it 
 is impossible that there can be a mode of life and existence 
 which would not be a mode of the life and existence of the 
 highest Life itself," Jacobi continually insists upon thinking 
 of God as a supra-natural, extra-mundane, and supra-mundane 
 Being. It is primarily the personal need that drives him to 
 this view. The wants of his soul are not satisfied by a God 
 who permeates the universe in the manner of an all-animating 
 soul, or who, divested of all resemblance to man, cannot enter 
 into any living relation to us. Such a God appears to him as 
 the mere fiction of our mind ; and with the reality of God 
 the reality of the world, and, in short, all certainty, is likewise 
 given up. He needs a God with whom he can enter into 
 personal relationship as with a human friend, and exchange 
 
JACOBI. 645 
 
 thoughts and feelings ; and the demands of feeling are to him 
 in themselves unassailable principles of knowledge. Never- 
 theless he does not neglect to give a scientific grounding to 
 the Personality of God in the connection of his system. The 
 understanding cannot grasp the unconditioned, but in our 
 consciousness of freedom we have an immediate feeling of the 
 unconditioned. God is the unconditioned for all that is 
 conditioned; and hence God must also have freedom and 
 foresight, partly because we only thus think the uncon- 
 ditioned, and partly because we are only able thereby to 
 explain freedom and foresight in ourselves. We have freedom 
 only as mind, as reason, but we have reason only in and with 
 our personality. God is thus not for us, as for the philosophy 
 of the understanding, merely that which is unconditioned, but 
 as the unconditioned One, He is spirit, reason, person. " If 
 reason can only be in a person, and the world is to be 
 assigned to a rational Author, All-mover, and Euler, this 
 Being must be a personal Being. Such a Being may be 
 apprehended under the form of human rationality and person- 
 ality, and the properties which I recognise as the highest in 
 man must be assigned to this Being, and these are love, 
 self - consciousness, understanding, and freewill." As a 
 person, God has all the characteristics that belong to person- 
 ality ; He creates according to ideas, acts with intelligence, 
 and has created finite things with wisdom and freedom. As 
 the natural can therefore proceed from the supernatural only 
 in a supernatural way, Jacobi does not at all attempt to 
 establish any determinations regarding God's mode of working. 
 As an artist stands in relation to his work, so does the 
 personal God stand in a relation of freedom to the world, and 
 He does miracles according to His will. 
 
 Belief in the reality of external things, as well as of the 
 personal God, thus rests upon the immediate consciousness of 
 our freedom. The feeling of Immortality and of Morality, is 
 also closely connected with the same consciousness. " Immor- 
 tality does not rest upon an idle postulate ; we feel it in our 
 free acting and working." With reference to Morals, Jacobi 
 
646 THE OPPOSITION. TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 takes an attitude of decided opposition to Kant. The good is 
 not a law which stands cold and unattained out of and above 
 man ; the good rests upon an internal irresistible impulse of 
 nature. Morality is immediately involved in freedom ; it 
 consists in exhibiting externally what is inmost in our own 
 being, and the individual has specially to exhibit his own 
 personal characteristics in his actions. Hence in his Allwill, 
 emphasis is laid upon the fact that all the virtues were 
 manifested in him " so entirely from the naked quality of his 
 nature." Hence the virtues are not referred to commands 
 and laws, but to " a special sense that is peculiar to man and 
 a special impulse that is peculiar to him." Hence the high 
 estimation laid by Jacobi upon the element of " moral genius." 
 " By genius, nature gives the rule to art, both to the art of 
 the good and to the art of the beautiful." Such pre-eminently 
 endowed natures have even the privilege to put the immediate 
 testimony of the conscience in the place of the universally 
 valid rules of action. 
 
 The Beautiful is likewise associated with the good ; it is of 
 the same immediate nature. " The Beautiful has this in 
 common with all that is immediate, that it is known without 
 any distinguishing mark." "A man of taste is one who 
 immediately feels the Beautiful, and who draws the feeling of 
 the Beautiful from the Beautiful." An immediate impulse 
 leads us with the power of irresistible evidence to the recogni- 
 tion of the Beautiful. Beauty rests merely in form, and the 
 form is non-essential to the substance, and is produced by 
 free action. Accordingly the Beautiful necessarily presupposes 
 freedom. 
 
 We have thus seen that there is a threefold impulse in 
 man directed to the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, and 
 that it is combined with immediate certainty or belief. It 
 is a threefold impulse, and not three distinct impulses ; it is 
 the one fundamental impulse of human nature. " Such an 
 immediate positive truth, discovers itself to us in and with 
 the feeling of an impulse that rises above every sensible, 
 changeable, contingent interest, and which announces itself 
 
JACOBI. 647 
 
 irresistibly as the fundamental impulse of human nature." 
 What this impulse strives after may be said to be generally 
 divine things, and its first effects are virtuous sentiments. 
 Hence it is sometimes called the Moral Feeling, arid sometimes 
 the Feeling of Truth. " What is true, good, and beautiful in 
 itself is revealed in it unfathomably and unutterably, without 
 intuition and without conception." " Truth, Beauty, and 
 Virtue ! With these we enter into the Kingdom of the 
 Divine and of the imperishable ; without them we enter into 
 the kingdom of what is low, vanishing, common." 
 
 It is therefore belief or immediate certainty by which we 
 are convinced of the reality of our perceptions, and by which 
 we lay hold of reality. But we cannot stop at this belief as 
 if it were ultimate. Belief necessarily presupposes a revelation 
 or manifestation. Keflection can only make something mani- 
 fest to us ; all cognitions arise from immediate perception. 
 The understanding is dependent on what our faculty of per- 
 ception brings to it from the senses and the reason ; for both 
 of these are subservient to the communication of what is 
 revealed as real. 
 
 As is the case with belief, so does revelation, as manifesta- 
 tion, relate primarily to the Existence of external things. " We 
 have nothing upon which our judgment can take its stand but 
 the thing itself, nothing but the fact that things are really 
 before us. Can we express ourselves regarding this relation 
 by a more appropriate word than the word ' revelation ' ? 
 We have no proof at all for the existence in itself of a thing 
 external to us, and yet we are convinced of it. On what is 
 this conviction based ? It is in fact founded on nothing but 
 upon a revelation which we cannot but call truly mirabile" 
 
 Above all, however, revelation refers to the supersensible. 
 God reveals Himself to us in reason or in the fundamental 
 impulse of the good, the true, and the beautiful, as the really 
 existent being. In our rational feelings we have God im- 
 mediately with us ; we are immediately one with Him and 
 live a life in and with God ; nay more, this highest culmina- 
 tion of our life, is the being and life of God in us. Jacobi 
 
648 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 discourses in enthusiastic language of this divine life as the 
 revelation of the Highest in us. The fundamental impulse 
 in man, is the living and loving of God in man ; without this 
 we should be without any moral capacity, for it is only in so 
 far as God wills and works in us that we really possess a 
 moral freedom. In other words, it is only thus that we are 
 capable of subordinating our sensuous desires, inclinations, 
 and passions to the demands of the good. For the virtuous 
 capacity by which alone we determine ourselves, is not 
 self-acquired but innate. "With irresistible power, what is 
 highest in me points to a Highest of all above and out of 
 me ; it compels me to believe the inconceivable, yea, what is 
 impossible as conception, in myself and out of myself, from 
 love and through love." Thus the good, true, and beautiful 
 in myself points by necessity to an inexhaustible fountain 
 and primal principle of the Good, True, and Beautiful, 
 which produces the same in me, and in which I participate by 
 these feelings and through them. Hence the more the Good, 
 True, and Beautiful, or in a word the Divine, unfolds itself in 
 us, so much the more does our knowledge of God and our 
 communion with Him increase and ascend. For the one 
 corresponds exactly to the other. " Where strong personality 
 appears, the tendency towards the supernatural and the 
 conviction of God is brought most decidedly to expression 
 in and by it. Socrates, Christ, Fe'ne'lon prove to me by 
 their personality the God whom I worship." " We will 
 not philosophize up to this point, with and from our natural 
 body ; but if there is a certain knowledge of God possible to 
 man, there must lie a faculty in his soul which can organize 
 him up to it." This revelation is essentially immanent in 
 man because of his participating in the divine nature, and it 
 is thus the ground of all belief and of all knowledge. But 
 as the internal revelation is thus put so high, the external 
 revelation is put proportionally low. " If God were not 
 present to us in this internal way, or immediately present 
 by His image in our innermost self, what is there out of Him 
 that could make Him known to us ? Could it be done by 
 
JACOBI. 649 
 
 images, tones, signs, which only enable us to recognise what 
 is already understood ? What is the Spirit to the Spirit ? " 
 " A revelation by external appearances or phenomena let 
 them be called what they may can at the highest be related 
 to the internal original revelation as speech is related to 
 reason." " As little as there can be a false God external to 
 the human soul, just as little can the true God appear 
 external to it." " For us to have a God who became man 
 in us and to know another God is not possible, not even 
 by receiving better instruction ; for how could we even 
 understand this instruction." " God must be born in man 
 himself if man is to have a living God." Those who demand 
 an external positive revelation are reckoned by Jacobi as 
 belonging to " the class of those who are wholly outward." 
 They assert that they have nothing that has not come into 
 them from without ; they trust the senses only, and not 
 the reason and the conscience ; it is not the internal, but 
 the external word that ought to decide regarding what is 
 true and good. Men they hold would know nothing of 
 God if He had not taught them by extraordinary ambassadors. 
 These representatives gave men instruction about the divine 
 attributes, and represented God's omnipotence immediately 
 before their eyes by miracles. " This corporeal proof by 
 miracles, is regarded by the outward class of thinkers as 
 authoritative in respect of all the doctrines proclaimed by 
 these ambassadors of God ; and it is not only regarded as 
 the highest proof, but as the only one that in principle 
 is tenable." If the reality of the miracles is authenticated, 
 the contents of the doctrine are not to be examined before 
 the reason and conscience ; power has decided, and conse- 
 quently unconditional blind subjection is a duty. Without 
 such subjection there would be no end of erroneous doctrines, 
 and unity and permanence of faith would never arise. As 
 the way of inquiry will never lead to the universal acceptance 
 of the true faith, there remains only the way of authority, and 
 this compels faith by present, or sufficiently attested, miracles. 
 Whoever sets himself in opposition to this authority, and 
 
650 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 asserts that there is in man a higher authority, such as that 
 of Reason and Law, trusts more to himself than to God, and 
 he is anathema ! 
 
 These views already indicate the position which Jacobi 
 takes up in reference to Religion. Religion as an inner life 
 what is called subjective religion in the terminology of the 
 schools is regarded by Jacobi as the highest blossom of his 
 personal life, the element in which alone he finds his well- 
 being. It is this Religion, as communion with God, which 
 raises us in the feeling of freedom above the natural finite 
 and sensible existence. It is the only living ground of our 
 moral life ; it is at the same time the foundation of our 
 knowledge of truth. In short, without Religion life would 
 not be worth the living, and as men we would hardly be 
 raised above the brutes. Religion is the eternal divine life 
 in us ; it is the alliance of our immortal spirit with a personal 
 living God, who makes Himself known to us in the funda- 
 mental impulse of our nature, or in those rational feelings 
 which are directed towards the good, the true, and the 
 beautiful. 
 
 Jacobi judges of the Positive Religions much less favour- 
 ably. This did not arise from his having been in any way 
 at one with the Aufkldrung and its negative reduction of 
 what was positive in religion to a so-called Religion of 
 Reason. The violent polemic against the Philosophy of the 
 Understanding is indeed specially directed against the so-called 
 religion of reason, or the theism of the Enlighteners. How, 
 then, can our understanding attain to the knowledge of God, 
 Freedom, and Immortality ? How can we speak of a religion 
 and of a living conviction, where there is no inner indwelling 
 of God, and no fellowship of life and of love ? In order to 
 escape from this desert of the pure Religion of Reason to the 
 Promised Land of better views, or to living Religion, Jacobi 
 himself would not shrink from the way over a pons asinorum; 
 for an external revelation hardly appears to him to be any- 
 thing better, as we have seen. 
 
 Some remarkable hints and indications are found in Jacobi 
 
JACOBI. 651 
 
 with reference to the historical development of Religion. 
 The whole internal constitution of his nature leads man to 
 religion, that is, to the knowledge of the Deity and to a 
 certain worship of Him. The ground of this is not to he 
 found in the worship of the dead, nor in fear of the powers 
 of nature. The first expression of the moral organ consists 
 in the stirrings of longing and devoutness which are called 
 forth by the magnificent spectacle of the universe, the awe- 
 inspiring appearance of the sun, of the starry heavens, of the 
 rainbow, or similar things. As man directs his attention 
 specially to the object that appears to him as the greatest, 
 the fairest, and the most splendid, it becomes in his eyes 
 what is highest. Thereby the impulse was likewise given 
 to actions that indicated a sort of worship. This is the 
 natural advance of man towards the knowledge of a sublime 
 Being upon whom he feels himself dependent. When man 
 attempts to transform his hitherto dim feeling of God into 
 a distinct conception, by the aid of his understanding and 
 imagination, he gives his God a shape and manners; in 
 other words, man creates God in his own image. From this 
 effort there then arises a plurality of gods, or Polytheism. 
 On this stage superstitious belief arises ; and from the condi- 
 tion of an undeveloped understanding when there are still 
 mixed up together knowing and believing, trust in the visible 
 and trust in the invisible all the surprising phenomena in 
 the history of mankind are explained. Hence it is that we 
 have crude and refined Fetichism, the worship of animals and 
 of the stars, the innumerable species of idolatry and super- 
 stition, and the multitude of absurd and contradictory 
 systems. Even in this superstitious belief there is divine 
 truth although it is veiled. The savage who falls down 
 before the waterfall has the true God before his eyes and in 
 his heart, and he who kneels with full devotion before an 
 idol is more than a philosopher with his abstract conception 
 of God. With the rise of Philosophy, man neglected his 
 inner feelings and busied himself only with ideas. Following 
 the universal impulse to discover the cause of things, man 
 
652 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 endeavoured to explain the origin of the world by the 
 hypothesis of a Matter, with which Motion is necessarily 
 connected by the aid of a hidden Power. Thus the Deity 
 became dispensable and superstition was expunged, but 
 with it went also genuine belief, and utter and complete 
 Atheism prevailed. For it is not till long after the worship- 
 ping of a Deity that Atheism arises ; it presupposes a certain 
 exercise of the understanding, and it is founded on reflection, 
 or in a one-sided tendency and application of reflection to 
 what is natural. 
 
 This Atheism, however, found its healing in human think- 
 ing itself. Socrates first pointed to the inner nature of man, 
 and here he discovered another world far more rich in its 
 contents than the sensible world, a world in which man 
 learns to know himself as bringing forth being. In Nature, 
 Socrates beheld laws, and so he came to a highest Lawgiver 
 who has created things and their laws, the conception of 
 whom is occasioned by the physical world, but not given by 
 it. Whoever, like Socrates, came to know the finiteness of 
 the physical world and the infiniteness of the other world, 
 and felt himself to be inwardly connected with the latter, 
 reached true knowledge of God and rational worship of God, 
 " as far as man is capable of them in the present state." 
 
 The Popular Keligion, however, was opposed to this 
 philosophical religion. It had fallen a sacrifice to politics, 
 which modifies gods and oracles, virtue and vice, wisdom and 
 folly, merely for its own purpose. By mingling some 
 philosophy with it, a lasting authority was then to be 
 procured for this religion and its worship ; and thus there 
 arose " that mixture which makes of the Deity a monster of 
 so many contradictions that it annihilates itself, and generates 
 a second atheism which has its foundation in a very natural 
 Unbelief." 
 
 This second Atheism finds healing in true philosophy. 
 But there then steps a third Atheism to its side which arises 
 out of the pretensions of a reason that has now become 
 arrogant. It is that Atheism which Jacobi combats so 
 
JACOBI. 653 
 
 emphatically as the necessary consequence of the philosophy 
 of the Understanding or Eeflection. We can only escape 
 from it by turning our back with Jacobi upon the science of 
 the Understanding, and plunging resolutely with a salto mortale 
 into the Philosophy of Feeling. 
 
 A distinction must therefore be made between what is 
 external or positive, and what is internal, in Eeligion. All 
 theologies and histories of Eevelation are, as regards their 
 external nature, equally fabulous and erroneous in their 
 belief; and all interchange of the letter with the spirit, and 
 all hanging on words, is but superstition and Lama-worship. 
 As long as our priests preach anything else than the pure, 
 holy, internal, true doctrine, and as long as they bid us look 
 to the sky because it fertilizes the earth, thus lowering the 
 spirit to the clay, so long will they be more hateful than the 
 Atheist. On the other hand, all theologies and histories of 
 Eevelation, as regards their inner substance and mystical 
 part, are equally true ; for the fear of God and virtue are the 
 essentials of all religions. And so far the history of humanity 
 is nothing but a history of Eeligion ; as it is, in fact, a gradual 
 advancing in the knowledge of the essential fellowship of life 
 with God. 
 
 So long as the perceptions of the sensible world are not 
 yet clearly distinguished from the apprehensions of the super- 
 sensible, God is viewed as a sensible and finite being. This 
 is the period of Heathenism. As soon as man comes to the 
 consciousness of that distinction, he turns himself to the 
 invisible, to the purely internal truth, to the spirit ; and this 
 is the period of Christianity. This is also the period of the 
 Philosophy of Feeling. But it hardly needs to be observed 
 that the designations " Heathenism " and " Christianity," as 
 thus used, do not cover completely, but only a parte potiore, 
 the historical religions called by these names. In the 
 historical Heathenism there is Christianity in its worship of 
 the invisible, of the spirit, of what is inward ; and in the 
 historical Christianity there is Heathenism in the supremacy 
 of the visible, of the letter, and of what is outward. The 
 
654 THE OPPOSITION TO THE AUFKLARUNG. 
 
 religion of the heathen, is worship of nature ; the religion of 
 Christianity, is worship of God ; the former is pantheistic or 
 naturalistic, the latter is anthropomorphistic. Hence Chris- 
 tianity is an essential constituent, and even a turning-point, 
 in the universal history of the world. 
 
 Christianity is the living belief in the Might indwelling in 
 man and superior to nature. Christianity is therefore worship 
 of God and exercise of virtue ; and morality is the character- 
 istic mark which distinguishes Christianity from Heathenism, 
 and the worship of God from the worship of Idols. Hence 
 the essence of Christianity is inward regeneration by a higher 
 power; it is the elevation of the finite nature to the divine. 
 The capacity for this elevation lies in our nature. Christ, 
 "the purest among the mighty, and the mightiest among the 
 pure," is the sublimest representative of this religious elevation 
 to God. For God, the living God, can only manifest Himself 
 in what lives. And hence, in order to remove the infinite 
 misrelation of man to God, either man must become partici- 
 pative of a divine nature, or God must assume flesh and 
 blood. Whoever follows the way to the higher life that has 
 been shown by Christ, will, like Him, become conscious of 
 the divine life and of the divine peace. 
 
 The scholars and adherents of Jacobi were not insignificant 
 in number, yet none of them developed the thoughts of the 
 master in any special way, nor did any of them gain such 
 a wide influence as to make it necessary to take note of them 
 here. We shall afterwards have to speak more particularly 
 of the relation which Fries holds to Jacobi. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 ABELARD, 36-39. 
 
 Agricola, Rudolph, 50. 
 
 D'Ailly, Petrus, 35. 
 
 Albert!, J. Val., 394/z, 526. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, 32. 
 
 Alciati, Gianpaolo, 195. 
 
 Alexander Aphrodisiensis, 50. 
 
 Alstedt, J. H., 170, 173. 
 
 Amalricans, 31. 
 
 Amalrich, 43. 
 
 Ammon, 540w. 
 
 Ammonius Sakkas, 16. 
 
 Amyraut, 157. 
 
 Anabaptists, 191, 207-212. 
 
 Andrese, Joh. Val., 243, 273. 
 
 Annet, Peter, 354. 
 
 Anselm, 29-30. 
 
 Anti-Trinitarians, 191. 
 
 Anton, Paul, 276. 
 
 Apologists, 7-9. 
 
 Aristotle (Aristotelianism), 19, 20, 28, 
 
 31, 168-178. 
 Arrainius, 171, 269. 
 Arndt, Joh., 272-3. 
 Arnobius, 9. 
 Arnold, Gottfr., 279. 
 Arnold (Jesuit), 162. 
 Athenagoras, 9. 
 Augustin, 21-22, 27, 231. 
 Auvergne, Wil. of, 42. 
 Avenarius, 408. 
 Averroes (Ibn Roshd), 39, 50. 
 Avicenna, 222. 
 
 B 
 
 Bacon, Lord, 286-8. 
 
 Bacon, Roger, 41. 
 
 Bahrdt, Karl Friedr., 546-550. 
 
 Baier, 142. 
 
 Barclay, Robert, 215. 
 
 Bartholomais, Alex., 119. 
 
 Basedow, 536. 
 
 Bauer, Bruno, 439w. 
 
 Baxter, Richard, 214. 
 
 Bayle, Pierre, 446-453, 
 
 Beckmann, 177. 
 
 Beghines and Beghards, 45. 
 
 Bekker, Balthasar, 399-401. 
 
 Bentley, 356. 
 
 Berengar of Tours, 36. 
 
 Berkeley, 360. 
 
 Bernhai-d of Clairvaux, 43. 
 
 Bernhard, 89. 
 
 Bessarion, 53. 
 
 Betkins, Joachim, 273. 
 
 Beurhusius, 170. 
 
 Beza, 169. 
 
 Biddle, John, 206. 
 
 Biel, Gabriel, 35. 
 
 Bilfinger, 515. 
 
 Blandrata, Giorgio, 195, 198. 
 
 Blount, Charles, 289, 291, 314. 
 
 Blyenburg, van, 434. 
 
 Boccaccio, 49. 
 
 Boethius, 22-23, 28, 231. 
 
 Bohine, Jacob, 193, 243-265. 
 
 Bolsec, 156. 
 
 Bonaventura, 43. 
 
 Bouillier, Fr., 394. 
 
 Bovillus, Carl, 89. 
 
 Boyle, 118, 288. 
 
 Breckling, Friedr., 263. 
 
 Brescain, Joh. of, 40. 
 
 Brixen, 67, 89. 
 
 Brockes, Barth. Heinr., 539. 
 
 Brown, Robert, 212. 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, 291, 300-301. 
 
 Brucker, 169w. 
 
 Bruno, Giordano, 66, 93-101. 
 
 Buckle, 453. 
 
 Buddeus, 440. 
 
 Bullinger, 197, 208. 
 
 Bullock, 353. 
 
 Butler's Hudibras, 291. 
 
 Butler, Joseph, 358-9. 
 
 Buxtorf, 141. 
 
 Cabanis, 461. 
 Calixtus, G., 163. 
 Calovius, 140, 141, 206. 
 Calvin, Joh., 155-158, 195, 198. 
 
 655 
 
656 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Camerer, Theod., 407w. 
 
 Camillo, Renato, 194. 
 
 Campanella, Thomas, 49, 66, 101-108 
 
 Campanus, John, 210. 
 
 Campbell, 357. 
 
 Canz, Gottl., 530. 
 
 Capellus, 141. 
 
 Cardanus, 65, 91-93. 
 
 Carlstadt, 225, 231. 
 
 Carpov, 530-531. 
 
 Carriere, 66, 93n. 
 
 Cartesianism. See Descartes. 
 
 Caselius, Job., 170, 178, 179. 
 
 Casmann, Otto, 170, 171, 172. 
 
 Cassiodorus, 22-23, 28. 
 
 Cathari, 39. 
 
 Chandler, 353. 
 Charles I., 264. 
 Charpentier, Jacques, 119. 
 Charron, 57. 
 Chemnitius, 160. 
 
 Chioccus, 91. 
 
 Chubb, 291, 342-345. 
 
 Chytrseus, Dav., 170. 
 
 Claudius, Matthias, 562. 
 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, 15. 
 
 Coccejus, 270. 
 
 Collins, Anthony, 291, 329-330, 352 
 
 354. 
 
 Comte, 454. 
 
 Condillac, Etienne Bonnot de, 460. 
 Congregationalism, 212. 
 Conybeare, 357. 
 Conyza, 198. 
 Cornhert, 269. 
 Cramer, Joh., 171. 
 Crell, Joh., 199, 205. 
 Crell, Sam., 206. 
 Cromwell, 213. 
 Cudworth, Ealph, 354-355. 
 Cuffelarius, 435. 
 
 Cusanus, Nic., 65-89, 93, 101, 219, 
 231. 
 
 D 
 
 Dale, Antonius van, 399. 
 Damascenns, Joannes, 19, 22. 
 Damiani, Petrus, 29. 
 Dante, 49. 
 Darjes, 532. 
 Dasypodius, 170. 
 David, Dinant, 44. 
 Davidis, 199. 
 Deism, Engl., 284-388. 
 Denk, Joh., 209. 
 Descartes, 62, 389-393 
 Deurhoff, Wilh., 398. 
 Diderot, Denis, 462. 
 Dionysius Areopagita, 17, 26. 
 Dippel, Joh. Konr., 279, 543. 
 Dodwell, H., sen., 351. 
 Dodwell, II., jtm., 292. 
 
 Dresser, Mathseus, 170. 
 Dreydorff, 6 Ira. 
 
 E 
 
 Eberhard, 536n. 
 Eckhart, 45-47, 231. 
 Edelmann, 439-445, 543. 
 Eichhorn, 559. 
 Elisabeth of Schonau, 43. 
 Elsvich, Hermann, 169??. 
 Engel, 535rc. 
 Engelbrecht, Hans, 242. 
 Eo, Wilh., 241. 
 Erasmus, 58. 
 Erdmann, Benno, 528>*. 
 Ernesti, 560. 
 Eugenius IV., 67. 
 Evremont, Saint, 447. 
 
 F 
 
 Faber Stapulensis, 89. 
 
 Fabricius, 170. 
 
 Fabricius, Joh. Jak., 273. 
 
 Falkenberg, 67. 
 
 Fechner, Herm. Ad., 243w, 
 
 Feder, G. H., 536w. 
 
 Feuerbach, Ludw., 448rc. 
 
 Fischer, Kuno, 407w, 480. 
 
 Flacius Illyricus, 139. 
 
 Fock, 199. 
 
 Fox, George, 214. 
 
 Francis I., 119. 
 
 Frank, G., 125n, 394rc. 
 
 Frank, Sebastian, 225-228, 231. 
 
 Franke, Aug. Herm., 276. 
 
 Frankenberg, Abraham v., 262. 
 
 Freidliebius, Ericus, 479. 
 
 Freigius, 170. 
 
 Fries, 563w, 654. 
 
 Frischlin, Nikol., 170. 
 
 Frisius, Paul, 170. 
 
 Gale, Theo., 354. 
 
 Galen, 222. 
 
 Gass, W., 61 w, 125w. 
 
 jraunilo, 30. 
 
 Gellert, 562. 
 
 Gennadius, 50, 61n. 
 
 Genthe, 477w. 
 
 Gentile, Val., 196, 198. 
 
 Georg of Trapezunt, 50. 
 
 Gerbert, 28. 
 
 Gerhard, Joh., 140, 144, 158, 172. 
 
 Gerson, Joh., 35. 
 
 Gesner, Sal., 174. 
 
INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 657 
 
 Geulinx, Arnold, 402-404. 
 
 Gibson, Edmund, 356. 
 
 Gichtel, Georg, 263. 
 
 Gnosticism, 10-15. 
 
 Goclenius, Rud., 170, 171, 172, 178. 
 
 Goze, Job. Melcb., 573. 
 
 Gomarists, 270. 
 
 Gonterius, 162. 
 
 Goodwin, Th., 269. 
 
 Grauer, Albert, 181. 
 
 Gregory of Heimburg, 89. 
 
 Gregory VII., 58. 
 
 Gregory IX., 31. 
 
 Gribaldo, Matteo, 195, 198. 
 
 Griesbach, 559. 
 
 Grotius, Hugo, 206, 525. 
 
 Grunius, Stephan, 241. 
 
 Gualther, 198. 
 
 Giinther, Owen, 179, 182. 
 
 Gutnmann, Aegidius, 230. 
 
 H 
 
 Hamann, 62, 563, 607-621. 
 
 Hamberger, Julius, 243. 
 
 Heberle, 138w. 
 
 Hegel, 2, 245. 
 
 Heidanus, 398. 
 
 Helvetius, 462. 
 
 Heppe, H., 268w, 436w. 
 
 Heraclitus, 245. 
 
 Herbert of Cherbury, 289, 291, 292- 
 
 299, 425. 
 
 Herder, 62, 563, 585-607. 
 Herri inger, 131n. 
 Herrnhut Brotherhood, 280. 
 Hettner, H., 446w. 
 Hildegard of Bingen, 43. 
 Hobbes, 289, 291, 302-313, 435. 
 Hochhuth, 271w. 
 Hofmann, Daniel, 178-190. 
 Hofinann, Melchior, 209. 
 Hohburg, Chr., 264. 
 Holbach, 463-468. 
 Holkot, Robert, 35. 
 Hollaz, 140, 478. 
 Homagius, Heinr. Phil., 241. 
 Hooker, Thorn., 269. 
 Hoornbeck, 206. 
 Hornejus, Conr., 163, 167. 
 Hossbach, W., 27 4w. 
 Huber, 61w. 
 
 Huet, Pierre Daniel, 447. 
 Hugo of St. Victor, 43. 
 Humanists, 49, 57. 
 Hume, David, 292, 359-388. 
 Huss, Job., 60. 
 Hutten, Ulrich v. , 58, 61w. 
 Hutter, 140. 
 Hypatia, 18. 
 
 Ibbot, Benjamin, 356. 
 Ibn Roshd, see Averroes. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 Irving, Edward, 267. 
 Isidore of Seville, 22. 
 
 Jacobi, 62, 408, 436, 563, 621-654. 
 
 Jsenichen, 436. 
 
 Jamblichus, 17. 
 
 Jeanmaire, 448w. 
 
 Jeffrey, 353. 
 
 Jerusalem, Job. Friedr. Wilh., 542. 
 
 Joachim of Floris, 43, 44. 
 
 Jodl, 388w. 
 
 Johannes Damascenus, 19. 
 
 Johannes Philoponus, 19. 
 
 Joris, David, 210. 
 
 Justin Martyr, 8. 
 
 Justinian, 19. 
 
 K 
 
 Kabbala, 55, 58, 65, 221. 
 Kant, 2, 61, 62, 476. 
 Kappelier, 532. 
 Keckermann, 158, 170, 172. 
 Kempis, Thomas a, 60, 231. 
 Kepler, 48. 
 Klopstock, 562. 
 Klose, C. R. W., 439. 
 Knutzen, Martin, 528w. 
 Knutzen, Matthias, 437, 442. 
 Konig, 140. 
 Kbstlin, 125w, 
 Kbthen, 530. 
 Kopernicus, 48. 
 Koran, 84. 
 Kosthold, Chr., 435. 
 Kuhlmann, Quirinus, 263. 
 
 Labadie, 274. 
 
 Lactantius, 9, 10. 
 
 Lampe, Friedr. Ad., 118, 271, 398. 
 
 Lange, Fr. Alb., 446. 
 
 Lange, Joachim, 280, 533w. 
 
 Lateran Council, 50, 51. 
 
 Lautensack, Paul, 230. 
 
 Lavater, Job. Casp., 562. 
 
 Law, William, 264w. 
 
 Leade, Jean, 264. 
 
 Lechler, 292rc. 
 
 Leibniz, 62, 101, 118, 173, 476-557. 
 
 Lentulus, 397w. 
 
 Less, 540w. 
 
 Lessing, 62, 436, 553w, 563, 564-585. 
 
 Levellers, 285. 
 
 Liddel, Duncan,^l79. 
 
 Linde, Antonius"van der, 43 4w. 
 
 Lipsius, Justus, 56, 171. 
 
 Lobstein, P., 119w. 
 
 2 T 
 
658 
 
 INDEX OF PROPER NAMES. 
 
 Locke, John, 291, 315-321, 459, 460. 
 
 Loscher, Val. Ernst, 118, 280, 478. 
 
 Lubinus, Eilhard, 174. 
 
 Ludovici, 479w, 528, 533n. 
 
 Liitkemann, Joachim, 273. 
 
 Lullus, Raymundus, 34. 
 
 Luther, Martin, 60, 125-131, 207. 
 
 Macchiavelli, 49. 
 
 Macchiavellists, 105. 
 
 Malebranche, 404-407. 
 
 Marcianus Capella, 28. 
 
 Maresius, Sam., 394w. 
 
 Marsilius, Ficinus, 53-55. 
 
 Marta, Ant., 91. 
 
 Martini, Conrad, 176, 178, 183. 
 
 Martini, Jakob, 170, 175, 188. 
 
 Mastricht, Petrus van, 394?i. 
 
 Maturo, Bartol., 194. 
 
 Maupertuis, Pierre Louis de, 453-454. 
 
 Maximus Confessor, 18. 
 
 Meisner, Balthasar, 144, 158, 176. 
 
 Melanchthon, Phil., 131-137, 169, 174. 
 
 Mendelssohn, Moses, 476, 537-539. 
 
 Menno, Simon, 212. 
 
 Mentzer, 158. 
 
 Meth, E., 242. 
 
 Methodists, 282-283. 
 
 Mettrie, De la, 446, 461. 
 
 Meyer, Ludw., 395ft. 
 
 Meyfart, 274. 
 
 Michaelis, Joh. Dav., 559. 
 
 Milton, 212. 
 
 Minucius Felix, 9-10. 
 
 Montaigne, 56. 
 
 Moravians, 280-282. 
 
 More, Henry, 264, 354. 
 
 Morgan, Thomas, 289, 292, 345-351. 
 
 Mosheim, 351w. 
 
 Miiller, H., 273. 
 
 Miinzer, Thomas, 225. 
 
 Musaeus, Joh., 159-167, 435. 
 
 Mutianus, 57. 
 
 Mylius, 179. 
 
 Nagel, Paul, 242. 
 Neander, 271w. 
 Neoplatonism, 16. 
 Newton, 288, 459. 
 Niclas, Hans, 211. 
 Nicolai, 536. 
 Nieineyer, 540w. 
 Nihusius, Bartholdus, 162. 
 Noack, Ludw., 
 
 Occam, Wilh. of, 31-32, 34. 
 
 Occhino, Bern., 196. 
 Olearius, Joh., 181. 
 Opel, 231w. 
 Origen, 15, 231. 
 Ortliberians, 44. 
 Osiander, Andr., 138, 241. 
 
 Joh. Ad., 394w. 
 
 Lucas, 161, 273. 
 
 Ostorodt, 199n, 205, 206. 
 
 Paracelsus, 221-225. 
 
 Parmenides, 90. 
 
 Patritius, Franciscus, 66, 108-111. 
 
 Perkins, William, 268. 
 
 Perron, Cardinal du, 162. 
 
 Petersen, 279. 
 
 Petrarca, 49. 
 
 Pfaff, Christ. Matth., 167. 
 
 Pfaffrad, Gasp., 170, 179. 
 
 Pfleiderer, Edm., 388w. 
 
 Otto, 563w. 
 
 Philippo-Ramists, 170. 
 
 Philoponis, Joannes, 19. 
 
 Pichler, A., 480w. 
 
 Pico of Mirandola, 55, 58, 145w. 
 
 Pietism, 268. 
 j Pighius, 156. 
 j Piscator, 170, 178. 
 I Plato (Platonism), 28. 
 
 Pletho, Georgius Gemistus, 52, Gin. 
 
 Plotinus, 16, 231. 
 
 Pomponatius, Petrus, 50-52. 
 
 Pope, 566. 
 
 Pordage, Joh., 264. 
 
 Porphyry, 17, 20. 
 
 Pratje, 439w. 
 
 Proclus, 17. 
 
 Pufendorff, Sam., 525. 
 
 Puritanism, 268-269. 
 
 Q 
 
 Quakers, 214-215. 
 Quenstedt, 118, 140. 
 Quistorp, 273. 
 
 R 
 
 Rambach, Fr. Eb., 355. 
 
 Ramus, Petrus (Ramism), 50, 66, 118- 
 
 123, 168-178. 
 Rappoltus, Fr., 434. 
 Raymund of Sabunde, 35. 
 Reimarus, Herm. Sam., 550-557. 
 Reinbeck, 530, 532. 
 Renato, Camillo, 194. 
 Reuchlin, Joh., 57. 
 Reusch, 531-532. 
 Renter, H., 61w. 
 Revius, Jak., 394w. 
 
INDEX OF PEOPER NAMES. 
 
 659 
 
 Ribow, 532. 
 
 Richard of St. Victor, 43. 
 
 Riem, Andr., 545. 
 
 Ritschl, A., 138w. 
 
 Rixner of Siber, Q6n. 
 
 Robinson, John, 212. 
 
 Rock, Joh. Fr., 446. 
 
 Rbell, Herm. AL, 398, 401-402. 
 
 Roscellinus, 28. 
 
 Rosicrucians, 242-243. 
 
 Rost, Georg, 241. 
 
 Roth, Joh., 262. 
 
 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 446, 468-475. 
 
 Ruarius, Martin, 205. 
 
 Sack, 542. 
 Sanchez, 57. 
 
 sr, 171. 
 
 3, Casper, 276. 
 Georg, 546. 
 Scharff, 175, 176. 
 Scharpff, 67n. 
 Scheffler, Joh., 264. 
 Schegk, Jak., 170. 
 Scheibler, Christ., 175. 
 Schelhammer, Joh., 241. 
 Schelling, 101, 245. 
 Scherbius, Phil., 118, 170. 
 Schilling, Wenceslaus, 187, 188. 
 Schlee, Ernst, 178w. 
 Schleiermacher, 408, 434w. 
 Schlichting, 200, 205. 
 Schliiter, Gottfr., 181. 
 Schmalz, Yal., 205. 
 Schmid, Heinrich, 274w. 
 
 Johann, 273. 
 
 Xaver, 
 
 Schmidt, C., 
 
 Joh. Lorenz, 543. 
 
 Paul Wilhelm, 434w. 
 Scholastics, 26-41. 
 Schubert, Joh. Ernst, 3, 532. 
 Schultze, Fritz, 61w. 
 Schulz, Joh. Heinr., 544. 
 Schumann, 575. 
 Schuppius, Joh. Balth. , 274. 
 Schweizer, Alex., 156w. 
 Schwenkfeldt, Casper, 228-230, 231, 
 Sclei, Barthol., 230. 
 Scotus, Joh. Duns, 33. 
 
 Joh. Erigena, 26, 27. 
 
 Scribonius, 170. 
 
 Scriver, 273. 
 
 Semler, 560. 
 
 Seneca, 231. 
 
 Serena, 321w, 325. 
 
 Servetus, Mich., 139w, 217-221. 
 
 Shaftesbury, 291, 330-338. 
 
 Sigwart, 145w. 
 
 Silesius, Angelus, 264. 
 
 Simon of Tournay, 40. 
 
 Simon, Richard, 436. 
 Slevogt, Paul, 188-189. 
 Snell, Rud., 171. 
 Socinus, Faustus, 197-199, 205. 
 
 Lelio, 197-199. 
 
 Socrates, 245. 
 Soner, 206. 
 Spalat, 207. 
 
 Spalding, Joh. Joach., 541. 
 Spangenberg, 282. 
 Sparrow, 264w. 
 
 Spener, Phil. Jak., 274-279, 478. 
 Spinoza, 62, 101, 326, 417-434. 
 Stancaro, 198. 
 Statorius, 199. 
 Stebbing, 357. 
 Stephen, Leslie, 292w. 
 Stiefel, Esaj., 242. 
 Stifel, 209. 
 Stilling, Jung-, 572. 
 Stosch (Stossius), 439. 
 Strauss, D. F., 61w, 553w. 
 Sturm, Joh., 170. 
 Suarez, 174. 
 Sulzer, 536. 
 Suso, Heinr., 47. 
 Swedenborg, 265-267. 
 i Swift, 291. 
 Sykes, 353. 
 Sylvester II. , 28. 
 Synesius, 18. 
 
 Talon, Omer, 119. 
 Tatian, 8. 
 
 Tauler, Joh., 47, 225, 231. 
 1 Taurellus, Nic., 66, 113-118. 
 Taylor, E., 264n. 
 Teerstegen, Gerhard, 562. 
 Telesius, Bern., 65, 66, 89-91, 93. 
 Teller, Wilh. Abr., 541. 
 TeUinck, Wilh., 270. 
 Tertullian, 8, 9. 
 Tetens, Me., 536. 
 Thamer, Theobald, 271-272. 
 Theobald, Zach., 241. 
 Tholuck, I25n. 
 Thomas Aquinas, 32-33. 
 Thomasius, Christ., 526-528. 
 
 G., 178w. 
 
 Tiedemann, 536w. 
 Tillotson, 379. 
 Tindal, 291, 338-341, 356. 
 Toland, 291, 321-329. 
 Trent, Council of, 60, 61. 
 Turretin, 167. 
 
 U 
 
 Ueberfeld, 194, 264. 
 Urban VIII. , 76. 
 Ursinus, Zach., 170. 
 
660 
 
 INDEX OF PEOPER NAMES. 
 
 Valdez, Juan, 196. 
 
 Valla, Laurentius, 50. 
 
 Vanini, Julius Caesar, 66, 111-113. 
 
 Vayer, Frai^ais de la Mothe le, 447. 
 
 Vedelius, NIC., 159-167. 
 
 Velthuysen, Lambert, 436w. 
 
 Vench, 89. 
 
 Vergerio, Pierpaolo, 194. 
 
 Veronius, Franciscus, 162. 
 
 Verschoor, Jak., 436. 
 
 Vives, Ludw., 50. 
 
 Volkel, Job., 205. 
 
 Voetius, Gisbert, 270. 
 
 Voltaire, 446, 453-459. 
 
 W 
 
 Waddington, Charles, 119n. 
 Walch, 479w. 
 Waldus, Petrus, 60. 
 Walther, Balth., 262. 
 
 Weigel, Erhard, 142. 
 
 Valentin, 230, 231-243. 
 
 Weingarten, H., 285w. 
 
 Werdenhagen, Job. Angelius V., 187. 
 
 Wessel, Joh., 60. 
 
 Wettstein, 559. 
 
 Whiston, William, 352. 
 
 Wickliffe, Joh., 60. 
 
 William III., 214. 
 
 Wissowatius, Andr., 199w, 200, 205. 
 
 Wittich, Christophe, 397-398, 436w. 
 
 Woidowski, 206. 
 
 Wolff, Christ.; 480, 515-534. 
 
 Wolzogen, Ludw., 205. 
 
 Woolston, Th., 353. 
 
 Z 
 
 Zeller, Ed., 480/1. 
 Zimmermann, 241. 
 Zinzendorf, 280-282. 
 Zirngiebl, 621w. 
 Zwingli, 145-154. 
 
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 PUCHTA, FEIEDLANDEE, FALCK, AND AHEENS. 
 
 BY 
 
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 In demy 8vo, Second Edition, price 
 
 jprtbate Enternattonal 
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 THE CONFLICT OF LAWS, 
 
 AND THE LIMITS OF THEIE OPEBATION IN EESPECT OF 
 PLACE AND TIME. 
 
 BY FEIEDEICH GAEL VON SAVIGNY. 
 
 Translated, with Notes, by WILLIAM GUTHEIE, Advocate. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING THE TREATISES OF BARTOLUS, 
 MOLINJSUS, PAUL VOET, AND HUBER. 
 
 ' Savigny, for the first time in modern days, brought to this subject original thought. 
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T. and 7\ Clark's Publications. 
 
 LOTZE'S MICROCQSMUS. 
 
 Just published, in Two Vols., Svo (1450 pages), SECOND EDITION, price 36s., 
 
 MICROCOSMUS: 
 
 Concerning Man and his relation to the World. 
 BY HERMANN LOTZE. 
 
 from tfje (Srnnatt 
 BY ELIZABETH HAMILTON AND E. E. CONSTANCE JONES. 
 
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 for the circumstances of English thought, just at the present moment, are peculiarly 
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 ' The translation of Lotze's Microcosmus is the most important of recent events in our 
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 know of no other work containing so much of speculative suggestion, of keen criticism, 
 and of sober judgment on these topics.' Andover Review. 
 
 Jmt published, in Two Vols., Svo, price 21s., 
 
 NATURE AND THE BIBLE: 
 
 LECTURES ON THE MOSAIC HISTORY OF CREATION IN ITS 
 RELATION TO NATURAL SCIENCE. 
 
 BY DR. FR. H. REUSCH. 
 
 BEVISED AND COEEECTED BY THE AUTHOR 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE FOURTH EDITION BY KATHLEEN LYTTELTON. 
 
 * Other champions much more competent and learned than myself might have been 
 placed in the field ; I will only name one of the most recent, Dr. Eeusch, author of 
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 * The work, we need hardly say, is of profound and perennial interest, and it can 
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 to its author.' Scottish Review. 
 
 ' This graceful and accurate translation of Dr. Eeusch's well-known treatise on the 
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 to English literature.' Whitehall Review. 
 
 4 We owe to Dr. Eeusch, a Catholic theologian, one of the most valuable treatises on 
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T. and T. Clark's Publications. 
 
 In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d., 
 
 THE THEORY OF MORALS. 
 
 BY PAUL JANET, Member of the Institute, Paris. 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST FRENCH EDITION. 
 
 CONTENTS. BOOK I.: Pleasure and Good Good and Law The Principle of 
 Excellence, or of Perfection The Principle of Happiness Impersonal Goods The 
 True, the Good, and the Beautiful Absolute Good. BOOK II. : Nature and Basis 
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 By the same Author. 
 In One Volume, Svo, Second Edition, price 12s., 
 
 FINAL CAUSES. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE LATEST FRENCH EDITION 
 BY WILLIAM AFFLECK, B.D. 
 
 CONTENTS. PRELIMINARY CHAPTER The Problem. BOOK I. The Law of 
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 In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6c?., 
 
 THE BIBLE DOCTRINE OF MAN. 
 
 (SEVENTH SERIES OF CUNNINGHAM LECTURES.) 
 
 BY JOHN LAIDLAW, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Systematic Theology, New College, Edinburgh. 
 
 ' An important and valuable contribution to the discussion of the anthropology of the 
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T. and T. Claris Publications. 
 
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 4 Dr. Martensen's work on Christian Dogmatics reveals the strength of thought as well 
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 A POPULAK INTRODUCTION TO THE 
 
 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE. 
 
 BY KEV. T. G. CKIPPEN. 
 
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 In Three Volumes, 8vo, price 31s. 6d., 
 
 A HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES. 
 
 BY THE LATE DR. K. E. HAGENBACH. 
 Eratwlate* from tje tfiftfj an* 2La0t German tuition foritfj 
 
 Stotutiona front otfjer Source*. 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE VERY REV. DEAN PLUMPTRE. 
 
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T. and T. Clark's Publications. 
 
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 OLD AND NEW THEOLOGY: 
 
 A CONSTRUCTIVE CRITIQUE. 
 BY REV. J. B. HEARD, M.A. 
 
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 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Fifth Edition, in crown 8i?o, price 6s., 
 
 THE TRIPARTITE NATURE OF MAN: 
 
 SPIRIT, SOUL, AND BODY. 
 
 Applied to Illustrate and Explain the Doctrines of Original Sin t the New 
 Birth, the Disembodied State, and the Spiritual Body. 
 
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 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 
 
 (NINTH SERIES OF THE CUNNINGHAM LECTURES.) 
 BY REV. GEO. SMEATON, D.D., 
 
 Professor of Exegetical Theology, New College, Edinburgh. 
 
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 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 Second Edition, in dewy 8vo, price 105. 6d., 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT 
 
 AS TAUGHT BY CHRIST HIMSELF; 
 
 Or, The Sayings of Jesus Exegetically Expounded and Classified. 
 
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 of the work is most happy, and the execution of it worthy of the idea. On a scheme 
 of truly Baconian exegetical induction, he presents us with a complete view of the 
 various positions or propositions which a full and sound doctrine of the atonement 
 embraces.' British and Foreign Evangelical Review. 
 
 4 The plan of the book is admirable. A monograph and exegesis of our Lord's own 
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T. and T. Clark's Publications. 
 
 In extra 8yo, price 12s., 
 
 THE PHILOSOPHICAL BASIS OF THEISM. 
 
 An Examination of the Personality of Man, to ascertain his Capacity 
 to Know and Serve God, and the Validity of the Principles 
 underlying the Defence of Theism. 
 
 BY EEV. SAMUEL HAEEIS, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 PROFESSOR OP SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, YALE COLLEGE. 
 
 BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 
 Just published, in extra 8vo, price 12s., 
 
 THE SELF-REVELATION OF GOD. 
 
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 of thought at the present time.' Spectator. 
 
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 Just published, in Two Vols., crown 8vo, price 16s., 
 THE 
 
 APOSTOLIC AND POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES. 
 
 Their Diversity and Unity in Life and Doctrine. 
 
 BY G. V. LECHLEK, DD. 
 
 ESirfc (Etution, tj0rousjis &ebi0s& antr ^TOritUn. 
 TRANSLATED BY A. J. K. DAVIDSON. 
 
 * In the work before us, Lechler works out this conception with great skill, and with 
 ample historical and critical knowledge. He has had the advantage of all the discussions 
 of these forty years, and he has made good use of them. The book is up to date ; so 
 thoroughly is this the case, that he has been able to make room for the results which 
 have been won for the early history of Christianity by the discovery of the "Didache," 
 and of the discussions to which it has given occasion. Nor is it too much to say that 
 Dr. Lechler has neglected nothing fitted to throw light on his great theme. The work 
 is of the highest value.' Spectator. 
 
 ' It contains a vast amount of historical information, and is replete with judicious 
 remarks By bringin^ under the notice of English readers a work so favourably 
 
 thought of in' Germany, the translator has conferred a benefit on theology.' Athenaum. 
 
 'Scholars of all kinds will welcome this new edition of Dr. Lechler s famous work. 
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 World. 
 
T. and T. Clark's Publications. 
 
 Just published, in demy 8*>o, price 10s. 6c?., 
 
 THE JEWISH 
 
 AND 
 
 THE CHRISTIAN MESSIAH. 
 
 A STUDY IN THE EARLIEST HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY. 
 BY VINCENT HENEY STANTON, M.A., 
 
 FELLOW, TUTOR, AND DIVINITY LECTURER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE ; 
 LATE HULSEAN LECTURER. 
 
 CONTENTS. Part I. Introductory. Chap. I. The Scope of our Inquiry and its 
 Bearing upon Modern Theories of the Rise of Christianity. II. The 
 Documents. III. General Views of the History of Messianic Expectation 
 among the Jews to the Christian Era. IV. General Character of the Christian 
 Transformation of the Idea of the Messiah. V. The Use of the Old Testament 
 in the Early Church. Part II. The Attitude of Jesus to Messianic Beliefs. 
 Chap. I. The Teaching of Jesus concerning the Kingdom of God. II. The 
 Use by Jesus of the Title "The Son of Man." III. The Claim made by Jesus 
 Himself to be the Christ. Part III. Messianic Ideas in the Early Church. 
 Chap. I. The Doctrine of the Office of the Christ in the Early Church. II. 
 Comparison in detail of Jewish and Christian Eschatology. III. Messianic 
 Prophecy and the Mythical Theory. Epilogue, etc. 
 
 ' Mr. Stanton's book answers a real want, and will be indispensable to students of the 
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 in that most obscure and most important period, of his competency to deal with which 
 he has given such good proof in this book.' Guardian. 
 
 1 We welcome this book as a valuable addition to the literature of a most important 
 subject. . . . The book is remarkable for the clearness of its style. Mr. Stanton is never 
 obscure from beginning to end, and we think that no reader of average attainments will 
 be able to put the book down without having learnt much from his lucid and scholarly 
 exposition.' Ecclesiastical Gazette. 
 
 Now ready, Second Division, in Three -Vols., 8vo, price 10s. Qd. each, 
 
 HISTORY OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE IN THE 
 TIME OF OUR LORD. 
 
 BY DR. EMIL SCHUEEE, 
 
 Professor of Theology in the University of Giessen. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE SECOND EDITION (REVISED THROUGHOUT, AND 
 GREATLY ENLARGED) OF ' HISTORY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT TIME.' 
 The First Division, which will probably be in a single volume, is undergoing revision 
 by the Author. (The Second Division is complete in itself.) 
 
 ' Under Professor Schiirer's guidance, we are enabled to a large extent to construct a 
 social and political framework for the Gospel History, and to set it in such a light as to 
 see new evidences of the truthfulness of that history and of its contemporaneousness. . . 
 The length of our notice shows our estimate of the value of his work.' English 
 Churchman. 
 
 4 We gladly welcome the publication of this most valuable work.' Dublin Review. 
 
 ' Most heartily do we commend this work as an invaluable aid in the intelligent study 
 of the New Testament. Nonconformist. 
 
 4 As a handbook for the study of the New Testament, the work is invaluable and 
 unique.' British Quarterly Review. 
 
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