Full text of "A critical history of free thought in reference to the Christian religion. Eight lectures"

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nineteenth Century
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AT THE

UNIVERSITY OF
TORONTO PRESS

THE

BAMPTON LECTURES

FOR M.DCCC.LXII.

OXFOBD:

TR1XTKD BY T. COMBE & CO. AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.

CRITICAL HISTOEY OF FEEE THOUGHT

IN REFERENCE TO

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.

EIGHT LECTURES

PREACHED BEFORE

THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

IN THE YEAR M.DCCC.LXII.

ON THE FOUNDATION OF

THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.

CANON OP SALISBURY.

ADAM STOREY FARRAR, M.A.

MICHEL FELLOW OF QUEEN S COLLEGE, OXFORD;

LONDON:

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
1862.

[The right oj Translation is reserved.}

2.150

EXTRACT

FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

OF THE LATE

REV. JOHN BAMPTON,

CANON OF SALISBURY.

" I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the

" Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of
" Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the
f{ said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and
" purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and
" appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox-
" ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents,
" issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations,
" and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re-
" mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser-
(c mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and
"to be performed in the manner following:

" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in
" Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads
" of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining
" to the Printing- House, between the hours of ten in the

vi EXTRACT FROM CANON BAMPTON S WILL.

" morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity
Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary s in Ox-
" ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent
" Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term.

" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture
" Sermons shall be preached upon either of the following Sub-
" jects to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to
" confute all heretics and schismatics upon the divine au-
" thority of the holy Scriptures upon the authority of the
" writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and prac-
" tice of the primitive Church upon the Divinity of our Lord
" and Saviour Jesus Christ upon the Divinity of the Holy
" Ghost upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre-
" hended in the Apostles and Nicene Creeds.

" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec-
" ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months
( after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the
" Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of
" every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of
Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ;
" and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the
" revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the
" Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be
" paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are printed.

" Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali-
" fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath
" taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the
" two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the
" same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser-
" mons twice/

PREFACE.

THE object of this Preface is to explain the design of the
following Lectures, and to enumerate the sources on which
they are founded.

What is the province and mode of inquiry intended in a
" Critical History of Free Thought" a ? What are the causes
which led the author into this line of study b ? What the
object proposed by the work c ? What the sources from
which it is drawn d ? these probably are the questions which
will at once suggest themselves to the reader. The answers
to most of them are so fully given in the work e , that it will
only be necessary here to touch upon them briefly.

The word e free thought" is now commonly used, at least
in foreign literature f , to express the result of the revolt of the
mind against the pressure of external authority in any de
partment of life or speculation. Information concerning the
history of the term is given elsewhere . It will be sufficient
now to state, that the cognate term, ^60 thinking, was appro
priated by Collins early in the last century h to express

a Pref. pp. vii-xii. b Id. pp. xiii-xv. c Id. pp. xvi-xviii.

d Id. pp. xix. e Lect. I. : andLect. VIII. p. 479 seq.

f E. g. in the French expression la Hire pensee. S In Note 21. p. 588.
h In 1713.

viii PREFACE.

Deism. It differs from the modern term free thought, both
in being restricted to religion, and in conveying the idea
rather of the method than of its result, the freedom of the
mode of inquiry rather than the character of the conclusions
attained; but the same fundamental idea of independence
and freedom from authority is implied in the modern term.

Within the sphere of its application to the Christian
religion, free thought is generally used to denote three dif
ferent systems; viz. Protestantism, scepticism, and unbelief.
Its application to the first of these is unfair *. It is true that
all three agree in resisting the dogmatism of any earthly
authority; but Protestantism reposes implicitly on what it
believes to be the divine authority of the inspired writers of
the books of holy scripture; whereas the other two forms
acknowledge no authority external to the mind, no communi
cation superior to reason and science. Thus, though Pro
testantism by its attitude of independence seems similar to
the other two systems, it is really separated by a difference of
kind, and not merely of degree k . The present history is
restricted accordingly to the treatment of the two latter
species of free thought, the resistance of the human mind to
the Christian religion as communicated through revelation,
either in part or in whole, either the scepticism which disin
tegrates it, or the unbelief which rejects it : the former
directing itself especially against Christianity, the latter
against the idea of revelation, or even of the supernatural
generally.

An analogous reason to that which excludes the history of
Protestantism, excludes also that of the opposition made to

i Many of the modern French protestant critics so employ it ; e. g. A.. Re-
ville, Rev. des Deux Mondes, Parker, Oct. 1861.
k Cfr. pp. 13 and 1 39.

PREFACE. ix

Christianity by heresy, and by rival religions * : inasmuch as
they repose on authorities, however false, and do not profess
to resort to an unassisted study of nature and truth.

This account of the province included under free thought
will prepare the way for the explanation of the mode in
which the subject is treated.

It is clear that the history, in order to rise above a
chronicle, must inquire into the causes which have made
freedom of inquiry develope into unbelief. The causes
have usually been regarded by theologians to be of two kinds,
viz, either superhuman or human ; and, if of the latter kind,
to be either moral or intellectual. Bishop Van Mildert, in his
History of Infidelity, restricted himself entirely to the former m .
Holding strongly that the existence of evil in the world was
attributable, not only indirectly and originally, but directly
and perpetually, to the operation of the evil spirit, he re
garded every form of heresy and unbelief to be the attempt
of an invisible evil agent to thwart the truth of God ; and
viewed the history of infidelity as the study of the results of
the operation of this cause in destroying the kingdom of
righteousness. Such a view invests human life and history
with a very solemn character, and is not without practical
value ; but it will be obvious that an analysis of this kind
must be strictly theological, and removes the inquiry from
the province of human science. Even when completed, it
leaves unexplored the whole field in which such an evil prin
ciple operates, and the agencies which he employs as his
instruments.

The majority of writers on unbelief accordingly have treated

1 Cfr. p. 17, and Notes 4, 5, and 6.

m Boyle Lectures (1802-4). See note, p. 487.

x PREFACE.

the subject from a less elevated point of view, and have
limited their inquiry to the sphere of the operation of human
causes, the media axiomata as it were", which express the
motives and agencies which have been manifested on the
theatre of the world, and visible in actual history. It will be
clear that within this sphere the causes are specially of two
kinds; viz. those which have their source in the will, and
arise from the antagonism of feeling, which wishes revelation
untrue, and those which manifest themselves in the intellect,
and are exhibited under the form of difficulties which beset
the mind, or doubts which mislead it, in respect to the evi
dence on which revelation reposes. The former, it may be
feared, are generally the ground of unbelief; the latter the
basis of doubt. Christian writers, in the wish to refer unbelief
to the source of efficient causation in the human will, with a
view of enforcing on the doubter the moral lesson of respon
sibility, have generally restricted themselves to the former of
these two classes ; and by doing so have omitted to explore
the interesting field of inquiry presented in the natural history
of the variety of forms assumed by scepticism, and their
relation to the general causes which have operated in parti
cular ages: a subject most important, if the intellectual
antecedents thus discovered be regarded as causes of doubt ;
and not less interesting, if, instead of being causes, they are
merely considered to be instruments and conditions made
use of by the emotional powers.

A history of free thought seems to point especially to the
study of the latter class. A biographical history of free
thinkers would imply the former; the investigation of the
moral history of the individuals, the play of their will and

n Bacon s Nov. Org. lib. i. Anh, 104.

PREFACE. xi

feelings and character ; but the history of free thought points
to that which has been the product of their characters,, the
doctrines which they have taught. Science however no less
than piety would decline entirely to separate the two ; piety,
because, though admitting the possibility that a judgment
may be formed in the abstract on free thought, it would feel
itself constantly drawn into the inquiry of the moral respon
sibility of the freethinker in judging of the concrete cases;
science, because, even in an intellectual point of view, the
analysis of a work of art is defective if it be studied apart
from the personality of the mental and moral character of the
artist who produces it. If even the inquiry be restricted to
the analysis of intellectual causes, a biographic treatment of
the subject, which would allow for the existence of the emo
tional, would be requisite P.

The province of the following work accordingly is, the ex
amination of this neglected branch in the analysis of unbelief.
While admitting most fully and unhesitatingly the operation
of emotional causes, and the absolute necessity, scientific as well
as practical, of allowing for their operation, it is proposed to
analyse the forms of doubt or unbelief in reference mainly to
the intellectual element which has entered into them, and the
discovery of the intellectual causes which have produced or
modified them. Thus the history, while not ceasing to belong
to church history, becomes also a chapter in the history of
philosophy, a page in the history of the human mind.

The enumeration of the causes into which the intellectual
elements of doubt are resolvable, is furnished in the text
of the first Lecture 9. If the nature of some of them be
obscure, and the reader be unaccustomed to the philosophical

Cfr. pp. 19-27. p Pp. 45-48. q pp. 33-44-

xii PREFACE.

study necessary for fully understanding them ; information
must be sought in the books to which references are elsewhere
given 1 *, as the subject is too large to be developed in the
limited space of this Preface.

The work however professes to be not merely a narrative,
but a " critical history." The idea of criticism in a history
imparts to it an ethical aspect. For criticism does not rest
content with ideas, viewed as facts, but as realities. It seeks
to pass above the relative, and attain the absolute ; to deter
mine either what is right or what is true. It may make this
determination by means of two different standards. It may
be either independent or dogmatic; independent if it enters
upon a new field candidly and without prepossessions, and rests
content with the inferences which the study suggests ; dog
matic, when it approaches a subject with views derived from
other sources, and pronounces on right or wrong, truth or
falsehood, by reference to them.

It is hoped that the reader will not be unduly prejudiced,
if the confession be frankly made, that the criticism in these
Lectures is of the latter kind. This indeed might be expected
from their very character. The Bampton Lecture is an
establishment for producing apologetic treatises. The authors
are supposed to assume the truth of Christianity, and to seek
to repel attacks upon it. They are defenders, not investigators.
The reader has a right to demand fairness, but not inde
pendence; truth in the facts, but not hesitation in the
inferences. While however the writer of these Lectures takes
a definite line in the controversy, and one not adopted pro
fessionally, but with cordial assent and heartfelt conviction,
he has nevertheless considered that it is due to the cause of
scientific truth to intermingle his own opinions as little as

r PP- 30. 34, 35-

PREFACE. xiii

possible with the facts of the history. A history without
inferences is ethically and religiously worthless : it is a
chronicle, not a philosophical narrative. But a history
distorted to suit the inferences is not only worthless, but
harmful. It is for the reader to judge how far the author has
succeeded in the result ; but his aim has been not to allow his
opinions to warp his view of the facts. History ought to be
written with the same spirit of cold analysis which belongs to
science. Caricature must not be substituted for portrait, nor
vituperation for description 8 .

Such a mode of treatment in the present instance was the
more possible, from the circumstance that the writer, when
studying the subject for his private information, without
any design to write upon it, had endeavoured to bring his
own principles and views perpetually to the test; and to
reconsider them candidly by the light of the new sug
gestions which were brought before him. Instead of ap
proaching the inquiry with a spirit of hostility, he had inves
tigated it as a student, not as a partisan. It may perhaps be
permitted him without egotism to explain the causes which
led him to the study. He had taken holy orders, cordially
and heartily believing the truths taught by the church of
which he is privileged to be an humble minister. Before doing
so, he had read thoughtfully the great works of evidences
of the last century, and knew directly or indirectly the
character of the deist doubts against which they were di
rected. His own faith was one of the head as well as the
heart; founded on the study of the evidences, as well as on the
religious training of early years. But he perceived in the
English church earnest men who held a different view ; and,

s Cfr. p. 488.

xiv PREFACE.

on becoming acquainted with contemporary theology, he
found the theological literature of a whole people, the Ger
mans, constructed on another basis; a literature which was
acknowledged to be so full of learning, that contemporary
English writers of theology not only perpetually referred to
it, but largely borrowed their materials from German sources.
He wished therefore fully to understand the character of these
new forms of doubt, and the causes which had produced
them. He may confess that, reposing on the affirmative
verities of the Christian faith, as gathered from the scriptures
and embodied in the immemorial teaching of Christ s church,
he did not anticipate that he should discover that which would
overthrow or even materially modify his own faith; but he
wished, while exploring this field, and gratifying intellectual
curiosity, to re-examine his opinions at each point by the
light of those with which he might meet in the inquiry.
The serious wish also to fulfil his duty in the sphere in
which he might move, made him desire to understand these
new views; that if false, he might know how to refute them
when they came before him, and not be first made aware of
their existence from the harsh satire of sceptical critics. His
own studies were accordingly conducted in a spirit of fairness
the fairness of the inquirer, not of the doubter; and a habit
of mind formed by the study of the history of philosophy,
was brought to bear upon the investigation of this chapter in
church history : first, of modern forms of doubt, and after
wards the consecutive history of unbelief generally. Accord
ingly, while he hopes that he has taken care to leave the
student in no case unguided, who may accompany him in
these pages through the history, he has wished to place him,
as he strove to place himself, in the position to see the sub
ject in its true light before drawing the inferences ; to under-

PREFACE. xv

stand each topic to a certain extent,, as it appears when seen
from the opposite point of view, as well as when seen from
the Christian. And when this has been effected, he has cri
ticised each by a comparison with those principles which form
his standard for testing them, the truth of which the study
has confirmed to the writer s own mind. The criticism there
fore does not profess to be independent, but dogmatic ; but it
is hoped that the definite character of the results will not be
found to have prevented fairness in the method of inquiry.
If the student has the facts correctly, he can form his own
judgment on the inferences.

The standard of truth here adopted, as the point of view
in criticism, is the teaching of Scripture as expressed in the
dogmatic teaching of the creeds of the church ; or, if it will
facilitate clearness to be more definite, three great truths may
be specified, which present themselves to the writer s mind as
the very foundation of the Christian religion: (i) the doctrine
of the reality of the vicarious atonement provided by the pas
sion of our blessed Lord ; (2) the supernatural and miracu
lous character of the religious revelation in the book of God ;
and (3) the direct operation of the Holy Ghost in converting
and communing with the human soul. Lacking the first of
these, Christianity appears to him to be a religion without a
system of redemption ; lacking the second, a doctrine without
authority ; lacking the third, a system of ethics without spi
ritual power. These three principles accordingly are the mea
sure, by agreement with which the truth and falsehood of
systems of free thought are ultimately tested 8 .

The above remarks, together with those which occur in the
text, where fuller explanation is afforded, will illustrate the

s See especially Lect. VIII. p. 504 seq.

xv, PREFACE.

province of the inquiry, and the spirit in which it is con
ducted r .

The explanation also of the further question concerning the
object which the writer proposed to effect, by the treatment
of such a subject in a course of Bampton Lectures, is given
so fully elsewhere, that a few words may here suffice in refer
ence to it u . Experience of the wants of students in this time
of doubt and transition, which those who are practically ac
quainted with the subject will best understand, as well as ob
servation of the tone of thought expressed in our sceptical
literature, led him to believe that a history, natural as well
as literary, of doubt; an analysis of the forms and a statement
of the intellectual causes of it, would have a value, direct and
indirect, in many ways. His desire, he is willing to confess,
was to guide the student, rather than to refute the unbe
liever. He did not expect to furnish the combatant with
ready-made weapons, which would make him omnipotent in
conflict ; but he hoped to give him some suggestions in re
ference to the tactics for conducting the contest. The Lectures
have a polemical aspect, but they seek to obtain their end by
means of the educational. The writer has aimed at assisting
the student, in the struggle with his doubts, in the inquiry
for truth, in the quiet meditative search for light and know
ledge, preparatory to ministering to others. The survey of a
new region, which ordinary works on the history of infidelity
rarely touch, may lay bare unsuspected or undetected causes
of unbelief; and thus indirectly offer a refutation of it; for
intellectual error is refuted, when the origin of it is referred
to false systems of thought. The anatomy of error is the first
step to its cure.

Some valuable remarks on the proper balance of the mind in study are con
tained in a sermon, The Nvnesis of Excess, recently preached at Oxford, by
B P- Jackson pp. 49-5*.

PREFACE. xvii

In another point of view, independently of the value of the
line of inquiry generally, and the special suitability of it to
individual minds, there is a further use, which in the present
day belongs to it in common with all inquiries into the his
tory of thought.

It is hard to persuade the students of a past generation
that the historic mode of approaching any problem is the first
step toward its successful solution. Yet a little reflection may
at least make the meaning of the assertion understood. If we
view the literary characteristic of the present, in comparison
with that of past ages, we are perhaps right in stating, that its
peculiar feature is the prevalence of the method of historical
criticism. If the four centuries since the Renaissance be con
sidered, the critical peculiarity of the sixteenth and seventeenth
will be found to be the investigation of ancient literature ; in
the former directed to words, in the latter to things. The
eighteenth century broke away from the past, and, emanci
pating itself from authority, tried to rebuild truth from its
foundations from present materials, independent of the judg
ment formed by past ages. The nineteenth century unites
both methods. It ventures not to explore the universe, un-
guided by the experience of the past ; but, while reuniting
itself to the past, it does not bow to it. It accepts it as a
fact, not as an authority. The seventeenth century wor
shipped the past ; the eighteenth despised it : the nineteenth
mediates, by means of criticism. Accordingly, in literary in
vestigations at present, each question is approached from the
historic side, with the belief that the historico-critical inquiry
not only gratifies curiosity, but actually contributes to the
solution of the problem. Some indeed assert x this, because

x Cfr. pp. 43 note, 483 ; and Note 9. pp. 560-63.
b

xviii PREPACK.

they think that the historic study of philosophy is the whole
of philosophy ; and, believing that all truth is relative to its
age, are hopeless of attaining the absolute and unaltering
solution of any problem. We, on the other hand, are content
to believe that the history of philosophy is only the entrance
to philosophy. But in either case, truth is sought by means
of a philosophical history of the past; which, tracking the
progress of truth and error in any particular department, lays
bare the natural as well as the literary history ; the causes
of the past, as well as its form. Truth and error are thus dis
covered, not by breaking with the past, and using abstract
speculations on original data, but by tracing the growth
of thought, gathering the harvest of past investigations, and
learning by experience to escape error.

These considerations bear upon the present subject in this
manner : they show not only the special adaptation to the
passing tastes of the age, of an historic mode of approaching
a subject, but exhibit also that the mode of proof and of refu
tation must be sought, not on abstract grounds, but historic.
The position of an enemy is not to be forced, but turned ; his
premises to be refuted, not his conclusions ; the antecedent
reasons which led him into his opinion to be exhibited, not
merely evidence offered of the fact that he is in error.

This view, that doubt might be refuted by the historic
analysis of its operation, by laying bare the antecedent
grounds which had produced it, will explain why the author
was led to believe that a chapter of mental and moral phy
siology might be useful, which would not merely carry out
the anatomy of actual forms of disease, but discover their
origin by the study of the preceding natural history of the
patients.

These remarks will perhaps suffice for explaining the object

PREFACE. xix

which was proposed in writing this history ; and may justify
the hope that this work, thus adapted to the wants of the
time, may offer such a contribution to the subject of the
Christian evidences, as not only to possess an intellectual
value, but to coincide with the purpose contemplated by the
founder of the Lectures.

It remains to state the sources which have been used for
the literary materials of the history. Though they are suffi
ciently indicated in the notes, a general description of them
may be useful.

They may be distributed under four classes :

1. The histories which have been professedly devoted to
the subject.

2. The notices of the history of unbelief in general histories
of the church or of literature.

3. (Which ought indeed to rank first in importance;) the
original authorities for the facts, i. e. the works of the scep
tical writers themselves ; or of the contemporary authors who
have refuted them.

4. The monographs, which treat of particular writers, ages,
or schools, of sceptical thought.

In approaching the subject, a student would probably
commence with the first two classes ; and after having thus
acquired for himself a carte du pays, would then explore it in
detail by the aid of the third and fourth.

i . The works which have professedly treated of the history
of infidelity, as a whole, are not of great importance.

One of the earliest was the Historia Univ. Atheismi, 1725,
of Reimannus; and the De Atheismo, 1737, of Buddeus. (An
explanation of the word Atheism, as employed by them, is given
in Note 21. p. 585.) They furnish, as the name implies, a
history of scepticism, as well as of sceptics ; yet, though the

PREFACE.

labours of such diligent and learned men can never be useless,
they afford little information now available. Their date also
necessarily precluded them from knowing the more recent
forms of unbelief. Perhaps under this head we ought also to
name the chapters on polemical theology in the great works
of bibliography of the German scholars of the same time, such
as Pfaff (Hist. Litt. TkeoL); Buddeus (Isagoge)-, Fabricius (De
lectus Argum.); Walch s (Biblical Theol. Select.}-, which contain
lists of sceptical works, either directly, or indirectly by naming
the apologists who have answered them. The references to
these works will be found in Note 49. p. 616.

Among French writers, the only one of importance is
Houtteville, who prefixed an Introduction to his work, La
Religion Chretienne prouvee par des faits, 1722, containing an
account of the writers for and against Christianity from the
earliest times. (Translated 1739.) It contains little informa
tion concerning the authors or the events, but a clearly and
correctly written analysis of their works and thoughts.

Among the English writers who have attempted a conse
cutive history of the whole subject was Van Mildert, after
wards bishop of Durham, who has been already named. The
first volume of his Boyle Lectures, in 1802-4, was devoted to
the history of infidelity ; the second to a general statement
of the evidences for Christianity. This work, on account of
its date, necessarily stops short before the existence of modern
forms of doubt ; and indeed evinces no knowledge concerning
the contemporary forms of literature in Germany, which had
already attracted the attention of Dr. Herbert Marsh. The
point of view of the work, as already described, almost en
tirely precludes the author from entering upon the analysis
of the causes, either emotional or intellectual, which have
produced unbelief. Its value accordingly is chiefly in the

PREFACE. xxi

literary materials collected in the notes ; in which respect it
bears marks of careful study. Though mostly drawn from
second-hand sources, it exhibits wide reading- and thoughtful
judgment.

A portion of the Bampton Lectures for 1852, by the Rev.
J. C. Riddle, was devoted to the subject of infidelity. The
author s object, as the title x implies, was to give the natural
history of unbelief, to the neglect of the literary. Psycho
logical rather than historical analysis was used by him for
the investigation; and his examination of the moral causes
of doubt is better than of the intellectual. The notes contain
a collection of valuable quotations, which supplement those
of Van Mildert, but are unfortunately given, for the most
part, without references.

This completes y the enumeration of the histories professedly
devoted to infidelity, with the exception of a small but very cre
ditable production published since several of these lectures were
written, Defence of the Faith; Part I. Forms of Unbelief, by the
Rev. S. Robins, forming the first part of a work, of which the
second is to treat the evidences ; the third to draw the moral.
It does not profess to be a very deep work 2 ; but it is in-

x The Natural History of Infidelity and Superstition in Contrast with
Christian Faith.

y A work partly on the history of unbelief, Scepticism a Retrogressive Move in
Theology and Philosophy, has also been lately written ( 1 86 T) by the accomplished
lord Lindsay. Great learning is shown in it. Though written with a special
controversial purpose, and though the facts accordingly are briefly stated,
without literary references, it contains a useful summary and suggestive
reflections.

z In a literary point of view it is incorrect, in one chapter, if the author
understands Mr. Robins rightly, where he seems to classify together, under the
same head of Pantheism, the atheism of the French school of the Encyclopae
dists in the last century and that of the German philosophers of the present. The
two indeed agree in denying or ignoring the existence of a personal God ; but
in tone, premises, and metaphysical relations, they differ diametrically. (Since
this note was written, the sad intelligence of Mr. Robins s death has appeared.)

xxii PREFACE.

teresting; drawn generally from the best sources, and written
in an eloquent style and devout spirit. *

2. The transition is natural from these works, which treat
of the history of unbelief or give lists of the works of unbe
lievers, to the notices of sceptical writers contained in general
histories of the church or of literature.

In this, as in the former case, it is only in modern times
that important notices occur concerning forms of unbelief.
The circumstance that in the early ages unbelief took the
form of opposition or persecution on the part of heathens, and
that in the middle ages it was so rare, caused the ancient
church historians and medieval church chroniclers to record
little respecting actual unbelief, though they give information
about heresy. Even in modern times, it is not till the early
part of the eighteenth century that any attention is bestowed
on the subject. The earlier histories, both Protestant, such
as the Magdeburg Centuriators, and Catholic, like Baronius,
wrote the history of the past for a controversial purpose in
relation to the contests of their own times : and in the next
period, in the one church, Arnold confined himself to the history
of heresy rather than unbelief; and in the other, Fleury and
Tillemont wrote the history of deeds rather than of ideas,
and afford no information, except in a few allusions of the
latter writer to the early intellectual opposition of the
heathens.

But about the middle of the eighteenth century, in the
period of cold orthodoxy and solid learning which imme
diately preceded the rise of rationalism, as well as in that of
incipient free thought, we meet not only with the historians of
theological literature already named above, but with historians
of thought like Brucker, and of the church like Mosheim,

PREFACE. xxiii

possessed of large taste for inquiry, and wide literary sympa
thies, who contribute information on the subject : and towards
the close of the century we find Schrockh, who, in his lengthy
and careful history of the church since the Reformation 2 , has
taken so extensive a view of the nature of church history,
that he has included in it an account of the struggle with
freethinkers. Among the same class, with the exception that
he differs in being marked by rationalist sympathies, must be
ranked Henke a .

In the present century the spread of the scientific spirit,
which counts no facts unworthy of notice, together with the
attention bestowed on the history of doctrine, and the special
interest in understanding the fortunes of free thought, which
sympathy in danger created during the rationalist movement,
prevented the historians from passing lightly over so im
portant a series of facts. It may be sufficient to instance,
in proof, the notices of unbelief which occur in Neander s

z Christliche Kircliengeschichte, &c. 45 vols. 1768-1812. The writer of these
lectures has taken occasion elsewhere (p. 658 ) to deplore the want of any com
plete history of the English church. He may here add also the want of a
history in English of European Christianity since the Reformation.

a It may offer an explanation of subsequent references to some church his
torians, to name the classification given by Schaff (Bibliotheca Sawa, 1850).
After treating of the ancient and mediaeval histories, and making the obvious
subdivision of the modern into Romish and Protestant, and subdividing these
again according to their nations, he arranges the Protestant historians of Ger
many chronologically under five classes : (i) the Polemico-orthodox, such as
the Magdeburg centuriators ; (2) the Pietistic, Arnold and Weismann ;

(3) the Pragmatico-supernatural, Mosheim, Walch, Planck, Schrockh ;

(4) the Rationalist, Semler, Henke, Gieseler (in reference to which latter he is
perhaps hardly fair) ; (5) the Scientific, viz. (a) of the Schleiermacher school,
Neander ; () of the Hegelian, unchurchlike and heterodox, Baur ; (7) of the
Hegelian, churchlike and orthodox, Dorner. Concerning older church his
torians, see the late Rev. J. G. Bowling s excellent work, Introduction to the
Critical Study of Ecclesiastical History, 1 838 ; and, on the most modern German
church historians, see North British Review, Nov. 1858.

xxiv PREFACE.

Church History. General histories also of literature, like
Schlosser s History of Literature in the Eighteenth Century, or
the more theological one of Hagenbach (Geschichte des i8 n
Jahrhunderts) incidentally afford information.

The various works just named are the chief of this class
which furnish assistance.

3. After a general preliminary idea of the history has
been obtained from these sources, in order to prevent being
confused with details; it is necessary to resort next to the
original sources of information, without careful study of which
the history must lack a real basis.

In reference to the early unbelievers, the direct materials
are lost ; but the contemporary replies to these writings
remain. In the case of later unbelievers, both the works and
the answers to them exist. It will be presumed that in so
large a subject the writer cannot have read all the sceptical
works which have been written, and are here named. With
the exception however of Averroes and of the Paduan school b ,
in which cases he has chiefly adopted second-hand informa
tion, and merely himself consulted a few passages of the ori
ginal writers, he has in all other instances read the chief works
of the sceptical writers, sufficiently at least to make himself
acquainted with their doubts, and in many cases has even
made an analysis of their works. The reader will perceive by
the foot-notes the instances in which this applies.

It may be due to some of the historians who have made
a special study of particular periods from original sources, to
state, that so far as his limited experience extends he can bear
witness to their exactness. Lechler s work on English deism,
for example^ is a singular example of truthful narrative;

b Lecture III. pp. 139-145.

c Geschichte des Enylischen Deism us, 1841.

PREFACE. xxv

and Lelan&lt;Ts d , though controversial, is worthy of nearly the
same praise.

4. There remains a fourth source of materials in the separate
monographs on particular men, opinions, or schools of thought.
We shall enumerate these according to the order of the lec
tures; dwelling briefly on the majority of them, as being
described elsewhere ; and describing at greater length those
only which relate to the history of the theological movements
in Germany described in Lectures VI. and VII. ; inasmuch
as references are there frequently made to these works without
a specific description of their respective characters.

In relation to the early struggle of Paganism against
Christianity 6 , the work of Lardner, Collection of Ancient Jewish
and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion
(17647) (Works, vols. vii ix), is well known for careful
ness of treatment and the value of its references. Portions
also of the works of J. A. Fabricius, especially his Bibliotheca
Graca and Lux Evanyelii (1732) are useful in reference to
the lost works, and for bibliographical knowledge : also a
monograph by Kortholt, Paganus Obtrectator (1703), on the
objections made by Christians in the early ages, gathered
from the Apologies.

Among recent works it is only necessary to specify one,
viz. the second series of the Histoire de I Eglise Chretienne,
by E. de Pressense (1861), containing La Grande Lutte du
Christianisme contre le Paganisme, the account of the struggle
both of deeds and ideas on the part of the heathens against
Christianity, and of the apology of the Christians in* reply.

d J.Leland s View of the Deistical Writers, 1754. An edition published in
1837 contains an account of the subsequent history of Deism by Cyrus B.
Edmonds. It is edited by Dr. W. L. Brown.

e Lecture II.

xxvi PREFACE.

The sketches of the arguments used both by the heathens,, as
recovered from fragments, and by the Christian apologists, are
most ably executed. The frequent references to it in the
foot-notes will show the importance which the writer attaches
to this work 6 .

The long period of the middle ages, together with early
modern f history, so far as the latter bears upon the present
subject, is spanned by the aid of four works; Cousin s Memoir
on Abelard (1836) ; the La Reforme of Laurent (1861), a pro
fessor at Ghent; the Averroes of E. Renan (1851), one of the
ablest among the younger writers of France ; and the Essais
de Philosophic Religieuse of E. Saisset (1859) All these works
are full of learning; some of them are works of mind as
well as of erudition. Cousin s treatise is well known s, and
may be said to have reopened the study of mediaeval philoso
phy. The contents of Laurent s work are specified else
where h . That of Renan, besides containing a sketch of the
life and philosophy of Averroes, studies his influence in the
three great spheres where it was felt, the Spanish Jews, the
Scholastic philosophers, and the Peripatetics of Padua. The
work of Saisset is a most instructive critical sketch on reli
gious philosophy.

The period of English Deism is treated in two works ; the
well-known work of Leland above cited, and the one also
named above by Lechler, now general superintendent at
Leipsic; a work full of information, and exceedingly com
plete ; one of the carefully executed monographs with which
many of the younger German scholars first bring their names

e An older work, in some respects similar to Pressense s, is Tzchirner s
Geschichte der Apoloyctik, \ 805 .

f Lecture III. g g ee p . II4&gt; note

h P. 1 06, note. i Lecture IV.

PREFACE. xxvii

into notice. Though the interest of the subject is limited,
it well merits a translator k .

There is a deficiency of any similar work on the history
of infidelity in France 1 , treating it separately and ex
haustively. The work which most nearly deserves the de
scription is vol. vi. of Henke s Kirchengeschichte. This want
however is the less felt, because almost every portion of the
period has been treated in detail by French critics of various
schools ; among which some of the sketches of Bartholmess,
Histoire Critique des Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophic
Moderne, 1 855 ; and of Damiron, Memoires pour servir a I His-
toire de Philosophic an i8 e siecle n ; are perhaps the most useful
for our purpose. One portion of Mr. Buckle s History of
Civilization, the best written part of his first volume, also
affords much information, in the main trustworthy, in refer
ence to the intellectual condition of France of the same
period .

A description of the events of a period so complex as that of
the German theological movement of the last hundred years P
would have been an object too ambitious to attempt, especially
when it must necessarily, from the size of the subject, be
grounded on an acquaintance with single writers of a school,
or single works of an author used as samples of the remainder;
if it were not that abundant guidance is supplied in the me
moirs by German theologians of all shades of opinion, who
have studied the history of their country, and not only nar
rated facts, but investigated causes. A few narratives of it
also exist by scholars of other countries; but these are founded

k The able French critic C. Re musat has bestowed attention on some of the
English deists. A paper on Shaftesbury has appeared since Lecture IV. was
printed, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Nov. 1862.

1 In Lecture V. m Edited by Vater. n See p. 249, note.

See p. 231, note. P Lectures VI. and VII.

xxviii PREFACE.

on the former. We shall in the main preserve the order of
their publication in enumerating these various works.

The materials for the condition of Germany at the begin
ning of the last century, antecedently to the introduction of
the new influences which created rationalism?, are conveyed in
Weismann, Introductio in Memorabilia Eccl. Hist. (1718), and
in Schrockh, Christliche Kirchengesckichte, (1768-1812). The
first distinct examination however of the peculiar character of
the movement which ensued, called Rationalism, occurred in
the discussion as to its meaning and province ; in which Titt-
mann, Rohr, Staiidlin, Bretschneider, Hahn, &c. were engaged;
an account of which, with a list of their works q , is given under
the explanation of the word " Rationalism" in Note 21. p. 589.
The chief value of these works at present is, partly to enable
us to understand how contemporaries viewed the movement
while in progress; partly to reproduce the state of belief
which existed in the older school of rationalists, and its op
ponents, before the reaction toward orthodoxy had fully
altered theological thought.

Whilst the dispute between rationalism and supernatural-
ism was still going on, and the latter was gradually gaining
the victory, through the reaction under Schleiermacher just
alluded to, an English writer, Mr. Hugh James Rose r , pub
lished some sermons preached at Cambridge in 1825, which
were the means of directing attention to the subject both at
home and abroad, and stimulating investigation into the
history. As this work, and especially the reply of one writer
to it, are often here quoted, it may be well to narrate the

P Lecture VI. p. 301.

i Some of these works were subsequent to the discussion caused abroad by
the sermons of Mr. Rose, described below.

r Afterwards Principal of the King s College, London.

PREFACE. xxix

interesting 1 literary controversy, now forgotten, which ensued
upon its publication.

Mr. Rose described the havoc made by the rationalist spe
culations, alike in dogma, in interpretation, and in church
history, and attributed the evil chiefly to the absence of an
efficient system of internal church government which would
have suppressed such a movement. He was answered (1838)
by Mr. (now Dr.) Pusey, then a junior Fellow of Oriel, who,
having visited Germany, and become acquainted with the forms
of German thought, and the circumstances which had marked
its development, conceived justly that the reasons of a moral
phenomenon like the overthrow of religious faith in Ger
many must be sought in intrinsic causes, and not merely in
an extrinsic cause, such as the absence of efficient means of
ecclesiastical repression. In this work 8 , marked by great
knowledge of the subject, and characterized by just and philo
sophical reflections, the author pointed out an internal law of
development in the events of the history, and traced the ulti
mate cause of the movement to the divorce between dogma
and piety which had characterized the age preceding the rise
of rationalism. His motive for entering the contest was, not
the wish to defend the movement, for his own position was
fixed upon the faith of the creeds ; but seems to have been
partly a love of truth, which did not like to see an imperfect
view of a great question set forth ; and partly the wish to
prevent attention being diverted by Mr. Rose s explanation,
from perceiving the extreme resemblance of the contem
porary time in England to that of the age which preceded
rationalism.

s Historical Inquiry into the Probable Causes of the Rationalist Character
lately predominant in the Theology of Germany.

PREFACE.

To this work Mr. Rose replied in a Letter to the Bishop of
London, misunderstanding- Mr. Pusey s object, and conveying
the impression that he had made himself responsible for the
rationalism which it had been the object of the sermons to
condemn. He felt himself however compelled, in a second
edition of the sermons*, to enter more largely into proofs from
German literature of the position which he had assumed ; and
produced a collection of literary facts, of value in reference to
the movement.

Mr. Pusey replied (1830) with a triumphant vindication
alike of his own meaning, and the truth of his own position".
The work is necessarily less interesting than the former, as it
turns more upon personal questions, and is more polemical ;
but the literary information conveyed is equally valuable.

If we may be permitted to form an opinion concerning the
controversy, it may perhaps be true to say, that Mr. Rose s
fault (if indeed we may say so of one who so worthily re
ceived honour in his generation) was, that he approached the
subject from the polemic and practical instead of the historic
side. His work is like the description of a battle-field, which
gives an idea of the mangled remains that strew the field,
but does not recount the causes of contest, nor the progress
of the action. The work of his opponent describes the mus
tering of the forces preparatory to the action, and the causes
which led to the struggle. Perhaps, in a few matters of
detail, the former writer has taken a truer, though a less
hopeful, view than his opponent, of certain classes of opinions,
or of certain men ; but the latter has better preserved the his
torical perspective. The former saw mainly the old forms of
rationalism, the latter descried the partial return toward the

* 1829. u Historical Inquiry, &e. part ii. 1830.

PREFACE. xxxi

faith which had already begun, and has since gone forward
so energetically x .

These* works must always afford much information on the
topics which they embrace. It is proper however to add,
that Dr. Pusey, some years ago, recalled the remaining copies
of the edition of his work. On this account the writer of
these lectures, when he has had occasion to give references
to it, has taken care not to quote it for opinions, but only for
facts y.

The attack of Mr. Rose on German theology caused re
plies abroad as well as at home. Several German theologians
were led to a more careful study of their own history and
position, to which references will be found in Mr. Rose s
replies z .

Previously to the publication of Dr. Pusey s treatises, a
work had been written with a purpose less directly contro
versial, by Tholuck : Abriss Einer Gesckichte der umwalzung,
welche seit 175* auf dem Gebiete der Theologie in Deutschland
statt gefunden, now contained in his VenmscJite Schriften, 1839,
vol. 2 a . It is valuable for the earlier history of Rationalism.
The spirit of it is very similar to that of Dr. Pusey s work.
Indeed the latter author, though not aware of the publication
of Tholuck s work, was cognisant of his views on these ques
tions, through lectures heard from him abroad.

These works however were all previous to the great agita
tion in German theology, which ensued in consequence of

x P. 340.

y Dr. S. Lee, of Cambridge, also appended a dissertation on some points of
German Rationalism to his Six Sermons on Prophecy, 1830.

z In the Appendix to the second edition of the State of Protestantism in
Germany, 1829.

a A brief sketch of Tholuck s views is given in the Foreign Quarterly Re
view, vol. 25.

PREFACE.

Strauss s Lthfn /&lt; */ , in 1835. After the first excitement of
that event had passed, we meet with three works, two French
and one German, in which the history is brought down to a
later period. The French ones were, the Histoire Critique du
Rationalisme, 184.1, of Amand Saintes, translated 1849 ; and the
Etudes Critiques sur le Rationalisme Contemporain, of the Abbe
H. de Valroger, 1846; the latter of which works the writer
of these lectures has been unable to see. The German one
was, Der Deutsche Protestantismus, 1 847 b , and is attributed to
Hundeshagen, professor at Heidelberg.

The Critical History of Amand Saintes, though thought by
the Germans to be defective, in consequence of want of suf
ficiently separating between the various forms of rationalism,
is more replete than any other book with stores of information,
and extracts arranged in a very clear form d . It is very useful,
if the reader first possesses a better scheme into which to
arrange the materials. It is written also in a truly evangelical
spirit.

The work of Hundeshagen had a political object as well as
a religious. It was composed just before the revolution of
1848, when Germany was panting for freedom; and its object
was to defend the position of the constitutional party in

b Der Deutsche Protestantismus, seine Vergangenheit und seine heutigen Le-
lensfragen in zusammenhang der gesammten rationalentwickelung beleuchtet von
einem Deutschen. A very instructive article was written in the British Quar
terly Review, No. 26, May 1851, founded chiefly on this work.

c Kahnis, Internal History of German Protestantism (E. T.), p. 169, note.

d An English clergyman, Mr. E. H. Dewar, wrote a small work in 1844, on
German Protestantism; based chiefly on Amand Saintes, but in tone like that of
Mr. Rose. It was considered very unfair, and was answered by Neander in the
Jahrbilcher fur Wissenschaftliche KritiTc, October 1844 ; and when Mr. Dewar
replied, was again answered by him in Antwortschreiben, 1845. It may be pro
per to name here, that Mr. B. Hawkins s work, Germany, Spirit of her His
tory, &c. 1838, contains miscellaneous information on many points of German
life, which illustrate this portion of the history.

PREFACE. xxxiii

church and state ; and with a view to establish the import
ance of their moral and doctrinal position, he surveyed the
recent history of his country.

Hagenbach s Dogmengeschichte (translated), which was pub
lished nearly about the same time, also contains a very in
teresting sketch, with valuable notes, of the chief writers and
works in the movement of German theology.

The view of the history given in Tholuck and Hundeshagen
is that which is taken by the school called the " Mediation
school" in German theology e . The general cause assigned
by them for scepticism was the separation of dogma and
piety; the recovery from the rationalistic state being due to
the reunion of these elements, which Hundeshagen shows to
have been also the great feature of the German reformation.

After an interval of about ten years, when the tendencies
created by Strauss s movement had become definitely mani
fest, the history was again surveyed in two works, the one,
Geschichte des Deutschen Protestantismus, by Kahnis (trans
lated 1856), who belongs to the Lutheran reactionary party;
the other, Geschichte der neuesten Theologie 3 i$$6, by C. Schwarz,
whose work is so candid and free from party bias, that it is
unimportant to remark the party to which he belongs f .

The narrative of Kahnis, originally a series of papers in a
magazine, is very full of facts, and generally fair ; but it wants
form. The author s view is, that the sceptical movement
arose from abandoning the dogmatic expression of revealed
truth, contained in the old Confessions of the Lutheran

e P- 393- Neander has also written a work, Geschichte des Verflossenen
halb-Jahrhunderts. (Deutsche Zeitschrift, 1850.)

f He belongs to a new form of the historico-critical school; see Note 41,
p. 620 ; but writes without prejudice. An article elsewhere referred to (p. 10.)
in the Westminster Review, may convey an idea of the facts of Schwarz s work ;
but it expresses a more definite tendency and opinions than his work.

xxxiv PREFACE.

church ; and he considers the reaction of the Mediation school
in favour of orthodoxy to be imperfect ; the true restoration
being- only found by returning to the Confessions.

The work of Schwarz is restricted to the latest forms of
German theology, and goes back no farther than the circum
stances which led to the work of Strauss. It is unequalled
in clearness ; bearing the mark of German exactness and ful
ness, and rivalling French histories in didactic power. These
two works differ from most of those previously named, in
being histories of modern German theology generally, and not
merely of the rationalist forms of it.

Such are the chief sources in which a student may learn the
view taken by the German critics of different schools, con
cerning the recent church history of their country at various
moments of its progress. The fulness of this account will be
excused, if it provide information concerning works to which
reference is made in the foot-notes of those lectures which
treat of this period.

In describing the doubts of the present century in Frances,
considerable help has been found in the Hist, de la Litterature,
&c. written by Nettement h , and in the Essais of Damiron 1 ,
as well as in criticisms by recent French writers ; which are
cited in the foot-notes to the lecture which treats of the period.

The subject of the contemporary doubt in England k has
been felt to be a delicate one. It has however been thought
better to carry the history down to the present time, and to
deal frankly in expressing the writer s own opinion. Delicacy
forbade the introduction of the names 1 of writers into the text

s Lect. VII. p. 408 seq. h P. 408, note.

i Id. k Lect. VIII.

1 As the relation of the present condition of religious belief in England to
forms of philosophy may not have been made perfectly clea r even by the remarks
in Lecture VIII. p. 465 seq., and Note 9, it may be well here to state the

PREFACE. xxxv

of this part of the Sermons, but they have been inserted in
the foot-notes.

The mention of one additional source of information will
complete the examination which was proposed.

It will be observed, that references have been very fre
quently given in the notes, to the Reviews, English and
French, and occasionally German, for papers which treat on
the subjects embraced in the history. When the writer
studied the subject for publication, he took care to consult
these, as affording a kind of commentary by contemporaries on
the different portions of the history. It is hoped that the
references to those written in the two former languages will
be found to be tolerably complete. The enormous number of
those which exist in German, together with the absence for
the most part of indexes to them, renders it probable that
many separate papers of great value, the special studies by dif
ferent scholars of passages in the literary history of their own

sequence intended, even at the risk of repetition. The father of the modern
philosophy is Kant. He first gave the impulse to resolve truth, which was
supposed to be objective, into subjective forms of thought. Hence, in suc
ceeding systems of philosophy, the idea was thought to be of more im
portance than the facts ; and an a priori tendency was created. But in the
two philosophers, Schelling and Hegel, this developed in different modes.
Both sought to approach facts through ideas ; to both the ideal world was the
real : but with the former, truth was absolute ; with the latter, relative. In
the former case the mind was thrown in upon itself, and had a secure ground
of truth in the eternal truths of the reason ; in the latter it was thrown
(ultimately, though not immediately) outward, and taught to trace the tran
sition of the ideas in the world, the growth of truth in history. Hence in
theology, while the tendency of both was to find an appeal for truth inde
pendent of revelation, the one produced an intuitional religion, the other,
proximately, an ideal, but ultimately generates scepticism : for the one clings
to the eternal ideas in the mind, the other views the fleeting, changing
aspects of truth in the world. The spirit of the former is seen in Carlyle,
Coleridge, and Cousin ; the spirit of the latter in Kenan and Scherer, and is
beginning to appear in the younger writers of the English periodical litera
ture. Hence in English theology we have two broadly marked divisions ;
one doctrinal, and the other literary ; the former of which subdivides into the
two just named.

C 2

xxxvi PREFACE.

nation, have been left unenumerated . The German literary
periodicals are indeed the solitary source of information which
the writer considers has not been fully worked for these lec
tures 4 .

Among the articles in English Reviews, many bear marks
of careful study ; and it is a pleasure to have the opportunity
of rescuing them from the neglect which is likely to occur to
papers written without name, and in periodicals. The free-
thinking Reviews have discussed the opinions of the friends of
free thought more frequently than the others ; but those here
cited are of all shades of opinion ; and the writer has found
many to be of great use, even when differing widely from the
conclusions drawn. He is glad indeed to take this opportunity
of expressing his thanks to the unknown authors of these
various productions, which have afforded him so much in
struction, and often so much help. He trusts that he has
in all cases candidly and fully acknowledged his obligations
when he has borrowed their materials, or condensed their
thoughts. If he has in any case, through inadvertence, failed
to do so, he hopes that this acknowledgment will be allowed
to compensate for the unintentional omission.

The reader being now in possession both of the purpose
designed in the lectures, and of the sources of the information
used in their composition, it only remains to add a few mis
cellaneous remarks.

In the delivery of the lectures, several portions were
omitted, on account of the excessive length to which they
would have run. It has not been thought necessary to indi
cate these passages by brackets; but, as those who heard

k Many references to them are given in Smith s (American) Translation of
Hagenbach s Hist, of Doctr. 1862.

PREFACE. xxxvii

them may perhaps wish to have an enumeration, a list is here
subjoined 1 .

The notes, it will be perceived, are placed, some at the foot
of the text, others at the end. Those are put as foot-notes
which either were very brief, or which supplied information
that the reader might be supposed to desire in connection
with the text. Most of those which are appended are of
the same character as the foot-notes; i. e. sources of in
formation in reference to the subjects discussed in the text.
A few however supply information on collateral subjects.
The Notes 4, 5, and 49, will be found to contain a history
of Apologetic Literature parallel with the history of Free
Thought; and Note 21 discusses the history of some technical
terms commonly employed in the history of doubt.

The size of the subject has precluded the possibility of
giving many extracts from other works ; but it may be per
mitted to remark, that the literary references given are de
signed to supply sources of real and valuable information on
the various points in relation to which they are cited. It can
hardly be necessary to state, that the writer must not in any
way be held responsible for the sentiments expressed in the
works to which he may have given references. In a subject
such as that which is here treated, many of the works cited
are neutral in character, and many are objectionable. But
it is right to supply complete literary materials, as well
as references to works which state both sides of the questions
considered.

1 In Lect. I. p. 23 (first half), 49, 50 : in Lect. II. p. 93 : in Lect. III. p.
in (last half), 112, 128, 135, 136 (part); 138, 139 (part) ; 142, 146, 147, 152,
156 (part) : in Lect. IV. p. 169, 172, 174 (part), 198-202 ; 204-207 ; 209 : in
Lect. V. 254-256 ; 259; 276-286 : in Lect. VI. p. 296, 334, 335 (part) ; 353-
366 (nearly all) : in Lect. VII. p. 396 (part) ; 410-425 : in Lect. VIII. p. 432
(part); 437-479 (for*which a brief analysis was substituted); p. 485, 486 (part);
500; 5oi, 506 (part).

xxxviii PREFACE.

The index appended is brief, and devoted chiefly to Proper
Names; the fulness of the Table of Contents seeming to render
a longer one unnecessary, which should contain references to
subjects.

The writer wishes to express his acknowledgments to the
chief Librarian of the Bodleian, the Rev. H. O. Coxe, for his
kindness in procuring for his use a few foreign works which
were necessary. He avails himself also of this opportunity
of expressing publicly his thanks to the same individual, for
the perseverance with which he has accomplished the scheme
of providing a reading-room in connection with the Bodleian
Library, open to students in an evening. Those whose time
and strength are spent in college or private tuition during the
mornings, are thus enabled to avail themselves of the trea
sures of a library, which until this recent alteration was in a
great degree useless to many of the most active minds and
diligent students in the university.

ThanKs are aiso due to a few other persons for their
advice and courtesy in the loan of scarce books; also, in some
instances, for assistance in the verification of a reference" 1 ;
and in one case, to a distinguished scholar, for his kindness
in revising one of the Notes.

The spirit in which the writer has composed the history
has been stated elsewhere n . His work now goes forth with
no extraneous claims on public attention. If it be, by the
Divine blessing, the means of affording instruction, guidance,
or comfort, to a single mind, the writer s labour will be amply
recompensed.

m His thanks are especially due to Mr. Macray, the Librarian of the Taylor
Institution, for his kindness in the last respect.
n PP- 53, 534-

OXFORD, November 28, 1862.

ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES,

LECTURE I.

On the subject, method, and purpose of the course of Lectures.

IHE subject stated to be the struggle of the human mind against
the Christian revelation, in whole or in part. (p. i.) Explanation of
the points which form the occasion of the conflict, (pp. 1-3.)

The mode of treatment, being that of a critical history, includes (pp. 3, 4.)
the discovery of (i) the facts, (2) the causes, and (3) the moral.

The main part of this first lecture is occupied in explaining the second
of these divisions.

Importance, if the investigation were to be fully conducted, of carrying
out a comparative study of religions and of the attitude of the mind
in reference to all doctrine that rests on authority, (pp. 5-8.)

The idea of causes implies,

I. The law of the operation of the causes.

II. The enumeration of the causes which act according to this

assumed law.

I. The empirical law, or formula descriptive of the action of reason on
religion, is explained to be one form of the principle of progress by
antagonism, the conservation or discovery of truth by means of

ANALYSIS OY THE LECTURES. [LECT

inquiry and controversy; a merciful Providence leaving men
responsible for their errors, but ultimately overruling evil for good.

(P- 9-)

This great fact illustrated in the four Crises of the Christian
faith in Europe, viz. In the struggle

(1) With heathen philosophy, about A.D. 160-360. (p. 10.)

(2) With sceptical tendencies in Scholasticism, in the middle

ages (1100-1400). (p. n.)

(3) With literature, at the Renaissance, in Italy (1400-

1625). (p. 12.)

(4) With modern philosophy in three forms (p. 14) : viz.

English Deism in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries (p. 15) ; French Infidelity in the eighteenth
century ; German Rationalism in the eighteenth and
nineteenth.

Proposal to study the natural as well as literary history of these
forms of doubt. The investigation separated from inquiries
into heresy as distinct from scepticism, (p. 17.)

II. The causes, seen to act according to the law just described,
which make free thought develope into unbelief, stated to be
twofold (p. 1 8) :

i. Emotional causes. Necessity for showing the relation of the
intellectual causes to the emotional, both per se, and because
the idea of a history of thought, together with the comparative
rarity of the process here undertaken, implies the restriction
of the attention mainly to the intellectual, (p. 18.)

Influence of the emotional causes shown, both from psycho
logy and from the analysis of the nature of the evidence
offered in religion (pp. 19, 20). Historical illustrations of
their influence, (pp. 21-23.)

Other instances where the doubt is in origin purely intel
lectual (p. 24), but where nevertheless opportunity is seen
for the latent operation of the emotional, (p. 25.)

Explanation how far religious doubt is sin. (pp. 26, 27.)

LECT. I.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. xli

2. Intellectual causes, which are the chief subject of these
lectures ; the conjoint influence however of the emotional
being always presupposed.

The intellectual causes shown to be (p. 28) :

(a) the new material of knowledge which arises from the
advance of the various sciences ; viz. Criticism ;
Physical, Moral, and Ontological science, (p. 29.)

(/3) the various metaphysical tests of truth or grounds
of certitude employed, (p. 30.)

An illustration of the meaning (p. 31), drawn from litera
ture, in a brief comparison of the types of thought
shown in Milton, Pope, and Tennyson.
Statement of the exact position of this inquiry in the
subdivisions of metaphysical science (pp. 33, 34),
and detailed explanation of the advantages and
disadvantages of applying to religion the tests of
Sense, subjective Forms of Thought, Intuition, and
Feeling, respectively, as the standard of appeal.
(PP- 35-44-)

Advantage of a biographic mode of treatment in the inves
tigation of the operation of these causes in the history
of doubt, (pp. 45-48.)
Statement of the utility of the inquiry :

(1) Intellectually, (a) in a didactic and polemical point of view, in
that it refers the origin of the intellectual elements in error
to false philosophy and faulty modes of judging, and thus
refutes error by analysing it into the causes which produce
it; and also (|8) in an indirect contribution to the Christian
evidences by the historic study of former contests, (p. 50.)

(2) Morally, in creating deep pity for the sinner, united with

hatred for the sin. (p. 51.)

Concluding remarks on the spirit which has influenced the writer in
these lectures, (pp. 52, 53.)

x lii ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. II.

LECTURE II.

The literary opposition of Heathens against Christianity in the

early ages.

The first of the four crises of the faith, (pp. 54~ IO 3-) Agreement
and difference of this crisis with the modern, (pp. 55, 56.) Sources for
ascertaining its nature, the original writings of unbelievers being lost.

(PP. 57&gt; 580

Preliminary explanation of four states of belief among the heathens
in reference to religion, from which opposition to Christianity would
arise : (pp. 59-166.) viz.

(1) the tendency to absolute disbelief of religion, as seen in Lucian

and the Epicurean school, (pp. 59, 60.)

(2) a reactionary attachment to the national creed, the effect of

prejudice in the lower orders, and of policy in the educated,
(pp. 63, 64.)

(3) the philosophical tendency, in the Stoics, (p. 62.) and Neo-

Platonists ; (pp. 63, 64.)

(4) the mystic inclination for magic rites, (p. 65.)

Detailed critical history of the successive literary attacks on Christ
ianity, (p. 67 seq.)

1. that of Lucian, about A. D. 170, in the Peregrinus Proteus.

(pp. 67-70.)

2. that of Celsus, about the same date. (pp. 70-77.)

3. that of Porphyry, about 270. (pp. 78-86.)

4. that of Hierocles about 303, founded on the earlier work of

Philostratus respecting the life of Apollonius of Tyana.
(pp. 86-90.)

5. that of Julian, A. D. 363 ; an example of the struggle in deeds as

well as in ideas, (pp. 90-96.)
(Account of the Philopatris of the Pseudo-Lucian. (p. 94.)

Conclusion; showing the relation of these attacks to the intellectual
tendencies before mentioned (p. 97.), and to the general intellectual causes

LECT. III.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. xliil

sketched in Lect. I. (p. 98.) Insufficiency of these causes to explain the
whole phenomenon of unbelief, unless the conjoint action of emotional
causes be supposed, (pp. 99, 100.)

Analogy of this early conflict to the modern. Lessons from considera
tion of the means by which the early Church repelled it. (pp. 101-103.)

LECTURE III.

Free Thought during the middle ages, and at the Renaissance ;
together with its rise in modern times.

This period embraces the second and third of the four epochs of
doubt, and the commencement of the fourth. Brief outline of the
events which it includes, pp. 104, 105.

Second crisis, from A. D. 1100-1400. pp. 105-128. It is a struggle
political as well as intellectual, Ghibellinism as well as scepticism, p. 106.
The intellectual tendencies in this period are four :

1. The scepticism developed in the scholastic philosophy, as seen in

the Nominalism of Abelard in the twelfth century.
Account of the scholastic philosophy, pp. 107-112 : and of Abelard
as a sceptic in his treatise Sic et Non. (pp. 112-119.)

2. The mot of progress in religion in the Franciscan book called The

Everlasting Gospel in the thirteenth century, (pp. 119-121.)

3. The idea of the comparative study of religion, as seen in the legend

of the book De Tribus Impostoribus in the thirteenth century ;
and in the poetry of the period, (pp. 122-124.)

4. The influence of the Mahometan philosophy of Averroes in

creating a pantheistic disbelief of immortality, (pp. 125-127.)
Remarks on the mode used to oppose these movements ; and critical
estimate of the period, (pp. 127, 128.)

Third crisis, from 1400-1625. (pp. 129-147.) Peculiarity of this period
as the era of the Renaissance and of " Humanism," and as the transition
from medieval society to modern, (pp. 129, 130.)

Xliv ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. IV.

Two chief sceptical tendencies in it :

(1) The literary tendency in Tuscany and Rome in the fifteenth

century; the dissolution of faith being indicated by

(a) the poetry of the romantic epic. (pp. 131, 132.)

(b) the revival of heathen tastes, (pp. 133, 134.)

Estimate of the political and social causes likely to generate
doubt, which were then acting, (pp. 135-137.) The unbelief
was confined to Italy. Reasons why so vast a movement as
the Reformation passed without fostering unbelief, (p. 138.)

(2) The philosophical tendency in the university of Padua in the

sixteenth century, (p. 139 seq.)

The spirit of it, pantheism (p. 140.), in two forms ; one
arising from the doctrines of Averroes ; the other seen in
Pomponatius, from Alexander of Aphrodisias (p. 141.) The
relation of other philosophers, such as Bruno and Vanini,
to this twofold tendency, (pp. 143-145.)

Remarks on the mode used to oppose doubt (p. 146.); and estimate
of the crisis, (p. 147.)

Fourth crisis; (pp. 147-479.) commencing in the seventeenth century,
through the effects of the philosophy of Bacon and Descartes, (p. 148.)

The remainder of the lecture is occupied with the treatment of the
influence of Cartesianism, as seen in Spinoza.

Examination of Spinoza s philosophy (pp. 149-154.); of his criticism
in the Theologico-Politicus (pp. 153-158.); and of his indirect influence,
(pp. 159, 160.)

Concluding remarks on the government of Providence, as witnessed
in the history of large periods of time, such as that comprised in this
lecture, (pp. 161, 162.)

LECTURE IV.

Deism in England previous to A. D. 1760.

This lecture contains the first of the three forms which doubt has
taken in the fourth crisis, (p. 163.) Sketch of the chief events, political
and intellectual, which influenced the mind of England during the seven-

LECT. IV.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. xlv

teenth century (p. 164.); especial mention of the systems of Bacon and
Descartes, as exhibiting the peculiarity that they were philosophies of
method, (pp. 165, 166.)

The history of Deism studied :

I. Its rise traced, 1640-1700. (pp. 167-175.)

In this period the religious inquiry has a political aspect, as seen

(1) in Lord Herbert of Cherbury (De Veritate and Eeligio

Laid) in the reign of Charles I. (pp. 167-9.)

(2) In Hobbes s Leviathan, (pp. 170-2.)

(3) In Blount (Oracles of Reason, and Life of Apollonius),

in the reign of Charles II., in whom a deeper poli
tical antipathy to religion is seen. (pp. 173-5.)

II. The maturity of Deism (1700-1740.) pp. 175-202. This period in

cludes (p. 179.) :

1. The examination of the first principles of religion, on its

doctrinal side, in Toland s Christianity not Mysterious,
&c. (pp. 178-183.)

2. Ditto, on its ethical side, in Lord Shaftesbury. (pp. 183-5.)

3. An attack on the external evidences, viz.

On prophecy, by Collins, Scheme of Literal Prophecy , &c.
(pp. 186-191.)

On miracles, by Woolston, Discourses on Miracles, (pp.
191-194.); and by Arnobius. (p. 202.)

4. The substitution of natural religion for revealed,

inTindal, Christianity as old as the Creation, (pp. 194-7.)

in Morgan, Moral Philosopher, (pp. 197-9.)

and in Chubb, Miscellaneous Works, (pp. 200, i.)

III. The decline of Deism, 1740-1760. (pp. 203-216.) :

1. in Bolingbroke, a combined view of deist objections.

(pp. 202-7.)

2. in Hume, an assault on the evidence of testimony,

which substantiates miracles, (pp. 207-16.)

Remarks on the peculiarities of Deism, the intellectual causes which
contributed to produce it (pp. 217-19.); and a comparison of it with the
unbelief of other periods, (p. 220.)

xlvi ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. V.

Estimate of the whole period ; and consideration of the intellectual and
spiritual means used for repelling unbelief in it (pp. 221-8.); the former
in the school of evidences, of which Butler is the type, the mention of
whom leads to remarks on his Analogy (pp. 221-5.); and the latter in
spiritual labours like those of Wesley, (pp. 226-8.)

LECTURE V.

Infidelity in France, in tlie eighteenth century ; and unbelief in
England subsequent to 1760.

INFIDELITY IN FRANCE (pp. 229-273). This is the second phase of
unbelief in the fourth crisis of faith.

Sketch of the state of France, ecclesiastical, political (pp. 231-3), and
intellectual (partly through the philosophy of Condillac, pp. 233, 5),
which created such a mental and moral condition as to allow unbelief
to gain a power there unknown elsewhere. The unbelief stated to be
caused chiefly by the influence of English Deism, transplanted into the
soil thus prepared (p. 286).

The history studied (i) in its assault on the Church; as seen in Vol
taire : the analysis of whose character is neces
sary, because his influence was mainly due to
the teacher, not the doctrine taught, (pp. 238-
48).

(2) in the transition to an assault on the State, in
Diderot, (pp. 251, 3); the philosophy of the
Encyclopaedists, (pp. 248 50); Helvetius
(p. 254); and D Holbach. (p. 255, 6.)

(3) in the attack on the State, in Rousseau (pp. 257-
64,) Analysis of the Emile for his views on reli
gion, (pp. 260, i), and comparison with Voltaire
(p. 264).

LECT. VI.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. xlvii

(4) in the Revolution, both the political move
ment and blasphemous irreligion (pp. 265-7);
and the intellectual movement in Volney (Ana
lysis of the Ruines, pp. 269, 70).

Estimate of the period (pp. 271-3).

UNBELIEF IN ENGLAND, from 1760 to a date a little later than the
end of the century (pp. 273-95), continued from Lecture IV.

These later forms of it stated to differ slightly from the former, by
being partially influenced by French thought, (p. 274.)

The following instances of it examined :

(1) Gibbon viewed as a writer and a critic on religion

(pp. 275-80).

(2) T. Paine : account of his Age of Reason (pp. 280-83).

(3) The socialist philosophy of R. Owen (pp. 284, 5).

(4) The scepticism in the poetry of Byron and Shelley (pp.

286-91).

The last two forms of unbelief, though occurring in the
present century, really embody the spirit of the last.

Statement of the mode used to meet the doubt in England during
this period. Office of the Evidences (pp. 291-95).

LECTURE VI.

Free Thought in the Theology of Germany, from 1750-1835.

This is the third phase of free thought in that which was called the
fourth crisis of faith. Importance of the movement, which is called
"rationalism," as the theological phase of the literary movement of
Germany (pp. 296, 97). Deviation from the plan previously adopted,
in that a sketch is here given of German theological inquiry generally,
and not merely of unbelief (p. 297).

Brief preliminary sketch of German theology since the Reformation.
Two great tendencies shown in it during the seventeenth century
(p. 298).

(1) The dogmatic and scholastic, science without earnestness (p. 299).

(2) The pietistic, earnestness without science (p. 300).

xlviii ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. VI.

In the first half of the eighteenth century, three new influences are
introduced (p. 301), which are the means of creating rationalism in the
latter half : viz.

(a) The philosophy of Wolff, explained to be a formal
expression of Leibnitz s principles; and the evil
effect of it, accidental and indirect (pp. 301-5).
0) The works of the English deists (p. 305, 6).
(y) The influence of the colony of French infidels at the
court of Frederick II. of Prussia (p. 306).

The subsequent history is studied in three periods (p. 307): viz.

PERIOD I. (i75o-r8io). Destructive in character, inaugurated
by Semler (pp. 308-31).

PERIOD II. (1810-1835). Reconstructive in character, inaugu
rated by Schleiermacher (pp. 331-368).

PERIOD III. (1835 to present time). Exhibiting definite and
final tendencies, inaugurated by Strauss (Lect. vii).

PERIOD I. (1750-1810), is studied under two Sub-periods :

Sub-period I. (1750-1790, pp. 309-321), which includes three move
ments ;

(i) Within the Church (p. 309 seq.) ; dogmatic; literary in
Michaelis and Ernesti; and freethinking in Semler (pp.
311-16), the author of the historic method of inter
pretation.

(2) External to the church (pp. 316-19); literary deism in

Lessing, and in the Wolfenbiittel fragments of Rei-
marus (p. 318).

(3) External to the church ; practical deism, in the educa

tional institutions of Basedow (p. 320).

Sub-period II. (1790-1810, pp. 321-30); the difference caused by the
introduction of two new influences; viz.

(a) The literary, of the court of Weimar and of the great
men gathered there (p. 321, 22).

0) The philosophy of Kant, (the effect of which is ex
plained, pp. 323, 24); the home of both of which
was at Jena.

LECT. VI.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES.

As the result of these new influences, three movements are visible in
the Church (p. 325); viz.

(1) The critical "rationalism" of Eichhorn and Paulus, the

intellectual successors of Semler (pp. 326-28).

(2) The dogmatic, more or less varying from orthodoxy, seen

towards the end of this period in Bretschneider, Rbhr,
and Wegscheider (pp. 329, 30).

(3) The supernaturalism of Reinhard and Storr (p. 326).

PERIOD II. (1810-1835.) Introduction of four new influences
(p. 332.), which completely altered the theological tone; viz.

(a) New systems of speculative philosophy; of Jacobi,
who followed out the material element of Kant s
philosophy (pp. 332); and of Fichte, Schelling,
and Hegel, who followed out \he formal (p. 336).

(j3) The " romantic" school of poetry (pp. 337, 38.)

(y) The moral tone, generated by the liberation wars of

1813- (P- 339-)
(8) The excitement caused by the theses of Harms at

the tercentenary of the Reformation in 1817.

(PP- 339. 40.)
The result of these is seen (p. 341) in

(1) An improved doctrinal school under Schleiermacher

(pp. 341-53); (description of his Glaubenslehre, p. 346
seq.); and under his successors, Neander, &c. (pp.
353-56.)

(2) An improved critical tone (p. 356 seq.), as seen in De

Wette and Ewald, which is illustrated by an explana
tion of the Pentateuch controversy (p. 359-64.)

Concluding notice of two other movements to be treated in the next
lecture, (p. 366) ; viz.

(1) an attempt, different from that of Schleiermacher, in the school of

Hegel, to find a new philosophical basis for Christianity; and

(2) the return to the biblical orthodoxy of the Lutheran church.

Remarks on the benevolence of Providence in overruling free inquiry
to the discovery of truth, (pp. 366-8.)

ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. VII,

LECTURE VII.

Free Thought in Germany subsequently to 1835 ; and in France
during the present century.

FREE THOUGHT IN GERMANY (continued.) History of the transition
from Period II. named in the last lecture, to Period III. (pp. 369-86.)

Explanation of the attempt, noticed pp. 341, 366, of the Hegelian school
to find a philosophy of Christianity. Critical remarks on Hegel s system,
(PP- 37 -75) 5 its tendency to create an " ideological " spirit in religion,
(pp. 372, 373): the school which it at first formed is seen best in
Marheinecke. (p. 374.)

The circumstance which created an epoch in German theology was the
publication of Strauss s Leben Jesu in 1835, (p. 375)- Description of it
(a) in its critical aspect, (pp. 376, 380), whch leads to an explanation
of the previous discussions in Germany concerning the origin and credi
bility of the Gospels (pp. 377, 378); and (0) in its philosophical, as related
to Hegel, (p. 381) ; together with an analysis of the work, (p. 382.) State
ment of the effects produced by it on the various theological parties,
(pp. 383-850

PERIOD III. As the result of the agitation caused by Strauss s work,
four theological tendencies are seen; viz.

(1) One external to the church, thoroughly antichristian, as in

Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach, and Stirner. (pp. 386-90.)

(2) The historico-critical school of Tubingen, founded by Chr.

Baur. (pp.39-93-)

(3) The " mediation " school, seen in Dorner and Rothe. (pp.

393-97-)

(4) A return to the Lutheran orthodoxy, (pp. 398-402,) at first

partly created by an attempt to unite the Lutheran and Re
formed churches, (p. 398) ; seen in the " Neo-Lutheranism"
of Hengstenberg and Havernick, (p. 398), and the " Hyper-
Lutheranism" of Stahl and the younger members of the
school, (pp. 399, 401.)

LECT. VII.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. 11

Mention of the contemporaneous increase of spiritual life in Germany.

(p. 402.)

Concluding estimate of the whole movement, (pp. 403-5) ; and lessons
for students in reference to it. (pp. 406, 407.)

FREE THOUGHT IN FRANCE during the present century, (pp. 408-30,)
(continued from Lect. IV. p. 273.)

In its tone it is constructive of belief, if compared with that of the
eighteenth century.

From 1800-1852.

The speculative thought has exhibited four distinct forms, (p. 408.)

(1) The ideology of De Tracy, in the early part of the century.

(2) The theological school of De Maistre, &c. to re-establish the

dogmatic authority of the Romish church.

(3) Socialist philosophy, St. Simon, Fourier, Comte.

(4) The Eclectic school (Cousin, &c.)

Remarks on the first school. The recovery of French philosophy
and thought from the ideas of this school, partly due to the lite
rary tone of Chateaubriand, (pp. 409, 10.)

Influence of the Revolution of 1830 in giving a stimulus to thought,
(p. 410.)

Remarks on the third school. Explanation of socialism as taught
by St. Simon (pp. 411-13); as taught by Fourier (pp. 413,414);
and difference from English socialism, (p. 415.)

Positivism, both as an offshoot of the last school, and in itself as
a religion and a philosophy, (pp. 416-18.)

Remarks on the fourth school. Eclecticism as taught by Cousin,
viewed as a philosophy and a religion, (pp. 418-21.)

Remarks on the second school ; viewed as an attempt to refute the
preceding schools, (pp. 422, 23.)

From 1852-1862.

New form of eclecticism under the empire (p. 425) ; viz. the historic
method, based on Hegel, as Cousin s was based on Schelling. E. Renan
the type. (pp. 426-28.)

Free thought in the Protestant church (pp. 429, 30) regarded as an
attempt to meet by concession doubts of contemporaries.

Hi ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. VIII.

LECTURE VIII.

Free Thought in England in the present century : Summary of the

Course of Lectures : and Inferences in reference to present

dangers and duties.

MODERN UNBELIEF IN ENGLAND (continued from Lect. V.) : Intro
ductory remarks on the alteration of its tone, (pp. 43 1 ~33-) Tne cause f
which is stated to be a general one, the subjective tone created (p. 434) by
such influences as, (i) the modern poetry (p. 435), and (2) the two great at
tempts by Bentham and Coleridge to reconstruct philosophy, (pp. 436, 7.)

The doubt and unbelief treated in the following order (p. 438) :

(1) That which appeals to Sensational experience and to Physical

science as the test of truth; viz.

(a) Positivism among the educated (pp. 439, 40) ;

(/3) Secularism or Naturalism among the masses (pp. 441,

442) ; and in a minor degree,
(y) The doubts created by Physical science (p. 443.)

(2) That which appeals to the faculty of Intuition (p. 444) ; ex

pressed in literature, by Carlyle, (pp. 445-47); and by the
American, Emerson, (p. 447.)
(Influence also of the modern literature of romance, (pp. 448, 449.)

(3) Direct attacks on Christianity, critical rather than philosophical :

viz.

(a) The examination of the historic problem of the develop
ment of religious ideas among the Hebrews, by R.W.
Mackay (pp. 45-5 2

(/3) A summary of objections to revelation, by Mr. Greg,
The Creed of Christendom (p. 453, 4.)

(y) The examination of the psychical origin of religion and
Christianity, by Miss S. Hennell, Thoughts in aid
of Faith, (p. 455.)

(4) The deism, and appeal to the Intuitional consciousness, expressed

by Mr. Theodore Parker (p. 458-60); and Mr. F. Newman
(pp. 460-64.)

LECT. VIII.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. liii

(5) The traces of free thought within the Christian church (p. 465) ;
viz.

(a) The philosophical tendency which originates with Cole
ridge, (pp. 465-71.)

(/3) The critical tendency, investigating the facts of revela
tion, (pp. 471-4.)
(y) ,, ,, the literature which

contains it. (p. 474-76.)

This completes the history of the fourth crisis of faith (p. 478), the
history of which began near the end of Lect. III. at p. 147.

SUMMARY of the course of lectures, (pp. 479-82). Recapitulation of
the original purpose, which is stated to have been, while assuming the
potency of the moral, to analyse the intellectual causes of doubt, which
have been generally left uninvestigated.

Refutation of objections which might be made ; such as

(1) One directed against the utility of the inquiry (p. 482.)

(2) against its uncontroversial character.

A critical history shown to be useful in the present age, (i) in an edu
cational point of view for those who are to be clergymen, and to encounter
current forms of doubt by word or by writing (pp. 483-6) ; and (2) in a
controversial point of view, by resolving the intellectual element in many
cases of unbelief into incorrect metaphysical philosophy; the value of
which inquiry is real, even if such intellectual causes be regarded only
as the conditions, and not the causes, of unbelief, (pp. 486, 7.)

Further objections anticipated and refuted in reference (3), "to the candour
of the mode of inquiry, and the absence of vituperation which is stated not
to be due to indifference to Christian truth, but wholly to the demands of
a scientific mode of treatment (p. 488.); (4) to the absence of an eager
advocacy of any particular metaphysical theory; which is 1 due to the cir
cumstance that the purpose was to exhibit errors as logical corollaries
from certain theories, without assuming the necessary existence of these
corollaries in actual life. (p. 489); (5) to the insufficiency of the causes
enumerated to produce doubt without taking account of the moral causes;
which objection is not only admitted, but shown to be at once the peculiar
property which belongs to the analysis of intellectual phenomena, and
also a witness to the instinctive conviction that the ultimate cause of
belief and unbelief is moral, not intellectual ; which had been constantly
assumed, (pp. 489, 90.)

liv ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. VIII.

THE LESSONS derived from the whole historical survey, (p. 490 seq.)

I. What has been the office of doubt in history ? (p. 490.)

Opposite opinions on this subject stated, (p. 491.) Examination
of the ordinary Christian opinion on the one hand, which regards
it as a mischief (p. 491), and of Mr. Buckle s on the other, which
regards it as a good. (p. 492.)

1. The office is shown to be, to bring all truths to the test. (p. 492.)
Historical instances of its value in destroying the Roman
catholic errors, (p. 493.)

2. Free inquiry also shown in some cases to be forced on man
by the presentation of new knowledge, which demands consi
deration, (pp. 494, 5.) Denial of the statement that the doubts
thus created are an entire imitation of older doubt, (p. 496.)

3. The office of it in the hands of Providence to elicit truth by
the very controversies which it creates; (p. 497.) the responsi
bility of the inquirer not being destroyed, but the overruling
providence of God made visible, (p. 498.)

II. What does the history teach, as to the doubts most likely to present
themselves at this time, and the best modes of meeting them ?
(p. 498.)

The materials shown to be presented for a final answer to these
questions, (p. 499.)

The probability shown from consideration of the state of the
various sciences, mechanical, physiological (p. 500), and
mental (p. 501), that no new difficulties can be suggested
hereafter, distinct in kind from the present ; nor any unknown
kinds of evidence presented on behalf of Christianity.

Analogy of the present age as a whole, in disintegration of belief,
to the declining age of Roman civilization, (pp. 502, 3.)

The doubts which beset us in the present age stated to be chiefly
three (p. 504) ; viz.

i. The relation of the natural to the supernatural.

This doubt is sometimes expressed in a spirit of utter unbelief;
sometimes in a tone of sadness (p. 505), arising from mental
struggles, of which some are enumerated (pp. 505, 6). The
intellectual and moral means of meeting these doubts, (p. 507.)

LECT. VIII.] ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. Iv

2. The relation of the atoning work of Christ to the human
race. (p. 508.) Explanation of the defective view which would
regard it only as reconciling man to God, and would destroy
the priestly work of Christ; and statement of the modes in
which its advocates reconcile it with Christianity, (p. 509.)
The importance that such doubts be answered by reason, not

merely silenced by force, (p. 510.)

An answer sought by studying the various modes used in
other ages of the church (p. 511); especially by those who
have had to encounter the like difficulties, e. g. the Alexan
drian fathers in the third century, and the faithful in Ger
many in the present, (pp. 512, 13.)

This method shown to have been to present the philosophical
prior to the historical evidence, in order to create the sense
of religious want, before exhibiting Christianity as the
divine supply for it. (p. 513.)

In regard to the historic evidence, three misgivings of the
doubter require to be met for his full satisfaction (p. 517);
viz.

(a) The literary question of the trustworthiness of the

books of the New Testament.

The mode of meeting this explained, with the possibility
% of establishing Christian dogmas, even if the most

extravagant rationalism were for argument s sake con
ceded, (p. 518.)

(/3) The doubt whether the Christian dogmas, and
especially the atonement, are really taught in the New
Testament. The value of the fathers, and the progress
of the doctrine in church history, shown in reference
to this question, (p. 519.)

(y) The final difficulty which the doubter may put,
whether even apostolic and miraculous teaching is to
overrule the moral sense, (p. 520.)

The possibility shown of independent corroboration of
the apostolic teaching, in the testimony of the living
church, and the experience of religious men. (p. 523, 4.)
The utter improbability of error in this part of scriptural
teaching, even if the existence of error elsewhere were
for argument s sake conceded, (p. 522.)

i ANALYSIS OF THE LECTURES. [LECT. VIII.

Difference of this appeal from that of Schleiermacher to

the Christian consciousness.
3. The relation of the Bible to the church, whether it is a

record or an authority, (p. 525.)
Statement of the modes of viewing the question in different

ages. (p. 526.)

The Bible an authority; but the importance shown of using
wisdom in not pressing the difficulties of scripture on an
inquirer, so as to quench incipient faith, (p. 527, 8.)

The mention of the emotional causes of doubt conjoined with the
intellectual, a warning that, in addition to all arguments, the help
of the divine Spirit to hallow the emotions must be sought and
expected, (pp. 529, 30.)

Final lesson to Christian students, that in all ages of peril, earnest
men have found the truth by the method of study united to
prayer, (p. 530-4.)

NOTES APPENDED,

LECTURE I.

Note 1. Subdivisions of Historical Inquiry page 537

2. The comparative study of Religions 539

3. Zend and Sanskrit Literature 540

4. The Controversy between Christians and Jews 544

5. The Contest of Christianity with Mahometanism 549

6. Unitarianism 554

7. Classification of Metaphysical Inquiries 556

8. Quotation from Guizot on Prayer 559

9. On the modern view of the historical method in Philosophy 560

LECTURE II.

10. Neo-Platonism 564

11. The Pseudo-Clementine Literature 565

12. The absence of references to Christianity in Heathen writers

of the second century 565

13. The Peregrinus Proteus of Lucian 568

14. The work of Celsus 569

l v iii NOTES APPENDED.

Note 15. The charges against Christians, and causes of persecution,

in the second century P a g e 57 I

16. Modern criticism on the book of Daniel 575

17. The Reply of Eusebius to Hierocles 577

18. The Philopatris of the Pseudo-Lucian 57 8

1 9. The work of Julian against Christianity 579

LECTURE III.

20. The Legendary Book "De Tribus Impostoribus" 582

LECTURE IV.

21. On some technical terms in the History of Unbelief,

viz. Infidel, Atheist, Pantheist, Deist, Naturalist, Free
thinker, Rationalist, Sceptic 5^4

22. Woolston s " Discourses on Miracles" 594

LECTURE V.

23. The literary coteries of Paris in the eighteenth century 596

24. The term Ideology 597

25. The works of Dr. Geddes 59 8

26. The works of Dr. Conyers Middleton 599

LECTURE VI.

27. On Pietism in Germany in the seventeenth century 600

23. Classification of Schools of Poetry in Germany 60 1

29. The Wolfenbiittel Fragments 602

NOTES APPENDED. lix

Note 30. Schleiermacher s early studies page 605

31. Schleiermacher s works 606

32. On some German Critical Theologians ; De Wette, Ewald,

&c , 608

33. The name Jehovah 609

34. The use of the names of Deity in the composition of Hebrew

proper names . , 610

LECTURE VII.

35. The Hegelian Philosophy 61 1

36. The Christology of Strauss 613

37. The writings of Strauss 614

38. The replies to Strauss 615

39. The Tubingen School 616

40. The Theologian Rothe 617

41. The most modern Schools of Philosophy and Theology in

Germany 619

4$. Table exhibiting a classification of German Theologians ... 621

43. The modern Theology of Switzerland and Holland 626

44. The Eclectic School of France (Cousin) 629

45. The Catholic reactionary School of France (De Maistre). . . 631

46. The modern School of Free Thought in the Protestant

Church of France 632

LECTURE VIII.

47. Modern opinions with respect to Mythology 635

48. The office of the External and Internal branches of Evidence 636

49. The History of the Christian Evidences 637

50. On the History of the doctrine of Inspiration 667

ERRATA.

Page 64, note, for Boodhism read Buddhism.

78. 1 13, for introduction to the Organon, it would be more correct

to write, introduction to the Categories.
1 1 1, note, for Prolog, read Proslog.
113, and following pages, for Abelard read Abdlard.
285, note, for Brough read Burgh.
299, 305, note, for Sainte s read Saintes .
299, note, for Schrb ch read Schrb ckh.
317. 1. 12, for Mendelsohn read Mendelssohn.
358. 1. 12, for Wolff read Wolf.

LECTURE I.

ON THE SUBJECT, METHOD, AND PURPOSE OF THE COURSE
OF LECTURES.

LUKE xii. 5.

wse ye that I am come to give peace on earth ? I tell you&gt;
but rather division.

A HE present course of lectures relates to one of
the conflicts exhibited in the history of the Church ;
viz. the struggle of the human spirit to free itself
from the authority of the Christian faith.

Christianity offers occasion for opposition by its
inherent claims, independently of accidental causes.
For it asserts authority over religious belief in virtue
of being a supernatural communication from God, and
claims the right to control human thought in virtue
of possessing sacred books which are at once the
record and the instrument of this communication,
written by men endowed with supernatural inspira
tion. The inspiration of the writers is transferred to

2 LECTUKE I.

the books, the matter of which, so far as it forms the
subject of the revelation, is received as true because
divine, not merely regarded as divine because per
ceived to be true. The religion, together with the series
of revelations of which it is the consummation, differs
in kind from ethnic religions, and from human philoso
phy ; and the sacred literature differs in kind from
other books. Each is unique, a solitary miracle of its
class in human history. The contents also of the
sacred books bring them into contact with the efforts
of speculative thought. Though at first glance they
might seem to belong to a different sphere, that of
the soul rather than the intellect, and to possess a
different function, explaining duties rather than dis
covering truth ; yet in deep problems of physical or
moral history, such as Providence, Sin, Reconciliation,
they supply materials for limiting belief in the veiy
class of subjects which is embraced in the compass of
human philosophy.

A conflict accordingly might naturally be antici
pated, between the reasoning faculties of man and a
religion which claims the right on superhuman
authority to impose limits on the field or manner of
their exercise ; the intensity of which at various
epochs would depend, partly upon the amount of
critical activity, and partly on the presence of causes
which might create a divergence between the current
ideas and those supplied by the sacred literature.

The materials are wanting for detecting traces of
this struggle in other parts of the world than Europe ;

LECTURE I. 3

but the progress of it may be fully observed in Eu
ropean history, altering concomitantly with changes
in the condition of knowledge, or in the methods of
seeking it ; at first as an open conflict, philosophical
or critical, with the literary pagans, subsiding as
Christianity succeeded in introducing its own concep
tions into every region of thought ; afterwards re
viving in the middle ages, and gradually growing more
intense in modern times as material has been offered
for it through the increase of knowledge or the
activity of speculation ; varying in name, in form, in
degree, but referable to similar causes, and teaching
similar lessons.

It is the chief of these movements of free thought
in Europe which it is my purpose to describe, in their
historic succession and their connexion with intellec
tual causes.

We must ascertain the facts ; discover the causes ;
and read the moral. These three inquiries, though
distinct in idea, cannot be disjoined in a critical his
tory. The facts must first be presented in place and
time : the history is thus far a mere chronicle. They
must next be combined with a view to interpretation.
Yet in making this first combination, taste guides
more than hypothesis. The classification is artistic
rather than logical, and merely presents the facts
with as much individual vividness as is compatible
with the preservation of the perspective requisite in
the general historic picture. At this point the artis
tic sphere of history ceases, and the scientific com-

B 2

4 LECTURE I.

mences as soon as the mind searches for any regu
larity or periodicity in the occurrence of the facts,
such as may be the effect of fixed causes. If an em
pirical law be by this means ascertained to exist, an
explanation of it must then be sought in the higher
science which investigates mind. Analysis traces out
the ultimate typical forms of thought which are mani
fested in it ; and if it does not aspire to arbitrate on
their truth, it explains how they have become grounds
on which particular views have been assumed to be
true. The intellect is then satisfied, and the science
of history ends. But the heart still craves a further
investigation. It demands to view the moral and
theological aspects of the subject, to harmonize faith
and discovery, or at least to introduce the question of
human responsibility, and reverently to search for the
final cause which the events subserve in the moral
purposes of providence. The drama of history must
not develope itself without the chorus to interpret its
purpose. The artistic, the scientific, the ethical,
these are the three phases of history. (1)

The chief portion of the present lecture will be de
voted to explain the mode of applying the plan just
indicated ; more especially to develope the second of
these three branches, by stating the law which has
marked the struggle of free thought with Christi
anity, and illustrating the intellectual causes which
have been manifested in it.

In searching for such a law, or such causes, we
ought not to forget that, if we wished to lay a sound

LECTURE I. 5

basis for generalization, it would be necessary not to
restrict our attention to the history of Christianity,
but to institute a comparative study of religions,
ethnic or revealed, in order to trace* the action of
reason in the collective religious history of the race.
Whether the religions of nature be regarded as the
distortion of primitive traditions, or as the spon
taneous creation of the religious faculties, the agree
ment or contrast suggested by a comparison of them
with the Hebrew and Christian religions, which are
preternaturally revealed, is most important as a means
of discovering the universal laws of the human mind ;
the exceptional character which belongs to the latter
member of the comparison increasing rather than
diminishing the value of the study. All alike are
adjusted, the one class naturally and accidentally,
the other designedly and supernaturally, to the
religious elements of human nature. All have a
subjective existence as aspirations of the heart, an
objective as institutions, and a history which is
connected with the revolutions of literature arid
society. (2)

Comparative observation of this kind gives some
approach to the exactness of experiment ; for we
watch providence as it were executing an experi
ment for our information, which exhibits the opera
tions of the same law under altered circumstances.
If, for example, we should find that Christianity
was the only religion, the history of which pre
sented a struggle of reason against authority, we

LECTURE L

should pronounce that there must be peculiar ele
ments in it which arouse the special opposition ;
or if the phenomenon be seen to be common to all
creeds, but to vary in intensity with the activity of
thought and progress of knowledge, this discovery
would suggest to us the existence of a law of the
human mind.

Such a study would also furnish valuable data for
determining precisely the variation of form which al
teration of conditions causes in the development of
such a struggle. In the East, the history of religion,
for which material is supplied by the study of the
Zend and Sanskrit literature, (3) would furnish ex
amples of attempts made by philosophers to find a
rational solution of the problems of the universe, and
to adjust the theories of speculative thought to the
national creed deposited in supposed sacred books.
And though, in a western nation such as Greece, the
separation of religion from philosophy was too wide
to admit of much parallel in the speculative aspect
of free thought, yet in reference to the critical,
many instances of the application of an analogous
process to a national creed may be seen in the ex
amination made of the early mythology, the attempt
to rationalize it by searching for historical data in it,
or to moralize it by allegory a . Again, within the
sphere of the Hebrew religion, which, though super-

a The attitude of the mind towards the national mythology in
successive ages of Greek history has been treated by Grote, History
of Greece, vol. I. eh. 16.

LECTURE I. 7

naturally suggested, developed in connexion with
human events so as to admit the possibility of the
rise of mental difficulties in the progress of its his
tory, how much hallowed truth, both theoretical and
practical, might be learned from the divine breathings
of pious inquirers, such as the sacred authors of the
seventy- third Psalm, or of the books of Job and Ec-
clesiastes, which give expression to painful doubts
about Providence, not fully solved by religion, but
which nevertheless faith was willing to leave unex
plained 1 . If in the Oriental systems free thought is
seen to operate on a national creed by adjusting it to
new ideas through philosophical dogmatism ; if in the
Greek by explaining it away through scepticism ; in

b See Quinet s (Euvres, t. i. c. 5., and especially 4. On the doubts
expressed in the books of Job and Ecclesiastes respectively, see the ar
ticle Job byHengstenberg in Kitto s Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature,
(reprinted in a volume of Hengstenberg s miscellaneous works), and
the article Ecclesiastes by Mr. Plumptre in Smith s Dictionary of the
Bible. For the free-thinking inquiry into the two books, see the
article on Job in the Westminster Review, October 1853, founded
mainly on Hirzel ; and that on Ecclesiastes in the National Review,
No. 27, for January 1862, founded chiefly on Hitzig. E. Kenan, in
his work on Job, and others, have studied the doubts expressed in it
as an internal evidence for its date. Very full information in refer
ence to both books may be found in Dr. S. Davidson s Introd. to
the Old Testament (1862), vol. ii. p. 174 seq., 352 seq. It is deeply
interesting to observe, not merely that the difficulties concerning
Providence felt by Job refer to the very subjects which painfully
perplex the modern mind, but also that the friends of Job exhibit
the instinctive tendency which is observed in modern times to de
nounce his doubt as sin, not less than to attribute his trials to evil
as the direct cause. These two books of Scripture, together with
the seventy- third Psalm, have an increasing religious importance as
the world grows older. " The things written aforetime were written
for our learning."

8 LECTURE I.

the Hebrew it is hushed by the holier logic of the
feelings. The two former illustrate steps in the
intellectual progress of free thought ; the last ex
hibits the moral lesson of resignation and submission
in the soul of the inquirer.

Nor ought this method of comparison to be laid
aside even at this point. It would be requisite,
for a full discovery of the intellectual causes, that
the generalization should be carried further, and the
operations of free thought watched in reference to
other subjects than religion . Reason in its action,
first on Christianity both in Europe and elsewhere,
secondly on Jewish and heathen religions, lastly on
any body of truth which rests on traditional au
thority, these would be the scientific steps neces
sary for eliminating accidental phenomena, and dis
covering the real laws which have operated in this
branch of intellectual history. The suggestion of
such a plan of study, though obviously too large to
be here pursued, may offer matter of thought to re
flective minds, and may at least help to raise the
subject out of the narrow sphere to which it is
usually supposed to belong. The result of the survey
would confirm the view of the struggle now about to
be given which is suggested by European history.

c Attention, for example, should be directed to the efforts of the
mind in emancipating itself, (i) from particular forms of political
government, or social arrangements, or artificial laws, in the struggle
against the feudal system, and in the development of political liberty
in modern times, or (2) from traditional systems of scientific teaching,
as the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy, or the Cartesian of vortices.
The absence too of such attempts in the stagnation of Eastern life is
an instructive negative instance for study.

LECTURE I. 9

When any new material of thought, such as a new
religion which interferes with the previous standard
of belief, is presented to the human mind ; or when
conversely any alteration in the state of knowledge
on which the human mind forms its judgment, im
parts to an old established religion an aspect of oppo
sition which was before unperceived ; the religion is
subjected to the ordeal of an investigation. Science
examines the doctrines taught by it, criticism the
evidence on which they profess to rest, and the litera
ture which is their expression. And if such an inves
tigation fail to establish the harmony of the old and
the new, the result takes two forms : either the total
rejection of the particular religion, and sometimes
even of the supernatural generally, or else an eclec
ticism which seeks by means of philosophy to dis
cover and appropriate the hidden truth to which the
religion was an attempt to give expression.

The attack however calls forth the defence. Ac
cordingly the result of this action and reaction is
to produce scientific precision, either apologetic or
dogmatic, within the religious system, and scepticism
outside of it ; both reconstructive in purpose, but
the former defensive in its method, the latter de
structive. The elements of truth which exist on both
sides are brought to light by the controversy, and
after the struggle has passed become the permanent
property of the world.

These statements, which convey a general expres
sion for the influence of free thought in relation to
religion, are verified in the history of Christianity.

10 LECTURE 1

There are four epochs at which the struggle of
reason against the authority of the Christian religion
has been especially manifest, each characterised by
energy and intensity of speculative thought, and ex
hibiting on the one hand partial or entire unbelief,
or on the other a more systematic expression of Chris
tian doctrine ; epochs in fact of temporary peril, of
permanent gain d .

In the first of these periods, extending from the se*
cond to the fourth century, Christianity is seen in anta
gonism with forms of Greek or Eastern philosophy, and
the existence is apparent of different forms of scepticism
or reason used in attack. The very attempt of the Alex
andrian school of theology to adjust the mysteries of
Christianity and of the Bible to speculative thought,
by a well meant but extravagant use of allegorical in
terpretation, is itself a witness of the presence or pres
sure of free thought. The less violent of the two forms
of unbelief is seen in the Gnostics, the rationalists of
the early Church, who summoned Christianity to the
bar of philosophy, and desired to appropriate the por
tion of its teaching which approved itself to their ec
lectic tastes; the more violent kind in the rejection of

d It is proper to express my obligations for a few hints in this part
of the lecture to an able historic sketch of modern German thought,
based on the Geschichte der neuesten Theologie of C. Schwartz, in the
Westminster Review, April 1857 (especially p. 333). The enume
ration of the epochs which follows nevertheless occurred to me for
the most part independently of those suggestions, and had been
previously expressed in public. A classification of a different kind
will be found in Reimannus Historia Atheismi, 1725, p. 315.

LECTURE I. 11

Christianity as an imposture, or in the attempts made
to refer its origin to psychological causes, on the part
of the early enemies of Christianity, Celsus and Ju
lian, prototypes of the positive unbelievers of later
times. The Greek theology, which embodied the
dogmatic statements in which the Christian Church
under the action of controversy gave explicit expres
sion to its implicit belief, is the example of the stimu
lus which the pressure of free thought gave to the
use of reason in defence.

As we pass down the course of European history,
the Pagan literature which had suggested the first
attack disappears : but as soon as the elements of
civilization, which survived the deluge that over
whelmed the Roman empire, had been sufficiently
consolidated to allow of the renewal of speculation, a
repetition of the contest may be observed.

The revived study of the Greek philosophers, and of
their Arabic commentators introduced from the Moor
ish universities of Spain, with the consequent rise of
the scholastic philosophy in the twelfth and thir
teenth centuries, furnished material for a renewal of
the struggle of reason against authority, a second
crisis in the history of the Church. The history of it
becomes complicated by the circumstance that free
thought, in the process of disintegrating the body of
authoritative teaching, now began to assume on several
occasions a new shape, a kind of incipient Protestant
ism. Doubting neither Christianity nor the Bible, it
is seen to challenge merely that part of the actual re-

12 LECTUKE I.

ligion which, as it conceived, had insinuated itself from
human sources in the lapse of ages. Accordingly, the
critical independence of Nominalism, in a mind like
that of Abelard, represents the destructive action of
free thought, partly as early Protestantism, partly as
scepticism; while the series of noted Realists, of which
Aquinas is an example, that tried anew to adjust faith
to science, and thus created the Latin theology,
represents the defensive action of reason. The im
parting scientific definition to the immemorial doc
trines of the Church constituted the defence.

In the later middle ages, however, philosophy gra
dually succeeded in emancipating itself so entirely
from theology, that when the Renaissance came, and
a large body of heathen thought was introduced into
the current of European life by means of ancient
literature, a third crisis occurred. The independence
passed into open revolt, and, fostered by political
confusion and material luxury, expressed itself in a
literature of unbelief.

The mental awakening which had commenced in
art and extended to literature paved the way for a
spiritual awakening. The Reformation itself, though
the product of a deep consciousness of spiritual need,
an emancipation of soul as well as mind, is never
theless a special instance of the same dissolution of
mediaeval life, and must therefore be regarded as be
longing to the same general movement of free
thought, though not to that sceptical form of it
which comes within the field of our investigation.

LECTURE I. 13

For Protestantism, though it be scepticism in respect
of the authority of the traditional teaching of the
Church, yet reposes implicitly on an outward authority
revealed in the sacred books of holy Scripture, and
restricts the exercise of freedom within the limits
prescribed by this authority ; whereas scepticism
proper is an insurrection against the outward authority
or truth of the inspired books, and reposes on the un-
revealed, either on consciousness or on science. The
one is analogous to a school of art which desires to
reform itself by the use of ancient models ; the other
to one which professes to return to an unassisted
study of nature. The spiritual earnestness which
characterized the Reformation prevented the changes
in religious belief from developing into scepticism
proper ; and the theology of the Reformation is ac
cordingly an example of defence and reconstruction
as well as of revulsion.

During the century which followed, mental ac
tivity found employment in other channels in con
nexion with the political struggles which resulted
from the religious changes. But the seventeenth
age was another of those epochs which form crises
in the history of the human mind. The recon
struction at that time of the methods on which
science depends, by Bacon from the empirical side,
by Descartes from the intellectual, created as great a
revolution in knowledge as the Renaissance had pro
duced in literature, or the Reformation in religion ;
and a body of materials was presented from which

14 LECTURE I.

philosophers ventured to criticise the Bible and the
dogmatic teaching of the Church. This fourth great
period of free thought, which extends to the present
time, has been marked by more striking events than
former ones e . Though the movement relates to a
similar sphere, the history is rendered more complex
by union with literature, and connexion as cause or
effect with social changes, as well as by the reciprocal
operation of its influence in different countries. Lan
guage, which is always a record of opinion, popular
or scientific f , classifies the forms of this last great
movement of free thought under three names, viz.
Deism in England in the early part of the eighteenth
century ; Infidelity in France in the latter part of it ;
and Rationalism in Germany in the nineteenth ;

e The author (supposed to be Hundeshagen) of Der Deutsche Pro-
testantismus thus expresses himself ( 6.) : "In the history of the
world there are four successive periods in which open unbelief and
unconcealed enmity to Christianity made the tour in some degree
among the chief nations of Europe. Italy made the beginning in
the fifteenth and sixteenth century ; England and France followed
in the seventeenth and eighteenth ; the series closed in Germany in
the nineteenth." The first of the four crises in our text occurred in
the ancient world ; the second is mediaeval ; the third, at the moment
of transition into the modern history, is the Italian crisis of the
quotation just cited j the three others therein named make up the
fourth in our enumeration.

f On the office of language, and the changes to which it is liable,
consult the chapter on the " Natural History of the variations in the
meaning of terms," in J. S. Mill s Logic (vol. ii. b. 4. ch. 5.) An
explanation of many of the terms which occur in the history oi
doubt, viz. Deism, nationalism, &c. will be found in Note 21. al
the end of these Lectures.

LECTUKE I. 15

movements which exhibit characteristics respectively
of the three nations, and of their intellectual and
general history. English Deism, the product of the
reasoning spirit which was stimulated by political
events, directed itself against the special revelation
of Christianity from the stand-point of the religion
of natural reason, and ran a course parallel with
the gradual emancipation of the individual from the
power of the state. French infidelity, breathing the
spirit of materialist philosophy, halted not till it
brought its devotees even to atheism, and mingled
itself with the great movements of political revolu
tion, which ultimately reconstituted French society.
German Rationalism, empirical or spirituals, in two
parallel developments, the philosophical and the lite
rary, neither coldly denied Christianity with the
practical doubts of the English deists, nor flippantly
denounced it as imposture with the trenchant and
undiscriminating logic of the French infidels ; but
appreciating its beauty with the freshness of a
poetical genius, and regarding it as one phase of the
religious consciousness, endeavoured, by means of
the methods employed in secular learning, to col
lect the precious ideas of eternal truth to which
Christianity seemed to it to give expression, and by
means of speculative criticism to exhibit the literary
and psychological causes which it supposed had over
laid them with error.

" Empirical," as in Lessing and Paulus ; " Spiritual," as in the
later schools. See Lect. VI. and VII.

10 LECTURE I.

Nor has the activity of reason used in defence
been less manifest in these later movements. The
great works on the Christian evidences are the wit
ness to its presence ; and the deeper and truer ap
preciation of Christianity now shown in every coun
try, and the increasing interest felt in religion, are
the indirect effect, under the guidance of divine Pro
vidence, of the stirring of the religious apprehension
by controversy 11 .

We have thus at once exhibited the province
which will be hereafter investigated in detail, and
stated the general law observable in the conflict
between free thought and Christianity. The type
reappears, perpetuated by the fixity of mind, though
the form varies under the force of circumstances.
Christianity being stationary and authoritative,
thought progressive and independent, the causes
which stimulate the restlessness of the latter inter
rupt the harmony which ordinarily exists between
belief and knowledge, and produce crises during
which religion is re-examined. Disorganization is
the temporary result ; theological advance the sub
sequent. Whatever is evil is eliminated in the con
flict ; whatever is good is retained. Under the over
ruling of a beneficent Providence, antagonism is
made the law of human progress.

The restriction of our inquiry to the consideration

h A brief view of the history of the Christian evidences will be
found in Note 49 appended to these Lectures.

LECTURE I. 17

of the free action of reason will cause our attention
to be almost entirely confined to the operation of
reason in its attack on Christianity, to the neglect
of the evidences which the other office of it has pre
sented in defence ; and will also exclude altogether
the study of struggles, where the opposition to
Christianity has rested on an appeal to the authority
of rival sacred books ; such for example as the con
flict with rival religions like the Jewish (4) or Ma
hometan (5) ; as well as of heresies which, like the
Socinian (6), claim, however unjustly, to rest on the
authority of the Christian revelation.

The law thus sketched of this struggle needs
fuller explanation. We must employ a more exact
analysis to gain a conception of the causes which
have operated at different periods to make free
thought develop into unbelief.

It will be obvious that the causes must depend,
either upon the nature of the Christian religion,
which is the subject, or of the mind of man, which
is the agent of attack. The former were touched
upon in the opening remarks of this lecture, and
may be reconsidered hereafter 1 ; but it is necessary
to gain a general view of the latter before treating
them in their application in future lectures.

These causes, so far as they are spiritual and dis
connected from admixture with political circum
stances, may be stated to be of two kinds, viz. intel-

i Viz. toward the close of Lect. VIII.
C

18 LECTURE I.

lectual and moral; the intellectual explaining the
types of thought, the moral the motives which have
from time to time existed k . The actions, and ge
nerally the opinions of a human being, are the com
plex result arising from the union of both. Yet the
two elements, though closely intertwined in a con
crete instance, can be apprehended separately as ob
jects of abstract thought; and the forms of manifesta
tion and mode of operation peculiar to each can be
separately traced.

In a history of thought, the antagonism created
by the intellect rather than by the heart seems
the more appropriate subject of study, and will
be almost exclusively considered in these lectures.
Nevertheless a brief analysis must be here given of
the mode in which the moral is united with the
intellectual in the formation of opinions. This is the
more necessary, lest we should seem to commit the
mistake of ignoring the existence or importance of
the emotional element, if the restriction of our point

k The moral causes of unbelief have been frequently discussed,
but the intellectual rarely. Van Mildert has collected, in his Boyle
Lectures (note to Lect. XXIV.), references to many valuable authors
where the moral sins of pride and impiety are discussed ; and J. A.
Fabricius (Delect. Argument. 1725.) has devoted a chapter to the
literature of the subject (c. 36. p. 653.) Dr. Ogilvie wrote in 1783
a separate work on the causes of the recent unbelief; but the causes
alleged by him, though well treated in the details, are superficial.
A satisfactory discussion of this and cognate topics connected with
unbelief is given in a popular but instructive book, Infidelity, its
aspects, causes, and agencies, a Prize Essay (1853) of the Evangelical
Alliance, by the Rev. T. Pearson, Eyemouth, N.B.

LECTURE I. 19

of view to the intellectual should hereafter prevent
frequent references to it.

The influence of the moral causes in generating
doubt, though sometimes exaggerated, is nevertheless
real. Psychological analysis shows that the emotions
operate immediately on the will, and the will on the
intellect. Consequently the emotion of dislike is
able through the will to prejudice the judgment, and
cause disbelief of a doctrine against which it is
directed 1 . Nor can we doubt that experience con
firms the fact. Though we must not rashly judge
our neighbour, nor attempt to measure in any par
ticular mind the precise amount of doubt which is
due to moral causes, yet it is evident that where a
freethinker is a man of immoral or unspiritual life,
whose interests incline him to disbelieve in the
reality of Christianity, his arguments may reason
ably be suspected to be suggested by sins of cha
racter, and by dislike to the moral standard of the
Christian religion, and, though not on this account
necessarily undeserving of attention, must be watched
at every point with caution, in order that the emo
tional maybe eliminated from the intellectual causes.

It is also a peculiarity belonging to the kind of
evidence on which religion rests for proof, that it
offers an opportunity for the subtle influence of
moral causes, where at first sight intellectual might
seem alone to act. For the evidence of religion is

1 Compare some remarks on this point in Whateley s Rhetoric
(parts, ch. i. 2.)

C 2

20 LECTURE I.

probable, not demonstrative ; and it is the property of
probable evidence that the character and experience
determine the comparative weight which the mind
assigns in it to the premises n V In demonstrative
evidence there is no opportunity for the intrusion of
emotion; but in probable reasoning the judgment
ultimately formed by the mind depends often as
much upon the antecedent presumptions brought
to the investigation of the subject, as upon the actual
proofs presented ; the state of feeling causing a
variation in the force with which a proposition
commends itself to the mind at different times. The
very subtlety of this influence, which requires careful
analysis for its detection, causes it to be overlooked.
Accordingly, in a subject like religion, the emotions
may secretly insinuate themselves in the preliminary
step of determining the weight due to the premises,
even where the final process of inference is purely
intellectual.

We can select illustrations of this view of the
subtlety of the operation of prejudice from in-

m Proof being of two kinds, viz. antecedent probability,
(Arist. Rhet. i. 2. 15.) which shows the cause; and evidence,
which shows the fact ; it is clear that the latter, if of the positive
kind, TfKfirjpiov, is demonstrative ; but if merely of the probable kind,
or of the nature of circumstantial evidence, av&wnov o^/xeioi/, re
quires the antecedent probability in addition for the purpose of
effecting conviction. Otherwise the evidence may seem to be an
accidental concatenation of circumstances, unless explained by the
antecedent probability that existed for the occurrence of the main
fact which the accumulation of circumstances is adduced to attest.

LECTUEE I. 21

stances of a kind unlike the one previously named ;
in which it will be seen that the disinclination of the
inquirer to accept Christianity has not arisen pri
marily from the obstacle caused by the enmity of
his own carnal heart, but from antipathy toward the
moral character of those who have professed the
Christian faith.

Who can doubt, that the corrupt lives of Christians
in the later centuries of the middle ages, the avarice
of the Avignon popes, the selfishness shown in the
great schism, the simony and nepotism of the Roman
court of the fifteenth century, excited disgust and
hatred toward Christianity in the hearts of the lite
rary men of the Renaissance, which disqualified them
for the reception of the Christian evidences ; or that
the social disaffection in the last century in France in
censed the mind against the Church that supported
alleged public abuses", until it blinded a Voltaire from
seeing any goodness in Christianity ; or that the reli-
ligious intolerance shown within the present century
by the ecclesiastical power in Italy drove a Leopardi

n See below, the commencement of Lect. V. ; and on the influ
ence of social disaffection in causing modern unbelief, see Pearson s
Infidelity, part 2. ch. 3. p. 373 seq.

Giacomo Leopardi (1798 1837), a native of the trans-Apennine
Roman states. His works were published (1845 49)&gt; consisting
of philological pieces, poems, papers on philosophy, and letters.
The Italians consider him to have been a prodigy in philological
power that might have rivalled Niehbuhr. As a poet he was one
of the finest of his country in the present century. His letters are
very classical, in expression, and have been said to rival the corre-

22 LECTURE I.

and a Bini p into doubt ; or that the sense of sup
posed personal wrong and social isolation deepened
the unbelief of Shelley 1 and of Heinrich Heine r ?
Whatever other motives may have operated in these
respective cases, the prejudices which arose from
the causes just named, doubtless created an ante
cedent impression against religion, which impeded
the lending an unbiassed ear to its evidence.

spondence of the best ages of Italy. His fine mind was darkened
with the deepest shades of doubt. Shelley is the nearest English
representative. A masterly sketch of his mental and literary cha
racter was given in the Quarterly Review (No. 172. March 1850),
generally supposed to be from the pen of an English statesman well
known for his knowledge of the Italian literature and his sympathy
with constitutional government.

P Carlo Bini (1806 1842), a native of Tuscany of less note, who
belonged to the Eepublican party in politics, and like Leopardi
burned with an unquenchable love of la patria. A monument with
an inscription by his friend Mazzini has been recently erected over
his grave at Livorno. The tender pathos shown in his poetry has
been compared to that of Jean Paul. One of his poems, L Anniver-
sario della Nascita 1833, expressive of deep and afflicting scepticism
and life-weariness, will be found in the Collection of Italian Poetry
edited by Arrivabene (i vol. i2mo. 1855.)

&lt;l Shelley s mental character is discussed near the close of Lect. V.

r Heinrich Heine (1799 1856), a poet who betook himself to
Paris, about 1830, in disgust with the political state of Germany.
His poetry was chiefly subsequent to this event. He had a mixture
of German imagination with French esprit. In tone he has been
compared to Byron. Vapereau (Diction, des Contemp.) compares his
wit to that of Swift or Rabelais. His collected works have been
published at Philadelphia ; and his poems were translated into Eng
lish by E. A. Bowring, 1861. In later life Heine laid aside the ex
treme unbelief of his earlier years. An article respecting him ap
peared in the Westminster Review (Jan, 1856.)

LECTUEE I. 23

The subtlety of the influence in these instances
makes them the more instructive. If, as we contem
plate them, our sympathies are so far enlisted on the
side of the doubters that it becomes necessary to
check ourselves in exculpating them, by the conside
ration that they were responsible for failing to sepa
rate the essential truth of Christianity from the acci
dental abuse of it shown in the lives of its professors,
we can imagine so much the more clearly, how
great was the danger to these doubters themselves
of omitting the introspection of their own characters
necessary for detecting the prejudice which actually
seemed to have conscience on its side ; and can
realize more vividly from these instances the secresy
and intense subtlety of the influence of the feelings
in the formation of doubt, and infer the necessity of
most careful attention for its discovery in others, and
watchfulness in detecting it in our own hearts.

There are other cases of doubt, however, where
the influence of the emotional element, if it operates at
all, is reduced to a minimum, and the cause accord
ingly seems almost wholly intellectual. This may
happen when the previous convictions of the mind
are shaken by the knowledge of some fact newly
brought before its notice ; such as the apparent con
flict between the Hebrew record of a universal
deluge 8 and the negative evidence of geology as to

8 A brief statement of the difficulties raised on this point is given
by Professor Baden Powell in the article Deluge in Kitto s Cyclo
paedia (first edition).

24 LECTUEE I.

its non-occurrence ; or the historical discrepancies
between the books of Kings and Chronicles 1 ; or the
varying accounts of the genealogy and resurrection
of Christ. A doubt purely intellectual in its origin
might also arise, as we know was the case with the
pious Bengel", in consequence of perceiving the
variety of readings in the sacred text ; or, as in many
of the German critics, from the difficulty created by
the long habit of examining the classical legends and
myths, in satisfying themselves about the reasons
why similar criticism should not be extended to the
early national literature of the Hebrews. Causes
of doubt like these, which spring from the advance
of knowledge, necessarily belong primarily to the

1 These discrepancies formed part of the subject of an early work
of De Wette (ueber die glaubwuerdigkeit der buecher der Chronik
1806), and are noticed in his Einleitung ins Alt. Test. (See the
chapters which refer to these books) ; also in Dr. S. Davidson s In
troduction to the Old Testament 1862, vol. ii. Chronicles 6 and 8.
Mr. F. Newman, in his work, The Hebrew Monarchy, has made great
use of these difficulties for destructive criticism. Movers (Unter-
suchungen ueber die Chronik 1834), and C. F. Keil (Apologetischer
Versuch ueber die Chronik 1833), endeavour to remove them. Also
see the translation of the Commentary of Keil and Bertheau on
Kings and Chronicles, the former of the two being based on the work
of the same author previously named.

u J. A. Bengel (1689 1752), author of the Gnomon of the New
Testament (translated, with Life prefixed to vol. iv.) Cfr. also the
article by Hartmann in Herzog s Realen-Encyclopcedie and Burt s
Life of him (translated 1837.) The labour of his life, to fix the text
of the New Testament, was prompted by the alarm which his pious
mind felt at the uncertainty thrown on the sacred books, the inspira
tion of which he believed to extend to the words.

LECTUEE I. 25

intellectual region. The intellect is the cause and
not merely the condition of them. But there is room
even here for an emotional element ; and the state of
heart may be tested by noticing whether the mind
gladly and proudly grasps at them, or thoughtfully
weighs them with serious effort to discover the truth.
The moral causes may reinforce or may check the
intellectual : but the distinctness of the two classes
is apparent. Though co-existing and interlocked,
they may be made subjects of independent study.

The preceding analysis of the relations of the moral
and intellectual faculties in the formation of religious
opinions might enable us to criticise the ethical in
ferences drawn in reference to man s responsibility
for his belief. Those who think that our characters,
moral and intellectual, are formed for us by circum
stances, are consistent in denying or depreciating
responsibility x . There is a danger however among
Christian writers of falling into the opposite error,

x The denial of responsibility for belief may either be a denial of
all responsibility whatever, in consequence of the opinion that our
characters are formed for us by circumstances, or else a denial of
our responsibility for our belief, as distinct from our responsibility
for the agreement of our conduct with our belief ; the moral respon
sibility, according to this view, lying in our adherence to a standard,
irrespective of the truthfulness of the standard. The former of these
views is the fatalism advocated in the system called (English) Social
ism (See Morell s History of Philosophy, i. 472 seq.); the latter has
occasionally been imputed to teachers of the utilitarian school of
Ethics, perhaps with less justice ; their assertions in reference to it
being intended to apply only to political and not to moral responsi
bility.

26 LECTURE I.

of dwelling so entirely on the moral causes, in forget-
fulness of the intellectual, as to teach not only that
unbelief of the Christian religion is sin, (which few
would dispute,) but that even transient doubt of it is
sinful ; and thus to repel unbelievers by imputing to
them motives of which their consciences acquit them.
A truth however is contained in this opinion, though
obscured by being stated with exaggeration, mas-
much as the fact is overlooked that doubts may be
of many different kinds. Sinfulness cannot, for ex
ample, be imputed to the mere scepticism of inquiry,
the healthy critical investigation of methods or
results ; nor to the scepticism of despair, which, hope
less of finding truth, takes up a reactionary and mys
tical attitude &gt; ; nor to the cases (if such can ever be,)
of painful doubt, perhaps occasionally even of partial
unbelief, which are produced exclusively by intellec
tual causes without admixture of moral ones. This
variety of form should create caution in measuring
the degree of sinfulness involved in individual cases
of doubt. Yet the inclination to condemn in such in
stances contains the fundamental truth, that the moral
causes are generally so intertwined with the intellec
tual in the assumption of data, if not in the process

y Such an attitude of mind, for example, was presented in the
seventeenth century by Huet, and in the present by De Maistre.
On the former, see Bartholmess Le Scepticisme Theologique (1852);
for reference to sources for the study of the latter, see Lect. VII. Con
sult Morell s History of Philosophy (vol. ii. ch. 6. 2) for the history
of this kind of philosophical scepticism.

LECTURE I 27

of inference, that there is a ground for fearing that
the fault may be one of will not of intellect, even
though undetected by the sceptic himself. And a con
scientious mind will learn the practical lesson of exer
cising the most careful self-examination in reference
to its doubts, and especially will use the utmost cau
tion not to communicate them needlessly to others.
The Hebrew Psalmist, instead of telling his painful
misgivings, harboured them in God s presence until
he found the solution 2 . The delicacy exhibited in for
bearing unnecessarily to shake the faith of others is a
measure of the disinterestedness of the doubter. " If
I say, I will speak thus ; behold I should offend
against the generation of thy children."

These remarks will enable us to estimate the man
ner and degree in which the emotions may, consci
ously or unconsciously, influence the operations of the
intellect in reference to religion ; and will clear the
way for the statement of that which is to form the
special subject of study in these lectures, the nature
and mode of operation of the intellectual causes, and
the forms of free thought in religion to which they
may give rise. This branch is frequently neglected,
because satisfying the intellect rather than the heart,
indicating tendencies rather than affording means to
pronounce judgment on individuals ; yet it admits of
greater certainty, and will perhaps in some respects
be found to be not less full of instruction, than the
other.

z Psalm Ixxiii. 15 17.

28 LECTURE 1,

We must distinctly apprehend what is here intended
by the term " intellectual cause," when applied to a
series of phenomena like sceptical opinions. It does
not merely denote the antecedent ideas which form
previous links in the same chain of thought : these
are sufficiently revealed by the chronicle which re
cords the series. Nor does it mean the uniformity of
method according to which the mind is observed to
act at successive intervals : this is the law or for
mula, the existence of which has been already indi
cated a . But we intend by "cause" two things;
either the sources of knowledge which have from
age to age thrown their materials into the stream
of thought, and compelled reason to re-investigate
religion and try to harmonize the new knowledge
with the old beliefs ; or else the ultimate intellectual
grounds or tests of truth on which the decision in such
cases has been based, the most general types of thought
into which the forms of doubt can be analysed. The
problem is this : Given, these two terms : on the one
hand the series of opinions known as the history
of free thought in religion ; on the other the uni
formity of mode in which reason has operated. In
terpolate two steps to connect them together, which
will show respectively the materials of knowledge
which reason at successive moments brought to bear
on religion, and the ultimate standards of truth which
it adopted in applying this material to it. It is the

a See pp. 9, 1 6

LECTURE I. 29

attempt to supply the answer to this problem that
will give organic unity to these lectures.

A few words will suffice in reference to the former
of these two subjects, inasmuch as it has already
been described to some extent 5 , and will be made
clear in the course of the history. The branches of
knowledge with which the movements of free thought
in religion are connected, are chiefly literary criticism
and science. The one addresses itself to the record
of the revelation ; the other to the matter contained
in the record. Criticism, when it gains canons of evi
dence for examining secular literature, applies them
to the sacred books ; directing itself in its lower c
form to the variations in their text ; in its higher 6 to
their genuineness and authenticity. Science, physical
or metaphysical, addresses itself to the question of the
credibility of their contents. In its physical form,
when it has reduced the world to its true position in
the universe of space, human history in the cycles of
time, and the human race in the world of organic life,
it compares these discoveries with the view of the
universe and of the physical history of the planet
contained in the sacred literature ; or it examines the
Christian doctrine of miraculous interposition and
special providence by the light of its gradually in
creasing conviction of the uniformity of nature. In
its moral and metaphysical forms, science examines

b See pp. 10-16.

c These names for the two respective branches into which lite
rary criticism is divisible, are commonly used in all modern German
works of criticism.

30 LECTURE I.

such subjects as the moral history of the Hebrew
theocracy; or ponders reverently over the mystery
of the divine scheme of redemption, and the teaching
which scripture supplies on the deepest problems of
speculation, the relations of Deity to the universe,
the act of creation, the nature of evil, and the ad
ministration of moral providence.

There is another mode, however, in which specula
tive philosophy has operated, which needs fuller ex
planation. It has not merely, like the other sciences,
suggested results which have seemed to clash with
Christianity, but has supplied the ultimate grounds
of proof to which appeal has consciously been made,
or which have been unconsciously assumed : the ul
timate types of thought which have manifested them
selves in the struggle d .

It will be useful, before exhibiting this kind of
influence in reference to religion, to illustrate its
character by selecting an instance from some region
of thought where its effects would be least suspected.
The example shall be taken from the history of
literature.

d The work which will most clearly explain my purpose in the
following history is Mr. J. D. Morell s Historical and Critical View oj
the Speculative Philosophy of Europe in the nineteenth century. (1847.)
It exhibits the influence of metaphysical philosophy on various branches
of knowledge. (See sect, i and 5 of the introduction to vol. i., anc
in vol. ii. ch. 9.) Also in his Lectures on the Philosophical Tenden
cies of the Age (1848), he treats the same subject with direct refer
ence to religion. Compare also on the same points Cousin s Histoir
de la Philosophic du i8 e siecle, vol. ii. leon 30 ; Pearson on Infi
delity, part ii. ch. 2. p. 340 seq.

LECTURE I. 31

If we compare three poets selected from the last
three centuries, the contrast will exhibit at once the
change which has taken place in the literary spirit
and standard of judgment, and the correspondence
of the change with fluctuations in the predominant
philosophy of the time. If we commence with the
author of the Paradise Lost, we listen to the last
echo of the poetry which had belonged to the great
outburst of mind of the earlier part of the seven
teenth century, and of the faith in the supernatural
which had characterized Puritanism. His philosophy
is Hebrew : he hesitates not to interpret the divine
counsels ; but it is by the supposed light of reve
lation. Doubt is unknown to him. The anthro
pomorphic conception of Deity prevails. Material
nature is the instrument of God s personal providence
for the objects of His care. But if we pass to the
author of the Essay on Man, the revolution which
has given artistic precision to the form is not more
observable than the indications of a philosophy which
has chilled the spiritual faculties. The supernatural
is gone. Nature is a vast machine which moves by
fixed laws impressed upon it by a Creator. The soul
feels chilled with the desolation of a universe wherein
it cannot reach forth by prayer to a loving Father.
Scripture is displaced by science. Doubt has passed
into unbelief. The universe is viewed by the cold
materialism which arraigns spiritual subjects at the
bar of sense. If now we turn to the work conse
crated by the great living poet to the memory of his

32 LECTURE I.

early friend, we find ourselves in contact with a
meditative soul, separated from the age just named
by a complete intellectual chasm ; whose spiritual
perceptions reflect a philosophy which expresses the
sorrows and doubts of a cultivated mind of the pre
sent day, "perplext in faith but not in deeds e ." The
material has become transfigured into the spiritual.
The objective has been replaced by the subjective.
Nature is studied, as in Pope, without the assump
tion of a revelation ; but it is no longer regarded as
a machine conducted by material laws : it is a motive
soul which embodies God s presence ; a mystery to be
felt, not understood. God is not afar off, so that we
cannot reach Him : He is so nigh, that His omnipre
sence seems to obscure His personality.

These instances will illustrate the difference which
philosophy produces in the classes of ideas on which
the mind of an age is formed. In Milton the appeal
is made to the revelation of God in the Book ; in
Pope, to the revelation in Nature ; in the living
poet, to the revelation in man s soul, the type of
the infinite Spirit and interpreter of God s universe
and God s book f .

It is an analysis of a similar kind which we must
conduct in reference to sceptical opinions. The in
fluence of the first of the two classes of intellectual

e Tennyson s In Memoriam, 94.

f An instructive comparison of Milton, Cowper, and Wordsworth,
which will further illustrate this subject, may be found in Macmil-
Magazine for Jan. 1862.

LECTURE I 33

causes above named , viz. the various forms of know
ledge there described, could not exist unobserved,
for they are present from time to time as rival doc
trines in contest with Christianity ; but the kind of
influence of which we now treat, which relates to
the grounds of belief on which a judgment is con
sciously or unconsciously formed, is more subtle, and
requires analysis for its detection.

We must briefly explain its nature, and illustrate
its influence on religion.

Metaphysical science is usually divided into two
branches ; of which one examines the objects known,
the other the human mind, that is the organ of
knowledge. (7) When Psychology has finished its
study of the structure and functions of the mind,
it supplies the means for drawing inferences in reply
to a question which admits of a twofold aspect, viz.
which of the mental faculties, sense, reason, feel
ing, furnishes the origin of knowledge ; and which
is the supreme test of truth \ These two questions
form the subjective or Psychological branch of Meta
physics. According to the answer thus obtained
we deduce a corollary in reference to the objective
side. We ask what information is afforded by these
mental faculties in respect to the nature or attributes
of the objects known, matter, mind, God, duty. The
answer to this question is the branch commonly
called the Ontological. The one inquiry treats of the

s See p. 29.
D

34 LECTURE I.

tests of knowledge, the other of the nature of being.
The combination of the two furnishes the answer on
its two sides, internally and externally, to the ques
tion, What is truth ?

The right application of them to the subject of
religion would give a philosophy of religion ; either
objectively, by the process of constructing a theodicee
or theory to reconcile reason and faith ; or sub
jectively, by separating their provinces by means of
such an inquiry into the functions of the religious
faculty, and the nature of the truths apprehended by
it, as might furnish criteria to determine the amount
that is to be appropriated respectively from our own
consciousness and from external authority.

The influence of the Ontological branch of the
inquiry in producing a struggle with Christianity,
has been already included under the difficulties pre
viously named, which are created by the growth of
the various sciences 11 . It is the influence of the
Psychological branch that we are now illustrating, by
showing that the various theories in respect of it
give their type to various forms of belief and doubt.

The well-known threefold distribution of the facul-

h The cause is, that whatever difficulties may be presented by if
are the statements of rival teaching opposed to the Christian ; con
clusions, not premises : whereas those which arise from the psy
chological branch are rival premises ; not difference of belief merely
but causes of such difference. Therefore the difficulties suggeste&lt;
by Ontology belong to those described above in p. 29, 30. Many illus
trations of this branch may be found in Bartholmess Hist. Crit. d&
Doctrines Religieuses de la Philosophie Moderne, 1855.

LECTURE I. 35

ties that form the ultimate grounds of conviction
will suffice for our purpose : viz., sensational consci
ousness revealing to us the world of matter ; intuitive
reason that of mind ; and feeling that of emotion i.
These are the forms of consciousness which supply
the material from which the reflective powers draw
inferences and construct systems.

It is easy to exhibit the mental character which
each would have a tendency to generate when applied
to a special subject like religion, natural or revealed.

If the eye of sense be the sole guide in looking
around on nature, we discover only a universe of
brute matter, phenomena linked together in uniform
succession of antecedents and consequents. Mind
becomes only a higher form of matter. Sin loses its
poignancy. Immortality disappears, God exists not,
except as a personification of the Cosmos. Materia
lism, atheism, fatalism, are the ultimate results which
are proved by logic and history J to follow from this

i The classification of faculties here intended, with their respective
functions, will be illustrated by referring to Morell s Hist, of Phil,
vol. ii. p. 338 ; and his Philosophy of Religion, ch. i. and 2. The
altered scheme given in his subsequent works on Psychology
(1853 an d 1 86 1,) ought also to be compared with the former one.
See also Coleridge s Aids to Reflection, i. 168 seq. The terms
Sensationalist, Idealist, and Mystic, are nearly always used in the
present lectures in the sense in which Morell, following Cousin, uses
them ; viz. to express those who place the ultimate test of truth in
sense, innate ideas, or feeling, respectively.

J E. g. in the history of the eighteenth century in France. (See
Lect.V.) In estimating the effects of philosophical opinions, care must
be used, to distinguish the results which may be thought by opponents

D 2

86 LECTURE I

extreme view. The idea of spirit cannot be reached
by it. For if some other form of experience than the
sensitive be regarded as the origin of knowledge ; if a
noblerview be forced on us by the very inability even to
express nature s phenomena without superadding spi
ritual qualities ; if regularity of succession k suggest
the idea of order and purpose and mind ; if adapta
tion suggest the idea of morality ; if movement sug
gest the idea of form and will ; if will suggest the
idea of personality ; if the idea of the Cosmos sug
gest unity, and thus we mount up, step by step, to
the conception of a God, possessing unity, intelligence,

to flow from such opinions by logical inference, from those which
have been proved by history to flow from them in fact. Some por
tion of Cousin s brilliant criticism, in the Hist, de la Phil. Fran-
gaise dui8 e siecle, and in the Ecole Sensualiste, is thought to be open
to exception on this ground. It is from a conviction of the im
portance of not attributing to a philosopher that which we merely
conceive to be a corollary, though a logical one, from his opinions,
that the writer has abstained from introducing here into the text ex
amples of the different views sketched, and has treated the subject in
this page broadly and without minuteness. The religious results here
stated to appertain to particular metaphysical opinions must ac
cordingly be regarded as logical tendencies, not as necessary effects.
The truth of opinions must not be tested merely by supposed conse
quences, though the practical value of such a test ought to be allowed
its due weight.

k A statement of the steps of proof similar to those described here,
by which we ascend to the knowledge of a Deity, is to be found in
the Sermons of the late lamented Kev. Shergold Boone (Sermons
2 7 ; and especially 2 and 3 ; 1853). Compare also the steps of
proof which Rousseau gives in the Confession of the Savoyard Vicar
of the Emile, analysed -in Lect. V.

LECTURE I. 37

will, character, we really transfer into the sphere of
nature ideas taken from another region of being, viz.,
from our consciousness of ourselves, our consciousness
of spirit. It is mental association that links these
ideas to those of sense, and gives to a sensational phi
losophy properties not its own. If however sensa
tional experience can by any means arrive at the
notion of natural religion ; yet it will find a difficulty,
created by its belief of the uniformity of nature, in
taking the further step of admitting the miraculous
interference which gives birth to revealed : and even
if this difficulty should be surmounted, the disincli
nation to the supernatural would nevertheless have a
tendency to obliterate mystery by empirical ration
alism, and to reduce piety to morality, morality to
expedience 1 , the church to a political institution, reli
gion to a ritual system, and its evidence to external
historic testimony.

The rival system of proof founded in intuitive con
sciousness is however not free from danger. A dif
ference occurs, according as this endowment is re
garded as merely revealing the facts of our own inner
experience, or on the other hand as possessing a power

1 These charges are frequently made indiscriminately against all
who hold that expedience is a sufficient explanation of the origin of
moral ideas. They were true in a great degree against Utilitarians
of the last century, together with some of those in the early years
of the present. But when applied at the present time, they only in
dicate a tendency, not a fact ; as may be seen in the delicate manner
in which Mr. J. S. Mill has explained the doctrine of Utility, in a
series of papers in Frasers Magazine for 1861.

38 LECTTJBE I.

to apprehend God positively, and spirit to spirit ,
The result of the former belief would be indeed an
ethical religion, compared with the political one just
- ribed. If it did not rise from the law to the law-
r. it would at least present morality as a law
obligatory on man by his mental structure, independ
ently of tli deration of reward or punishment.
The ideas of God. duty, immortality, would be esta
blished as a necessity of thought, if not as matter^ ol
objective tact. Yet religion would be rather rational
than supernatural : obedience to duty instead of com
munion with Deity : and unless the mind can find
ind for a belief in God and the divine attributes
through some other faculty, the idealism must des:
the evidence of revealed religion. Or at 1 the
mind admit its truth, it must renounce the right to
criticise the material of that which it confesses to be
Kyond the limits of its own oonsciouE ud thus, by
abdicating its natural powers, blindly submit to ex
ternal authority, and accept belief as the refuge from

wn Pyrrhonism.

If. on the other hand, instead of regarding all at
tempts to pa&gt;s beyond logical forms of thought to be
mental impotence, the mind follows its own instincts,
and. relying upon the same natural realism which
justifies its belief in the immediate character of its

The first of those two views is seen in Kant, with whom the
forms of thought are only regulatively true : the second in Sehel-
ling and Cousin. The references for studying Kant s religions
will be found in a note to Lecture VI.

LECTURE I. 39

sensitive perceptions, ventures to depend with equal
firmness on the reality of its intuitional consciousness,
religion, natural or revealed, wears another aspect ; and
both the advantages and the dangers of such a view are
widely different 11 . The soul no longer regards the land
scape to be a scene painted on the windows of its prison-
house, a subjective limit to its perceptions, but not spe-
culatively true ; but it wanders forth from its cell unfet
tered into the universe around. God is no longer an
inference fr&lt;3m final causes, nor a principle of thought.
He is the living God, a real personal spirit with whom
the soul is permitted to hold direct communion.
Providence becomes the act of a personal agent.
Religion is the worship in spirit. Sin is seen in its
heinousness. Prayer is justified as a reality, as the
breathing of the human soul for communion with its
infinite Parent (8). And by the light of this intu
ition, God, nature, and man, look changed. Nature is
no longer a physical engine ; man no longer a moral
machine. Material nature becomes the regular ex-

n The dangers of such a view arise from those results which have
been pointed out in Sir W. Hamilton s Dissertations (Diss. I. on
Cousin). In reference to the office of the intuition in science, Dr.
Whewell s view, in the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, may
be adduced as one which appears to possess the advantage designed
by Schelling s theory, and not be open to those criticisms which
have been directed against it. Possibly a true philosophy of the
action of the intellectual faculties in reference to religion might be
obtained by transferring to it the analysis which Dr. Whewell has
given of their action in reference to science. Dr. M c Cosh, in his
work on the Intuitions of the Mind (1859), ^ as c ^ one much towards
effecting it.

40 LECTURE I.

pression of a personal fixed will ; Miracle the direct
interposition of a personal free will. Revelation is
probable, as the voice of God s mercy to the child
of His love. Inspiration becomes possible, for the
intuitional consciousness seems adapted to be used by
divine Providence as its instrument .

But the type of mind created by the use of intu
ition as a test df truth is rarely alone. It is cognate
to, if it is not connected with, that produced by the
third of the above-named tests, feeling. The emo
tions, according to a law of spiritual supply and de
mand, suggest the reality of the objects toward which
they are aspirations. The longing for help, the feel
ing of dependence, is the justification of prayer ; the
sense of remorse is the witness to divine judgment ;

In Morell s Philosophy of Religion (c. 5 and 6,) are remarks on the
relation of intuition to inspiration, to which attention maybe directed,
but only in a psychological point of view. Pious minds that believe
in miraculous inspiration will rightly hesitate before holding any par
ticular psychological theory of the field of its operation ; yet it would
seem, if we may hazard a conjecture, that it is the intuitive power
of the mind which is mostly the organ to which the divine revelation
is unveiled, and on which the inspiring influence acts. It is certain
that we cannot understand the modus operandi, but we may without
irreverence humbly seek to discover the field on which God s Spirit
condescends to operate. In this view inspiration would be analo
gous to natural genius psychologically, but wholly different theologi
cally, inasmuch as all who believe in its miraculous character must
hold firmly that it is due to a supernatural elevation of this mental
power by immediate operation of divine agency, whereas the disco
veries of ordinary genius are due to the unassisted and normal con
dition of the faculty. Morell, in the passage referred to, will pro
bably be thought to be right in the psychological question, and wrong
in the theological.

LECTUEE I. 41

the consciousness of penitence is the ground for hope
in God s merciful interference ; the ineradicable sense
of guilt is the eternal witness to the need of atone
ment ; the instinct for immortality is the pledge of a
future life.

Yet the use of these tests of intuition and feeling
in religion, though possessing these advantages, has
dangers. If the feelings, instead of being used to
reinforce or check the other faculties, be relied upon
as sole arbiters ; especially if they be linked with the
imagination instead of the intuition; they may con
duct to mysticism and superstition by the very vivid
ness of their perception of the supernatural^. Like
wise the intuitive faculty, if it be regarded as giving
a noble grasp over the fact of God as an infinite
Spirit, may cause the mind to relax its hold on the
idea of the Divine Personality, and fall into Pan
theism, and identify God with the universe, not by
degrading spirit to matter, but by elevating matter
to spirit r . Or, instead of allowing experience and
revelation to develop into conceptions the funda-

q The mysticism of the Quakers of the seventeenth century, and
of Swedenborg in the eighteenth, is of this character. The excessive
self- mortification of the Franciscan order in the middle ages may be
set down to the influence, perhaps not consciously analysed, of the
same standard used for guidance. On Mysticism, see Morell s His
tory of Philosophy, ii. 332 seq. and 356 seq. ; and his Lectures on
the Philosophical Tendencies of the Age (Lect. III.) ; on Swedenborg,
see National Review No. 1 2 ; and on mystics generally, consult the
interesting work of the lamented Rev. R. A. Vaughau, Hours ivith
the Mystics, 1856.

r As in Spinoza, or the school of Schelling.

42 LECTURE I.

mental truth whose existence it perceives, it may
attempt to develop a religion wholly a priori*, and
assert its right to create as well as to verify. Also,
when applying itself to revealed religion, this type
of thought necessarily makes its last appeal to in
ward insight. It cannot, like sensationalism, or sub
jective idealism, admit its own impotence, and re
ceive on authority a revelation, the contents of which
it ventures not to criticise. It must always appro
priate that which it is to believe. Accordingly it
will have a tendency to render religion subjective in
its character, uncertain in its doctrines, individual in
its constitution.

These general remarks, every one of which admits of
historic exemplification 1 , will suffice to illustrate the
kind of influence exercised by these respective tests of
truth in forming the judgment or moulding the cha
racter in relation to the belief or disbelief of natural
and revealed religion. These effects are not adduced
as the necessary results, but as the ordinary tenden-

8 As in Herbert in the seventeenth century, and Theodore Parker
in the nineteenth. On the intuitional theology, see M Cosh, Divine
Government, b. iv. ch. 2. 4. (note.)

* The above are only a very few instances, of which many will
occur hereafter ; but they will sufficiently indicate that the French
infidelity is mostly connected with the appeal to the first test of
truth, sensation ; German rationalism, the result of an appeal to an
intuitive faculty " transcending consciousness ;" English deism, and
the earlier forms of German rationalism, the appeal to the ordinary
reason, as able to create religion for itself. The separate appeal to
feeling has generally, it will be perceived, caused too much belief
instead of too little ; mysticism instead of scepticism.

LECTURE I.

cies of these respective theories. The mind frequently
stops short of the conclusions logically deducible from
its own principles. To measure precisely the effect of
each view would be impossible. In mental science
analysis must be qualitative, not quantitative.

It will hardly be expected that we should arbitrate
among these theories, inasmuch as our purpose is not
to test the comparative truthfulness of metaphysical
opinions, but to refer sceptical opinions in religion
to their true scientific and metaphysical parentage.
Truth is probably to be found in a selection from all ;
and historical investigation is the chief means of
discovering the mode of conducting the process. It
is at least certain, that if history be the form which
science necessarily takes in the study of that which
is subject to laws of life and organic growth, it must
be the preliminary inquiry in any investigation in
reference to mental phenomena. The history of phi
losophy must be the approach to philosophy". The
great problem of philosophy is method ; and if there

u This was the view presented in the teaching of Cousin and the
Eclectic school of France. Many of the younger thinkers of Europe
now consider that the history of philosophy constitutes the whole
of philosophy, and is not merely, as here maintained, the preli
minary to it. This new view is probably unconsciously derived
from Hegel, and is the residuum left by his philosophy. Two able
living French critics, Kenan and Scherer, have so very clearly ex
pressed this view of the function of philosophy, that it may be well
to quote their words, (see Note 9) ; the more so, as this subject will
be named again in Lect. VII. Kenan has also expressed the same
ideas in the Kevue des deux Mondes (Jan. 15, 1860), De la Meta-
physique et de son avenir.

44 LECTURE I.

be a hope that the true method can ever be found,
it must be by uniting the historical analysis of the
development of the universal mind with the psycho
logical analysis of the individual, The history of
thought indicates not only fact but truth ; not only
shows what has been, but, by exhibiting the propor
tions which different faculties contribute toward the
construction of truth, and indicating tendencies as
well as results, prepares materials to be collated with
the decision previously made by mental and moral
science concerning the question of what ought to
be (9).

A definite conviction on this metaphysical inquiry
seems perhaps to be involved in the very idea of
criticism, and necessary for drawing the moral from
the history ; yet the independence of our historical
inquiry ought to be sacrificed as little as possible to
illustrate a foregone conclusion. It will be more
satisfactory to present the evidence for a verdict,
without undue advocacy of a side in the metaphy
sical controversy*.

x It is not from any wish to evade the real question that the
writer thus avoids taking a side in the metaphysical dispute. His
object is to explain the various effects of metaphysical theories on
religious belief; and while considering that the respective evil
eifects of these systems are a logical corollary from them, as well as
an historical result, he is prepared to admit, as previously remarked,
that men are sometimes better than their systems, and do not al
ways draw the logical conclusions from their own premises ; and
therefore he has not thought it right to make these lectures a direct
argument on behalf of some favourite metaphysical system, and at
tack on some rival one. In such case, the history would lose its in-

LECTURE I. 45

The execution of this design of analysing the in
tellectual causes of unbelief will necessarily involve
to some extent a biographical treatment of the sub
ject, both for theoretical and practical reasons, to
discover truth, and to derive instruction. This is
so evident in the history of action, that there is a
danger at the present time lest history should lose
the general in the individual, and descend from the
rank of science to mere biography y. The deeper
insight which is gradually obtained into the com
plexity of nature, together with the fuller conviction
of human freedom, is causing artistic portraiture and
ethical analysis to be substituted for historical ge
neralization. The same method however applies to
the region of thought as well as will. Thought, as
an inteUectual product, can indeed be studied apart
from the mind that creates it, and can be treated by
history as a material fact subject to the fixed suc-

dependent character. While therefore he has never concealed his
opinions on the subject of religion, he has thought it more proper
not to obtrude, except indirectly, his opinions on that of meta
physics.

y This is the question at issue between modern Positivists and
their opponents. Comte declared the possibility of discovering the
fixed laws on which society depends as really as the physical ones of
matter. Mr. Mill, in his account of the logic of history (Logic, b. vi.
c. 4. (6-10.)), lays down more maturely the theory of such a pro
cess. On the contrary, Mr. Kingsley, in his inaugural lecture at
Cambridge, 1 86 1, asserts the very opposite position; and, in his wish
to elevate the influence of individual men on the course of events,
almost reduces history to a series of biographies.

46 LECTURE I.

cession of natural laws. But the exclusive use of
such a method, at least in any other subject of study
than that of the results of physical discovery, must be
defective, even independently of the question of the
action of free will, unless the thoughts which are
the object of study be also connected with the per
sonality of the thinker who produces them. His
external biography is generally unimportant, save
when the individual character may have impressed
itself upon public events ; but the internal por
traiture, the growth of soul as known by psycho
logical analysis, is the very instrument for under
standing the expression of it in life or in literature 2 .
It is requisite to know the mental bias of a writer,
whether it be practical, imaginative, or reflective ; to
see the idola specus which influenced him, the action
of circumstances upon his character, and the reaction
of his character upon circumstances ; before we can
gain the clue to the interpretation of his works.
But if we wish further to derive moral instruction
from him, the biographical mode of study becomes
even more necessary. For the notion of freedom as
the ground of responsibility is now superadded; and

z The kind of analysis here alluded to may be illustrated by
referring to one of the Essays of Mr. D. Masson, in which he has
compared in a very striking manner Shakspeare and Goethe, by
regarding their respective works as reflecting the mental pecu
liarity of each writer. He considers the meditative melancholy ol
Shakspeare s youth, as expressed in his Sonnets,, to be the clue
to the reflective analysis that in later life could depict the doubts
of Hamlet.

LECTURE I. 47

the story of his life is the sole means for such an
apprehension of the causes of his heart-struggles as
shall enable us to take the gauge of his moral cha
racter, and appropriate the lessons derivable from
the study of it.

Indeed biographical notices, if they could be ex
tended compatibly with the compass of the subject,
would be the most instructive and vivid mode of
presenting alike the facts relating to scepticism and
their interpretation. Such memoirs are not wanting,
and are among the most touching in literature. The
sketch which Strauss has given of his early friend
and fellow student Maerklin a , gradually surrendering
one cherished truth after another, until he doubted
all but the law of conscience ; then devoting himself
in the strength of it with unflinching industry to
education ; until at last he died in the dark, without
belief in God or hope, cheered only by the conscious
ness of having tried to find truth and do his duty :
the sad tale, told by two remarkable biographers, of

a Christian Maerklin (1807-1849), a fellow student of Strauss
at Tubingen, whose views were unsettled, partly by a tone like that
of the Renaissance derived from the contrast of classic and Christian
culture, and partly by the philosophical speculations of the time.
He embraced panthlfem and the mythical idea of Christianity. For
ten years after 1840 he undertook ministerial work, and then left
the church, and till his death in 1849 devoted himself with assiduity
to the business of education. A short memoir of him was written
by Strauss in 1851, C. Maerklin, ein Lebens-und-Character-Bild
aus der Gegenwart; a brief review of which is given in the National
Review, No. 7.

48 LECTURE I.

Sterling 1 , doubting, renouncing the ministry, yet
thirsting for truth, and at last solacing himself in
death by the hopes offered by the Bible, to the
eternal truths of which his doubting heart had al
ways clung : the memoir of the adopted son of our
own university, Blanco White , a mind in which
faith and doubt were perpetually waging war, till the
grave closed over his truth-searching and care-worn
spirit : the confessions of one of our own sons of
the successive " phases of faith" d through which his
soul passed from evangelical Christianity to a spi
ritual Deism, a record of heart-struggles which takes
its place among the pathetic works of autobiography,
where individuals have unveiled their inner life for
the instruction of their fellow-men : all these are
instances where the great moral and spiritual pro
blems that belong to the condition of our race may
be seen embodied in the sorrowful experience of
individuals. They are instances of rare value for
psychological study in reference to the history of
doubt ; sad beacons of warning and of guidance.

k Sterling (1806-1844), a clergyman, curate to archdeacon Hare.
His works were edited, with a memoir prefixed, by the archdeacon
in 1848 ; and a life written of him by Carlyle (1851.)

c Blanco White (1775-1841), a Spanish priest, who became a
protestant, and a refugee in England. He was much respected in
Oxford, and the University gave him a degree. He afterwards
turned Unitarian, and perhaps at last deist. His life was published
in 1845 ; an d h* 8 mental character analysed in the Quarterly Review
No. 151, and the Christian Remembrancer vol. 10.

a Mr. F. Newman. See Lect. VIII.

LECTURE I. 49

Accordingly, in the history of free thought we must
not altogether neglect the spiritual biography of the
doubter, though only able to indicate it by a few
touches ; by an etching, not a photograph.

We have now added to the explanation before
given of the province of our inquiry, and of the law
of the action of free thought on religion, an account
of the moral and intellectual causes which operate
in the history of unbelief, and have sufficiently ex
plained the mode in which the subject will be
treated.

The use of the inquiry will, it is hoped, be apparent
both in its theoretical and practical relations. It is
designed to have an intellectual value not only as
instruction but as argument. The tendency of it. will
be in some degree polemical as well as didactic, re
futing error by analysing it into its causes, repelling
present attacks by studying the history of former
ones.

It is one peculiar advantage belonging to the phi
losophical investigation of the history of thought,
that even the odious becomes valuable as an object
of study, the pathology of the soul as well as its
normal action. Philosophy takes cognisance of error
as well as of truth, inasmuch as it derives materials
from both for discovering a theory of the grounds of
belief and disbelief. Hence it follows that the study
of the natural history of doubt combined with the
literary, if it be the means of affording an explana
tion of a large class of facts relating to the religious

50 LECTURE I.

history of man and the sphere of the remedial opera
tion of Christ s church, will have a practical value as
well as speculative.

Such an inquiry, if it be directed, as in the present
lectures, to the analysis of the intellectual rather than
the emotional element of unbelief, as being that which
has been less generally and less fully explored, will
require to be supplemented by a constant reference to
the intermixture of the other element, and the conse
quent necessity of taking account of the latter in
estimating the whole phenomenon of doubt. But
within its own sphere it will have a practical and
polemical value, if the course of the investigation
shall show that the various forms of unbelief, when
studied from the intellectual side, are corollaries from
certain metaphysical or critical systems. The ana
lysis itself will have indirectly the force of an argu
ment. The discovery of the causes of a disease con
tains the germ of the cure. Error is refuted when
it is referred to the causes which produce it.

Nor will the practical value of the inquiry be re
stricted to its use as a page in the spiritual history
of the human mind, but will belong to it also as a
chapter in the history of the church. For even if in
the study of the contest our attention be almost
wholly restricted to the movements of one of the
two belligerents, and only occasionally directed to the
evidences on which the faith of the church in various
crises reposed, and by which it tried to repel the
invader, yet the knowledge of the scheme of attack

LECTURE I. 51

cannot fail to be a valuable accompaniment to the
study of the defence d .

Thus the natural history of doubt, viewed as a
chapter of human history, like the chapter of phy
siology which studies a disease, will point indirectly
to the cure, or at least to the mode of avoiding the
causes which induce the disease ; while the literary
history of it, viewed as a chapter of church history,
will contribute the results of experience to train the
Christian combatant.

The subject will however not only have an intel
lectual value in being at once didactic and polemical,
offering an explanation of the causes of unbelief and
furnishing hints for their removal ; but it cannot fail
also to possess a moral value in reference to the con
science and heart of the disputant, in teaching the
lesson of mercy towards the unbeliever, and deep
pity for the heart wounded with doubts. An intel
ligent acquaintance with the many phases of history
operates like foreign travel in widening the sympa
thies ; and increase of knowledge creates the modera
tion which gains the victory through attracting an
enemy instead of repelling him. Bigotry is founded
on ignorance and fear. True learning is temperate,
because discriminating ; forbearing, because coura
geous. If we place ourselves in the position of an
opponent, and try candidly to understand the process

d See further remarks concerning the purpose of the course of
Lectures in Lect. VIII.

E 2

52 LECTURE I.

by which he was led to form his opinions, indigna
tion will subside into pity, and enmity into grief:
the hatred will be reserved for the sin, not for the
sinner ; and the servant of Jesus Christ will thus
catch in some humble measure the forbearing love
which his divine Master showed to the first doubting
disciple e . As the sight of suffering in an enemy
changes the feeling of anger into pity, so the study
of a series of spiritual struggles makes us see in an
opponent, not an enemy to be crushed, but a brother
to be won. The utility of an historic treatment of
doubt is suggested by moral as well as intellectual
grounds.

I hope therefore that if I follow the example of
some of my predecessors f in giving a course of
lectures historical rather than polemical, evincing
the critic rather than the advocate, seeking for truth
rather than victory, analysing processes of evidence
rather than refuting results, my humble contribu
tion toward the knowledge of the argument of the
Christian evidences will be considered to come fairly
within the design intended by the founder of the
lecture.

e John xx. 26-29.

f E. g. Mr. J. J. Conybeare (1824) on the History and Limits of
the Secondary Interpretation of Scripture; Dr. Burton (1829), The
Heresies of the Apostolic Age ; Dr. Hampden (1832), The Scholastic
Philosophy in relation to Christian Theology ; as well as several
works which investigate doctrines historically, such as the Lectures
on the Atonement by Dr. Thomson (1853), ty Dr. Hessey on the
Sabbath (1860).

LECTUKE I. 53

It may well be believed that in the execution of so
large a scheme I have felt almost overwhelmed under
a painful sense of its difficulty. If even I may ven
ture to hope that a conscientious study in most cases
of the original sources of information may save me
from literary mistakes, yet there is a danger lest the
size of the subject should preclude the possibility of
constant clearness ; or lest the very analysis of the
errors of the systems named, may produce a painful,
if not an injurious, impression. In an age too of con
troversy, those who speak on difficult questions incur
a new danger, of being misunderstood from the sensi
tiveness with which earnest men not unreasonably
watch them. The attitude of suspicion may cause
impartiality to be regarded as indifference to truth,
fairness as sympathy with error. I am not ashamed
therefore to confess, that under the oppressive sense
of these various feelings I have been wont to go for
help to the only source where the burdened heart can
find consolation ; and have sought, in the communion
with the Father of spirits which prayer opens to
the humblest, a temper of candour, of reverence, and
of the love of truth. In this spirit I have made
my studies ; and what I have thus learned I shall
teach.

LECTURE II.

THE LITERARY OPPOSITION OF HEATHENS AGAINST CHRISTIANITY
IN THE EARLY AGES.

i COR. i. 22-24.

The Greeks seek after wisdom; lut we preach Christ crucified;
unto the Greeks foolishness ; lut unto them which are called,
Christ the wisdom of God.

IT has been already stated a , that in the first great
struggle of the human mind against the Christian
religion, the action of reason in criticising its claims
assumed two forms, Gnosticism or rationalism within
the church, and unbelief without.

The origin and history of the former of these two
lines of thought were once discussed in an elaborate
course of Bampton Lectures b ; and though subse
quent investigation has added new sources of infor-

a See above, p. 10.

b By Dr. Burton in 1829, An Inquiry into the Heresies of the
Apostolic Age,

LECTURE II. 55

mation c , and it would be consonant to our general
object to trace briefly the speculations of the various
schools of Gnostics, Greek, Oriental, or Egyptian,
the want of space necessitates the omission of these
topics. In the present lecture we shall accordingly
restrict ourselves to the history of the other line of
thought, and trace the grounds alleged by the intel
ligent heathens who examined Christianity, for de
clining to admit its claims, from the time of its rise
to the final downfall of heathenism.

The truest modern resemblance to this struggle is
obviously to be found in the disbelief shown by
educated heathens in pagan countries to whom
Christianity is proclaimed in the present day. It
was not until the establishment of Christianity as the
state religion by Constantine had given it political
and moral victory, that it was possible for unbelief

c Burton was such a careful student, that he hardly omitted any
thing on the subject which had been published up to his time.
Subsequent investigations have added little material directly for the
knowledge of Gnosticism, but much for a better appreciation of
those sources from which it sprung. The oriental philosophy, as
is shown in note 3 to Lect. I, is much better known ; in like manner
the Neo-Platonic. The Jewish Cabbala has also been made known
by A. Franck (Memoires sur la Cctbbale). The speculations too of
the new Tiibingen school, of which Baur s work on Gnosis, 1835, is
an example, have been specially directed to the study of the origines
of the Christian church and of Gnostic heresy, and however un
satisfactory in results, present much valuable research. Kurtz in
his Kirchengeschichte 48-50, and Hase, Id. 75-82, refer to
several other monographs of the same kind. See also the discussion
on Gnostic sects in Professor Norton s Evidences of the Genuineness
of the Gospels, vol. ii

56 LECTURE II.

to assume its modern aspect, of being the attempt
of reason to break away from a creed which is an
acknowledged part of the national life. The first
opponents accordingly whose views we shall study,
Lucian, Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, are heathen
unbelievers. Julian is the earliest that we encounter
who rejected Christianity after having been educated
in it.

The resemblance however to this struggle is not
wholly restricted to heathen lands. There have
been moments in the history of nations, or of indi
viduals, when a Christian standard of feeling or of
thought has been so far obliterated that a state of
public disbelief and philosophical attack similar to
the ancient heathen has reappeared, and the tone
of the early unbelievers, and sometimes event heir
specific doubts, have been either borrowed or repro
duced d .

In this portion of the history we encounter a
difficulty peculiar to it, in being compelled to form
an estimate of the opinions described, from indi
rect information. The treatises of the more noted

d Such instances are seen in the Renaissance, in the state of
France during the eighteenth century, and in some of the writings
of the English deists and German critics, as will be shown in sub
sequent lectures. A general view is given, in the introduction to
Houtteville s Le Christianisme prouve par desfaits, of "the method
of the principal authors for and against Christianity from its begin
ning," (translated 1739.) Hase also quotes a work of D. Baum-
garten-Crusius, De Scriptoribus ssec. II. qui novam relig. impugna-
runt, 1845.

LECTUEE II. 57

writers that opposed Christianity have perished ;
some through natural causes, but those of Porphyry
and Julian through the special order of a Christian
emperor, Theodosius II., in A.D. 435.

In the absence accordingly of the original writings,
we must discover the grounds for the rejection of
Christianity by the aid of the particular treatises of
evidence written by Christian fathers expressly in refu
tation of them, which occasionally contain quotations
of the lost works ; and also by means of the general
apologies written on behalf of the Christian religion,
together with slight notices of it occurring in hea
then literature. The latter will inform us concerning
the miscellaneous objections current, the former con
cerning the definite arguments of the writers who ex
pressly gave reasons for disbelieving Christianity 6 .

We possess a large treatise of Origen against
Celsus ; passages, directed against Porphyry, of Eu-
sebius, Jerome, and Augustin ; a tract of Eusebius
against Hierocles ; and a work of Cyril of Alexandria

e There are four sources of information in reference to the
opinions of the heathens concerning Christianity ; viz. (i) the slight
notices which occur in heathen literature, on which see note 12 ;
(2) the works written expressly against Christianity, which are suffi
ciently analysed in the text and foot-notes ; (3) the special replies to
these attacks, on which see notes 13, 17, 19; (4) the general
treatises on evidence in the early fathers, on which see note
49. The recent publication of Pressense s work, 2e serie, t. 2.
where the analysis of the two latter sources is ably executed, ren
ders unnecessary the publication of an analysis of each. Several of
.them are also analysed in Schramm, Analysis Patrum, 1782.

58 LECTURE II.

against Julian. Yet it is never perfectly satisfactory
to be obliged to read an opinion through the state
ment of an opponent of it. The history of philoso
phical controversy shows that intellectual causes,
such as the natural tendency to answer an argument
on principles that its author would not concede,
to reply to conclusions instead of premises, or to
impute the corollaries which are supposed to be
deducible from an opinion, may lead to unintentional
misrepresentation of a doctrine refuted, even where
no moral causes such as bias or sarcasm contribute
to the result. Aristotle s well-known criticism of
Plato s theory of archetypes is a pertinent illustra
tion f .

The slight difficulty thus encountered, in extracting
the real opinions of the early unbelievers out of the
replies of their Christian opponents, may for the
most part be avoided by first realising the state of
belief which existed in reference to the heathen reli
gion, which for our present purpose may be treated
as homogeneous throughout the whole Roman world.
We shall thus be enabled as it were to foresee the
line of opinion A^iich would be likely to be adopted
in reference to a new religion coming with the claims
and character of Christianity. This prefatory inquiry
will also coincide with our general purpose of ana-

f It has been recently made a matter of dispute whether Plato s
own description of the teaching of the Sophists is not rendered
untrustworthy by these faults. See Grote s History of Greece,
vol. viii. ch. 67.

LECTURE II. 59

lysing the influence of intellectual causes in the pro
duction of unbelief.

Four separate tendencies may be distinguished
among heathens in the early centuries in reference to
religion & : viz. the tendency, (i) to absolute unbelief,

(2) to a bigoted attachment to a national creed,

(3) to a philosophical, and (4) a mystical theory
of religion.

The tendency to total disbelief of the supernatural
prevailed in the Epicurean school. A type of the
more earnest spirits of this class is seen at a period
a little earlier than the Christian era in Lucretius,
living mournfully in the moral desert which his
doubts had scorched into barrenness 11 . The world is
to him a scene unguided by a Providence : death is
uncheered by the hope of a future life. An example
of the flippant sceptic is found in Lucian in the
second century, A. D. The great knowledge of life
which travel had afforded him created a universal
ridicule for religion ; but his unbelief evinced no
seriousness, no sadness. His humour itself is a type
of the man. Lacking the bitter earnestness which

S These tendencies are discussed so fully and with such great
learning by Neander (Kirchengeschichte, vol. i. Introduction), and
by Pressense, Hist, de VEglise Chretienne, (2 e serie, t. ii. ch. i.),
to \vliom I am largely indebted, that it is unnecessary to quote the
original sources. Neander exhibits an analogous process in the
Jewish religion, in sects of the later times of the nation. See also
Dollinger s Judenthum und Heidenthum (translated i852.)

h The mental character of Lucretius has been well analyzed by
Mr. Sellar, in the volume of Oxford Essays, 1855.

60 LECTUEE II.

gave sting to the wit of Aristophanes, and the cour
teous playfulness exhibited in the many-sided genius
of Plato, he was a caricaturist rather than a painter :
his dialogues are farces of life rather than satires.
It has been well remarked, that human society has
no worse foe than a universal scoffer. Lacking aspi
rations sufficiently lofty to appreciate religion, and
wisdom to understand the great crises that give
birth to it, such a man destroys not superstition
only but the very faculty of belief 1 . It is easy to
perceive that to such minds Christianity would be a
mark for the same jests as other creeds.

A second tendency, most widely opposed in ap
pearance to the sceptical, but which was too often
its natural product, showed itself in a bigoted attach
ment to the national religion J. Among the masses
such faith was real though unintelligent, but in edu
cated men it had become artificial. When an ethnic
religion is young, faith is fresh and gives inspiration
to its art and its poetry. In a more critical age, the
historic spirit rationalizes the legends, while the phi
losophic allegorizes the myths ; and thoughtful men
attempt to rise to a spiritual worship of which rites
are symbols k . But in the decay of a religion, the

i Pressense (ut sup. 2 e serie, t. ii. 77 seq.) has ably sketched the
character of Lucian. His utter scepticism is seen in the Zevs
rpayMs (47-49).

J Instances, with references, may be seen in the introductory
chapter in Neander, p. 18 seq.

k The Greek literature offers the opportunity for studying the
whole process. See Grote, i. ch. 16, previously quoted.

LECTURE II. 61

supernatural loses its hold of the class of educated
minds, and is regarded as imposture, and the support
which they lend to worship is political. They fall back
on tradition to escape their doubts, or they think it
politically expedient to enforce on the masses a creed
which they contemn in heart. Such a ground of
attachment to paganism is described in the dialogue
of the Christian apologist, Minucius Felix 1 . It would
not only coincide with the first-named tendency in
denying the importance of Christianity, but would
join in active opposition. In truth, it marks the
commencement of the strong reaction which took
place in favour of heathenism at the close of the
second century, twofold in its nature ; a popular re
action of prejudice or of mysticism on the part of the
lower classes, and a political or philosophical one of
the educated rn . Both were in a great degree produced
by Eastern influences. The substitution which was
gradually taking place of naturalism for humanism,
the adoration of cosmical and mystical powers instead

1 The character Csecilius, in the dialogue of Minucius Felix, is
made to express this view, (c. 8. and elsewhere.) A useful modern
edition of this dialogue is given by H. A. Holden, 1853.

m This reaction deserves to be made the subject of special study.
Pressense is one of the few writers who have pointed out its import
ance, (2e serie, t. ii. ch. i.) Also compare the remarks in Ben
jamin Constant s posthumous work Du PolytJieisme flomain, 1833.
(t. ii. 1. 12, 13, 15.) Kurtz refers on this subject to Tzchirner s der
Fall des Heidenthum, i. 404. (1829.); H. Kritzler s Helden-zeiten
des Christenthum, vol. i. (1856.), and Vogt s Neo-Platonismus und
Christenthum (1836.) Also Cfr. Tzchirner s Apologetik (1804.) c. 2.
parts 2 and 3.

02 LECTUKE II.

of the human attributes of the deities of the older
creed, was the means of re-awakening popular super
stition, while at the same time the Alexandrian spe
culations of Neo-Platonism gave a religious aspect
to philosophy.

Accordingly the third, or philosophical tendency
in reference to religion, distinct from the two already
named, of positive unbelief in the supernatural on
the one hand, and devotion sincere or artificial to
heathen worship on the other, comprises, in addition
to the older schools of Stoics and Platonists, the new
eclectic school just spoken of. The three schools agreed
in extracting a philosophy out of the popular religion,
by searching for historic or moral truth veiled in its
symbols. The Stoic, as being the least speculative,
employed itself less with religion than the others. Its
doctrine, ethical rather than metaphysical, concerned
with the will rather than the intellect, juridical and
formal rather than speculative, seemed especially to
give expression to the Eoman character, as the Pla
tonic to the Greek, or as the eclectic to the hybrid,
half Oriental half European, which marked Alex
andria. In the writings of M. Aurelius, one of the
emperors most noted for the persecution of the
church, it manifests itself rather as a rule of life
than a subject for belief, as morality rather than re
ligion". The Stoic opposition to Christianity was the

n The Meditations of M. Aurelius were edited by Gataker (1698.)
See concerning them Fabricius, Biblioth. Grcec. v. 500. (ed. Harles) ;
Donaldson, Gr. Lat. ch. 54, 2. ; and concerning his opinions.

LECTURE II. 63

contempt of the Gaul or Roman for what was foreign,
or of ethical philosophy for religion.

The Platonic doctrine, so far as it is represented
in an impure form in the early centuries, sought, as
of old, to explore the connexion between the visible
and invisible worlds, and to rise above the phenome
non into the spiritual. Hence in its view of heathen
religion it strove to rescue the ideal religion from the
actual, and to discover the one revelation of the
Divine ideal amid the great variety of religious
traditions and modes of worship. But its invincible
dualism, separating by an impassable chasm God
from the world, and mind from matter, identifying
goodness with the one, evil with the other, prevented
belief in a religion like Christianity, which was pene
trated by the Hebrew conceptions of the universe, so
alien both to dualism and pantheism.

The line is not very marked which separates this
philosophy from the professed revival of Plato s
teaching, which received the name of Neo-Platonism,
which was the philosophy with which Christianity
came most frequently into conflict or contact during
the third and two following centuries (10). Fasten-

Neander s Kirchengesch. I. 177, Mr. G. Long has recently trans
lated the Meditations into English. The philosophy of the Koman
Stoics, of which M. Aurelius is one of the best types, is briefly but
excellently treated by Sir A. Grant in the Oxford Essays for 1858.
Also consult Hitter s History of Philosophy, vol. iv. b. 12. ch. 3. and
Neander s paper on the relation of Greek Ethics to Christianity in
the Zeitschrijt filr Christliche Wissenchaft und Christliches Leben
(1850.) translated in the American Bibliotheca Sacra for 1853.

64 LECTURE II.

ing on the more mystical parts of Plato, to the
neglect of the more practical, it probably borrowed
something also from Eastern mysticism. The object
of the school was to find an explanation of the pro
blem of existence, by tracing the evolution of the
absolute cause in the universe through a trinal mani
festation, as being, thought, and action. The agency
by which the human mind apprehended this process
lay in the attainment of a kind of insight wherein
the organ of knowledge is one with the object
known, a state of mind and feeling whereby the mind
gazes on a sphere of being which is closed to the ordi
nary faculties. Schelling s theory of " intellectual
intuition" is the modern parallel to this Neo-Platonic
state of eKo-Taa-is OT evOova-iaa-fjios. This philosophy,
though frequently described in modern times as
bearing a resemblance to Christianity in method, as
being the knowledge of the one absolute Being by
means of faith, is really most widely opposed in
its interior spirit. It is essentially pantheism. Its
monotheistic aspect, caught by contact with Semitic
thought, is exterior only. Its deity, which seems
personal, is really only the personification of an ab
straction, a mere instance of mental realism. Man s
personality, which Christianity states clearly, was
lost in the universe ; religious facts in metaphysical
ideas . Religion accordingly would be exclusive, con-

Pressens^ even suggests (2 e . serie, t. ii. p. 62.) that the ultimate
result was almost the nirvana of Boodhism. It will be observed, that
the view taken in the text concerning the Neo-Platonic philosophy,

LECTURE II. 65

fined to an aristocracy of education ; and the existing
national cultus would be appropriated as a sensuous
religion suited for the masses, a visible type of the
invisible. The analogy which this philosophy bore
to Christianity in aim and office, as weU as the
rivalry of other schools which is implied in its eclectic
aspect, caused it to take up an attitude of opposition
to the Christian system to which it claimed to bear
affinity.

The mystical element in this philosophy enabled
some minds to find a home for the theurgy which
had been increased by the importation of eastern
ideas P. They form as it were the connecting link with
the fourth religious tendency, which manifested itself
in the craving for a communication from the world
invisible, which found its satisfaction in magic and in
a spirit of fanaticism. Some of these fanatics were
doubtless also impostors ^ ; but some were high-minded
men struggling after truth, of whom possibly an
example is seen at an early period in Apollonius of
Tyana ; deceived rather than deceivers. This tendency
operated in some minds . to cause them to reduce
Christianity to ordinary magic and prodigies ; while

for which I am largely indebted to Pressense, is different from that
which regards it as monotheism, and which has been made popular
by Mr. Kingsley s novel, Hypatia, and by his lectures on the /Schools
of Alexandria (Lect. 3.), 1854.

P Hitter happily calls this philosophy Neo-Pythagoreanism, as
the former was Neo-Platonism.

q E. g. the Alexander of Pontus, whom Lucian holds up to ridi
cule. On Apollonius of Tyana, see a subsequent note.

G6 LECTURE II.

among a few it created yearnings for a nobler satis
faction, which drew them toward Christianity, as
in the case of the Clemens, whose autobiography
professes to be given in the well-known work of
the early ages, the Clementines. (11)

Such seem to have been the chief forms of reli
gious thought existing among the heathen to whom
Christianity presented itself, on which were founded
the preparation of heart which led to the accep
tance of its message, or the prejudices which rejected
its claims ; viz. among the masses, a sensuous un
intelligent belief in polytheism ; among the edu
cated, disorganization of belief; either materialism,
the total rejection of the supernatural, and a political
attachment on the principle of expedience to existing
creeds ; or philosophy, ethical, dualistic, pantheistic,
despising religions as mere organic products of na
tional thought, and trying to seize the central truths
of which they were the expression ; or a mystical
craving after the supernatural, degrading its victims
into fanatics. The further analysis of these tenden
cies would show their connexion with the threefold
classification before given of the tests of truth into
sense, reason, and feeling.

We have thus prepared the way for interpreting
the lines of argument used in opposition to Christi
anity, and shah 1 now proceed to sketch in chronological
succession the history of the chief intellectual attacks
made by unbelievers.

It is not until the middle of the second century

LECTURE II, 67

that we find Christianity becoming the subject of
literary investigation. Incidental expressions either
of scorn or of misapprehension form the sole allusions
in the heathen writers of earlier date (12) ; but in
the reigns of the Antonines, the Christians began to
attract notice and to meet with criticism. We read
of a work written against Christianity by a Cynic,
Crescens, in the reign of Antoninus Pius r ; and of
another by the tutor of Marcus Aurelius, Fronto of
Cirta 8 , in which probably the imperial persecution
was justified.

It is at this time too that we meet with an attempt
to hold the Christians up to ridicule in a satire of
Lucian 1 , which well exemplifies the views belonging

r Crescens is named in Justin Martyr (Apolog. II. 3), who wrote
against his attack ; Tatian (Or at. adv. Grac. c. 3) ; Eusebius (Eccl.
Hist. iv. 1 6). The last, on the strength of Tatian, accuses him of
causing Justin s death.

s Cornelius Fronto is referred to by Minucius Felix (Octav. ch. 9.
and 31), as having charged incestuous banquets on the Christians.
Tzchirner (Opusc. Acad. 1829. p. 294) conjectures that his work may
have been a legal speech against some Christian, whrch implied a
defence of the imperial persecution. Part of Fronto s works have
been found during the present century, and edited with a disserta
tion on his life and writings by Angelo Mai. (On his work against
Christianity, see p. 57. of the dissertation.) A brief account of
them may be found in Smith s Biographical Dictionary sub Fronto.

1 Lucian probably lived from about A.D. 125 to 200. Consult
the account given by Donaldson (Gfr. Lit. ch. 54. 3 and 4) of his
life, opinions, and works, where a comparison is drawn between him
and Voltaire ; also Mr. Dyer s article Lucianus in Smith s Biogra
phical Dictionary ; also Fabricius Bibliotheca Grceca v. 340. (ed.
Harles) ; Lardner s Collection of Jewish and Heathen Testimonies,

F 2

68 LECTUEE II.

to the sceptical of the four classes into which we have
divided the religious opinions of the heathen. His
tract, the Peregrinus Proteus, it can hardly be doubted,
is intended as a satire on Christian martyrdom (13).
Peregrinus 11 is a Cynic philosopher, who after a life
of early villany is made by Lucian to play the hypo
crite at Antioch and join himself to the Christians,
miserable men (as he calls them), * who, hoping for
immortality in soul and body, had a foolish con
tempt of death, and suffered themselves to be per
suaded that they were brethren, because, having aban
doned the Greek gods, they worshipped the cruci
fied sophist, living according to his laws x / Pere
grinus, when a Christian, soon rises to the dignity
of bishop, and is worshipped as a god ; and when im
prisoned for his religion is visited by Christians from
all quarters. Afterwards, expelled the church, he
travels over the world ; and at last for the sake of
glory burns himself publicly at Olympia about A.D.
165. His end is described in a tragico-comic manner,

Works, vol. viii. ch. 1 9. The satire referred to above is entitled Hepl TTJS

HfpiypLVOV T\CVTTJS.

u We learn from other writers that Peregrinus was a real charac
ter; but Aulus Gellius (xii. n), gives a much more favourable cha
racter of him than Lucian.

x The passage (of which this is Tzchirner s paraphrase) is : n&gt;7m -
Kao-i yap avrovs ol KaKo^aifJiovfs TO p.cv o\ov dOdvaroi fo~o~6at KOI ftiaxrfo-Oat
TOV ad xpovov, trap o KOL Kara&lt;ppovov&lt;n TOV Gavdrov KOL CKOVTCS OVTOVS firi-
o lo oao-iv ol TfoXXor fTreira 8e 6 vofj.o6cTr)s 6 Trpcoroy eTreicrej/ avrovs a&gt;s aSfX-
&lt;oi TrdvTCg clev d\\rf\(ov, eTTfiftav U7ra Trapafidvrfs Qcoiis ^tv rovy
KOVS dTrr)pvr](r&lt;dVTai, TOV 8e aveo-KoXoTrio /Lcei oi/ cKelvov O-Q^KTTTJV CLVTCOV
KOI Kara TOVS cKfivov v6fj.ovs ftiSxri. Pereg. Prot. 13.

LECTUEE II. 69

and a legend is recounted that at his death he was seen
in white, and that a hawk ascended from his pyre.

Lucian has here used a real name to describe a
class, not a person. He has given a caricature paint
ing from historic elements. There seems internal
evidence to show that he was slightly acquainted
with the books of the early Christians ?. It has even
been conjectured that he might have read and de
signed to parody the epistles of Ignatius 2 . With more
probability we may believe that he had heard of and
misunderstood the heroic bearing of the Christian
martyrs in the moments of their last sufferings. Pope
Alexander VII. in 1664 placed this tract in the index
of prohibited books : yet even beneath the satire we
rather hail Lucian as an unconscious witness to seve
ral beautiful features in the character of the Chris
tians of his time a ; viz. their worship of "the crucified
sophist," who was their adorable Lord ; their guile-
lessness ; their brotherly love ; their strict discipline ;
their common meals ; their union ; their benevolence ;
their joy in death. The points which he depicts in

&gt; Cfr. Pereg. Prot. 1 1 and 12.

z Bp. Pearson considered ( Vindic. lynat. part. ii. 6,) that an al
lusion is made to the death of Ignatius, (Cfr. Le Moyne, Varia Sacra
(pref.) 1694, for a somewhat similar argument in reference to Poly-
carp.) A. Planck in his Lucian und Christenthum (part i.) in Stud,
und Krit. 1851., the references to which are given in note 12 of
these lectures, tries to show that Lucian alludes even to Ignatius s
letters. If he does not succeed in establishing this point, he at
least (part iii.) makes Lucian s knowledge of Christian literature
extremely probable.

a These are enumerated by A. Planck, (id. partii.)

70 LECTURE II.

his satire are, their credulity in giving way to Pere-
grinus ; their unintelligent belief in Christ and in im
mortality ; their factiousness in aiding Peregrinus
when in prison ; their pompous vanity in martyr
dom, and possibly their tendency to believe legends
respecting a martyr s death. His satire is contempt,
not anger, nor dread. It is the humour of a thorough
sceptic, which discharged itself on all religions alike ;
and indicates one type of opposition to Christianity ;
viz. the contempt of those who thought it folly.

Very unlike to him was his well-known contempo
rary Gels us. If the one represents the scoffer, the
other represents the philosopher. Not despising
Christianity with scorn like Tacitus, nor jeering at it
with humour like Lucian, Celsus had the wisdom to
apprehend danger to heathenism, measuring Christ
ianity in its mental and not its material relations ; and
about the reign of Marcus Aurelius wrote against it
a work entitled Ao ^o? aA&gt;7$/;?, which was considered of
such importance, that Origen towards the close of his
own life b wrote a large and elaborate reply to it.

We know nothing of Celsus s life c . There is even

b Huet thinks the date was subsequent to A.D. 246. (Origeniana
i. c. 3. ii. ed. 1668.)

c There is a doubt whether the Celsus against whom Origen
wrote is the friend to whom Lucian has addressed his life of the
magician Alexander of Abonoteichus. The arguments on this
question are stated and weighed in Neander s Kirchengeschichte,
vol. i. 169, and Baur s Geschichte der drei ersten Jahrhunderte,
p. 371.) Both conclude that the persons were different. The
evidence of their oneness is chiefly Origen s conjecture that they

LECTURE II. 71

an uncertainty as to the school of philosophy to which
he belonged. External evidence seems to testify that
he was an Epicurean ; but internal would lead us to
classify him with the Platonic. Unscrupulous in argu
ment, confounding canonical gospels with apocryphal,
and Christians with heretical sects, delighting in
searching for contradictions, incapable of understand
ing the deeper aspects of Christianity, he has united
in his attack all known objections, making use of
minute criticism, philosophical theory, piquant sar
casm, and eloquent invective, as the vehicle of his
passionate assault.

It is impossible to recover a continuous account of
the work of Celsus from the treatise of his respon
dent ; but a careful study of the fragments embedded
in the text of Origen will perhaps restore the frame
work of the original sufficiently to enable us to per
ceive the points of his opposition to Christianity,
and the manner in which his philosophy stood in
the way of the reception of it. (14)

Celsus commences by introducing a Jewish rabbi
to attack Christianity from the monotheistic stand
point of the earlier faith d . The Jew is first made to

were the same person (Cont. Celsum. iv. 36.) The evidence against
it is, (i) that Lucian s friend attacked magical rites; the Celsus of
Origen seems to have believed them : (2) that Lucian s friend was
probably an Epicurean, the other Celsus a Platonist or Eclectic :
(3) that the former is praised for his mildness, the latter shows want
of moderation. Pressense nevertheless (ut sup. vol. ii. p. 105.) re
gards them as the same person.

d B. i. c. 28. The references are made to the chapters in the

72 LECTUEE II.

direct his criticism against the documents of Christ
ianity, and then the facts narrated 6 . He points out
inconsistencies in the gospel narratives of the gene
alogy of Christ f ; utters the most blasphemous
calumnies concerning the incarnation ; turns the nar
rative of the infancy into ridicule h ; imputes our
Saviour s miracles to magic 1 ; attacks his divinity J;
and concentrates the bitterest raillery on the af
fecting narrative of our blessed Lord s most holy
passion. Each fact of deepening sorrow in that
divine tragedy, the betrayal k , the mental anguish, the
sacred agony 1 , is made the subject of remarks cha
racterized no less by coarseness of taste and un
fairness, than to the Christian mind by irreve
rence. Instead of his heart being touched by the
majesty of our Saviour s sorrow, Celsus only finds an
argument against the divine character of the adorable
sufferer 111 . The wonders accompanying Christ s death
are treated as legends" ; the resurrection regarded as
an invention or an optical delusion .

After Celsus has thus made the Jew the means of

Benedictine edition by De la Eue (Paris, 1733.) The earlier part
of b. i. is miscellaneous in nature and seems prefatory ; and it is
not easy to determine the relation of Origen s remarks in it to the
arrangement of Celsus s book.

e Speaking generally, B. i. ch. 27, 28, 32, may be taken as the
one, and the rest of b. i., together with b. ii. as the other.

* B. ii. 32. g B. i. 28, 32-35. h B. i. 37, 58, 66.

i B. i. 38, 68. J B. i. 57 ; ii. 9, fe c . k B. ii. 21.

1 B. ii. 24. m B. ii. 16. " B. iii. 38.

B- iii. 59, 55, 57, 78.

LECTURE II. 73

a ruthless attack on Christianity, he himself directs
a similar one against the Jewish religion itself ;) . He
goes to the origin of their history ; describes the
Jews as having left Egypt in a sedition ^ ; as being
true types of the Christians in their ancient factious
ness 1 " ; considers Moses to be only on a level with
the early Greek legislators 8 ; regards Jewish rites like
circumcision to be borrowed from Egypt ; charges
anthropomorphism on Jewish theology 1 , and declines
allowing the allegorical interpretation in explanation
of it" ; examines Jewish prophecy, parallels it with
heathen oracles x , and claims that the goodness not
the truth of a prophecy ought to be considered ^ ;
points to the ancient idolatry of the Jews as proof
that they were not better than other nations 2 ; and
to the destruction of Jerusalem as proof that they
were not special favourites of heaven. At last he
arrives at their idea of creation 3 , and here reveals the
real ground of his antipathy. While he objects to
details in the narrative, such as the mention of days
before the existence of the sun b , his real hatred is
against the idea of the unity of God, and the freedom
of Deity in the act of creation. It is the struggle of
pantheism against theism.

When Celsus has thus made use of the Jew to
refute Christianity from the Jewish stand-point, and

P B. iii. i and elsewhere. q B. iii. 5. r B. iii. 5.

8 B. i. 17, 1 8 ; i. 22. * B. iv. 71 ; vi. 62. - u B. iv. 48.

x B. vii. 3 ; viii. 45- y B. vii. 14. 7 B. iv. 22, 23.

a B. iv. 74 ; vi. 49, &c. b B. vi. 60.

74 LECTURE II.

afterwards refuted the Jew from his own, he proceeds
to make his own attack on Christianity ; in doing
which, he first examines the lives of Christians c , and
afterwards the Christian doctrine d ; thus skilfully
prejudicing the mind of his readers against the per
sons before attacking the doctrines. He alludes to
the quarrelsomeness shown in the various sects of
Christians 6 , and repeats the calumnious suspicion of
disloyalty f , want of patriotism s, and political useless-
ness 11 ; and hence defends the public persecution of
them 1 . Filled with the esoteric pride of ancient phi
losophy, he reproaches the Christians with their care
fulness to proselytize the poor k , and to convert the
vicious 1 ; thus unconsciously giving a noble testimony
to one of the most divine features in our religion,
and testifying to the preaching of the doctrine of a
Saviour for sinners.

Having thus defamed the Christians, he passes to
the examination of the Christian doctrine, in its form,
its method, and its substance. His aesthetic sense,
ruined with the idolatry of form, and unable to ap
preciate the thought, regards the Gospels as defective
and rude through simplicity 1 ". The method of Chris
tian teaching also seems to him to be defective, as
lacking philosophy and dialectic, and as denouncing the
use of reason 11 . Lastly, he turns to the substance of the

c B. iii. d B. v. vi. vii. e B. iii. 10. f B. iii. 5, 14.

s; B. iii. 55 ; viii. 73. h B. viii, 69. &gt; B. viii. 69.

k B. iii. 44, 50. 1 B. iii. 59, 62, 74. m B. iii. 55 ; viii. 37.
n B. vii. 9 ; i. 2 ; i. 9 ; iii. 39 ; vi. 10.

LECTURE II. 75

dogmas themselves. He distinguishes two elements
in them, the one of which, as bearing resemblance to
philosophy or to heathen religion, he regards as in-
contestably true, but denies its originality, and en
deavours to derive it from Persia or from Platonism ;
resolving, for example, the worship of a human being
into the ordinary phenomenon of apotheosis P. The
other class of doctrines which he attacks as false, con
sists of those which relate to creation 9, the incarna
tion r , the fall 8 , redemption *, man s place in creation",
moral conversions*, and the resurrection of the dead/.
His point of view for criticising them is derived from
the fundamental dualism of the Platonic system ; the
eternal severance of matter and mind, of God and the
world ; and the reference of good to the region of mind,
evil to that of matter. Thus, not content with his
former attack on the idea of creation in discussion with
the Jew, he returns to the discussion from the philo
sophical side. His Platonism will not allow him to
admit that the absolute God, the first Cause, can
have any contact with matter. It leads him also to
give importance to the idea of V/xoi/e?, or divine
mediators, by which the chasm is filled between the
ideal god and the world 2 ; not being able otherwise
bo imagine the action of the pure iSea of God on a

B. vi. 15 ; vi. 22, 58, 62 ; v. 63 ; vi. i.

3 B. iii. 22 ; vii. 28-30. q B. iv. 37 ; vi. 49.

&lt; B. iv. 14; v. 2- vii. 36. s B. iv. 62, 70.

- B. v. 14 ; vii. 28, 36; vi. 78. u B. iv. 74, 76, 23.

5 B. iii. 65. y B. v. 14, 15. z B. vii. 68; viii. (2-14) 35, 38.

76 LECTURE II.

world of matter. Hence he blames Christians for
attributing an evil nature to demons, and finds a
reasonable interpretation of the heathen worship a .
The same dualist theory extinguishes the idea of the
incarnation, as a degradation of God ; and also the
doctrine of the fall, inasmuch as psychological dete
rioration is impossible if the soul be pure, and if evil
be a necessary attribute of matter b . With the fall,
redemption also disappears, because the perfect cannot
admit of change ; Christ s coming could only be to
correct what God already knew, or rectify what ought
to have been corrected before . Further, Celsus
argues, if Divinity did descend, that it would not
assume so lowly a form as Jesus. The same rigorous
logic charges on Christianity the undue elevation of
man, as well as the abasement of God. Celsus can
neither admit man more than the brutes to be the
final cause of the universe ; nor allow the possibility
of man s nearness to God d . His pantheism, destroy
ing the barrier which separates the material from the
moral, obliterates the perception of the fact that a
single free responsible being may be of more dignity
than the universe.

Such is the type of a philosophical objector against
Christianity, a little later than the middle of the
second century. We meet here for the first time a
remarkable effort of pagan thought, endeavouring to

B. viii. 2. b B. iv. 99.

B. iv. 3, 7, 18. d B. iv. 74.

LECTURE II. 77

extinguish the new religion ; the definite statements
of a mind that investigated its claims and rejected it.
Most of the objections of Celsus are sophistical ; a
few are admitted difficulties ;. but the philosophical
class of them will be seen to be the corollary from
his general principle before explained.

A century intervenes before we meet with the
next literary assailant, Porphyry. In the interval
the new reactionary philosophy had fully taken root,
and the fresh attack accordingly bears the impress
of the new system.

The chief objections made in the intervening period,
as we collect them from the apologies, were such
as belong fitly to a transitional time, when Christianity
was exciting attention but was not understood 6 ;
and are chiefly the result of the second of the ten
dencies before named, viz., either of popular prejudice,
or of the political alarm in reference to the social
disorganization likely to arise out of a large defection
from the religion of the empire, which expressed it
self in overt acts of persecution on the part of the
state. (15) Both equally lie beyond our field of
investigation ; the one because it does not belong
to the examination of Christianity made by intelli
gent thought ; the other because it is the struggle of
deeds, not of ideas, which only have an interest for
us, if ? as in Julian s case hereafter, the acts were dic-

e On tlie alteration in the attacks, Cfr. Gerard (of Aberdeen),
Compendium of Evidences, 1828. (part ii. ch. i.)

78 LECTURE II.

tated by the deliberate advice of persons who had
attentively examined Christianity.

The apprehensions of prejudice gradually subsided,
and objections began to be based on grounds less ab
surd in character. The political opposition also was
henceforth founded on a more subtle policy, and on
an appreciation of the nature of Christianity. Soon
after the middle of the third century we meet with
the next attack of a purely literary kind, viz., by
Porphyry, the most distinguished opponent that
Christianity had yet encountered f . The pupil of
Longinus, perhaps of Origen^, and the biographer
and interpreter of Plotinus, he is best known for his
logical writings, and for the development of the
theory of predication in his introduction to the Orga-
non, which formed the text on which hung the medi
aeval speculations of scholasticism 11 . His Syrian origin
and oriental culture perhaps prepared him for a fusion
of East and West, and for admitting a deeper admix
ture of mysticism into the Neo-Platonic philosophy,
of which he was a disciple. The points of his ap-

f Porphyry lived from about A. D. 233 to 305. For his life and
writings see Holstenius de Vit. Porphyr. (1630); Fabric. Bibl.
Grcec.v. 725. (ed. Harles) ; Lardner s Works, viii. 37 ; Donaldson s
Gr. Lit. ch. 53. 7. For his attack on Christianity consult Nean-
der s Kirchengesch. i. 290 j Pressense ii. 156.

& His own words, quoted in Eusebius (Eccl. Hist. iii. 19), have
been thought to imply this, but seem merely to state his acquaint
ance in youth with Origen. See Holsten. Vit. Porphyr. p. 1 6.

h Cousin (Pref. to Edition of Abelard s Sic et Non, p. 6 1 . note
46.) considers that a passage which Boethius quoted from Porphyry
was the means of reviving philosophical speculation on this point.

LECTURE II. 79

proximation to Christianity are the result of those
elements in which heathen philosophy most nearly
approached to Christian truth, the development
of which was stimulated in minds essentially anti-
christian by the effort to find a rival to it. Ad
mirably prepared by his serious and spiritual tone to
embrace Christianity, he nevertheless lived a disciple
of paganism. His feelings rather than his reason led
him to defend national creeds. His philosophy
and the Christian, which seemed to be aspirations
after the same end, being designed to elevate the
spirit above the world of sense, were really radically
opposed. Understanding therefore the power of the
Christian religion, he felt the necessity for supplant
ing it ; and hoped to do so by spiritualising the old
creeds, which he harmonized with philosophy by
means of regarding them as symbolic .

His opposition to Christianity was not however

i He seems especially to have felt the difficulty which was before
noticed as marking one type of religious opinion, the craving for a
theology which rested on some divine authority, or revelation from
the world invisible, (Cfr. Augustin s criticisms on him in De Civ.
Dei. x. ch. 9, n, 26, 28) ; and hence he drew such a system from
the real or pretended answers of oracles, in his ir(p\ rfjs * Ao-yiW &lt;/u-
Xoa-otyias, of which fragments exist in Eusebius and Augustin (Fabric.
Bibl. Gr. v. 744). Heathens, it would seem, had consulted oracles
on this very subject of Christianity ; and it is these, the genuineness
of which maybe doubted, that he uses. His aim seems to have been
to support the existing religious system ; and for this purpose he fa
voured the alliance with the priestly system, and the institution of
religious rites. See Neander Kirchengesch. i. 293.

SO LECTURE II.

based wholly on a prejudice of feeling. He was a
man cultivated in all the learning of his age, and of a
more generous temper than Celsus, and seems to
have exercised much critical sagacity in the investi
gation of the claims of Christianity. About the year
270, while in retirement in Sicily, he wrote a book
against the Christians k . This work having been de
stroyed, we are left to gather its contents and the
opinions of its author from a few criticisms in Euse-
bius and Jerome. The entire work consisted of fif
teen books ; and concerning only five of these is infor
mation afforded by them. Their remarks lead us to
conjecture ^that it was an assault on Christianity in
many relations. The books however of which we
know the purpose, seem to have been critical rather
than philosophical, directed against the grounds of the
religion rather than its character ; being in fact an
assault on the Bible. The existence of such a line of
argument, of which a trace was already observable in
Celsus, is explained by the circumstance that the
faith of Christendom was already fixed on the au
thority of the sacred books. The church had always
acknowledged the authority of the Jewish scriptures ;
and by the middle or close of the second century at
the latest, it had come to acknowledge explicitly
the co-ordinate authority of a body of Christian lite-

k On this work, Kara Xpia-Tiavtov, see Holsten. ( Vita Porphyr. c. x.)
who quotes at length from the Fathers the principal passages in
which allusion to it is made.

LECTUEE II. 81

rature, historic, and epistolary 1 . Hence, when once
the idea of a rule of faith had grown common, the
investigation of the contents of the scriptures became
necessary on the part of heathen opponents. The
growingly critical character of Porphyry s statements,
though partly attributable to the literary culture of
his mind, is a slight undesigned evidence corrobo
rative of the authoritative nature already attributed
to the scriptures in doctrine and truthfulness. Por
phyry seems accordingly to have directed his critical
powers to show such traces of mistakes and incorrect
ness as might invalidate the idea of a supernatural
origin for the Jewish and Christian scriptures, and
shake confidence in their truth as an authority.

The first book of his work m dragged to light some
of the discrepancies, real or supposed, hi scripture ;

1 Omitting allusion to the references concerning the canon fur
nished in older works, e.g. of Cosin, Dupin, Jones, Lardner, Michaelis,
some of which were written in reference to the controversy between
the Romanists and Reformed, others between the Christians and
freethinkers, we may at least name Moses Stuart s work on the
Canon of the Old Testament, and Credner Zur Geschiehte des
Kanons with reference to the New ; (the former is apologetic, the
latter independent and slightly rationalistic, but full of learning ;)
and especially the work on the Canon of the New Testament by Mr.
B. F. Westcott (1855), and the article on Canon by him in Smith s
Biblical Dictionary, where references to fuller literary materials are
given.

m Hieronymi Opera, (at the end of the Proem, of the Commentary
on Galatians) vol. 4. part i. p. 223, Benedictine edition of Martianay,
1706 ; also Galat. ii. n. (id. p. 244) ; also at the end of book xiv.,
(Isaiah liii.) vol. iii. p. 388 ; also Ep. 74 to Augustin (id. iv.
part ii. 619, 622.)

82 LECTURE II.

and the examination of the dispute between St. Peter
and St. Paul was quoted as an instance of the ad
mixture of human ingredients in the body of apo
stolic teaching. His third book" was directed to the
subject of scripture interpretation, especially, with
some inconsistency, against the allegorical or mystical
tendency which at that time marked the whole
church, and especially the Alexandrian fathers. The
allegorical method coincided with, if it did not arise
from, the oriental instinct of symbolism, the natural
poetry of the human mind. But in the minds of Jews
and Christians it had been sanctified by its use in
the Hebrew religion, and had become associated with
the apocryphal literature of the Jewish church. It
is traceable to a more limited extent in the inspired
writers of the New Testament, and in most of the
fathers ; but in the school of Alexandria it was
adopted as a formal system of interpretation. It is
this allegorical system which Porphyry attacked.
He assaulted the writings of those who had fanci
fully allegorised the Old Testament in the pious

n Euseb. Eccl. Hist. vi. c. 1 9. (ed. Gaisford, p. 414) gives a long
extract from Porphyry. Of the second book nothing is known.

On the school of Alexandria see H. E. F. Guericke Schola quce
Alex, floruit, 1825. (p. 5181); Matter s Essai sur Vecole d Alex-
andrie, 1840; Neanc^er s Kirchengesch. II. 908 seq, 1196 seq. On
the allegorical method of interpretation adopted by Origeii, see
Huet s Origeniana II. qusest. 13. (vol. i. 170); Conybeare s Bamp-
ton Lecture for 1824 (Lect. 2-4) ; R A.Vaughan s Essays and Re
mains (Essay I); and an article in the North British Review, No. 46,
August 1855. Also compare a note on systems of interpretation
in Lect. VI.

LECTUEE II. 83

desire of finding Christianity in every part of it, in
spite of historic conditions ; and he hastily drew the
inference, with something like the feeling of doubt
which rash interpretations of prophecy are in danger
of producing at this day, that no consistent sense can
be put upon the Old Testament. His fourth book?
was a criticism on the Mosaic history, and on Jewish
antiquities. But the most important books in his
work were the twelfth^ and thirteenth 1 ", which were
devoted to an examination of the prophecies of Daniel,
in which he detected some of those peculiarities on
which modern criticism has employed itself, and
arrived at the conclusions in reference to its date,
revived by the English deist Collins in the last
century, and by many German critics in the present.
It is well known that half of the book of Daniel 8

P Euseb. Praep. i. 9 ; x. 9 ; which passages merely express the
hostility of Porphyry.

q In Jerome s Proem, to Daniel are four passages. (See Works,
vol. iii. p. 1073-4.)

r See Jerome. Comm. on Matt. xxiv. 15. (b. iv. vol. iv. p. 115.)

s As early as the time of Spinoza, from whose work, the Theolo-
gicus Politicus, Collins may perhaps have indirectly derived hints j
doubts of the authenticity of parts were expressed ; and the inquiry
was pursued by Michaelis and Eichhorn : but the modern criticism
on it dates especially from Berthold (1806), who impugned its au
thenticity. Bleek (1822), De Wette, Von Lengerke of Konigsberg
(1835), Maurer (1838), more recently Hitzig (1850), and Liicke
(1852), followed on the same side. The English theologian, Dr.
Arnold, adopted the same view. The contrary opinion has been
maintained by Hengstenberg (1831), Havernich (1832), Keil (1853);
Delitzch (in Herzog s Encycl. 1854), Auberlen (1857), by Moses
Htuart, and by Dr. S. Davidson (Introduction to the Old Testament,

G 2

84 LECTURE II.

is historic, half prophetic. Each of these parts is
distinguished from similar portions of the Old Testa
ment by some peculiarities. Porphyry is not re
corded as noticing any of those which belong to the
historic part, unless we may conjecture, from his
theory of the book being originally written in Greek,
that he detected the presence of those Greek words
in Nebuchadnezzar s edicts which many modern critics
have contended could not be introduced into Chaldsea
antecedently to the Macedonian conquest*. The pe
culiarity alleged to belong to the prophetical part is
its apocalyptic tone. It looks, it has been said, his
torical rather than prophetical. Definite events, and
a chain of definite events, are predicted with the pre-
1856). Hengstenberg, Havernich, and Auberlen are translated. The
first of these three is valuable, especially for the literary and exe-
getical questions ; the second as a controversial commentary ; the
third for tracing the organic unity of the book.

fc The importance attached to the occurrence of Greek words
is much over-estimated. They can only be shown to be four,
which occur in ch. iii. 5, 7, 10; viz., n^rvj? idOapa, oap o-appvicr),
rpasp^D o-vju&lt;owa, jnrnpB ^aXrrjpiov j all of which relate to musical
instruments, not unlikely to be introduced by commerce, and which
would naturally be called by their foreign names. Some of the
writers named in a preceding note have examined incidentally the
character of the Hebrew and Chaldee of Daniel, and consider that
both are similar to those of works confessedly of the age of Daniel ;
and that the Chaldee is separated by a chasm from that of the
earliest Targums. Professor Pusey delivered a lecture on the sub
ject in the university, containing the results of his own recent
studies, in the summer of the present year, which will form one of a
printed course of lectures on Daniel. See also an article by the
Rev. J. M c Gill in the Journal of Sacred Literature, Jan. 1861.

LECTURE II. 85

cision of historical narrative"; whereas most prophecy
is a moral sermon, in which general moral predictions
are given, with specific historic ones interspersed. Nor
is this, which is shared in a less degree by occasional
prophecies elsewhere, the only peculiarity alleged, but
it is affirmed also that the definite character ceases at
a particular period of the reign of Antiochus Epi-
phanes x , down to which the very campaigns of the
Seleucid and Ptolemaic dynasties are noted, but sub
sequently to which the prophetic tone becomes more
vague and indefinite. Hence the conjecture has been
hazarded that it was written in the reign of Antio
chus, by a Palestinian Jew, who gathered up the
traditions of Daniel s life, and wrote the recent history
of his country in eloquent language, in an apocalyptic
form ; which, after the literary fashion of his age, he
imputed to an. ancient seer, Daniel ; definite up to
the period at which he composed it, indefinite as he
gazed on the future. (16) It was this peculiarity,
the supposed ceasing of the prophecies in the
book of Daniel at a definite date, which was noticed
by Porphyry, and led him to suggest the theory of
its authorship just named?. These remarks will

u E. g. the wars of the kings of the north and of the south, c. xi.

x Viz., till about B. C. 164.

y He seems also to have entered into some examination of the
specific prophecies ; for he objects to the application of the words
" the abomination of desolation" to other objects than that which
he considers its original meaning. See Hieronym. on Matt. xxiv. 15.
the reference to which is given in a preceding note.

86 LECTUEE II.

give an idea of the critical acuteness of Porphyry.
His objections are not, it will be observed, founded
on quibbles like those of Celsus, but on instruc
tive literary characteristics, many of which are greatly
exaggerated or grossly misinterpreted, but still are
real, and suggest difficulties or inquiries which the
best modern theological critics have honourably felt to
demand candid examination and explanation 7 .

A period of about thirty years brings us to the
date of the Diocletian persecution, A.D. 303 ; during
the progress of which another noted attack was
made. It was by Hierocles, then president of Bithy-
nia, and afterwards prsefect of Alexandria, himself one
of the instigators of the persecution and an agent in
effecting" it a . His line of argument was more specific

z A few other traces of Porphyry s views remain, which are of
less importance, and are levelled against parts of the New Testa
ment : e. g. the change of purpose in our blessed Lord (John vii.)
[Hieronym. vol. iv. part ii. p. 521. (Dial. adv. Pelag.) , Ep. (101) ad
Pammach. Several are given in Holsten. (Vit. Porphyr. p. 86)],
the reasons why the Old Testament was abrogated if divine,
[Augustin. Epist. (102, olim 49, Benedict, ed. 1689) v l- ii- P- 2 74?
where six questions are named, some of which come from Porphyry:]
the question what became of the generations which lived before
Christianity was proclaimed, if Christianity was the only way of
salvation ; objections to the severity of St. Peter in the death of
Ananias ; and the inscrutable mystery of an infinite punishment
in requital for finite sin. (Aug. Retract, b. ii. c. 31. vol. i. p. 53,
concerning Matt. vii. 2.)

a Hierocles work was called Ao yoi &lt;iAaA^eis- npbs TOVS Xpumavovs.
Our knowledge of it depends upon the refutation which Eusebius
wrote of it ; and upon passages in Lactantius (Instit. v. 2, and
De Mort. Persecut. 16.) Concerning Hierocles see Bayle s Diction-

LECTURE II. 87

than those previously named, being directed against
the evidence which was derived by Christians for
the truth of their religion from the character and
miraculous works of Christ ; and his aim accordingly
was to develope the character of Apollonius of Ty
ana 13 , as a rival to our Saviour in piety and miraculous
power.

Apollonius was a Pythagorean philosopher, born in
Cappadocia about four years before the Christian
era. After being early educated in the circle of phi
losophy, and in the practice of the ascetic discipline of
his predecessor Pythagoras, he imitated that philo
sopher in spending the next portion of his life in
travel. Attracted by his. mysticism to the farthest
East as the source of knowledge, he set out for
Persia and India ; and in Nineveh on his route met
Damis, the future chronicler of his actions. Return
ing from the East instructed in Brahminic lore, he
travelled over the Roman world. The remainder of
his days was spent in Asia Minor. Statues and
temples were erected to his honour. He obtained

ary, sub voc. (notes) ; Fabric. Bibl. Gr. i. 792. note ; Cave s Hist.
Lit. i. 131. ii. 99 ; Lardner s Works, vol. viii. cli. 39. 1-4, and
Neander s KircJiengesch. i. 296.

b On Apollonius of Tyana, see Lardner s Works, vol. viii. ch. 39.
5, 6. Bitter s History of Philosophy (vol. iv. b. xii. ch. 7.), and
especially the monograph by C. Baur of Tubingen, Apollonius von
Tyana und Christus oder das Verliaeltniss des Pythagoreismus zum,
Christenthum (1832); also the Abbe* Houtteville s Essay affixed
to the Discourse on the Method oftlie Principal Authors for and
against Christianity, translated 1739; and the article Apollonius
by Professor Jowett in Smith s Biographical Dictionary.

88 LECTUEE II.

vast influence, and died with the reputation of sanc
tity late in the centuiy. Such is the outline of his
life, if we omit the numerous legends and prodigies
which attach themselves to his name. He was partly
a philosopher, partly a magician ; half mystic, half
impostor . At the distance of a century and a
quarter from his death, in the reign of Septimius
Severus, at the request of the wife of that emperor,
the second of the three Philostrati dressed up Damis s
narrative of his life, in a work still remaining, and
paved a way for the general reception of the story
among the cultivated classes of Rome and Greece d .
It has been thought that Philostratus had a
polemical aim against the Christian faith 6 , as the
memoir of Apollonius is in so many points a parody
on the life of Christ. The annunciation of his birth
to his mother, the chorus of swans which sang
for joy on occasion of it, the casting out devils, the
raising the dead, and healing the sick, the sudden
disappearance and re- appearance of Apollonius, the

c He was probably midway between Pythagoras and the Alex
ander named by Lucian.

d It was written about A.D. 210, at the request of Julia Domna,
and is entitled TO. es rbv Tvavea ATroAXowov. On this life by Philos
tratus see Fabric. Bill Gr. v. 541. ; the above-named works of
Houtteville and Baur ; Donaldson s Gr. Lit. ch. Hi. 7 ; Pressense ii.
J44seq. ; and a recent translation of Philostratus with remarks by
A. Chassang, " Le Marveilleux dans 1 Antiquite" (1862).

e Lardner and Bitter think that Philostratus did not write with
a polemical reference to Christianity, but Baur concludes other
wise. Dean Trench has made a few remarks in reference to this
question (Notes to Miracles, p. 62.)

LECTURE II. 89

sacred voice which called him at his death, and his
claim to be a teacher with authority to reform the
world, form some of the points of similarity.

If such was the intention of Philostratus, he was
really a controversialist under the form of a writer of
romance ; employed by those who at that time were
labouring (as already named) to introduce an eclecti
cism largely borrowed from the East into the region
both of philosophy and religion. Without settling this
question, it is at least certain that about the beginning
of the next century the heathen writers adopted this
line of argument, and sought to exhibit a rival ideal f .
One instance is the life of Pythagoras by lamblichus;
another that which Hierocles wrote, in part of which
he used Philostratus s untrustworthy memoir for the
purpose of instituting a comparison between Apol-
lonius and Christ. The sceptic who referred re
ligious phenomena to fanaticism would hence avail
himself of the comparison as a satisfactory account of
the origin of Christianity ; while others would adopt
the same view as Hierocles, and deprive the Christian
miracles of the force of evidence, a line of argument
which was reproduced by an English deist s who
translated the work of Philostratus at the end of the
seventeenth century. The work of Hierocles is lost,

f On lamblichus s Life of Pythagoras, see Fabrieius Bibl Gr.
v. 764 ; Lardner viii. 39. 7., who however concludes in this case,
as in that of Philostratus, that the book was not designed against
Christianity.

g Charles Blount in 1680. . See Lect. IV.

90 LECTUEE II.

but an outline of its argument, with extracts, remains
in a reply which Eusebius wrote to a portion of it (17).
Though couched in a seeming spirit of fairness, the
tone was such as would be expected from one who
ungenerously availed himself of the very moment of
a cruel persecution as the occasion of this literary
attack.

But the time of the church s sorrow was nearly
past. The hour of deliverance was at hand. The
emperor Constantine proclaimed toleration 11 , and
subsequently established Christianity as the state-
religion. Only one moment more of peril was per
mitted to befall it.

After an interval in which Christian emperors
reigned, Julian ascended the throne, and employed
his short reign of two years 1 in trying to restore
heathenism; and during the last winter of his life,
while halting at Antioch in the course of his Eastern
war, wrote an elaborate work against Christianity k .
The book itself has been destroyed, but the reply re
mains which Cyril of Alexandria thought it necessary
to write more than half a century afterwards ; and by
this means we can gather Julian s opinions, just as
from his own letters and the contemporary history
we can gather his plans. The material struggle of

h A.D. 313. * A.D. 361-3.

k Kara Xpioriai/a&gt;i&gt;. See Fabric. Bibl. Gr. vii. 738 ; Lardner viii.
46. 2, and 4; Donaldson iii. 303. Fragments of it are preserved in
Cyril s reply. The Marquis d Argens, at the court of Frederick the
Great of Prussia, translated and tried to unite them. Defense du
Paganisms par VEmpereur Julian, 1764.

LECTURE II. 91

deeds belongs in this instance to our subject, inas
much as it is the overt expression of the struggle
of ideas.

Julian, as already observed, differed from previous
opponents of Christianity, in having been educated a
Christian 1 . Associating when a student at the schools
of Athens with Gregory of Nazianzum and Basil, he
had every opportunity for understanding the Christian
religion and measuring its claims. The first cause of
his apostasy from it remains uncertain. One tradition
states that the shock to his creed arose from some
early injury received through the fraud of a pro
fessing Christian. Something is probably due to ex
asperation at the severity endured from Constantius ;
and perhaps still more is due to the natural peculi
arity of his character. He was swayed by the imagi
nation rather than the reason, and was kindled with
an enthusiastic admiration of the old heathen litera
ture and the historic glories of the heathen world.
His very style exhibits traces of imitation of the old
models after which he formed himself" 1 . With a
spirit which the Italian writers of the Renaissance

1 On the life and reign of Julian, see Gibbon (Decline and Fatt,
c. 22-24) ; Fabricii Lux Evangdii, 1721, c. 14, where the edicts
which refer to Christianity are collected ; Lardner viii. 46 ; Abbe
de la Bletterie s Vie de Julien ; Neander, Kirchengeschiii. 76. and
188, who also wrote in 1812 a monograph on the subject; Wig-
gers in Illgen s tftrt. Zeitschr. 1837 ; Milman s Hist, of Christianity
iii 6. On Julian s works see Fabric. Bill Gr. vi. 719 seq. ; Donald-
son iii. 57. 6.

m Wyttenbach Opusc. i. 6 ; Donaldson iii. p. 307.

92 LECTURE II.

enable us to understand, his sympathies clung ron
heathens until they entwined in their embr;
heathenism itself. To a mind of this natural I
sufficient grounds unhappily would easily be fou
to produce aversion to Christianity, in the quari
among sections of the church, and in the ambit
and inconsistency of the numbers of nominal conve
who embraced the religion when its public establi
ment had rendered it their interest to do so;
prejudice would add arguments for rejecting it.

Accordingly he devoted his short reign to rest
the ancient heathenism. Like Constantine, hav
arrived at the throne through a troublous war,
found the religion of the state opposed to his o
convictions, and determined to substitute that wh
he himself professed. The difference however ^
great. The religion of Constantine was young
progressive ; that of Julian was effete. It is in i
respect that Julian has been compared n , in his c
racter and acts, to those who in modern times, b
in literature and in politics, have devoted tl
lives to roll back the progress of public opinion, i
reproduce the spirit of the past by giving new life
the relics of bygone ages. If Julian had succee(
in his attempt, the victory could not have been j
manent.

The steps by which he strove to carry out

n By Strauss, Der Romantiker auf dem Throne des Caest
oder Julian der abtruennige 1847.

LECTURE II. 93

views were not unlike those of Constantine . He
first proclaimed the establishment of the emperor s
religion as the religion of the state, permitting
toleration for all others. He next transferred the
Christian endowments to heathens, acting on the
principle previously established by Constantine. But
beyond this point he proceeded to measures which
had the nature of persecution. He declared the
Christian laity disqualified for office in the state, a
measure which could only be sophistically maintained
on the plea of self-defence ; and, afraid of the engine
of education, forbade Christian professors to lecture
in the public schools of science and literature : and
probably he at last imposed a tax on those who did
not perform sacrifice. At the same time he saw the
necessity of a total reformation in paganism, if it
was to revive as the rival of Christianity ; and
planned, as Pontifex Maximus, a scheme for effecting
it, which involved the concealment of the absurdity
of its origin by allegorical interpretation, together
with the establishment of a discipline and organisa
tion similar to the Christian, and special attention
on the part of the priesthood to morality and to
public works of mercy P. His bitter contempt for

There are some good remarks on Julian in Waddington s
Church History, ch. viii.

P He also made the well-known attempt to rebuild the temple
of Jerusalem. On the alleged miracle which prevented the execu
tion of the scheme, see Warburton s works vol. iv., Lardner vol.
viii. ch. 46. 3, and Milman s note to Gibbon (c. 23.) Warburton

04 LECTURE II.

Christianity manifested itself in a public edict, which
commanded that Christians should be denominated
by the opprobrious epithet " Galilaeans " and in some
of his extant letters ^ he evinces a bitterness against
it which finds its parallel in Voltaire and Shelley.

A work remains, the Philopatris, (18) usually
falsely assigned to Lucian, but which internal evi
dence proves to belong to the reign of Julian, in
which the unknown author, imitating the manner
but wanting the power of Lucian, holds up to
ridicule the sermons and teaching of some Christian
preachers. This work probably conveys the creed
of the imperial party, which is simple Deism. This
however is not the only source for ascertaining the
creed of Julian, and the nature of his objections to
Christianity. In his letters, and in the reply of Cyril
to his now lost work, we possess more exact means
for determining his position and sentiments. (19)

He omitted, as we might expect, the grosser and
more frivolous charges against Christianity which
had been formerly expressed by those who were
ignorant of its real character. Indeed he seems to
have been willing to recognise it as one form of
religion, but declined to admit its monopoly of claim
to be regarded as the only true form. Though him-

believes the miracle ; but Lardner hesitates. The original passages
which refer to it are Amm. Marcell. xxiii. ch. i ; Ambr. Ep. xi. 2 ;
Chrysost. adv. Jud. et Gent. ; Greg. Naz. Oral. 4. adv. Jul

q E. g. Ep. to Ecdidius (Ep. 9, Spanheim s edition, 1696); Decree
to the Alexandrians (Ep. 26, 51) ; Ep. to Arsacius (49).

LECTURE II. 95

self a Theist r , his view of Deity being more simply
monotheistic than that of his predecessors, derived
furtively from the Hebrew idea transmitted through
Christianity ; he nevertheless considered that dis
crepancy of national character required corresponding
differences in religion 8 . In his work he seems to
have repeated some of the objections of the older
assailants, Celsus and Porphyry ; attacking the credi
bility of scripture and of the Christian scheme in its
doctrines and evidences. He offered in it a criticism
on primaeval and Hebrew history 1 ; attacking the
probability of many portions of the book of Genesis u ;
objecting to the Hebrew view of Deity as too appro
priating in its character, and as making the divine
Being appear cruel x . He denied the originality of
the Hebrew moral law- v , and pointed out the sup
posed defectiveness of the Hebrew polity ; comparing
unfavourably the type of the Hebrew lawgiver as
seen in Moses, and of the king as seen in David,
with the great heroes of Greek history . The Hebrew
prophecy he tried to weaken by putting it in com
parison with oracles. In estimating the charac
ter of Christ, he depreciated the importance of his
miracles a ; and noticing the different tone of the
fourth Gospel from those of the Synoptists, he as
serted that it was St. John who first taught Christ s
divinity b . He regarded Christianity as composed of

r Cyril, adv. Jul. B. iii and iv. 8 B. iv. * B. ii.

B. iii. * B. iii. Y B. v.

z B. v. and vii. a B. vi. b B. x.

96 LECTURE II.

borrowed ingredients ; considered it to have assumed
its shape gradually ; and regarded its progress to
have been unforeseen by its founder and by St. Paul c ;
attacked its relation to Judaism in superseding it
while depending on it d ; regarded proselytism as ab
surd ; and directed some few charges, which may
have been more deserved, against practices of his
day, such as Staurolatry 6 and Martyrolatry f .

With the death of Julian the hopes of heathenism
departed ; and two eloquent orations of Gregory
Nazianzen s still convey to us the Christian words of
triumph. Christianity progressed, protected by the
favour of the sovereigns. Heathenism no longer
expressed itself in free examination of Christianity,
and lingered only in the prejudices of the people.
In the West it is merely seen as it pleads for tolera
tion 11 , or makes itself heard in the murmurs which
attributed the woes of the Teutonic invasions to the
displeasure of the heathen gods at the neglect of
their worship 1 . In the East it disappears altogether.

c B. vii. and x. d B. viii. e B. vi. f B. x.

S Greg. Naz. Op. i. Orat. 4 and 5.

h Q. Aurelius Symmaclms was deputed by the senate to remon
strate with Gratian on the removal of the altar of Victory (A. D. 382)
from the council hall; and afterwards, when appointed (384) prefect
of the city, he addressed a letter to Valentinian requiring the restor
ation of the pagan deities to their former honours. Both Symma-
chus s address and St. Ambrose s refutation are given in Cave s Lives
of Fathers (Life of Ambrose 3. p. 576.)

1 Augustin refutes this objection in several places of the first
five books in the De Civ. Dei.

LECTURE II. 97

Doubt there expires, because speculation ceases and
Christian thought becomes fixed ; nor will it be
necessary in future to recur to the history of the
eastern church.

In this survey we have tried to understand the
objections alleged by unbelievers during the first
four centuries, successively changing in character,
from the calumnies of ignorance in the second cen
tury, to the statements of intelligent disbelief in
the third and fourth, until they finally subside in
the fifth into the murmuring of popular super
stition ; and have endeavoured to give their na
tural as well as literary history, by exhibiting
them as corollaries from the various views concerning
religion enumerated at the commencement of the
lecture. The blind prejudices of the uneducated
populace, and the attachment, merely political, to
heathen creeds, manifested themselves in deeds rather
than words ; but each of the other lines of thought
there indicated gave expression in literature to its
opinion concerning Christianity ; the flippant impiety
of Epicureanism in Lucian, the debased form then
prevalent of Platonism in Celsus, the subtle and
mystic philosophy of the neo-Platonists in Porphyry,
the oriental Theosophy in Hierocles, the romantic
attachment to the old pagan literature in Julian.

If these causes be still further classified for com
parison with the enumeration of intellectual causes
stated in the previous lecture, we find only the
adumbration of some of the forms there named. The

98 LECTURE II.

attack from physical science, so prevalent since the
era of modern discovery, is barely discernible in the
passing remarks on the Mosaic cosmogony in Celsus
and Julian 1 . The attack from criticism is seen in
a trifling form in Celsus ; in a superior manner in
the perception which Porphyry exhibits of the
literary characteristics of the Old Testament, and
Julian of the New. The chief ground of the attack
was derived from metaphysical science, which acted
not so much in its modern form of a subjective
inquiry into the tests of truth, as in the shape of
rival doctrines concerning the highest problems of
life and being, which preoccupied the mind against
Christianity. If the eclectic attempts to adjust such
speculations to Christianity which marked the pro
gress of Gnosticism could have been embraced in
our inquiry, the force of this class of causes would
have been made still more apparent.

The obvious insufficiency however of this analysis
to afford an entire explanation of the prejudices of
these early unbelievers points to the close union
before noticed k of the emotional with the intellectual
causes. While asserting the possibility of the inde
pendent action of the intellectual element under

1 The work of Cosmas Indicopleustes in the middle of the sixth
century is designed to show the falsehood of the Ptolemaic system
of astronomy in assuming the world to be a sphere, and proves
the continuance of speculation on the harmony of science and reve
lation. See Donaldson s Or. Lit. III. 59. 3.

k P. 1923.

LECTURE II. 90

peculiar circumstances as a cause of doubt, and
while thus vindicating the importance of investi
gating the history of free thought from the intel
lectual side, we admitted the necessity of taking the
probability of the action of the moral element into
account when we pass from the abstract study of
tendencies to form a judgment on concrete instances.
Here accordingly, in the mental history of these early
unbelievers, we already encounter cases where philo
sophy as well as piety requires that a very large
share in the final product be referred to the influence
of emotional causes. Christianity addresses itself to
the compound human nature, to the intellect and heart
conjoined. Accordingly the excitement of certain
forms of moral sensibility is as much presupposed in
religion as the sense of colour in beholding a land
scape. The means fail for estimating with historic
certainty the particular emotional causes which ope
rated in the instances now under consideration.
The moral chasm which separates us from heathens
is so great that we can hardly realize their feelings.

If however we cannot pronounce on the positive
presence of moral causes which produced their dis
belief, we may conjecture negatively the nature of
those, the absence of which precluded the possibility
of faith. Christianity demands a belief in the super
natural, and a serious spirit in the investigation of re
ligion, both of which were wholly lacking in Lucian.
It requires a deep consciousness of guilt and of the
personality of GOD, which were wanting in Celsus.

H 2

100 LECTURE II.

It exacts a more delicate moral taste to appreciate
the divine ideal of Christ s character than Hierocles
manifested. Porphyry and Julian are more difficult
cases for moral analysis. Porphyry is so earnest a
character, so spiritual in his tastes 1 , that we wonder
why he was not a Christian ; and except by the refer
ence of his conduct to general causes, such as philo
sophical pride, we cannot understand his motives
without a more intimate knowledge than is now
obtainable of his personal history. The difficulty of
understanding Julian s character arises from its very
complexity. Who can divine the many motives
which must have combined with intellectual causes
at successive moments of his life, to change the
Christian student into the apostate, to convert dis
belief into hatred, and to degrade the philosopher
into the persecutor 1 History happily offers so few
parallels to enable us to form a conjecture on the
answer, that we may be content to leave the problem
unsolved.

We have now summed up the causes which ope
rated in the first great intellectual struggle in which
Christianity was engaged. No means exist for esti
mating the amount of harm done by the writings
of unbelievers. The retributive destruction of some
of them and the indignant alarm of the Christian
apologists indicate the probability that these works

1 This appears from a letter of Porphyry to his wife Marcella,
discovered by Angelo Mai, and edited at Milan, 1 8 1 6, in which his
personal religious aspirations are seen.

LECTURE II. 101

had excited attention. But under a merciful Pro
vidence truth has in the end gained rather than lost
by this first conflict of reason against Christianity.
The church encountered the unbelievers by apo
logetic treatises, and met the Gnostics by dogmatic
decisions. The truths brought out by the action and
reaction, and embodied in the literature stimulated
by Gnosticism, in the apologies created by unbelief,
and in the creeds suggested as a protest against
heresy, are the permanent result which the struggle
has contributed to the world.

The contest however is not quite obsolete, and has
a practical as well as antiquarian interest. Though
the analogy to the attacks of ancient unbelievers
must be sought in pagan countries in the objections of
modern heathens, yet some resemblance to them may
be found in the unbelief of Christian lands. Such
parallels are frequently hasty generalizations founded
on a superficial perception of agreement, without due
recognition of the differences which more exact ob
servation would bring to view ; for identity of cause
as well as result is necessary in order to establish
philosophical affinity. In the present cases however
the agreement is moral if not intellectual, in spirit
if not in form, generally also in condition if not in
cause. The flippant wit of Lucian, which attributes
religion to imposture and craft, is repeated in the
French criticism of the last century. Some of the
doubts of Celsus reappear in the English deists.
The delicate criticism of Porphyry is reproduced in

10-J LECTURE II.

the modern exegesis. The disposition to explain
Christianity as a psychological phenomenon, as
merely one t onn of the religious consciousness, an
organic product of human thought, unsuited for
men of superior knowledge, who can attain to the
philosophical truth which underlies it, is the modern
parallel to Julian.

Accordingly the conduct of the early church during
this struggle has a living lesson of instruction for the
church in Christian lands, as well as in its missionary
operations to the heathen. The victory of the early
church was not due wholly to intellectual remedies,
such as the answers of apologists, but mainly to
moral ; to the inward perception generated of the
adaptation of Christianity to supply the spiritual
wants of human nature m . As the heathen realized
the sense of sin, they felt intuitively the suitability
of salvation through Christ : as they witnessed the
transforming power of belief in Him, they felt the
inward testimony to the truth of Christianity. The
external evidence of religion had its office in the
early church, though the belief" in magic and in

" See this discussed towards the close of Lcct. VIII.

It is obvious that this belief blunted in some degree the force
of arguments built upon miracles and prophecy : this circumstance
explains the comparative absence of these arguments in the early
apologies against the heathens. The reality however both of
miracles and prophecy is always implied : and occasionally the
direct appeal to them is used. The apologists were thus com
pelled, even if no other reason founded deeper in the philosophy
of evidence had inclined them to do so, to lay stress on what would

LECTURE II. 103

oracles probably prevented the full perception of the
demonstrative force due to the two forms of external
evidence, miracles and prophecy. But the internal evi
dences, Christ, Christianity, Christendom, were the
most potent proofs offered, the doctrine of an atoning
Messiah filling the heart s deepest longings, and the
lives of Christians embodying heavenly virtues.

The modern church may therefore take comfort, and
may hope for victory. The weak things of the world
confounded the strong, not only because the Holy
Spirit granted the dew of his blessing, but because
the scheme and message of reconciliation which the
church was commissioned to announce, were of divine
construction. Each Christian who tries, however
humbly, to spread the knowledge of Christ by word
or by example is helping forward the Redeemer s
kingdom. Let each one in Christ s strength do his
duty, and he will leave the world better than he found
it ; and in the present age, as in the times of old,
Gnosticism and heathenism will retire before Christ
ianity ; the false will be dissipated, the good be ab
sorbed, by the beams of the Sun of righteousneas.

now be called the argument from internal evidence for the truth
of Christianity. The Hulsean Prize Essay for 1852, by Mr. W. J.
Bolton, contains a useful account of the apologists, with extracts
from their writings ; And Mr. H. A. Woodham, in the preface to
his edition of Tertullian s Apology (1843), has made some very
suggestive remarks. Both writers show that the fathers use the
argument from miracles more frequently than had generally been
supposed.

LECTURE III.

FREE THOUGHT DURING THE MIDDLE AGES, AND AT THE RENAIS
SANCE j TOGETHER WITH ITS RISE IN MODERN TIMES.

LUKE xxi. 33.

Heaven and earth shall pass away ; but my words shall not
pass away.

WE have studied the history of unbelief down to
the fall of heathenism. A period of more than seven
hundred years elapses before a second crisis of doubt
occurs in church history. The interval was a time oi
social dissolution and reconstruction ; and when the
traces of the free criticism of religion reappear, the
world in which they manifest themselves is new.
Fresh races have been introduced, institutions un
known to the ancient civilization have been mingled
with or have replaced the old ; and the ancient
language of the Roman empire has dissolved into
the Romance tongues. But Christianity has lived
through the deluge, and been the ark of refuge in
the storm; and its claims are now tested by the

LECTURE III. 105

young world which emerged into being when the
waters of confusion had retired. The silence of reason
in this interval was not the result of the abundance
of piety, but of the prevalence of ignorance ; a sign of
the absence of inquiry, not of the presence of moral
and mental satisfaction* 1 . Even when speculation re
vived, and reason re-examined religion, the literary
monuments in which expression is given to doubt are
so few, that it will be possible in the present lecture
not only to include the account of the second and
third crises which mark the course of free thought in
church history, but even to pass beyond them, and
watch the dawn of unbelieving criticism caused by
the rise of the modern philosophy which ushers in
the fourth of the great crises named in a previous
lecture b .

The former of these periods which we shall now
examine, the second in the general scheme, may be
considered to extend from A. D. noo to 1400. Its
commencement is fixed by the date at which the
scholastic philosophy began to influence religion, *its
close by the revival of classical learning. The history
of free thought in it is complicated, by being to some
extent the struggle of deeds as well as of ideas, a
social as well as a religious struggle. It was the

a For the intellectual and social condition during this period,
consult Guizot s History of Civilization in France ; Hallam s His
tory of the Middle Ages, ch. ix. part i. ; and History of Literature,
ch. i. Also three works by Laurent, Les Barbares et le Catholicisme,
La Papaute et V Empire, La Feodalite et TEglise.

b See Lect. I. p. 10.

106 LECTURE III.

period which witnessed both the dissolution of feu
dalism and the theocratic centralization in the pope-
dom ; and while reason struggled on the one side
against the dogmatic system, it struggled on the
other to assert the rights of the state against the
church, and to put restraints upon the privileges,
dominion, and wealth, of the pope and clergy. The
social struggle, to vindicate the liberty of the state
against the undue power of the church, so far as it
is the effect of free thought, appertains to our sub
ject, in the same manner as was the case with the
early attempts of a converse character of the Roman
emperors to deny due liberty to the church, when
ever, as in the case of Julian, they were the result of
a deliberate examination of religion. Free thought
in the middle ages is at once Protestantism, Scep
ticism, and Ghibellinism c .

The intellectual action in this crisis is marked by
four forms ; (i) the criticism created by the scho
lastic philosophy, which has been thought to mark in
Abelard the commencement of doitbt ; (2) the intro-

c See Guizot s History of Civilization in Europe, ch. vi. and x. ;
Laurent, La Reforme, 1861. (p. 131-271.) The last-named work,
to which frequent reference will be made, is an able production by
a Professor (probably a freethinker) in the university of Ghent. It
is the eighth of a series of works, entitled, Etudes de VHistoire de
rilumanite, of which three were named in a previous note, and
contains a careful examination (i) of the reform, religious and so
cial, of the middle ages; (2) of heterodoxy, both as free thought
and incredulity, during the same period ; (3) of the Renaissance ;
(4) of the principles of the Reformation.

LECTURE III. 107

duction of the idea of progress in religion, in the
sense that Christianity is to be replaced by a better
religion ; (3) the idea of the comparison of Christi
anity with other religions, so as to obliterate its ex
ceptional character ; (4) the traces of disbelief in the
doctrine of immortality. The two former are free
thought as doubt, the two latter as disbelief.

It will be necessary, for illustrating the first of
these forms, to explain the nature of the scholastic
philosophy, so far as to show how it might become
the means of producing heresy or scepticism, when
applied to theology.

Scholasticism is the vague name which describes
the system of inquiry common in the middle ages d .
In truth it marks a period rather than a system ; a
method rather than a philosophy. In spite of dif
ference of form, it links itself with the speculations
of other ages in community of aim, hi that it strove
to gain a general philosophy of the universe, to reach
some few principles which might offer an interpreta
tion of all difficulties.

d It has been conjectured that the name was probably derived
from the circumstance that it was the philosophy which arose in the
various Scholai which Charlemagne established throughout his em
pire; and afterwards was that which existed in the scholae or halls of
the mediaeval universities. Brucker has discussed the previous his
tory of the word (History of Critical Philosophy , iii. 710; and
Haureau, nearly repeating him, Philosophie ScJiolastique^ i. 7., with
a view to show how it was used before it became changed into the
meaning just assigned to it.) See also a few remarks by Saisset in
the Revue des Deux Mondes, 1850, vol. iii. p. 645.

108 LECTURE III.

In the present age the science which attempts this
grand problem is denominated Logic, or Metaphysics,
according to the different sphere which it covers 6 .
But in the middle ages these two fields were not
clearly distinguished; in the same manner as in the
AiaXeKTiKr] of Plato, method and the realities attained
by method were not separated f . Yet it was mainly
in reference to the former that scholasticism wears
the aspect of a method, and to the latter the aspect
of a philosophy. Adopting deduction as the type
of a perfect science, it assumed its data partly on the
ground of innate ideas, partly from the truths of
revelation, partly from the metaphysical dicta of
Aristotle ; and from these principles attempted to
work out deductively a solution of universal nature.
It was the Zoc/a of Aristotle executed from a

e It is called logic, if we denote that part of it which studies the
mode of investigation, and the comparative value of evidence in the
different fields of inquiry. It is the psychological branch of meta
physics, if it explores the structure and functions of the mind, ascer
taining the subjective validity of the data employed in the method
which forms the subject matter of contemplation in logic. It is
the ontological branch, if it reaches to the still higher problem of
searching for the traces of objective reality, independent of the act
of human thought, which are involved in the data previously ex
amined.

f The AiaXfKTiKT) of Plato, it is well known, was the method of
analysis by means of language, and comprised the field which his
successor Aristotle separated into two, viz. AtaXert/c^, logic, the
inquiry concerning method; and 2o&lt;ia, metaphysics, the inquiry
concerning being. See Bp. Hampden s article Aristotle in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; Hitter, History of Philosophy (English
translation), vol. ii. b. 8. c. 2 and 3. ; and vol. iii. c. 2.

LECTURE III. 109

Christian point of view. In respect to the logical
method there was a general agreement of opinion,
but difference of system arose in the metaphysical.
The form that the problem of science then assumed
was peculiar. Instead of examining the data from
which deduction starts, with a view of finding their
subjective certainty as thoughts, the inquirers strove
to settle the problem of their objective nature as
things. The question asked was this : Are the ge
nera and species which the mind contemplates, in its
attempts to classify and interpret phenomena, real in
nature, or produced only by human thought and
speech? A comparison with the modern mode of
investigation will explain the importance which the
question possessed, and the reason why it monopo
lized the entire field of inquiry.

The progress of discovery has forced upon us a
subdivision of the sciences into two classes, unknown
in the middle ages ; in one of which we discover
causes ; in the other, in which we are unable to find
causes, we rest content with classification by species
and genera. In the former we discover antecedents,
in the latter types &. But in mediaeval science, as in
Greek, the latter class was regarded as the sole form

Viz. antecedents in the mechanical class of sciences, types in
the zoological and botanical. The distinction is that which is
indicated by Mill under the names of " uniformities of causation,"
and " uniformities of coexistence." See Mill s Logic, vol. i. b. i.
ch. 7. 4; vol. ii. b. iii. ch. 22; b. iv. ch. 7. Compare also Whewell s
Philosophy oft/ie Inductive Sciences, vol. i. b. iii. c. 2. and b. viii.

110 LECTURE III.

of all perfect science. Hence the reason will appear
why the question as to the true nature of genera
and species had a monopoly of the field of inquiry ;
and also why the theory of predication was exalted
into the most important part of logic h . Those who
thought that genera had a real existence as essences
apart from man s mind and from nature, were deno
minated Realists : those who denied to them any real
existence, and considered them to be a common qua
lity labelled by a common name, were Nominalists :
those who held the intermediate view, and assumed
them to exist, not only as artificial names but also
as general classes in the human mind, were Con-
ceptualists. With the realist, classification was not
arbitrary, but true and determined for man. With
the nominalist and conceptualist it was created by
man, and amenable to correction.

The question, though now relegated from meta
physical to physical science, has still sufficient im
portance to enable us to perceive likewise the reason
why these different theories could be the means of
dividing men into parties. The bitterness with which
a zoological inquiry of analogous character into the
perpetuity of natural species 1 has been lately assailed
may enable us to realize the earnestness shown on this
point in the middle ages. The question, as viewed

h This is the explanation of the fact already quoted from Cousin,
that the mediaeval philosophy depended on a quotation made by
Boethius from Porphyry.

1 Viz. Darwin s Inquiry into the Origin of Species, 1859.

LECTURE III. Ill

by the schoolmen, was really the fundamental one as
respects knowledge; and the opinions on it are the
counterpart to those which relate to the tests of truth
and the nature of being in modern metaphysics. The
spirit of realism was essentially the spirit of dogma
tism, the disposition to pronounce that truth was
already known k : Nominalism was essentially the
spirit of progress, of inquiry, of criticism. Realism
was in spirit deductive, starting from accepted dog
mas : Nominalism was in spirit, though not in- form,
inductive. It tested classifications, and admitted op
portunity for the existence of doubt. " Believe, that
you may know," was the expression of the former :
" Know, that you may believe," that of the latter 1 .

The two theories were of universal application to
every subject of thought. An illustration will explain
their relation to theology. In the foolish and almost
irreverent attempts to explain by philosophy the na
ture of the triune existence of the divine Being, the
realist, assuming the reality of the one genus Deity,
was prepared to allow identity of essence in the three
species, the three members of the Divine Trinity.
The nominalist, allowing only concrete existence, was

k Inasmuch as the realist assumed that the innate ideas of the
mind gave a knowledge of real essences in nature.

1 " Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intel-
ligani," are the words of the realist Anselm (Prolog. I. p. 43. ed.
Gerberou.) " Dubitando ad inquisitionem venimus ; inquirendo
veritatem percipimus," are those of the nominalist Abelard. (Sic et
, p. 1 6. ed. Cousin.)

112 LECTURE III.

obliged either to accept unity, only in a verbal sense,
and be charged with tritheism, as Roscelin ; or diver
sity only in a verbal sense, and incur the charge of
Sabellanism, as Abelard.

Such was Scholasticism, and such its relation to
philosophy and theology 111 . Existing for several cen
turies as an instinct, it became about the end of the
eleventh century an intelligent movement . At this
period the problem was consciously proposed, and
each of the three centuries which are comprised in
our present period exhibits a different phase of the
controversy. At first the movement was in favour
of nominalism in Roscelin and Abelard, and reason
assumed an attitude of alleged scepticism : in the
thirteenth century the victory was in the hands of
intelligent realists like Aquinas, who used reason in
favour of orthodoxy. In the fourteenth, nominalism
revived in Occam ; the provinces of faith and phi
losophy were severed, and the final victory on the
metaphysical question remained in the hands of the
nominalists.

The scientific position of Abelard will thus be

m The best modern work on scholasticism is the Memoire Cou-
ronne, by B. Haureau, 2 vols. 1850, in which the various authors
and schools of thought are fully treated. Among older sources,
the following are important : Brucker, iii. 709-868 ; Tennemann s
Manual, 237-79; Bitter s Christliche Philosophie; Buhle, Ges-
chichte der Neuern Philosophie, i. 8 1 o seq. ; Hampden s Bampton
Lectures (I. and II.), and the article by him on Aquinas in the
Encyclopaedia Metropolitana ; also Maurice s Mediaeval Philosophy.

n Cfr. Tennemann s Manual of Philosophy, 243.

LECTURE III. 113

clear. We must now study his intellectual character,
as embodying the sceptical aspect which belonged to
nominalism.

Abelard s character is in many respects one of the
most curious in history . The record of his trials,
bodily and mental P, enlists the romantic sympathy
of the sentimentalist, and commands the serious at
tention of the philosopher. His wonderful reputation
at Paris as a public lecturer connects him with the
university life of the middle ages, and presents him
as a type of the class of great professors created by
the absence of books and consequent prevalence of
oral instruction. It was his vast influence which made
his opinions of importance, and aroused the opposi
tion of St. Bernard. It seems to have been the ap
plication of the nominalist philosophy to the doctrine
of the Trinity, contained in Abelard s works on
dogmatic theology 1, which excited alarm. The coun
cil called at Sens r was a theological duel, wherein
these two distinguished characters were matched, the
most eloquent theologian and preacher against the

On Abelard s personal character, see Guizot s Lettrea d Abelard
1839; and Remusat s Abelard 1845, vol. i. part x., the latter of
which writers has long studied his life, philosophy, and theology ;
also Taillandier s article La Libre pensee du moyen age (Revue des
Deux Mondes, Aug. 1861.); Tennemann s Gesch. der Phil. viii. 170
seq. ; Tennemann s Manual, 251.

P In his work Liber Calamitatum.

^ q In his Introductio ad Theologiam, and Theologia Christiana.
See Neander s Kircltengeschichte, viii. 505 seq.

r In A. D. 1 1 2 1 .

114 LECTURE III.

most influential professor and philosopher ; the saint
against the critic. Bernard was right in his theology ;
Abelard perhaps right in his philosophy 8 . This event
however presents the effect of scholasticism in pro
ducing heresy rather than scepticism.

The great work which has laid Abelard open to
the latter charge merits a brief notice. It was en
titled the Sic et Non, and remained unpublished
in the public documents of France till recent years 1 .
It is a collection of alleged contradictions, which exist
on a series of topics, which range over the deepest
problems of theology, and descend to the confines
of casuistry in ethics". In the discussion of them
Abelard collects passages from the scriptures and from

s The nature of this contest is given in Mabillon s edition of
Bernard (Prwf. 5.), and the characters of the two disputants are
sketched in Sir J. Stephens s Lectures on tlie History of France)
ii. (163207.) ; also in Neander s Xirchengesch, vol. viii. p. 533 seq.

* It was published by Cousin in 1836, with an elaborate preface
relating to the literary history of Abelard s works and opinions, as
well as the character of the scholastic philosophy generally. An
edition of the text, including the passages not printed by Cousin,
has subsequently been published by Henke and Lindenkohl, (Mar
burg, 1851.) See also Neander s Kircliengesch. viii. p. 523 seq.

u The following are examples of the questions proposed :
No. (5.) Quod non sit Deus singularis et contra ; (6) Quod sit
Deus tripartitus et contra; (14) Quod sit films sine principio et
contra; (18) Quod a?terna generatio filii narrari vel sciri vel intel-
ligi possit et non ; (28) Quod nihil fiat casu et contra ; (30) Quod
peccata etiam placeant Deo et non ; (38) Quod omnia sciat Deus et
non ; (124) Quod liceat habere concubinam et contra ; (153) Quod
nulla de causa mentiri liceat et contra ; (156) Quod liceat hominem
occidere et non.

LECTURE III. 115

the fathers in favour of two distinctly opposite so
lutions. He has however prefixed a prologue to the
work, which ought to be taken as the explanation
of his object x . He insists in it on the difficulty of
rightly understanding the scriptures or the fathers,
;md refers it to eight different causes &gt;" ; advising that
when these considerations fail to explain the appa
rent contradictions of scripture, we should abandon
the manuscripts as inaccurate, rather than believe in
the existence of real discrepancies. He draws also
a broad distinction between canonical scripture and
other literature, strongly affirming the authority of
the former.

Is this work sceptical ? Is it designed under a fair
show to serve the purpose of unbelief? Or is it merely
an instance of the awakening of the spirit of inquiry,
the free criticism exercised by nominalism, the desire
to prove all dogmas by reason ? In other words, was
the freethinking of Abelard rationalism, or was it
merely Protestantism and theological criticism ?

These questions have met with different answers.
The Benedictine editors, viewing his condemnation
by St. Bernard as parallel to that of the biblical

1 Abelard s Preface is analysed and discussed in Cousin, p. 1 9 1
seq.), and Stephens, vol. ii. p. 169.

y Viz. (i) the peculiarities of their style ; (2) their use of popular
language on scientific questions ; (3) the corruption of the text ;
(4) the number of spurious books ; (5) the retractation by the fathers
of their own previous statements ; (6) their careless use of profane
learning ; (7) the describing things as they appear, not as they are ;
(8) their ambiguous use of words.

I 2

110 LECTUEE III.

critic E. Simon 2 by Bossuet, declined to publish the
manuscript of his work". More recent inquirers,
especially the philosophical critic Cousin, have re
garded Abelard with a more favourable eye. They con
sider his treatise merely to be a provisional scepticism,
fortifying the mind against premature solutions. Some
would even claim him as an early protestant, as the
first of the line of men whose spirits, while fretting
under the dogmatic teaching or the political centrali
zation of the Western church, have unhesitatingly
bowed before the authority of scripture 5 . Possibly
these several views contain elements of truth. Abe-
lard s character was complex, and the purpose of his
book equally so. He embodied a movement, and
experience had not yet taught men to distinguish in
it the boundaries which separate the provinces of
free thought. The argument in favour of his scepti
cism drawn from the form of his work seems unfair.
The statement of a series of paradoxes is lawful, if a

z R. Simon had published a work, Histoire Critique du Vieux
Testament, 1678, in which positions were stated which were new at
that time, but which, as Hallam observes, (Hist, of Lit. iii. 299,)
" now pass without reproof." The history of the controversy con
nected with Simon is contained in Walch s Bibliotheca Theologica
Selecta, 1765, vol. iv. (251-9. See also Bp. Marsh s Lectures, parti.
P- 52.

a See Martene et Durant in Thesaur. Nov. Anecdot. (1717) vol. v.
Pref. p. 3.

b Cousin thinks him a sceptic. So also sir J. Stephens, ii. 170.
Taillandier (Rev. des Deux Mondes quoted above) takes the view
given in the text, that his character was complex. See also Lau
rent s La Reforme, pp. 318 331.

LECTURE III. 117

solution of them be offered, or an explanation of the
reason why a solution is impossible. The disputative,
dialectical tone which exists in the work was the
ordinary mode of instruction in the mediaeval uni
versities, and finds a parallel in the method of thought
observable in other ages. Abelard s statement of para
doxes, of an unsolved mass of contradictions, recalls,
f &lt; ! example, the early paradoxes on motion which Zeno
presented for the purpose of compelling acquiescence
in the Eleatic teaching , or the series of antinomies
which Kant has given, as problems insoluble theo
retically, but capable of harmony when viewed on the
moral side d . In truth it is the mark, either, as in
one of these cases, of the first awakening of the mind
to curiosity ; or, as in the other, of the last limit at
winch curiosity is compelled to pause. Abelard s
method is like that which is observable in Socrates,
;ni(l in those early dialogues of his disciple Plato, in
which the pupil is working in his master s manner,
wherein difficulties are propounded without being
solved. The hearer is cross-questioned, with the
view of being made to feel the necessity of possessing
knowledge ; and a method is offered to him by which
he is to find the solution of problems for himself 6 .

c See Preller s Hist. Phil Gr. Rom. xxxviii. 158. Bayle s Dic
tionary, art. Zeno (vol. iv. edition 5. p. 539 note.)

1 K -nit s Kritik (Transcendent. Dial b. ii. div. 2. p. 322. Engl.
transl.) The illustration is borrowed from Taillandier, to whose
article I am indebted for several other suggestions.

e Grote, vol. viii. ch. 68.

118 LECTURE III.

In this view Abelard s doubt is really the inquiry
which is the first step to faith ; the criticism which
precedes the constructive process, the negation before
affirmation.

While its form may be regarded as an embodi
ment of the scholastic method, the manner of hand
ling marks the commencement of modern biblical criti
cism. The suggestions which he offers f in reference
to false readings of manuscripts, the spuriousness
of books, and the temporary character of the author s
sentiments, as elements in determining the reality
of a contradiction, or the necessary rejection of a
passage on grounds of dogmatic improbability,
mark a sagacity which has been perfected into a
science by the growth of modern criticism. Thus
far we have only the elements of inquiry and criti
cism which enter into doubt ; yet it would be unfair
to deny that something of unbelief may have been
found in a restless care-worn spirit like that of Abe-
lard ; and if any one thinks that he intended in his
work to leave the reader with the impression that the
solution is impossible, or that the doubter s side is
the stronger, then we may consider him to have
been an unbeliever, and regard his teaching as an
example, often witnessed in later times, of a concealed
irony, which, while pretending to accept revelation, has
represented its evidence as insufficient, and its doc
trines as improvable. If however he be taken to be a

In his Prologue.

LECTURE III. 119

sceptic, it is only the infancy of doubt. It is unlike
the bitter disbelief shown by the early antichristian
writers, or by the doubters of modern times. What
ever was valuable in the free thought of Abelard out
lived his time. The spirit of inquiry which spoke
through him, continued to operate in his successors *.
His method was even adopted by his opponents. His
follower, Arnold of Brescia, carried free thought from
ideas into acts, and suffered martyrdom in a prema
ture struggle against the papal church h . Being
dead, Abelard yet spoke, both politically and philo
sophically ; and his character remains as a type of
the spirit of mingled doubt and hope and inquiry
which is exhibited in the free thought of any of
those great epochs, when knowledge is increased,
and when earnest minds are standing in doubt
whether the new wine can be placed in the old
bottles.

The movement, which was beginning to be felt
in every branch of life and thought in the twelfth
century, was still more manifest in the course of
the thirteenth, an age which, whether viewed in its
great men or great deeds, its movements, political,
ecclesiastical, or intellectual, is the most remarkable
of the middle ages, and one of the most memorable
in history 1 . The activity of speculation is evidenced

See Cousin s Preliminary Dissertation, p. (201-3.)
h See Laurent s La Reforme, p. 263.

i It may be sufficient to allude to names like those of Innocent
III., Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Frederick II., Cimabue, Dante; and to

120 LECTURE III.

by the increasing alarm which alleged heresy like
the Albigensian was causing, and by the establishment
of the system of ecclesiastical police k which developed
into the inquisition. About the middle of the century,
the influence of free thought in religion is supposed
to have made its appearance, in a work which ori
ginated with one of the newly created mendicant
orders. A book which had appeared at the be
ginning of the century, entitled "the Everlasting
Gospel," was now edited with an introduction by some
person of influence in the Franciscan order 1 . The
idea conveyed was, that, as there are three Persons
in the Godhead, so there must be three dispensations ;
that of the Father which ended at the coming of
Christ, that of the Son which was then about to
conclude, and that of the Spirit, of which the reli
gious ideal of the Franciscans was the embodiment.
The work caused immense alarm, and was con-

the great works of law (civil and canon) and philosophy, the great
works in Gothic architecture, and the revival of painting, as examples
of the intellectual character of the age ; and to the commencement
of constitutional liberty, the final settlement of Europe, and com
mencement of the present European kingdoms, as illustrations of its
advance in social government.

k In 1229.

1 The work is attributed to Joachim, a Calabrian abbot, about A.D.
1 200, whom Dante names (Paradiso, xii. 1 40). It was edited in 1250,
with an introduction probably written by John of Parma, general
of the Franciscans. Mosheim (History, cent. 13. part ii. ch. 2. 33
note,) has carefully investigated the subject. See also Laurent s
La JRefor-me, pp. 295-302 ; F. Spanheim s Works, vol. i. p. 1665 ;
Neanders Ki/rchengesck. vol. viii. p. 844 seq.

LECTURE III. 121

demned by the council of Aries m , on the ground that
it assumed that Christianity was imperfect, and was
to be replaced by a superior revelation developing
from natural causes. It is doubtful whether the
book was really intended to be sceptical. More pro
bably it was mystical. Claiming to be founded on
an apocalyptic idea", it was a revival of the Chiliasm
which haunted the Christians of Asia Minor in the
early centuries ; perhaps also it was the utterance
of the spiritual yearning which marked the rise of
the Franciscan order, and a protest against the world-
liness of the times. It was connected too with the
longings for political deliverance from the temporal
dominion of the Popedom which were now beginning
to be felt. In these latter aspects the idea, so far
from being false, was an advance. Christianity from
time to time admits a progress, but from within rather
than from without ; a deeper spiritual appreciation
of old truths rather than a reception of new ones.
The demand for progress becomes a ground for alarm
only when it implies that the world has bidden fare
well to Christianity, either through the mystical
expectation of a Millennial reign which is to super
sede it, or through the sceptical belief that our
religion has only an historic value, and needs
remodelling to meet the requirements of advancing
civilization. If the latter was the meaning of this

m In 1260. Labbei Condi. (1671) vol. xi. part ii. p. 2361.
11 Ixev. xiv. 6.

122 LECTUEE III.

utterance of the Franciscan book, the idea was the
germ of the modern conception of the function of
Christianity in " the education of the race/ the first
statement of which is usually attributed to Lessing .
The same century which gave birth to this mot,
expressive of progress in religion, created also an
other which embodied the idea of the comparative
study of religions. This phrase may have different
meanings. It may signify the comparison of Chris
tianity with ethnic creeds in its external and internal
character, without sacrificing the belief that a di
vinely revealed element exists in it, which causes it
to differ from them in kind as well as degree. Or
it may mean a comparison of Christianity with other
religions, as equally false with them, equally a deli
berate and conscious invention of priestcraft, which
was the shocking view adopted by writers like
Volney in the last century P ; or else a comparison
of it as equally true with them, as equally a psy
chological development of the religious intelligence,
which is the view prevalent in many noted works
on the philosophy of history in the present n. It was

The work so entitled passed under Lessing s name ; but its
authorship has been recently disputed. In an article in Illgen s
Zeitschriftfilr die Historische Theologie for 1839, P art iy -&gt; on the life
of A. Thaer compiled by Koerte, there is evidence given that Les
sing was only the editor, Thaer having sent it to him anonymously.
See also a remark in a letter of Lessing, Works, vol. xii. p. 503.
(Lachmann s edition.)

P Les Ruines, c. 24.

( ) E. g. in Benjamin Constant s work, De La Religion, and Lau-

LECTURE III. 123

the second of these ideas, expressive of actual incre
dulity, which existed in the thirteenth century. It
is traceable in the imputation made by Gregoiy IX r
against the celebrated emperor Frederick II, that he
had spoken of Moses, Christ, and Mahomet, as the
three great impostors who had respectively deceived
the Jews, the Christians, and the Arabs.

The very possibility of the existence of such a
comparison presupposes intercourse with disciples of
foreign creeds. The Christians now no longer pos
sessed a merely vague knowledge of Jews and Maho
metans. The crusades were expiring, the danger
which evoked them had subsided, and the enmity
which supported them was decaying. Europe had
entered into relations of commerce, if not of amity,
with Mahometan nations ; and through contact with
them had come to measure them by an altered
standard, and to acquire the idea, of comparing re
ligions. Frederick II, to whom this expression is
imputed, is stated to have manifested admiration of
Mahometan literature, and affection for his Maho
metan subjects who afforded him aid in carrying out
the plans of civilization which his powerful mind had

rent s Etudes de I Histoire de VHumanite ; also in Hegel s Philoso
phy of History ; Buckle s History of Civilization ; Comte s Philo
sophic Positive. It is chargeable in spirit on many others.

r The letter of Gregory IX, in which the statement is contained,
bears date July i, 1239. Jt is quoted in Raynald s Supplement to
Baronius. (Annul. Eccles. 1747. vol. ii. p. 218. 13 of Greg. IX.
xx vi.)

124 LECTURE III.

formed 5 ; and it was his indifference to a crusade,
induced probably by other causes, which led the Pope
to impute to him the blasphemy just quoted. The
contact with the East, half a century later, in like
manner afforded the pretext for fastening a charge
of unbelief on the Knights Templars *, Contact with
Mahometans had thus, we have reason to believe,
created a latitude of thought in many parts of Chris
tendom.

The same idea of the comparison of Christianity
with other creeds reappears in a tale of Boccaccio",
in which the three great religions are represented
under the allegory of three rings which a father gave
to his children, so exactly alike that the judges could
not decide which was the genuine one of the three,
and which the copies. It is also illustrated by the
tradition of the existence of a book, entitled " De
Tribus Impostoribus," which has been attributed
almost to every great name in the middle ages which
was conspicuous for opposition to the claims of the
church, or for uneasiness under the pressure of its
dogmatic teaching. The existence of the book is
legendary : no one ever saw it : and the two dis
tinct works which now bear the title can be shown
to have been composed respectively in the sixteenth

s See Kenan s Averroes et T Averroisme, pp. 292-300, an admi
rable work, to which we shall have occasion frequently to refer.

* Michelet s Hist, de France, iii. 201. The charge of unbelief
against the Templars was never satisfactorily established.

u Decameron, i. 3. " Le Tre Annella"

LECTURE III. 125

and seventeenth centuries : but the legend is a witness
to the fact of the existence of the idea which the
book was said to embody. (20)

It is perhaps in some degree to the influence of
the doctrine of absorption in the Mahometan philo
sophy of Averroes, a commentator on Aristotle, who
was the contemporary of Abelard, that we may attri
bute the disbelief in immortality to which we find a
tendency toward the close of the thirteenth and
during the fourteenth century x . Though it is pro
bable that the indirect influence of the Arabic philo
sophy was felt earlier, in stimulating a demand for
inquiry, a disposition to make dogmas submit to the
test of reason, which has been shown to be the
earliest form of mediaeval doubt ; yet it was not
until the thirteenth century that the works of Aver
roes definitely influenced scholasticism, through the
teaching of Michael Scot and Alexander Hales, and by
means of the rapidity of intellectual communication
which forms so singular a feature in mediaeval his
tory, spread their influence in Italy as well as in
France. It was at this time that the doctrine of
Averroes was attacked by Aquinas ; and though the
amount of its influence can hardly be estimated, we
have the means of tracing the growth of dislike to its
author in Christian lands, which is an incidental proba-

x On Averroes see Hitter s Gesc/iichte der Christlichen PMlosophie,
vol. iv. b. 1 1. c. 5 ; Tennemann s Manual, 259 ; Laurent s La Re-
forme, p. 338-45, 364-85 ; and especially Kenan s Averroes,
p. 205 seq.

126 LECTURE III.

bility of the increasing danger to Christianity arising
from it. In the middle of the thirteenth century
the Franciscans study him without evincing hatred.
About the end of it Dante describes him still with
out reproaches, though he places him in the Inferno
along with other heathen philosophers y : but half a cen
tury later, in the pictures of the last judgment which
exist in several states of Italy, each a little historic
satire with its own peculiarities, we find Averroes
depicted as the type of incredulity and blasphemy.
In a fresco of the Campo Santo of Pisa, executed
about 1335, when perhaps the recent canonization of
Aquinas as an opponent of Averroes had directed
attention to the influence of the Arabic philosopher,
Orcagna has placed a separate bolgia t the lowest in
his hell, for three persons, Mahomet, Antichrist,
and Averroes 2 .

The disbelief of immortality was however too ob
vious a temptation in a corrupt age, as well as too
generally spread, especially in the next century, to be
wholly attributable to the subtle influence of the doc
trine of absorption of the Arabic philosophy. A
mediaeval English poet a attributes incredulity to the

y Inferno iv. 144 ; " Averrois che il gran comento feo."

z Renan enlarges in one chapter of his work in a most interesting

manner on " Le role d Averroes dans la peinture Italienne du moyen

age", pp. (301-16). The illustrations above given are borrowed

from it.

81 In the poem Piers Plowman, pp. 179, 180, Wright s edition;

the doctrine of the Fall and its consequences is the subject of the

scepticism named.

LECTURE III. 127

higher classes of his age ; and Dante, in that poem
which is a romantic picture of his contemporaries or
predecessors, when devoting one circle of the Inferno
to the habitation of the " more than a thousand" of
those " who make the soul die with the body/ attri
butes the cause of the sin to Epicureanism, a moral
and not an intellectual cause b . It is a sad and
humiliating thought to reflect also that a cause which
must have increased incredulity, if it did not create
it, was to be found in the vices of the clergy, especi
ally near the papal court of Avignon. Most of the
distinguished laymen whom history records as evin
cing unbelief belonged to the political party, which
strove to repress the political centralization and tem
poral authority of the church ; and it is to be feared
that the causes just named were the means of repel
ling more deeply from religion the hearts of such
persons whose interests or whose vices already led
them to hate its promoters 6 .

We have thus collected the few traces which mark
the history of free thought in the several great crises
of church history, and incidentally illustrated its con
nexion with social movement as well as religious, and
shown its relation to intellectual or moral causes. On
the intellectual side we have witnessed the scholastic
philosophy giving activity to the spirit of change,

b Inferno, Canto x ; 15, n 8.

c Compare Dante, Inferno, xix. 104, &c. See Laurent s Reforme,
364-70, 372-78.

128 LECTURE III.

and contact with Mahometan life and opinion im
parting the latitude to Christian thought which
passed into incredulity. On the moral we have
noticed that the effect of social wants or of actual
viciousness gave birth respectively to religious rest
lessness, or to actual disbelief of the supernatural.
The church of the time was not unaware of the
movement. In part it tried to repress it, by perse
cution and by the Inquisition ; but in part also by
the lawful weapon of spiritual contest. The grand
works of defence of the thirteenth century, which
adjusted scholastic philosophy to dogmatic theology,
and the spiritual activity of the mendicant orders,
were real and lawful means of victory, appealing
respectively to the intellect and heart.

The moral judgment formed on the movement
seen in the whole period must vary with the phase
of it viewed. The attack is not, like those of the
early unbelievers, a struggle with which the sym
pathies of Christians cannot be enlisted. The darker
aspects of it partake indeed of the same character ;
but it embodies a better element, a nobler form of
movement, tainted perhaps with doubt, but not with
disbelief; viz. the attempt of the human mind to assert
its rights in philosophy, theology, and politics ; and
as the epoch closes, the great truth has made itself
felt in the world as the result of the contest, that
Christianity is supreme only within its own sphere,
which it is the problem of religious philosophy to
discover ; that freedom of inquiry is to be used

LECTURE III. 129

outside the boundary, but that speculation must
expire in adoration within it.

A new crisis may be considered to commence in
the fifteenth century, in consequence of the intro
duction of fresh influences through the classical re
vival. Yet as the two periods are connected in time,
the transition is not sudden : the old influences gra
dually vanish away ; the new ones had been slowly
preparing before they became distinctly evident.
The intellectual and social activity of the past period
had been the means of educating the mind of Europe
for the reception of the new forces which were now
beginning to operate d .

The fifteenth century was a remarkable period for
Europe, and preeminently for Italy. During several
ages Italy had grown great by means of commerce
and religion. The crusades, which had impoverished
the rest of Europe, had enriched her ; and the sub
jugation of the nations to the court of Rome had
made her the treasury of Europe. Material wealth
permitted the encouragement of the study of litera
ture, which relations of commerce or of conquest
with the Greek empire had been the means of re
viving. Manuscripts were collected, and the remains
of monuments of classic art were studied. The love
of antiquity gave perfection to art, and influenced

d On this subject, see Laurent, b. iii., and J. D. Burchard s Die
Cultur der Renaissance in Italien, 1860.

130 LECTUKE III.

literature. The work which centuries had slowly
prepared now came to perfection. The scholastic
philosophy declined ; the sources of ecclesiastical edu
cation and of the existing religion were weakened ;
and by the close of the fifteenth century the tone
of the age was in all respects changed. The devotion
which had expressed itself in the great Gothic works
of devotion of early ages was expiring, at least in
Italy, and art itself gradually became secular, and
expressed ideas more earthly.

When such a moment of material prosperity, com
bined with intellectual and social change, ensues
immediately on the movement previously sketched,
we should expect to find religion subjected to re-
examination, and placed in temporary peril. The
history confirms the supposition. If we regard this
crisis as embracing about two centuries and a quar
ter 6 , comprehending the classical revival, the opening
of a new geographical world, and the great religious
changes of the Reformation, a period commencing
with the Renaissance, and closed by the creation of
modern philosophy ; we shall find two principal
movements of unbelief for investigation, the one
caused by literature, a return to a spirit of heathen
ism analogous to that already described in Julian ;
the second caused by philosophy, a revival of pan
theism. The first belonged especially to the close of
the fifteenth century, and had its seat for the most

e 1400-1625.

LECTURE III. 131

part in Tuscany and Home ; the second to the six
teenth, and was represented in the university of
Padua. In both these movements, especially in the
former, the open expression of unbelief in literature
is rare, though the incidental proofs of its existence
are abundant. It was a time of the dissolution of
faith, not of overt attack. Unbelief was Epicurean
indifference, rather than earnestness in destroying
the old creed.

Two of the most obvious proofs that we can select
for proving the existence of a state of unbelief f are,
the ridicule of religion expressed in the burlesque
poetry of the time, and the antichristian sympathies
of several distinguished men.

It would be incorrect however to attribute the
satirical allusions in the poetry wholly to the influ
ence of the classical revival ; for the romantic epic in
which they occur is the offshoot of the old prose
romance of medieval chivalry, which had in earlier
ages amused the courts of princes by directing its
banter against ecclesiastical persons and institu
tions . But the tone of the poetry is now changed.
The satire is directed against religion itself, not
merely against the abuse of it, or the eccentricities
of its adherents. Free thought is not merely political

f An Essay of great value, on " the Literature of the Italian Re
vival," appeared in the British Quarterly Review, No. 42, April,
1855, from which most of the illustrations and remarks which follow
in the next two pages are taken.

See Laurent, id. p. 364-70.

K 2

132 LECTURE III.

dissatisfaction, but religious unbelief. And with the
alteration of the tone agrees also the increasing dis
position to carry satire into the domain of the super
natural ; which thus witnesses to the wide-spread
unbelief in the hearers for whom it was designed.
Italian critics have doubted indeed whether these
epics are designed to convey a caricature, or pass
beyond lawful satire h : yet even when allowance is
made for the fact that they are an historic reproduc
tion, and for the fund presented for humour by eccle
siastical peculiarities, it seems impossible to overlook
the covert satire intended on church beliefs 1 . The
intermixture of a comic element would not alone prove
this. The miracle plays of the middle ages admitted
comedy without intending irreverence k ; and a gentle
humour pervades many of the Autos of Calderon,

h Among recent critics who think so are Foscolo (Quarterly Re-
vieio, No. 42. p. 521.), and Panizzi (Boiardo and Ariosto, vol. i. 203.),
and in part also Hallam (History of Literature, vol. i. 195, (3035.),
and Guinguene (Hist. Lit. de Vltalie, vol. iv. c. 3-101.)

The view here taken is maintained with great ability by the
writer of the Review named above. One joke, which he cites as not
uncommon in these epics, is the representation of St. Peter steaming
with perspiration with the labour of opening and shutting the gates
of Paradise (Morg. Mag. 26. 91.); and, as a more allowable one,
the frequent citation of a certain archbishop Turpin as a witness
for any absurdities, (Berni Orl. Innam. 18. 26.), whose existence
and pseudonymous work Pope Calixtus II. had pronounced to
be real.

k The last remnant of these miracle plays, which occurs decen
nially in a valley in Bavaria, is an actual proof of this statement.
An interesting account of the last celebration of it was written by
Dr. Stanley in Macmillaiis Magazine for October, 1860.

LECTURE III. 133

which were acted on solemn festivals 1 . But there
exists in the manner in which the supernatural ele
ment is managed by such poets as Pulci, Bello, and
Ariosto, such evident purpose to bring into ridicule
the existence of belief, that its parallel can only be
found in the banter used by their imitator Byron,
in his Vision of Judgment, and implies indifference
both in author and reader ; the expression of con
tempt, not of anger" 1 .

The unbelief which existed in the courts for which
this poetry was written, is a specimen of the general
incredulity, or indifference to Christianity, which
prevailed among the educated classes, and was fos
tered by classical studies and tastes. It seems
strange to us, who have been long accustomed to
regard classical culture as the basis of general edu
cation, and who are impressed with the conviction
of the great assistance ministered by it to theological
study, to regard it as the producing cause of unbelief.
This result of it however was a transitory one, ori
ginating in the shock which arose from the novel
thoughts and tastes which mingled themselves
with the ancient pursuits, and altered the previ
ous ideal of life. Ever since the earliest times, a

1 See Dean Trench s Introduction (ch. 3.) to his Translations
from Calderon.

m The proof of this position must be sought in the Review already
indicated. The illustration from Byron is due to it. Pulci lived
1431-87 : Bello, about the end of the fifteenth century, the exact
date not known ; Ariosto, 1474-1533.

134 LECTURE III.

chasm had unavoidably separated heathen literature
from Christian ; and a dislike to heathen studies
existed, which found its full expression in Gregory
the Great". The result was, that the Christian civil
ization did not consciously admit the introduction
of heathen thought ; and when the mind awoke sud
denly to a perception of its beauty and depth, though
deeper spirits, like Erasmus, regarded it with the
enlightened Christian approbation which Origen had
formerly shown, others were led, like Julian of old,
from their admiration of it, to look with indifference
or hostility on Christianity. Some of the brilliant
and elevated minds that adorned the court of the
Medicis were suspected of unbelief, or of preferring
Platonism to Christianity ; and after the woes of the
French invasion at the end of the century had deep
ened the corruption of morals, and stamped out poli
tical liberty, the last freshness of artistic creation,
which had linked the public mind to Christianity
through the deep instincts of the taste, disappeared.
The art and literature which succeeded are an index
of the tone which prevailed. Gaining perfection in
form by the imitation of classic models, they were

n Eichhorn s Geschichte der Literatur, vol. ii. 443 ; Bayle s Dic
tionary, sub voc. ; Hallam s History of Literature, vol. i. 4. 21.

Roscoe, in his works on the Medicis, is silent about these ten
dencies. In the fifteenth century, Ficinus, Poggio, Politian, Aretin ;
and at the beginning of the sixteenth, at the Roman court, Paolo
Giovio and Bembo were suspected. See Brucker s Historia Phi
losophic?, Period iii. part i. 1. ii. c. 3.

LECTURE III. 135

cold, sensuous, unspiritual P. Classical mythology
was intermixed with gospel doctrines ; and the early
years of the sixteenth century represent the semi-
heathen tone of thought which was the transition to
the perfect fusion which afterwards took place of
the old learning and the new. It was an age similar
to those of modern times in France and Germany,
which have been called periods of humanism, when
hope suggests the inauguration of a new moral and
social era, and the pride of knowledge produces a
general belief in the power of civilization to become
the sole remedy for eviK

The social conditions of the age added moral
causes to the intellectual, which tended to increase
the unbelief, especially in the literary classes. One
of them is perhaps to be found in the fact that the
church prizes were the only reward for authorship.
By the beginning of the sixteenth century authors
became largely appreciated through the press, and
received patronage at the courts of the various TJ-
pawoi who had established themselves on the ruins
of the old republics. In the absence of any law of
copyright there was no protection for them 1 ", and

P The comparison of the painting of the Roman, or the later
Florentine schools of the sixteenth century, with that of the older
Florentine, or of the Umbrian of the fifteenth, will establish this
fact so far as regards art.

&lt;l Similar periods will be hereafter described ; viz. French " Hu
manism" in Lect. V. and German in Lect. VI.

r This fact is also taken from the anonymous reviewer before
quoted.

130 LECTURE III.

consequently no reward except church patronage,
which was therefore conferred indiscriminately, arid
tended to foster disbelief in the very recipients of it.
A merely professional hold of religion is the surest
road to absolute disbelief It is inconceivable that
the ecclesiastical scandals which history blushes to
narrate, could have been perpetrated by believers ;
and the unbelief imputed to persons in high station,
such as Leo X with other popes, and cardinals such
as Bembo, was doubtless, if true, partly the result
of the degrading effects of professional insincerity.

Such a state of unbelief could not be permanent,
whether it was the result of a decaying system, or
of the introduction of new influences. Nor would we
use unnecessarily a polemical tone in speaking of a
period where there is so much cause for Christian
humiliation ; yet it is worthy of notice that such
facts are a refutation of the attack which has fre
quently been made on Protestantism, as the cause
of eclecticism and unbelief. The two great crises
in church history, when faith almost entirely died out,
and free thought developed into total disbelief of the
supernatural, have been in Romish countries ; viz.,
in Italy in this period, and in France during the
eighteenth century. In both the experiment of the
authoritative system of the catholic religion had a
fair trial, and was found wanting.

Other causes besides the classical revival were
operating to stimulate activity of mind and freedom
of inquiry. It was an age in which the great system

LECTURE III. 137

of the middle ages was finally dissolving. The dis
covery of new worlds seemed at once to call to Europe
to break connexion with the old centre of ecclesias
tical centralization ; and to invite to that study of
nature which should elevate, and as it were emanci
pate the mind, by teaching physical truth and the
true method of discovery 8 . Political circumstances
too, contributed toward the creation of ecclesiastical
autonomy. The European nations had gradually grown
into united families, and were now ready for co
operation in a system of balance of power*. The nor
thern nations, long galled under the power of Rome,
were panting for freedom ; Germany first reforming
her religion, and then throwing off her subjection ;
England first throwing off her subjection, and then
compelled to reform herself. The old systems of
thought were at an end. The change, like all social
ones, was not abrupt, but it was decisive and final.
It was the earthquake which shattered for ever the
crust of error which had fettered thought.

s It is hardly necessary to point out that physical science has not
only made discoveries in its own sphere, but in logic also. By pre
senting a definite body of verified truth, it has rendered possible the
creation of a system of real as distinct from formal logic. In the
scientific discoveries that have been made, we can read the logic of
the process by which they were attained, and thus raise " applied
logic" to the dignity of a science, and indirectly discover a logic of
probable evidence. It is the intellectual, and not merely the mate
rial value of physical science to which allusion is made in the text.
It shows at once what man can know, and the limits where know
ledge must give place to faith, and science to revelation.

* See Guizot s Hist, de la Civilisation de V Europe, ch. (9-11.)

138 LECTURE III.

It is a matter of wonder that the great revolutions
just named passed with so little development of scep
ticism. In the nations north of the Alps there is
hardly a trace. The charge of deism, directed in the
fifteenth century against Pecock u , bishop of Chi-
chester, appears to have been unfounded. The con
test which Ulrich von Htitten carried on against the
monks and schools of Cologne was literary rather
than religious x ; Hiitten being the literary and poli
tical reformer rather than the sceptic. Even the most
advanced spirits of the reformers - v , Servetus and the

u Reginald Pecock was a bishop of Chichester about the middle
of the fifteenth century ; who in his rigour against the Lollards
himself incurred the charge of deism. His work which laid him open
to it, "The Represser of overmuch blaming of the Clergy," has
lately been edited with an instructive preface by Mr. Churchill Bab-
ington. The work appeals to reason, but is not open to the charge
of deism. In tone it may be compared to Locke s " Reasonableness
of Christianity."

x The contest in which Hiitten was engaged against the monks,
with the Epistolce, Obscurorum Virorum, which related to it, is
treated in SirW. Hamilton s Discussions on Philosophy, p. 205-240
(reprinted from Edinburgh Review, No. 53, March 1830). Strauss
has also published two works on Hiitten, the one a memoir, 1858 ;
the other translations from his work, 1861. (See National Review,
No. 12, April 1858.)

y Servetus, though a Spaniard by birth, learned his protestantism
in Italy ; Castellio, Ochino, and the Sozini were Italians. See Hal-
lam s History of Literature, i. 366, 379; 552 seq. : for their views
Merle D Aubigne s " Three Discourses on the Authority of the Scrip
ture" On the Reformation in Italy see Quinet s (Euvres, vol. iv.
b. iii. ch. i ; and Professor Blunt s Essays, p. 89, (Essay reprinted
from Quarterly Review, January 1828.)

LECTURE III. 139

Sozini, came forth from Italy, as from the centre of
free thought. Nor were they unbelievers in the reality
of a revelation ; and they met with no support from
the northern reformers. Servetus was martyred at
Geneva, and the Sozini were banished into Poland. It
was the spiritual earnestness which mingled with the
intellectual movement in the Reformation, which pre
vented free thought from producing rationalism or
unbelief. Protestantism was a form of free thought ;
but only in the sense of a return from human au
thority to that of scripture. It was equally a reliance
on an historic religion, equally an appeal to the im
memorial doctrine of the church with Roman Catho
licism ; but it conceived that the New Testament
itself contained a truer source than tradition for
ascertaining the apostolic declaration of it z .

But Italy was the witness of another sceptical
tendency, besides that which resulted from the classic
Renaissance, in the last remnant of the influence of
mediaeval philosophy. Throughout the sixteenth
century, pantheism manifested itself in connexion
with the philosophical studies of the university of
Padua. The form in which it made itself felt was
the disbelief of the immortality of the soul on specu
lative grounds. The cause of the disbelief was the

7 It is important to notice that the question asked by the re
formed churches was simply, what did the inspired apostles teach 1
and the dispute between them and the Koman catholics referred to
the question, what source was most suited for supplying information
on this point ;- whether ecclesiastical tradition or the original docu
ments of the inspired teachers themselves.

140 LECTURE III.

influence of the philosophy of Averroes before
noticed a .

It will be necessary to explain this system with a
little detail. It has been already stated that Aver
roes was a noted commentator on Aristotle in the
twelfth century. The two ground principles of his
philosophy were, the eternity of matter and the im
personality of mind. On this high subject there *can
be only two theories ; the one theistic, which declares
that God is free, a personal first Cause, and the
Creator of matter, and that other minds are free and
personal ; the other pantheistic, which asserts that
matter is eternal, and that individual minds are only
the manifestation of the impersonal mind, into
which the individual is reabsorbed. Averroes held
the latter theory, claiming to derive it from Aris
totle. It must be confessed however that Aristotle s
views are uncertain on this point : he distinguished
between mind, immortal and relative, the latter of
which, being connected with body, ceased at death ;
the former outlived it. But he hardly stated the
doctrine that all souls are part of the universal soul,
and is silent about their reabsorption into it. These
points were added by Averroes b .

The influence of the philosophy of Averroes is
observable in three classes of thinkers; viz., the Span-

a See Hallam, History of Literature, i. 315. A large portion of
Kenan s Averroes, viz. pp. 322-432, is devoted to this subject, and is
the source of much of the following information.

h Renan, id. (122-8.)

LECTURE III. 141

ish Jews of his own century, the scholastic philo
sophers of the thirteenth, and the philosophers of
the university of Padua* in the fourteenth and suc
ceeding ages. The second of these effects has been
already traced : we must now notice the third.

Padua was the great medical university of the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and was a type of
the tendency which at that time manifested itself in
the north-eastern part of Italy toward material and
rational studies, as in Tuscany to ideal and human
istic. It was the medical philosophy of Averroes
svhich had first attracted attention to him. But the
influence of his teaching was innocuous there until
the sixteenth century, during the whole of which this
university became the home of free thought.

Strict accuracy would require the separation of
two tendencies in the Peripatetic school of Padua,
3ach derived from one of Aristotle s commentators .
The one was the Averroist just named, which con
sisted in the disbelief of immortality on the ground
rf absorption. Man s soul, being part of the great
soul which animates the universe, both emanates
Prom it, and is again reabsorbed. The other was
the Alexandrist, so called from following Alexander
af Aphrodisias d ; which consisted in a tendency to
pure materialism, an absolute denial of immortality
and of religion, which almost reaches the incredulity
earlier expressed in the legend of the Three Impostors.

c Renan, id. (353-67.) d He lived about A. D. 200.

142 LECTURE III.

Pomponatius is the declared representative of the
latter view soon after the beginning of the century 6 .
Frequently however the unbelief was secret, and a
seeming show of orthodoxy was maintained by draw
ing a broad distinction between philosophy and theo
logy ; and by teaching that these views, though seen
to be true in the one, were to be accounted false in
obedience to the teaching of the other.

It is customary to class along with the Averroists
some philosophers of a more original turn ; some of
whom were only indirectly connected with Padua,
but rather were examples of an attempt to substitute
a philosophy in place of that which was expiring.
They are said to have manifested the same kind of
pantheism, and to have been led by it to similar dis
belief. Such are Cesalpini, Cardan f , Bruno, and
Vanini. The charge is perhaps unfair against the two

e On Pomponatius (1462-1530), see Bitter s Gesch der Oh.
Phil.N. pp. 390 seq. ; Hallam s History of Literature, i. 315;
Kenan, Averroes, 353, &c. ; Tennemann, Manual, 293 ; and the
Life in the Biographie Universelle. His theological treatise which
was chiefly suspected was De Immortalitate ; but Brucker quotes
from his other writings to prove atheism. As early as 1512 a
Lateran council took notice of the disbelief of immortality.

f In place of the scholastic philosophy, which was disappearing,
but which lived in Padua nearly a century later than in the rest of
Europe, three tendencies manifested themselves ; viz., (i) a recon
struction of metaphysical philosophy, on a new, partially Platonic
basis j (2) a reconstruction of logic, by P. Bamus in France (see
Hallam, History of Literature, i. (38890) ; (3) attention to expe
rimental science, which led ultimately to the experimental method
of Bacon. Telesius and Campanella belong to the first of these

LECTURE III. 143

former, as they seem to have held the separate im
mortality of souls, which is more compatible with
theism. The two latter represent the two schools just
noticed, about the end of the sixteenth century.

Bruno s belonged mainly to the Averroist school,
though his views were probably formed indepen
dently, and certainly extended farther. He not only
held the existence of a soul pervading the universe,
which is the form of Pantheism which has been al
ready considered, but followed the earlier philosophy
of the Neo-Platonists, in identifying the soul with the
matter which it animates ; regarding the one as an
emanation from the other, in the same manner as
an effect is merely cause or force transferred. It is

classes. The system of the former is briefly explained in Bitter s
Christliche Philosophic, p. 561 seq. ; Renouvier s Histoire de Philo
sophic, t. 2 ; and in Hallam, History of Literature, ii. 7 ; and of
the latter in Hallam, id. (372-6); Tennemann s Manual, 317 ; and
Ritter, id. vi. 3, seq. Both systems are metaphysical rather than
theological. That of Cesalpini is also explained in Ritter, id.v. 653,
seq. ; in Hallam, id. ii. 5 ; that of Cardan in Bmcker, period iii.
part ii. lib. i. c. 3 ; Buhle, Gesch. der Neu. Phil ii. 857, seq. ; and
in Morley s Life of Cardan (1853).

g Giordano Bruno (1550-1600), Ritter s Chr. Phil v. 595. &c.
See Hallam s Hist, of Lit. ii. (8-14.) Buhle s Geschichte der
Phil ii. 703. His life and opinions have been described by Mr. G.
H. Lewis in the Bioyr. Hist, of Phil. p. 314, seq. A list of his
works is given in Buhle Gesch. der Neu. Phil ii. 703, seq., and more
briefly in Tennemann s Manual, 300. They were collected and
published in 1830. One of them, the " Spaccio della bestia trion-
fante" being very scarce, and only known by report, was formerly
thought to be a translation of the celebrated work " De Tribus
Impostoribus."

144 LECTURE III.

this belief which recurs in Spinoza, which is properly
denominated Pantheism, where the Creator is for
gotten in creation. The former line of Pantheism
noticed in Averroes approaches more nearly to theism.
Bruno s unbelief was not gay and flippant, but
sombre and earnest. With a fantastical conceit
which can hardly be explained, he travelled as the
missionary to propagate his own views, like a knight
errant tilting at all opinions, with a soul especially
embittered against the Christian priesthood 11 . On
his return to Italy from his travels he fell into
the hands of the church, and suffered death for his
opinions.

Vanini 1 similarly led a wandering life, but is a
character of less seriousness : occasionally he mani
fested the inconsistency of indifference to his own
convictions. Reverencing the memory of Pompo-
natius, he expressed the same disbelief of the spi
ritual and of immortality. He was possibly an
atheist. Certainly his views were tinged with deep
bitterness against religion ; and after leading a
restless life, he suffered a cruel martyrdom for his
belief.

h In his travels he reached Oxford, and was admitted to lecture
in the university.

i Lucilio Vanini (1586-1619.) His chief works were " Amphi-
theatrum ^Eternse Providentiee/ and " De Admirandis Naturae Ar.
canis." The latter was condemned by the Sorbonrie. Full particu
lars are given in Brucker s Hist. Phil, period iii. part ii. 1. i. ch. 6.
See also Buhle, Gesch. der Neu. Phil. ii. 866. seq. ; and the Life in
the Bingraphie Universelle.

LECTURE III. 145

Bruno and Vanini were the apostles of a doctrine
which the world would no longer hear. The dawn
of physical knowledge was turning men to a truer
study of the universe, and caused their labours to
be in vain. The age of indifference was gone. The
alarm caused by the Reformation had kindled a
strong ecclesiastical reaction, especially in Italy, and
the religious earnestness and intellecttial activity of
Germany had awoke an intelligent reaction on the
part of the Catholic church k . Hence these two
writers incurred a danger unknown to their prede
cessors. Martyrs are men who are before their age
or behind it. Their sad fate throws an interest
around their lives. Unbelief must always have its
confessors. It is to be hoped that the inhumanity
of Christendom will never again cause it to have its
martyrs.

The survey is now complete of the crisis which
occurred in the transition from the middle ages to
modern history, forming the third of those enume
rated in a former lecture. We have witnessed
amidst its complexity the manifestation of the
same principles as in former epochs ; the restless
ness of the human mind struggling to be free, intel
lectually, politically, religiously ; and we have endea
voured to trace the operation of the influence of
classical literature and metaphysical philosophy in
inducing the decay of Christian feeling and belief.

k On this reaction, see Hallam, Hist, of Lit. i. (536-44).

146 LECTURE III.

The means adopted for counteracting the move
ment were similar to those used in former periods,
viz. an intellectual argument and a spiritual awaken
ing. In some instances indeed, in accordance with
the spirit of the time, or more truly with the spirit
of human nature, material force and cruelty were
employed, and the unbeliever was silenced by mar
tyrdom. But neither material power nor the auto
cratic unity of the Roman church was able to repress
the growth of the human mind. Conviction must
be directed, not crushed. The revival of books of
evidences, as soon as printing became common, about
the close of the fifteenth century, which were de
signed to confirm faith, was a more lawful form of
warfare 1 . They were constructed however on a basis
unsuited to an age when first principles were being
reconsidered, being an attempt to establish the au
thority of the church and the duty of submission to
an external norm of faith, and lacked the surer basis
adopted in Protestant works of evidence, which is
found in the external divine authority of the Bible
rather than the church. The creation of the order
of the Jesuits, though directed more against Pro
testantism than against unbelief, was a witness, like

1 This revival is at the same time the proof of the existence of
doubt. Staiidlin, in Eichhorn s Geschichte der Lit. vol. vi. p. 24 seq.
enumerates treatises of this kind by Ficinus, Alfonso de Spina, Sa
vonarola, ^Eneas Sylvius, and Pico di Mirandola. The rare work of
Sebonde also, which has been supposed to be deistical, is really a
treatise on natural religion as an evidence of revealed. See Hal-
lam s Hist, of Lit. i. 139, 40 ; Tennemann s Manual, 277.

LECTURE III. 147

the previous reactionary movement of the scholastic
writers in the thirteenth century, to the wish to
wrest the use of learning out of the hands of the
opponents of the church, and to employ the weapon
of reason in defence of it.

The judgment formed on this epoch of free
thought, when we have separated from it the Pro
testantism which craves other satisfaction for the
human mind than that which is implied in submis
sion to human authority, and the scepticism which
was merely transitional doubt, must be condemnatory.
The unbelief was indeed a phase of the general
movement ; but one which is instructive as a warn
ing rather than as an example, illustrating the abuse
not the use of free thought. The evil nevertheless
was temporary, and belongs to the past ; the good
was eternal : and the elements of real intellectual
improvement contained in the struggle have been
taken up into the constitution of modern thought
and society.

We have now considered three great epochs in the
history of free thought, and watched Christianity in
contact or conflict with the old heathen philosophy,
with the thought Scholastic or Mahometan of the
middle ages, and with the revival of classical learn
ing. It remains to enter upon the consideration of
the fourth, and to observe it in relation to modern
science.

The seventeenth century introduced as striking a

L 2

148 LECTURE III.

revolution in philosophy as the corresponding ones
which the two preceding ages had produced in litera
ture and religion.

Two distinct thinkers, Bacon and Descartes, from
different points of view, perceived the necessity for
constructing a new method of inquiry. Their posi
tion was similar to that of Socrates of old. They saw
that if knowledge was to be rendered sound, it must
be based on a new method. They both alike sought
it in experience ; Bacon in sensational, Descartes in
intellectual, the instinctive utterance of conscious
ness". The indirect effects on religion produced by
their teaching will be seen more fully hereafter. Our
present object is to sketch the influence exercised by
Descartes on the theological speculations of Spinoza,
before passing in succeeding lectures to the detailed
study of those peculiarities which free thought has
presented in the different countries in which it has
been manifested .

m On Socrates, see Grote s History of Greece, vol. viii. ch. 68.

O.u Bacon and Descartes see Hitter, Christliche Philosophic, ^309
seq., ancUvii. 3 seq., Buhle iii. (1-86), Tennemann s Geschichte, x. 200
seq. ; and the references given in Tennemann s Manual, 312 and
333. Among English sources, see Morell s History of Philosophy,
i. 76, 166 ; Lewes History of Philosophy, Hallam s History of
Literature, vol. ii. part 3. ch. 3. On Descartes, see also Bouillet s
Histoire de la Revolution Cartesienne (1842) p. 95144 ; and on
Bacon, the monograph by Kuno Fischer of Jena, translated 1857.

In chronological order Herbert and Hobbes ought to come
before Spinoza. Indeed their works furnished suggestions to him ;
but as the forms of scepticism which follow are arranged by nations,
it is more convenient to place Spinoza here alone previously to
treating the others.

LECTURE III. 149

Spinoza s memory has been branded with the
stigma which attached to his character during life P.
Born in Holland, of Jewish origin, his early repudia
tion of the legends of the Talmud in which he was
educated, caused his excommunication by his own
people. Finding himself an outcast, he sought
society among a few sceptical friends, one of whom
was a physician named Van den Ende, whom a sense
of injustice united to him by the bond of common
sympathy. His life was passed in retirement, in
hard, griping poverty. Possessing a mind of great
originality, and a fondness for demonstrative rea
soning never surpassed, he lived a model of chaste

P The best means of understanding Spinoza is the perusal of his
own works. It is only in modern times that he has been under
stood. The old works against him, Reimamms (de Atheismo), Mans-
veldt, Cuperus, and Kortholt (de Trib. Impostoribus), are chiefly
obsolete. A memoir exists by Colerus, 1706. Among the moderns
he has been carefully studied by E. Saisset, both in Essais de Phi-
losopkie Religieuse, 1859, and in a dissertation prefixed to a trans
lation of his works, 1861, and in a learned article in the Revue des
Deux Mondes for Jan. 1862 ; also by Damiron, Essai sur Spinoza.
Among English writers, see Hallam, History of Literature, iii. 344
seq., Lewes History of Philosophy, and an article on the Theolo-
gico-Politicus in the British Quarterly Review, No. 16, for Nov. 1848,
referring to Spinoza s theology. In Germany his opinions have
been examined by Hitter, Chr. Phil. vii. 169 seq.; Buhle iii. 503
seq.; Tennemann s Geschichte, x. 462 seq. Schleiermacher in early
life expressed his opinion of him in words of extravagant eulogy,
(Reden uber die Relig., p. 47, quoted in Lewes History of Philo-
iophy.) Consult also the various references given in Tennemann s
Manual, 338. A volume of Spinoza s writings has lately been
found and published, which is made interesting by a photograph
from a rare portrait of him.

150 LECTURE III.

submissive virtue, searching for speculative truth ;
branded as an atheist in philosophy while living,
and regarded since his death as the parent of many
of the worst forms of rationalism in religion. Yet
his character is one that cannot fail to excite a
certain kind of pity. Unlike the frivolous selfish
atheism, the immoral Epicureanism, of the French
unbelief of the following century, his investigations
were grave, his tone dignified, his temper gentle, his
spirit serious. It . is to be feared that he did not
worship God ; but he at least worshipped, at the cost
of social martyrdom, what he thought to be truth.
If he did not believe in revealed religion, he at least
tried to embody what he believed to be its moral
precepts. Though we may shrink with horror from
his teaching, we cannot, when we compare him with
other unbelievers, withhold our pity from the teacher.
His works are short, but weighty. Of his impor
tant treatises, the one, the Tractatus Tlieologico-
Politicus, shows him as the Biblical critic ; the
other, the Ethica, exhibits his philosophy. In the
former, written in early life, he derives his materials
and mode of handling from the Jewish mediaeval
theologian Maimonides ; in the latter, the product
of his riper years, from Descartes*}. But as he had

q In the admirable article in the Revue, quoted in the last note,
Saisset discusses carefully the sources from which Spinoza derived
his theology and philosophy. Cousin in earlier life had regarded
his philosophy as borrowed from Descartes (Fragm. de Phil.
Cartes., p. 428 seq.), and Bitter coincides in this opinion. More
recently, in the new edition (1861) of his Hist. Gen. de la Philos.,

LECTURE III. 151

undoubtedly come under the influence of Descartes
before writing the former work, and it is certain that
the effects of it on his own philosophical scheme are
already discernible in it. We shall therefore com
mence with the latter, and attempt to understand
his philosophy, and its application to religion, before
studying his special criticism of Revelation.

Descartes had aimed, like the great thinkers of
earlier times, to gain a general view of the universe
of being ; but had sought it by a different mode.
Caring rather for certitude of method, reality in the
highest principles, than for results attained, he had
seen that a knowledge of being must rest on a
knowledge of the consciousness which tells us of
being. His principle, " Cogito, ergo sum," is the
expression of this conviction. Therefore, carrying
analysis into the human mind, he had grasped those
ideas which appeal to us with irresistible clearness,
and commend themselves as axioms requiring no
proof; and from these ideas, or rather from the idea
of cause, the primitive of them, regarded by him as
innate, he had demonstrated a priori the being and
attributes of God, and the principles which dominate
in the great fields of knowledge r .

he regards it as borrowed from Maimonides (p. 457). See on Mai-
monides Philosophy, Adolph. Franck s Etudes Orientals, p. 318.
Saisset after a careful examination comes to the conclusion that
the theology was suggested by Maimonides More Nevochim, but
that the philosophy was derived neither from the Kabbala, nor
Averroes, nor Maimonides, but from Descartes.
r See the references given in a former note.

152 LECTURE III.

Spinoza s object was similar ; but he sought to
attain it in a different manner : rejecting, on the one
hand, the dualism by which Descartes had opposed
mind and matter, he regarded each as a different
mode of the same primitive substance, and, on the
other, the limited idea of the divine Being, he con
ceived that the mind of man realizes the notion of
Him as unlimited. There are three different opinions
in reference to our capacity of knowing the infinity
of God. Either our knowledge of Him is only nega
tive and relative ; we know only what He is not, and
our positive notions of His nature are drawn from the
analogy of human personality ; or, secondly, we have
an intuition of His infinity, but so bare of attributes,
that while it guarantees the reality of our appre
hensions of Him, we are dependent on experience for
its development into a conception ; or, thirdly, the
human mind can apprehend His infinity positively,
antecedent to the application of limitations to it s .
The last of these three views belonged to Spinoza,
along with the ancient Eleatics, the Neo-Platonists of
the early ages, and the principal schools of modern
German philosophy. Accordingly he tried to work
out with mathematical rigour in geometrical form a
philosophy of existence, conceiving that the mind
grasps the idea of God as infinite substance, and
understands its development under two modes ; viz.
extension and thought : the former the objective act

s Compare the Essay on Cousin by Sir W. Hamilton (Disserta
tions, p. 32.)

LECTUEE III. 153

of Deity, the latter the subjective 1 . The universe
therefore is nothing but the manifestation of God :
God is the sum total of it ; the unity in its variety ;
the infinite comprehending its finity. Cause and
effect are identical; the natura naturans, and natura
naturata. Causation is change ; but it is nothing
but substance assuming attributes, and attributes
assuming modes. Phenomena are only the bubbles
which arise on the bosom of the ocean and disappear,
absorbed in its vastness. The universe is bound
in one vast chain of fatalism, one grand and perfect
whole. Man s perfection is to know by contemplation
the universe in which he has his being.

Such a system has been called atheistic, because it
is silent about the presence of a personal first Cause.
It might be more truly denominated Pantheistic,
not in the vague sense in which that term is applied
to denote the belief in a Deity as an anima mundi,
like that explained in reference to the Averroists u ,
but to imply that the sum total of all things, the
universe, is Deity. Its influence on the question of
revealed religion will be obvious. It admits that
the phenomena which we attribute to miracle in the
process of revelation are facts, but it denies their
miraculous character x . They are the mere manifes
tation of some previously unknown law, turning up
accidentally at the particular moment, some pre-

t Ethica, part ii. prop, i and 2.

11 P. 140.

x Theol Polit. c. vi.

154 LECTURE III.

viously unknown mode in which the all-embracing
substance manifests itself. In this view all religions
become various expressions of the great moral and
spiritual truths which they embody, and true piety
consists in rising beyond them to the vision of the
higher truths which they typify, and the practice of
the principles which they enjoin as rules. " Dico,"
wrote Spinoza, " ad salutem lion esse omnino iiecesse,
Christum secundum carnem noscere ; sed de seterno
illo filio Dei, hoc est, Dei seterna sapientia quse sese
in omnibus rebus, et maxime in mente humana et
omnium maxime in Christo Jesu manifestavit, longe
aliter sentiendum x ."

Spinoza, though a Jew, had examined the claims
of Christianity. Indeed the discussions, half political
half religious, of the Dutch theology, would have
compelled the investigation of it, independently of
his own largeness of sympathy with the philosophical
history of human religion ^. His philosophy of re
vealed religion is contained in his Tractatus Theo-
logico-Politieus z . This work was called forth by the
disputes of the age, and had the political object of

* Ep. xxi. vol. iii. p. 195. (Lips. ed. 1846.) It will be hereafter
seen how exactly this result is parallel to the religious philosophy
and Christology developed in the Hegelian school. See Lect. VII.

y A succinct account of the contests in Holland is given in
C. Butler s Life ofGrotius, c. 5, 6, 12. See also Amand Saintes,
Ifistoire de la Vie de Spinoza, p. 63 ; Hase s Church History, E. T.
356 ; Hagenbach, Dogmengeschichte, 235.

7 A good analysis for an English reader may be found in the
article quoted above from the British Quarterly Revieiv.

LECTURE III. 155

defending liberty of thought as necessary to the
safety both of the state and of religion. The question
of predestination had rent the Dutch church shortly
before this time ; and when the victory remained
with the Calvinistic party, the opinions of the liberal
Remonstrants were treated as crimes. Spinoza pro
posed in this work a plan, perhaps suggested by the
perusal of Hobbes, for curing these dissensions. The
book is a critical essay, in which he surveys the
Jewish and Christian religions, and ends in the con
clusion that certainty on the subject of a revelation
is impossible ; accordingly that the remedy for theo
logical acrimony must be sought in a return to what
he regards to be the simple doctrine which Christ
taught, the love of God and one s neighbour ; that
philosophy and theology ought to be severed ; the one
aiming at truth and* resting on universal ideas, the
other at obedience and piety and resting on historic
authority and special revelation. Hence, while uni
formity of religious worship and practice was to be
prescribed, he claimed that unlimited liberty of spe
culation ought to be tolerated a .

It is in the survey of Judaism and Christianity in
the earlier part of this work that he exhibits the
views in which he has anticipated many of the spe
culations of rationalism. He examines first into the
grounds which Revelation puts forward for its claim

a Theol. Pol. ch. 19, 20. The idea here is borrowed from
Hobbes.

156 LECTURE III.

to authority, viz. prophecy, the Jewish polity, and
miracles b ; next the principles of interpretation, and
the canon of the two Testaments 6 ; lastly, the nature
of the divine teaching d ; endeavouring to show that
the fundamental articles of faith are given in natural
religion. In this way he exhibits his views on those
branches which are now denominated the evidences,
exegesis, and doctrines. In the discussion of prophecy
he analyses the nature of prophetic foresight into
vividness of imagination; and exhibits the human
feeling and sentiment intertwined with it e . He
regards the Hebrew idea of election as merely the
theocratic mode of representing their own good suc
cess in that region of circumstances which was not in
human power f . His explanation of miracles has been
already stated : the course of nature seems to him to
be fixed and immutable ; and he argues, that interfe
rence with its course is not a greater proof of Provi
dence than a perpetual unchanging administration *.

As his philosophy is seen in the treatment of the
evidences, so his criticism appears in the discussion of
the canon. He examines the several books of scrip
ture, and concludes from supposed marks of editorship
that the Pentateuch and historical books were all com
posed by one historian, who was, he thinks, probably
Ezra, Deuteronomy being the first composed 11 . The
prophetic books he resolves into a collection of frag-

Ch. (.-6.) c ch. 7-12. d ch. 13-15. e ch. i, 2.
Ch. 3 . g ch. 6. h ch. 8.

LECTURE III. 157

merits. His opinions on this department would be
rejected as immature by modern rationalist critics ;
yet they have an historic interest as marking the
rise of the searching investigations into the sources
and construction of the Hebrew sacred literature,
which have been pursued in an instructive manner
in modern times. His view respecting the nature
of scriptural doctrines 1 , that they can be reduced to
the teaching of natural reason, is a corollary from his
philosophy, which cannot admit that any religious
truth is obligatory which is not self-evident, and
is analogous to the doctrine which a short time
previously had been stated by Lord Herbert of
Cherbury k .

These remarks will suffice in explanation of the
criticism exhibited in this work. The book marks
an epoch, a new era in the critical and philosophical
investigation of religion. Spinoza s ideas are as it
were the head waters from which flows the current
which is afterwards parted into separate streams. If
viewed merely as a specimen of criticism, they are
in many respects very defective. For this branch
was new in Spinoza s time. Learning had been
directed since the Renaissance rather to the acqui
sition of stores of information concerning ancient
literature than reflective examination of the authen
ticity and critical value of the sources. Yet Spinoza s
sagacity is so great, that the book is suggestive of

1 Ch. (12-14.) k De Veritate. See Lect. IV.

LECTURE III.

information, and fertile in hints of instruction to
readers who dissent most widely from his inferences 1 .
In Spinoza s own times the work met with unbounded
indignation. Indeed hardly any age could have been
less prepared for its reception. So rigorous a theory
of verbal inspiration was then held, that the question
of the date of the introduction of the Hebrew vowel
points was discussed under the idea that inspiration
would be overthrown, if the admission was made that
they were introduced after the time of the closing of
the canon m . The tone of fairness in Spinoza s man
ner, which compels most modern readers to believe
in his honesty, and which presents so striking a con
trast to the profaneness of subsequent scepticism,

1 Great critical sagacity is evinced in describing the characteristics
of prophecy (ch. i. and ii.), and the historic peculiarities of the Pen
tateuch (ch. viii.) ; which however, it would seem, had been ob
served partially by some of the learned Dutch theologians of the
time.

m This lay at the bottom of the opposition which Buxtorf and
Owen offered to the view, now universally adopted, of Capellus and
Morinus, that the vowel points were a late introduction in Hebrew,
perhaps of the sixth to the tenth centuries A. D. The history of the
controversy is given in Walch s Bibliotheca Theol. Select, vol. iv.
p. 244, 268. ; and Wolf s Bibliotheca Hebr. part iv. p. 7 j part ii.
p. 25. and 270. The Formula Consensus of the Helvetic church
(1675), (on which see Schweizer in Herzog s Realen-Encycl. xi.
439 seq. ; Henke s Kirchengeschichte, vol. iv. 34 ; Hagenbach s
Dogmengesch. 222.), was partly designed against the views of
Capellus. On the question of the vowel points, consult the Pro
legomena to Walton s Polyglot, iii. 39 ; Carpzov. Crit. Sacr. 242
seq. Wolf s Bibliotheca Hebraica, ii. 475. ; iv. 214 seq. ; and among
the moderns, Gesenius s Gesch. der Hebr. Sprache, 48.

LECTURE III. 159

was then regarded as latent irony. The work on
its appearance was suppressed by public authority ;
but it was frequently reprinted; and probably no
work of free thought has ever had more influence,
both on friends and foes, except the memorable work
of Strauss in the present age. Not only have free
thinkers been moulded by it, but it has produced
lasting effects on those who have loved the faith of
Christ. For Spinoza s work, if it did not create, gave
expression to the tendency of which slight traces are
perceptible elsewhere", to recognize a large class of
facts relating to the personal peculiarities of the in
spired writers, and to the " human element," as it has
been frequently called , in scripture, for which or
thodox criticism has always subsequently had to find
a place in a theory of inspiration ; facts which first
shook the mechanical or verbal theory, which, how
ever piously intended, really had the effect of
degrading the sacred writers almost into automatons,
and regarded them as the pens instead of the penmen
of the inspiring Spirit P. Indirectly the effect of

n E. g. in Le Clerc. See Sentitnens de Quelques Theologians
d Hollande sur VHistoire Critique du pere Simon, and his Five
Letters on Inspiration ; and in the French Roman catholic critic,
R. Simon, in reference to whom see note on p. 116.

E. g. by Dr. Lee on Inspiration, Lect. I.

P Compare Dr. Lee s learned and valuable work on Inspiration,
ch . iv. The writer of this lecture need hardly say, that he cordially
and reverently believes in the miraculous character of scripture
inspiration ; and that the remarks here in the text are only aimed
at the extravagant views held in the seventeenth century, such as

160 LECTUEE III.

Spinoza s thought was seen even in the English
church. The difficulties which, through means of
the English deists, it brought before the notice of
the great apologetic writers of our own country,
created the free, but perhaps not irreverent theory
of revelation manifested in the churchmen of the
last century % which restricted the miraculous assist
ance of inspiration to the specific subject of the
revealed communication, the religious element of
scripture, and did not regard it as comprehending
also the allusions, scientific or historic, extraneous
to religion.

Nor is it merely in respect of criticism that Spi
noza s views have affected subsequent thought. The
central principle of his philosophy, the pantheistic
disbelief of miraculous interposition, which has sub
sequently entered into so many systems, was first
clearly applied to theology by him. Wherever the
disbelief in the supernatural has arisen from a priori
considerations, and expressed itself, not with allega
tions of conscious fraud against the devotees of
religion, nor with attempts to explain it away as
merely mental realism, but with assertions that
miracles are impossible, and nature an unchanging

that, above named, in reference to the Hebrew vowel points. No
Christian however ought to fail to appreciate the deep reverence
for holy scripture implied in the theory from which dissent is here
expressed.

q A note, giving proof of the fact here stated, will be found at
the end of Lect. VIII.

LECTURE III. 161

whole ; this disbelief, whether insinuating itself into
the defence of Christianity, or marking the attack on
it, has been a reproduction of Spinoza.

In taking a retrospect of the long period over
which we have travelled in this lecture, embracing
the twofold crisis of free thought in the middle ages
and the inauguration of the modern era, we cannot
fail to be impressed with the grand idea of the per
manent victory of truth, and the exquisite order
according to which the fatherly providence of God
makes all things conduce together for good. When
the course of history is viewed in its true perspec
tive, we perceive that Almighty love ruleth. The
period has comprised most of the great movements,
political or inteUectual, which have occurred in Eu
ropean history since the Christian era. The fall of
the Roman empire, the gradual reconstruction of
society, the revival of learning, the invention of
printing, the discovery of a new geographical world,
the creation of modern philosophy, embraced in it,
include the mention of almost every great event,
with the exception of the French revolution, which
has modified the character of the human mind, or
affected the destiny of Christianity. At times it
seemed as if Christianity was on the point of being
extinguished by unbelief ; at other times, the church
seemed to lend itself to the extermination of all
freedom of investigation. Yet Christianity has lasted
through all the dangers, throwing off, like a healthy
system, the errors which from time to time insinuated

162 LECTURE III.

themselves into it, and diffusing its blessings of
eternal truth into every region of life and thought.
The past is the pledge of hope for the future.

Look forth ! that stream behold,
That stream upon whose bosom we have passed
Floating at ease, while nations have effaced
Nations, and death has gathered to his fold
Long- lines of mighty kings : look forth, my soul I
(Nor in this vision be thou slow to trust)
The living waters, less and less by guilt
Stained and polluted, brighten as they roll,
Till they have reached the eternal city built
For the perfected spirits of the just r .

r Wordsworth, Ecclesiastical Sonnets, partii. 47,

LECTURE IV.

DEISM IN ENGLAND PREVIOUS TO A.D. 1760.

ISAIAH lix. 19.

When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the
Lord shall lift up a standard against him.

JL HE forms assumed by free thought in the fourth
great crisis of the Christian faith, which commenced
with the rise of modern philosophy, and has con
tinued with slight intervals to the present time, have
been already stated 3 to be chiefly three, correspond
ing with the three nations in which they have been
manifested.

In this lecture we shall sketch the history of one
of these forms English Deism by which name the
form of unbelief is denominated which existed during
the close of the seventeenth and the first half of the

a See above p. 14.
M 2

164 LECTURE IV.

eighteenth century. If the dates be marked by
corresponding political history, its rise may be placed
as early as the reign of Charles I. ; its maturity in
the period from the revolution of 1688 to the invasion
of the Pretender in 1745 ; its decay in the close of
the reign of George II., and the early part of that
of George IIL b

This long period was marked by those great events
in intellectual and social history which were calcu
lated to awaken the spirit of free inquiry. It wit
nessed the dethronement of constituted authorities
intellectual, ecclesiastical, political ; the constant
struggle of religious factions; and on two occasions
civil war and revolution. It was affected by the
rise of the philosophy of Bacon, and the positive
advances of natural science under Newton and his
coadjutors. It comprehended moments marked by
the outburst of native genius, and others influenced
by contact with the continental literature, both with
the speculative theology of Holland and the dramatic
and critical literature of France . Above all it was
Ulumined by the presence of such an array of great
minds in all departments of intellectual activity as
can rarely be matched in a single period. If, when

b This computation regards lord Herbert of Cherbury as marking
the commencement, and Hume the close ; the doubters of the latter
half of the eighteenth century, such as Gibbon, being excluded, be
cause their writings are marked by the forms of French unbelief.

c The former in the struggle of Arminians and Calvinists in the
Puritan controversy; the latter in the revolution supposed to be
caused in our literature by the influence of Dryden.

LECTUEE IV. 165

the human mind in the middle ages was warmed
into life after the winter of its long torpor, under
the genial influence of the revival of literature, the
renewal of its power was marked by a disposition to
throw off the trammels which had bound it in the
night of its darkness, how much more might such a
result be expected when it was basking under the
sunshine of meridian brightness, and exulting in the
consciousness of strength.

A special peculiarity of this period likely to pro
duce effects on religion has been already mentioned.
The philosophy of this age compared with former
ones was essentially a discussion of method. The
two rival philosophies which now arose are generally
placed in opposition to each other, as physical or
mental respectively, that of Bacon being conversant
with nature, that of Descartes with man d . But in
truth in one respect both were united. Each was ana
lytical ; each strove to lay down a general method for
investigating the sphere of inquiry which it selected.
Both were reactions against the dogmatic assump
tions of former systems ; both assumed the indispen
sable necessity of an entire revolution in the method
of attaining knowledge. Accordingly, though differ
ing widely in appealing to the external senses or the

d In addition to the references given in Lect. III. (p. 148.) see
Cousin s Hist, de la Phil, au i8 e siecle (Leon 3) ; and Remusat s
Essai sur jBacon, 1857 ; but especially the sketch of the relation of
Bacon s philosophy to religion in K. Fischer s monograph on Bacon,
(c. x. and xi.)

166 LECTURE IV.

internal intuitions respectively, they both built philo
sophy in the criticism of first principles. Hence,
independently of any particular corollaries from spe
cial parts of their systems, the influence of their spirit
was to beget a critical, subjective, and analytical
study of any topic. When applied to religion, this
is the feature which subsequently characterizes alike
the unbelief and the discussion of the evidences.
Difficulties and the answers to difficulties are found
in an appeal to the functions and capacities of the
interpreting mind. This appeal to reason was de
nominated rationalism in the seventeenth century,
prior to the present application of the term in a more
limited and obnoxious sense. The specific doctrine
arrived at by this process, which allows the existence
of a Deity, and of the religion of the moral conscience,
but denies the specific revelation which Christianity
asserts, was called theism or deism. (21)

In the period which we have mentioned as marking
the first stage of deism, extending from its com
mencement to the close of the seventeenth century ?
the peculiarity which characterized the inquiry was
the political aspect which it bore. The relation of
religion to political toleration 6 gave occasion for
examining the sphere of truth which may form the
subject of political interference.

e This inquiry was called forth in the disputes of the established
church against popery and puritanism, and led to works in favour
of toleration by Chillingworth, Bp. Jeremy Taylor (Liberty of Pro
phesying), and later by Milton ; and towards the close of the century
by Locke.

LECTURE IV. 167

Two writers of opposite schools are usually regarded
as marking the rise of deism, both *of whom belonged
to this phase of it, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, and
Hobbes. Both formed their systems in the reign
of Charles I f . The one rejected revelation by making
religion a matter of individual intuition, the other
by making it a matter of political convenience.

Lord Herberts, the elder brother of the saintly
poet, if looked at as a philosopher, must be classed
with Descartes rather than with Bacon, though chro
nology forbids the idea that he can have learned any
thing from Descartes. It is probable that while on
his early embassy in France he came under the same
intellectual influences which suggested to Descartes
his views. Fragments of knowledge and partial
solutions derived from older philosophies exist before
a great thinker like Descartes embodies them in a
system. Herbert may have been led by the indirect

f Hobbes s Leviathan was not published till 1651 ; but the
thoughts were evidently suggested by the woes of the reign of
Charles I.

S Herbert (1581-1648). His works were, De Veritate, 1624, De
Gausis Errorum, 1645, De Religione Laid, De Religione Gentilium,
1663. An autobiography was published in 1764. He was answered
by Locke (Reason, of Christianity), Baxter, Halyburton, Leland,
(Deists, lett. i and 2.), and Kortholt; and his philosophy was attacked
by Gassendi. On Herbert see Hitter s Christliche Philosophie, vi.
390 seq. ; Tennemann s Gesch. x. 113 seq. ; Eichhorn s Gesch. der
Lit. 6, 95 seq. ; Hallam s History of Literature, ii. 380 seq. ; and
Lechler s Geschichte des Englischen Deismus, p. 36-54 ; Reinusat
in Rev. des Deux Mondes,i8$4, vol. iii. His views in some respects
seem to have resembled those of Pecock or Sebonde.

168 LECTURE IV.

effect of such influences to a theory of innate ideas,
independently of Descartes ; or he may have arrived
at it by reaction against the Pyrrhonism of some of
the French writers of the preceding age, such as
Montaigne, with whose writings he was familiar.

His works furnish his views on knowledge and
on religion, both natural, heathen, and Christian.
They include a treatise on truth, which suggested
another on the cause of errors. The views on religion
therein named, further suggested one on the religion
which could be expected in a layman, and this again
a critique on heathen creeds, written to show the
universality of the beliefs so described 11 .

In discussing truth 1 he surveys the powers of the
human mind, and places the ultimate test of it in the
natural instincts or axiomatic beliefs. These accord
ingly become the test of a religion. The true religion
must therefore be a universal one ; that is, one of
which the evidence commends itself to the universal
mind of man, and finds its attestation in truths in
tuitively perceived. Of such truths he enumerates
five J : the existence of one supreme God ; the duty
of worship ; piety and virtue as the means thereof ;
the efficacy of repentance ; the existence of rewards
and punishments both here and hereafter. These
he regards as the fundamental pillars of universal

h In its mode of treatment it has been compared to Bacon s
Wisdom of tlie Ancients.

Tn the De Veritate.
J De Reliy. Gentil., 15. 199. App. to Relig. Laici, 2, 3.

LECTURE IV. 169

religion ; and distinguishes from these realities the
doctrines of what he calls particular religions, one of
which is Christianity, as being uncertain, because not
self-evident ; and accordingly considers that no assent
can be expected in a layman, save to the above-named
self-evident truths. His view however of revelation
is not very clear. Sometimes he seems to admit it,
sometimes proscribes it as uncertain. His object
seems not to have been primarily destructive, but
merely the result of attempts to discover truth amid
the jarring opinions of the churches of his day k .

The ideas which his writings contributed to deist
speculation are two ; viz., the examination of the univer
sal principles of religion, and the appeal to an internal
illuminating influence superior to revelation, " the
inward light," as the test of religious truth. This
was a phrase not uncommon in the seventeenth cen
tury. It was used by the Puritans to mark the
appeal to the spiritual instincts, the heaven-taught
feelings ; and later by mystics, like the founder of the
Quakers, to imply an appeal to an internal sense 1 .
But in Herbert it differs from these in being uni
versal, not restricted to a few persons, and in being
intellectual rather than emotional or spiritual. It
was not analysed so as to separate intuitional from

k There is a curious record in his journal (Autobiography,
p. 171-3.) of an earnest prayer for guidance on the subject of the
publication of his first book De Veritate, which he no doubt saw
was opposed to popular belief.

1 Lechler, Geschichte des E. D. p. 64.

170 LECTURE IV.

reflective elements, and seems to have been analogous
to Descartes ultimate appeal to the natural reason,
the self-evidencing force of the mental axioms m .

If it was the anxiety to find certainty in controver
sies concerning theological dogmas, which suggested
Herbert s inquiries, it was the struggle of ecclesiastical
parties in connexion with political movements which
excited those of Hobbes n .

In his philosophical views he belonged to an oppo
site school to Herbert. A disciple of Bacon, he was
the first to apply his master s method to morals, and
to place the basis of ethical and political obligation
in experience ; and in the application of these philo-

ra Because they bear, as he thought, the great test of being self-
evident. It will be remembered that the clearness of an idea was
the test of the innate character of it in Descartes system (Principia
Philosophic 10.) Such ideas are those which would be regarded
in Kant s system as necessary forms of thinking, and in Cousin s as
belonging to the impersonal reason.

n Hobbes (1588-1679.) The Leviathan is a philosophy of so
ciety, studied as the development of the individual. He first treats
of the individual, book i. then the commonwealth, book ii. ; then
the Christian commonwealth, book iii. ; and the kingdom of error,
book iv. ; borrowing the idea from Augustin s De Civ. Dei. The
brevity of the notice in the text prevents the possibility of doing
justice to the grandeur and to the good sense shown in many re
spects in Hobbes s works. He was answered by Cudworth (Intel
lectual System) ; Cumberland (De Leg. Nat.) Dr. Seth Ward ;
Bramhall (1658) ; Archbp. Tennyson, 1760; and Lord Clarendon,
in his Survey of Leviathan (1676.) For an explanation and cri
ticism on his philosophical principles, see Hitter, ch. vi. 453 seq. ;
Tennemanri, b. x. 53 seq. ; Lewes History of Philosophy ; MorelPs
Id. ; Hallam, b. ii. 463 seq. ; and on his religious opinions, Leland
(ch. iii.), and Lechler (p. 67-107.)

LECTURE IV. 171

sophical principles to religion, he also represented the
contrary tendency to Herbert, state interference in
contradistinction from private liberty, political reli
gion as opposed to personal. The contest of indivi
dualism against multitudinism is the parallel in poli
tics to that of private judgment against authority in
religion. While some of the Puritans were urging
unlimited license in the matter of religion, Hobbes
wrote to prove the necessity of state control, and
the importance of a fulcrum on which individual
opinion might repose, external to itself ; and referring
the development of society to the necessity for re
straining the natural selfishness of man, and resolving
right into expedience as embodied in the sovereign
head, he ended with crushing the rights of the indi
vidual spirit, and defending absolute government.

The effect of the application of such a sensational
and materialist theory to religion will be anticipated.
He traced the genesis of it in the individual, and its
expression in society ; finding the origin of it in
selfish fear of the supernatural. The same reason
which led him to assign supremacy to government
in other departments induced him to give it supreme
control over religion. Society being the check on man s
selfishness, and supreme, deciding all questions on
grounds of general expedience ; the authority of the
commonwealth became the authority of the church P.
Though he had occasion to discuss revelation and the

Part i. c. 12. P Part iii. c. 39.

172 LECTURE IV.

canon ^ as a rule of faith, yet it is hard to fix on any
point that was actual unbelief.

The amount of thought contributed by him to
deism was small ; for his influence on his successors
was unimportant. The religious instincts of the
heart were too strong to be permanently influenced
by the cold materialist tone which reduced religion to
state craft. With the exception of Coward 1 ", a mate
rialist who doubted immortality about the end of the
century, the succeeding deists more generally followed
Herbert, in wishing to elevate religion to a spiritual
sphere, than Hobbes, who degraded it to political
expedience. A slight additional interest however
belongs to his speculations, from the circumstance
that his ideas, together with those of Herbert, most
probably suggested some parts of the system of
Spinoza s .

The two writers of whom we have now been treat
ing, lived prior to or during the Commonwealth.
From the date of the Restoration the existence of

1 Part iii. c. 33.

r Coward (1657-1724 cfrc.) was a physician, who wrote in 1702
Second Thoughts on Human Souls, apparently intended to disprove
the existence of spirit and natural immortality, but not of immor
tality itself as a divine gift from God to man, though opponents
disbelieved him in this assertion. The list of answers written is
given in Chalmers s Biographical Dictionary under Coward. The
house of commons in 1704 condemned the book, and caused it to
be burned.

s Spinoza s view of religion is the part suggested by Herbert, and
his view of the relation of the state to religion that suggested by
Hobbes.

LECTURE IV. 173

doubt may be accepted as an established fact.
During the reaction, political and ecclesiastical, which
ensued in the early part of the reign of Charles II,
it is not surprising that doubt concealed itself in
retirement ; but the frequent allusions to it under
the name of atheism 1 , in contemporary sermons and
theological books, proves its existence. Indeed the
reaction contained the very elements which were
likely to foster unbelief among undiscerning minds.
The court set a sad example of impurity ; and the
excessive claims of the churchmen, alien to the spirit
of political and religious liberty, were calculated to
generate an antipathy to the clergy and to religion.

Toward the end of Charles s reign, a feeling of this
kind expresses itself in the writings of Charles
Blount u , who availed himself of the temporary inter
val in which the press became free, owing to the
omission to renew the act which submitted works to
the censor x , to publish with notes a translation of Phi-
lostratus s Life of Apollonius of Tyana, with the same

* See Note 21.

u C. Blount (1654-93) wrote the Anima Mundi 1679; Life
of Apollonius Tyana, 1680 ; Oracles of Reason, 1695. (See Ma-
caulay, History of England, vol. iv. 352.) He was refuted by
Nichols (1723) Conference with a TJmst. See Lechler (114-124),
and Leland, ch. iv.

x The Licensing Act of 1662 concerning the press was allowed
to expire in 1679. When James II. came to the throne (1685) the
censorship was renewed for seven years ; and again in 1693 was re
vived for two years, at which time it finally expired. See North
British Review, No. 60, (May 1859.)

174 LECTURE IV.

purpose as Hierocles in the fourth century, to disguise
the peculiar character of Christ s miracles, and draw
an invidious parallel between the Pythagorean philo
sopher and the divine founder of Christianity. Sub
sequently to Blount s death, his friend Gildon, who
lived to retract his opinions y, published a collection
of treatises, entitled " The Oracles of Reason ;" a work
which may be considered as expressing the opinions
of a little band of unbelievers, of whom Blount was
one 2 . The mention of two of the papers in it will
explain the views intended. One is on natural re
ligion*, in which the ideas of Herbert are reproduced,
and exception is taken to revelation as partial and not
self-evident, and therefore uncertain ; and the ob
jections to the sufficiency and potency of natural
religion are refuted. A second is on the deist s
religion b , in which the deist creed is explained to
be the belief in a God who is to be worshipped, not
by sacrifice, nor by mediation, but by piety. Punish-

y As proved by his work in 1705, The Deist s Manual.

2 The Oracles of Reason (1693) consists of sixteen papers in
several letters to Mr. Hobbes and others, by Ch. Blount, Gildon, and
others. Papers (No. 14) are a defence of T. Burnet s archaeology*
or on subjects cognate to it. No. 5 is concerning the deist s reli
gion ; 6 on immortality ; 7 on Arians, Trinitarians, and Councils ;
8 that felicity is pleasure ; 9 of fate and fortune ; 10 of the original
of the Jews ; 1 1 on the lawfulness of marrying two sisters succes
sively ; 1 2 of the subversion of Judaism, and the origin of the Mil
lennium ; 13 of the auguries of the ancients ; 14 of natural religion ;
j 5 that the soul is matter ; 1 6 that the world is eternal.

a No. 14.

* No. 5.

LECTURE IV. 175

ment in a future world is denied as incompatible
with Divine benevolence ; and the safety of the deist
creed is supported by showing that a moral life is
superior to belief in mysteries. It will be seen from
these remarks that Blount hardly marks an advance
on his deist predecessor Herbert, save that his view
is more positive, and his antipathy to Christian wor
ship less concealed.

At the close of the seventeenth century two new
influences were in operation, the one political, the other
intellectual ; viz., the civil and religious liberty which
ensued on the revolution, generating free speculation,
and compelling each man to form his political creed ;
and the reconsideration of the first principles of
knowledge 6 implied in the philosophy of Locke d .

The effect of these new influences on religion is
very marked. Controversies no longer turned upon
questions in which the appeal lay to the common
ground of scripture, as in the contest which Church
men had conducted against Puritans or Romanists,
but extended to the examination of the first principles

c Attention had been called a little earlier to the consideration of
the first principles of religion, by the Platonizing Cambridge party
of More and Cudworth, followers partly of Descartes. See Bin-net s
Mem. of his Tivnes, i. 187 ; and the Eev. A. Taylor s able introduction
to the edition of Simon Patrick s Works, Oxford 1858, (p. 2842).

d On Locke s philosophy see Ritter Chr. Phil. vii. 449-534 ;
Cousin s Hist, de Philos. au i8 e siecle, ch. 15-25 ; Morell s Hist, .of
PM.,vol. i. p. 100 seq. ; Lewes Id. ; Lechler, 154-179. His work
the Reasonableness of Christianity typified the tone of the writers
on the Christian evidences for the next half century.

176 LECTURE IV.

of ethics or politics ; such as the foundation of govern
ment, whether it depends on hereditary right or on
compact, as in the controversy against the nonjurors 6
before the close of the century ; or the spiritual rights
of the church, and the right of every man to religious
liberty and private judgment in religion, as in the Con
vocation and Bangorian f controversy, which marked
the early years of the next century. The very dimi
nution also of quotations of authorities is a pertinent
illustration that the appeal was now being made to
deeper standards.

The philosophy of Locke, which attempted to lay
a basis for knowledge in psychology, coincided with,
where it did not create, this general attempt to ap
peal on every subject to ultimate principles of rea
son. This tone in truth marked the age, and acting
in every region of thought, affected alike the ortho
dox and the unbelieving. Accordingly, as we pass
away from the speculations which mark the early
period of deism to those which belong to its maturity,
we find that the attack on Christianity is less sug
gested by political considerations, and more entirely
depends on an appeal to reason, intellectual or moral.

e For this and the next named controversy, see Lathbury s Non-
Jurors (1845), cn - i y -&gt; an d History of Convocation, ch. 12-14.)

f On the Bangorian controversy (1717, 1 8), see Hallam s Consti
tutional History (vol. ii. 408.) A list of the pamphlets which were
written during the controversy was made by the antiquarian Tho
mas Hearne, and is printed in Hoadley s works (3 vols. fol. I773-)
See vol. ii. 381, and the continuation in vol. i. 689.

LECTURE IV. 177

The principal phases belonging to this period of
the maturity of deism, which we shall now succes
sively encounter, are four :

(1) An examination of the first principles of re
ligion, on its dogmatic or theological side, with a
view of asserting the supremacy of reason to in
terpret all mysteries, and defending absolute tolera
tion of free thought. This tendency is seen in Toland
and Collins,

(2) An examination of religion on the ethical side
occurs, with the object of asserting tb.e supremacy of
natural ethics as a rule of conduct, and denying the
motive of reward or punishment implied in dependent
morality. This is seen in Lord Shaftesbury.

After the attack has thus been opened against re
vealed religion, by creating prepossessions against mys
tery in dogma and the existence of religious motives
in morals, there follows a direct approach against the
outworks of it by an attack on the evidences,

(3) In an examination, critical rather than philo
sophical, of the prophecies of the Old Testament by
Collins, and of the miracles of the New by Woolston.

The deist next approaches as it were within the
fortress, and advances against the doctrines of re
vealed religion ; and we find accordingly,

(4) A general view of natural religion, in which
the various differences, speculative, moral, and cri
tical, are combined, as in Tindal ; or with a more
especial reference to the Old Testament as in Morgan,
and the New as in Chubtv; the aim of each being con-

178 LECTURE IV.

structive as well as destructive ; to point out the ab
solute sufficiency of natural religion and of the moral
sense as religious guides, and the impossibility of ac
cepting as obligatory that which adds to or contra
dicts them ; and accordingly they point out the ele
ments in Christianity which they consider can be
retained as absolutely true.

The first two of these attacks occur in the first
two decades of the century : the two latter in the
period from 1720 to 1740, when the public mind not
being diverted by foreign war or internal sedition,
and other controversies being closed, the deist con
troversy was at its height. After examining these,
other tendencies will meet us, when we trace the
decline of deism in Bolingbroke and Hume.

The first of these tendencies just noticed is seen in
Tolands, who directed his speculations to the ground

s Toland (1669-1722.) He was born an Irish catholic, turned
protestant, wrote his first deist book, 1696 ; fled for refuge to the
court of Hanover, and found protection there ; wrote political pam
phlets, and lived abroad till near the close of his life. His chief
theological writings are, Christianity not Mysterious, 1696 ; Amyn-
tor, or Defence of the Life of Milton, 1699 (on the Canon) ; Naza-
renus, 1718 ; Tetradymus, 1720 j Pantheisticon, 1720, sive formula
celebrandse sodalitatis Socraticse, 1720, a parody on the Christian
service books. These are collected in his Miscellaneous Works (1726.)
(Vol. i. contains his translation of the Spaccio of Bruno.) He was
answered by John Norris, Archbp. Synge, and Dr. Peter Browne ;
by S. Clarke, and by Jones in his work on the Canon. Consult
Leland s View of Deistical Writers, Lett. iv. ; Lechler (180-210),
and (463-73), and note on p. 193.

LECTURE IV. 179

principles of revealed theology 11 , and slightly to the
history of the Canon \

Possessing much originality and learning, at an
early age, in 1696, just a year after the censorship
had been finally removed and the press of England
made permanently free, he published his noted work,
" Christianity not Mysterious," to show that " there
is nothing in the Gospels contrary to reason, nor
above it; and that no Christian doctrine can properly
be called a mystery." The speculations of all doubters
first originate in some crisis of personal or mental
history. In Toland s case it was probably the change
of religion from catholic to protestant which first
unsettled his religious faith. The work just named,
in which he expressed the attempt to bring religious
truth under the grasp of the intellect, was one of
some merit as a literary production, and written
with that clearness which the influence of the French
models studied by Dryden had introduced into Eng
lish literature. Yet it is difficult to understand why
a single work of an unknown student should attract
so much public notice. The grand jury of Middle
sex was induced at once to present it as a nuisance,
and the example was followed by the grand jury of
Dublin k . Two years after its publication the Irish
parliament deliberated upon it, and, refusing to hear

h In his Christianity not Mysterious.
i In his Amyntor.

k For these facts see the Memoir of Toland prefixed to his Mis
cellaneous Works, and also Chalmers s Biographical Dictionary.

N 2

180 LECTURE IV.

Toland in defence, passed sentence that the book
should be burnt, and its author imprisoned, a fate
which he escaped only by flight 1 . And in 1701, no
less than five years after the publication of his work,
a vote for its prosecution passed the lower house of
the English convocation, which the legal advisers
however denied to be within the power of that
assembly. Toland spent most of the remainder
of his life abroad, and showed in his subsequent works
a character growing gradually worse, lashed into
bitterer opposition by the censure which he had re
ceived.

His views, developed in his work, Christianity
not Mysterious, require fuller statement. He opens
with an explanation of the province of reason 11 , the
means of information, external and internal, which
man possesses ; a part of his work which is valuable
to the philosopher, who watches the influence exer
cised at that time by psychological speculations ;
and he proposes to show that the doctrines of the
gospel are neither contrary to reason nor above
it. He exhibits the impossibility of believing state-

1 This opposition increased Toland s bitterness, for, in the follow
ing year, 1698, in publishing a Life of Milton, and taking occasion
to disprove that Charles I. was the author of the Ikon Basilike, he
threw out hints of similar forgeries in works attributed to the apos
tles. The hatred of churchmen was further increased by this work.

m See Wilkins s Concilia, vol. iv. 631; Burnet s History of his
own Times, vol. iv. 521; Lathbury s History of Convocation (1842),
p. 288 seq.

Sect. I.

LECTURE IV. 181

merits which positively contradict reason P ; and con
tends that if they do not really contradict it, but are
above it, we can form no intelligible idea of them.
He tries further to show that reason is neither so
weak nor so corrupt as to be an unsafe guide % and
that scripture itself only professes to teach what is
intelligible r . Having shown that the doctrines of
the gospel are not contrary to reason, he next pro
ceeds to show that they do not profess to be above
it ; that they lay claim to no mystery 8 , for that
mystery in heathen writers and the New Testament
does not mean something inconceivable, but some
thing intelligible in itself, which nevertheless was
so veiled that it needed revealing* ; and that the
introduction of the popular idea of mystery was
attributable to the analogy of pagan rites, and did
not occur till several centuries after the foundation
of Christianity 11 .

It is possible that the book may have been a mere
paradox x , the effort of a young mind going through
the process through which all young men of thought
pass, and especially in an age like Toland s, of
trying to understand and explain what they believe.
But students who are thus forming their views

P Sect. ii. ch. i. q Id. ch. 4. r Ch. i, 2.

Sect. iii. ch. 2. t Ch. 3. * Ch. 5.

x Cfr. his Apology for Christianity not Mysterious 1697, and also
a letter from Mr. Molyneux to Locke. (Locke s Works, ed. 1723.
vol. iii. p. 566.) quoted in the memoir (p. 17) prefixed to Toland s
Miscellaneous Works.

182 LECTUKE IV.

ought to pause before they scatter their half-formed
opinions in the world. In Toland s case public
alarm judged the book to have a most dangerous
tendency ; and he was an outcast from the sympathy
of pious men for ever. If he was misunderstood, as
he contended, his fate is a warning against the pre
mature publication of a paradox. The question
accordingly which Toland thus suggested for dis
cussion was the prerogative of reason to pronounce
on the contents of a revelation, the problem whether
the mind must comprehend as well as apprehend all
that it believes. The other question which he
opened was the validity of the canon &gt; . Here too
he claimed that his views were misunderstood. It was
supposed that the mention made by him concerning
spurious works attributed to the apostles, referred to
the canonical gospels. Accordingly, if in his former
work he has been considered to have anticipated the
older school of German rationalists, in the present
he has been thought to have touched upon the
questions discussed in the modern critical school.
The controversy which ensued was the means of
opening up the discussion of the great question
which relates to the New Testament canon, viz.,

Y In his Life of Milton (1698) pp. 91, 92, he had alluded to works
falsely attributed to Christ and the apostles. This was attacked
by Blackball as if intended against the canonical scriptures, and
was defended by Toland by the publication of the Amyntor, a cata
logue of books mentioned by the fathers as truly or falsely ascribed
to Jesus Christ, his apostles, &c. The learned Pfaff calls it " insig-
neni Catalogum" (Diss, Crit. Nov. Test. ch. i. 2.)

LECTURE IV. 183

whether our present New Testament books are a
selection made in the second century from among
early Christian writings, or whether the church from
the first regarded them as distinct in kind and not
merely in degree from other literature ; whether the
early respect shown for scripture was reverence di
rected to apostolic men, or to their inspired teaching.

If Toland is the type of free .speculation applied
to the theoretical side of religion, lord Shaftesbury 2
is an example of speculations on the practical side of
it, and on the questions which come under the pro
vince of ethics.

The rise of an ethical school parallel with discus
sions on the philosophy of religion is one of the
most interesting features of that age, whether it be
regarded in a scientific or a religious point of view.
The age was one in which the reflective reason or
understanding was busy in exploring the origin of
all knowledge. The department of moral and spi
ritual truth could not long remain unexamined. In
an earlier age the sources of our knowledge con
cerning the divine attributes and human duty had
been supposed to depend upon revelation ; but now
the disposition to criticise every subject by the light
of common sense claimed that philosophy must in-

z A Memoir of Lord Shaftesbury (1671-1713), lias been lately
published, (1860). His chief work was the Characteristics. On
his religious views see Leland ch. 5 and 6 ; Lechler 243-265 ;
and on his philosophical views, see Hitter vii. 535 seq. ; Eichhorn,
GescMchte der Liter atur, vi. 424 seq.

184 LECTURE IV.

vestigate them. Reason was to work out the system
of natural theology, and ethics the problem of the
nature and ground of virtue. Hence it will be
obvious how close a relation existed between such
speculations and theology. The * Christian apologist
availed himself of the new ethical inquiries as a
corroboration of revealed religion ; the Deist, as a
substitute for it.

Lord Shaftesbury is usually adduced as a deist of
this class. He has not indeed expressed it definitely
in his writings ; and an ethical system which formed
the basis of Butler s sermons a , cannot necessarily be
charged with deism. But the charge can be sub
stantiated from his memoirs ; and his writings mani
fest that hatred of clerical influence, the wish to
subject the church to the state, which will by some
persons be regarded as unbelief, but which was not
perhaps altogether surprising in an age when the
clergy were almost universally alien to the revolu
tion, and the Convocation manifested opposition to
political and religious liberty. The ground on which
the charge is generally founded is, that Shaftesbury
has cast reflections on the doctrine of future rewards
and punishments b . It is to be feared that sceptical
insinuations were intended ; yet his remarks admit of
some explanation as a result of his particular point
of view.

a On his moral system, see Mackintosh s Dissertation on Ethics,
p. 158-166; and on Butler s ethical system, and its relation to
Shaftesbury, see the same work, p. 1 7 1 seq.

b Works, vol. ii. Inquiry concerning Virtue. Clwract. ii. 272 etc.

LECTURE IV. 185

The ethical schools of his day were already two ;
the one advocating dependent, the other independent
morality ; the one grounding obligation on self-love,
the other on natural right. Shaftesbury, though a
disciple of Locke, belonged to the latter school. His
works mark the moment when this ethical school
was passing from the objective inquiry into the im
mutability of right, as seen in Clarke, to the sub
jective inquiry into the reflex sense which constitutes
our obligation to do what is right, as seen in Butler.
The depreciation accordingly of the motives of re
ward, as distinct from the supreme motive of loving
duty for duty s sake, was to be expected in his
system. The motives of reward and punishment
which form the sanctions of religious obligation,
would seem to him to be analogous to the employ
ment of expedience as the foundation of moral. His
statements however appear to be an exaggeration even
in an ethical view, as well as calculated to insinuate
erroneous ideas in a theological. It is possible that
his motive was not polemical ; but the unchristian
character of his tone renders the hypothesis impro
bable, and explains the reason why his essays called
the " Characteristics" have been ranked among deist
writings.

We have seen, in Toland and Shaftesbury respec
tively, a discussion on the metaphysical and ethical
basis of religion, together with a few traces of the
rise of criticism in reference to the canon. In their
successors the inquiry becomes less psychological

186 LECTURE IV.

and more critical, and therefore less elevated by the
abstract nature of the speculative above the struggle
of theological polemic.

Two branches of criticism were at this time com
mencing, which were destined to suggest difficulties
alike to the deist and to the Christian ; the one the
discovery of variety of readings in the sacred text,
the other the doubts thrown upon the genuineness
and authenticity of the books. It was the large
collection of various readings on the New Testament,
first begun by Mills c , which gave the impulse to the
former, which has been called the lower criticism,
and which so distressed the mind of Bengel, that he
spent his life in allaying the alarm of those who like
himself felt alarmed at its effect on the question of
verbal inspiration. And it was the disproof of the
genuineness of the Epistles of Phalaris by the learned
Bentley d , which first threw solid doubts on the value
attaching to traditional titles of books, and showed
the irrefragable character belonging to an appeal to in
ternal evidence ; a department which has been called

c The readings of the text had been disturbed by Courcelles
(1658), and by Walton in his Polyglot, which caused an alarm, on
which see Hody (De Bibl. Text. 563 seq.), but not widely till
Mills, 1707. Mills readings were attacked by Whitby in 1710, and
the arguments of the latter were afterwards turned by Collins
against Revelation.

d In 1699. Daille s criticism on the Ignatian Epistles (1666)
had shown similar sagacity to that afterwards displayed by Bentley,
and bore to his inquiries the same relation which those just named
in the text bore to those of Mills.

LECTURE IV. 187

the higher criticism. This latter branch, so abundantly
developed in German speculation, is only hinted at
by the English deists of the eighteenth age, as by
Hobbes and Spinoza earlier ; but we shall soon see
the use which Collins and others made of the former
inquiry.

The form, though not the spirit, of Toland and
Shaftesbury, might by a latitude of interpretation be
made compatible with Christianity ; but Collins and
Woolston, of whom we next treat, mark a much
further advance of free thought. They attack what
has always been justly considered to be an integral
portion of Christianity, the relation which it bore
to Jewish prophecy, and the miracles which were
wrought for its establishment.

Collins 6 must be studied under more than one
aspect. He not only wrote on the logic of religion,
the method of inquiry in theology, but also on the
subject of scripture interpretation, and the reality of
prophecy f .

It was in 1713 that he published " A discourse of

e Collins (1676-1729). His works were on Immortality
(1707, 8) in the Dodwell controversy; Freethinking, 1713, refuted
entirely by Bentley in the Phileleutherus Lipsiensis. (See also Dr.
Ibbot s Boyle Lectures, 1713, where the general subject is treated.)
On Necessity, 1715. The Grounds of the Christian Religion, 1724.
(occasioned by Whiston s work on Prophecy) ; answered by bishop
Chandler, Samuel Chandler, T. Sherlock, and Moses Lowman ;
ScJieme of Literal Prophecy, 1727, in answer to Chandler. See
Leland, ch. vii., and Lechler, 217-240. Henke s Kirchengeschichte,
vi. s. 29.

f In the two works named below in the text.

188 LECTUKE IV.

free-thinking, occasioned by the rise and growth of
a sect called Free-thinkers/ This is one of the first
times that we find this new name used for Deists ;
and the object of his book is to defend the propriety
of unlimited liberty of inquiry, a proposition by
which he designed the unrestrained liberty of belief,
not in a political point of view merely, but in a
moral. His argument was not unlike more modern
ones s, which show that civilization and improvement
have been caused by free-thinking ; and he adduces
the growing disbelief in the reality of witchcraft, in
proof of the way in which the rejection of dogma
had ameliorated political science, which until recently
had visited the supposed crime with the punish
ment of death h . After thus showing the duty of
free-thinking , he argued that the sphere of it ought
to comprehend points" on which the right is usually
denied; such as the divine attributes, the truth of
the scriptures, and their meaning k ; establishing this
by laying a number of charges against priests, to
show that their dogmatic teaching cannot be trusted,
unchallenged by free inquiry, on account of their
discrepant 1 opinions, their rendering the canon and
text of scripture uncertain m , and their pious frauds" ;
concluding by refuting objections against free-think
ing derived from its supposed want of safety .

S E. g. that of Buckle in History of Civilization.

h P. 1i. * P. 5-27. k P. 32, &lt;kc.

1 P. 56. m P. 86. n P. 92.

P. 100, (fee.

LECTURE IV. 189

The book met with intelligent and able oppo
nents ; the critical part, containing the allegations of
uncertainty in the text of scripture, and the charge
of altering it, being effectually refuted by Bentley.
The work is an exaggeration of a great truth.
Undoubtedly free inquiry is right in all depart
ments, but it must be restrained within the proper
limits which the particular subject-matter admits
of; limits which are determined partly by the
nature of the subject studied, partly by the laws of
the thinking mind.

Eleven years afterwards, in 1724, Collins pub
lished his " Discourse of the Grounds and Reasons
of the Christian Religion." This work is chiefly
critical. It does not merely contain the incipient
doubts on the variety of readings, and the uncer
tainty of books, but spreads over several provinces
of theological inquiry. Under the pretence of esta
blishing Christianity on a more solid foundation,
the author argues that our Saviour and his apostles
made the whole proof of Christianity to rest solely
on the prophecies of the Old Testament?; that if
these proofs are valid, Christianity is established;
if invalid, it is false q . Accordingly he examines
several of the prophecies cited from the Old Tes
tament in the New in favour of the Messiahship
of Christ, with a view of showing that they are
only allegorical or fanciful proofs, accommodations
of the meaning of the prophecies; and anticipates
P Part i. 1-5. q Id. 6, 7.

190 LECTURE IV.

the objections which could be stated to his views r .
He asserts that the expectation of a Messiah
among 8 the Jews arose only a short time before
Christ s coming 1 ; and that the apostles put
a new interpretation on the Hebrew books, which
was contrary to the sense accepted by the Jewish
nation ; that Christianity is not revealed in the Old
Testament literally, but mystically and allegorically,
and may therefore be considered as mystical Ju
daism. His inference is accordingly stated as an
argument in favour of the figurative or mystical
interpretation of scripture ; but we can hardly
doubt that his real object was an ironical one, to
exhibit Christianity as resting on apostolic misin
terpretations of Jewish prophecy, and thus to create
the impression that it was a mere Jewish sect of
men deceived by fanciful interpretations.

The work produced considerable alarm ; more from
the solemn interest and sacredness of the inquiries
which it opened, than from any danger arising from

r Id. II. s Id. (8-10.)

1 Two other writers, Mandeville and Lyons, have been omitted ;
Mandeville (Fables of the Bees, 1723), because his speculations did
not bear directly on religion ; Lyons, because his work is not im
portant. In 1723 he published the Infallibility of Human Judg
ment, in which he analysed the mind, and applied the results of his
analysis to the first principles of natural religion, and to discredit
the evidences and doctrines of revealed. It bears more resemblance
to Toland and Chubb than to any other writers, but is a feeble
work, interesting only as showing the prevalence of psychological
inquiries, and the tendency to examine psychologically the subject
of religion.

LECTURE IV. 191

excellence in its form, or ability in the mode of put
ting. It anticipated subsequent speculations u , by
regarding Christianity as true ideally, not histori
cally, and by insinuating the incorrectness of the
apostolic adoption of the mystical system of inter
preting the ancient scripture.

A writer came forward as moderator x between
Collins and his opponents, who himself afterwards
became still more noted, by directing an attack on
miracles, similar to that of Collins on prophecy ;
the unhappy Woolston ?. A fellow of a college z at
Cambridge, in holy orders, he was for many years
a diligent student of the fathers, and imbibed from
them an extravagant attachment to the allegorical
sense of scripture. Finding that his views met
with no support in that reasoning age, he broke
out into unmeasured insult and contempt against
his brother clergy, as slaves to the letter of scrip
ture a . Deprived of his fellowship b , and distracted

u E. g. Some of those in Germany, see Lect. VI and VII,

x In the Moderator) or controversy between the author of the
Grounds, &c. and his reverend opponents, 1727. (Woolston s Works,
vol. v.)

y Woolston, 1669-1733. His works are collected in five volumes,
with a life prefixed. His pamphlets on Miracles were refuted by
bishops Pierce, 1729, Gibson, and Smabroke, by Lardner, and by
Sherlock in the Trial of the Witnesses. On Woolston, see Leland.
(Let. 8), Lechler (289-311), Henke, vi. 49.

z Sydney Sussex.

a A Free Gift to the Clergy, or the Hireling Priests challenged,
1 7 2 2, ( Works, vol. iii.).

b See Memoir prefixed to his Works, pp. 5 and 22.

192 LECTURE IV.

by penury, he extended his hatred from the min
isters to the religion which they ministered. And
when, in reply to Gollins s assertion, that Christianity
reposed solely on prophecy, the Christian apologists
fell back on miracles, he wrote in 1727 and the
two following years his celebrated Discourses on the
Miracles. (22) They were published as pamphlets ;
in each one of which he examined a few of the
miracles of Christ, trying to show such inconsisten
cies as to make it appear that they must be regarded
as untrustworthy if taken literally ; and hence he
advocated a figurative interpretation of them ; assert
ing that the history of the life of Jesus is an
emblematical representation of his spiritual life in
the soul of man d . The gospels thus become a
system of mystical theology, instead of a literal
history. In defence of this method he claimed the
example of the ancient church 6 , ignoring the fact
that the fathers admitted a literal as well as a
figurative meaning. Whether he really retained
towards the close of his life the spiritual inter
pretation f , or merely used it as an excuse for a more
secure advance to the assault of the historic reality
of scripture, is very uncertain.

The letters were written with a coarseness and
irreverence so singular, even in the attacks of that

d In Discourse iii.
e Disc. i. Div. i.

f Strauss (Leb. Jes. Introd. 6.) thinks that his bitterness mani
fests that he did not.

LECTURE IV. 193

age, that it were well if they could be attributed
to insanity. They contain the most undisguised
abuse which had been uttered against Christianity
since the days of the early heathens. Occasionally,
when wishing to utter grosser blasphemies than were
permissible by law, or compatible with his assumed
Christian stand-point, he introduced a Jewish rabbi,
as Celsus had formerly done, and put the coarser
calumnies into his mouth &, as difficulties to which
no reply could be furnished except by figurative
interpretation. The humour which marked these
pamphlets was so great, that the sale of them was
immense. Voltaire, who was in England at the
time, and perhaps imbibed thence part of his own
opinions, states the immediate sale to have exceeded
thirty thousand copies h ; and Swift describes them
as the food of every politician 1 . The excitement
was so great, that Gibson, then bishop of London,
thoiight it necessary to direct five pastorals to his
diocese in reference to them k , and, not content with
this, caused Woolston to be prosecuted ; and the
unhappy man, not able to pay the fine in which he
was condemned, continued in prison till his death ] .

s Disc. iv. and Defence, sect. i.

h Voltaire, CEuvres Crit. vol. xlvii. pp. 346-356.

1 Swift s Poem on his Death, Works, vol. xiv. p. 359.

k The later Pastorals of Gibson are not only against Woolston,
but other deists also, such as Tindal.

1 His friends would have found money for the fine ; but Wool
ston could not find securities for his good behaviour if released.

194 LECTUEE IV.

In classifying Woolston with later writers against
miracles, he may be compared in some cases, though
with striking differences of tone, with those German
rationalists like Paulus who have rationalized the
miracles, but in more cases with those who like
Strauss have idealized them. His method however
is an appeal to general probability rather than to
literary criticism.

The next form that Deism assumed has reference
more to the internal than the external part of
Christianity, the doctrines rather than the evidences.
Less critical than the last-named tendency, it differs
from the earlier one of Toland in looking at religion
less on the speculative side as a revelation of dogma,
and more on the practical as a revelation of duties.
While it combined into a system the former ob
jections, critical or philosophical, the great weapon
which it uses is the authority of the moral reason,
by which it both tests revelation and suggests a
substitute in natural religion, thus using it both
destructively and for construction.

Dr. Tindal m , the first writer of this class, had
early given offence to the church by his writings ;

m Matthew Tindal, (1657-1733), a fellow of All Souls college,
wrote in 1706 The Rights of the Christian Church asserted, pro
bably suggested by Spinoza s writings, to show that the absolute
subjection of the church to the state was the only safeguard for public
happiness ; and in 1730, Christianity as old as the Creation, which
was answered by Conybeare 1732, Leland 1733, and by Waterland.
The reply of the latter was attacked by Conyers Middleton. On
Tindal, see Lechler, 326-341; Leland, Lett. 9; Henke, vi. 57.

LECTURE IV. 195

but it was not till 1730, in his extreme old age,
that he published his celebrated dialogue, " Christ
ianity as old as the Creation, or, the Gospel a
Republication of the Religion of Nature." This was
not only the most important work that deism had
yet produced, composed with care, and bearing the
marks of thoughtful study of the chief contemporary
arguments, Christian as well as Deist, but derives
an interest from the circumstance that it was the
book to which more than to any other single work
bishop Butler s Analogy was designed as the reply.

Tindal s object is to show that natural religion is
absolutely perfect, and can admit of no increase so
as to carry obligation. For this purpose he tries to
establish, first, that revelation is unnecessary", and se
condly, that obligation to it is impossible. His argu
ment in favour of the first of these two positions is,
that if man s perfection be the living according to
the constitution of human nature , and God s laws
with the penalties attached be for man s good?, no
thing being required by God for its own sake&lt;i ; then
true religion, whether internally or externally re
vealed, having the one end, human happiness, must
be identical in its precepts 1 . Having denied the
necessity, he then disputes the possibility, of revela
tion, on the ground that the inculcation of positive
as distinct from moral duties, is inconsistent with
the good of man, as creating an independent rule 8 .

n Ch. (i-vi.) Ch. iii. P Ch. iv. q Ch. v.

r Ch. vi. s Ch. ix-xii.

O 2

196 LECTURE IV.

Assuming the moral faculty to be the foundation of
all obligation, he reduces all religious truth to moral.
It is in thus showing the impossibility of any reve
lation save the republication of the law of nature
that he notices many of the difficulties in scripture
which form the mystery to the theologian, the
ground of doubt to the objector. Some of these are
of a literary character, such as the assertion of the
failure of the fulfilment of prophecies, and of marks
of fallibility in the scripture writers, like the mistake
which he alleges in respect to the belief in the
immediate coming of Christ*. Others of them are
moral difficulties, points where the revealed system
seems to him to contradict our instincts, such as
the destruction of the Canaanites". In reference
to this last example, which may be quoted as a
type of his assertions, he argues against the possi
bility of a divine commission for the act, on the
principle asserted by Clarke x , that a miracle can
never prove the divine truth of a doctrine which
contravenes the moral idea of justice ; or, in more
modern phrase, that no supposed miracle can be a
real one, if it attest a doctrine which bears this
character. In the present work Tindal denied the
necessity and possibility of a new revelation distinct
from natural religion. He did not live to complete
the concluding part of his book, wherein he intended
to show that all the truths of Christianity were as

t Ch. xiii. p. 258 seq. u P. 272 seq. x Ch. xiv.

LECTURE IV. 197

old as the creation ; i. e. were a republication of the
religion of nature.

Tindal is an instance of those who have uncon
sciously kindled their torch at the light of revela
tion. The religion of nature of which he speaks is
a logical idea, not an historic fact. The creation of
it is analogous to the mention of the idea of compact
as the basis of society, a generalization from its pre
sent state, not a fact of its original history. It is
the residuum of Christianity when the mysterious
elements have been subtracted. But in adopting
the idea, the Deists were on the same level as the
Christians. Both alike travelled together to the
end of natural religion y. Here the Deist halted,
willing to accept so much of Christianity as was a
republication of the moral law. The Christian, on
the other hand, found in reason the necessity for
revelation, and proceeded onward to revealed doc
trines and positive precepts.

The works of the two writers Morgan and Chubb
in part supply the defect left in Tindal, the omission
on the part of deism to show that Christian truths
were a republication of natural religion ; the former
especially attacking the claims of the Jewish religion
to be divine, the latter the claims of the Christian.

Morgan s chief work 2 , the "Moral Philosopher," was
published in 1737. Starting from the moral point

y See the remarks in Essays and Reviews, 1860, p. 272.
z Morgan died 1743- His chief work was the Moral Philosopher,
1737, with two volumes more in reply to opponents. It was refuted

198 LECTURE IV.

of view, the sole supremacy and sufficiency of the
moral law, the writer exhibits the necessity of ap
plying the moral test as the only certain criterion
on the questions of religion, and declines admitting
the authority of miracles and prophecy to avail
against it z ; an investigation suggested partly by the
questions just named of the ground of unbelief, and
partly by the circumstance that the Christian writers
were beginning to dwell more strongly on the ex
ternal evidences when unbelievers professed the in
ternal to be unsatisfactory. The adoption of this
test of truth prevents the admission of an historic
revelation with positive duties. He thinks with
Tindal that natural religion is perfect in itself,
but seems to admit that it is so weak as to need
republication a , which is a greater admission than
Tindal made in his extant volume. When however
he passes from the decision on the general possi
bility of revelation to the particular historic forms,
the Mosaic and Christian, he discredits both. The
infallibility of the moral sense is still the canon by
which his judgment is determined. On this ground
he disbelieves the Jewish religion b , selecting succes
sive passages of the national history, such as the
sacrifice of Isaac, the oracle of Urim c , the cere
monial religious system d , as the object of his attack.

by Leland, and the controversy was carried forward in Tracts which
are described in Leland s Deists, vol. i. lett. n and 12. See also
Lechler, 370-390 ; Henke, vi. 70.

7 - Vol. i. p. 86, 96. vol. ii. i. H P. 145 seq.

h Vol. i. c Id. p. 272/&C. ii. 6. &lt;* Id. 7.

LECTURE IV. 199

A degree of interest attaches to his criticism on
these points, in that it was the means of calling
forth the celebrated work of Warburton on the
Divine Legation of Moses.

The same principles of criticism mislead him in
his examination of Christianity. The hallowed doc
trine of the atonement forms a stumblingblock to
him, on the ground of the transfer of merit by impu
tation 6 . He regards Christianity as a Jewish gospel,
until it was altered by the apostles, whose authority
he discredits by arguments not unlike the ancient
ones of Celsus. The method of Morgan is more
constructive than that of his predecessors. Not
denying the historic element of Christianity by
idealizing it as Collins, he attempts a natural ex
planation of the historic facts. The central thought
which guides him throughout is the supreme au
thority of the moral reason. His works open up
the broad question whether the moral sense is to
pronounce on revelation or to submit to it, and thus
form a fresh illustration of the intimate dependence
of particular sceptical opinions and methods upon
metaphysical and ethical theories.

In the period which we are now examining, deism
was almost entirely confined to the upper classes.
It was in the latter part of the century that it spread
to the lower, political antipathy against the church
giving point to religious unbelief. Chubb f , whom we

e Id. 10.

f T. Chubb (1679-1747), of whom a brief memoir was published,

200 LECTURE IV.

next consider, is one of the few exceptions. He was
a working man, endowed with strong native sense ;
who manifested the same inclination to meddle with
the deep subject of religion which afterwards marked
the character of Thomas Paine and others, who in
fluenced the lower orders later in the century. In
his general view of religion, Chubb denied all par
ticular providence, and by necessary consequence the
utility of prayer, save for its subjective value as
having a reflex benefit on the human hearts. He
was undecided as to the fact of the existence of
a revelation, but seemed to allow its possibility 11 .
He examined the three great forms of religion
which professed to depend upon a positive revela
tion, Judaism 1 , Mahometanism, and Christianity.
The claims of the first he wholly rejected, on grounds
similar to those explained in Morgan, as incompatible
with the moral character of God. In reference to
the second he anticipated the modern opinions on

1747. He was the author of various tracts, of which a list is given
in Darling s Cyclopcedia Bibliographica, 1852. The account of
Chubb s views given in the text is brief, partly because of their
similarity to others previously named, and partly because the
author has been able to see only very few of Chubb s works. But
they are explained in Lechler, p. 343-356, and Leland, ch. 13.
Chubb s earlier writings seem to be Socinian, his later deistical. His
best known works are, A Discourse concerning Reason, 1731 j the
True Gospel of Jesus Christ, 1739; and Posthumous Works, 2 vols.
1748.

Posthumous Works, i. 287.

h Id. i. 292. Id. ii. sect. 6.

LECTURE IV. 201

Maliometanism, by asserting that its victory was
impossible, if it had not contained truth which the
human spirit needed. In examining the third he
attacked, like Morgan, the evidence of miracles k and
prophecy 1 , and asserted the necessity of moral right
and wrong as the ground of the interpretation of
scripture.

One of his most celebrated works was an explana
tion of " the true gospel of Jesus Christ," which is one
of the many instances which his works afford of the
unfairness produced by the want of moral insight into
the woes for which Christianity supplies a remedy,
and into the deep adaptation of the scheme of redemp
tion to effect the object proposed by a merciful Pro
vidence in its communication" 1 . It will be per
ceived that the three last writers whose systems
have been explained, resemble each other so much
as to form a class by themselves. They restrict
their attack to the internal character of revelation,
employ the moral rather than the historical investi
gation, embody the chief speculations of their prede
cessors, and offer, as has been already stated, a con
structive as well as a destructive system ; morality
or natural religion in place of revealed".

k Posthumous Works, ii. 152.

1 Id. 177, &c. m Id. i. 22.

n Another work was published anonymously in 1742, entitled
Christianity not founded on Argument, supposed to be written by
the younger Dodwell, son of the learned nonjuror. Its aim is to
show that Christianity never propagated itself by argument, but

202 LECTURE IV.

An anonymous work was published in 1744, which
merits notice as indicating a slight alteration in the
mode of attack on the part of the deists. It was
entitled, The Resurrection of Jesus considered, and
is attributed to P. Annet, who died in the wretched
ness of poverty . It was designed in reply to some
of the defences of this subject which the writings of
Woolston and others had provoked. Its object was
to show that the writings which record the state
ment of Christ s prediction of his own death are a
forgery ; that the narrative of the resurrection is
incredible on internal grounds, and the variety in
the various accounts of it are evidences of fraud.
It indicates the commencement of the open allega
tion of literary imposture as distinct from philo
sophical error, which subsequently marked the criti
cism of the French school of infidelity, and affected
the English unbelievers of the latter half of the
century.

Deism had now reached its maximum. The
attention of the age was turned aside from religion

that the evidence of it depends upon a personal illumination of each
person who believes it. The work was supposed to be a satire on
Christianity. If earnest, it marked the truth that emotional causes
are intertwined with intellectual in the formation of belief. See
Lechler, pp. 411-421 ; Leland, Lett. xi. The book of Jasher, pub
lished in 1751, is a forgery, written probably by some deist,
(Home s Introduction, vol. ii. part ii. p. 142. ed. 8.)

He was imprisoned in the King s Bench, and kept from starva
tion by money from the benevolent archbishop Seeker. He died
in 1768. See Lechler, pp. 313-22 ; Leland, ch. x.

LECTUBE IV. 203

to politics by the political dangers incident to the
attempts of the Pretender ; and when Hume s scepti
cism was promulgated in 1 749 it was received without
interest, and Bolingbroke s posthumous writings pub
lished in 1754 fell comparatively dead. These two
names mark the period which we called the decline of
deism. Boliiigbroke s views i however depict deistical
opinions of the period when it was at its height, and
are a transition into the later form seen in Hume,
and therefore require to be stated first, though poste
rior in the date of publication.

Bolingbroke s writings command respect from their
mixture of clearness of exposition with power of
argument. They form also the transition to the
literature of the next age, in turning attention to
history. Bolingbroke had great powers of psycho
logical analysis, but he despised the study of it apart
from experience. His philosophy was a philosophy
of history. In his attacks on revelation we have the
traces of the older philosophical school of deists ; but
in the consciousness that an historical, not a philo
sophical, solution must be sought to explain the rise
of an historical phenomenon such as Christianity,
he exemplifies the historic spirit which was rising,
and anticipates the theological inquiry found in
Gibbon ; and, in his examination of the external
historic evidence, both the documents by which the

q Bolingbroke (1678-1751). See Sclilosser s History of the
Eighteenth Century, vol. i. eh. i. 3 (transl.); Lechler, pp. 396-405 ;
Leland, cli. 22-34.

204 LECTURE IV.

Christian religion is attested, and the effects of tra
dition in weakening historic data, he evinces traces
of the influence of the historical criticism which had
arisen in France under his friend Pouilly 1 .

His theological writings 8 are in the form of letters,
or of essays, the common form of didactic writings
in that age. We shall briefly state his views on
deity, futurity, and revelation.

He teaches the existence of a deity, but was led,
by the sensational philosophy which he adopted from
Locke, to deny the possibility of an a priori proof of
the divine existence 1 , and contends strongly that the
divine attributes can only be known by observation
of nature, and not by the analogy of man s constitu
tion. He considers too that the deity whose existence
he has thus allowed, exercises a general but not a
special providence u ; the world being a machine
moving by delegated powers without the divine
interference. The philosophy expressed in Pope s

r On Pouilly, see Sir C. Lewis, Inquiry into the Credibility of
Roman History, vol. i. ch. i. p. 5, note. Pouilly published in 1722
liis Dissertation sur V Incertitude et VHistoire des quatre premiers
siecles de Rome. (See Mem. de VAcadem. des Inscr., vol. ix.)
Beaufort followed out the same line of inquiry in 1738. The two
writers are considered to have laid the basis of the modern histori
cal criticism of ancient history.

s They are chiefly, A Letter on one of Tillotson s Sermons in
vol. iii. of his works ; the Essays, in vols. iii. and iv. ; viz. Essay i
on Human Knowledge, (2) on Philosophy, (3) on the rise of Mono
theism, (4) on Authority in Religion ; and Fragments in vol. v,

4 Vol. iii. Letter on Tillotsoti, also Letter to Pouilly.

u Vol. v. No. 57, 58.

LECTURE IV. 205

didactic poetry gives expression to Bolingbroke s
opinions x on providence.

In his views of human duty Bolingbroke refers
conduct to self-love as a cause, and to happiness as
an end ; and doubts a future started either on the
ground of materialism, or possibly because his fa
vourite principle, that " whatever is, is best," led him
to disbelieve the argument for a future life adduced
from the inequality of present rewards. Future
punishment is rejected, on the ground that it can
offer no end compatible with the moral object of
punishment, which is correction.

When he passes from natural religion to revealed,
he allows the possibility of divine inspiration, but
doubts the fact ; rebuking those however who doubt
things merely because they cannot understand them.
In criticising the Jewish revelation 2 , he puts no limits
to his words of severity. He dares to pronounce the

x Cfr. Kemusat s Anyleterre au i8 e Siecle i. 22. for remarks on
Bolingbroke s influence on Pope. The following lines of Pope
exactly express Bolingbroke s philosophy :

"The universal Cause
Acts not by partial, but by general laws,
And makes what happiness we justly call,
Subsist not in the good of one, but all."

(Ep. iv. 35.)

&gt; Instances are to be found in Leland, who discusses his opinions
at great length. The reader who compares Leland s quotations
with Bolingbroke s works will perhaps think that he has pressed
their meaning rather far ; but further consideration will show that
he has correctly expressed Bolingbroke s spirit and purpose.
z Letter on Tillotson.

LECTURE IV.

Jewish history to be repugnant to the attributes of a
supreme, all-perfect Being. His attack on the records
is partly on account of the materials contained in them,
such as the narrative of the fall, the numerical sta
tistics, the invasion of the Canaanites, the absence
of eternal rewards as sanctions of the Mosaic law;
and partly on the ground of the evidence being, as
he alleges, not narrated by contemporaries. In
giving his opinion of Christianity, he repeats the
weak objection already used by Chubb, of a distinc
tion existing between the gospel of Christ and of
Paul a ; and tries to explain the origin of Christianity
and of its doctrines, suggesting the derivation of the
idea of a Trinity from the triadic notions of other
religions. But he is driven to concede some things
denied by former deists. He grants, for example,
that if the miracles really occurred, they attest the
revelation b ; and he therefore labours to show that
they did not occur, by attacking the New Testament
canon c as he had before attacked the Old ; attempt
ing to show that the composition of the gospels was
separated by an interval from the alleged occurrence
of the events ; applying, in fact, Pouilly s incipient
criticism on history, which has been so freely used in
theology by more recent critics.

These remarks will exhibit Bolingbroke s views,
both in their cause and their relation to those of
former deists. It will be observed, that they are for
the most part a direct result either of sensational

a Ch. iv. 328. b Ch. iv. 227, 8. c Ch. iv. 405, 272.

LECTURE IV. 207

metaphysics or of the incipient science of historical
criticism.

The inquiry was now becoming more historical on
the part both of deists and Christians. Philosophy
was still the cause of religious controversy, but it
had dtianged in character. Tt was now criticism
weighing the evidence of religion, rather than ethics
or metaphysics testing the materials of it. The ques
tion formerly debated had been, how much of the
internal characteristics of scripture can be supported
by moral philosophy; and when the conviction at
length grew up, that the mysteries could not be
solved by any analogy, but were unique, it became
necessary to rest on the miraculous evidence for the
existence of a revelation, and make the fact guarantee
the contents of it. Inasmuch however as the reve
lation is contained in a book, it became necessary to
substantiate the historical evidence of its genuineness
and authenticity. Bolingbroke s attacks are directed
against a portion of this literary evidence.

Historical criticism, in its appreciation of literary
evidence, may be of four kinds. It may ( i ) examine
the record from a dogmatic point of view, pronouncing
on it by reference to prepossessions directed against the
facts; or (2) make use of the same method, but direct
the attack against the evidence on which the record
rests; or (3) it may examine whether the record is
contemporary with the events narrated ; or (4) con
sider its internal agreement with itself or with fact.

We have instances of each of these methods in the

208 LECTURE IV.

examination of the literary evidence on which mira
cles are believed. The first, the prepossession con
cerning the philosophical impossibility of miracles, is
seen in Spinoza ; the second, the impossibility of
using testimony as a proof of them, in Hume ; the
third, the question whether they were attested by
eyewitnesses, is the ground which Bolingbroke
touches ; the fourth, the cross-examination of the
witnesses, is seen in Woolston. Of these, the first
most nearly resembles the great mass of the deist
objections to revelation, being philosophical rather
than critical. The second forms a transition to the
two latter, being philosophy applied to criticism, and
is the form which deism now took. The two latter
are those which it subsequently assumed d .

These remarks will explain Hume s position 6 , and
show how he forms the transition between two modes
of inquiry ; his point of view being critical, the cause
of it philosophical. His speculations in reference to

d The history of Apologetik passes through the same phases, and
when it devotes itself to the later forms, becomes of less general
interest, and is more simply literary; which illustrates the fact that
the later doubts are of a much less practical and more recondite
character than those hitherto named.

e Hume (1711-1776.] For his philosophy, see Tennemann, Ge-
schickte, xi. 425 ; Hitter, Christliche Philosophic, viii. b-7. ch. ii.; Cou
sin, Histoire de la Philosophie Moderne, Legon xi. ; Morell, History
of Philosophy, i. 338 ; Lord Brougham s Preliminary Discourse to
Paleys Natural Theology, p. 248. For his religious opinions, see
Leland, Lett. 16-21; Lechler, pp. 42534. His views on mira
cles were answered by Paley, Bp. John Douglas, Campbell, and
Chalmers.

LECTURE IV. 209

religion are chiefly contained in his Essays on the
Human Understanding. A brief explanation is ne
cessary to show the dependence of his theology 011
his philosophy.

The speculations of Locke, as we have before had
occasion to notice, gave an impulse to psychological
investigations. He clearly saw that knowledge is
limited by the faculties which are its source, which
he considered to be reducible to sensation and re
flection; but while denying the existence of innate
ideas, he admitted the existence of innate facul
ties. Hartley carried the analysis still farther, by
introducing the potent instrument offered by the
doctrine of the association of ideas. Hume, adopting
this principle, applied it, in a manner very like the
independent contemporaneous speculations of Con-
dillac in France, to analyse the faculties themselves
into sensations, and to furnish a more complete ac
count of the nature of some of our most general
ideas, such, for example, as the notion of cause. The
intellectual element implied in Locke s account of the
process of reflection here drops out. Faculties are
regarded as transformed sensations ; the nature of
knowledge as coextensive with sensation. According
to such a theory therefore, the idea of physical cause
can mean nothing more than the invariable con
nexion of antecedent and consequent. The notion of
force or power which we attach to causation becomes
an unreality; being an idea not given in sensation,
which can merely detect sequence.

210 LECTURE IV.

Such was Hume s psychology ; an attempt to push
analysis to its ultimate limits ; valuable in its me
thod, even if defective in its results ; a striking
example of the acuteness and subtle penetration of
its author. There is another branch of his philoso
phy, in which he is regarded as a metaphysical
sceptic, in reference to the passage of the mind out
wards, by means of its own sensations and ideas, into
the knowledge of real being, wherein he takes part
with Berkeley, extending to the inner world of soul
the scepticism which that philosopher had applied
to the outer world of matter. In the psychological
branch Hume is a sensationalist, in the ontological a
sceptic. The latter however has no relation to our
present subject. It is from the former that his views
on religion are deduced. In no writer is the logical
dependence of religious opinion on metaphysical prin
ciples visible in a more instructive manner. For we
perceive that the influence adverse to religion in his
case was not merely the result of rival metaphysical
dogmas opposed to religion, such as were seen in
the Pantheists of Padua, or in Spinoza; nor even
the opposition caused by the adoption of a different
standard of tmth for pronouncing on revelation, as in
his fellow English deists ; but it sprung from the
application of the subjective psychological inquiry
into the limits of religious knowledge, as a means for
criticising not only the logical strength of the evi
dence of religion, but specially the historic evidence
of testimony. We consequently see the influence

LECTURE IV. 211

exercised by the subjective branch of metaphysical
inquiries in the discussion not only of the logic of
religion, but also of the logic of the historic aspect
of it.

Hume s religious speculations f relate to three
points : to the argument for the attributes of God,
drawn from final causes ; to the doctrine of Provi
dence, and future rewards and punishments ; and to
the evidence of testimony as the proof of miracles.
Though he does not conduct an open assault in
reference to any of them, but only suggests doubts,
yet in each case his insinuations sap so completely
the very proof, that it is clear that they are in
tended as grounds not merely for doubt, but for
disbelief. His doctrine of sensation is the clue to
his remarks on the two former. He argues that
we can draw no sound inferences on the questions,
because the subjects lie beyond the range of sen
sational experience. It is however in consequence
of his remarks on the last of the three subjects in
his essay on Miracles that his name has become
famous in the history of free thought.

The essay consists of two parts. In the first he
shows that miracles are incapable of proof by testi
mony. Belief is in proportion to evidence. Evidence
rests on sensational experience. Accordingly the tes
timony to the uniformity of nature being universal,
and that which exists in favour of the occurrence of
a miracle, or violation of the laws of nature, being

f Works, vol. iv. Inquiry Concerning the Human Understanding ;
Essay xi. on Providence and Future Life ; Essay x. on Miracle s.

P 2

212 LECTURE IV.

partial, the former must outweigh the latter. In the
second he shows, that if this is true, provided the
testimony be of the highest kind, much more will it
be so in actual cases ; inasmuch as no miracle is
recorded, the evidence for which reaches to this high
standard. He explains the elements of weakness in
the evidence ; such as the predisposition of mankind
to believe prodigies, forged miracles, the decrease of
miracles with the progress of civilization, the force of
rival testimony in disproof of them, which he illus
trates by historic examples, such as the alleged mira
cles of Vespasian, Apollonius, and the Jansenist Abbe
Parish The conclusion is, that miracles cannot be
so shown to occur as to be used as the basis of proof
for a revelation; and that a revelation, if believed,
must rest on other evidence.

The argument accordingly is briefly, that testimony
cannot establish a fact which contradicts a law of
nature ; the narrower induction cannot disprove the
wider. The reasoning has been used in subsequent
controversy 11 with only a slight increase of force, or
alteration of statement. The great and undeniable
discoveries of astronomy had convinced men in the
age of Hume of the existence of an order of nature ;

g The miracles connected with the Abbe Paris were defended in
La Verite des Miracles de M. Paris, by C. de Montg&on, 1745.
See concerning them, C. Butler s Church of France, (Works, v.
pp. 135142.); Bp. John Douglas s "Criterion by which the true
miracles contained in the New Testament may be distinguished from
those of Pagans and Papists;" Tholuck s Vermischte Schriften, i.

h E. g. by Professor Powell, in Essays and Mevieivs.

LECTURE IV. 213

and modern discovery has not increased the proof
of this in kind, though it has heightened it in degree,
by showing that as knowledge spreads the range
of the operation of fixed law is seen to extend more
widely ; and apparent exceptions are found to be
due to our ignorance of the presence of a law, not
to its absence. The statement of the difficulty would
accordingly now be altered by the introduction of a
slight modification. Instead of urging that testi
mony cannot prove the historic reality of the fact
which we call a miracle, the assertion would be made
that it can only attest the existence of it as a wonder,
and is unable to prove that it is anything but an
accidental result of an unknown cause. A miracle
differs from a wonder, in that it is an effect wrought
by the direct interposition of the Creator and
Governor of nature, for the purpose of revealing a
message or attesting a revelation. That testimony
can substantiate wonders, but not distinguish the
miracle from the wonder, is the modern form of
the difficulty.

The connexion of Hume s view with his meta
physical principles will be evident. If nature be
known only through the senses, cause is only the
material antecedent visible to the senses. Nature
is not seen to be the sphere of the operation of
God s regular will ; and the sole proof of interference
with nature must be a balancing of inductions.
It will be clear also that the true method of replying
to Hume has been rightly perceived by those who

214 LECTURE IV.

consider that the difficulty must be met by philo
sophy, and not by history.

Suppose the historic evidence sufficient to attest
the wonder, it does not prove that the wonder is
a miracle. The presumption in favour of this may
be indefinitely increased by the peculiarity of the
circumstances, which frequently forbid the idea of a
mere marvel ; but the real proof must depend upon
the previous conception which we bring to bear upon
the question, in respect to the being and attributes
of God, and His relation to nature. The antecedent
probability converts the wonder into a miracle. It
acts in two ways. It obliterates the cold material
istic view of the regularity of nature which regards
material laws to be unalterable, and the world to
be a machine ; and it adds logical force to the
weaker induction, so as to allow it to outweigh
the stronger. No testimony can substantiate the
interference with a law of nature, unless we first
believe on independent grounds that there is a God
who has the power and will to interfere 1 . Philo
sophy must accordingly establish the antecedent

1 This line of thought concerning the necessity of establishing the
antecedent probability of the fact, in order that the evidence may be
logically convincing, is adopted by two writers of very different
opinions, by Mr. Mansel (Essay in the Aids to Faith, 18-23), and
Mr. J. S. Mill (Logic, vol. ii. b. iii. ch. 25. 2). The distinction
between wonder and miracle is allowed by Dean Lyall (Propcedia
PropJietica) ; and Mr. Penrose ( Tlie use of Miracles in proving a
Revelation). Cfr. also Doederliu s Instit. Theol. Christ. 9, 10.

LECTURE IV. 215

possibility of miracles ; the attribute of power in
God to effect the interruption, arid of love in God
to prompt him to do it. The condition therefore
of attaining this conception must be by holding to
a monotheistic conception of God as a being possess
ing a personal will, and regarding mind and will as
the rule by which to interpret nature and law k , and
not conversely measuring the mental by the material.
In this manner law becomes the operation of God s
personal fixed will, and miracle the interposition of
his personal free will.

It will be perceived that in distinguishing miracle
from wonder, we a] so take into account the final
cause of the alleged interposition as a reason weighty
enough to call forth divine interposition. As soon as
we introduce the idea of a personal intelligent God,
we regard Him as acting with a motive, and measure
His purposes, partly by analogy to ourselves, partly
by the moral circumstances which demand the in
terposition .

k See Aids to Faith, Hansel s Essay, 22.

1 There follows hence another peculiarity in reference to miracles ;
viz., that we require an interpreting mind to explain them. This is
the reason why so many thoughtful men believe that the outburst of
fire when Julian tried to rebuild the Jewish temple, and the wonder
of the thorn in the history of Port Royal, were nothing more than
natural wonders. If the final cause be considered to have been suffi
cient in these cases to warrant divine interposition, at least there was
no interpreter to explain them, nor any revealed message to be taught.
It must be conceded that this trait is wanting in some miracles re
corded in scripture, but not in those which are wrought to attest a
revelation, those which we use in proof of a special message from

216 LECTURE IV.

These remarks may furnish the solution of the
puzzle whether the miracle proves the doctrine, or
the doctrine the miracle" 1 . Undoubtedly the miracle
proves the particular doctrine which it claims to
attest ; but a doctrine of some kind, though not the
special one in point, some moral conception of the
Almighty s nature and character, must precede, in
order to give the criterion for distinguishing miracle
from mere wonder. Miracles prove the doctrine
which they are intended to attest ; but doctrines of
a still more general character are required to prove
the miracle.

This examination of the doctrine of Hume will not
only illustrate our main position, of the influence of
intellectual and philosophical causes in generating
doubt, or at least in directing free thought into
a sceptical tendency, but will illustrate the appli
cation made of that special department of meta-

the unseen world. Werenfels (Opusc. Theol. 1718, Diss. v.) has
given tests for the discrimination of miracles which are quoted by
Van Mildert (Boyle Lect. II. p. 534).

111 Cfr. Dean Trench s remarks on the apologetic value of mira
cles, (Notes on Miracles, Introd. ch. vi). In the same work will be
found an excellent and interesting account of the various assaults
made on the argument from miracles. He classifies the assaults as
follows : (i) the Jewish, (2) the heathen (Celsus, &c.), (3) the pan
theistic (Spinoza), (4) the sceptical (Hume), (5) that which regards
miracles as such only subjectively(Schleiermacher), (6) the rational
istic (Paulus), (7) the historico-critical (Woolston, Strauss). With
Dean Trench s remarks. Compare also Pascal, Pensees, part ii, art.
J 9. 9; Lyall, Prop. Proph. p. 4 4 1 ; Dr. Arnold s Lectures on Modern
History, pp. 133, 137.

LECTURE IV. 217

physics which relates to the test of truth, to discredit
the literary proof of revelation as an historic system.

We have now sketched the natural history of
deism, by showing that in this as in former periods
the forms which free thought assumed were deter
mined by the philosophy, and, in a slighter degree,
by the critical knowledge of the age.

The inquiry into method in the seventeenth cen
tury had led men to break with authority, and
rebuild from its foundations the temple of truth.
Locke, imbibing this spirit, had gauged anew the
human understanding, and had sought a new origin
for its knowledge, and given expression to the
appeal to the reasoning powers, which marked the
age. Political circumstances had not only generated
free inquiry, but had required each man to form
his political creed. In all departments reason was
appealed to. Even the province of the imagination
was invaded by it, and perfection of form preferred
to freshness of conception in art and poetry. The
doubt of the age reflected the same spirit. Whether
its advocates belonged to the school of Descartes
or of Locke, both alike examined religion by the
standard of psychology and ethics. That which was
to be believed was to be comprehended as well as
apprehended. Yet the appeal was not made to
reason in its highest form ; and, with a show of
depth, philosophy nevertheless failed to exhibit the
deepest analysis.

We have watched the exhibition of the successive

218 LECTURE IV.

phases of the attack, and have seen reason, first ex
amining the method of theology, protesting against
mystery in doctrine or morals ; next criticising the
historic reality of the evidence offered for its doc
trines ; then denying the moral utility of revelation,
or attacking the doctrines and internal truths ; lastly
denying the validity of testimony for the super
natural.

In the later steps the influence of the French
school of speculation is already observable, mingling
itself with English deism. Consequently the sub
sequent traces of unbelief in England must be de
ferred till the nature of this movement has been
explained.

Deism stands contrasted with the unbelief of
other times by certain peculiarities. In its coarse
spirit of bitter hostility, and want of real insight into
the excellence of the system which it opposed, it
recalls in some respects the attack of the ancient
heathen Celsus ; and the difficulties propounded are
frequently not dissimilar to those stated by him,
though resulting from a different philosophical
school. The tenacious grasp which it maintained of
the doctrine of the unity of God would cause it to bear
a closer resemblance to the system of Julian, if the
deists had not lacked the literary tastes which
strengthened his love for heathenism. The mono
theism constitutes also a line of demarcation between
deism and more modern forms of unbelief. It
restrained the deists from falling into the forms of

LECTURE IV. 219

subtle pantheism previously noticed, and the atheism
which will hereafter meet us. The character of their
doubts too, selected from patent facts of mind and
heart, which appealed to common sense, and were
not taken from a minute literary criticism, which
removes doubt from the sphere of the ordinary
understanding into the world of literature, separates
them from more modern critical unbelief.

Standing thus apart, characterised by intense at
tachment to monotheism, and placing its foundation
in the great facts of nature, deism errs by defect
rather than excess ; in that which it denies, not in
that which it asserts. It is a system of naturalism
or rationalism ; the interpretation which reason,
without attaining the deepest analysis, offers of the
scheme of the world, natural and moral. Its only
parallel is the particular species of German thought
derived from it which existed at the close of the
last century, and sought like it to reduce revealed
religion to natural n .

Whether emotional causes, personal moral faults
coincided with these intellectual causes, and were the
obstacle which prevented the attainment of a deeper
insight into the mysteries of revelation, and made
them to halt in the mysteries of nature, ought to be
taken into account in forming a judgment on the
concrete cases, but does not so properly belong to
the general consideration in which we are now
engaged, of tracing the types of deist thought.
n E. g. Lessing, c. Reimarus, &lt;fec. See Lect. VI.

220 LECTURE IV.

Some of the deists were very moral men, a few
immoral ; but the truth or untruth of opinions may
be studied apart from the character of the persons
who maintain them.

The movement, if viewed as a whole, is obsolete.
If the same doubts are now repeated, they do not
recur in the same form, but are connected with
new forms of philosophy, and altered by contact
with more recent criticism. In the present day
sceptics would believe less than the deists, or believe
more, both in philosophy and in criticism. In phi
losophy, the % fact that the same difficulties occur in
natural religion as well as in revealed, would now
throw them back from monotheism into atheism or
pantheism ; while the mysteries of revelation, which
by a rough criticism were then denied, would be now
conceded and explained away as psychological pecu
liarities of races or individuals. In criticism, the
delicate examination of the sacred literature would
now prevent both the revival of the cold un
imaginative want of appreciation of its extreme
literary beauty, and the hasty imputation of the
charge of literary forgery against the authors of the
documents. In the deist controversy the whole
question turned upon the differences and respective
degrees of obligation of natural and revealed reli
gion, moral and positive duties ; the deist conceding
the one, denying the other.

The permanent contribution to thought made by
the controversy consisted in turning attention from

LECTUEE IV. 221

abstract theology to psychological, from metaphysical
disquisitions on the nature of God to ethical con
sideration of the moral scheme of redemption for
man. Theology came forth from the conflict, recon
sidered from the psychological point of view, and
readjusted to meet the doubts which the new form of
philosophy psychology and ethics might suggest.

The attack of revealed religion by reason awoke
the defence ; and no period in church history is so
remarkable for works on the Christian evidences,
grand monuments of mind and industry. The works
of defenders are marked by the adoption of the same
basis of reason as their opponents ; and hence the
topics which they illustrate have a permanent philo
sophical value, though their special utility as argu
ments be lessened by the alteration in the point of
view now assumed by free thought.

The one writer whose reputation stands out pre
eminently above the other apologists is bishop
Butler . His praise is in all the churches. Though
the force of a few illustrations in his great work may
perhaps have been slightly weakened by the modern
progress of physical science P, and though objections

Butler, (1692-1752). The Analogy was published in 1736.
The reader s attention is invited to the excellent edition of it by
bishop Fitzgerald (ist ed. 1849), and the able memoir and criticism
which precede. Mr. Bartlett has also written a memoir of Butler.
Cfr. also Blunt s Essays, p. 490 seq.

P For example, some of the physical proofs of immortality in
part i. ch. i. are weakened by the discoveries of physiology; and those
in favour of the miraculous character of creation, in part ii. ch. ii.

222 LECTURE IV.

have been taken on the ground that the solutions
are not ultimate % mere media axiomata ; yet the
work, if regarded as adapted to those who start
from a monotheistic position, possesses a permanent
power of attractiveness which can only be explained
by its grandeur as a work of philosophy, as well as
its mere potency as an argument. The width and
fulness of knowledge displayed in the former respect,
together with the singular candour and dignified
forbearance of its tone, go far to explain the secret
of its mighty influence. When viewed in reference
to the deist writings against which it was designed,
or the works of contemporary apologists, Butler s
carefulness in study is manifest. Though we con
jectured that Tindal s work r was the one to which

would be regarded as of small value by those who hold the hypo
thesis either of the transmutation of species, or of their occurrence
according to a law of natural selection. Some things of a different
kind in Butler, which need correction, are pointed out in Fitzgerald s
edition. See e. g. p. 184, note.

&lt;1 This is the objection taken by Tholuck (Vermischt. Schrift.
p. 192, 3. A somewhat similar objection is quoted by Fitzgerald
from Mackintosh, Introd. p. 49, upon both of which he offers criti
cisms. A kindred objection has been stated (probably by Mr. Mar-
tineau) in the National Review, No. 1 5. Jan. 1859, (PP- 2 J I ~~ 2 1 4&gt;) an( ^
another by Miss S. Hennell in the Sceptical Tendency of Butlers
Analogy, 1857, i n which she traces doubt in Butler s life as well as
teaching. Others may be found stated and examined in bishop
Hampden s Philosophical Evidence of Christianity, 1827. (pp. 229-
291.)

r This conjecture is given by Fitzgerald in the life prefixed to his
edition of the Analogy (p. 36), where also two passages are quoted,
one from Foster, and the other from Berkeley, which certain pas-

LECTURE IV. 223

he intended chiefly to reply, yet not one difficulty in
the philosophy, hardly one in the critical attacks
made by the various deists, is omitted ; and the best
arguments of the various apologists are used. But
both the one and the other are so assimilated by his
own mind, that the use of them only proves his learn
ing, without diminishing his originality. They are so
embodied into his system, that it is difficult even for
a student well acquainted with the deist and apolo
getic literature to point precisely to the doubt or
parallel argument which may have suggested to
him material of thought. And thus, though his
work as an argument ought always to be viewed in
relation to his own times, yet the omission of ah 1
temporary means of defence, and the restricting
himself to the use of those permanent facts which
indelibly belong to human nature, and to the scheme
of the world, have caused his work to possess an
enduring interest, and to be a /cr^/ua e? act. The
persuasive moderation of its tone also proves that

sages of Butler resemble. It would be interesting to know
whether the work of Dr. Peter Browne on Things Divine and
Natural conceived of by Analogy, 1733, had come under
Butler s notice. Many similar passages, as well as references
to the sources of the difficulties which Butler answers, are given in
the notes to Fitzgerald s edition. Mr. Pattison also (Essays and
Reviews, p. 286) has expressed an opinion that Butler was much
assisted by the works of his predecessors. The probability is, that
in all great works their authors assimilate an amount of information
current in the age, as well as create new material. This was pro
bably the case even in works like Euclid s Geometry and Aris
totle s Natural History and Organum.

224 LECTURE IV.

Butler had really weighed the evidence. In its
absence of arrogant denunciation, and its candid
admission that the evidence of religion is probable,
not demonstrative ; and in the request that the whole
evidence may be weighed like a body of circum
stantial proofs, we can perceive that Butler had felt
the doubts as well as understood them, and evi
dently meant his works for the doubter rather
than for the Christian ; to convince foes, or support
the hesitating, rarther than to win applause from
friends.

The real secret of its power however lies not
merely in its force as an argument to refute ob
jections against revelation, but in its positive effect
as a philosophy 8 , opening up a grand view of the
divine government, and giving an explanation of
revealed doctrines, by using analogy as the in
strument for adjusting them into the scheme
of the universe *. He seems himself to have
taken a broad view of God s dealings in the moral
world, analogous to that which the recent physical
discoveries of his time had exhibited in the natural.
In the same manner as Newton in his Principia
had, by an extension of terrestrial mechanics, ex
plained the movements of the celestial orbs, and

s The value of Butler s argument is fully discussed in the ad
mirable work on Butler by bishop Hampden before quoted, which
is the best existing commentary on the author : second to it are
Chalmers s Natural Religion and Bridgwater Treatise.

t Hampden s Phil. Evid. (131-228.)

LECTURE IV. 225

united under one grand generalization the facts of
terrestrial and celestial motion ; so Butler aimed
at exhibiting as instances of one and the same set
of moral laws the moral government of God, which
is visible to natural reason, and the spiritual go
vernment, which is unveiled by revelation.

Probably no book since the beginning of Christ
ianity has ever been so useful to the church as
Butler s Analogy, in solving the doubts of believers
or causing them to ignore exceptions, as well as in
silencing unbelievers. The office of apologetic is to
defend the church, no.t to build it up. Argument
is not the life of the church. It is therefore a proof
of the philosophical power and truth of Butler s work
that it has ministered so extensively to the latter
purpose, by actually reinforcing and promoting the
faith of professing Christians. It has acted not
only as an argument to the deists, but as a lesson
of instruction to the church.

Few efforts of free thought seemed more unpro
mising in yielding any useful results than deism ; yet
by its agitation of deep questions, which are not the
mere phantoms of a morbid mind, but real and solid
difficulties and mysteries in revelation, it was the
means of creating Butler s noble work, and is a
fresh illustration of the beneficent arrangement of
the Almighty, that makes knowledge progress by
antagonism, and overrules evil for good.

But there is another weapon for repelling unbelief
besides the intellectual ; just as there are two causes

226 LECTURE IV.

for creating it, the one intellectual, the other emo
tional. Thus, in the period that we are now consi
dering, though we may believe that many hearts were
cheered and many doubts hushed by the Christian
apologies, yet the revival of religion" which marked
the eighteenth century, and which by spreading vital
piety prepared an effectual check against unbelief,
when the lower orders were afterwards invaded by
it, was due to the spiritual yearnings created by
the ministrations of men, often rude and unlettered,
who told the wondrous story of Christ crucified,
heart speaking to heart, with intuitions kindled from
on high. The sinful began to feel that God was not
afar off, reposing in the solitude of his own blessed
ness, and abandoning mankind to the government of
conscience and to the operation of general laws, but
nigh at hand, with a heart of fatherly love to pity
and an ear of mercy to listen. The narrative of Christ
the Son of God, coming down to seek and to save that
which was lost, awoke an echo in the heart which
neutralized the doubts infused by the deist. And
it is a comfort to every Christian labourer to know
that if he cannot wrangle out a controversy with the
doubter, he can speak to the doubter s heart.

Few would compare the irregular missionaries of
spiritual religion in the last century with the great

u The revival in the early part of the century was due to the
agency of Wesley and Whitfield outside the church ; in the latter to
those of such men as Romaine, Newton, and ultimately Simeon,
within it.

LECTURE IV. 227

writers of evidence. The names of the latter are
honoured ; those of the former are unknown or too
often despised. It might seem strange, for example,
to institute a comparison between the two contem
poraries, bishop Butler and John Wesley. Yet there
are points of contrast which are instructive. Each was
one of the most marked instruments of movement and
influence in the respective fields of the argumenta
tive and the spiritual ; the one a philosopher writing
for the educated, the other a missionary preaching to
the poor. Butler, educated a nonconformist, turned
to the church, and in an age of unbelief consecrated
his great mental gifts to roll back the flood of in
fidelity ; and died early, when his unblemished
example was so much needed in the noble sphere
of usefulness which Providence had given him,
leaving a name to be honoured in the church for
generations. Wesley, nursed in the most exclusive
church principles, kindled the flame of his piety
by the devout reading of mystic books x ; when
our university was marked by the half-heartedness
of the time ; and afterwards, when instructed by
the Pietists of Germany . y , devoted a long life to
wander over the country, despised, ill-treated, but
still untired ; teaching with indefatigable energy
the faith which he loved, and introducing those
irregular agencies of usefulness which are now so

x E. g., W. Law s Serious Call, and Christian Perfection,
y Viz., by means of the Moravians of Hernnhut, whose founder,
Zinzendorf, himself sprang from the pietist movement.

Q 2

228 LECTURE IV.

largely adopted even in the church. He too was
an accomplished scholar, and possessed great gifts
of administration ; but whatever good he effected,
in kindling the spiritual Christianity which checked
the spread of infidelity, was not so much by argu
ment as by stating the omnipotent doctrine of the
Cross, Christ set forth as the propitiation for sin
through faith in his blood. The earnestness of the
missionary may be imitated by those who cannot
imitate the philosopher s literary labours. Gifts of
intellect are not in our own power. But industry
to improve the talents that we possess is our own ;
and the spiritual perception of divine truth, and
burning love for Christ which will touch the heart,
and before which all unhealthy doubts will melt
away as frost before the sun, will be given from on
high by the Holy Ghost freely to all that ask.
" Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit,
saith the Lord 2 ."

z Zech. iv. 6.

LECTURE V.

INFIDELITY IN FRANCE IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY, AND
UNBELIEF IN ENGLAND SUBSEQUENT TO 1760.

ISAIAH xxvi. 20.

Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy
doors about thee : hide thyself as it were for a little moment,
until the indignation be overpast.

YV E now approach the study of a period remarkable
no less in the history of the world than in that of reli
gious thought, in which unbelief gained the victory
in the empire of mind, and obtained the opportunity
of reconstructing society and education according
to its own views. The history of infidelity in France
in the eighteenth century forms a real crisis in
history, important by its effects as well as its cha
racter. For France has always been the prerogative
nation of Europe. When wants intellectual or poli-

230 LECTURE V.

tical have been felt there, the life of other nations
has beat sympathetic with it as with the heart of
the European body. Ideas have been thrown into
form by it for transmission to others. It will be
necessary to depict the free religious thought, both
intellectually and in its political action ; to charac
terise its principal teachers ; to show whence it
sprung, and to what result it tended ; to point out
wherein lay the elements of its power and its
wickedness ; to show what it has contributed to
human woe, or perchance indirectly to human im
provement.

The soiirce of its influence cannot be understood
without recalling some facts of the history of French
politics and philosophical speculation. What was the
cause why English deists wrote and taught their
creed in vain, were despised while living and con
signed to oblivion when dead, refrained almost
entirely from political intermeddling, and left the
church in England unhurt by the struggle ; while
on the other hand deism in France became omni
potent, absorbed the intellect of the country, swept
away the church, and remodelled the state 1 The
answer to this question must be sought in the ante
cedent history. It is a phenomenon political rather
than intellectual. It depended upon the soil in
which the seed was sown, not on the inherent qua
lities of the seed itself 3 .

a The most effective sketch of the intellectual and social state of
France in the last century is given in Buckle s History of Civilisa-

LECTURE V. 231

The church and state have hardly ever possessed
more despotic power in any country of modern times,
or seemed to all appearance to repose on a more
secure foundation, than in France at the time when
they were first assailed by the free criticism of the
infidels of the eighteenth century. Each had escaped
the alterations which had been effected in most other
countries. The clergy of France had in the sixteenth
century successfully resisted the Reformation, and
gained strength by the issue of the civil wars
which supervened on it. In the seventeenth century,
though compelled to admit toleration of their Pro
testant adversaries, they had contrived before the
end of it to obtain a revocation of the edict, even
though the act cost France the loss of a million of
her industrious population, and though the enforcing
of it had to be effected by the means of the dragon-
nades, in which a brutal soldiery was let loose on an
innocent population h . Thus the church, united with

tion, vol. i. ; especially iii ch. 8, n, 12, and 14 His narrative only
sets forth the dark side of the picture, and the Christian reader
frequently feels pained at some of his remarks ; but it is generally
correct so far as it goes, and the references are copious to the ori
ginal sources which the author used. I have therefore frequently
rested content with quoting this work without indicating further
sources. An instructive account of the centralization under Louis
XIV is given in Sir J. Stephens s Lectures on the History of France,
Lect. 21-23. The reign of Louis XV is treated in De Tocqueville s
Histoire Philosophic du Eegne de Louis XV. A brief view of the
history may be seen in the works of the liberal Roman catholic, C.
Butler, vol. v. on Church of France.

b The passages from Benoit s Histoire de TEdict de Nantes

232 LECTURE V.

rather than subjected to the state, adorned by great
names, asserting its national independence in the
pride of conscious strength against the metropolitan
see of Christendom c , possessed a power which, while
it seemed to promise perpetuity, stood as an impedi
ment to progress and a bar to intellectual develop
ment.

Nor was the cause of liberty more hopeful in rela
tion to the state than the church. The crown, in
passing through a similar struggle against the feudal
nobility to that of other countries, had succeeded in
securing its victory without yielding those conces
sions to the demands of the people which in our own
country were extorted from it by the civil war.
The strength gained by the defeat of the nobility in
the wars of the Fronde, offered the opportunity for
an able sovereign like Louis XIV to dry up all sources
of independent power, by centralizing all authority in
the monarchy. Proud in the consciousness of internal
power and foreign victory, surrounded by wealth and
talent, with a court and literature which were the
glory of the country, he seemed likely to transmit

vol. v. p. 887 seq., and Quick s Synodicon, i. p. 130 seq., respecting
the cruelties of the dragonnades, are quoted at length in Buckk, i.
p. 624, note.

c This occurred iu the contest concerning the Gallican liberties,
and the dispute about the Bull Unigenitus. Concerning the former
see C. Butler s Church of France (Works, vol. v.) p. 34 seq., and
Hase s Church History, 424 ; and, on the latter, Butler ut sup.
188-149, an d Hase, 420.

LECTUKE V. 233

his power to coming generations. But the inherent
weakness of despotism was soon apparent. Unre
strained authority appertains only to the Divine
government, because power is there synonymous
with goodness ; but it is always unsafe in human.
The wisdom which partly supplied the place of
goodness in Louis XIY being wanting in his succes
sor, unchecked selfishness produced the corruption
which brought inevitable ruin.

These remarks on the political state of France will
sufficiently show why a free criticism directed against
either religion or tyranny should assume revolu
tionary tendencies, and should manifest an antipathy
to social and ecclesiastical institutions, as well as to
the principles on which they were supposed to
depend.

But the forces operating in the world of mind, as
well as in society, must also be understood, in order
to estimate the influence of unbelief in France. In a
previous lecture we have seen that in the middle of
the seventeenth century the philosophy of Descartes
had created a complete revolution in modes of
thought. It was only in the philosophy of Spinoza
that it produced theological unbelief; but by its
indirect influence it had led generally to an en
tire reconsideration of the first data of reasoning,
and the method of establishing truth ; and thus
had stimulated the struggle of reason against faith,
of inquiry against credulity, of progress against
reaction, and of hopefulness in the future against re-

234 LECTURE V.

verence for the past. The activity of mind displayed
in the literature of the reign of Louis XIV. is its
first expression d . But thoughts ferment long in so
ciety before they fully express themselves in form :
they first exist as suggestions ; then they become
doubts ; lastly, they pass into disbelief. It was not
until the time of the regency 6 , which ensued after
the death of Louis, that the literature became im
pressed with a thoroughly new tone f .

Other causes of a more direct kind cooperated.
The English philosophy of Locke, which marked an
epoch in speculation, was introduced at that time.
This philosophy however could not have resulted in
those speculations which arose in France, if it had
not been carried farther by the analysis which Con-
dillac employed in that country, analogous to that
of Hume in Scotland. In itself it expressed the
reasoning type of mind and thought which reigned
throughout the English literature ; but the corol
laries from it which produced harm were no part of
the original system . Condillac, desiring to carry
out the analysis of the origin of knowledge, lost
sight of the intellectual element in Locke s account

d The nature of the literature of the reign of Louis XIV, and the
alteration of position of authors in the new reign, are explained in
Buckle, i. ch. n and 12.

1715-1723.

f Literature really became a political power, and exercised a
similar influence to that of the modern newspaper press.

s Professor Webb of Dublin, in his work, The Intellectua2ism of
Locke, has given evidence which establishes this point.

LECTURE V. 235

of the process of reflection ; denied the existence
of innate faculties as well as innate ideas ; and at
tempted to show that man s mind is so passive,
so dependent on the evidence of the senses for the
material of its thoughts, and on language for the
power to combine them, that its very faculties are
transformed sensations h . From these premises it was
not hard for his followers to draw the inferences of
materialism 1 in philosophy, selfishness in morals, and
an entire denial of those religious truths which can
not be proved by sensuous evidence. This philosophy
began to leaven the mind of France, and was accepted
by nearly the whole of French unbelievers.

Such was the intellectual state of France in re
ference to the standard of appeal contemporaneously
with the political and ecclesiastical condition before
described. In the state and church all was authority ;
all was of the past : in the world of literature and
philosophy all was criticism, activity, hope in the
future. Into a soil thus prepared the seeds of un
belief on the subject of religion were introduced. We

h On Condillac see Cousin, Cours de la Pliilosophie Morale,
leon 3 ; Renouvier, Philosophic Moderne, v. 2. 4 ; Villemain,
Cours de Literature, ii. 20; Morell s History of Philosophy, i. 148
seq. ; Lewes History of Philosophy.

1 It may prevent ambiguity to state that the term materialism,
when employed in these lectures, is not used in it s modern popular
sense of mere animalism, the obedience to the lower side of human
nature ; but in its technical sense, as the kind of philosophy which
so regards spirit to be a property of matter as to produce inferences
unfavourable to the belief in immortality or moral obligation.

236 LECTURE V.

cannot deny that they were imported mainly from
England. Doubt had indeed not been wholly wanting
in France. In the preceding centuries Montaigne k
and Charron 1 , and, at the commencement of the one
of which we speak, Bayle and Fontenelle 11 , were
probably harassed with disbelief, and their influence
was certainly productive of doubt. And free thought,
in the form of literary criticism of the scriptures, had
brought down the denunciation of the French church
on Richard Simon . But undoubtedly the direct
parent of the French unbelief was English deism n.
In no age of French history has English literature
possessed so powerful an influenced England had
recently achieved those liberties of which France felt
the need. It had safely outlived civil war and revo-

k On the scepticism of Montaigne (1532-1592) see Teunemaiiii s
Geschichte der Philosophie, ix. 443 ; Vinet s Essai de Philosophic
Morale ; Sainte-Beuve Critiques et Portraits Litteraires, vol. iv. ;
Hallam s History of Literature, ii. 29; Emerson s Representative
Men ; and R. W. Church in Oxford Essays, 1857.

1 On Charron (1541-1603) see Tennemann, Id. ix. 527, Sainte-
Beuve, t. xi. ; Hallam, i. 570., ii. 362, 511 ; and the article in the
Biographie Universelle.

m On Bayle (1647-1706) see Tennemann, xi. 268 seq. ; Renouvier,
Phil. Mod. iii. 3. 6 ; Sainte-Beuve, iii. 392.

n On Fontenelle (1657-1757) see Sainte-Beuve, iii. and the Biogr.
Univ. Another writer, Dolet (1509-1546), was also suspected, at
an earlier period, not only of scepticism but of atheism. See his
Life, by J. Boulmier, 1857.

On R. Simon see Lect. III. p. 1 1 6.

P See Lechler s Gesch. des Eng. Deismus, p. 445.

q On the great eagerness for English literature in France at that
time, see the facts collected by Buckle, i. (658-670).

LECTURE V. 237

lution, and had established constitutional liberty and
religious toleration. In England the victims of the
French oppression found shelter. Being itself free,
it became the refuge for the exile, the shelter for the
oppressed. It thus became the object of study to the
politician, and of love to the philanthropist. Its
literature too, in two branches, viz. political inquiry,
and, towards the middle of the century, romance,
offered subjects for imitation. Montesquieu studied
the former ; Rousseau and Diderot the latter. But
England furnished also a series of fearless inquirers
on the subject of religion, whose works became the
subject of study and of translation 1 *. Voltaire spent
three years of exile in England 8 , at the time when
the ferment existed concerning Woolston s attack on
miracles, and both knew Bolingbroke personally, and
translated his writings.

Having now explained the sources of doubt in
France ; we must next direct our attention to the
course of its speculations, and to the chief authors.

If we estimate its course by literary works, or by
social and political movements, we may distribute the
history of it into two periods; one comprising the
first half of the century, wherein it attacks the French

A list of those that are said to have been translated is given by
Lechler, Id. 446. On the comparison of English and French deism
see Henke s Kirchengeschichte, vi. s. 131.

s 1726-1729. Cfr. Villemain, Cours deLitt. i. (168-177). A letter
of Fleury, quoted from Schlosser by Lechler (Id. 446), proves that
his fears were excited by the influence which English literature was
producing.

238 LECTUKE V.

church and Christianity; the other, the latter half,
wherein it mingles itself with the demand for political
change, and assaults the state*, until its effects are
seen in the anarchy of the French revolution. In the
former of these periods the unbelief is tentative and
suggestive. About the time of the transition to the
second, in the pride of supposed victory it becomes
dogmatic. Christianity is supposed to be exploded.
Philosophy seeks to occupy its place in the social and
intellectual world. The early doubters and Voltaire
mark the former of these epochs. Diderot and the
French encyclopaedists, with the ramification of their
school at the court of Frederick II. of Prussia, form
the point of transition. Rousseau marks the opening
of the second period, when unbelief was attempting
to reconstruct society and remodel education. The
selfish philosophy of Helvetius and his friends then
carries on the course of the history of unbelief, until
in the storm of the revolution it shows itself in the
teaching of Volney, and the absurd acts of the theo-
philanthropists.

The name of Voltaire, which the logical and chro
nological order introduces first to our notice, is so
preeminent, that his character and teaching may ex
press the history of the early movement in France.

The story of his life, so far as we require now to

t On this charge of attack about 1750 see Buckle, i. 716-718; and
on the origin of the attack on the church, and the causes why it
preceded that on the state, Id. 684 seq. Also compare De Tocque-
ville s Louis XV. t. ii. ch. 10.

LECTURE V. 239

be made acquainted with it, can be briefly told u .
Born toward the close of the seventeenth century, he
manifested, as a legend assures us, such a doubting
spirit, even in boyhood, that his priestly preceptor
predicted that he would prove a Coryphasus of deism.
His rare precocity of intellect early acquired for him
a reputation in the world of letters. Compelled to
become an exile in England x , he studied its politics,
its science, and its scepticism. On his return to
France, he endeavoured to introduce among his
countrymen the cosmical and mathematical doctrines
of Newton ; and made himself conspicuous in history,
in poetry, in fiction, and above all, in theology,
by his attacks on revealed religion and the French
church. About the middle of the century, accepting
an invitation to the court of Frederick the Great of
Prussia, he aided thence the introduction of infidel
doctrines in Germany. A few years later he with
drew into retirement at Ferney, but was able from
his seclusion to wield an intellectual power through
out Europe.

u Voltaire lived 1694-1778. The Life by Lord Brougham, in
Lives of Men of Letters, is not only very full of facts, but contains
some very able criticism, especially on the dramatic works of Vol
taire. More biographies have been given in this lecture than in others,
in accordance with the reasons explained in Lect. I. p. 46, because
in this period the infidel influence was the result of the teachers, as
much as of the ideas taught. See concerning Voltaire, Henke s Kir-
chengesch. vi. 166 ; Schlosser, Hist, of Eighteenth Century, i. 2. i,
iv. i. Bartholmess, Hist. Grit, des Doctr. Relig. de la Phil. Mod.
i. 2 1 1 seq. ; Bungener s Voltaire.

x In 1726.

240 LECTUKE V.

It was from this retirement that he denounced the
acts of tyranny, or supposed injustice, inflicted by
the French church. His indignant denunciations in
the cases of the Sirven?, of La Barre z , and above all
of the Galas a , gained for him the commendation and
sympathy of Europe, and remain as monuments of
the power of the pen.

Such was his life. Let us search in it for the
secret of his power, and inquire what were his views
in the department which we are studying.

Y Sirven was condemned in 1762, on an unjust suspicion of causing
his daughter s death, to prevent her becoming a protestant.

z La Barre was a youth of seventeen, who, on the suspicion of
having injured a crucifix on the bridge of Abbeville, was con
demned (1763) to be tortured on the rack, to have his tongue
cut out, and to be put to death ; which sentence was literally
executed. See Biographic Universelle, sub Voltaire, vol. xix. p. 484,
and Brougham s Life of him (94-99).

a The Galas were a family at Toulouse, the father of which was
put to death (1762) by catholic fanaticism. Voltaire investigated
the facts with care ; and, by instituting legal proceedings at Paris,
got the sentence of the Toulouse court reversed, and all the repara
tion that was possible made to the family. Money to defray the ex
penses was sent to him from all the reformed parts of Europe. The
English queen (Charlotte) and the archbishop of Canterbury (Seeker)
headed the English subscription list. The facts have lately been
reinvestigated by the accomplished A. Coquerel fils., Jean Colas et
sa Famille, 1858. The narrative is told in the Westminster Review,
No. 28, for Oct. 1858. See also Henke s Kirchengesch. vi. 298 seq.

On the tomb of Voltaire, now a cenotaph, in the vaults of the
Pantheon, is an inscription, " II defendit Calas, Sirven, De la Barre,
et Montbailly." Since the Pantheon has been converted into a
church, the side of the tomb which bears this inscription has been
concealed by a screen, so that visitors are only permitted to view
one of the other sides.

LECTURE V. 241

His character has been analysed by so many cri
tics, especially by one of our own countrymen in an
essay of rare power, now become classical, that the
opportunity of original investigation is impossible,
and the attempt undesirable b .

In the opinion of this writer, the secret of Vol
taire s strength was the tact which he displayed in ex
pressing the wants of his time to his countrymen in
the precise mode most suited to them c . He belonged
to the class of those who exercise their influence in
their own lifetime men of the present, not men of
the future ; accordingly, whether he be viewed as a
man, in his own personal qualities, in the moral and
intellectual properties which constituted his charac
ter, or as an artist, in the manner in which he con
veyed his thoughts to the world, he will be found to
be the loftiest exponent and type of the spirit of his
age. It was an age without originality, without spi
ritual insight, careful of manners rather than morals,
corrupted by selfishness, led by ambition, dissatisfied
with the present, and anxious for deliverance ; but
unable to espy the real causes of the mischief, and to
escape confusing principles with men ; fond of form
rather than material ; classical rather than Gothic ;
critical rather than reverent ; proud of its own dis
coveries, without appreciation of the efforts of the
past. Such are the qualities which characterised

b Carlyle s Miscellaneous Works, vol. ii. It will be observed that
many of the following remarks are abbreviated from this source.
c Carlyle, Id. p. 113.

242 LECTURE V.

the times of Voltaire a , and in their most striking
form marked his mind.

To qualities which were thus in some sense formed
in him by circumstances, he added remarkable ones
which were Nature s special gift to him. His extra
ordinary tact and good sense, both in dealing per
sonally with individuals and in literary criticism ;
his fiery ardour, and vehement spirit of proselytism ;
his singular penetration of vision, and power to ar
range in the clearest mode the thoughts which he
wished to transmit ; above all, his wit and wonderful
power of satire were qualities which, though in some
degree shared by his countrymen, cannot be ex^-
plained by mere circumstances, but are natural
gifts. These three intellectual endowments, acute-
ness, order, and satire 6 , are regarded by the authority
that we are taking for our guide, as the qualities
which formed the secret of his power as a writer,
and at the same time as the sources of inteUectual
temptation which prevented him from gaining a
deeper insight into truth, and deprived him of in
fluence with posterity. For his quickness prevented
the exercise of the reflection, the patient meditation,
which is the only high road to solve the mysteries of
existence. It has been well said f , that Voltaire saw
so much more deeply at a glance than other men,

d i. e. the age of Louis XV. See Id. pp. 180-185.
e On Voltaire s power of ridicule, see Id. 120, 167 ; and on his
power of order, 163 seq.
f Id. p. 161.

LECTURE V. 243

that no second glance was ever given by him. His
power of order assisting his quickness, was a still
further temptation. Though far inferior in erudition
to some of his contemporaries, such as Diderot, and
in depth of feeling to Rousseau, lacking originality,
and borrowing most of his philosophical thoughts at
second hand, he yet surpassed them all by a match
less power of arrangement. The perfection of form
diverted attention from the subject matter. He pos
sessed method rather than genius, intellect rather
than imagination. But above all his other powers,
his most singular gift was his power of satire. When
stimulated by a sense of injustice, or of hatred
against men or systems, it made him omnipotent in
destruction. This satirical power contributed to pre
clude the possession of depth of reflection. Ridicule
has an office in criticism. It is the true punishment
of folly. But it has been well observed^, that it is
dangerous to him who employs it, as being directly
opposed to humility. The satirist places himself
above that which he ridicules, and makes himself
the judge : the humility of the listener is laid aside ;
the selfish belief of his own infallibility is fostered ;
forbearance and sympathy are laid aside. The critic
argues, the satirist only laughs. Pity may be com
patible with humour, but only contempt with satire.
Voltaire was by nature a satirist ; and when his
mockery was applied to a subject like Christianity

Id. p. i 1 9.
R 2

244 LECTURE V.

or religion, his utter want of reverence not only
caused him to substitute a caricature for a picture,
but prevented him from exercising discrimination in
distinguishing Christianity from its counterfeit, re
ligion from the ministers of it. Hence his attacks
on Christianity partake of the tone of blasphemy ;
and he manifests in reference to religion, which to
most readers was the most sacred of subjects, a tone
of indescribable scurrility, which was not only inex
cusable and disgraceful if viewed merely in a literary
point of view, but constituted politically a public
outrage against the dearest feelings of others which
no citizen has a right to perpetrate fa . This tone too
was mainly his own ; and is not to be found, except
in rare instances, in the English deists from whom
he borrowed.

We have tried to comprehend the mind of Vol
taire, to notice his peculiarities and faults, before con
sidering his opinions ; because his influence was due
to his mental and personal character rather than
to the matter of his writings. It remains to state
his views on religion, and the grounds of his attack
on revelation. The chief materials for ascertaining
them are the four volumes in the vast collection
of his works, which contain his philosophical and
theological writings 1 . They partake of every variety

h The question of Voltaire s blasphemy is treated by lord Broug
ham (Life, p. 7).

i The four volumes are xxxii-xxxv of the (Euvres Completes, 8vo.
1785. Vol. xxxii. contains the philosophical works, of which ch. 2,

LECTURE V. 245

of form, essays, letters, treatises, pamphlets, trans
lations, commentaries. They include, besides smaller
works, a commentary on the Old Testament ; trans
lations of parts of Bolingbroke and of Toland ; an
investigation concerning the establishment of Chris
tianity ; deist sermons which he pretends had been
delivered ; discourses written under false names k ;
and doubts proposed and solved after the manner
of preceding philosophers. Yet in these numerous
treatises there is no claim to originality. His doubts
and his beliefs are taken mainly from the English
deists ; and chiefly from Bolingbroke, the most French
in mind of any of the English school.

A few words therefore will suffice to charac
terise his opinions. It appears that he believed in
a God 1 , but firmly disbelieved the divine origin of
the revealed religion, Jewish and Christian. The

6, 7, 9, of the Traite de Metaphysique, relate to religion ; also the
Profession de Foi des Theistes ; the Homelies prononcees a Londres.
Vol. xxxiii. contains the Examen de Milord Bolingbroke ; and the
Epitre aux Romains. Vol. xxxiv, La Bible enjin Expliquee, where
the notes contain Voltaire s views fully. Vol. xxxv, Histoire de
VEtablissement du Christianisme.

k On the persecutions which fell on literary men, see Buckle, i.
(672-684.)

1 The proof of this assertion is clear in his Traite de Metaphysique,
c. 2. ((E wares, vol. xxxii); in Letter iii. of Memmius to Cicero; in
the Profess, de Foi des Theistes ; and is shown by the fact of his
opposition to the Encyclopaedists on the ground of their atheism ;
which is confirmed by the inscription on his tomb, " II combattit
les athees." It is his blasphemous tone which has, not unnaturally,
given rise to the idea of his atheism.

LECTURE V.

main purpose of his life however was not affirmation,
but denial" 1 . Accordingly the sole object of all his
efforts was to destroy belief in the plenary inspiration
of the scriptures, and the divine origin of revelation
which is attested by them. There is hardly a book
in scripture that he did not attack. Successively
surveying the narrative of Jewish history, the Gospels,
and statements of early church history", he tried
to show absurdities and contradictions in them all ;
not so much literary differences in the authors as
difficulties of belief in the material revealed. In his
views of Judaism and of Christianity he seems to
have fluctuated between attributing them to the
fraud or mistake of their propagators, and denying
their originality. The science of historical criticism
was beginning in his day, and was applied to the
legends of Roman history Voltaire embodied the
spirit of this inquiry. In his histories he exemplified
the cold, worldly, modern mode of looking at events,
as opposed to the providential and theocratic view
of them which had found expression as recently as
in the works of Bossuet . And he transferred this

m " Ecrasez 1 infame" are the words, the initials of which, signed
at the end of his letters to infidel friends, baffled the French police.
Buckle considers them to have been designed against the French
church, but offers no proof. It is to be feared that they were rather
intended against the Christian religion, if not against the sacred
person of our blessed Lord.

n See his Commentary ((Euvres, vol. xxxiv.), the Homelies
(vol. xxxii), and the Histoire (vol. xxxiv).

u On the contrast of his historic tone to that of Bossuet, see

LECTURE V. 247

method to the treatment of holy scripture. No new
branch of information was left unused by him for
contributing to his impious purpose. The numerous
works of travels which were affording an acquaint
ance with the mythology of other nations, were made
to furnish him with the materials for hastily apply
ing one solution to all the early Jewish histories,
which he failed to invalidate by the application of
the historic method just described. By an inversion
of the argument of the early Christian apologists he
pretended that the early history preserved among
the Hebrews was borrowed from the heathens, instead
of claiming that the heathen mythology was a trace
of Hebrew tradition ; and, with a view to sustain
this opinion, he discredited the integrity of the
Hebrew literature. In nothing is his singular want
of poetic taste, and of the power to appreciate the
beauties of the literature of young nations, and the
ethical value of moral institutions, more visible, than
in denying the literary and monumental value of
the Bible, and the moral influence of Christianity i j .
Infidels who have hated revealed religion as bitterly
as Voltaire, have at least not had the meanness or
the want of taste to depreciate the literary and moral
interest which attaches to it.

Such was the character of the man, and of the
efforts which he directed to the injury of revelation.

Buckle, i. 726, and -Schlosser, History of the Eighteenth Century,
(English translation), vol. i. ch. iv. 2. p. 273.
P Compare Carlylc s remarks, ut sup. p. 175.

248 LECTURE V.

It has been saich that to obliterate his influence from
the history of the eighteenth century would be to
produce a greater difference than the absence of any
other individual in it would occasion ; and would
be similar to the omission of Luther from the six
teenth. The analogy, though startling, is true in the
particulars which it is intended to illustrate. The
influence of each was European in his respective
century ; and the doctrine acted not only on the
world of thought, but of action.

We have described Voltaire alone ; not because he
was isolated by any interval of time from a general
movement, but because his attack is more rudi
mentary, being directed rather to disintegrate Chris
tianity than dogmatically to affirm unbelief. He
was perhaps rather logically prior to the others
than chronologically ; being really connected with two
bodies of men, which formed the centres of two in
fidel movements, the one in Paris, the other at the
court of Frederick at Berlin.

Frederick the Great surrounded himself with
French literary men r . They were mostly persons
who were exiles from France to escape persecution for
their opinions, who had first found a refuge in Hol
land, and thence endeavoured by means of the Dutch
booksellers to introduce their writings into France.
From about 1740-60 several such teachers of infi-

q Id. 105.

r On Frederick s entertainment of these French refugees, see Henke,
Kirchengesch. vi. 180 ; Schlosser, vol. i. 2, 3.

LECTUEE V. 249

delity were invited to the Prussian court, and dis
persed their influence in Germany ; the effects of
which we shall subsequently find. One of them was
the physician La Mettrie s , who wrote works on phy
siology marked by a low materialism. Such also was
De Prades 1 , and more especially D Argens". The
latter, struck with the force of "the Persian Letters"
of Montesquieu, threw his doubts into an epistolary
form, " the Jewish Letters " in which the traditional
opinions and ruling systems of the time were attacked
with great freedom. He translated also some ancient
works to serve his purpose, especially the fragments
of the abusive work of the emperor Julian against
Christianity, written in favour of the state religion
of the Greeks and Romans.

While this was the character of some of the
Frenchmen at the court of Frederick, whom Voltaire
subsequently joined ; men who, imbued with the
most extravagant form of the philosophy of sensation,
verged upon materialism ; there were coteries of lite
rary persons in Paris, which were the rallying point
of sceptical minds, and centres of irreligious influence.

s La Mettrie (1/09-1751). His views are seen in the Discours
Preliminaire to his Hist. Nat. del dme, and in the L homme machine
(1748). See a criticism on him in Ph. Damiron s Memoires pour
servir a VHistoire de Philosophie au i8 e siecle (vol. i. pp. 1-49), re
printed from the Report of the A cademie des Sciences ; also Henke,
vi. 13.

fc De Prades (1720-1782). See Henke, vi. 201 ; also the article
in the Biographie Universelle.

u D Argens (1704-1771). See Damiroii, Id. ii, 256-376.

250 LECTURE V.

The existence of them is due in part to the altered
position already named which literature assumed in
reference to the court during the regency. Instead
of being fostered, it was discouraged ; and Fleury
manifested an almost puritan spirit, and has left on
record the expression of his alarm at the growing
sceptical tone of literary works, and the imitation of
the English spirit. Owing accordingly to the absence
of patronage, and to the lavishment of those favours
on extravagance which the elder Louis had bestow
ed on the fostering of intellect, literature became
disjoined from court influences ; and hence there
grew up small centres of literary influence, analogous
to those preceding the time of Louis XI V v , and
nuclei for intellectual movement, where of old the
various bodies had all moved round one central sun.

It would be irrelevant to enter into the de
tails of these coteries. (23) Some were simply of
fashion and taste; but others were undoubtedly
gatherings of powerful thinkers, imbued with in
fidel principles, whose character belongs to French
literature and the mental and moral culture of the
time. One of the most remarkable of these cote
ries included names noted in French literature, such
as Voltaire, Diderot, D ? Alembert w , D Holbach, Mar-

v On the old coteries of Rambouillet, &c. see Hallam s Hist, of
Literature, iii. 137.

w D Alembert (i 7 1 783). For particulars of his life, see Brougham s
memoir in Lives of Men of Letters. For his philosophy, see Damiron,
ii. 1-114 ) Henke, vi. 218 ; Schlosser, i. 4. 7. His infidelity was
known to friends, but not openly avowed.

LECTUKE V. 251

montel x , Helvetius, Grimm y, St. Lambert 2 , and
Raynal a . We must notice some of them in detail,
in order at once to appreciate the character of their
works, and to illustrate the relation of their unbe
lief to the philosophy which they adopted 5 .

Diderot 6 , next to Voltaire, was the most able of
the infidel writers, and greatly superior to the other
members of the same class. His history is one of
those narratives of struggle and suffering which so
often have been the lot of men of letters. Those who
have been the teachers of the world have too often

x Marmontel (1723-99). See Sainte-Beuve, Portraits, vol. iv. ;
Schlosser, ii. 2. i.

y Grimm, 1723-1807. See Sainte-Beuve, vol. vii. The Gorre-
spondance Litt. par le Baron Grimm et Diderot is the great source
for the knowledge of his character.

z St. Lambert (1717-1803). See Damiron, ii. 144-256.

a Abbe Raynal (171 1-96). See Schlosser, ii. 2. i. Henke, vol. vi.
enumerates many more of the same class. Particulars of all are given
in the Biographic Universelle.

b The following refer to places where the tendency and spirit of
this whole movement are described, as well as literary information
supplied. Henke, vi. 208, &c. ; Bartholmess, i. 117-210 ; Lermi-
nier s Influence de la Phil, du i8 e siecle (1833); Morell s Hist, oj
Phil. i. 158, &c. ; Maurice, Mod. Phil. p. 527-59 ; H. Martin s Hist,
de France, vol. xv. and xvi. liv. 96, 99, TOO, 101 ; Renouvier, Mod.
Phil. b. v. ch. 2. 6-8 ; also Kuno Fischer s Bacon, p. 451, and the
references above given to Schlosser and to Damiron ; Tennemann
(Manual, 378, &c.) also gives many literary references.

c Diderot (1713-84). His life and character have been sketched
by Carlyle, (Misc. Works, vol. iv.) ; also by Damiron, ii. (227-324) ;
St. Beuve, i. 355. Also see Villemain, Tableau de la Litt. au i8 e
siecle, lee. xix. 20. His novels are the parent of the impure novel of
modern times. See Schlosser, i. 4. 5., ii. 2, i.

252 LECTUEE V.

been also its martyrs. The great peculiarity of Dide
rot, as of Johnson, was his encyclopedic knowledge,
and his versatility in comprehending a variety of
subjects. Less critical than Voltaire, and less philo
sophical than Rousseau, he exceeded both as the prac
tical teacher. But in unbelief he unhappily advanced
farther than either ; his temper lacked moral earnest
ness; and in later life he was an atheist. A growth
of unbelief may be traced in him : at first he was a
doubter, next he became a deist, lastly an atheist.
In the first stage he only translated English works,
and even condemned some of the English deists. His
views seem gradually to have altered, probably under
the influence of Voltaire s writings, and of the infidel
books smuggled into France ; and he thenceforth as
sumed a tone bolder and marked by positive dis
belief. In 1746 he wrote his Pensees PhilosopJiiques,
intended to be placed in opposition to the Pensees of
Pascal. Pascal, by a series of sceptical propositions,
had hoped to establish the necessity of revelation.
Diderot tried by the same method to show that this
revelation must be untrue d . The first portion of
the propositions 6 bore upon philosophy and natu
ral religion, but at length he came to weaken the

(l In the Essai sur le Merite et la Vertu, pp. 73, 87, he allows
deism, the God of moral order. Similarly in the Pensees Philos.
4 6, but it is the God of nature. But in the Dialogue with D Alem-
bert he teaches atheism. On his theological views see Damiron ; ii.
261 seq.

LECTURE V. 253

proofs for the truth of Christianity, and controverted
miracles, and the truth of any system which reposes
on miracles ; yet even in this work he did not evince
the atheism which he subsequently avowed^ It was
soon after the imprisonment in which he was in
volved by this book, that he projected the plan of
the magnificent work, the Encyclopedie, or universal
dictionary of human knowledge. Its object however
was not only literary, but also theological ; for it was
designed to circulate among all classes new modes
of thinking, which should be opposed to all that was
traditionary. Voltaire s unbelief was merely destruc
tive : this was reconstructive and systematic. The
religion of this great work was deism : the philosophy
of it was sensationalist and almost materialist ; seem
ing hardly to allow the existence of anything but
mechanical beings. Soul was absorbed in body; the
inner world in the outer ; a tendency fostered by
physics. It was the view of things taken by the
scientific mind, and lacks the poetical and feeling
elements of nature a true type of the cold and me
chanical age which produced it. Diderot s atheism
is a still further development of his unbelief. It is
expressed in few of his writings, and presents no
subject of interest to us; save that it seeks to invali
date the arguments for the being of a God, drawn
from final causes. It has been well observed, that
the lesson to be derived from him f is, that the

f See Carlyle, Misc. Works, iv. 322.

i&gt;:&gt;4 LECTURE V.

mechanical view of the world is essentially atheistic;
that whosoever will admit no means of discovering
God but common logic, cannot find him. Diderot s
unbelief may be considered to embody that which
resulted from the abuse at once of erudition, physical
science, and the sensational theory in metaphysics.

Among the band of friends who from connexion
with the Encyclopaedia acquired the name of Encyclo
paedists, was also Helvetius s. He was the moralist of
the sensational philosophy, one of those who applied
the philosophy of Condillac to morals. Each man s
tastes are so far affected by circumstances, that it is
possible that Helvetius s exclusive association with
the selfish circles of the French society, which never
lived for the good of others, together with the per
ception of the hollowness of the respect which per
sons paid him for his wealth and influence, led him
to regard self-love as the sole motive of conduct.
His philosophy is expressed in two works h ; the one

g Helvetius (1715-1771). See C. Remusat in Rev. des Deux
Mondes, Aug. 15, 1858. On the circle of Helvetius see Carlyle
ut sup. 287 seq. ; and on their atheism Buckle, i. 786 seq. Con
cerning Helvetius himself see Hitter s Christliche Philos. viii. b. ix.
ch. 2 ; Cousin s Hist, de Phil. Morale, le^on 7 ; Schlosser, i. 4. 6.

h Viz., De V Esprit et de rHomme (CEuvres compl. 1818, vol. i.
and ii.). Both treatises are excellently analysed in the table of
contents prefixed to the work. The allusions in the text here may
be thought to fail from their brevity in showing that Helvetius s
opinions were a logical corollary from his principles ; they cannot at
least give any notion of the great power of analysis exhibited by him
in expressing his own views.

LECTURE V. 255

on the spirit, the other on man : the former a theo
retical view of human nature, the latter a practical
view of education and society. His primary position
is, that man owes all his superiority over animals to
the superior organization of his body. Starting from
this point, he argues that all minds are originally
equal, and owe their variation to circumstances ; that
all then: faculties and emotions are derivable from
sensation; that pleasure is the only good, and self-
interest the true ground of morals and the frame
work of individual and political right k .

If in Diderot we have met with atheism, and in
Helvetius with the selfish theory of morals ; in the
author of "the System of Nature" we meet with
utter materialism, and the two former evils as co
rollaries from it. This work, which was published
about 1774, though bearing a different author s name
on the title, was probably the work of D Holbach 1 ,
aided by Diderot and Helvetius, and other members

i In Discourse ii. k Id.

1 D Holbach (1723-89). The Systeme de la Nature bears the
name of a Mirabaud, secretary-to the Academy. Some have thought
it to be written by Kobinet, author of a similar work. (His works
are discussed in Damiron, ii. 480 seq.). Concerning the work see
Villemain, iii. le. 38; Damiron, i. (93-177); Hitter, Christ. Philos.
viii. b. 9. ch. 3 ; Schlosser, i. 4. i. On D Holbach s view of God
see Damiron, Id. p. 155, &c. ; Buckle, i. 787, note. The Systeme de
la Nature is partly analysed and criticised in Brougham s Discourse
on Natural Theology, pp. 232-47. It comprised two volumes, and is
followed by a volume containing three small treatises relating to the
natural principles of morals, and social philosophy. The work was
refuted by Bergier (1771).

250 LECTUKE V.

of the society which met at D Holbach s house. It
is a work of unquestionable talent and eloquence, in
which materialism, fatalism, and atheism, combine to
form a view of human nature which even Voltaire
is said to have denounced.

The grand object of this work being to show that
there is no God, the first part is occupied by the
most rigorous materialism, and is designed to prove
that there is no such thing as mind, nothing beyond
the material fabric" 1 , which is maintained by simple
and invariable laws ; and that the soul is a mode of
organism , the mere action of the body under different
functions. The freedom of the will and immortality P
are accordingly denied. The first part having been
directed to disprove the existence of mind, the
second part is designed against religion. The author
attributes the idea which man has formed of a first
Cause to fear% generated through suffering ; and at
tempts to show the insufficiency of the a priori
argument in favour of a God r , omitting the con
sideration of the arguments derived from final causes.
Nature becomes in his scheme a machine ; man an
organism ; morality self-interest ; deity a fiction.

The work we have just named formed the crown
ing result of infidelity 8 . Voltaire showed philosophy

m Partie i ere cli. iii. and iv. n Part ii. ch. vii.

Part ii. ch. xi. P Part i. ch. xiii.

&lt;i Part ii. ch. i. r Id. ch. iv. and v.

8 Damiron discusses, in addition to the writers already named,
two or three others, viz., Naigeon, Sylv. Mareehal, and De la Lande,
whose names are not introduced here into the text.

LECTURE V. 257

shrinking from the hard materialism, morality from
the fatalism, and religion from the atheism, to which
they afterwards attained. In these steps, as wit
nessed in the circle of intellect just sketched, we see
the ramifications of the French sensational philosophy
pushed to its farthest limits.

The writers lately described, though in some degree
eminent, do not, like Voltaire, stand in the first rank
of the French literary writers. Amid the circle of
unbelievers, however, another of the highest rank
was found, who, though he must be classed with the
others, stood so apart in taste, in sympathy, in pur
pose, and in belief, that the study of his life and
character is an interruption to the series of the
materialist writers whom we are describing. Rous
seau* was not an atheist like Diderot, nor a mate
rialist like D Holbach, nor a moralist of the selfish
school like Helvetius, nor a scoffer like Voltaire.
We discover in him a spirit endowed with deep
feeling, and trained by much greater experience of
life and of internal sorrow. His writings also mark
the period when French philosophy ceased to attack
the church, and found itself strong enough to act
against the state. The greater portion of his works

* On Rousseau see Villemain ii. le^on (23-24) ; Brougham s life
of him in Men of Letters ; Bartholmess, i. 233-270; Henke, vi.
232, especially p. 253, which refers to his theology; Schlosser, i. 4.
4, and ii. 2 ; St. Marc Girardin on the Emile in Rev. des Deux
Mondes, Dec. 1854 ; and an article, too favourably written, but full
of information, in the Westminster Review, Oct. 1859, which has
been of much use for this lecture.

258 LECTURE V.

lies out of the range of our inquiry. Even his poli
tical writings, which indirectly injured religion in the
world of action by stimulating the revolutionary
hatred to the church, require notice only so far as
they involved principles fundamentally opposed to
the teaching of revealed religion.

It was about the middle of the century 11 that
Rousseau commenced the " Political Essays" which
made his name famous, and unhappily afterwards
formed as it were the very bible of the French revo
lution. Retaining through life the preference for the
simple institutions of the republic in which he had
been born, he saw in French society the abuses which
appertain to civilization ; and, with somewhat of the
same feeling which Tacitus exhibits in his portraiture
of the Germans, was led to study the comparative
advantages of a primitive and refined age, and to
maintain the paradox that the empire of corruption
and inequality was to be regarded as the artificial
creation of civilization. Ignoring the natural sinful-
ness and selfishness of the human race, he sought
deliverance for mankind in the return to a primeval
state, in which all should be free, equal, and inde-

u The chief facts of Rousseau s life are these : Born 1712; came
to Paris, 1741 ; wrote Sur les Sciences et les Arts, 1750; L inegalite
parmi leshommes, 1753 ; lived in the Paris coteries, 1754-60 ; wrote
Nouvelle ffeloise, 1760; Le Contrat Social, 1761, and Emile ; an
exile in Switzerland 1762, where he wrote Lettres de la Montague;
accompanied Hume to England 1776; wrote his Confessions; re
turned to the Continent 1767; died 1770.

LECTURE V. 259

pendent. The inartificial state of society was the
beau-ideal. And from ^his philosophical origin he
traced society in the historical formation of an actual
polity, describing how the social contract, while sub
ordinating individual liberty to the collective will of
a society, recompensed men by investing them with
rights of civilization.

His doctrine was false theologicaUy in its view
of human nature ; false philosophically in attempting
to investigate an historical question by means of
abstract metaphysical analysis ; and false politically
in drawing the attention of men away from practical
and possible schemes of reform to visionary ones.
It typified the movement of the French revolution
in its extravagant hopes and its errors, in its de
structive, not its remedial aspect x .

It was a few years later than the publication of

x There are some good remarks on tins theory in the article in
the Westminster Revietv before quoted, the substance of which is to
show that Rousseau s doctrine was false in its method and in its
tendencies. It marked the stage of inquiry, indicative of the last
part of the last century, when men, ignoring the teaching of history,
strove to solve problems by means of abstract speculations; the
attempt to study the origin of phenomena instead of the facts of
their progressive manifestation. The social contract is nothing but
the description of the collective development to which society tends.
The scheme was visionary : but, as a protest against unjust monopo
lies which existed in that age, it woke up a response in society (cfr.
Mill on Liberty, p. 47-50) ; and in its tendency it made Rousseau
the precursor of the French revolution ; but in typifying that move
ment it represented only its transient aspect of subversive energy,
not its work of political reformation.

S 2

260 LECTURE V.

these speculations that Rousseau wrote his celebrated
treatise on education, the Eyiiiltf, which is the chief
source for ascertaining his religious opinions. It has
been called the Cyropsedia of modern times, an at
tempt to show the education which a philosopher
would give his pupil, in contradistinction to the reli
gious and Jesuit training common in Rousseau s time.
In examining the religious education to be given
to the young, he introduces a Savoyard vicar, the
original of which his own early travels had sug
gested to him, to narrate the history of his con
victions, and explain the nature of his creed. This
creed is deism, and bears a very striking resemblance
to that taught by the English deists. Rejecting
tradition and philosophy 2 , the vicar grounds his
creed on reason, the interior light. Commencing
with sensation, he shows how step by step we arrive
at the doctrine of the being and attributes of one
God. Though he does not reject the argument from
final causes, he seems to lay more stress on the
metaphysical argument of the necessity of the divine
existence. He first proves the existence of person
ality and will a , and uses this idea for the purpose
of exploring the outer world ; arguing that matter
is inert and not self-active, he regards matter in
motion as indicating force, and therefore volition ;

y Emile, b. iv. (See (Euvres, vol. iv. p. 14-119, ed. Paris, 1823,
by Musset-Pathay.)
7 Id. p. 17-20.
a Id. p. 22-30.

LECTUEE V. 261

uniformity in its motion as proving a law, and
therefore an intelligent will b , in which wisdom,
power, and goodness combine 6 . This being is God,
to whom man is subject. The universe is universal
order. The physical evil therein originates in our
vices, the moral in our free will d .

Having established the being of a God, he next
proceeds to give reasons for believing in immortality.
He bases it on the fact of the goodness of God,
which leads Him to recompense with happiness the
suffering good ; and he disbelieves the eternity of
punishment for the bad 6 . Having fixed the objects
of belief, he next lays down the rule of duty in con
science, which he regards as an innate and infallible
guide f . After thus establishing natural religion, he
proceeds to criticise revealed, arguing its want of
irrefragable evidence s, the discrepant 1 opinions in
reference to it, the improbability of portions of its
historyi ; attacking strongly the external evidence
of prophecy and miracles ; the former on the alleged
want of proof of agreement between prophecy and
its fulfilment ; the latter on the ground of the al
leged circle, that miracles are made to prove doctrine,
and doctrine miracles k . He accordingly rejects- the

b Emile, p. 33 : " Si la matiere mue me montre une volonte, la
matiere mue, selon de certaines lois me montre une intelligence.
C est inon second article de foi."

c P- 34, 36. d P. 40-49- e P- 50-53-

1 P. 57-75- * P- 83-86. " P. 75-119.

* P. 86, &c. * p. 86 .

LECTURE V.

idea of Christianity being necessary to salvation ; but
renders a tribute of praise to its moral precepts, and
regards the gospels, though partly fictitious, as con
taining indestructible moral truths ; and concludes
with the well-known comparison of Socrates to
Christ, showing the stupendous superiority of the
death and example of the latter. " If the death of
Socrates," he says, " was that of a sage, that of Jesus
was that of a God 1 ".

It would have been thought that such teaching as
this would hardly have excited a legal prosecution, in
comparison with the more violent attacks that were
made on religion: but the wide reputation and fas
cinating style of the author, the extraordinary ability
of the work, above all the fact that many of the
previous infidel doctrines had been published with
out the writers names, were the means of subjecting
him to persecution which they escaped. Voltaire
and the infidel party were indignant at Rousseau s
partial acceptance of Christianity. The French clergy
were angry at his rejection of the remainder. The
parliament ordered the book to be burned, and the
author to be imprisoned. Rousseau had to seek
refuge in Switzerland, and there defended his views
of Christianity and miracles in a series of celebrated
letters, which in their political effects have been com
pared with the letters of Junius. Driven out from
Switzerland, he found a shelter in England, with

pp. 105-107.

LECTURE V. 263

Hume ; and, until he could safely return to France,
employed his time in writing his Confessions ; the
celebrated work, a mixture of romance and fact,
which takes its place in the first rank of autobio
graphies, a sad witness to the desperate wickedness
of the human heart, and to the impotence of even
a high moral creed, which we know Rousseau else
where expressed n , in creating morality, without
Christian motives to give practical efficacy to it.

Such was Rousseau, an enemy of artificial society,
of Roman catholic education, and of supernatural
revelation ; yet far removed from Voltaire and the
other infidels, both in tone and literary character .

m The comparison of the statements of the Confessions with
fragments of Rousseau lately published, shows that many statements
which they contain in reference to other persons is false. The
statement in the text is made in deference to the opinion latterly
stated (e. g. in Heine s Allemagne), that there is a general air of
romance pervading the work. If the statements in reference to
himself are untrue, the narrative is only a greater proof of the
immorality of the author. The supposition however seems ground
less. The defender of Rousseau, G. H. Morin (Essai, 1851), does
not exculpate his author by impeaching the historical truthfulness
of the Confessions.

n The high moral standard is not of course seen in the Con
fessions, which show Rousseau to have been the incarnation of
selfishness, and much worse than most of the other unbelievers,
but is exhibited in the Einile. The fact that the author of the
latter work could write the former is a sad example of a man
knowing, like the ancient heathens, how to do good and doing
it not.

Henke (vi. p. 267 seq.) draws out the comparison of Voltaire
with Rousseau in an excellent manner. Coleridge (Friend, vol. i.
165-186) has given a comparison of Voltaire with Erasmus, and of
* Rousseau with Luther.

264 LECTURE V.

While Voltaire aimed only to destroy, Rousseau
sought to reconstruct. Voltaire was a flippant, hasty
reviler of Christianity, without originality in the ma
terial of his works, without depth of soul : Rousseau
was serious, fresh, full of pathos. Voltaire either had
no creed, or thought one unimportant, and was ac
tuated by malignant hatred, against Judaism and
Christianity : Rousseau had a firm creed, and spoke
with decency of the religion which he rejected. Vol
taire was devoid of taste for ancient literature, witty
under a mask, a selfish sycophant to the ancient po
litical regime : Rousseau never denied the authorship
of his writings, was democratic in tastes, and was
the means of exciting a love for antiquity. Finally
rejecting to a great degree the sensational philo
sophy ; rising above it in heart, if not in thought,
Rousseau taught a spiritual philosophy, destined to
bear fruit when the dreams of the revolution had
passed. He stands alone however at present in this
respect, like Montesquieu in politics P and Buffon in
science ; and the course of our history again brings
before us men who must be classed with the mate
rialists that preceded him.

We have stated that by the middle of the century
the infidel writers turned their attention from the
attack on the church to that on the state ; and had
already made such impression on the government,

P See Villemain, i. 14, 15., ii. 22 ; Schlosser, i. 2. 2., 4. 3, and

ii. ,?. 2.

LECTURE V. 265

that it joined them in expelling the Jesuits 1. For
more than a quarter of a century before the revolu
tion the literary writers were infidel. At length
the evils of the state grew incurable, and the storm
of the revolution burst.

It is possible in the present age to take a much
more dispassionate view of that vast event than
was taken by contemporaries 1 ". It can now be ad
justed to its true historic perspective, and its
function in the scheme of history can be clearly
perceived. The vastness of the movement con
sisted in this, that it was at once political, social,
and religious 3 . It aimed at redressing the grievances
under which France had suffered, and reconstructing
society with guarantees for future liberty. It sought
not merely to destroy the feudalism which had out
lived its time, and to equalize the unfair distribution
of the public burdens, as means to accommodate
society to modern wants; but it tried to effect these
changes among a people whose minds were fully per
suaded both that the privileges of particular classes
and the existence of an established religion were the
chief causes of the public misfortune. When so many
movements combined, the catastrophe was intensified.
It is indeed possible now to see that in the end the

q See Buckle, i. (772-783).

r Compare Macaulay s remarks in reference to the Revolution,
Essays (ed. 8vo. 1843), ii. 215, &c.

s For the causes of the revolution compare the statements of
Alison, Hist, of Europe, i. ch. ii. and iii., and Buckle, i. (836-850).

LECTURE V.

solid advantages of the revolution were reaped, while
the mischief was temporary ; but the severity of the
storm while it lasted was increased by the infidel
views with which society had become impregnated.
For the revolution attempted to embody in its poli
tical aspect those poetical but wild theories of so
ciety which sceptical students had taught; and was
founded on the false assumption of the perfectibility
of man, and the perfect goodness of human nature,
except as depraved by human government.

At first, under the National Assembly, the attack
was only made on the property of the church 1 ; but
on the establishment of the Convention, when the
nation had become frantic at the alarm of foreign
invasion, to which the king and clergy were sup
posed to be instrumental, the monarchy was over
thrown, and religion also was declared obsolete. The
municipality and many of the bishops abjured Chris
tianity; the churches were stripped; the images of
the Saviour trampled under foot; and a fete was
held in November 1793 U , in which an opera-dancer,
impersonating Reason as a goddess, was introduced
into the Convention, and then led in procession to
the cathedral of Notre Dame; and there, elevated
on the high altar, took the place of deity, and re
ceived adoration from the audience. The services of

* On the incipient hostility to religion in the National Assembly,
see Alison, vol. ii. ch. v. 46, Id. 32-35. On the full development
of it in the Convention, see Id. iv. ch. xiv. (45-48).

u Nov. 9.

LECTURE V. 2(57

religion were abandoned; the churches were closed;
the sabbath was abolished ; and the calendar altered.
On all the public cemeteries the inscription was
placed, " Death is an eternal sleep." Robespierre
himself saw the necessity for the public recognition
of the being of a God; and after the fall of the
Girondists, obtained an edict for that purpose shortly
before his death, in 1794 ; which event marks the
return of society from atheism and materialism back
to deism x . When the horrors of the dictatorship of
Robespierre closed, and a regular government was
established under the Directory, the priests obtained
liberty to reopen the churches provided they main
tained them at their own expense ^. But the great
majority of the people lived wholly without God in
the world; while some sought refuge in the extrava
gant creed of a deist sect called the Theophilanthro-
pists 2 . Nor was it till the year 1802 that Napoleon
was able, and even then amid much opposition, to
reestablish the Sunday*. Christianity was then re-

x Concerning this act of Robespierre, see Alison, iv. ch. xv. 23,
24, 27.

Y On the state of religion under the Directory, see Alison, vol. v.
ch. xix. 41, and vol. vi. ch. xxiv. 19.

See M. Gregoire s Histoire de la Theopliilanthropie, forming
part of his Histoire des Sectes Relig., and the notice of it in the
Quarterly Review, No. 56. Also the references in Alison, vi. ch.
xxiv. 19; Stalidlin, Geschichte des Rationalismus und Supernat.
1826, (44-54).

a On the state under Napoleon, see Alison, viii. ch. xxxv. i,
and 30-40.

268 LECTUKE V.

inaugurated by a public ceremony b in the cathedral,
polluted eight years before by the blasphemy of the
goddess of Reason. But the total cessation of reli
gious instruction snapped asunder a chain of faith
which had descended unbroken from the first ages ;
and to this must be ascribed the irreligious mode of
spending the Sunday in French society.

The reign of atheism in religion was fortified by a
philosophy ; and the works of one infidel writer pre
serve the expression of the view which it took of
Christianity and religion. As soon as the excitement
of the revolution allowed leisure to return to the
study of mental facts, there arose the extreme form
of sensationalism, which was called (in a different
meaning from the present popular use of the term)
Ideology. (24) Cabanis and Destutt de Tracy are the
best exponents of its physiological and psychological
aspects ; and the well-known Volney of its moral and
religious side. Starting from the principles of Con-
dillac and Helvetius, that the very faculties as well
as ideas are derived from sensation, and moral rules
from self-love, it almost reaches the same point as
D Holbach. Mental science was approached from the
physiological side, and so viewed that mind seemed
to be made a property of brain c .

The chief work in which Volney expresses his un
belief is entitled the " Ruins, or Meditations on the

*&gt; April 1 1, 1802.

c See Morell, Uist. of Phil vol. i. ch. iv. 2.

LECTURE V. 269

Revolutions of Empires d ." It is a poem in prose.
Volney imagines himself falling into a meditation,
amid the ruins of Palmyra, on the fall of empires 6 .
The phantom of the ruins appears, and, entering into
converse with him, causes him to see the kingdoms
of the world, and guides him in the solution of the
mysteries which puzzle him f . It unveils to him the
view of nature as a system of laws, and of man as a
being gifted with self-love. It traces the origin of
society in a manner not unlike Rousseau , and refers
the source of evil to self-love; states the cause of
ancient prosperity and decline, and draws the moral
lesson from the past 11 . While Volney is despondent
at the prospect of the future, a vision is unveiled to
him of a new age. It is of a nation ridding itself of
privileged classes, and arming itself when its young
liberties were threatened by foreign powers 1 . It is
an apocalyptic vision of France in his time. Then
suddenly the vision changes, and an assembly of the
nations of the world is gathered as in one common
arena, to ascertain how they may arrive at unity and
peace k . Their differences are illustrated by the dis
crepant opinions which they utter on religion ; and
the origin of each religion on the earth is traced 1 .

d Les Ruines ou Meditations sur les Revolutions des Empires
(1791). A similar view of religion is taken in Dupuis, Origins de
tons les Cultes, 1795.

e Ch. ii. f Ch. iii. g Ch. v.

h Ch. vii-xii. * Ch. xv. k Ch. xix.

1 Ch. xx. &lt;Src.

270 LECTURE V.

It is here that Volney makes his speaker convey his
own scepticism. He tracks the origin of the reli
gious ideas 111 through the worship prompted by fear
of the physical elements and the stars to that of
symbols or idols P, with its accompanying mysteries
and orders of priests ; and then onward through
dualism 9 to the belief of an unseen world 1 "; then
through mythology 8 and pantheism 1 to the belief in
a Creator"; next, to Jtidaism* as the worship of the
soul of the world ; and lastly, through the Persian y
and Hindu 2 systems to Christianity a ; which he at
tempts to show to be the worship of the sun under
the cabalistic names of Christ and Jesus. Availing
himself of some of the fragments of mythology which
such writers as Eusebius have preserved, and with a
faint perception of the nature of mythology, he tries
to resolve the narrative of the fall of man into solar
mythology ; and, pointing to contact with the Per
sians at the captivity as the source from which the
Jews borrowed their ideas of a symbolic system, he
regards the incarnation and life of Christ as the mis
taken liberalization 011 the part of contemporaries of
their preconceived opinions. The conclusions to which
Volney makes his interlocutor come b is, that nothing
can be true, nothing be a ground of peace and union,

m Ch. xxii. p. 218. n P. 226. P. 232.

p P. 238. q P. 255. r P. 262.

8 P. 268. P. 274. P. 277.

x P. 285. y P. 286. z P. 287.

a P. 288. b Ch. xxiv. p. 320.

LECTURE V. 271

which is not visible to the senses. Truth is con
formity with sensations. The book is interesting as
a work of art; but its analysis of Christianity is so
shocking, that its absurdity alone prevents its be
coming dangerous. It is the most iinblushing attempt
to resolve the noblest of effects into the most absurd
of origins ; and embodies in the consideration of reli
gion the school of philosophy which he represented.

We have now completed the history of unbelief
in France during the eighteenth century. We have
seen how literature gradually emancipated itself
from the power of the court, and, under the influence
of a sceptical stimulus received from the importation
of English free thought, was changed into political
and ecclesiastical antipathy, and acquired a mastery
over the public mind, until it involved the state,
the church, and Christianity, in a common ruin.
History offers no parallel instance of the victory
of unbelief, through the power of the pen, nor of the
union of the political with the theological move
ment, and of the intimate connexion of both with
the current philosophy of the time.

The theological movement has contributed nothing
of permanent literary value. The few apologies
written were unimportant ; and the thoughts of those
who attacked Christianity were neither new nor
characterised by depth. Their criticism was shallow,
and was marked by the featiire of which traces
were observed in a few English authors, the dispo
sition to charge imposture on the writers of the

272 LECTURE V.

holy scriptures ; so that they not only failed to
appreciate the literary excellence of the works, but
scarcely even allowed the possibility of unintentional
deception on the part of the writers. The doubts
were chiefly the reproduction of the English point
of view, with the addition of a few physical diffi
culties c ; protests of free thought against dogma in
natural science. The view entertained concerning
deity was eventually grovelling ; the greatness of
nature seemed to inspire no reverence. Unbelief
gradually lost hold of monotheism ; and in doing so
never ascended in grandeur to the idea of pantheism,
but fell into blank atheism. The theoretical morality
of the English deists, even when depending on ex
pedience, was noble ; but in place of it the French
school presented the lowest form of theory which
ethical science has ever stated, and which finds its
refutation with the philosophy that gave it birth.

No age exhibits a body of sceptical writers whose
characters are so unattractive as the French un
believers; whose coarseness of mind in failing to
appreciate that which is beautiful in Christianity
is so evident, that charity could not forbid us to
doubt, even if there were not independent proof,
that faults of character contributed very largely to
the formation of their unbelief. Nevertheless, the
political aspect of the movement carries a solemn

c Such as the idea of the plurality of worlds suggested by
Fontenelle.

LECTURE V. 273

warning to the Christian church, not to endanger
the everlasting Gospel of the Son of God by making
it the buttress to support corrupt political and
ecclesiastical institutions. It is true that Christ will
not abandon his true church. Whatever is divine
and eternally true will always as in this case sur
vive the catastrophe. But this period of history
shows that Providence wih 1 not work a miracle to
save religion from a temporary eclipse, if the church
forgets that Christ s kingdom is not of this world ;
and that the mission which he has given it is to
convert souls to him; and that learning and piety
are intellectual and moral means for effecting this
object d . The political faults or shortcomings of the
church are no apology for the infidelity of France;
but they must be taken into account in explaining
its intensity.

A theological movement so vast could not fail
to exercise an influence in other lands. Incidental
allusions have already been made to its effects at
the court of Prussia e , and to the traces of its tone
in some of the later of the English deists.

The remainder of this lecture will be employed
in tracing the history of free thought in England,
from the date at which the narrative was inter
rupted to a little later than the end of the century ;

&lt;l The apologetic literature of this period of the French church is
not powerful. See Buckle, i. 692, note ; and Alison, i. 2. 62.
e The influence on Germany will be seen in Lect. VI.

274 LECTURE V.

especially noticing the mode in which it was influ
enced by the movement in France.

It will be remembered that we brought down
the history of it as far as Hume f . We paused
there, because deism then ends as a literary move
ment. Politics and new forms of literature absorbed
the mind. Free thought continued to exist ; but it
was less frequently expressed in literature, and was
considerably modified by foreign influences. In
Gibbon, about 1776, the ancient spirit of deism, the
spirit of Bolingbroke, speaks, but the form is
changed. Instead of denying Christianity on a
priori moral considerations, he feels bound to ex
plain facts. The attack is not so much moral as
historic. The inquiry into historical origines as well
as logical causes has commenced. The mode of attack
too has changed, as well as the point from which it
is made. The French influence is visible in the
satire and irony prevalent. There is no longer the
bitter moral indignation of the early English deists,
but the sneer that marks the spirit of contempt.
Fear and hatred of Christianity have given way to
philosophical contempt. (25)

In Thomas Paine, who wrote in France in the
midst of the meeting of the French Convention, we
meet a nearer reproduction of the spirit of early
English deism, but he has even more than Gibbon
caught the spirit of the French movement. Gibbon s

In Lect. IV.

LECTURE V. 275

scepticism is that of high life ; Paine s of low. The
one writer sneers, the other hates. The one is a
philosopher, the other a politician. Paine represents
the infidel movement of England when it had spread
itself among the lower orders, and mingled itself
with the political dissatisfaction for which unhappily
there was supposed to be some ground. Paine s
spirit is that of English deism animated by the poli
tical exasperation which had characterised the French.
His doctrines come from English deism ; his bitter
ness from Voltaire ; his politics from Rousseau.

Within the limits of the present century two
other traces are found of the influence of the French
school of infidelity, which therefore ought logically
to be comprised with it. The one is political, the
other literary; viz. the socialist schemes of Owen,
which in some respects seem to be derived by direct
lineage from Paine, and the expression of unbelief
in the poetry of Byron and Shelley.

We must briefly notice these writers in succession.

The first in the series is Gibbon g . Though he has
left an autobiography, he has not fully unveiled the
causes which shook his faith, and made him turn
deist. We can however collect that the reaction
from the doubts suggested by the perusal of Middle-
ton s work on the subject of the cessation of mira
cles, then recently brought into notoriety, (26) turned
him to the church of Rome ; and that his residence

% Gibbon (1737-1794). See Autobiography (Milman s edition
1839), ch.iii. p. 73, &c.

T 2

276 LECTUKE V.

abroad and familiarity with French literature caused
him to drift afterwards into the opposite extreme of
scepticism. He did not become an atheist, like some
of the French writers whom we have been studying :
but he seems to have given up the belief in the
divine origin of Christianity; and he manifested the
spirit of dislike and insinuation common in the un
belief of the time.

He did not write expressly against Christianity;
but the subject came across his path in travelling
over the vast space of time which he embraced in
his magnificent History of the Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire. It is a subject of regret to be
compelled to direct hostile remarks against one who
has deserved so well of the world. That work,
though in the pageantry of its style 1 it in some sense
reflects the art and taste of the age in which it was
written, yet in its love of solid information and deep
research it is the noblest work of history in the
English tongue. Grand alike in its subject, its
composition, and its perspective, it has a right to a
place among the highest works of human conception ;
and sustains the relation to history which the works
of Michael Angelo bear to art. In the fifteenth and
sixteenth chapters of this work, Gibbon had occasion
to discuss the origin of Christianity, and assigned five
causes for its spread ; viz. its internal doctrine, and

1 Cfr. some remarks (p. 27, 28,) in an instructive paper on Gibbon
in the National Review, No. 3, on the relation of his method and
style to his age.

LECTUEE V. 277

organization, miracles, Jewish zeal, and excellence of
Christian morals. The chapters were received with
denunciations. Yet those k who in later times have
re-examined Gibbon s statements candidly admit that
they can find hardly any errors of fact or intentiona
mis-statement of circumstances.

The great mistake which he commits is obvious,
and the cause hardly less so. The mistake is two
fold : first, he attributes to the earliest period of
Christianity that which was only true of a later ;
and secondly, he confounds the circumstances of
the spread of Christianity with the cause which gave
it force ! . The powerful influence of the causes which
he specifies cannot be doubted m ; and we may hold
it to be not derogatory to our religion that it admits
of union with every class of efficient causes ; and
adapts itself so fully to man s wants, as to accept the
support of ordinary sources of influence. But the
causes which he alleges operated far less strongly,
and some of them not at all, in the primitive age
of Christianity. The discussion of this period lay
beyond Gibbon s purpose; and as he dwelt wholly on
the aspects of a later age, he has left the impression
that the earliest age partook of the same character
istics. Nor is he correct in regarding the five causes

^ Milmaii and Guizot.

1 The first of these is explained by Dr. Milmaii, Preface to edition
of Gibbon, p. 10, and the article in the Quarterly Review, No. 100.

m Cfr. Mackintosh (Life, i. 244), quoted by Milman in his edition
of Gibbon, c. xv. first note.

278 LECTUKE V.

as solely efficient. There is a subtler force at work,
of the operation of which they exhibit only the con
ditions. They reveal the mechanism, but do not
explain the principle. Without judging him as a
theologian in omitting the theological cause for an
alleged supernatural power, he must be censured as
a historian in failing to appreciate the spiritual
movement at work in Christianity, the deep excite
ment of the spiritual faculty, the yearning of the
mind after truth and holiness. The same fault is
observable in his appreciation of religion generally,
and not merely of Christianity. With the want of
spiritual perception common to his age, he had not
the ethical sensibility to appreciate the internal part
of a religious system ; and hence he regards un
worldly phenomena in the tone of the political world
of his time.

In pointing out his errors, we have hinted at their
causes. The coldness which scepticism and sensa
tional philosophy" had induced in his mind, which
could kindle into warmth in describing the greatness
either of men or of events, but not in depicting the
moral excellence of Christianity, was but the reflec
tion of the cold hatred of religious enthusiasm com
mon in his day. Nor would the historic views of

n The remarks which follow are partly taken from the above-
named article in the National Review (pp. 33-36). Nearly the
same thing is said by Miss Hennell in the fifth Baillie Prize Essay
on the early Christian anticipation of the end of the world, 1860, a
treatise which in other respects is very objectionable.

LECTUBE V. -279

primitive Christianity commonly entertained in his
time tend to dissipate his error. For it was usual
in that age of evidences to regard the early converts
as cold and cautious inquirers, accustomed to weigh
evidences and suggest doubts. In attempting to
discover the doctrines and discipline of the English
church in apostolic times, there was a danger of
transferring the notions of modern decorum to the
marvellous outburst of enthusiastic piety and super
natural mystery which attended the communication
of the heaven-sent message ; and therefore it is some
palliation for Gibbon that he too failed to perceive
that those were times of excitement, when new ideas
fell on untried minds and yearning hearts. And it is
a remarkable proof of the improved general concep
tion which men now entertain of Christianity, that
no apprehension of danger is now felt from Gibbon s
views. The youngest student has imbibed a reli
gious spirit so much deeper, that he cannot fail in
stinctively to perceive their insufficiency as an expla
nation of the phenomena .

One of our great poets has celebrated the two
literary exiles of the Leman lake P. But how differ
ent are our feelings in respect of them in relation to
this subject ! Both were deists ; but the one dedi
cated his life to a crusade against Christianity, the

Bp. Watson s Apology for Christianity was a reply to Gibbon,
1776. Dean Milmau s notes to chapters xv. and xvi. of Gibbon are
an excellent comment and criticism.

P Byron, CMlde Harold, iii, 105-108.

280 LECTUKE V.

other only insinuated a few slight hints : the one
derived his faults from himself, the other from his
age : the one, the type of subtlety, acted by his pen
on the world political; the other, the type of in
dustry, sought to instruct the student. The writings
of Voltaire remain as works of power, but not of
information : Gibbon s history will endure as long
as the English tongue

Paine is a character of a very different kind from
the freethinker last named q . Instead of the polished
scholar, the polite man of letters, and the historian,
like Gibbon, we see in him an active man of the world,
educated by men rather than books, of low tastes
and vulgar tone, the apostle alike of political revo
lution and infidelity. Though a native of England,
his earliest life was spent in America at the time of
the war of independence. Returning to England
with the strong feelings of liberty and freedom which
had marked the revolt of the colonies, he wrote at
the time of the outbreak of the French revolution a
work called the Bights of Man, in reply to Burke s
criticism on that event. Prosecuted for this work,
he fled to France, and was distinguished by being
the only foreigner save one r elected to the French
Convention. During its session he composed the

q Paine (1737-1809), published Rights of Man, 1790 ; Age of
Reason, 1794. See the life by Cheetham, 1809, and Chalmers s
Biographical Dictionary. Bp. Watson s Apology for the Bible was
a reply to Paine (1796).

r Anacharsia Clootz.

LECTUEE V. 281

infidel work called the Age of Reason, by which his
name has gained an unenviable notoriety ; and after
the alteration of political circumstances in France,
he returned to America, and there dragged out a
miserable existence, indebted in his last illness for
acts of charity to disciples of the very religion that
he had opposed.

The two works, the Rights of Man, and the Age
of Reason, being circulated widely in England by
the democratic societies of that period, contributed
probably more than any other books to stimulate
revolutionary feeling in politics and religion 8 . This
popularity is owing partly to the character of the
language and ideas, partly to the state of public
feeling. Manifesting much plebeian simplicity of
speech and earnestness of conviction, they gave ex
pression in coarse Saxon words to thoughts which
were then passing through many hearts. They were
like the address of a mob-orator in writing, and fell
upon ground prepared. Political reforms had been
steadily resisted ; and accordingly, when the success
of foreign revolution had raised men s spirits to the
highest point of impatience, the middle classes, which
wanted a moderate reform, were unfortunately

s The danger arising from republican clubs is described in Alison,
iv. ch. xvi. 6 ; and in W. Hamilton Reed s Rise and Dissolution of
Infidel Societies in the Metropolis, 1800. See also the Report of the
Committee of the House of Lords on them, 1801. The works of
Godwin on Political Justice, 1793, and of Mary Woolstencraft on
the Rights of Women, are generally adduced as illustrations of the
prevalence of French political principles at that time in England.

282 LECTURE V.

thrown on the side of the wild and anarchical
spirits that wished for utter revolution. The church,
by holding with the state, was partly involved in the
same obloquy. Paine s works, resembling Rousseau s
in purpose, though quite opposite in style, were as
much adapted to the lower classes of England as his
to the polished upper classes of France.

The Age of Reason, was a pamphlet admitting
of quick perusal. It was afterwards followed by
a second part, in which a defence was offered
against the replies made to the former part. The
object of the two is to state reasons for reject
ing the Bible 1 , and to explain the nature of the
religion of deism", which was proposed as a substi
tute. A portion is devoted to an attack on the
external evidence of revelation, or, as the author
blasphemously calls it x , "the three principal means
of imposture," prophecy, miracles, and mystery ; the
latter of which he asserts may exist in the physical,
but not by the nature of things in the moral world.
A larger portion is devoted to a collection of the
various internal difficulties of the books of the Old
and New Testament, and of the schemes of religion,
Jewish and Christian v . The great mass of these
objections are those which had been suggested by
English or French deists, but are stated with ex
treme bitterness. The most novel part of this work

1 Part i. pp. 3-19, and part ii. pp. 8-83.

u Part i. pp. 3, 4 21-50; part ii. pp. 83-93.

x P. 44. y Part ii. pp. 10-83.

LECTURE V. 283

is the use which Paine makes of the discoveries of
astronomy 2 in revealing the vastness of the universe
and a plurality of globes, to discredit the idea of
interference on behalf of this insignificant planet,
an argument which he wields especially against the
doctrine of incarnation. But no part of his work
manifests such bitterness, and at the same time such
a specious mode of argument, as his attack on the
doctrine of redemption and substitutional atone
ment a . The work, in its satire and its blasphemous
ribaldry, is a fit parallel to those of Voltaire. Every
line is fresh from the writer s mind, and written with
an acrimony which accounts for much of its influence.
The religion which Paine substituted for Christianity
was the belief in one God as revealed by science, in
immortality as the continuance of conscious exist
ence, in the natural equality of man, and in the
obligation of justice and mercy to one s neighbour 13 .

The influence of the spirit of Paine lingered in
some strata of our population far into the present
century : by means of the views of Owen c , the

z Part i, pp. 37-44. This difficulty, first suggested by Fontenelle,
is met in tlie eloquent Astronomical Discourses (1822) of Chalmers.
The controversy has been newly opened by the brilliant essay on
the Plurality of Worlds (1853), supposed to be by Dr. Whewell, and
pursued by Dr. Brewster (More Worlds than One), Professor Baden
Powell (Essays on the Order of Nature), and by Professor H. S.
Smith in the Oxford Essays, 1855.

a Page 20. b p art i. pp . 3&gt; 4 ; p. 50.

c Robert Owen (1771-1858). About the year 1800 he became
known in connexion with schemes of industrial reform at the Lanark

284 LECTURE V.

founder of English socialism, which essentially repro
duce the visionary political reforms which belonged to
the philospohy and to the doubt of the last century.

Being desirous to improve the condition of the
industrial classes, Owen speculated on the causes of
evil ; and, approaching the subject from the extreme
sensational point of view, regarded the power of cir
cumstances to be so great, that he was led to regard
action as the obedience to the strongest motive.
He thus introduced the idea of physical causa
tion into the human will ; and made the rule of right
to be each one s own pleasures and pains. Founding
political inferences on this ethical theory of circum
stantial fatalism, he proposed the system called so
cialism, which aimed at modifying temptations and
removing two great classes of temptations, by facili
tating divorce, and proposing equality of property.

mills; and from 1813-19 conducted them as a social experiment to
carry out his views. He attempted also to spread his opinions in Ame
rica. After his return to England, by means of lectures and his work,
The New Moral World, he taught them in the manufacturing towns ;
and they were widely spread about the time of the Chartist move
ment (1839-41). His opinions may be learned from his Essays
on the Formation of Character (1818), which explain his Lanark
system ; and especially his New Moral World, published about
1839. His religious opinions may be gathered from the Debate on
the Evidences and on Society with A. Campbell, 1839. His auto
biography was published in 1857, an d a review of his philosophy by
W. L. Sargeant, 1860. An article also related to him in the West
minster Review for Oct. 1860. See also Morell s History of Philo
sophy, i. 386 seq. Mr. R. Dale Owen, son of the above, published
several deist tracts in America, from about 1840-44.

LECTURE V. 285

The system is now obsolete both in idea and in
history, yet it has an interest from the circumstance
that until recently it deceived the minds and cor
rupted the religious faith of many of the manu
facturing population.

The history of the influence of French infidelity
on the course of English thought closes with names
of greater note d . If Owen, though belonging to the
present century, represents the political tone of the
past, we must also refer to the same period, morally
though not chronologically, the spirit of unbelief
which animated literature in the poetry of Byron
and Shelley.

Saddened by blighted hopes, political and per
sonal, Byron affords a type of the unbelief which is
marked by despair 6 . If compared with the two
exiles of the Leman lake, whom the sympathy of a
common scepticism and common exile commended
to his meditation, he stands in many respects widely
contrasted with them in tone and spirit. Allied
rather to Gibbon in seriousness, he nevertheless
wholly lacked his moral purpose and resolute spirit
of perseverance. More nearly resembling Voltaire in

d It has been considered unnecessary to name three other unim
portant writers, Brough, Farmer, a writer on the subject of Demoniacs,
and Carlisle, who was prosecuted in 1830.

e Byron (1788-1824). The Vision of Judgment, written in
1821, has been already referred to in Lecture III. as a vehicle for
sceptical banter. For a brief comparison between the scepticism of
Byron and Shelley, see remarks in the Westminster Review, April
1841, by Mr. G. H. Lewes.

286 LECTURE V.

the nature of his unbelief, he nevertheless differed
in the features of gloom by which his mind was
characterized. His unbelief was a remnant of the
philosophic atheism of France ; but it received a
tinge in passing through the wounded mind of the
poet.

His brother poet, of a still loftier genius, is more
widely contrasted with him in mental qualities, than
united by similarity in the character of his unbelief.
Both were weary of the world ; but the one was
drawn down by unbelief to earth, the other soared
into the ideal : the one was driven to the gloom of
despair, the other was excited by the imagination
to the madness of enthusiasm : the one was made
sad by disappointment, the other was goaded by it
into frenzy.

Shelley merits more than a passing notice, both
because his poetry is a proof of our main position
concerning the influence of certain forms of philoso
phy in producing unbelief, and because his mental
history, as learned by means of his works and me
moirs, is a psychological study of the highest value.
The infidelity which shows itself in him is an idolum
speeds, as well as an idolum theatric

His life, his natural character, and his philosophy,
all contributed to form his scepticism f . His life is a

e Bacon, Nov. Org. Aph. 52, 53.

f Shelley (1792-1822). The materials are abundant for under
standing the character and works of Shelley, in biographies both
friendly and hostile. The second edition of the Shelley Memorials,

LECTURE V. 287

tale of sorrow and rained hopes, of genius without
wisdom : one of the sad stories which will ever ex
cite the sympathy of the heart. Early sent to this
university, he seems like Gibbon to have lived alone ;
and in the solitude of that impulsive and recluse spirit
which formed his life-long peculiarity, to have nursed
a spirit of atheism and wild schemes of reform.
Charged by the authorities of his college with the
authorship of an atheistic pamphlets, he was ex
pelled the university. An outcast from his family,
he went forth to suffer poverty, to gather his live
lihood as he could by the wonderful genius which
nature had given him. Wronged as he thought by
his university and his country, his wounded spirit
imputed the supposed unkindness which he received
to the religion which his enemies professed. In a
foreign land, brooding over his wrongs, he cherished
the bitter antipathy to priestcraft and to monarchy
which finds such terrific expression in his poems 11 .
His end was a fit close of a tragic life. A friendly
hand paid the last office of friendship to his remains ;

by lady Shelley, 1859, contains an essay on Christianity by him.
Several important articles in Reviews have been published in refer
ence to him, among which it is desirable to call attention to the
one in the National Revieiv, No. 6, Oct. 1856., which contains a very
instructive analysis of his mental and moral character. It has been
used in the few remarks which follow.

S The pamphlet appears to have been an anonymous statement of
the weakness of the argument for the existence of deity ; negative
rather than positive. See the account of the transaction and its
results in T. J. Hogg s Life of Shelley, 1858, vol. i. pp. (269-286).

h E. g. in the Ode to Liberty (15 and 16), written in 1820.

288 LECTUKE V.

and the urn which contains the ashes of his pyre
rests in the solemn and beautiful cemetery of the
eternal city, which he himself had described so
strikingly in his affecting memorial of his friend, the
poet Keats .

His natural character contributed to produce his
scepticism not less than his life to increase it. He has
left us a clear delineation of himself in his writings.
If considered on the emotional side, he was a creature
of impulses. His predominant passion was an enthu
siastic desire to reform the world. Filled with the
wildest ideas of the French revolution, his impulsive
ness hurried him on to give expression to them. His
intellectual nature was analogous to the moral, and
itself received a stimulus from it. His mental pecu
liarity was his power of sustained abstraction. His
poems are not lyrics of life, but of an ideal world.
His tendency was to insulate qualities or feelings,
and hold them up to the mental vision as person
alities. The words which he has addressed to his
own skylark fitly describe his mind as it soared in
the solitude of its abstraction :

Higher still and higher

From the earth thou springest,
# * * * *

And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
It has been well observed, that this tendency of

i In the Adonais, 49-51. For Shelley s own cremation and
burial, see the Memorials by lady Shelley, p, 201.

LECTUEE V. 289

the mind to personify isolated qualities or impulses,
was essentially the mythological tendency k which had
created the religion and expressed itself in the poetry
of the Greeks, and possibly contributed to foster
Shelley s sympathies with heathen religion. His mind
was peculiarly Greek, simple not complex, imagina
tive rather than fanciful, abstract not concrete, intel
lectual not emotional; wanting the many-sidedness
of modern taste, partaking of the unity of science
rather than the multiformity of nature, like sculp
ture rather than painting. This mental peculiarity
contributed to scepticism by inclining his mind to
the pantheistic philosophy, which can never be held
save by those whose minds can give being to an
abstraction, and is revolting to those who are deeply
touched with the Hebrew consciousness of person
ality and of duty. His philosophy was at first a
form of naturalism, which identified God with nature,
and made body and spirit co-essential. In this stage
he oscillated between the belief of half personified
self-moved atoms, or a general pervading spirit of
nature. From this stage he passed into a new one,
by contact with the philosophy of Hume; and, while
admitting the diversity of matter and spirit, yet
denied the substantial reality of both. In this state
of mind he studied the philosophy of Plato, which
was originally designed for doubters somewhat ana
logous to him ; and he readily imbibed the theory

k This is well put in the Keview above quoted, (p 356).

200 LECTURE V.

that the passing phenomena are types of eternal
archetypes, embodiments of eternal realities. But
it was Plato s view of the universe that he accepted,
not his view of man ; his metaphysics, not his ethics.
In none of these three theories is the rule of the uni
verse ascribed to a character, but in each to animated
abstractions. They are a pantheistic or mythological
view of things 1 . Nor was the effect of this phi
losophy merely theoretical, for the distorted view of
the physical and moral cosmos led him to believe
that both should be regulated by the same condi
tions ; that men should have the unconstrained
liberty which he thought he saw in material things.
Like Rousseau, ascribing moral evil to the artificial
laws of society, Shelley proposed to substitute a new
order of things, in which man should be emancipated
from kings and priests. This philosophy also in
creased his hatred against the moral order of the
world, and especially against Christianity ; and led
him to regard it as the offshoot of superstition and
the impediment to progress. Yet even here, while
echoing the irreverent doctrines of the French revo
lution, he bore an unconscious witness to the majesty
of the Christian virtues, in that he could find no
nobler type with which to invest his ideal race of men.

1 The Reviewer thinks that the first stage was in tone like Lucre
tius, i. e. Epicureanism. The second and third are described here in
the text. The Queen Mab (end of first division) expressed the first
stage ; the first speech of Ahasuerus in the Hellas is a specimen of
the second ; and the Adonais (43 and 52) of the third.

LECTURE V. 291

We have dwelt long on Shelley, as a most in
structive example for observing the various influ
ences, personal and social, intellectual and moral,
philosophical and political, combining to form unbe
lief. His thoughts are the last echo of the unbelief
of the last century. The great movement of Ger
many has completely changed the scepticism of the
present. The instances that we have found of unbe
lief in England were indications of a tendency rather
than a movement. They were however of sufficient
importance to call forth the voices of the church in
reply or in protest.

It has been remarked, that in the former half of the
eighteenth century the attack was chiefly directed
against the internal doctrines and narratives of reve
lation, on the assumption that they clashed with the
judgment of common sense, or of the moral faculty.
And therefore the writers on the evidences, adapting
their defence to the attack, employed themselves
chiefly in establishing the internal evidences, the
moral need of a revelation generally, and the suit
ability of the Christian in particular, before pro
ducing the divine testimony which authenticates it.
But about the middle of this century the historic
spirit arose, and the point of attack shifted to an
assault on the historic value of the literature which
contains the revelation. The question thenceforth
became a literary one, whether there was docu
mentary proof that a revelation had been given.

u 2

292 LECTURE V.

The defence accordingly ceased to be philosophical,
and became historical" 1 .

Opinions have changed with regard to the value
of evidences in general, and the historic form of them
in particular. When Boyle n at the end of the seven
teenth century, and Bampton and Hulse in the latter
half of the eighteenth, established their respective
lectures, they looked forward to the probability of
the occurrence of new forms of doubt, and to the
importance of reasoning as the weapon for meeting
them. In more recent times evidences have been
undervalued, through the two opposite tendencies
of the present age, the churchly and corporate ten
dency on the one hand, which rests on church
authority, and the individualising tendency on the
other, which rests on intuitive consciousness . Evi
dences essentially belong to a theory, which places
the test of truth objectively in a revealed book,

m This contrast however in the evidences, though true in a general
way, must not be pressed so as to imply an absolutely denned line
of chronological separation between the two classes of evidence.

n Kobert Boyle died in 1692, and founded the lecture by his last
will. The lectures commenced in the same year. Bampton s were
founded in 1751 ; but none delivered till 1780. Hulse died in
1790 ; but the lectures did not commence till 1820. A list of the
lectures delivered in each series may be found in Darling s Cyclo-
pcedia Bibliographica.

The remarks on evidence in Nos. 73 and 84 of the Tracts for the
Times, and the tone assumed by the ultramontane writers of France,
are instances of the undervaluing evidences from the former causes.
The deist literature of the last century, and the writings of Carlyle
in the present, are instances of that which arises from the latter.

LECTUEE V. 293

and subjectively in the reason, as the organ for
discovering morality and interpreting the book P.
While evidences in general have been undervalued
for these reasons, the historic branch of them has
been regarded as obsolete, because having reference
only to an age which doubts the documents and
charges the authors with being deceivers or deceived,
and unavailing, like an old fortification, against a
new mode of assault. This latter statement is
in substance correct. It lessens the value of this
argument as a practical weapon against the doubts
which now assail us, but does not detract from the
literary value of the works in the special branch to
which they apply. If the progress of knowledge be
the exciting cause of free thought, a similar altera
tion in the evidences would be expected to occur
from causes similar to those which produce an
alteration in the attack, independently of the change
which occurs from the necessity of adjusting the
one to the other.

Abstract questions like this concerning the value
of evidences find their solution independently of
the human will. The human mind cannot be
chained. New knowledge will suggest new doubts ;
and if so, spirit must be combated by spirit. De
fences of Christianity, attempts to readjust it to
new discoveries, must therefore continue to the end

P i. e. They belong essentially to the protestant stand-point in
theology.

294 LECTURE V.

of time. In reference to the minor question of the
value of the historic evidences, it is important to
remember that these grand works are not simply
refutative ; they are indirectly instructive and di
dactic. Just as miracles are a part of Christianity,
as well as evidences for its truth, so apologetic is a
lesson in Christianity, as well as a reply to doubt ^.
It happens also that the most modern doubt of
Germany has assumed the historic line, has become
critical instead of philosophical ; arid, though the
criticism is primarily of a different kind, it ulti
mately becomes capable of refutation by the very
line of argument used in the eighteenth century r .
We cherish therefore with devout reverence the
memory of those writers who employed the power
of the pen to defend the religion that they loved.
They joined their intellectual labours to the spi
ritual earnestness which was the other weapon for
opposing unbelief. Providence blessed their work.
They sowed the seed of the intellectual and spiritual
harvest which this century is reaping. " And herein

q See above, p. 225. The view which Blunt took of the evi
dences is given in his Essays, p. 133, reprinted from the Quar
terly Review, April 1828.

r The controversy raised by the Tubingen school refers to the
date of books of the New Testament which testify to facts and
doctrines. Supposing this primary question settled in favour of
our commonly received view, then the further question follows con
cerning the honesty and opportunity of information of the narrators ;
and it is here that the arguments of Lyttleton, Lardner, and Paley,
in the last century, find their proper place, See below, Lect. VIII.

LECTURE V. 295

is that saying true, One soweth and another reapeth.
I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no
labour : other men laboured, and ye are entered into
their labours. And he that reapeth receiveth wages,
and gathereth fruit unto life eternal ; that both
he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice
together s ."

John iv. 37, 38, 36,

LECTURE YL

FREE THOUGHT IN THE THEOLOGY OF GERMANY FROM 1750-1835.

Phil. iv. 8.

Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, what
soever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report ;
if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these

W E are about to study the history of the move
ment in German theology, which is usually described
by the vague name of Rationalism a , a movement
which, whether viewed specially in its relation to
theology, or to literature generally, must be regarded
as one of the most memorable efforts of human
thought. It was one aspect of the great outburst
of mental activity in Germany, which within the last
hundred years has created a literature, which not

a On Rationalism see Note 21.

LECTUEE VI. 297

only vies with the most renowned of those which
have added to the stock of human knowledge, but
holds a foremost rank among those which are cha
racterised by originality and depth. The permanent
contribution made by it to the thought of the world
is the creation of a science of criticism, a method
of analysis, in which philosophy and history are
jointly employed in the investigation of every branch
of knowledge. If however it be viewed apart from
the question of utility, the works produced during
this period, in poetry, speculation, criticism, and theo
logy, must ever make it memorable for monuments
of mental power, even when they shall have become
obsolete as sources of information.

The theological aspect of this great period of
mental activity, which we are about to sketch, has
now probably so far assumed its final shape, and
given indications of the tendencies permanently
created by it for good or for evil, that it admits of
being viewed as a whole, and its purpose and mean
ing observed b .

We shall deviate slightly from the plan hitherto
pursued, of selecting only the sceptical form of free
thought, and shall give an outline of German theo
logy generally ; partly because the limits that sever
orthodoxy from heresy are a matter of dispute,
partly in order that the movement may be judged
of as a whole. The size of the subject will preclude

** The sources for the knowledge of this period are briefly stated
in the Preface to these lectures.

298 LECTUKE VI.

the possibility of entering so fully into biographical
notices of the writers, or into the analysis of their
writings, as in former lectures. We must select
such typical minds as will enable us to observe the
chief tendencies of thought.

As the stages of history are not arbitrarily severed,
but grow out of each other, we must briefly notice
the mental conditions of the period in Germany
which preceded the rise of rationalism ; next indicate
the new forces, the introduction of which was the
means of generating the movement ; and then ex
plain the movement itself in its chief phases and
present results.

We have previously had occasion to imply, that
the Protestant reformation of the sixteenth century
contained both an intellectual and a spiritual ele
ment . The attempt to reconcile these has been
the problem of protestant theology in Germany ever
since. The intellectual element, so far as it was
literary, soon passed into the hands of lay scholars d :
the spiritual became a life rather than a doctrine,
and the polemic or dogmatic aspect of the intellectual
movement alone was left. The time from the passing

c See p. 12, 138, Hundeshagen (Der Deutsclie Prot. 13) insists
on the prime importance of the spiritual element as the moving
force in the Reformation.

d Melancthon and Camerarius, Calvin and Beza, represent the
union of learning with theology ; the second Scaliger, the Ste-
phenses, Casaubon, and others, are instances of the great lay
scholars.

LECTURE VI, 299

of the Formula of Concord and the Synod of Dort e
to the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period
nearly corresponding with the seventeenth century,
was in Germany an age of dogmatic theology. It
was scholasticism revived, with the difference that
the only source for the data of argument was the
Scripture, not philosophy. But there was an equal
absence of inquiry into first principles, an equal
appeal to authority for the grounds of belief, and
equal activity within these prescribed limits. It
was marked, as among the contemporary puritans in
England, by the most extreme view of biblical in
spiration^ Not only was the distinction of law and

e The date of the former is 1577; of the latter 1618. These are
named as the events from which the theology in the Lutheran and
Calvinistic churches respectively became fixed. Buddeus (Isagoge,
p. 239) dates it rather from the confession of Katisbon, 1601. On
this dogmatic period see Der Deutsche Prot. 9 j Hagenbach s
Dogmengesch. 216-18; Amand Sainte s Critical History of Na
tionalism (transl.) ch. v. and vi ; Pusey s Historical Inquiry, part i.
pp. (1-52), part ii. ch. viii. and ix. (1830). It was this period which
produced the various books of Loci Communes Theologici. The
only exception to this scholastic spirit was Calixt. and the school
of Helmstadt, which in tone was like the school of Saumur,
(Cameron, Amyrauld, and Placaeus,) or like Baxter, the controversies
connected with which prove the rule. On it see Schroch, Ohristliche
Kirchengescliichte seit der Reformation (1804), viii. 243 seq. On
the theologians of this period see Weismann, Introd. in Memorabilia
Eccles. Hist. (1718), p. 919 seq.

f This view of inspiration is stated in Quenstedt s Syst. Theol., and
Calov s Syst. Theol. i. 554 seq., about the end of the seventeenth
century. Dr. Pusey (part i. 1 40) refers to passages of Semler s Lebens-
Beschreibung illustrative of these opinions in the German church of

300 LECTURE VI.

gospel overlooked, and the historic and providential
development in revelation forgotten ; but Scripture
was supposed to be in all respects a guide for the
present, as well as a record of the past. Infallible
inspiration was attributed to the authors of the
sacred books, not merely in reference to the religious
instruction which formed the appropriate matter
of the supernatural revelation, but in reference also
to the allusions to collateral subjects, such as natural
science, or politics; and not merely to the matter,
but to the smallest details of the language of the
books.

Contemporary with this scholastic spirit was an
outburst of the living spiritual feeling which had
formed the other element in the Reformation. This
religious movement is denominated Pietism (27).
Its centre was at Halle; and the best known name
among the band of saints, of whom the world was
not worthy, was Spener. Soon after the time when
the miseries of the thirty years war were closing, he
established schools for orphans, and a system of
teaching and of religious living which stirred up
religious life in Germany. These two tendencies
the dogmatic and the pietistic marked the religious
life of Germany at the opening of the eighteenth

that period. On the similar controversy which existed in the
French protestant church see note above, p. 158. This is only one
instance among many of the close analogy which exists in the
development of thought between the reformed churches in different
lands.

LECTURE VI. 301

century. The inference has been frequently drawn
by the German writers, that they ministered indi
rectly to the production of scepticism ; the dogmatic
strictness stimulating a reaction towards latitude of
opinion, and the unchurchlike and isolating character
of pietism fostering individuality of belief. This in
ference is however hardly correct. Dogmatic truth
in the corporate church, and piety in the individual
members, are ordinarily the safeguard of Christian
faith and life. The danger arose in this case from
the circumstance that the dogmas were emptied of
life, and so became unreal; and that the piety, being
separated from theological science, became insecure.

During the first half of the century certain new
influences were introduced, which in the latter half
caused these tendencies to develope into rationalism.
They may be classed as three ; the spread of the
speculative philosophy of Wolff; the introduction
of the works of the English deists ; and the influ
ence of the colony of French infidels established by
Frederick the Great in Prussia. We shall explain
these in detail.

The philosophy of Wolff was an offshoot directly
from Leibnitz, indirectly from the Cartesian school.
It is hardly necessary to reiterate the remark that
the revolution in thought wrought by Descartes
was nothing less than a protest of the human mind

8 These are the chief influences which the German writers enu
merate. See Tholuck, ii. 2-5, Kahnis, History of German Protest.
(transl. 1856) i. i.

302 LECTURE VI.

against any external authority for the first principles
of its belief. Two great philosophers followed out
his method in an independent manner ; Spinoza,
who attempted to exhibit with the rigour of de
duction the necessary development of the idea of
substance into the various modes which it assumes ;
and Leibnitz h , who, with less attempt at formal
precision of method, starting with the idea of power,
endeavoured, by means of the monadic theory, which
it is unnecessary here to explain, to exhibit the
nature of the universe in itself, and the connexion
of the world of matter and of spirit. Wolff was
a disciple of Leibnitz ; great as a teacher rather
than an inventor, who invested the system of his
master slightly modified, with the precision of form
which raised it to rivalry with the perfect symmetry
of Spinoza s system. Adopting his master s two
great canons of truth, the law of contradiction as
regulative of thoughts, and the law of the sufficient
reason as regulative of things l , he attempted in his
theoretic philosophy to work out a regular system
on each of the great branches of metaphysic, nature,

11 On Leibnitz and his system see Tennemann, Geschichte xi. 93
seq. ; Bitter s Christliche Phil. viii. 47 seq. ; Benouvier, Phil. Mod.
(27890); and especially Maine de Biran s Life of Leibnitz in the
Biographie Universelle. Also Morell s History of Philosophy, i.
220, and H. Bogers s Essays (Essay on Leibnitz), reprinted from
the Edinburgh Review, July 1846.

i On these canons see Sir W. Hamilton s Lectures on Logic, vol. i.
lect. vi ; Hansel s Prolegomena, ch. vi. ; and Mills s Logic, vol. ii. b. v.
ch. iii. 5.

LECTURE VI. 303

the mind, and God ; by deducing them from the
abstract ideas of the human mind k . The true
method of conducting this inquiry would be strictly
an a posteriori one, an analytical examination of
our own consciousness, to ascertain what data the
facts of the thinking mind furnish with respect
to things thought of. But without any such
examination Wolff, assuming in reference to these
subjects the abstract ideas of the human mind
as his data, proceeded to reason from them with
the same confidence as the realists of the middle
ages, or as mathematicians when they commence
with the real intuitions of magnitude on which
their science is founded. Thus his whole philosophy
was form without matter; a magnificent idea, but
not a fact. Yet though really baseless, it was not
necessarily harmful

k Wolff, 1679-1754. Professor of Philosophy at Halle ; in 1723
expelled ; restored in 1741; Lange and Buddeus were his great
opponents (see Hagenbach s Dogmengesch. 274). His philosophy
consisted of an attempt to deduce a priori a system of (i) cosmo
logy, (2) psychology, (3) natural theology. The latter relates to
God, His attributes in Himself and in creation. See some remarks
by Mr. Mansel on his scheme (art. Metaphysic. Encycl. Brit., 8vo. ed.
p. 603). On his philosophy see Bitter, Christ. Phil. viii. b. x. ch. i. ;
Tennemann s Manual, (363-5); Morell, i. 228 ; Rosenkrantz, Gesch.
der Kantischen Schule, b. i. part iii. ch. i. His religious opinions
are found in the Theol. Nat. 1736, and Philos. Moralis, 1750, and
in his Vernuenftige Gedanken von Gott. 1747 (p. 604). See on them
Henke, KircJiengesch. viii. 3 ; Hansel s Bampton Lectures, note 3.
And on the effects of his philosophy, and the state of theology in
Germany at the time of its influence, see Tholuck s Vermischte
Schriften, ii. 2 and i.

304 LECTURE VI.

This philosophy at first met with much opposition
from the pietistic party of Halle 1 . The opposi
tion was not due to any theological incorrectness,
for \Volff was an orthodox Christian; but arose from
the narrow and unnecessary suspicions which reli
gious men too often have of philosophy, and the
sensibility to any attempt to suggest a reconsidera
tion of the grounds of belief, even if the conclusion
adopted be the same. But the system soon became
universally dominant. Its orderly method possessed
the fascination which belongs to any encyclopaedic
view of human knowledge. It coincided too with
the tone of the age. Really opposed, as Cartesianism
had been in France, to the scholasticism which still
reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such
external similarity to it, that it fell in with the old
literary tastes. The evil effects which it subsequently
produced in reference to religion were due only to
the point of view which it ultimately induced. Like
Locke s work on the reasonableness of Christianity,
it stimulated intellectual speculation concerning
revelation. By suggesting attempts to deduce d
priori the necessary character of religious truths,
it turned men s attention more than ever away
from spiritual religion to theology. The attempt to
demonstrate everything caused dogmas to be viewed
apart from their practical aspect ; and men being
compelled to discard the previous method of drawing

1 In 1723, in consequence of the petition from the pietest pro
fessors, Frederick I. deposed Wolff. See Kahnis (Engl. Transl.) p. 1 1 4.

LECTURE VI. 305

philosophy out of scripture, an independent philo
sophy was created, and scripture compared with
its discoveries m . Philosophy no longer relied on
scripture, but scripture rested on philosophy. Dog
matic theology was made a part of metaphysical
philosophy. This was the mode in which Wolff s
philosophy ministered indirectly to the creation of
the disposition to make scriptural dogmas submit
to reason, which was denominated rationalism. The
empire of it was undisputed during the whole of
the middle part of the century, until it was expelled
towards the close by the partial introduction of
Locke s philosophy n , and of the system of Kant, as
well as by the growth of classical erudition, and of
a native literature.

The second cause which ministered to generate
rationalism was English deism. The connexion of
England- with Hanover had caused several of the
works of the English deists to be translated in Ger
many , and the general doctrines of natural religion,

m In reference to the introduction of Wolff s philosophy, the
reference to Tholuck has been already given. See also Schroch s
Gesch. viii. 26 ; Lechler, 448 ; Amand Sainte s Critical History of
Rationalism, i. ch. ix. ; Hagenbach s Dogmengesch. 274 ; Kahnis,
p. no. Kahnis (115) names Baumgarten, Canz, and Toellner, as
Wolff s pupils. Mosheim and the Walches were too exclusively
literary to be affected by the new philosophy. Canz of Tubingen
was the first to apply the system to doctrinal theology (1728). Bee
Pusey, part i. 116.

n Locke s philosophy in a distorted form was introduced by the
French philosophers who lived at the court of Frederick II.

On the introduction of English deism, see Tholuck, 3. A few

306 LECTURE VI.

expressed by Herbert and Toland, were soon repro
duced, together with the difficulties put forth by
Tindal. But the direct effect of this cause has
probably been exaggerated by the eagerness of those
who, in the wish to identify German rationalism
with English deism, have ignorantly overlooked the
wide differences in premises, if not in results, which
separated them, and the regular internal law of
logical development which has presided over the
German movement.

A more direct cause was found about the middle
of the century in the influence of the French refugees
and others, whom Frederick the Great invited to his
court. Not only were Voltaire and Diderot visitors,
but several writers of worse fame, La Mettrie,
D Argens, MaupertiusP, who possessed their faults
without their mental power, were constant residents.
Their philosophy and unbelief were the miniature
of that which we have detailed in France. They
created an antichristian atmosphere about the court,
and in the upper classes of Berlin ; and even minds

only of the deist writings were translated, (e. g. Tindal by Schmidt
in 1741,) but very many of the replies ; which proves how much at
tention they excited. See the list in Lechler, p. 447. Up to 1760 no
fewer than 106 answers had been written to Tindal alone. Kortholt,
in his work De Tribus Impostoribus, (viz. Herbert, Hobbes, Spinoza,)
1680, was the first to notice English deism. The appeal to reason
in these replies had the same effect as that noticed in the philosophy
of Wolff.

P For Maupertius see Biographie Universelle. The others have
been named in the notes to Lect. V.

LECTURE VI. 307

that were attempting to create a native literature,
and to improve the critical standard of literary taste,
were partially influenced by means of rtA

We have now seen the state of the German mind
in reference to theology at the beginning of the
eighteenth century, and the three new influences
which were introduced into it in the interval be
tween 1720 and 1760. The dogmatic tendency be
came transformed by the Wolffian philosophy ; the
pietistic retired from a public movement into the
privacy of life ; while the minds of men were
awakened to inquiry by the suggestions of the
English deists, or the restless and hopeful tone of the
French mind. It was a moment of transition; the
streaks of twilight before the dawn. Yet the signs
of a change were so slight, that few could as yet dis
cern the coming of a crisis, none predict its form.

We may now proceed to give the history of the
theological movement which sprang up, commonly
called Rationalism. It admits of natural division
into three parts. The first, a period destructive in
its tendency, extending to a little later than the end
of the century, exhibits the gradual growth of the
system, and its spread over every department of
theology. The second, reconstructive in character,
the re-establishment of harmony between faith and
reason, extends till the publication of Strauss s cele
brated work on the Life of Christ in 1835 ; the

q See Tholuck, 4 and 5. He considers that the French litera
ture, with the exception of Bayle, did not affect the Germans, on
account of its shallowness ; but doubtless it did so indirectly.

X 2

308 LECTURE VI.

third, containing the divergent tendencies which
have created permanent schools, reaches to the pre
sent time r . In all alike the harmony of faith and
reason was sought : but in the first it was attained
by sacrificing faith to reason ; in the second and
third, by seeking for their unity, or by separating
their spheres. A distinguished name stands at the
commencement of each period, representing the mind
whose speculations were most influential in giving
form to the movements. Sender inaugurated the
destructive movement ; Schleiermacher, the con
structive; and Strauss precipitated the final forms
which theological parties have assumed. In the
present lecture we shall treat only of the first two
of these movements.

The first of these periods, extending from about
1750 to i8io s , contains two sub-periods. Till about
1790* we find the growth of rationalism. In the last
decade of the century we shall meet with its full
development ; but at the same time the growth of
new causes will be perceived, which prepared the
way for a total alteration after the commencement of
the present century.

The sub-period extending to 1790 is one of tran
sition, in which we can trace three broadly marked

r This division does not essentially differ from the threefold one
adopted by Kahnis, into the illumination period, that of the renova
tion, and of the church renovating itself.

s We place the limit at 1 8 1 o, because it is the date of the founda
tion of the university of Berlin, which was the home of the reaction.

r This date marks the spread of the Kantian philosophy, as will
be shown below.

LECTURE VI. 309

tendencies in religion ; one within the church, two
outside of it. Such classes indeed slide away into
each other ; nature is more complex than man ; but
the use of them may be excused as facilitating in
struction.

The movement within the church verged from
a literary and dogmatic orthodoxy, which existed
chiefly at the Saxon university of Leipsic, through
the purely literary tendency, of which Michaelis
may be taken as a type in the newly formed uni
versity of Gottingen, to the freethinking method
typified by Semler, orthodox in doctrine, but in
criticism adopting free views of inspiration, which
mingled itself with the old pietism of the university
of Halle".

The two movements outside the church were, a
literary one, indicated by Lessing, which found its
chief utterance in the periodical literature, then in
its infancy x ; and a thoroughly deist one, connected
with the court of Berlin, embodied in the educational
institutions of Basedow?.

u There were thus three chief phases within the church ; the dog
matic at Leipsic, the critical at Gottingen, the pietistic eclecticism of
Semler at Halle. If to this we add the pietism which still reigned
at Tubingen, as seen in Pfaff, &c., we have the condition of the four
universities which were at that time the chief centres of intellectual
activity in Germany.

x Lessing, along with Nicholai, conducted iheAllgemeine Deutsche
Bibliothek from 1765.

y On the purpose and nature of these institutions, which arose
at Dessau about 1774, see Schlosser, i. 5, 3 ; ii. 3, 2 ; Kahnis,

310 LECTURE VI

The movement which we have just named as
existing within the church, differed from the older
dogmatic one, in being a tendency toward an his
torical and critical study of the scriptures, instead
of a philosophical study of doctrines. It embraced
those whose teaching was not at variance with
Christianity, and also those who manifested inci
pient scepticism. Two names, Ernesti 2 at Leipsic,
and Michaelis a at Gottingen, represent the first
class ; the former applying criticism chiefly to the
New Testament, the latter to the Old. The endea
vour of both, especially of Ernesti, was to revive
the grammatical and literary mode of interpreting
scripture, as opposed to the dogmatic previously in
use. Their spirit was not sceptical, but was that of

p. 47. On Basedow (1724-1790), see Hose on Rationalism, p. 66,
note (second edition), and Schrb ch, viii. 52.

z J. A. Ernesti (17071781), was author of Inst. Interpret. Nov.
Test. 1761 (translated by bishop Terrot). His chief labours were
the editions of several classical authors, among which the most
valuable was Cicero. See Schlosser, ii. 187 ; Kalmis, 120 ; Pusey,
132; Am. Saintes, part ii. ch. ii. The Rosenmiillers (the father,
J. G. Rosenmiiller, on the New Testament ; the son, E. F. Rosen-
miiller the antiquarian on the Old,) manifest much the same spirit
as Ernesti.

a Joh. Dav. Michaelis (17161791). His chief works were,
Gruendliche Erklaerung des Mosaischen Rechts, and the Einleitung
in die Schrift. des Neuen Bundes. The former handled the Hebrew
legislation in a free spirit. The latter work was translated by
bishop Marsh, and led to the controversy about the composition of
the Gospels, to which allusion will be made in the notes of Lecture
VII. See Kahnis, p. 121 ; Henke, viii. part ii. 2. Jerusalem
and Spalding manifest the same spirit as Michaelis.

LECTUEE VI. 311

men who felt the sceptical opinions round them ;
ethical and cold, like that of the Arminians of the
preceding century.

Their system developed into rationalism in the
hands of two of their pupils. Eichhorn was the
pupil of Michaelis, Semler of Ernesti. The name of
Eichhorn will recur later ; Semler b must be con
sidered now.

Semler was one of those minds which fall short of
the highest order of originality, but by their erudition
and appreciation of the wants of their time institute
a movement by giving form to the current feeling of
their day. Nurtured in pietism, he always retained
signs of personal excellence ; and his Christian
earnestness is said not to have been destroyed by
his speculations. His autobiography furnishes us
with the means for the full comprehension of his
character, and shows him to have been keenly alive
to the difficulties which the English literature had
suggested. His labours related to criticism, to exe-

t&gt; Semler (1725-1791), Professor at Halle. His Lebens-besckrei-
bung, published 1781, is the great source for studying his mental
development and the history of his times. His works are numerous,
consisting chiefly of Commentaries and Ecclesiastical History. He
was one of the first to open up the study of the history of doctrine
(dogmengeschichte). The works which exhibit his rationalism are
chiefly the Frei Untersuchen des Canons, 1771; Versuch einer
freiern lehrart, 1 7 7 7 &gt; Introduction to Baumgartens Dogmatize;
Institutiones ad Doctrinam Christianam liberaliter docendam, 1774.
His character is discussed at length in Tholuck, 6 ; Pusey, 138,
&c ; Schlosser, ii. 187 ; Am. Saintes, b. ii. ch. ii. and iii. On the
successors of the writers recently named, see Am. Saintes, b. ii.
ch. iv.

312 LECTURE VI.

gesis, and to doctrine. As a critic he did not restrict
himself to the examination of texts, but investigated
the canonicity of the books of Scripture 6 . It is
probable that the criticism commenced by R. Simon
and Spinoza furnished hints for his views. He was
one of the first to undervalue external evidence in
the formation of the canon. The determination of
the canon, i. e. of the list of books which are to be
considered scripture, is a question of fact. What did
the early church pronounce to be such ; and does
internal evidence bear out the idea 1 Semler under
valued the historical evidence of the church s judg
ment, and replaced it, not by careful study of in
ternal critical evidence, like later rationalism, but by
an a priori subjective decision, that only such books
were to be received as conduced to a religious
object. But it is in exegesis that he enunciated
the principles which have left a permanent effect.
He established what is called the historical method
of interpretation 01 .

In the course of Christian history, three great
methods for the interpretation of scripture have
been used ; the allegorical, the dogmatic, and the

c In the work on the Canon named in the last note.

d See the historic sketch of interpretation given in Planck s
Introduction to Sacred Philology, (English translation, 168-186).
Interesting information is supplied in Credner s article Interpretation
in Kitto s Biblical Encyclopaedia ; J. J. Conybeare s Bampton Lec
ture for 1824 on the Secondary Interpretation of Scripture ; Dr. S.
Davidson s Sacred Hermeneutics (5-7); and an article in the North
British Review for August 1855 on the Alexandrian school.

LECTUBE VI. 313

grammatical e . In the early church the tendency in
the main was to the allegorical ; in the middle ages
to the dogmatic ; at the Renaissance and Reforma
tion to the grammatical, which however in the seven
teenth century was displaced by the allegorical f and
dogmatic ; and it was the work of Ernesti to restore
it. Semler added the historic ; by which is meant
the method, which, after discovering the grammatical
sense of the words, rests content exactly with the
meaning which the circumstances of society could
permit scripture to have at that age. It declines
to search for mystical senses, or to use dogma as
a clue to interpretation. This principle, so valuable
in itself, yet, when abused, so fmitful in producing
rationalism, was the discovery of Semler.

The application of this method of interpretation
led him to the theory generally known by the name of
"accommodation^." He felt a strong reaction against

e These tendencies must be considered only to express the average.
Thus the school of Antioch, of which Theodore of Mopsuestia is a
type, leaned to the grammatical mode ; (see some remarks on it in
Neander s Church History r , vol. iv. init. Germ. ed. ; vol. iii. fin.
Engl. Tr.) In the middle ages the Franciscans showed an inclina
tion to the mystical or allegorical j and the typical system of the
Miracle Plays and of the Biblia Pauperum illustrates the allegorical
spirit of those times.

f The allegorical is seen in the school of Cocceius (1603-1669)
in the Dutch church. The dogmatic has been alluded to above.

s The system is called variously, in works of Hermeneutics, o-vy-
KaTaftao-is, condescensio, demissio, obsequium. It is developed in
Sender s Prolegomena to some of St. Paul s Epistles ; in the Yor
ker eitung zur Theol. Hermeneutik, 1762 \ and in the Apparatus ad
lib. Nov. Test, interpr. 1767. Tholuck quotes many instances of it

314 LECTURE VI.

the forgetfulness shown by the old dogmatic orthodoxy,
which had regarded the Bible as one book, instead of
a collection or historic series of books, and had con
founded together the Jewish and Christian dispensa
tions and taken no cognizance of the development of
religions knowledge in scripture. Accordingly he
desired to remove the deist difficulty by separating
the eternal truth in scripture from what he considered
to be local and temporary. Our Lord s own decla
ration h , that the Mosaic law of divorce was an adap
tation to the particular needs of the age, seemed to
establish the validity of the principle that revelation
was an accommodation to be judged of by the his
toric circumstances of the age for which it was in
tended. The principle had been applied by English
theologians 1 : but it needed a delicate insight to
apply it safely. Semler introduced it indiscriminately
into prophecy, miracle, and doctrine ; and stated his
views in a form which, though well meant, is cer
tainly most repulsive. We may cite an instance in
the case of his view of the demoniacal possessions
of the New Testament k . Not denying them, Semler

in reference to him. (ii. 61) Concerning the subject see Planck s In
troduction to Sacred Philology, (E. T.) 152-168; Wegscheider, Inst.
Theol. 25; Bretschneider, Hist.-Dogrn. Auslegung *des N. T. 1806.
A list of foreign works in reference to it is given at the end of the
article Accommodation, in Kitto s Biblical Encyclopaedia. For a
criticism on it see J. J. Conybeare s Bampton Lecture for 1824.
(Lect.VIL) hMarkx. 5.

1 E.g. By Kidder in his Testimony of the Messias, 1694 ; Nicholls,
Conference with a Theist, 1733; and by Sykes, in several works
from about 1720-40.

fc Dr. Pusey speaks (Inquiry, p. 139, n.) of two works by Semler

LECTURE VI.

probably considered them to be nothing but the
diseases of epilepsy and madness. But he did not
ridicule the narrative as a deist would, nor explain
the facts away as legends or myths, as is the plan of
the later schools, nor account for them by the suppo
sition that the apostles were left in ignorance about
physical science, and inspired only in religious know
ledge ; but he regarded the narrative as an inten
tional accommodation on the part of the teachers to
their hearers, and consequently stated his views in a
form which is the more repulsive as seeming to
impute dishonesty 1 . He went so far as to consider
some of the doctrines of the New Testament to be an
accommodation on the part of our Lord to the Jewish
notions ; and regarded Christ s work as the com
promise between the Mosaic and philosophical parties
in the Jewish church, which afterwards were repre
sented in the Christian by St. Peter and St. Paul
respectively m . Though he himself held the apostles
creed, and was shocked at some later developments
of unbelief", yet he seems to have considered prac
tical morality to be at once the sole aim of Christi-

on Demons, (of which I have seen only the second, 1779,) the first
directed against the belief in the occurrence of possessions in the
present day ; the second to show that some of the Greek words
descriptive of such phenomena in the New Testament need not
necessarily imply superhuman agency.

1 Because it seemed to involve the notion of dissimulation on the
part of the scripture writers, or even of the divine Being.

m Introd. ad Doctr. Christianam, b. i. See Am. Saintes, p. 107.

n E. g. The Wolfenbiittel Fragments. See Am. Saintes, p. 86,
and Niemeyer s Letzte Aesserungen ueber Religioese Gegenstaende
swei tage von seinem tode, which he quotes.

316 LECTUEE VI.

anity, and the supreme rule of doctrine . He
founded no school; but his influence decidedly ini
tiated the rationalist movement within the church ;
one peculiarity of which will be found to be, that it
was professedly designed in defence of the church,
not as an attack upon it.

The tendency which we have just studied was
within the church. The two now about to be named
were external to it. The one, earnest and scholar-
like, formed chiefly on the model of English deism,
is represented by Lessing. The other, modelled after
Rousseau, was practical rather than intellectual, and
aimed at remodelling education as well as altering
belief.

Lessing P, a name honoured in the history of litera
ture, is little known in England, save by his exqui
site comparison of art and poetry, called the Laocoon^.
He was one of those whose labours remain for the
benefit of other ages, like that of the coral worms,
which die, but leave their work. That a native

His doctrinal views are seen in the Lebens-beschreibung, part ii.
p. 220, &c.

P Lessing (1729-1781). In 1754 lie joined Nicholai and Men
delsohn in literary criticism ; in 1 757, in the Bibliothek der Schonen
Wissenschaften ; and in 1765, in the Ally em. Deutsch. Biblioth.
An account of his life and literary character may be seen in the
Foreign Quarterly Review (No. 50) for 1840 ; and an able criticism
on him by C. Dollfus in the Revue Germanique for 1860 (vol. ix.).
Consult also MenzeFs Deutsch. Litt. iii. 291, &c. ; Metcalfe s work
based on Vilmar, p. 400 seq. A separate study of his theological
opinions was made by C. Schwartz in 1854, entitled Lessing als
Theolog, especially c. iv ; see also Bartholmess, b. ii. ch. ii.

1 Published in 1766.

LECTURE VI. 317

German literature exists, is the work of Lessing as
pioneer; that it is worth studying, is the result of
his criticism and influence. Finding literature just
arising, and the dispute still raging between the
Saxon and Swiss schools, whether it should model
itself after reason and form like the French literature,
or after nature and the soul like the English, (28)
he showed the true mode of uniting the two by turn
ing attention to Greek models ; and, in conjunction
with Nicholai and the Jewish philosopher Mendel
sohn, established a critical periodical, which became
the agency for a literary reformation. But the point
of interest, in relation to our present subject, is his
influence on religion. Availing himself of the right
which his position as librarian of Wolfenbiittel, a
small town near Brunswick, gave him to publish
manuscripts found in the library, he edited, in 1774
and the four following years, several fragments of
a larger work, which he professed to have found.
They are \isually called the Wolfenbiittel frag
ments. (29) Till recently their authorship remained
a secret. They are now known to have been written
by the learned Hamburg philosopher, Reimarus r .
They treated very nearly the same subjects, and in
much the same tone, but with consummate skill, as
the English deists. Reimarus, as is now known, in
the introduction" to the larger unprinted work from
which they were extracted, gave his own intellectual

r H. S. Reimarus (1694-1768). See Schlosser, ii. 26, &c., and the
article Reimarus in the Conversations-Lexicon.

8 See Note 29.

318 LECTURE VI.

history, his early doubts on the doctrines of the
Trinity, and the destruction of the heathen ; and also
on the history of the Old and New Testaments ; and
ends, like the English deists, with resting in natural
religion.

The first two 1 fragments, published by Lessing,
touched only upon the question of tolerating deists,
and on the custom of declaiming against human
reason in the pulpits. The third referred to the im
possibility that all men should be brought to believe
revelation on rational evidence. The fourth and fifth
attacked the Old Testament history, such as the
passage of the Red Sea. The sixth directed an
assault against the New Testament ; pointing out
with unsparing severity the discrepancies in the ac
counts of the resurrection. The concluding one was
on the object of Christianity, in which our blessed
Lord s life and work were represented as a defeated
political reform. *

These views however were not professedly sanc
tioned by Lessing, for he added notes in refutation of
them, and stated his object to be merely to stimulate
free inquiry 11 . His wish was gratified in the tre
mendous effect which the publication produced. In
the literary controversy which ensued, and which

fc The Fragments are here named according to the order of their
original publication ; not that in which they are usually printed, as,
e.g. in the Berlin edition, 1835.

u Compare Strauss s description of them in his Leben Jesu, Introd.
5. Lessing s own object in their publication is expressed in the
concluding pages of his edition of them.

LECTURE VI. 319

embittered his few remaining days x , he explained
himself to be a doubter rather than a disbeliever;
and defended himself by urging the distinctness of
the religious element in scripture from the scientific;
asserting that, as Christianity existed before the New
Testament, so it could exist after it. The Christian
religion is not true, he said, merely because evange
lists and apostles taught it ; but they taught it
because it is true. And in order to restore Christ
ianity to its true place in the estimation of thinking
men, he composed or edited a well-known work y on
the Education of the World z , which became a fertile
source of thought for the philosophy of history, and
was designed to explain the function of the Jewish
religion in reference to the Christian, and to the
world. The theology of Lessing s coadjutors however,
if not also that of Lessing himself, did not rise
higher than that of the more serious among the
English deists a .

x The chief opposition arose from Goze, a pastor of Hamburg,
who attacked Lessing even before the last and most obnoxious frag
ment was published ; but both Seniler and Jerusalem also wrote
against him. See Boden s Lessing und G oze, Eine Beitrag zur Lit.
und Kirchengesch. des 18, Jahrh. 1862 ; also the references given at
the end of Note 29 especially Hagenbach s Dogmengesch. 275,
note.

y See the note on p. 122.

z Die Erziehung des menschlichen Geschlechts, lately partially
translated into English. It conveyed the thoughts suggested by
the perusal of some apologies for religion.

a The theologians Steinbart and Teller represented a similar spirit.

320 LECTURE VI.

The other tendency, more decidedly sceptical even
than that of Lessing, gave definite form to the ex
treme sceptical opinions excited by French philoso
phy, which had been fermenting in German society,
and had earlier expressed themselves. It is best
represented by Edelmann b , and by the unhappy
Bahrdt, who passed gradually from Sender s school
into this. Its religious tenets were simple natural
ism, moral as distinct from positive religion; and it
was connected with the attempt by Basedow c , pa
tronised by Frederick, to establish educational insti
tutions on the model proposed in Rousseau s Emile.
The name which it gave to the movement was,
the Period of Enlightenment (Aufklarung-zeit) d ,
which expressed the consciousness of illumination,
and the yearning for deliverance which was finding
its expression in France ; and this name therefore

k On Edelmanri, who died 1767, see Kahnis, p. 126; and on
Bahrdt, (1741-92), Id. pp. 136-145; and Schlosser, ii. 211. The
life of Bahrdt is a sad subject for study. Kahnis (p. 125 seq.) enu
merates other deists, some of them earlier than those whom we are
now considering, e.g. Knuzen, Dippel, (16731734).

c See the reference above, p. 309.

d The contrast of the English, French, and German periods of
illuminism is well drawn out by Kuno Fischer (Bacon, ch. xi. 2, 3,
and xiii. 3). I have been unable to discover positively whether the
term in its first use meant merely Renaissance (cfr. the Italian term
illuminati\ or whether it meant the philosophy which makes its
appeal to common sense, being connected with the Cartesian prin
ciple, wahr ist, was Mar ist. The former appears almost certain ;
but some of the German writers seem to favour the latter. On
its nature, see Kahnis, p. 61-63.

LECTUEE VI. 321

has been usually adopted among foreign writers to
describe this period of the history.

Such are the historical tendencies from about 1750
till about 1790 cold but learned orthodoxy ; the
commencement of critical rationalism, and open deism.
About that time new influences came into operation,
the effects of which are at once evident. Without
taking account of the excitement caused by the
political events of the French revolution, we may
name two such new causes of movement the lite
rary influence of the court of Weimar, and the phi
losophy of Kant.

The centres of intellectual activity in Germany
now changed. We are so apt to forget that Ger
many, especially at the end of the last century,
formed a set of independent principalities, which
varied in taste, in belief, and in literary tone, that
we fail to realise the individuality of the scenes of
literary activity. At the end of the last century
there was one spot which became the very focus of
intellectual life. The court of Karl Auguste at
Weimar, insignificant in political importance, was
great in the, history of the human mind 6 . There
were gathered there most of the mighty spirits of
the golden age of German literature, Herder, Wie-

e A very interesting article on Weimar and its celebrities appeared
in the Westminster Review for April 1859. The illustration about
the court of Ferrara, just below, is taken from it. Mr. G. H. Lewes,
in his Life of Goethe, gives incidentally sketches of the intellectual
and moral influence of the court of Weimar.

322 LECTURE VI.

land, Goethe, Schiller, Jean Paul ; a constellation of
intellect unequalled since the court of Ferrara in the
days of Alphonso f . The influence made itself felt
in the adjacent university of Jena; and this little
seminary became from that time for about twenty
years , until the foundation of Berlin, the first uni
versity in Germany. In it alone the philosophy of
Kant became naturalized* 1 . Some of the ablest "men
in Germany were its Professors ; and about this
time Jena and Weimar became the stronghold of free
thought.

Except in the case of Herder 1 , the literary influ
ence was not directly influential on theology. But
it gave moral support to theological movement ;
though ultimately, by introducing a truer and more
subjective appreciation of human nature, it was the
means of generating the deep insight in the critical

f Alfonso d Este reigned from 1505-34. He was the husband of
Lucrezia Borgia.

x i. e. from about 1790 to 1810.

11 Kant s great work, Kritik der reinen Vernunft, appeared in
1781, but was not known out of Konigsberg until one of his
disciples, Schulze in 1784, elucidated it in a separate work. The
Jenaische Literatur-zeitung also favoured it. In 1786 Eeinhold
became Professor at Jena, and began to teach Kant s system. See
Schlosser, vol. ii. p. 182-4.

1 Herder did not adopt the new philosophy of Kant. His theolo
gical writings were rather earlier than 1790. They created a love
for the literature of young nations, and for the Hebrew religion, in a
literary rather than a spiritual point of view. On Herder s religious
influence, see Schlosser, ii. 278, &c. ; and the article by Hagenbach
in Herzog s Realen-Encyclop ; also Hagenbach s Gesch. des 1 8 Jahrh.
4 and 5 ; and Quinet s (Euvres, vol. ii.

LECTUEE VI. 323

taste of thinking men which furnished the death
blow to rationalism. The same remark is true of
the effects of the philosophy of Kant k . Its ultimate
result was valuable in removing the eudsemonism
common in ethics, and turning men s attention to the
moral law within. But its immediate effects were to
reinforce the appeal to reason, and to destroy revela
tion by leaving nothing to be revealed.

The nature of this system, so far as is necessary
for our purpose, may be soon told. Kant, dissatisfied
with the distrust in the human faculties induced by
the scepticism of Hume, and the one-sided sensation
alism of Condillac, carried a penetrating analysis
into the human faculties 1 ; attempting to perform
with more exactness the work of Locke, to measure
the human mind, which is the sounding-line, before

k Kant lived 1724-1804. On his philosophy see Chalybaus
Hist, of Speculative Philosophy (translated 1854); Am. Saintes
Philos. de Kant, 1844 ; Cousin, Legons de la Phil, de Kant, 1843.
A good account of it also is given in Morell s Hist, of Philosophy,
i- 2 3 3~ 6 3&gt; m R- Vaughan s (sen.) Essays, and in a Lecture by Pro
fessor Mansel on the Philosophy of Kant, 1860. See also the
references in Tennemann s Manual, 387-94. In reference to its
theological effects, see Am. Saintes Critical History of Rationalism,
ii. 5 and 6 ; Bartholmess,, b. v. and vi. The parts of Kant s writings
which are of special importance for ascertaining his theological views
are, his work Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Ver-
nunft 1793? and his criticism on natural theology in the Kritik der
reinen Vernunft, b. ii. div. 3. See Strauss, Leben Jesu, introd. 7.
Staiidlin, Ammon, and Tieftrunk, were Kantist theologians.

1 In the Kritik der reinen Vernunft above named, which was so
called because he strove to analyse the pure reason, before it is de
filed by contact with the world through experience.

Y 2

324 LECTURE VI.

fathoming the ocean of knowledge. Like Copernicus
inverting astronomy, he reversed metaphysics, by re
ferring classes of ideas to inward causes which before
had been referred to outer.

He detected, as he supposed, innate forms of
thought 01 in the mental structure, which form the
conditions under which knowledge is possible. When
he applied his system to give a philosophy of ethics
and religion, he asserted nobly the law of duty
written in the heart 11 , but identified it with religion.
Religious ideas were regarded as true regulatively,
not speculatively. Revelation was reunited with
reason, by being resolved into the natural religion
of the heart. Accordingly, the moral effect of this
philosophy was to expel the French materialism and
illuminism , and to give depth to the moral percep
tions : its religious effect was to strengthen the appeal
to reason and the moral judgment as the test of reli
gious truth ; to render miraculous communication of
moral instruction useless, if not absurd; and to re
awaken the attempt, which had been laid aside since
the Wolffian philosophy, of endeavouring to find a
philosophy of religion P. From this time in German

m The categories, the test of the existence of which is necessity
and universality.

n This appears in his Kritik der practischen Vernunft.

Illuminism is used as the translation of aufklaerung-zeit.

P The difference between Wolff and Kant is, that while the former
sought a philosophy of religion ontologically, the latter sought it
psychologically, by first ascertaining the functions of the mind in
reference to religion.

LECTUEE VI. 325

theology we shall find the existence of the twofold
movement ; the critical one, the lawful descendant of
Semler, examining the historic revelation ; and the
philosophical one, the offshoot of the system of Kant,
seeking for a philosophy of religion.

During the next twenty years, from 1790 to 1810,
when so many influences were operating in common,
it is not easy to measure the effect of the specu
lative philosophy upon particular minds with such
exactness as to ascertain which ought properly to
be classed in the destructive tendency, and which
gave signs of the reaction. We must however be
careful to exclude those younger minds ! that were
already appearing on the field, to become the heroes
of the subsequent history, whose tone was so deci
dedly affected by new influences as to belong to the
age of reaction.

In this sub-period we may name three tendencies :
(i) the continuation of the Exegesis inaugurated in
the last epoch by Semler, until about the end of the
century it found its utmost limit in Paulus r , the
result of the age of illumination ; (2) a dogmatic
tendency, more or less the growth of new influences
introduced by the new philosophy, which attempted
to reconcile reason with the supernatural, and may
be represented in its nearest approach to orthodoxy,

&lt;i Such as Schleiermacher.

r Paulus, 1761-1851 ; Professor at Jena, and from 1811 at
Heidelberg. Some of his works are named below.

326 LECTURE VI.

at the end of this period, by Bretschneider 8 ; and
(3) the awakening of a distinct expression of the
appeal to the supernatural which had never quite
died out in the church, in the Arminianism of Rein-
hardt in the north, and of Storr in the south*. The
last needs no further investigation; but we shall con
sider briefly the other two.

The exegetical method which formed the first was
that which is now usually called the old or common-
sense rationalism 11 . This form of rationalism differed
from the English deism and French naturalism, in
not regarding the Bible as fabulous in character, and
the device of priestcraft x ; but only denied the super-

s K. G. Bretschneider, 1776-1848 ; General Superintendent at
Gotha. A short autobiography was published after his death, which
is translated in the Bibliotheca Sacra for 1852-3. His best work is
the Handbuch der Dogmatik, 1814, 1838. He was the writer of
the Probabilia concerning St. John s Gospel, named in Lect. VII.

fc F. Eeinhardt (1753-1812) of Saxony. His supernaturalism was
perhaps rather ethical than biblical. (See Kahnis, 187, Am. Saintes,
c. viii.) Storr (1746-1805) was Professor at Tubingen. The belief
in the supernatural had never died out. A philosophical superna
turalism was seen in Flatt, Planck, Schroch, and a truly biblical
kind in Knapp. Along with Reinhardt ought perhaps to be
reckoned Morus and Doderlein ; at a little earlier period Seiler, and
a little later Steudel : on this school see Am. Saintes, ch. iv.

u i. e. Rationalismus Vulgaris. On Rationalism, see Note 21. On
this particular kind see Kahnis, p. 169. It is distinguished from
naturalism chiefly by being connected with the church, and by the
opinion that it is the very essence of Christianity. It was repre
sented by Paulus in criticism, Wegscheider in dogma, and Rohr in
preaching.

x As Woolstou, Bolingbroke, and Voltaire. Cfr. Strauss. Leb.
Jes. Introd. 5.

LECTURE VI. 327

natural. By them the apostles had been regarded as
impostors ; and scripture was not only not received
as divine, but not even respected as an ordinary his
torical record ; whereas rationalism was intended
as a defence against this view. It denied only the
revealed character of scripture, and treated it as an
ordinary history ; and, distinguishing broadly between
the fact related and the judgment on the fact, sought
to separate the two, and explained away the superna
tural element, such as miracles, as being orientalisms
in the narrative, adapted to an infant age, which an
enlightened age must translate into the language of
ordinary events.

Eichhorn at Gottingeny applied this view to the
Old Testament. Deeming miracles impossible, he did
not regard them as fraud, but admitted on the con
trary that the agents or narrators honestly believed
them. The supernatural was not imparted to deceive,
but was the result of oriental modes of speech, such
as hyperbole, parable, or ellipsis, in which the steps
by which the process was performed were omitted.
The smoke of Sinai was considered a thunderstorm ;
the shining of Moses s face a natural phenomenon.

The principles which Eichhorn applied to the Old
Testament, Paulus of Jena extended to the New 2 .

y Eichhorn (17 52- 1 8 27), one of the most learned men of his age.
For illustrations see his Einleitung, 435, and cfr. 421. The
instances cited in the text, from one of his works which the writer
could not consult, are quoted from the British Quarterly Review,
No. 26 ; cfr. also Strauss, Leben-Jesu. 6.

z In his Exeget. Handb. ties Neuen Test. The account will be

328 LECTURE VI.

The miraculous cures were explained by an ellipsis
in the omission of the natural remedies ; the casting
out of devils as the power of a wise man over the in
sane ; the transfiguration as the confused recollection
of sleeping men, who saw Jesus with two unknown
friends, in the beautiful light of the morning among
the mountains : nay, trespassing on still more holy
ground, he dared impiously to explain away the re
surrection of our blessed Lord by the hypothesis that
his death was only apparent. These are a specimen of
the mode of exegesis adopted in this school, which is
usually specifically called nationalism. In this mode
Jesus appeared to be merely a wise and virtuous
man; and his miracles were merely acts of skill or
accident. Paulus presented this as the original
Christianity. The theory did not last long, save in
the mind of its author, who lived until a recent pe
riod, to see the entire change of critical belief. Attri
buting the supernatural to ignorance, it did not even
propose, like the later schools, to explain the marvel-
lousness of the phenomena, objectively by so plausible
a theory as legends, nor subjectively by myths a : it

found by referring to the respective narratives. See also his com
mentary on the miracle of the tribute money, and of the feeding the
multitudes. See Kahnis, pp. (i 7 1-6). Eichhorn stopped short when
he came to apply his principles to the New Testament. L. Bauer
(Hebr. Mythol), Gabler, Vater, Bertholdt, Von Lengerke, and Von
Bohlen, though some of them were affected by later influences, be
longed in the main to this rationalist critical school.

a The difference of legend and myth is now well known. " Myth
is the creation of a fact out of an idea ; legend the seeing an idea

LECTURE VI. 329

was too clumsy, not to say irreverent, an explanation
of the facts to satisfy a people of deep and poetical
soul like the Germans.

While this is a specimen of the critical side of
rationalism, its dogmatic side varied from natural
ethics to a kind of Socinianism. But in all alike,
as its name would imply, it not only asserted that
there is only one universal revelation, which takes
place through observation of nature and man s
reason; but that Christianity was not designed to
teach any mysterious truths, but only to confirm
the religious teaching of reason ; and that no one
ought to recognise as true that which cannot be
proved to him rationally. The doctrine of a Trinity
was necessarily disbelieved ; the death of Christ
regarded as an historic event, or a symbol that
sacrifices were abolished. Holiness was reduced to
morality. Extreme veneration for the Bible was
called Bibliolatry b . Religion was represented as
acting by natural motives : the ethical superseded

in a fact." Strauss, Leb. Jes. Einl. 10. The myth is purely the
work of imagination, the legend has a nucleus of fact.

b Henke, 1752-1809, Professor at Helmstadt, is said to have
been the first who made use of the term " Bibliolatry" in the pre
face to his Lineamenta Instit. Fidei Christiance. He probably how
ever only brought it into use. (The writer remembers to have seen
it occur somewhere earlier, but cannot recall the reference.) He
was a church historian of great learning, whose works have been
frequently used for reference in Lect. V. Kahnis speaks with great
respect (p. 177) of his earnestness. For Henke s position as a
church historian see a note in the Preface to these Lectures.

330 LECTUKE VI.

the historic. The early theologians of this dogmatic
branch of the school are now little known ; but we
may name Bretschneider c as the type of the least
heretical portion of it at the close of this period,
who believed Christianity to be a republication of
natural religion, supernatural but reasonable: and,
as the literary tendency of this school continued to
exist in Rohr d , after the movement had become ex-

c Concerning Bretschneider see a preceding note on p. 326.
Bretschneider shows in his reply to Mr. Rose, and in his Autobio
graphy, that he was much hurt at being classed with the rationalists.
In truth the dogmatic tendency which we are here describing admits,
as is shown more fully in Note 21, of a twofold subdivision, (i)
" Rationalists" proper, who are pure Socinians, but hardly believe
in the supernatural element of revelation : such were Wegscheider
and Rohr ; also Echermann and C. F. A. Fritsche may be reckoned
with the same school (see Kahnis, 177 seq. ; Am. Saintes, ch. vii.);
and (2) " Rational Supernaturalists," like Bretschneider, Schott of
Jena (17801835), and Tzchirner of Leipsic (1778-1828), who be
lieved in a supernatural revelation, but held to the supremacy of
reason ; a position not very unlike Locke s in the Reasonableness
of Christianity. The tone of opinion changed so much in Germany
after 1830, that Bretschneider, who in earlier life had been con
sidered to lean towards orthodoxy as opposed to rationalism, ap
peared in later life, though really standing still, to side with the
rationalists against the reaction which took place in favour of super-
naturalism. A volume of sermons, translated by Baker in 1829,
called The German Pulpit, contains, along with a few sermons of
more spiritual tone, many sermons by preachers of this school. See
on this school Am. Saintes, ch. viii. Mr. Rose also has collected
many facts in reference to this part of the subject ; also Staiidlin
in his Gesch. des Rat. und Supernat., and P. A. Stapfer (Arch, du
Christianisme, 1824,) quoted by Rose (second edition).

d J. F. Rohr (1777-1848), Superintendent at Weimar ; noted as

LECTURE VI. 331

tinct in other minds, so Wegscheider e , until a recent
period, was the solitary instance of the dogmatic
position slightly modified.

This completes the history of the first of the three
movements, the destructive action of rationalism.
The most flourishing period of this form of it was
about the beginning of the present century. We
have seen it originating in the rational tone of
Wolff s philosophy, and the well-meant but ill-judged
exegesis which Semler exhibited under the pressure
of sceptical difficulties. Stimulated by critical inves
tigations, and by the strong wish which operated
on our own theologians, to find the cause of every
thing, its adherents were led into a disbelief of the
supernatural, and ended in explaining away the
miraculous, and reducing Christianity to natural
religion. The movement, it will be observed, was
professedly not intended to be destructive of Christ
ianity. Instead of being inimical, it originated with
the clergy, and aimed at harmonizing Christianity
with reason. But it contained its own death. The
negative criticism is essentially temporary.

The activity of th&lt;fiight was already producing
change. We have previously stated that even the
Kantian philosophy itself, though at first stimulating
the appeal to reason, fostered a deeper perception of

a preacher. His Historical Geography of Palestine has been trans
lated.

e Wegscheider (1771-1848); Professor at Halle. His chief
work is Inst. Theol. Chr. Dogmat. 1813.

332 LECTURE VI.

duty, and thus prepared the way for a moral re
awakening f .

We shall accordingly now proceed to state the
causes which introduced new elements into the cur
rent of public thought ; and then describe the gradual
progress of the reactionary movement which ensued
from them.

Four causes are usually assigned. The first of
them was the introduction of new systems of specu
lative philosophy.

It is not unusual, in those who have no taste for
speculation, and who understand only the prosaic,
though in some respects the truer, philosophy of
Scotland, to despise the great systems of German
speculation. Yet, if the series be measured as an
example of the power of the human mind, whatever
may be the opinion formed in respect to its correct
ness, it stands among the most interesting efforts
of thought. Though the writers can be matched by
isolated examples in former ages, perhaps no series
of writers exists, hardly even the Greek, certainly
not the Neo-Platonist nor the Cartesian, which, in
far-reaching penetration, in minuteness of analysis,
in brilliancy of imagination, in loftiness of genius,
in poetry of expression, in grasp of intellect, in
influence on every branch of thought or life, approxi
mates to the series of illustrious thinkers which

f Hundesliagen calls Kant a second Moses, on account of the
moral revolution which his teaching effected.

LECTURE VI. 333

commenced with Kant and ended with Hegel .
The two philosophers at this time whose teaching
formed a new influence, were Fichte h and Jacobi .
Details in reference to their systems must be sought
elsewhere k . It is only possible here to indicate
their central thought, in order to notice their effects
on theological inquiry.

. We have seen that Kant had reconsidered the
great problem, commenced by Descartes and Locke,
concerning the ground of certitude, and the nature of
knowledge ; and had revolutionised philosophy, by at
tributing to the natural structure of the mind many
of those ideas which had usually been supposed to be
derived from .experience. In his system he had left
two elements, a formal and a material ; the formal, or
innate forms, through which the mind gains know-

i. e.

Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel ; on whom see
Morell, ii. ch. v. 2, and Chalybaiis, History of Speculative Philo-

h J. G. Fichte (1762-1814) ; Professor at Jena ; deprived for the
supposed atheistic tendency of his philosophy (1799); afterwards
Professor at Berlin. His great work is his Wissenschafts-lehre,
1794. He was the author of the celebrated patriotic addresses to
the German people. The educational institutions of Pestalozzi were
founded on Fichte s philosophy, as Basedow s on Rousseau. See
Kahnis, p. 216.

1 Jacobi (1743-1819); President of the academy of sciences at
Munich.

k On Fichte see Chalybaiis, ch. vi. and vii. ; Tennemann, Manual
400-5; Morell, ii. p. 89-122; Lewes, History of Philosophy ;
Mansel s art. on Metaphysics in Encycl. Britan. p. 607. On Jacobi
see Chalybaiis, ch. iii. ; Tennemann, 415 ; Morell, ii. 402 ; Am.
Saintes, part ii. ch. xiii.

334 LECTURE VI.

ledge, and the material, presented from external
sources, It was the former or ideal element which
was examined by Fichte ; the latter by Jacobi.

Fichte began to teach at Jena soon after 1790.
Grasping firmly Descartes principle, " Cogito, ergo
sum," he conceived that, as we can only know our
selves, there is no proof that the datum supposed
to be external is anything but a form of our own
consciousness ; and thus he arrived at a subjective
idealism not unlike that of bishop Berkeley . Under
his view God was only an idea or form of thought ; a
regulative principle of human belief, the moral order
of which the mind was conscious in the universe ;
and, as atheism was suspected to follow as an
inference from his views, he became the subject of
persecution. But the instincts of the heart, as well
as the arguments of the imderstanding, were too
potent for him ; and when he had thus as it were
shut up man within the circle of his own finite self,
he strove to find a logical passage into a knowledge
of the infinite by a principle analogous to that of
Spinoza; viz. by regarding both self and the outer
world, the subjective and objective, to be identified
in some absolute self-existence, of which they were
respectively phases m .

This aim was only partially effected, by Fichte,
and was completed by his distinguished successor,

1 This atheistic corollary is not deducible from Berkeley s system,
and was not designed by Fichte.

m See Chalybaiis, ch. viii. ; and Morell, ii. 118.

LECTURE VI. 335

Schelling 11 . Schelling saw that the subjective ten
dency had been pushed too far ; and, relying on the
spiritual sense through which men of all ages have
conceived that they saw the infinite, the reality of
which accordingly seems to be attested by a uni
versal induction, he tried to grasp the idea of the
self-existent One, who is the one absolute Reality,
the one eternal Being, the eternal Source from which
all other light is derived, and from which all things
develope. " Intellectual intuition" he thought to be
the means by which we have this knowledge of the
infinite, and are able to trace the development of
it into its limitations in nature and in the mind.
The method is analogous to that of Spinoza, save
that the infinite is studied dynamically instead of
mechanically, as a movement not a substance, in
time not in space.

The roll of these great thinkers, whose speculations
were suggested by the formal side of Kant s philo
sophy, is not yet full. But the two which have been
named wrote and affected thought, the one before,
the other soon after, the commencement of the pre
sent century. Hegel followed in the same track, but
influenced thought at a later period . He too aimed
at solving the same problem as Schelling : he too
sought to transcend the conditions of object and sub
ject which limit thought ; but it was by assuming a

n Schelling (1774-1854), Professor at Munich and Berlin. See
Chalybaiis, ch. ix-xii. ; Tennemann, 406-11; Morell, ii. 122-161;
Bartholmess, Hist. Grit, des Doctr. Relig. b. ix.

1770-1831. See Lect. VII,

336 LECTURE VI.

representative or mediate faculty that transcends
consciousness, and not, as Schelling, an intuitional
or presentative P.

Such were the philosophers who aimed at solving
the problem of knowledge and being from the intel
lectual side. Jacobi on the other hand attempted it
from the emotional. Perceiving the necessity of
finding some justification for the material element
which Kant had assumed in his philosophy, he sought
it in faith, in intuition, in the direct inward revela
tion of truth to the human mind. He thought that,
as sensation gives us an immediate knowledge of the
world, so there is an inward sense by which we have
a direct and immediate revelation of supernatural
truth. It is this inward revelation which gives us
access to the material of truth. His position was
analogous to that of Schelling, but he asserted the
element of feeling as well as intuition.

These philosophies, of Fichte, Schelling, and Jacobi,
formed one class of influences, which were operating
about the beginning of the century, and were the
means of redeeming alike German literature and
theology. Their first effect was to produce exami
nation of the primary principles of belief, to excite
inquiry ; and, though at first only reinforcing the idea
of morality, they ultimately drew men out of them
selves into aspirations after the infinite spirit, and
developed the sense of dependence, of humility, of

P See some remarks on this point in Mr. Mansel s Lecture, on the
Philosophy of Kant.

LECTURE VI. 337

unselfishness, of spirituality. They produced indeed
evil effects in pantheism and ideology ^ ; but the
results were partial, the good was general. The
problem, What is truth \ was through their means
remitted to men for reconsideration ; and the answers
to it elicited, from the one school, It is that which
I can know : from the other, It is that which I can
intuitively feel : threw men upon those unalterable
and infallible instincts which God has set in the
human breast as the everlasting landmarks of truth,
the study of which lifts men ultimately out of
error.

These systems had even a still more direct effect
on the public mind. They were the means of creating
a literature, which insinuated itself into public
thought, and familiarised society with spiritual
apprehensions long obliterated. The school of lite
rature commonly called the Romantic r , commencing
with such writers as Schlegel and Novalis, fanciful
as it may in some respects seem to be, created the
same change in the belief and tastes of the German
mind as the contemporary school of Lake Poets in
England. The German literature bore the marks
either of the old scholasticism, or of the materialism
introduced from France, or of the classic culture

q Lect.VII.

r The Romantic school included L. F. Stolberg, the Schlegels,
Tieck, Novalis (Hardenberg), Fouque. See Kahnis, p. 202 ; Mo-
rell, ii. 421 ; Vilmar. (English translation), p. 500 seq. ; Carlyle s
Essay on Novalis (Misc. Works, vol. ii.) ; and Bartholmess, ii. b. xi.

LECTURE VI.

introduced by Lessing and his coadjutors. The
element now revived was the mediaeval element of
chivalry, the high and lofty courage, the delicate
aesthetic taste, which had marked the middle ages.
Herder 5 , to whom Germany owes much, disgusted
with the stoical and analytic spirit of the Kan
tian philosophy, had already attempted, and not in
vain, to throw the mind back to an appreciation
of old history, and especially had manifested an
enthusiastic admiration of Hebrew literature ; but
now, as if by one general movement, the public
taste was turned to an appreciation of the freshness
of feeling, and fine elements of character, which
existed in the Christianity of the middle ages *.

This literary movement prepared the way for and
accompanied another, which, though occurring a little
later, may be reckoned as the third influence which
caused a religious reaction. Indeed it is the one to
which the Germans attribute the chief effect. It is

s Herder, 1744-1803. See a previous note. His most inter
esting works were, the Spirit of Hebrew Poetry (translated 1802),
and the Philosophy of History (translated 1800).

t The influence of the movement extended into the Roman catho
lic church ; and Hermes, Moehler, and Goerres, were affected by it.
Hermes (1775-1831) was Professor at Bonn; and, endeavouring
to find a philosophy for Romish doctrines, was opposed by his own
church. Moehler, 1796-1838, author of the Symbolik, which re
vived the controversy with Protestantism, and was answered by the
most learned Protestant theologians, has been pronounced (by
Schaff) to be the ablest Romish theologian since Bellarmine and
Bossuet. Goerres (17761848), a mystic writer in Bavaria. See
Am. Saintes, c. xx. ; and on Goerres see Quinet, (Euvr. vi. ch. vii.

LECTURE VI. 339

found in the outburst of national patriotism which
took place in the liberation wars of 1 8 1 3 u ; the spon
taneous chivalry which made the heart of Germany
beat as the heart of one man, to endeavour to hurl
back Napoleon beyond the limits of the common
fatherland. In that moment of deep public suffer
ing, the poetry and piety of the human heart brought
back the idea of God, and a spirit of moral earnest
ness. The national patriotism x , which still lives in
the poetry of the time, expelled selfishness : sorrow
impressed men with a sense of the vanity of material
things, and made their hearts yearn after the imma
terial, the spiritual, the immortal : the sense of
terror threw them upon the God of battles. It was
the age of Marathon and Salamis revived; and the
effect was not less wonderful y .

A fourth influence remains to be noticed, which
was in its nature more strictly theological, and
limited to the church. When after the return of
peace the tercentenary of the Reformation was cele
brated in 1817, an obscure theologian at Kiel,
named Harms z , published a set of theses as supple-

u See Hundeshagen, Der Deutsch Prot. 12 ; Kahnis, p. 223.

x This patriotism still lives in the poetry of Koerner.

Y This allusion is used by Kahnis (p. 220). He also (p. 221)
refers the great outburst of historic study which followed, to the
historic sense then awakened.

z Harms (17 7 8- 1 855). See Am. Saintes, part ii. ch. ix ; Kahnis,
p. 223 seq., where some of Harms s Theses are given. They are
founded on the doctrinal spirit of the sixteenth century, and are full
of force and humour. Some of them are directed against rationalism ;

Z 2

340 LECTURE VI.

ments to the celebrated theses of Luther, which, by
the excitement and controversy unexpectedly occa
sioned by them, turned attention anew to the study
of the reformational and biblical theology, and
created a revival of the spiritual element which was
too much forgotten.

Such were the four influences the philosophical,
the literary, the political, the spiritual, which entered
into German life, and produced or increased the
reaction that took place in German theology in the
period which we are about to sketch.

We placed the limits of this second period from
about 1810 till the literary revolution caused by
alarm at Strauss s work in 1835 a . It was m 1810,
in the depth of Prussian humiliation, when Halle
had passed into one of the kingdoms dependent on
France, that the university of Berlin was founded.
Schleiermacher, Neander, and De Wette, were its
teachers. The first was the soul of its theological
teaching; and through his agency it became the
great source of a religious reaction. It is around

others are the asseveration of high Lutheran tenets. The following
are specimens : No. 3. " With the idea of a progressive reformation,
in the manner in which it is at present understood, Lutheranism will
be reformed back into heathenism." No. 21. "In the sixteenth
century the pardon of sins cost money after all ; in the nineteenth
it may be had without money, for people help themselves to it."
See Pelt in Herzog s Reakn-Encyclop. sub voc.

a On this second period, see Schwarz s Geschichte der Neuesten
Theologie, b. i. ; and for brief notices of the whole of the German
movement, see Hagenbach s Dogmengeschichte (period 5).

LECTURE VI 341

these names that our studies most centre. The
signs indeed of some other movements are traceable.
The deistic rationalism is not dead, but it is dying :
it is a thing of the past : a return to strict dogmatic
orthodoxy is also visible in the Lutheran clergy
rather than in the university ; but it is as yet in
its infancy : and a new form of gnosticism is observ
able in the philosophy of Hegel, but the full deve
lopment of it belongs to the next period. The field
is now occupied by the partial reaction to orthodoxy,
which aimed at a reconciliation of science and piety,
of criticism and faith b . Schleiermacher, with his
follower Neander, will typify the philosophical and
more orthodox side of it ; perhaps De Wette, and
at the end of the period Ewald, the critical.

Schleiermacher was by education and sympathy
eminently fitted to attempt the harmony of science
and faith, to which he devoted his life. Gifted with
an acute and penetrating intellect, capable of grap
pling with the highest problems of philosophy and

b It has been more recently, for this reason, called the Mediation-
Theology ( Vermittellungs-Theologie).

c Schleiermacher (1768-1834). His Leben in Brief en (1858)
has been recently translated. His philosophical and religious stand
point is well discussed, and some portions of his works analysed,
in the Rev. R. A. Vaughan s Essays and Remains (reprinted from
the British Quarterly Review, No. 18). A brief explanation of his
philosophy is seen in Morell s History of Philosophy, ii. 433, and
Julius Scheller s Vorlesungen uber Schleiermacher, 1844. His reli
gious views are criticised, with extracts, in Amand Saintes, part ii.
ch. xiv-xvi ; Kahnis, 204 seq. ; Llicke, Stud, und Krit. 1834, H. 4,
The facts of his life are given in the Westm. Rev. for July, 1861.

342 LECTUEE VI.

the minutest details of criticism, he could sympathise
with the intellectual movement of the old rational
ism ; while his fine moral sensibility, the depth and
passionateness of his sympathy, the exquisite deli
cacy of his taste and brilliancy of imagination, were
in perfect harmony with the literary and aesthetic
revival which was commencing. German to the very
soul, he possessed an enthusiastic sympathy with the
great literary movements of his age, philosophical,
classical, or romantic. The diligent student and
translator of Plato (1 , his soul was enchanted with the
mixture at once of genius, poetry, feeling, and dia
lectic, which marks that prince of thinkers, and he
was prepared by it for understanding the specula
tions of his time. The dialectical process through
which Plato s mind had passed (30) represents not
improbably, in some degree, the history of Schleier-
macher s own mental development as traceable in
his works. The conviction derived from Plato s early
dialogues, that the mind, in travelling outward to
study the objective, could not prove the highest
realities, but must have faith in its own faculties,
prepared him for imbibing the philosophy of Jacobi.
The looking inward to the deep utterances of the soul,
the interpretation of the objective world by means of
the internal, prepared him for Fichte. The mystical

d He joined F. Schlegel in the plan of translation, and continued
it after Schlegel had retired from it. He did not however complete
the whole of Plato. The parts finished were published at intervals
from 1804-27. The introductions to the dialogues are valuable.

LECTURE VI. 343

attempt to understand the ideas themselves, to use
the archetype for creating an ontology from the ob
jective side, observable in Plato s latest works, found
its parallel in Schelling. Schleiermacher had large
sympathies with these three processes, but mainly
with the first; which was to be expected from his
purpose. Aiming at gaining spiritual certitude
rather than speculating for intellectual gratification,
Jacobi s philosophy appeared to combine the excel
lences of the other two systems, the subjective cha
racter of the one, and the intuitional of the other ;
with the additional advantage of seeming to give
expression to the instincts of the heart, as well as the
intuitions of the mind. Beyond all these qualities,
Schleiermacher inherited from his Moravian educa
tion the spirit of pietism, which, almost extinguished
by the recent activity of mind, had retired to the
quiet sphere where a Stilling 6 or an Oberlin f com
muned with God and laboured for man.

Possessing therefore the two great elements which

e J. H. Jung Stilling (1740-1817), a distinguished oculist in
Westphalia, who employed himself in acts of religious usefulness.
His works were published in 1835. His Autobiography, written
by desire of Goethe, has been translated. See an article on him in
the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xxi.

f Oberlin (1740-1826), the interesting pastor of the Vosges
mountains, who united efforts for civilization with piety, and the
temporal improvement of his people with the spiritual. His me
moir has been written in English. To the same class of saintly
men about the end of the last century belonged Hamann, Lavater,
and Claudius. See Kahnis, p. 80 seq.

344 LECTURE VI.

had been united in the Reformation, endowed on
the one hand with the largest sympathy with every
department of the intellectual movement, and the
mastery of its ripest erudition, and at the same time
with a soul kindled with a hearty love for Christ
ianity, he was fitted to become the Coryphaeus of a
new reformation, to attempt again a final reconcilia
tion of knowledge and faith. Whether we view him
in his own natural gifts and susceptibilities ; in the
aim of his life; in his mixture of reason and love,
of philosophy and criticism, of enthusiasm and wis
dom, of orthodoxy and heresy; or regard the transi
tory character of his work, the permanence of his
influence ; church history offers no parallel to him
since the days of Origen s.

His early education was received in the university
of Halle ; an institution which had long been the
home of pietism, and has continued with but few
intervals 11 to evince much of the same Christian
spirit. He became professor there early in the cen
tury *, until the town passed, as already stated, into
the power of the French. He removed to Berlin

*? Mr. K. A.Vaughan, in the Essay above cited, compares Sehleier-
macher with Hugo St. Victor (on whom see Bitter, Chr. Phil. viii.
9. 2). The analogy with Origen is close. Speaking technically,
the difference would be, that the Nee-Platonic school, to which
Origen belonged, was rather one of "Objective Idealism" like
Schelling ; Schleiermacher s of " Subjective Idealism" like Fichte.

ll The .Rationalist and Socinian element was taught byWeg-
scheider.

1 In 1802.

LECTURE VI. 345

when that university was founded .i, and continued to
exercise his influence there, from the pulpit and the
professor s chair, for a quarter of a century, until his
death k .

Before the conclusion of the last century, while
still the literary influence of Weimar was at its
height, he wrote Discourses on Religion 1 , to arouse
the German mind to self-consciousness; which pro
duced as stirring an effect in religion m as Fichte s
patriotic addresses to the German nation subse
quently in politics; and from them may be -dated
the first movement of spiritual renovation, as from
the latter the first of German liberation from
foreign control. In successive works his views on
ethics and religion were gradually developed, until,
in his Glaubenslehre (31) he produced one of the
most important theological systems ever conceived.
We can give no idea of the compass exhibited in
that work, nor spare time to trace the growth in
Schleiermacher s own mind as new influences like
that of Harms, which he rejected, indirectly influenced
him ; but we must be content to define his general
position in its destructive and constructive aspects.

The fundamental principles n were, that truth in
theology was not to be attained by reason, but by

J Halle was taken by the French in 1806 ; the university of
Berlin was founded in 1810.

k He died in 1834.

1 See note 31.

m Neander s witness to the effect produced by them is quoted in
Kahnis, p. 208.

n Cfr. Glaubemlehre, 3-6.

346 LECTURE VI.

an insight, which he called the Christian conscious
ness", which we should call Christian experience;
and that piety consists in spiritual feeling, not in
morality. Both were corollaries from his philoso
phical principles.

There are two parts, both in the intellectual and
emotional branches of our nature; in the emotional,
a feeling of dependence in the presence of the Infi
nite, which is the seat of religion; and a conscious
ness of power, which is the source of action and seat
of morality ; and in the intellectual, a faith or intui
tion which apprehends God and truth; and critical
faculties, which act upon the matter presented and
form science . In making these distinctions, Schleier-
macher struck a blow at the old rationalism, which
had identified on the one hand religion and morality,
and on the other intuition and reason. Hence from
this point of view he was led to explain Christianity,
when contrasted with other religions, subjectively on
the emotional side, as the most perfect state of the
feeling of dependence ; and on the intellectual, as
the intuition of Christianity and Christ s work : and

n Selbst-bewuszt-seyn.

Schleiermacher s views are rarely put with sharpness of form ;
and as they varied in the manner shown in Note 31, it is hardly pos
sible to lay down a fixed account of his system. The following re
marks are rather the spirit of his Glaubenslehre than an analysis of it.
His psychological views are seen in 1-4 of that treatise (ed. 1842);
but the Reden, pp. 58, 59, and the introduction by his pupil Schwei-
zer to the Entwurf eines systems der sittenlehre, 1835, besides his
posthumous philosophical works, ought also to be consulted. His
psychological views are nearly reproduced in Morell s Philosophy of
. ch. iii.

LECTURE VI. 347

the organ for truth in Christianity was regarded to
be the special form of insight which apprehends
Christ, just as natural intuition apprehends God;
which insight was called the Christian consciousness?.
Thus far many will agree with him. Perhaps no
nobler analysis of the religious faculties has ever
been given. Religion was placed on a new basis : a
home was found for it in the human mind distinct
from reason. The old rationalism was shown to be
untrue in its psychology. The distinctness of reli
gion was asserted; and the necessity of spiritual
insight and of sympathy with Christian life asserted
to be as necessary for appreciating Christianity, as
aesthetic insight for art.

In its reconstruction of Christian truth, however,
fewer will coincide. Following out the same prin
ciples ; in the same manner as he regarded the intui
tions of human nature to be the last appeal of truth
in art or morals, so he made the collective Christian
consciousness the last standard of appeal in Christ
ianity. The dependence therefore on apostolic teach
ing was not the appeal to an external authority, but
merely to that which was the best exponent of the
early religious consciousness of Christendom in its
purest age^. The Christian church existed before
the Christian scriptures. The New Testament was
written for believers, appealing to their religious
consciousness, not dictating to it. Inspiration is not
indeed thus reduced to genius, but to the religious

P 7-10; and also 11-14. 1 129-131.

348 LECTURE VI.

consciousness, and is different only in degree, and
not in kind, from the pious intuitions of saintly men.
The Bible becomes the record of religious truth, not
its vehicle ; a witness to the Christian consciousness
of apostolic times, not an external standard for all
time. In this respect Schleiermacher was not re
peating the teaching of the reformation of the six
teenth age, but was passing beyond it, and abandon
ing its reverence for scripture.

From this point we may see how his views of
doctrine as weh 1 as his criticism of scripture were
affected by this theory. For in his view of funda
mental doctrines, such as sin, and the redeeming
work of Christ, inasmuch as his appeal was made to
the collective consciousness, those aspects of doctrine
only were regarded as important, or even real, which
were appropriated by the consciousness, or under
stood by it 1 . Sin was accordingly presented rather
as unholiness than as guilt before God s ; redemp
tion, rather as sanctificatiori than as justification ;
Christ s death as a mere subordinate act in his life
of self-sacrifice, not the one oblation for the world s
sin * ; atonement regarded to be the setting forth
of the union of God with man ; and the mode
of arriving at a state of salvation", to be a realisa
tion of the union of man with God, through a

r His views on sin are given 65-85 ; and on the work of
Christ, 100-105.

s 68. * 104.

11 The mode of reconciliation is treated in 106-112, and indi
rectly in the Weihnachtefeier. Mr. Vaughan compares it with Osi-
ander s view in the sixteenth century.

LECTURE VI. 349

kind of mystical conception of the brotherhood of
Christ x .

Hence, as might be- expected, the dogmatic reality
of such doctrines as the Trinity was weakened y . The
deity of the Son, as distinct from his superhuman
character, became unimportant, save as the historical
embodiment of the ideal union of God with hu
manity 2 . The Spirit was viewed, not as a personal
agent, but as a living activity, having its seat in the
Christian consciousness of the church a . The objec
tive in each case was absorbed in the spiritual, as
formerly in the old rationalism it had been degraded
into the natural. It followed also that the Christian
consciousness, thus able to find as it were a philo
sophy of religion, and of the material apprehended
by the consciousness of inspired men, possessed an
instinct to distinguish the unimportant from the
important in scripture, and valued more highly the
eternal ideas intended than the historic garb under
which they were presented.

The ideological tendency, as it is now called b , the
natural longing of the philosophical mind that tries
to rise beyond facts into their causes, to penetrate

x His views may be seen in 50-56, especially 54. His system
in earlier life almost resembled pantheism, as in his praise of
Spinoza. See Reden, p. 471.

y 170-172.

7 The person of Christ is discussed 93-99. Vaughan compares
the view with that of Justin Martyr. See also Strauss s Leben Jesu,
148.

a 121-125. b See Note 24.

3:&gt;o LECTURE VI.

behind phenomena into ideas, grows up in a country,
as is seen by the example of ancient Greece, when
the popular creed and the scientific have become
discordant. Suggested in Germany by the old
rationalism, it had been especially stimulated by
the subjective philosophy of Kant and Fichte.
Historic facts were the expression of subjective
forms of thought. The Non-ego was a form, in
which the Ego was expressing itself. This theory,
suggested to Schleiermacher from without, fell in
with his own views as above developed, and affected
his critical inquiries. When he involved himself
in the great questions of the higher criticism, which
have been already treated in connexion with Sender,
subjective criticism was used in an exaggerated
manner, not merely to suggest hypotheses, or to
check deductions by Christian appreciation, but as
a substitute a priori for historic investigation. In
the controversy as to the composition of the Gospels,
which will be hereafter explained, he was led, by
his ideological theory and his instinctive perception

c His critical is much less important than his philosophical po
sition. The same spirit of seriousness marks his writings in this
department. Two of his chief critical works are, his Ueber den soge-
nannten ersten Brief des Paulus an den Timotheus, 1807, and
Ueber die Schriften des Lukes, ein Kritischer Versuch, 1817, trans
lated into English 1825. The reasons given for his appreciation of
the Gospel of St. John in the Weihnachtsfeier, also his posthumous
work, Hermeneutik und Kritik, 1838, and his Einleitung ins Neue,
Test. 1845, ought also to be taken into account in estimating his
exegetical views.

LECTURE VI. 351

of the relative importance of doctrines in theological
perspective, to abandon the historical importance
of miracles as compared with doctrine, and also the
verity of the early history of Christ s life, considered
to have been communicated by tradition; while he
held fast to the moral and historical reality of the
latter &lt;\

These remarks must suffice to point out the posi
tion of Schleiermacher. We have seen how com
pletely he caught the influences of his time, absorbed
them, and transmitted them. If his teaching was
defective in its constructive side ; if he did not attain
the firm grasp of objective verity which is implied
in perfect doctrinal, not to say critical, orthodoxy ; he
at least gave the death-blow to the old rationalism,
which, either from an empirical or a rational point of
view, proposed to gain such a philosophy of religion
as reduced it to morality. He rekindled spiritual
apprehensions ; he above all drew attention to the
peculiar character of Christianity, as something more
than the republication of natural religion, in the same
manner that the Christian consciousness offered some
thing more than merely moral experience. He set

d The above remarks on Schleiermacher will perhaps be considered
severe by those who know his works, and will be regarded as putting
the worst face on his system. The criticism however of the late
Mr. Vaughan, who deeply appreciated Schleiermacher, and had
devoted much patient study to his works, and who viewed him
from the stand-point of English orthodoxy, coincides with the above
estimate of him. A criticism on Schleiermacher from Bretschnei-
der s point of view may be seen in his Dogmatik, i. p. 93-115.

:):&gt;&gt; LECTURE VI.

forth, however imperfectly, the idea of redemption,
and the personality of the Redeemer ; and awakened
religious aspirations, which led his successors to a
deeper appreciation of the truth as it is in Jesus.
Much of his theology, and some part of his philo
sophy, had only a temporary interest relatively to his
times; but his influence was perpetual. The faults
were those of his age ; the excell encies were his own.
Men caught his deep love to a personal Christ, with
out imbibing his doctrinal opinions. His own views
became more evangelical as his life went on, and the
views of his disciples more deeply scriptural than those
of their master. Thus the light kindled by him waxed
purer and purer. The mantle remained after the
prophet s spirit had ascended to the God that gave it.
In strict truth he did not found a school. Though
his mind was dialectical, he had too much poetry to
do this. Genius, as has been often observed, does
not create a school, but kindles an influence. The
university of Berlin, the very centre of intellectual
greatness in every department from its foundation,
was the first seat of Schleiermacher s influence ; and
the political importance of the capital added impulse
to the movement. The reaction extended to other
universities 6 , and not only marked the chief theolo
gians of an orthodox tendency which are commonly
known to us f , Tholuck, Twesten, Nitzch, Julius

e Especially at Bonn, which was founded in 1818.
* The following theologians were influenced chiefly by the spirit
of Schleiermacher : Tholuck, professor at Halle, author of various

LECTURE VI 353

Muller, Olshausen, but even modified the extreme
rationalist party, and diffused its influence among
theologians of the church of Homes.

It is impossible to specify the views of those
who were the chief representatives of the effects
of Schleiermacher s teaching. One however, his
friend and colleague, deserves mention, the well-
known church historian Neander h . Brought up a

well-known works, (see the expression of his views in the tract, the
Guido and Julius, or true Consecration of the Doubter, in reply to
De Wette s Theodor) ; Twesten, successor of Schleiermacher at
Berlin, author of the well-known Dogmatik ; H. Olshausen, the
commentator ; Nitzch, author of the Handbook of Doctrine (trans
lated) ; Julius Miiller, writer of the able work on the Nature of
Sin; Ullmann, editor of the Studien und Kritiken, the organ of
the party. Also Sach, Stier, Tittinann, Umbreit, Ebrart, Hagen-
bach, Baumgarten-Crusius, Hundeshagen, Bleek, Liicke, Lange,
belong to the same party ; and Gieseler also in the main. Their
doctrine is called the Deutsche Theologie. Bunsen must also perhaps
be classed with them, though much freer and less biblical than the
others. The writings of the late archdeacon Hare are perhaps no
inapt English parallel to the tone of these teachers.

s More especially Moehler, named above (p. 338 note), was in
fluenced. The modern Catholic theologians are to be treated in
the forthcoming (3rd) edition of C. Schwarz s Gesch. der Neuesten
Theologie.

h For Neander s life and character as a theologian and church
historian, see the interesting particulars gathered in the British
Quarterly Review, No. 24, for Nov. 1850, and in the Bibliotheca
Sacra, vol. viii. Neander (1789-1850) was a Jew by birth. About
1805 he embraced Christianity (his life at this period is seen in his
letters to Chamisso) ; studied at Halle under Schleiermacher 1 806 ;
at Gottingen under Planck; was made Professor at Berlin 1812 :
author of various early monographs ; of the Church History, 1825 ;
History of the Planting of the Church, 1832 ; Life of Christ, 1837.
His opinions may be learned from the Preface to the third edition

A a

354 LECTURE VI.

Jew, he passed into Christianity, like some of the
early fathers, through the gate of Platonism ; and,
knowing by experience that free inquiry had been
the means of his own conversion, he ever stood forth
with a noble courage as the advocate of full and
fair investigation, feeling confidence that Christianity
could endure the test. More meditative and less dia
lectical than Schleiermacher, and too original to be
an imitator, he surpassed him in the deeper apprecia
tion of sin and of redemption ; placing sin rather
in alienation of will than in the sense of discord
ance, and holding more firmly the existence of some
objective reality in the anthropopathic expression of
the wrath of God removed by Christ s death 1 . His
great employment in life was history ; not, like his
master, philosophy and criticism. Viewing human
nature from the subjective stand-point, the central
thought of his historical works was, that Christianity
is a life resting on a person, rather than a system
resting on a dogma. Hence he was able to find the
harmony of reason and faith from the human side in
stead of the divine, by noticing the adaptation of the
divine work to human wants. The inspiration of
the scriptural writers was viewed as dynamical not

of his Life of Christ, and the Preface to his Church History. On
his position as a church historian, see Hagenbach in Studien und
Kritiken for 1851.

1 His views on sin and redemption are chiefly to be gathered from
criticisms on the Pauline doctrine in the History of the Planting of
the Church (vol. ii.) ; and on the Christian doctrine in vol. ii. of
his Church History.

LECTURE VI. 355

mechanical, spiritual not literal k ; and Christianity as
the great element of human progress, being the divine
life on earth which God had kindled through the gift
of his Son 1 . The great aim accordingly of Neander
in his historical sketches was to exhibit the Christian
church as the philosophy of history, and God s work
in Christ, realised in the piety of the faithful, as
the philosophy of the Christian church. The his
tory of the church in his view is the record of the
Christian consciousness in the world. The subjective
and mystical spirit engendered by such a conception,
was in danger of converting history into a series of
biographies ; but the deep influence which it pos
sessed in contributing to foster the reaction against
the old rationalism will be obvious. It becomes us
to speak with reverence of the writings of a man
whose labours have been the means of turning many
to Christ. Though lacking form as works of art,
yet, if they be compared with works of grander
type, where church history has been treated as an
epic, we cannot help feeling that the depth of spiri
tual perception and of psychological analysis compen
sates for the artistic defects. We are conducted by
them from the outside to the inside ; from things to
thoughts ; from institutions to doctrines ; from the
accidents of Christianity to the essence.

Neander s teaching, while an offshoot from Schleier-
macher, marks the highest point to which the prin-

k Introduction to the Life of Christ, 6.
1 Preface to Church History (first edition).
A a 2

356 LECTURE VI.

ciples of the master could be carried. It advances
farther in the hearty love for Christ and for reve
lation, and bears fewer traces of the ancient spirit
of rationalism ; being allied to it in few respects,
save in the wish constantly exhibited to appropriate
that which is believed ; but the wants of the heart,
not the conceptions of the understanding, are made
the gauge of divine truth, and the interpreter of
the divine volume.

We pointed out that the great reaction in the
present century was marked not only by the philo
sophical and doctrinal school just described, but by a
contemporaneous one, which employed itself on lite
rary and critical inquiries in reference to the Bible,
and was the continuation of the earlier rationalist
criticism on improved principles. The most import
ant name representing this critical movement in the
beginning of the period was De Wette. (32) Per
haps too we may without injustice mention, as a
type of it at the close of the period, a theologian
who is almost too original to admit of being clas
sified the learned Ewald. (32)

De Wette was nurtured amid the old rationalism
of Jena, at the time of its greatest power, about the
beginning of the present century; and imbibed the
peculiar modification of the doctrines of Kant and
Jacobi which was presented in the philosophy of
Fries m . It was the appeal to subjective feeling

m On Fries philosophy see Morell, ii. 418 ; Tennemann s Manual,
122. Accepting Kant s categories, he held the existence of an

LECTURE VI. 357

thence derived which preserved him from the cold
ness of older critics, and caused his labours to contri
bute to the reaction. His works were very various ;
but the earlier of them were especially devoted to
the examination of the Old Testament, and the later
to the New.

The peculiarity of this school generally may be
said to be, a disposition to investigate both Testa
ments for their own sake as literature, not for the
further purpose of discovering doctrine. These
writers are primarily literary critics, not dogmatic
theologians. Like the older rationalists, they are
occupied largely with biblical interpretation ; but,
perceiving the hollo wness of their attempt to explain
away moral and spiritual mysteries by reference to
material events, they transfer to the Bible the theo
ries used in the contemporary investigations in
classical history, and explain the Biblical wonders by
the hypothesis of legends or of myths. Though
they ignore the miraculous and supernatural equally
with the older rationalists, they aUow the spiri
tual in addition to the moral and natural, and
thus take a more scholarlike and elevated view of
the Hebrew history and literature. The system of
interpretation adopted is the transition from the
previous one, which admitted the facts but explained

inward faith-principle, which gives an insight into the real nature of
things j but only as subjective truths, and as tests of truth. The
church historian Hase (see Kahnis, p. 236) is moulded by this
philosophy.

358 LECTURE VI.

them away, to the succeeding one of Strauss, which
denies the facts, and accounts for the belief in them
by psychological causes.

The wish to give a possible basis for the exist
ence of legend, by interposing a chasm between the
events and the record of them, stimulated the pur
suit of the branch of criticism slightly touched on
by their predecessors, which investigates the origin
and date of scripture books. They transferred to
the Hebrew literature the critical method by which
Wolff had destroyed the unity of Homer, and Nie-
buhr the credibility of Livy. Not a single book,
history, poetry, or prophecy, was left unexamined.
The inquiries of this kind, instituted with reference
to the book of Daniel, were alluded to in a former
lecture ; and those which relate to the Gospels
will occur hereafter P. At present it will only be
possible to specify a single instance in illustration of
these inquiries the celebrated one which relates to
the authorship and composition of the Pentateuch.
It is the one to which most labour has been devoted,

Lect. II. p. 85. Similar discussions have arisen with regard
to the integrity and purpose of the books of Job, Zechariah, and
Isaiah. Particulars of these literary questions will be found in
Hengstenberg s articles Job and Isaiah in Kitto s BiU. CycL, and in
Davidson s Introduction to the Old Testament, in the chapters con
cerning these books. The classical student need hardly be reminded
of the close analogy between these literary investigations in the
Hebrew literature and those which were conducted by F. A. Wolff
in respect to Homer, and by other scholars in reference to various
classical authors.

i Lect. VII.

LECTURE VI. 359

and is an excellent instance for exhibiting the slow
but progressive improvement and growing caution
shown in the mode of exercising them 1 *.

As early as the time of Hobbes and Spinoza it
was perceived that the Pentateuch contains a few
allusions which seem to have been inserted after
the time of Moses; a circumstance which they, as
well as R. Simon, explained, by referring them to the
sacred editor Ezra, who is thought to have arranged
the canon : but about the middle of the last cen
tury a French physician, Astruc r , pointed out a
circumstance which has introduced an entirely new
element into the discussion of the question; viz. the
distinction in the use of the two Hebrew names for
God, Elohim and Jehovah. It will be necessary to
offer a brief explanation of this distinction, in order
that we may be able to perceive the line at which
fact ends and hypothesis commences, and under
stand the character of the criticism which we are
describing.

It is now generally admitted that the word
Elohim is the name for Deity, as worshipped by

* Perhaps the clearest account of the controversy will be found
in Michel Nicholas, Etudes Critiques sur la Bible, Essay i. 1862.
See also Hengstenberg s Authentic cles Pentateuches (Die Gottesna-
men im Pentat. i. 1 8 1 seq. ; Havernick s Introd. to the Pentateuch
(English translation), p. 56, &c. ; Keil s Lehrbuch, p. 82, &c. ; and
Dr. S. Davidson s Introduction to the Old Testament (1862), pp.

I-I35.

r Conjectures sur les Memoires Originaux du livre de la Genese,

360 LECTURE VI.

the Hebrew patriarchs ; Jehovah, the conception of
Deity which is at the root of the Mosaic theocracy 1 ".
El, or the plural Elohim, means literally "the powers/ 7
(the plural form being either, as some unreasonably
think, a trace of early polytheism, or more prob
ably merely emphatic 8 ,) and is connected with the
name for God commonly used in the Semitic nations.
Jehovah* means " self-existent," and is the name
specially communicated to the Israelites. The idea
of power or superiority in the object of worship
was conveyed by Elohim ; that of self-existence,
spirituality, by Jehovah. Elohim was generic, and
could be applied to the gods of the heathen ; Jehovah
was specific, the covenant God of Moses. (33)

In this age, when words are separated from things,
we are apt to lose sight of the importance of the
difference of names in an early age of the world.
The modern investigations however of comparative
mythology enable us to realise the fact, that in the
childhood of the world words implied real differ
ences in things ; not merely in our conceptions, but in
the thing conceived". But the explanations above

r See Exodus vi. 3.

s The older critics however think that the plural form relates to
the plurality of persons in the divine Being.

t Jehovah is translated in the English version, the LORD.

u Independently of comparative mythology, which is still an
hypothesis, there is evidence of the fact in the very derivations
constantly offered of words in the Old Testament, as well as in the
modern investigations concerning language. Ewald has shown in
an interesting manner the means afforded by the Hebrew proper
names for gaining a conception of Hebrew life (see his article on

LECTUEE VI. 361

offered will show that, independently of the general
law of mind just noticed, a really different moral con
ception was offered by Providence to the Hebrew
mind through the employment of these two words.

Nor was the difference unknown or forgotten in
later ages of Jewish history. The fifty-third Psalm,
for example, is a repetition of the fourteenth with
the name Elohim altered into Jehovah. In the two
first of the five books into which the Psalms are
divided, the arrangement has been thought to be
not unconnected with the distinction of these
names x . In the book of Job also the name Jehovah
is used in the headings of the speeches of the dia
logues ; but in the speeches of Job s friends, as not
being Israelites, the name Elohim is used - . In the
book of Nehemiah the name Elohim is almost always
used, and in Ezra, Jehovah; and in the composition
of proper names, which in ancient times were not

Names in Kitto s Bibl. Encycl.} ; and a similar analysis has recently
been applied to the Indo-Germanic languages in Pictet s Les Origines
Indo -EuropeenneSj 1859.

x It is well known that the book of Psalms is divided, in the
Hebrew and the Septuagint, into five books ; viz. Psalms i-xli ;
xlii-lxxii ; Ixxiii-lxxxix ; xc-cvi ; cvii-cl ; each of them ending
with a doxology, which is now inserted in the text of the psalm.
In the first book the name Elohim occurs 15 times, and Jehovah
272 times ; in the second, Elohim 164 times, and Jehovah 30 times.
This computation is stated on the authority of Dr. Donaldson,
Christian Orthodoxy.

&gt; There are two exceptions, viz. i. 21, xii. 9, which Hengstenberg
considers to prove the rule. On this subject see Hengstenberg s
Dissertation on Job in Kitto s Bibl. Cyclop, ii. 122, now reprinted
in a volume of his Miscellaneous Essays.

362 LECTUKE VI

merely, as now, symbolical, the names El and Jah
respectively are employed in all ages of the Hebrew
nation : and, though no exact law can be detected,
it seems probable that in the great regal and
prophetic age the name Jehovah was especially
used. (34)

These remarks will both explain the difference of
conception existing in the Hebrew names of Deity,
and show that the Jews were aware of the distinction
to a late period. When we advance farther, we pass
from the region of fact into conjecture.

The distinctness of conception implied in the two
names has been made the basis of an hypothesis, in
which they are used for discovering different elements
in the Pentateuch. Throughout the book of Genesis
especially, and slightly elsewhere z , the critics that
we are describing have supposed that they detect
at least two distinct narratives, with peculiarities
of style, and differences or repetitions of statement ;
which they have therefore regarded as proofs of the
existence of different documents in the composition
of the Pentateuch ; an Elohistic, in which the name
Elohim, and a Jehovistic, in which the name Je-

z De Wette tries to exhibit traces in other books than Genesis,
but unsuccessfully. It is in Genesis alone that the difference can
be so clearly seen, that, even if the peculiar use had no theological
meaning, which not even Hengstenberg denies, it must remain
as a literary peculiarity. A list of the passages in Genesis which
have been considered by these critics to represent the respective uses
of the two names, is given in the learned and reverently written article
Generis t in Smith s Biblical Dictionary, by Mr. J. J. S. Ferowne.

LECTURE VI. 363

hovah was used ; upon the respective dates of which
they have formed conjectures.

Though we may object to these hazardous specula
tions, we shall perceive the alteration and increasing
caution displayed in the criticism, if we trace briefly
the successive opinions held on this particular subject.

Astruc, who first dwelt on the distinction, regarded
the separate works to be anterior to Moses, and to
have been used by him in the construction of the
Pentateuch a . Eichhorn took the same view, but
advanced the inquiry by a careful discrimination
of the peculiarities which he thought to belong to
each. Vater followed, and allowed the possibility
of one collector of the narratives, but denied that
it could be Moses. Thus far was the work of the
older critical school of rationalists. It was purely
anatomical and negative. It is at this point that
we perceive the alteration effected by the school
which we are now contemplating.

De Wette strove to penetrate more deeply into
the question of the origin, and to attain a positive
result. His discussion was marked by minute
study ; and he changed the test for distinguishing
the documents from the simple use of the names to
more uncertain characteristics, which depended upon
internal peculiarities of style and manner. The con
clusion to which he came was, that the mass of the
Pentateuch is based on the Elohistic document, with

a The references to these various authors will be found in
M. Nicholas^ Essay i.

364 LECTUEE VI.

passages supplemented from the Jehovistic ; and he
referred the age of both to a rather late part of the
regal period. Ewald, with great learning and deli
cacy of handling, has reconsidered the question b
and, though arriving at a most extraordinary theory
as to the manifold documents which have supplied
the materials for the work, has thrown to a much
earlier period the authorship of the main portion ;
and the views of later critics are gradually tending
in the same direction. Both study the Pentateuch
as uninspired literature ; but De Wette absurdly
regarded it as an epic created by the priests, in the
same manner as the Homeric epic by the rhapsodes :
Ewald on the contrary considers it to be largely
historic c .

b Geschichte des Hebr. Volk. i. 75 seq.

c In writing the history of this dispute, as being here viewed only
in its literary aspect, it will be seen that my object has been simply
to select it, for the purpose of exhibiting the gradual increase of
taste as well as of learning shown by the German critics in re
ference to questions of the " higher criticism." Concerning the
theological aspect of it we can all form an opinion, which would
probably be in a great degree condemnatory ; but concerning the
literary, none but a few eminent Hebrew scholars. Some of the
greatest of them, Gesenius, De Wette, Ewald, Hupfeld, Knobel,
have given in their adherence to some form of the theory above
described. The references to the works of Hengstenberg, Haver-
nick, and Keil, who have written on the other side, are given above.
The rashness of some forms of criticism must not make us abandon
a wholesome use of it ; and a literary peculiarity such as that de
scribed, if it really exist, demands the reverent study of those who
wish to learn the mind of the divine Spirit, as it was communicated
to the ancient chosen people, or expressed in the written word.
Compare M^aiil s Essay. Aids to Faith, p. 195.

LECTURE VI. 365

This statement of mere results, too brief to ex
hibit the critical acumen shown at different points
of the inquiry even where it is most full of peril,
will show the increasing learning displayed, and the
appreciation of valuable literary characteristics. It
will be perceived that prepossessions still predo
minate over this criticism ; but they are of a dif
ferent kind from those which existed earlier. They
are not the result of moral objections to the nar
ratives, but of the contemporary critical spirit in
secular literature. The discrepancy of result ob
tained by the process is a fair practical argument
which proves its uncertainty ; but its adherents
allow that both in art and literature internal evi
dence admits of few canons, and consequently that
the result of criticism could only admit of probability.

The general summary of the movement shows a
steady advance in criticism, as was before shown
in doctrine, toward a higher and more spiritual
standard. It is not the recognition of the inspired
authority of scripture, but it is some approach to
it. Instead of the hasty denunciation of narratives
or of books as imposture, seen in the Wolfenbiittel
Fragments, or the merely rationalist view of Eichhorn
and Paulus, we perceive the recognition of spiritual
and psychological mysteries as subjects of examina
tion ; and even when the result established is alto
gether unsatisfactory, valuable materials have been
collected for future students. If we were to abandon
our position of traditional orthodoxy, and accept that
of Schleiermacher in doctrine, or of De Wette in

300 LECTURE VI

criticism, it would be a retrogression ; but for the
Germans of their time it was a progress from doubt
towards faith. It was not orthodoxy, but it was
the first approach to it.

This double aspect, philosophical and critical, of
the reaction, brings us to the end of the second
period in the history of German theological thought.

It has already been stated that the elements of
other movements existed, which were hereafter to
develope; and that one of these was an attempt,
originating in the philosophy of Hegel, to reconstruct
the harmony of reason and faith from the intellec
tual, as distinct from the emotional side. It bore
some analogy to the gnosticism of the early church ;
and the critical side of it gave birth to Strauss.

We have traced the antecedent causes which pro
duced rationalism, and two out of the three periods
into which we divided the history of it. We are
halting before reaching the final act of the drama;
but we already begin to see the direction in which
the plot is developing.

It is when a great movement of mind or of society
can be thus viewed as a whole, in its antecedents
and its consequents, that we can form a judgment
on its real nature, and estimate its purpose and use.
As in viewing works of art, so in order to observe
correctly the great works of God s natural pro
vidence, we must reduce them to their true per
spective. It is the peculiarity of great movements
of mind, that when so viewed they do not appear to
be all shadow and formless, nor acts of meaningless

LECTURE VI. 367

impiety. They are products of intellectual ante
cedents, and perform their function in history. In
nothing is the Divine image stamped on humanity,
or the moral providence of God in the world, more
visible, than in the circumstance, of which we have
already had frequent proofs, that thought and honest
inqiiiry, if allowed to act freely, without being
repressed by material or political interference, but
checked only by spiritual and moral influences,
gradually attain to truth, appropriating goodness,
and rejecting evil. Thought seems to run on un
restrained, stimulated by human caprice, sometimes
by sinful wilfulness ; yet it is seen really to be re
strained by limits that are not of its own creation.
In the world of conscious mind, as in unconscious
matter, God hath set a law that shall not be broken.
Eeason, which creates the doubts, also allays them.
It rebukes the unbelief of impiety, making the wrath
of man to praise God ; and guides the honest in
quirer to truth.

A period of doubt is always sad ; but it would be
an unmixed woe for an individual or a nation, if it
were not made, in the order of a merciful Provi
dence, the transition to a more deeply-seated faith.
It is a means, not an end.

You tell me, doubt is devil-born.

I know not ; one indeed I knew
In many a subtle question versed.
Who touched a jarring lyre at first,

But ever strove to make it true :

368 LECTURE VI.

Perplext in faith, but not in deeds,

At last he beat his music out.

There lives more faith in honest doubt,
Believe me, than in half the creeds.

He fought his doubts, and gathered strength,
He would not make his judgment blind,
He faced the spectres of the mind

And laid them : thus he came at length

To find a stronger faith his own d .

Religious truth is open to those who will seek it
with humility and prayer.

In addition to the natural action of reason, the
fatherly pity of God is nigh, to give help to ah 1 that
ask it, and that endeavour to sanctify their studies
to His honour. Even though the search be long, and
a large portion of life be spent in the agony of
baffled effort, the mind reaps improvement from its
heart-sorrows, and at last receives the reward of its
patient faith. "Blessed are they which hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled 6 /
If we are thankful to be spared the sorrows of the
doubter, let us admire the wisdom and mercy shown
in the process by which Providence rescues men or
nations from the state of doubt. "The Lord God
omnipotent reigneth f ;" and He shall reign for ever
and ever.

d Tennyson s In Memoriam, 95.

Matt. v. 6. f Rev. xix. 6.

LECTURE VII.

FREE THOUGHT : IN GERMANY SUBSEQUENTLY TO 1 835 ; AND
IN FRANCE DURING THE PRESENT CENTURY.

MATT. xiii. 52.

Every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth
out of his treasure things new and old.

1 HE last lecture was brought to a close before we
reached the final forms assumed by German the
ology. In the present one we must complete the
narrative; and afterwards carry on the history of
free thought in France, as affected by the influence
of German literature, from the period at which the
narrative was previously interrupted to the present
time.

We have noticed the traces of the reaction in
favour of orthodoxy, which was produced in Ger
many by the influence of Schleiermacher. We treated

370 LECTURE VII.

the philosophical side of the movement, the vindi
cation of the distinctness of religion and ethics ; and
also witnessed the improved tone in the critical,
tending, if not to the recognition of a supernatural
character in the holy scriptures, yet to a more spiri
tual appreciation of their literary characteristics, and
of the psychological peculiarity of the facts recorded.
We adverted also, in conclusion, to a rival philo
sophical influence, springing from the teaching of
Hegel, which assisted the reaction by seeking a phi
losophical reconstruction of religion, though from a
different point of view from Schleiermacher.

It was this school which gave origin to the sub
sequent movements in Germany. The sudden alter
ation in German thought induced by Strauss, which
ushers in the modern period, arose from the union
of the philosophieal principles of this school with
the criticism of that of De Wette. We must there
fore endeavour to understand this movement, which
forms the turning point between the reaction before
described, which is the second of the three general
divisions made of this portion of history a , and the
forms which succeed constituting the third division.

Hegel b , a name almost as important in its influ-

Lect. VI. p. 308.

b Hegel, 1770-1831, Professor at Berlin after 1818. The rudi
ments of his system are in the Phenomenology, written about 1806 ;
the Logic gives the mature form of it about 1816 ; the Encyclopaedia
its completion ; the two former works being embodied in the latter.
For the sources for the study of his system, &c. see Note 35.

LECTURE VII 371

ence on the German mind as that of Goethe, has
been already mentioned 6 as the last of that band
of philosophers which strove to develop the mental
as distinct from the material principle, presented in
Kant s philosophy. Kant had completed the pro
cess of turning man s search inward, which Descartes
had begun. Philosophy became psychology; the dis
covery of the limits of knowledge, rather than of
the nature of the thing known. We have seen that
Fichte and Schelling, not content with this result,
had sought, though by opposite processes, to escape
from this limited knowledge; to attain an ontology
as well as a psychology. All philosophy aims at
attaining a knowledge of reality, either d posteriori
by means of generalisation, or d priori from the
data of mind. These two philosophers strove to
attain it by the latter mode ; but their method either
lacked system, or failed in its results: their philo
sophy was poetry rather than logic. Hegel followed
in their steps, but adopted a basis which admitted of
being developed in a formal system. The logical
rigour of his method, and the encyclopaedic grasp
which it gave over knowledge, partly accounted, as
in the case of Spinoza or of Wolff, for its popu
larity. The universe was to be interpreted from
the mind; the laws of thought were the laws of
things. The microcosm and the macrocosm were
one ; thought, and the mind that thinks ; or, more

* See p. 335.

B b 2

372 LECTURE VII.

truly, both were phases of the universal mind which
was unfolding. The mind of man could transcend
the limits of the finite and phenomenal ; and, being
able to apprehend the idea, the vov/mcvov, absolutely,
without condition, thus possessed the solution of
any branch of universal knowledge by an a priori
process. The problem of philosophy was, to find
the laws of this evolution in thought, to catch the
ideal when it strives to become immanent and to
manifest itself in the actual.

Without attempting here to explain the kind of
threefold process, (35) according to which this evolu
tion takes place, it is better, as in the case of the
former philosophies named, to exhibit the influence
of the general method rather than the effects of
particular theories inculcated by it.

The method had many advantages, in displacing
a low materialism, in stimulating loftiness of con
ception, and generating an historic study of every
subject, by its view of the universe as a develop
ment ; and also created a largeness of sympathy with
differing views, by regarding all things as in transi
tion, relative, true only in reference to their con
tradictory ; and by considering all hypotheses to con
tain a germ of right, and to be the result of partial
views of truth; but it will also be obvious, that the
method had its evil effects. For, when applied to
any department, it produced a disposition to seize
the principle, the idea, of which the concrete is the
embodiment; to descend from the type upon the in-

LECTUBE VII. 373

dividual. Its method was deductive and idealistic;
giving being to abstractions, like the realism of the
middle ages. It lost the fact in the principle; it
personified the genus. Philosophy became a vast
mythology.

When applied to Christianity, for example, it did
not attempt to find a philosophic ground for it psy
chologically in the human aspirations, as Schleier-
macher had done d , but objectively in the dogma.
It discovered the ideal truth in religion, and re
garded Christianity and Christ as being the mani
festation of the effort of the great Spirit of the uni
verse to convert the idea into act; the symbol which
expressed the speculative truth of the essential unity
of the ideal and the real, of the divine and the
human. Like the ancient Gnosticism, it believed in
dogmatic Christianity, because it descended upon it
from an d priori principle, in which it found the
explanation of it. Religion and philosophy were
reconciled, because religion was made a phase of
philosophy.

This system was taught by its founder at Berlin
from about 1820 to 1830, contemporary with that of

d Schleiermacher sought it in the consciousness of dependence,
craving for an infinite object j and regarded Christianity as supplying
the means for the perfect harmony of this principle with the op
posing one of voluntary power. Hence, the solution of difficulties
in religion would be sought in such a system by seeing the adapta
tion of the Christian scheme to human needs, not in the solution of
the mysteries themselves.

374 LECTURE VII.

Schleiermacher; and the learned theologian Marhein-
ecke e is the name best known of those who applied it
to theology. It was regarded at that time as an in
strument of orthodoxy f . It had the advantage over
the old rationalism, in that while using similarity of
method in seeking to explain mysteries, it did not
pare them down, but absorbed them in principles of
philosophy ; and over the school of Schleiermacher,
in that it was less subjective, less a matter of feeling,
supplying a doctrine and not merely a spirit ; and
therefore it satisfied the longing of the mind for dog
matic truth, and at the same time more readily linked

e Marheinecke (1780-1846), Professor of Theology at Berlin, the
author of many works, chiefly on dogmatic theology, of which his
Symbolik, 1810, and Dogmatik, 1827, are the most important. See
Bretschneider s explanation and criticism on his system (Dogmatik,
{. 1 15-140). Perhaps the name of K. Daub (1765-1836), Professor
at Heidelberg, ought also to be added. Originally Hegel s teacher,
he adopted his pupil s system. See Kahnis s remarks, p. 244 seq.,
and Amand Saintes, part ii. ch. xvii. It has been usual to classify
the followers of Hegel under the analogy of political parties in
foreign parliaments, thus : in the extreme right, Heinrichs and
Goeschel ; in the right, Schaller, Erdmann, and Gabler ; in the
centre, Rosenkranz and Marheinecke ; in the left centre, Vatke,
Snellmann, and Michelet ; in the left, Strauss, Bruno Bauer, and
Feuerbach. See Morell, Hist, of Philosophy, ii. 199, 203. Several
of these however are philosophers rather than theologians. A simpler
classification of the Hegelian theologians is into three parties : the
first, Daub and Marheinecke, and more recently Dorner ; the second,
Chr. Baur and the Tubingen school ; the third, Strauss, B. Bauer,
and Feuerbach.

f See the article by Scherer in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Feb.
1 86 1, p. 841 ; and on the influence of Hegel see Kahnis, p. 244 seq.,
and Am. Saintes, P. II. ch. 17 j and Bartholmess, b. xii.

LECTURE VII. 375

itself, ecclesiastically with clmrchlike and corporate
tendencies, and politically with conservative and au
tocratic ones. Yet it is easy to. see that its spirit
was really far less Christian than Schleiermacher s.
For it not only confused again philosophy and reli
gion, which his system had severed, but it proudly
claimed to explain doctrines rationally where his had
only sought to appropriate them intuitionally. It
verged towards pantheism. It was in danger of
losing the historic fact in the idea; of encouraging,
as it is now sometimes called, the " ideological ten
dency*; 7 whereas with Schleiermacher, the historic
belief had only been regarded as less important than
the emotional apprehension. Its d priori spirit
created also a depreciation of the investigations which
had been pursued by the critical school. It gave
encouragement to the study of history; but it was
to the history of philosophy, not to the investiga
tions conducted by historical criticism.

Such was the system which, along with those de
scribed in the last lecture, was regarded as contri
buting to favour orthodox reaction, and was dis
puting theological preeminence with that of Schlei
ermacher, when a work was published by one of its
disciples, which was the means, through the ferment
produced, of altering completely the whole tone and
course of German thought. It was the celebrated
Life of Jesus by Strauss h , a criticism on the four

s See Note 24. h Leben Jesu, 1835.

376 LECTURE VII.

biographies given in the gospels ; a work in which
the whole destructive movement was concentrated,
with such singular ability and clearness, that hardly
any work of theology has subsequently been written
without some notice of the propositions there main
tained.

It presented a double aspect : it was both philo
sophical and critical. Strauss added to a general
admission of the Hegelian point of view a love for
the critical studies so much neglected by that party.
Brought up in the moderate orthodoxy of Tubingen,
he had studied at Berlin under Schleiermacher, but
caught the critical rather than the philosophical side
of that master s teaching, and especially interested
himself in the solution of the question relating to
the origin and credibility of the Gospels, already
partially considered in the critical inquiries of the
old rationalism, and of the school of De Wette. It
was an investigation which in its nature, in the
spirit in which it was decided, and in its similarity
to the contemporaneous discussions of classical criti
cism, bore a close resemblance to that before de
scribed in reference to the Pentateuch. A few words
of explanation concerning it are necessary, previous
to the statement of the nature of Strauss s work 1 .

* The account of this controversy may be seen in bishop Marsh s
Dissertation, 1807 ; and a continuation of the history subsequently
to his work in the introduction to the Translation of Schleier-
tnachers Essay on St. Luke, 1825 (by the present Bp. Thirlwall).
The controversy is also treated with great learning and reverence

LECTURE VII 377

As early as the last century the resemblances be
tween the three " synoptical" Evangelists had ex
cited attention; and examination was directed to
discover the cause. Some, as Wetstein k , supposed
that one or two of the Gospels were borrowed from
the third ; others, as Michaelis 1 and Eichhorn, that
the three were all derived from one common ori
ginal, now lost ; others, as Schleiermacher, that they
were composed from many detached written narra
tives ; others, as Herder, and subsequently Gieseler,
that they were the committal to writing of the oral
tradition common in the church. Thus, whether the
Gospels were regarded as copies, or as being corn-
by Dr. S. Davidson, Introd. to New Test. i. (373-425). Important
references and quotations in regard to it are given in the Appendix
to Tregelles 1 edition of Home s Introd. i oth ed. vol. iv. ; also see
Amand Saintes, Hist. p. ii. 12 ; Renan 5 Etudes de VHist. Relig.
(Ess. 3) ; Hase s Leben Jesu ; Quinet s review of Strauss (CEuvres,
vol. iii.). A series of studies on the subject is in course of publica
tion in the Revue Germ. 1862, by Michel Nicholas.

k Wetstein, with Mill, Calmet, and others, regarded St. Mark s
Gospel to be the epitome of St. Matthew s. Griesbach and Dr.
Townson thought that St. Luke as well as St. Mark had seen the
one by St. Matthew. A further list may be seen in Tregelles (as
above), p. 642 ; and Davidson (as above).

1 Michaelis regarded the Greek translator of St. Matthew to have
had access to the same Greek document as St. Mark and St. Luke.
Semler and Lessing advocated a Hebrew or Syriac original. Eichhorn
adopted the theory of an Aramaic original, which was adopted with
slight alterations by bishop Marsh. (It was criticised by bishop
Randolph, by Mr. Veysie, and in Falconer s Bampton Lectures,
1 8 10.) Schleiermacher regarded the Gospels to be pieced together
out of separate documents. Gieseler s hypothesis was put forward
in 1818.

378 LECTURE VII.

posed from earlier documents, or from primitive tra
dition, the effect was, that they were reduced to the
level of natural testimony, and instead of being three
witnesses they became one. The fourth Gospel also
was involved in uncertainty. Bretschneider added
the full examination of it, and provoked a discussion
concerning the alleged disagreement of its tone and
statements with those of the synoptists m . Thus a
chasm was introduced between the events and the
record of them ; and the testimony was reduced to
traditional evidence.

This alteration in the critical attempt to shake the
evidence of independent authorship had been accom
panied by a corresponding change in the interpreta
tion, as seen in the assaults made on the credibility
of the facts narrated. In the hands of the English
deists and of Reiniarus this attack had been an
allegation against the moral character of the writer.
In Eichhorn and Paulus the imputation of collusion
had been superseded by the rationalistic interpreta
tion, which, without denying the historical recital,
denied the supernatural, and explained it away by
reference to the peculiarities of time at which the

m Probabilia de Evangel, et Epist. Joannis origine et indole,
1820. The theory suggested was, that it was written in the
second century. It was well answered by Schott, Stein, and
others. The controversy has been revived in more modern times ;
the Tubingen school denying the authorship to St. John, Ewald
and others, asserting it. The subject is discussed in Davidson s
Introduction to the New Testament, i. 233-313. See also two arti
cles in the National Revieiv, No. i. July 1855, and No. 9. July 1857.

LECTURE VII. 379

events were described. The next step was to transfer
the doubt to the recital itself, and to find, in the
absence of contemporary evidence for the events, the
possibility for legend, and, in the antecedent expec
tation of them, the possibility for myth.

This was the state of the critical question with
regard to the Gospels when the work of Strauss
appeared. The Hegelian philosophy gave him the
constructive side of his work, and criticism the de
structive. Setting out with the preconception which
had lain at the basis of German philosophy and
theology since Kant, that the idea was more im
portant than the fact", the mythical interpretation
of history furnished to him the medium for applying
this conception as an engine of criticism.

The mythical system of interpretation, though
slightly suggested by his predecessors in criticism, was
Strauss s great work. The difference between alle
gory, legend, and myth, is well known. Our blessed
Lord s miracles would be allegories, if they were, as
Woolston claimed, parables intentionally invented for
purposes of moral instruction, or facts which had a
mystical as well as literal meaning : they would be
legends if, while containing a basis of fact, they were
exaggerated by tradition : they would be myths if,
without really occurring, they were the result of a
general preconception that the Messiah ought to do
mighty works, which thus gradually became trans-

n On the spirit of Kant s philosophy in this respect, see Strauss s
own remarks, Leben Jesu, Introd. 7.

380 LECTURE VII.

lated into fact. A legend is a group of ideas round
a nucleus of fact : a myth is an idea translated by
mental realism into fact. A legend proceeds upwards
into the past ; a myth downwards into the future .
Strauss s peculiarity consisted in trying to show that
if a small basis of fact, heightened by legend, be
allowed in the gospel history, the influence of myth
is a psychological cause sufficient to explain the re
mainder. The idea is regarded as prior to the fact :
the need of a deliverer, he pretends, created the idea
of a saviour : the misinterpretation of old prophecy
presented conditions which in the popular mind must
be fulfilled by the Messiah. The gospel history is
regarded as the attempt of the idea to realise itself
in fact.

The fundamental fallacy of the inquiry is apparent
from one consideration. Legends are possible in any
age ; myths, strictly so called, only in the earliest
ages of a nation. Comparative philology has lately
shown that mythology is connected with the forma
tion of language, and restricted to an early period

On the contrast of myth and legend there are some good
remarks in Strauss, who quotes George s Mythus und Sage for
the explanation ; also in the Westminster Revieiv for April 1847
(p. 149), an article which, though written in favour of Strauss, gives
an instructive account of the object and position of his work. The
history of Strauss s work, with its antecedents and consequents,
mainly based on Schwarz (b. ii.) and on Scherer, but bearing marks
of independent study, is given in Mr. F. C. Cook s Essay on Ideo
logy in the Aids to Faith, 1862. Theodore Parker has given an
accurate analysis, and of course a defence, of Strauss (Miscellaneous
Writings, p. 231).

LECTURE VII. 381

of the world s history P. But the encouragement
offered to the mythic interpretation by Hegel s phi
losophy will be apparent. The mythus embodying
itself in the facts of the gospel was the miniature
of the process of universal nature. Everywhere the
idea strives for realisation.

The scheme of Strauss formed the link between
philosophy and criticism. Philosophy had explained
the doctrines of Christianity, but not the facts of
Christian history. Criticism had explained the facts
by historical examination, but not by philosophy.
Strauss attempted, for the first time, to present the
philosophical explanation of facts as well as doctrines.
He explained them, neither by charge of fraud, nor
by historical causes, but by reference to the operation
of a psychological law, the same which the Hege
lian philosophy regarded as exemplified universally.
Early Christian fiction was resolved into a psycho
logical law, regulated by a definite law of suggestion,
of which plausible instances were traced. The gospel
history was regarded to be partly a creation out of
nothing, partly an adaptation of real facts to pre
conceived ideas. This same philosophy, which thus
contributed to the critical or destructive side of the
theory, also furnished the reconstructive. The facts
in Christianity were temporary, the ideas eternal.
Christ was the type of humanity. (36) His life and

P The new view of the nature of myths is developed in Max
Miiller s Essay on Comparative Mythology, Oxford Essays, 1856.
See also Note 47.

382 LECTURE VII.

death and resurrection were the symbol of the life,
death, and resurrection, of humanity. The former
were unimportant, the latter eternal. An exoteric
religion for the people might exhibit the one :
the esoteric for the philosopher might retain the
others

This is Strauss s system and position. The book
itself comprises three parts ; first, an historic intro
duction, in which the history of previous criticism
and of Hermeneutics, and of the formation of the
mythical theory is most ably presented 1 " : secondly,
the main body of the work, which consists of a criti
cal examination of the life of Christ 8 , subdivided into
three parts; viz. an examination of the birth and
childhood of Jesus 1 , of his public life 11 , and of his
death x ; the object of which is to point out in the nar
rative the historic or mythic elements : and thirdly, a
philosophical conclusion ?, in which the doctrinal signi-

q Strauss, Leben Jesu, 152. (ii. p. 713.)

r i 1 6. It contains a history of the different explanations
of sacred legends among the Greeks ; the allegorical systems of the
Hebrews (Philo,) and Christians (Origen) ; the system of the Deists ;
and the Wolfenbiittel Fragmentist ; the naturalist mode of Eichhorn
and Paulus, and the moral of Kant ; lastly, the rise of the mythic,
both in reference to the Old and New Testaments. Then the dis
cussion of the possibility of myths in the Gospels, and a description
of the evangelical mythus.

s 1-142. t 17-43. u 44-110. x 111-142.

&gt; 143152. The author gives the dogmatic import of the life
of Jesus, criticising the Christology of Orthodoxy, of Rationalism, of
Schleiermacher, the Symbolic of Kant and De Wette, the Hegelian ;
and draws his own conclusions.

LECTURE VII 383

ficance of the life is given. As a specimen of didactic
and critical writing it is perhaps unrivalled in the
German literature. The second part is the embodi
ment of all the difficulties which destructive criticism
had presented. If the historic sketches captivate by
their clearness, the critical do so by their surprising
acuteness and dialectical power ; and the philosophical
by the appreciation of the ideal beauty of the very
doctrines, the historic embodiment of which is denied.
It is the work of a mind endowed with remarkable
analytical power ; in which the force of reflective
theory has overwhelmed the intuitional perception
of the personality and originality of the sacred cha
racter which is the subject of his study 2 .

The effect of the publication of the work was
astonishing. It produced a religious panic unequalled
since the Wolfenbiittel fragments. The first impulse
of the Prussian government was to prevent the in
troduction of the book into the Prussian kingdom ;
but Neander stood up to resist the proposal, with a
courage which showed his firm confidence in the per
manent victory of truth ; saying that it must be
answered by argument, not suppressed by force ; and
forthwith wrote his own beautiful work on the life of
Christ in reply to it. Yet neither the peculiarity of
Strauss s theory nor the nature of the work gave
ground for the panic. For the book was in truth not
a novelty, but merely a fuller development of prin-

K This idea is well brought out in Kenan s critique on Strauss.
(Etudes Relig. Essai iii.)

384 LECTURE VII.

ciples already existing in Germany ; and Schleier-
machp^, before his death, when contemplating the
tendency of religious criticism, had predicted a the
probability of such an attempt being made. Nor was
the work irreligious and blasphemous in its spirit,
like the attacks of the last century. It professed to
be executed solely in the interests of science; and,
though subversive of historic religion, to be con
servative of ideal. The critical part was only a
means to an end ; its real basis was speculative. But
the literary aspect of the question was lost sight of
in the religious. The heart spoke forth its terror at
the idea of losing its most sacred hope, the object of
its deepest trust, an historic Saviour. The alarm had
not been anticipated by the author of the attack.
He is described by a hostile critic b as a young man
full of candour, of sweetness, and modesty, of a spirit
almost mystical, and as it were saddened by the
disturbance which had been occasioned/ But he
became a martyr for his act, and an outcast from the
sympathy of religious men. Unable to exercise his

a One passage of this kind is quoted by Amand Saintes (p. 263)
from Liicke in Stud, und Krit. vol. n. p. 489.

b Edgar Quinet (GEuvres, iii. 316, reprinted from Revue des
Deux Mondes, Sept. 1838). His words are, " Un jeune homme
plein de candeur, de douceur, de modestie, une ame presque mystique
et comme attristee du bruit qu elle a cause." The unaltered view
which Strauss now takes of his own work, after the interval of twenty-
five years, is given in the Yorrede to his Gesprdche von Hutten uber-
setzt und erlautert, 1860. It is quoted in the National Review,
No. 23, art. 7.

LECTURE VII. 385

singular gifts of teaching in any professorship, he
has continued to write from time to time literary
monographs of more defiant tone ; proofs of his ability,
but vehicles for the expression of his opinions. (37)

The effect on the different theological critics
throughout Germany, both friendly and hostile, was
so remarkable, that the year 1835, in which the book
was published, is as memorable in theology as the
year 1848 in politics. The work carried criticism
and philosophy to its farthest limits, and demanded
from theologians of ah 1 classes a thorough recon
sideration of the subject of the origines of Christi
anity 6 . The ablest theologians either wrote in refu
tation of it, or reconsidered their own opinions by
the light of its criticisms. (38) The alarm at the loss
of the historic basis of Christianity created a strong
reaction in favour of the Lutheran orthodoxy, the
commencement of which has already been named d ;

c The effect which it produced is described, with details of the
answers written, in book ii. of the excellent little work of C. Schwarz
already named, Geschichte der Neuesten Theologie, 1856. This part
of the work is translated into French, with some useful notes, in the
Rev. Germ. vol. ix. parts ii. and iii. See Note 38. The most useful
replies are those of Neander and Dorner. Dr. Beard also published
a valuable series of papers called Voices of the Church (1845),
containing translations of the Essay by Quinet above quoted, of one
by A. Cocquerel (pere), and others. Dr. Mill s work on The Appli
cation of Pantheistic Principles to the Gospels (1840) is intended
also as a reply. The Life of Christ, contained in vol. i. of Dean
Milman s History of Christianity, also contains important remarks
on Strauss s scheme.

d P. 341.

C C

386 LECTURE VII.

and gave the death-blow, not only to the Hegelian
school, but almost to the passion for ontological spe
culation in Germany. While some thus assumed a
churchly and conservative aspect, others outstripped
Strauss, and, uniting with French positivism, advanced
into utter pantheism and materialism.

The Hegelian party, to which Strauss belonged,
and which would fain have been excused from this
reductio ad absurdum of its principles e , became
split into sections through the various attempts made
to parry the blow, and reconstruct their system on
the philosophical side. The critical tendency had
now too found a home, by means of Strauss s work,
among the Hegelians ; and this led to the creation of
a new school of historical criticism to be hereafter
described, which arose in Strauss s own university of
Tubingen f .

We have now explained the circumstances attend
ing the change which closed the second and intro
duced the third period in German theology.

In this third period, which is that of contemporary
thought, we may distinguish four broadly marked
tendencies ; three within the church, and one directly
infidel in character outside of its .

e Scherer clearly brings out this relation of Strauss s work, in
5 of the article before quoted.

f Accordingly it will be understood that the mention of " the
old Tiibingen school" of the last century denotes a Pietist school
like that of Bengel or Pfaff; the mention of " the new Tiibingen
school" means one of ultra -rationalism.

The materials for the following sketch have been largely sup-

LECTURE VII. 387

The last named, which we shall describe first,
started from Strauss s position, and advanced still
farther. It sprang from the destructive side of the
Hegelian philosophy, and has sometimes been named
the young Hegelian school. From the first it lacked
the air of respect toward religion which Strauss did
not throw aside in his work ; and it also extended
itself from theology to politics.

Bruno Bauer h , a Professor at Berlin, by turning
suddenly round from the most orthodox to the most
heterodox position in his school, may be classed with
Strauss in his method, though not in his spirit. He
carried out Strauss s critical examination of the

plied by the work of Schwarz, and partly by an article before cited
in tlie Westminster Review for April 1857. Schwarz, after devoting
the first chapter of book ii. to the Straussian contests, devotes the
second and first three chapters of book iii. to the history of these
four movements.

h See Amand Saintes, book ii. ch. 18 ; Hase, 450 ; Hundesha-
gen, Der Deut. Prot. 17. Bruno Bauer, born 1809, was once Pro
fessor at Bonn, and teacher at Berlin. In his first manner he showed
himself to be a disciple of Hegel, in works published from 1835 to
1839, such as a criticism on Strauss, and also on the Old Testament.
From 1839 to 1842 he exhibited a destructive tendency directed
against the sacred books ; e. g. a work on the Prussian church and
science, and a criticism on St. John s Gospel. The persecution which
he encountered stimulating his opposition, he showed in his next
works (in 1842 and 1843) a spirit of defiance in his Das Eklekte
Christenthum. From 1843 to 1849 he connected himself with
questions of politics, and wrote largely on social science. Since
that period he has again written, both in theology, criticisms of the
Gospels and Epistles, and on politics. A list of his works and a
sketch of his mental character may be found in Vapereau, Diet, des
Con temp. 1858.

C C 2

388 LECTURE VII.

Gospels with a coarse ridicule ; and extended it by
denying the historic basis of fact, and imputing the
myth to the personal creation of the individual writer.
But his successors advanced even farther. As Bauer
developed the critical side of Strauss, Feuerbach 1 and
Kuge k developed the philosophical, and destroyed the
very idea of religion itself, by showing that the idea
of God or of religion is of human construction, the
giving objective existence to an idea. The aspiration,
instead of guaranteeing the existence of an object to
ward which it is directed, is represented as creating it.
This was the final result of the subjective point of
view of the Kantian philosophy, and of the idealism
of Hegel. Reason must, it was pretended, be followed,
to whatever extent it contradicts the feelings. Theo
logy becomes anthropology ; religion, mythology ;
pantheism, atheism ; man, collective humanity, be-

i On this movement see Schwarz, b. iii. ch. i ; and on the German
political socialism see the North British Review, No. 22, for Aug.
1848. Feuerbach (see Vapereau) was author of many works on
the history of philosophy about 1833 to 1845. His chief works on
religion were Das Wesen des Christenthum (1851), and Das Wesen
der Religion, 1845. The former work was translated in 1854, and
contains a discussion (i) of the true or anthropological essence of
religion; (2) of the false or theological. His collected works have
been published. The Hallische Jahrbucher was his organ. Criti
cisms on his school are given by Bartholmess (Hist. Crit. des Doctr.
de la Phil. Mod. b. xiii. ch. ii.), and by E. Renan (Etudes de I Hist.
Relig. p. 405.)

k Huge, once a teacher at Halle ; went into voluntary exile at
Paris, like Heine, in 1843 &gt; was mixed in the revolutionary schemes
of 1848 ; and in 1850 became an exile in England. See Vapereau.

LECTURE VII. 389

comes the sole object of the belief and respect which
had been previously given to Deity ; religion vanishes
in morality. The love of man becomes the substitute
for the love of God. This was a position analogous
to that which positivism reached in France, but from
a mental instead of a physical point of view. This
form of thought found expression in literature through
the poetry of Heine 1 , and linked itself with political
theories of communism more extreme than the con
temporary ones in France.

Still the lowest point was not reached : religion
was treated as a psychological peculiarity, and the
virtue of benevolence recognised. But when religion
was felt to be only an idea, and the belief of the
supernatural to be the great obstacle to political
reform, an intense feeling of antipathy was aroused ;
and Schmidt m , under the pseudonym of Stirner,
reached the naturalistic point of view held by Volney,
the worship of self-love. This new school, which had
arisen in the few years subsequent to Strauss s work,

1 See above, note on p. 22. Gutskow and Mundt belonged to
the same school. The former a dramatic poet, whose works against
religion were about 1835, in the Prefaces to Letters of F. Schlegel,
&c. ; the latter, librarian at Berlin, was noted for his political con
nexion with the party of young Germany, rather than for any assault
on religion. See Vapereau for an account of his works. The spirit
of this school was tinged with bitterness against existing institu
tions.

m Gaspard Schmidt (1806-1856) wrote in 1845, under the pseu
donym of Max Stirner, Der einsige und sein Eigenthum. His later
works were on political economy.

390 LECTURE VII.

mingled itself with the revolutionary movements of
Germany in 1848, and was the means of exciting the
alarm which caused the suppression of them. Since
that date the school has been extinct as a literary
movement.

The tendency just described was entirely de
structive. The three others, which remain for con
sideration, exist within the church, and are in their
nature reconstructive, and aim at repelling the
attacks of Strauss and of other previous critics. The
one that we shall describe first is that which is most
rationalistic, and approaches most nearly to Strauss s
views ; and is frequently called, from the Swabian
university which has been its stronghold, the Tubin
gen school". It is a lineal offshoot in some slight

n As schools of thought have been occasionally named in this
narrative in connexion with universities, it may facilitate clearness
to collect together the few hints which have been given concerning
the subject. In the first period previous to 1790, we showed the
theological tendencies of the four universities, Gottingen, Leipsic,
Halle, and Tubingen : next, in the period after 1790, the state of
Jena as the home of rationalism and of the Kantian philosophy. In
our second period we pointed out the condition of Berlin as the seat
of philosophical reaction under Schleiermacher and Hegel ; and indi
rectly of the universities which represented the school of De Wette.
In the third period, the school of Lutheran reaction has specially
existed in Berlin, Leipsic, Erlangen, Rostock, and the Russian uni
versity of Dorpat ; the school of " Mediation " chiefly at Berlin,
Heidelberg, Halle, and Bonn ; and the historico-critical at Tiibingen.
It may be useful to add, for the completion of the account, that the
Tubingen school is now almost extinct in its original home ; and
that the two universities which at the present time represent the
freest criticism are supposed to be Giessen and Jena. The latter is

LECTURE VII. 391

degree from the school of Hegel, and more decidedly
from the critical school of De Wette, before named.
But it stands contrasted with the latter by caution,
as marked as that which separates recent critics
of Roman history from earlier ones, like Niebuhr.
Like Strauss, it restricts its attention to the New
Testament ; but it is a direct reaction against his
inclination to undervalue the historical element. The
great problem presented to it is, to reconstruct the
history of early Christianity, to reinvestigate the
genesis of the gospel biographies and doctrine. De
clining to approach the books of the New Testament
with dogmatic preconceptions, it breaks with the
past, and interprets them by the historic method;
proposing for its fundamental principle to interpret
scripture exactly like any other literary work. Pre
tending that after the ravages of criticism, the
Gospels cannot be regarded as true history, but only
as miscellaneous materials for true history, it takes
its stand on four of the Epistles of St. Paul, the
genuineness of which it cannot doubt, and finds in
the struggle of Jew and Gentile its theory of
Christianity P. Christianity is not regarded as mira
culous, but as an offshoot of Judaism, which received
its final form by the contest of the Petrine or Judseo-

marked by the realistic school of philosophy described in Note 41.
Hilgenfeld, the best representative of the Tubingen school, is Pro
fessor there ; see Note 39.

E. g. Th. Mommsen.

!&gt; Viz. the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, and the two to
Corinth.

392 LECTURE VII

Christian paity, and the Pauline or Gentile ; which
contest is considered by it not to have been decided
till late in the second century. By the aid of this
theory, constructed from the few books which it ad
mits to be of undoubted genuineness, it guides itself
in the examination of the remainder, tracing them to
party interests which detei mined their aim, pro
nouncing on their object and date by reference to it 1 .
In this way it arrives at most extraordinary conclu
sions in reference to some of them. Not one single
book, except four of St. Paul s Epistles, is regarded to
be authentic. The Gospel called that of St. John is
considered as a treatise of Alexandrian philosophy,
written late in the second century to support the
theory of the A 0709. It will thus be perceived that
the inquiry, though it professes to be objective, yet
has a subjective cast.

The leader of this school was Christian Baur, (39)
lately deceased ; a man of large erudition ; a wonder
of acuteness even in Germany; distinguished for the
extraordinary ability displayed in his reply to the
attacks made on Protestantism by the celebrated
Roman catholic theologian Moehler : and though
the doctrinal result of the school is ethics or pure
Sociiiianism and naturalism, and the critical opinions
obviously are most extravagant, the sagacity and
learning shown in the monographs published by it
make them some of the most instructive, as sources

An explanation and criticism of some of these opinions are given
in Davidson s Introduction to the New Testament.

LECTURE VII. 393

of information, in modern theology, to those who
know how to use them aright. From an orthodox
point of view the effect of the school is most de
structive ; but, if viewed in reference to the pre
ceding schools, it manifests a tenacious hold over the
historic side of Christianity, and has affected in a
literary way the schools formerly described, which
claim lineage from the older critics.

As the tendency just described is the modern
representative of the older critical schools; so the
next holds a similar position to the philosophical.

The school is frequently on this account described
by the same name, of " Mediation theology r ," origin
ally applied to Schleiermacher, because it attempts to
unite science with faith, a true use of reason with a
belief in scripture. It comprises the chief theolo
gical names of Germany, some of whom were disci
ples of Schleiermacher, others of the orthodox portion
of the Hegelian party. Their object is not simply,
like the revivers of Lutheran orthodoxy, to surrender
the judgment to an external authority in the church,
nor to give unbounded liberty to it like the critical
school : not going back like the one to the ancient
faith of the church, nor progressing like the other
to new discoveries in religion, they seek to under
stand that which they believe, to find a philosophy
for religion and Christianity.

r Vermittellunys-Theologie, and sometimes called Deutsche Theo-
loyie. See Schwarz, book iii. ch. ii. The organs of this party are the
Studien und Kritiken and the Neue-Evangel Kirchenzeitung.

394 LECTURE VII.

Two theologians stand out above the others, as
evincing vitality of thought, and boldly attempting
to grapple with the philosophical problems ; -
Dorner s and Rothe *, both very original, but bearing
traces of the influence of their predecessors. The
former, moulded by the Hegelian school, investigates
the Christological problem Avhich lies at the basis of
Christianity ; the latter, moulded rather by the school
of Schleiermacher, has attempted the cosmological,
which lies at the basis of religion and providence.

The work of Dorner on "the Person of Christ"
formed an epoch in German theology, by its fulness
of learning, its orthodoxy of tone, and its union
of speculative powers with historic erudition. The
Christian doctrine of the incarnation is, that God
and man have been united in an historic person as
the essential condition for effecting human salvation.
If the doctrine be viewed on the speculative side, the

s Dorner, born in 1809: successively Professor in several uni
versities : he has recently gone to Berlin. It is a matter of gra
tification that his great work, described in the text, is now in
course of translation. The account of the successive steps through
which it passed may be seen in the American Bibliotheca Sacra for
1849. Also an account of it is given in Theodore Parker s Miscel
laneous Works, p. 287. Lange, author of the Leben Jesu, ought
perhaps to be named along with the two in the text, as belonging to
this school.

t Perhaps these two theologians ought to be regarded apart from
the average of the members of the Mediation school, as being of a
grander type. They approach the subject from a higher stand-point,
and also are more largely moulded by philosophy. On Rothe, see
Note 40.

LECTURE VII 395

problem is to show a priori that this historic union
ought to exist ; if viewed on the historic, to prove
that it has existed as a fact. The great aim of the
Christology of the Hegelian system was to effect
the former ; the aim of Strauss was to destroy the
latter. Dorner strove to reconstruct the doctrine, by
making the historical study of its progress the means
of supplying the elements of information for doing
so. He commences by an examination of other
religions u , in order at once to show the existence in
them of blind attempts to realise that truth which
the incarnation supplied, and to prove the impossi
bility that the Christian doctrine can have been
borrowed from human sources, as the critical and
mythical interpreters would assume. He discovers
in all religions the desire to unite man to God ; but
shows v that the Christian doctrine cannot have been
derived from the oriental, which humanised God ;
nor from the Greek, which deified man; nor from
the Hebrew in its Palestinian form, which degraded
the idea of the incarnate God into a temporal Mes
siah ; nor in its Alexandrian form, which never
reached, in its theory of the A 0709, the idea of the
distinction of person of the Son from the Father.
Thus establishing the originality of the idea in
Christianity, and exhibiting it as the fulfilment of
the world s yearnings, he traces it in the teaching of
the apostles, and of the apostolic age, next as marking

u In the Einleituny. * Id. y Vol. i. period i. cli. i.

396 LECTURE VII.

the different heretical sects z , which respectively lost
sight of one of the two elements, till he finds the
church s explicit statement of the doctrine in its
fulness a ; and then pursues it onwards through the
course of history to the present time 1 . Though
the work is to an English mind difficult, through
the air of speculation which pervades it, and perhaps
open to exception in some of its positions ; yet, viewed
as a whole, it is a magnificent argument in favour of
Christianity ; exhibiting the incarnation as the satis
faction for the world s wants, as the original and
independent treasure in Christianity; and showing
the process through which Providence in histoiy has
caused the doctrine to be evolved and preserved.

The other great problem, the origin of things, and
the relation of God to the world, which is at the
basis of religion, as the incarnation is at the basis
of Christianity, has been less frequently handled.
Originally discussed, like the latter, in controversy
with the early unbelievers, it had been touched upon
in the speculations of Averroes and Spinoza, in the
materialism of French infidelity, and in the earlier
systems of speculative philosophy in Germany itself.
It was this problem which was attempted by
Rot he. (40) Advancing beyond this first question,
he has considered the scheme of Providence in the
development of religion, and the theory of the Christ
ian church in relation to political society. It is

7 Id. ch. ii. and ill. 2 Epoche, Abth. 2. 1} Vol. ii.

LECTURE VII 397

unnecessary here to explain his system : his mind
is too original to admit of comparison without in
justice; yet the speculations of our own Coleridge,
who on philosophical principles makes the state to be
the realisation of the church, will perhaps give some
imperfect conception of the character of his attempts.

This second school that we have been considering,
though approximating extremely nearly to orthodoxy,
and furnishing the works of most value in the mo
dern theology, yet seeks to approach religion from
the psychological or philosophical side. It specu
lates freely, and believes revelation because it finds
it to coincide with the discoveries of free thought.
But there is a third tendency, which believes reve
lation without professing to understand it ; which
rests on the revelation in scripture as an objective
verity, and believes the Bible on the ground of evi
dence, without questioning its material 6 .

The first germ of this reaction in favour of rigid
orthodoxy was observable in the feeling aroused by
the theses of Harms, in 1817, already named, on occa
sion of the celebration of the tricentenary of the
Reformation ; but it was quickened by the attempts,
initiated by the Prussian king, between the years

If the reader follows out the pedantic but useful mode before
named, of arranging the actual schools of theology after the fashion
of foreign assemblies, he will place in the right, the friends of the
confessional theology ; in the centre, those of the mediation theo
logy ; in the left, the old critical school of De Wette ; and in the
extreme left, the school of Tubingen. The first has its chief seat in
Prussia, and the third probably in Thuringia and central Germany.

398 LECTURE VII.

1821 and 1830, to unite the Lutheran and Calvinistic
branches of the Protestant church d .

The time seemed then to thoughtful men a fitting
one, when doctrines were either regarded as unim
portant or superseded by the religious consciousness,
to unite these two churches under the bond of a
common nationality, and the practice of a common
liturgy. But the old Lutheran spirit, which still
survived in the retirement of country parishes, was
aroused, and some pastors underwent deprivation and
persecution rather than submit to the union 6 . This
new movement at first caught the spirit of pietism,
just as had been the case with that of Schleier-
macher; but gradually abandoned it for a dogmatic
and churchlike aspect, as he for a scientific expres
sion. Its aim was to return to the Lutheranism of
the sixteenth century, and to rally round the con
fessions of faith of that period. Hengstenberg f at
Berlin, and Havernickg, are the names best known
as representing this party at the period of which we

d See Kahnis, p. 262, &c. ; Am. Salutes, part ii. ch. x; Hase,
453 ; Schwarz, book iii. ch. iii.

e The dissenters from the union were not recognised legally by the
state till 1845. (See the references given in the last note.) The prin
cipal of those who dissented were Kellner, Scheibel, and Huschke.

f Hengstenberg, born in 1802 ; professor at Berlin. .His works
are well known. His work on Christology (1829), Introduction to
the Pentateuch (1831), Commentary on the Psalms (1842), and
several others, are translated.

& Havernick, Professor at Konigsberg ; died a few years since.
His chief works are, a Commentary on Daniel (1838); and an Intro
duction to the Old Testament, which is translated.

LECTURE VII. 399

speak. Their efforts were directed to criticism rather
than to doctrine, to reconstruct the basis for Christ
ianity in Judaism by defending the authenticity and
credibility of the ancient scriptures. In doctrine
and the canon, they reverted to the position of the
Reformation. But the alarm ensuing upon the work
of Strauss, in 1835, invested this movement with a
more reactionary character; and the journal 11 which
gave expression to Hengstenberg s views, gradually
assumed the character of an ecclesiastical censorship,
frequently marked by defiance and severity, like the
tone of Luther of old.

The panic caused by the revolutions of 1 848 gave
increased stimulus, by adding a political reaction to
the religious. The extreme rationalist party had
favoured the Revolution, and the school of Schleier-
macher had supported the schemes for constitutional
government. In the suppression of liberty which
ensued for about ten years, the orthodox movement
in theology united itself with the reaction in poli
tical. Absolute government was not merely a fact,
but a doctrine. The theological reaction was no
longer the spiritual aspiration of Germany seek
ing repose after doubt, but a political movement
veiled under an ecclesiastical colour. The result
has been, the creation of a Lutheran party far more

h The Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, the organ of his opinions,
was Pietist till about 1838 ; after which it favoured the reaction ;
especially since the theological disputes of 1845 an d the political
revolution of 1848. See Hase, 451 ; Schwarz, book i.

400 LECTURE VII.

extreme in its opinions than the one just described;

the political leader of which in the Prussian
parliament was the jurist Stanl* ; intolerant towards
other churches, suspicious of any independent asso
ciations for religious usefulness in its own, disowning
pietism because of its unchurchlike character, and in
its principles going back beyond the Reformation, dis
carding the subjective inward principle, and reposing
on the objective authority of the church. Taking
a political view of religion, it does not so much ask
what is truth, but what the church asserts to be true.
Though not offending popular prejudices by the in
troduction of Romish doctrines or rites, it really
reposes on the Romish principle of a visible authori
tative church with mystical powers, upholding a
rigid sacramental theory and the doctrine of con-
substantiation. Extending the sacramental efficacy
to the ministerial office, and denying communion
between God and the individual soul independently

i Stahl, who died in 1861, was eminent for piety as well as
learning. His views may be learned from an address, Ueber Christ-
licJie Toleranz, 1855. The Kreuz Zeitung is the journal which has
supported this political reaction. The " Theology of the Con
fessions" (i. e. of Augsburg, &c.) is the name which is given to the
movement by its friends. See Kahnis, p. 3 1 1 seq. Much interest
ing information in reference to it, though occasionally expressed in
a rude manner, together with references to the German authors
from which it is drawn, will be found in the North British Review,
No. 47, Feb. 1856, and British Quarterly Review, No. 46, April
1856. The extracts there quoted are the authority for several of
the statements here made. See also Schwarz, iii. 3 ; Hundeshagen,
Der Deutsclie Protestantismus, 22.

LECTURE VII. 401

of the church as the element of communication k . Yet
it contains many honoured names, and has produced
many instructive works. The movement in English
theology, which originated a generation ago in the
panic caused by the liberal acts of the government
which was introduced by the reform act 1 , offers a
parallel; with the exception that the ecclesiastical
principles then advocated had always had supporters
in the English church, whereas they were nearly new
in the Lutheran. The Lutheran movement too, only

k In enumerating a few names among those that belong to this
reactionary party, it is fair to state that some of them have not taken
open part in the political aspects of it, and do not teach all that is
described in the last few lines, which rather express the teaching of
the more violent, and mark the tendencies to which the others only
approximate. Some of the best known are, Harless, Delitzch, Keil,
as biblical investigators ; Kudelbach, Guericke, Schmid, Kurtz, and
Kahnis, as historical ; and Kliefoth in practical doctrine. (Kahnis
has however lately adopted free views in criticism. See Colani s
Nouvelle Revue de la Theologie, July 1862.) Vilmar in Hesse Cassel,
and Leo at Halle, belong to the most ultra section of the school.
The universities where it predominates are named at p. 390. Those
however who dissent from the views of the theologians here de
scribed ought not to forget to render a tribute to the reverent piety
and high motives of many of them. They are men who know and
love Christ, and are striving to lead men to love him.

1 It is a remarkable circumstance that the Oxford movement in
the church of England was at first an anticatholic movement. The
Catholic Emancipation Bill and the liberality of the parliament after
the Reform Bill created an alarm, which led to the study of the non-
juring divines and Anglo-catholics who had asserted the rights of the
church, and to the reproduction of their opinions. Deeper causes
were however at work ; among which was the wish to find a more
solid groundwork for church belief : but the political circumstances
contributed the stimulus, though they were not truly the cause.

402 LECTURE VII.

proposes to go back to the Reformation, the English
ecclesiastical movement professed to go back to the
early fathers. (41)

While the church has thus attempted a renovation
of itself in doctrine, the value of which some will
dispute, ah 1 wih 1 allow thankfully that there has been
a deep increase of spiritual life throughout the Ger
man churches. Religion indeed had never died out;
but in the retirement of country districts 111 the flame
of divine love still burned with unextinguished glory.
This spiritual fire has now spread, and expressed
itself in acts of earnest life. Foreign missions have
been promoted 11 ; an inner or home mission esta
blished for schools, and other religious agency ; and
an annual ecclesiastical diet P constituted, for pro
moting co-operation and ecclesiastical improvement^.

m The names of Stilling and Oberlin have been already cited, as
instances of devoted Christians who realised the truth and tried to
spread it. A writer in the Foreign Quarterly Review, vol. xxv. p.
132, attests from personal experience his knowledge of the existence
of earnest faith in parishes at the time when the universities were
nurseries of doubt.

n The missions existed previously, having been commenced by
the Moravians in the last century, and carried on by several de
tached missionary associations in the present. On the recent
improvement in Germany, see articles in the North British Review,
No. 31 for Nov. 1851, and No. 40 for Feb. 1854.

Die Innere Mission, founded by Dr. Wichern.

I The Kirchentag arose out of the Kirchenbund, and met first at
Wittenberg, in the church which contains the bones of Luther and
Melancthon, in 1848, while war and revolution were raging around.

) In addition to those named in the text, mention ought to be
made of the association of the " Friends of Light," founded by
Uhligh, which represents the individual principle like the Quakers,

LECTURE VII. 403

These three separate movements of the present
age, even when incorrect, have contributed something
to form a perfect theology. In the orthodox school we
see the attempt to return to the Bible, as interpreted
by the Reformation ; in the mediation school, as inter
preted by the religious consciousness ; in the critical
school, as interpreted by historic and critical methods.

We have now completed the history of the great
movement in German theology, in its two elements,
doctrinal and critical. Commencing in the first pe
riod, in doctrine, with the disbelief of positive reli
gion, replacing dogma by ethics; and in criticism,
supplying a rationalistic interpretation : in the second,
it was improved on the doctrinal side by the separa
tion of religion and ethics ; and on the critical by a spi
ritual acknowledgment of the literary characteristics
and psychological peculiarities of revelation: in the
third, by a total reconstruction of both inquiries, in
a more historic and orthodox spirit ; and by the
creation of a traditionalist position in reference to
each. The solution of the problem how to reconcile
faith and reason, was attempted in the first by obli-

and has resulted in forming some free congregations in Konigsberg
and Magdeburg. (Consult Die Deutsche Theoloyie, p. 26 ; Hase s
Church History, 456.) The movement was accused of rationalism
by its opponents. Also the Gustavus Adolphus Association, begun
in 1832 for the relief of all classes of protestants, was one of the
first means of promoting Christian union, and indirectly produced
the Kirchentag. An account of these two last associations may be
found in a pamphlet (1849) by C. H. Cottrell, Religious Movements
of Germany in the Nineteenth Century. Kahnis notices the great
facts of this revival, but with a slight sneer (p. 276, &c.)

D d 2

404 LECTURE VII.

terating faith ; in the second by uniting them ; in
the third by separating them. The whole movement
stands remarkable, not only as being the most sin
gular instance in history, where the action of free
thought can be watched in its intellectual stages, dis
connected in a great degree from emotional causes,
and where the effort was exercised by the friends
of religion, not by foes ; but also in the circumstance
that though referable to the influence of similar intel
lectual causes as former epochs of free thought, it is
characterised by wholly different forms of them.

We have found, on nearer inspection, as might be
anticipated in any great movement of mind, that
instead of being without purpose, and a mere heap
of ruins, there was a plan and method in it It is a
history which offers much cause for sorrow and much
for joy. Though, as has been before remarked, a
period of harrowing doubt in the life of an indivi
dual or a nation is a melancholy subject for con
sideration, yet when it is not induced by immorality,
but produced, as in this instance, by the operation of
regular causes, and is the result of the attractiveness
of new modes of inquiry which invited application
to the criticism of old truths, to be accepted or
rejected after being fully tested; there is something
to relieve the dreariness of the prospect. And when
we look to the result, there is abundant cause
for thankfulness. The agitation of free thought
has produced permanent contributions to theology.
Extravagant and shocking as some of the inquiries

LECTUEE VII. 405

have been, and injurious in a pastoral point of view,
being the utterance of men who had made shipwreck
of faith; yet in a scientific, hardly one has been
wholly lost, and few could be spared in building up
the temple of truth. In criticism, in exegesis, in doc
trine, in history alike, how much more is known than
before the movement commenced : and what light
has been thrown on that which is the very foundation
problem, the just limits of inquiry in religion. Each
earnest writer has contributed some fragment of in
formation. At each point error was met by an apo
logetic literature, rivalling it in learning and depth ;
reason was conquered by reason ; and though we
cannot help rejoicing that we are able to reap the
results of the experience, without undergoing the
peril of acquiring it, yet we must acknowledge that
the free and full discussion has in the end resulted in
truth : the very error has stimulated discovery. So
far from being a warning against having confidence
in the exercise of inquiry, it is an unanswerable
ground for reposing confidence in it. Christianity is
not a religion that need shrink from investigation.
Christians need not tremble at every onset. Our
religion is vital, because true ; and we may place
trust in the providence of God in history, which
overrules Iruman errors and struggles for the per
manent good of men ; and, extricating the human
race from the follies of particular individuals, makes
the antagonism of free discussion the means to con
serve or to promote intellectual truth.

406 LECTURE VII.

In concluding this sketch however it is proper to
make a few remarks, as hints to theological students,
in reference to the study of works of German theo
logy. Many such works are translated, and many
more exist in the original, which are of the highest
value 1 *, and are likely to be read, and indeed may
justly be read, by all students of large cultivation.
The works of Schleiermacher or Dorner in doctrine,
of De Wette or Ewald in criticism, of Neander or Baur
in history, are works of power as well as erudition,
and contain a treasure-house of information and sug
gestion for those who know how to use them wisely,
and sepai ate the precious from the untrue. While
I have endeavoured to present a fair history of the
whole movement, I should feel inexpressible pain if
these remarks were the means of leading unwary
students to plunge unguardedly into the study of
many parts of it. Its original connexion with the
deist and ethical points of view, and the constant sense
of living in an atmosphere of controversy, have im
pressed even some of the more orthodox writers with
a few peculiarities, of which a student ought to be
made aware : for example, with a slight tendency to
a kind of Christian pantheism ; a disposition to re
duce miracle to a minimum ; and in the department
of Christian doctrine to consider Christ s life as more
important than his death, and to regard the atone-

r It is enough to mention Schleiermacher s Glausbenslehre, and
the works of Ewald ; e. g. the prefaces to the poetical and prophetical
books, and his work, the Geschichte des Hebr, Volkes.

LECTURE VII. 407

ment as an effect of the incarnation, instead of the
incarnation being the means to the atonement.

If then a young student would avoid a chaos of
belief, and pursue a healthy study of the German
writers, there are two conditions which he ought to
observe. First, care should be taken to understand
the precise school of thought which his author repre
sents, in order to be able to allow for the possibility
of prepossession in him ; a remark true in reference
to all literature, but especially important in that
which marks a particular phase of controversy. (42)
Secondly, a student s duty to English society, and
to the church of which he is a member as also, I
humbly venture to think, to his own soul requires
that he shall first listen thoughtfully to the verna
cular theology of England. Let him learn the chief
affirmative verities of the Christian faith before med
dling with the negative side. Let him master the
grand thoughts or solid erudition of Hooker and
Pearson ; of Bull, and Bingham, and Waterland ; of
Butler and Paley ; the seven most valuable writers
probably in the English church ; and then recon
sider his opinions by the light of foreign literature.
Each one of us is on his intellectual as well as moral
trial. None whom duty calls need be afraid to en
counter it in God s strength, and with prayer to
Christ for light and truth and love.

It remains to mark the influence produced by Ger
man theology on free thought in other countries. (43)

408 LECTURE VII.

In the remainder of this lecture we shall carry
on the history of free thought in France, from
the point at which we left it s down to the present
time. We shall find that the open attacks on
Christianity of former times have ceased. There, as
elsewhere, the present century has been constructive
of belief in spiritual realities, not destructive ; but
the reconstruction has in some cases been so con
nected with an abnegation of revelation, that it
merits some notice in a history of free thought.

The speculative thought in France during the pre
sent century has manifested itself chiefly under four
forms 1 : (i) a sensational school, called in the early
part of the century Ideology, in the latter Positivism :

(2) a theological school, which has attempted to re
establish a ground for reposing on dogmatic authority :

(3) a social philosophy, which has directed itself to
the study of society and labour : and (4) the eclectic
philosophy, created by German thought, which has
sought to reconstruct truth on the basis of psycho
logy. The chronological sequence of these schools
connects itself with the political sequence of events,
and has altered with their change. We must trace
them briefly in succession, in order to understand

s In Lecture V. (p. 273.)

fc See Damiron, Essai sur VHistoire de la Philosophic en France
au I9 me siecle, 1828 ; and Nettement s Hist, de la Litt. Franc, sous
la Restoration, 1853, and Hist, de la Litt. Franc, sous le Gouverne-
ment de Juillet, especially b. v, vi, vii, xi ; and a review of Nette-
ment in the British Quarterly Review, No. 37 ; also H. J. Rose s
Christian Advocates Publication for 1832.

LECTURE VII 409

their religious influence and tendencies. The first
has tended directly to atheism, the second to super
stition, the two last indirectly to pantheism.

When treating of Volney in a former lecture, we
noticed the philosophy which took its rise amid the
ruins caused by the revolution. Christianity was
replaced by materialism, theism by atheism, ethics
by selfishness. The philosophy of Cabanis, of
Volney, and of De Tracy", was founded so entirely
on a physical view of human nature, that it could
hardly aid in any way in instilling nobler concep
tions. Society grew up without the belief of God
or immortality ; but in this very poverty the system
met its downfall. The deep yearnings of the human
heart craved satisfaction. The inextinguishable poetry
of the soul yearned for the spiritual ; the devotional
instincts of human nature caught the first notes of
that heavenly melody to which they were naturally
fitted to be attuned.

Literature rather than religion was the source from
which the mind of France began to imbibe the
deep and spiritual conceptions which obliterated
the materialism of the revolution. The spiritual
tone of such a writer as Chateaubriand 35 , similar

u See Morell s Hist, of Philosophy, i. 543-72, arid Damiron, pp.
(1-105).

x Chateaubriand (1768-1848) wrote his Genie du Christianisme
in 1802. See Nettement, first work, quoted above, vol. i. b. x. ;
and, second work, vol. ii. p. 330 ; and the criticism by Villemain,
La Tribune Moderne, ch. v. ; and Sainte-Beuve s Portraits, vol. x.

410 LECTUEE VII.

to that of the Romantic literature of Germany,
awakened in France early in the century the con
ceptions of a world of spirit, of chivalrous honour,
of immortal hope, of divine Providence ; and led
mankind to feel that there was something in them
nobler than mere material organism ; even a spirit
that yearned for the world invisible. Chateaubriand
showed y, in answer to the school of Voltaire, that
Christianity was not merely suited to a rude age,
but was the friend of art, of intellect, of improve
ment. The church as yet possessed only little influ
ence. Beginning to revive under the fostering in
fluence of Napoleon, who saw clearly the necessity
of cultivating religion, its moral usefulness was
lessened by falling under the suspicion of opposing
the public liberty, when patronised by the govern
ment after the re-establishment of the monarchy.

The nobler conceptions just described, whether
they arose from literature or from religion, gradually
penetrated into the minds of thoughtful men : and,
the ground being thus prepared, several rival systems
of thought gradually sprang up in the fifteen years
(1815-1830) of the restoration of the Bourbon
dynasty. Accordingly, when the revolution of 1830
gave freedom to France, there was a universal
activity of mind, and free thought assumed a bolder
attitude ; sceptical, if compared with the Christian
standard, but embodying deep moral convictions, if

y In his Genie du Chrixticmwme.

LECTURE VII. 411

compared with the unbelief of the last century.
Among the definite schemes of philosophy, theo
retical or practical, which were proposed for accept
ance, the first which we shall notice was So
cialism z .

It originated with St. Simon a . The stirring events
of the great revolutionary era, together with the
social philosophy of Rousseau which preceded it,
had directed attention to the philosophy of social
life. St. Simon had lived through this period, and
early in the present century devoted himself to the
study of schemes of social reform ; and shortly be
fore his death in 1825, announced his ideas as a
new religion, a new Christianity. In the ferment
which followed the revolution of 1830, the opinions
of this dreamer became suddenly popular, and, en
listing around them some distinguished minds, forced
themselves on the attention of the public during

z The sources for understanding the systems of Socialism, besides
the works of its founders, are Alfred Sudre s Histoire et Refutation
du Communisme, 1850, (especially ch. xvi-xx,) which obtained the
Monthyon prize, and gives a history of communism in all ages ;
also Nettement, second work, ii. b. vii. ; Morell s Hist, of Philo
sophy, ch. vii. 2 ; an article in the Quarterly Review, No. 90, July
1831 ; and in the Westminster Review, 1832 ; and two very valu
able articles in the North British Review, No. 18, May 1848, and
No. 20, Feb. 1849. Those who are aware how much Socialism has
influenced French philosophy and literature, as well as politics, will
see that it is at once the index of certain forms of religious thought
and the cause of subsequent ones, and will pardon the space be
stowed in the text upon these visionary schools.

:l 1760-1825. See Morell, as above.

412 LECTURE VII.

the two following years; and as the political schemes
which resulted from them have left their mark on
the theological literature of the time, they merit some
attention.

St. Simoiiism offered itself as a system of religion,
of philosophy, and of government, which should be
the perfect cure of all the evils which existed. The
source of these evils St. Simon conceived to be the
want of social unity ; individualism, selfishness, to
be the cause of virtual anarchy. He considered that
philosophy and religion had striven in vain to remedy
the evil, because they had not made the spiritual to
bear upon the material interests of mankind. This,
which was the true remedy, he proposed to discover
historically.

Borrowing the thought of the German philoso
phers, he sought it in the elements which are to
operate on human nature in the progress of its
development. The mode of development by which
society advances to perfection he found in a supposed
law, that society shows two great epochs, which in long
cycles alternate, the organic and the critical; the
former, where the individual is obedient to the pur
pose of the society ; the second, where the individual
rises against it. He found two instances of them in
the ancient and modern world respectively, viz. in the
ancient pagan period and its disruption ; and again
in the Catholic centralization of the middle ages, and
the disorganization which succeeded from the time
of the Reformation to the French revolution. He

LECTURE VII. 413

considered himself to be raised up to announce the
dawn of the third organic period, the world s millen
nium, a new epoch, and a new religion. It was to be
the realisation of the fraternity, which the great
moral teachers of the world had promised and pre
pared. This religion consisted in raising the in
dustrial classes, by a scheme which it is irrelevant to
our purpose to explain.

Contemporaneously with this socialist system was
that of Fourier b , which, though presented more as
a scheme of social amelioration, and less as a reli
gion, implied the same abnegation of Christianity.
Starting from an avowedly pantheistic view of phi
losophy, the author of it gradually passed through
the sciences, until he arrived at man, and reached
the study of human history and constitutions. Exag
gerating the good elements of human nature, and
ignoring the necessity for any other than a social
power to amend the heart, he traced the source of
evil to social competition, and proposed to rearrange
society on the principle of substituting co-partnership
for competition c . The two ideas accordingly which
these speculations introduced were ; first, that Euro
pean society was approaching a crisis, the peculiarity
of which, as distinct from former ones, would be, that

b Fourier, 1768-1818. See the same sources for information,
and Nettement s second work, ii. 30. One of the chief Fourierists
was Considerant.

c It was a system in fact which has been tried in the mode of
working the Cornish mines.

414 LECTURE VII.

it would be an industrial revolution ; and the indus
trial mind would obtain the mastery of the admini
stration ; and, secondly, that the accompaniment
would be a new organization of industry on the
principle of co-operation. We cannot track these
schools into their ramifications d and their indirect
expression in lighter literature 6 , nor notice the
levelling system of communism or co-operative so
cialism which completed the cycle f ; but it will be

d The St. Simonians separated about 1831 into two parties; one
led by Bazard, showing a logical tendency, and including Leyroux ;
and the other led by Enfantin at Menilmontant, showing an emo
tional, among whose adherents was Michel Chevalier. The source of
dispute was the emancipation of the working classes and of woman ;
Enfantin going beyond the other school in reference to these points.
In 1832 the government interfered, and dispersed his supporters.
On the relation of French journalism to the political movements,
see two articles in the British Quarterly Review, vols. iii. and ix.

e The novels of such writers as George Sand, Victor Hugo, &c.
give expression to these aspirations for social improvement, and the
disposition to attribute all evil to social disarrangement.

1 The systems of St. Simon and Fourier did not demand the ab
rogation of social inequality between man and man. Both would
revolutionise the present state of things ; but the one would replace
it by a graduated scale of functionaries, the other by a more demo
cratic and less federal system of corporations. But communism is
founded on the idea of entire social equality as regards the material
advantages of life. The old schemes of Baboeuf and the first French
revolution hardly existed in 1848, but were replaced by two forms
of communism ; the theoretic or " Icarian" of Cabet, and the prac
tical of Louis Blanc. On these systems, with that of Proudhon, see
the sources before described, especially Sudre and the North British
Review, No. 20, where this new phase is well described. Also
Base s Church History, 493.

LECTURE VII. 415

remembered, that when the revolution of 1848
ensued, the schemes for organization of labour were
one of its peculiarities ; the social republic of those
who regarded the democracy as a means, mixed with
the political republicans, who thought it to be an end.

It will be noticed that the schemes of these socialist
philosophers, though analogous as political theories,
in proposing organization of labour and consequent
monopoly, to the English socialism of Owen before
named, are unlike it in philosophical origin and
religious tendency. In philosophical origin his sys
tem rests on sensation, theirs on feeling; his degrades
human nature, theirs elevates it. His denounces
priestcraft as imposture, and religion as obsolete ;
theirs, though identifying religion and industry, re
gards religion as the highest expression of humanity,
the great goal to which nature is developing : his
leads to deism or atheism, theirs to pantheism. Yet
theirs is not less hurtful, for they reject with con
tempt the dogmatic teaching of revelation, though
they appropriate the Christian virtues ; like the
German philosophy they resolve the Deity into a
law, according to which the universe evolves.

One of the minds however which was trained in
the school of St. Simon, viz. Comtek, has developed

s Comte s chief work, the Philosophie Positive, has been well
translated in an abridged form by Miss Martiueau, 1853. In refer
ence to him see Mbrell, History of Philosophy, i. 577, &lt;fec. and im
portant criticisms on his system in the following reviews, Revue des
Deux Mondes, by E. Saisset, 1850, vol. iii ; North British Review,

410 LECTURE VII.

a system known by the name of Positivism, which in
its effects is not merely thus negative, but amounts to
positive and dogmatic unbelief. He showed traces of
the school from which he sprang, both in considering
politics to be the highest science, in regarding hu
manity as a progress, and in adducing individualism
as the sole cause of social evil and anarchy. He com
menced similarly by taking an estimate of the present
state of knowledge, and seizing the law which pre
sides over the progress of knowledge 11 . This law he
stated as consisting of three stages, through which
each science passes as it grows to perfection ; the first,
the theological or imaginative stage, wherein the mind
inquires into final causes, and refers phenomena to
special providence ; the second, the metaphysical,
wherein the idea of supernatural or personal causes
being discarded, it seeks for abstract essences ; the
third, the positive, wherein it rests content with
generalized facts, and does not ask for causes 1 . The
first in its religious phase is theistic ; the second
pantheistic ; the third atheistic. The perfection of
science consists in reaching the third stage, wherein
the knowledge is strictly generalized from sensation.
Having thus seized the law which presides over intel-

No. 30, Aug. 1851 ; No. 41, May 1854 ; British Quarterly Review,
No. 38, April 1854. Comte s later religious views are given in the
Catechisme Positiviste, 1852, and the Culte Systematique de VHu-
manite ou Calendrier Positiviste(iS^).

h Introduction, ch. i. (English translation.)

i Id. ch. ii. and books i-v.

LECTURE VII. 417

lectual development, and settled the limits of the
human reason to be confined to phenomena, agreeing
in this respect with the ideologists, and opposed to
Cousin, he next offered a classification of the sciences,
commencing with the simplest, and showing that, as
the mind passes from the simple to the complex, the
methods of investigation multiply ; accompanying his
account by a delineation of the steps in each case by
which science attains perfection ; and thus gradually
ascending to the science of man k and society, to
which the preliminary investigation had been the
preface, designed to prepare the way for showing
how the science of society may be similarly brought
into the positive stage.

Such is the scheme of Comte. The very breadth
of it possesses an attraction ; and if viewed merely
as a logic of the sciences, it may justly command
attention. Many of the analyses which he supplies
of the methods and history of science are masterly;
and his generalisations, even when hasty, are fertile
in suggestion. He was a most original and power
ful thinker ; scientific rather than artistic. But his
philosophy, viewed as a whole, is a grand system
of materialism which is silent about God, spirit, per
sonal immortality; diametrically opposed to Christ
ianity, in that it makes man s social duty higher
than his individual, science the only revelation, de
monstration the only authority, nature s laws the only
providence, and obedience to them the only piety;

k Book vi.
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I.MTURE VII. 419

of French literature. Commencing with a reaction
against the materialist and sensationalist school, it
nought, by imitating the mode by which Reid had
ref uteri the philosophical scepticism of Hume, to find
a method for restoring belief in spiritual realities ;
and afterwards, when its chief leader Cousin m had
been exiled to Germany, he brought back an ac
quaintance with the successive speculative schools
which existed there.

The results of the preceding efforts are expressed
in him. His system consisted in a psychological
analysis of the human consciousness, which led him
to believe, that spiritual truth is revealed to the
reason, or intuilioual and impersonal power, apart
from the limitations of sense, or of the ordinaiy
critical faculties ; that the true, the beautiful, and
tin- good, arc perceived by it in their absolute, un
limited essence ; arid that the revelation of the infinite
is the basis of all intellectual truth, of all moral
obligation, and offers the clue to the criticism of
religion, the, solution of the problems of history,
:md the; construction of ;i philosophy of the uni
verse. Its chief effect on literature, the permanent
contribution which it has made to human improve
ment, is to encourage the historic study of every
bi;iiieh of phenomena, and especially to exemplify
it in the, history of thought. Asserting that human
society is a gradual progress of development and of
improvement, it regards every age as manifesting

111 On Cousin, MOO Morell s History of Philosophy, ii. 478 seq.

E e 2

4-Jo LECTURE VII.

BOme phase of truth, or of emr, and contributing
its portion of knowledge to the student. Humanity
is regarded as a divine revelation : its soeial and
intellectual changes as manifestations of the Eternal.

From this account, brief though it be, the relation
will be evident which such a philosophy and the
historic method of eclectic discovery would have
towards u-ligion.

Afl a system of i^yehology it is potent, as a means
of R-a&gt;M iting the dignity of human nature against
the material and selfish ethics of a preceding age,
and of reconstructing the basis of ethics and natural
religion : but as an ontology, it is in danger of un
conscious pantheism : of identifying God with the
universe, and regarding Him merely as a name to
desciibe a process, instead of a person. As a phi
losophy of humanity, it identifies the natural reve
lation in history with the supernatural ; finds in the
psychological faculty of intuition, not merely the
basis for, but the explanation of, the phenomenon of
inspiration" : and in its view of religion is essen
tially antidogmatic, regarding religion as imperfect
and progressive; the idea universal, the symbol tran
sient : and allows the psychological truthfulness of
all creeds ; and regards Christianity as only the most
refined species of them, as one of the transient
forms that the religious sentiment has adopted, and

11 Mr. Morell, who was formerly a disciple of this school, has
brought out this thought in his work on the Philosophy of Religion,
1849. ch. vi.

LECTUEE VII. 421

as destined to give place to philosophy; beneficial to
humanity, but not constituting it.

This philosophy therefore, though containing so
many noble elements, ended in the view which we
have already seen to exist in the Gnostic and German
rationalism, that Christianity was not to be final, the
one solitary and final religious utterance of God to
man .

The three schools illustrate the principal tendencies
in which unbelief manifested itself in France pre
vious to the establishment of the empire P; and show

During the reign of Louis Philippe an attack was made on the
university of Paris by the Jesuits, on the ground that the views
taught there were pantheistic. The same view was adopted in an
article in Erasers Magazine, No. 170, Feb. 1844, which is valuable
in giving quotations of passages which indicate the tendency of this
philosophy, though the writer fails to appreciate the value of it as
a reaction against the old Voltairism. The same charge is expressed
in the sketch which H. L. C. Maret gives of the philosophy of the
nineteenth century (in Essai sur le Pantheisme, 1845.) See also
Nettlement s second work, vol. i. book vi ; Saisset, fievue des Deux
Mondes, 1850, vol. iii ; and Damiron s Essai, pp. 105-197.

P It has not been thought necessary to name Salvador the Jew,
author of Hist, des Institutions de Moses, 1828 ; Jesus Christ et sa
Doctrine, 1839; Paris, Rome, et Jerusalem. His writings were
criticised by Mr. J. H. Rose s, Christian Advocate s Publication, 1831,
and have been lately reviewed by the Semitic scholar A. Franck, in a
series of papers in the Journal des Debats, Jan. 24, Feb. 12, May 29,
June 4 and 6, 1862; and by Renan in the Etudes de VHist. Edig.
p. 189, &c. Salvador s view is both Jewish and sceptical. Magnifying
the Jewish system, he regards Christianity as an offshoot of it, imper
fect in its kind ; and looks to the spirit of Judaism as the future hope
for the world. He professes a creed which is called by Franck Infini-
theism. Whatever in his opposition to Christianity is not derived from
the eclectic school is the result of his Jewish prejudices.

422 LECTURE VII.

clearly the intimate relation of particular kinds of
sceptical views to particular systems of metaphysical
philosophy 9.

In the latter years of Napoleon I. the struggle
first commenced between the Voltairian party and the
church; a middle course being taken by the eclec
tics. The constitutional tendency of this last school
gave them the moral victory during the restoration,
over the democratic tendency of the one and the
reactionist of the other. After the revolution of 1830,
the socialist struggle was superadded ; which, when
mixed with the old ideology, produced Positivism.

The catholic church had sought to restore faith in
Christianity, partly by the establishment of Confer
ences r , lectures to reply to the systems now de-

&lt;l No mention has been made of several aggressive writers who
publish in the French language, mostly in Belgium, works on infi
delity resembling in tone those of the last century, such as Volney.
There are two such works by P. Larroque, viz. a destructive one,
Examen Critique des Doctrines de la Religion Chretienne, first, as
they are stated in the dogmas of the church, and secondly, in the
scriptures ; in which he makes a collection of difficulties in the
Bible, book by book : and another work, constructive in tone,
Renovation Religieuse, 1860. A work of similar intention by P.
llenand, Christianisme et Paganisme, identite de leurs origines ou
nouvelle symbolique, 1861, is a kind of reproduction of Dupuis
and Volney, modified by Feuerbach. In the preface to the last-
named work, the writer refers to works by Eenen and Proudhon,
similarly directed against Christianity.

r The Conferences originated with Frayssinous in a kind of public
catechising about 1802. Being changed into sermons in 1807,
they were transferred from the Carmes to St. Sulpice, but closed by
the government in 1809. They were resumed in 1815, and were
transferred about 1830, through Ozanum s intercession with the

LECTURE VII. 423

scribed; and partly by trying to satisfy the rea
son by establishing a rival philosophy, and stating
philosophically the grounds of faith. (45) This
philosophy, though noble in its aim, and taught by
many pious minds, is visionary. It was based on
the principle first evolved by Huet ; the weakness of
human reason, and the supposed necessity of sub
mission to authority. In De Maistre, its founder,
who carried out in philosophy what Chateaubriand
did in literature, it was the suggestion of an abject
submission to the papacy, as the living authority on
earth ; accompanied by a sceptical disbelief of the
value of inductive science. It has expressed itself in
different forms; but in all it has been an attempt to
find a solution for difficulties by means of religion
instead of philosophy; an attempt analogous to that
in other lands, not merely to restrain the human
reason in matters of religion, but to inculcate distrust
of it; falling into the very error which Plato made
his master describe, of those who, baffled in the search
for truth, blame not their own unskilfulness, but
reason itself; and pass the rest of their lives in con
tempt of it ; and thus are deprived of the know
ledge that they seek.

archbishop of Paris, De Quelen, to Notre Dame ; where Lacordaire
opened his course in 1836. He, Kavignan, and Felix, respectively
made themselves distinguished. A. Pontmartin has pointed out the
adaptation of each teacher to the phase of public thought. (Pere
Felix, 1 86 1, pp. 26-32, quoted in the Christian Remembrancer,
Jan. 1862). These particulars are partly taken from Nettement s
works above cited.

424 LECTURE VII.

The history of thought in France, thus studied,
exhibits a general resemblance to that of Germany
in its forms and tendency. In both alike there has
been a contest, between the school which seeks to
absorb Christianity in philosophy, and that which
extinguishes philosophy by Christianity. There is
an absence indeed in France of the spiritual return
to a living Christian faith, the union of science and
piety, which is observable in the latter country.
But within the sphere of natural religion, in refer
ence to the belief in a spiritual world, an advance is
perceptible, if the present condition of France be
measured against that which was observable at the
period when the philosophic unbelief of the last cen
tury predominated.

Since the re-establishment of the empire, some of
the forms of philosophy which have been described
have almost disappeared. The socialist philosophy
has become extinct as a direct movement; the eclectic
school has gradually passed from philosophy to lite
rature ; and the chief tendencies, so far as mere ma
terialism does not, as in most reactions, extinguish
thought, are toward a modification of eclecticism on
the one hand, and to ultramontism on the other 1 ".

The difference of this new eclecticism from the
former kind seen in Cousin, lies in the fact that while

r The church during the Bourbon restoration was more Gallican
than Ultramontane. See Nettement s first work, t. ii. book vii. For
a survey of French literature during the present reign, see Rey-
mond s Etudes du second Empire.

LECTUEE VII. 425

that was chiefly derived from Schelling s philosophy,
this is an offshoot from Hegel. The one considered
that the mind, by its intuitions, can find absolute
truth, and by the light of these absolute ideas can
criticise history, and prejudge the end toward which
society is moving. This denies the possibility of at
taining absolute truth. All being is a state of flux :
all knowledge is relative to its age. Philosophy ex
pires in historical criticism ; in the history of the soul
of man under its various manifestations. It rests in
what is ; it judges only from fact. The absolute is
displaced by the relative ; being by becoming 8 .
Though not positivism in its aspects, this system is
so in its scientific results*.

The unbelief is critical, not aggressive. The grand
idea of an historical progress, of tracing especially
the historic growth of ideas, of culture, of the great
unfolding of humanity, presides over religious spe
culations, and lends its fascinating power and its
danger. The necessity is recognised for solving the
nature of the religious consciousness, and satisfying
its wants ; but the remedy is sought in other means

s This idea is well expressed in the passages quoted in Note 9.

t One of the modern young French writers most distinguished
for power of analysis, is H. Taine, who deserves mention in connexion
with the tendency which is in a different manner represented by
Renan. Taine s literary character was sketched, but not with the
praise which he deserves, in the Westminster Review, July 1861; and
also with a special reference to his religious opinions in Scherer, Me -
langes, ch. xi. He was supposed to be a positivist, but now declares
himself to favour Spinoza.

426 LECTUEE VII.

than in Christianity. While this is the condition
of the philosophy just described, positivism, so far
as it prevails, is wholly antichristian, and regards
religion as the product of an unscientific age, for
which a belief in nature s laws and science is a suf
ficient substitute. Christianity, though the ripest of
religious forms, is only symbolical of a higher truth
towards which humanity is tending.

We may select the name of a writer who stands
pre-eminent in critical investigations connected with
religion, as the best representative of the tone as
sumed in reference to the Christian faith by the
most highly educated younger spirits of the French
nation, of whose literature he is one of the brightest
living ornaments, Ernest Renan u . Exhibiting a
mind of the rarest delicacy, and bearing traces of
the collective cultivation which arises from de
tailed acquaintance with most varied branches of
human culture, he has brought his vast acquaint
ance with the Semitic tongues to bear on the
historical criticism of portions of the Hebrew litera-

u E. Renan, born 1823. His chief works are, Histoire Generate
et Systemes Compares des Langues Semitiques, 1845 &gt; D Q VOrigine du
Lang age, 1849 ; Averroes,i8si ; Job, 1859 j C antique des C antiques
1860; and Essays collected, viz. Essais de Critique et de Morale,
1859 ; an d especially Etudes de T Histoire Religieuse, 1859, which
contains a remarkable preface on the office of modern criticism. A
true criticism on the last two works may be seen in Blackwood s
Magazine, Nov. 1861, used in these remarks; and another by
Scherer, Melanges de la Critique Religieuse, ch. xv. He is now
writing on Les Origines du Christianisme. See Eraser s Magazine,
October 1862.

LECTURE VII. 427

ture ; and has sketched with the hand of a master
the great passages in the history of religion, the
symbolism of mythology; the monotheistic systems,
Jewish, Christian, and Mahometan ; the four chief
phases of Christianity, the Catholic, the Protestant,
the Socinian, the rationalist x ; and has speculated on
the future religious tendencies of the age, in essays,
which those who feel most deeply pained with the
views presented must acknowledge to be marked by
rare power and freshness. Possessing a delicate
appreciation of the past, and a cheerful confidence
in the future ; loving the advance of the knowledge
of physical nature, yet protesting against the tend
ency to materialism ; dreading the democracy of
opinion, which threatens to suppress independence
of inquiry by a power analogous to centralization in
the state ; the artist no less than the critic, imagina
tive as well as reflective, he may be studied as in all
respects the contrast to the French philosopher of the
last century, and as the type of the cultivated minds
on whom Christianity has made its impression. His
view of philosophy is the one recently explained :
his view of religion and of Christianity, so far as we

x This will be seen to be the enumeration of the essays in the
Etudes de rilistoire Relig. The essay on the future prospects of
Christian churches alluded to is in the Revue des Deux Mondes for
Oct. 15, 1860, where Kenan examines the prospects,, of the centralised
system of papacy, of the national system of the English and Russian
churches, and of the individual system of free churches ; and argues
that the tendency of society is to adopt the latter, both in freedom
of creed and of constitution.

428 LECTURE VII.

can gather it indirectly from his criticisms, seems to
mark a belief in the religious sentiment as a subjec
tive feeling, rather than in the reality of its external
object of worship. Its objective side seems to him to
be a symbolism, and Christian dogma to be an obsolete
form of religious philosophy ; inspiration a form of
natural consciousness; and even its highest expres
sion to be but the poetry, the art, of the imaginative
faculties. There is audible at times an undertone of
despondency, as the sigh of one who has searched
for truth and not found it x ; and who, in despair
of discovering it on the intellectual side, has taken
refuge in the moral. Religion, vain speculatively,
is resolved by him into ethics. Faith expires in
conscience ; dogma in morality. And this interest
ing writer closes his speculations with the regret,
that he feels himself isolated from those Christian
saints whose characters he regards as the purest in
the worlds. Such may probably be regarded as the
type of thought of the most educated thinkers of
France; a feeling of partial belief, partial doubt; a

x At the close of La Chaire dHebreu, 1862, he has however as
sumed a view of the world and of nature, less negative and more
definite.

&gt; See the preface to Etudes Relig. especially pp. 14, 15. It is
hoped that injustice is not done to M. Renan by these statements.
Perhaps they interpret his thoughts more pointedly than he him
self would do, and attribute to him as positive conclusions what
rather are incipient tendencies. They are the result however of a
careful study of his various works, and were written before his
recent Di scours d Ouverture; De la part des Peuples Semitiques,
which seems to confirm them.

LECTURE VII. 429

keen appreciation of the beauty of the character of
the great Founder of Christianity, and of the type
of Christian morality, yet mixed with an entire dis
trust in the reality of all doctrines respecting the
object of faith, from belief in which alone, as we
contend, this morality is the product.

Doubts always suggest replies ; and there are
not wanting minds in the Protestant church of
France (46) that fully appreciate the doubts of edu
cated minds such as these, and try to meet them by
a more persuasive method than that by which the
Catholic school sought to meet the doubters of the
earlier part of the century. By the improper con
cessions however which they have made to save the
vital part of religion, they have themselves incurred
the charge of sharing the rationalism of the country
with whose literature they are acquainted. As
suming a position somewhat like Schleiermacher s,
they are careful to distinguish between critical theo
logy and doctrinal, and endeavour to propagate the
latter rather than the former. Yet in the branch of
doctrinal theology, it must be feared that they have
either conceded some of the mysteries of Christianity
as obsolete, or at least have improperly concealed
them as likely to repel doubters. Though we must
indeed be careful wisely to divide the word of life,
and not to quench the quivering flame of faith by
creating an unnecessary repugnance ; yet, if Christ
ianity be a supernatural revelation from God, our
plain course is to present the truth as it is in Jesus,

430 LECTURE VII.

unmutilated in the mystery of its difficulties, and
leave the result with God.

There is one feature however, in which these
writers are a pattern worthy of imitation by all
Christian apologists. They preach to doubters not
Christian dogmas, but Christ. If the doubters can
be brought to appreciate Christ ; to meditate on
his life ; to think of him as one who tasted of human
suffering, and knew the poignancy of human temp
tation ; and whose heart of tender pity was ever open
to the petition of the needy; they will first admire,
then believe, then trust : and when they have learned
to love him as a Man of pity, it is to be hoped that
they may be brought, by the drawings of the Holy
Spirit, to worship and adore him as a God of
love. Beginning, not with history, but with feeling;
starting with a religion based on the intuitive con
sciousness of needing Divine help ; we may hope to
prepare them for receiving the historic testimony
which tells of the Divine plan for human redemption :
leading them from the sense of sin to Him who saves
from sin ; from the inward to the outward ; from
Christ to Christianity; from Christian doctrine to
the perfectness of Christian faith.

LECTURE VIII.

FREE THOUGHT IN ENGLAND IN THE PRESENT CENTURY:

SUMMARY OF THE COURSE OF LECTURES :
INFERENCES IN REFERENCE TO PRESENT DANGERS AND DUTIES,

ECCLES. xii. 13.

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter : Fear God,
his commandments; for this is the whole duty of

IN the last lecture we brought the history of
unbelief on the continent down to the present time.
In this, the concluding one of the series, we shall
complete the history of it in our own country or
language during this century; and afterwards deduce
the moral of our whole historical sketch, and suggest
practical inferences.

In the account of unbelief in England, given in a
previous lecture a , we hardly entered upon the pre-

a In Lecture V.

432 LECTURE VIII.

sent century, except so far as to observe the influence
of the philosophy of the last on works of liter ature,
such as those of Shelley ; or on political speculations,
such as those of Owen. Yet even here we were
already made to feel the presence of the new influ
ences, which have completely altered the tone of
unbelief. Even Shelley s later works, though marked
by the outbursts of bitter passion against religion,
contain more of the spiritual perception which is
the characteristic of present thought k : and the
oblivion into which Owen s system soon fell, save as
it has been resuscitated in moments of political dis
affection, together with its failure to leave a permanent
impression, like the socialist systems of France, arose
from the circumstance that the one-sided survey of
man s nature, on which it was based, could not
deceive an age which was characterised by an in-
increasing depth in its moral perceptions.

The unbelief of the present day differs from that
of the last century in tone and character; and in
many respects shares the traits already noticed in
the modern intellectualism of Germany, and the
eclecticism of France. It is not disgraced by ri
baldry; hardly at all by political agitation against
the religion which it disbelieves : it is marked by a
show of fairness, and professes a wish not to ignore

b Some remarks will be found a few pages farther, in reference
to the subjective spirit and stronger consciousness of the ethical
element in human nature, which are evinced in the literature of the
present century.

LECTURE VIII. 433

facts, nor to leave them unexplained. Conceding the
existence of spiritual and religious elements in
human nature, it admits that their subjective exist
ence as facts of consciousness, no less than their ob
jective expression in the history of religion, demands
explanation, and cannot be hastily set aside, as was
thought in the last century in France, by the vulgar
theory that the one is factitious, and the other the
result of priestly contrivance. The writers are men
whose characters and lives forbid the idea that their
unbelief is intended as an excuse for licentiousness.
Denying revealed religion, they cling the more tena
ciously to the moral instincts : their tone is one of
earnestness ; their inquiries are marked by a pro
found conviction of the possibility of finding truth :
not content with destroying, their aim is to re
construct. Their opinions are variously manifested. 11
Some of them appear in treatises of philosophy ;
others insinuate themselves indirectly in literature :
some of them relate to Christian doctrines; others to
the criticism of scripture documents : but in all cases
their authors either leave a residuum which they
profess will satisfy the longings of human nature, or
confess with deep pain that their conclusions are in
direct conflict with human aspirations ; and, instead
of revelling in the miri which they have made,
deplore with a tone of sadness the impossibility of
solving the great enigma.

It is clear that writers like these offer a wholly
different appearance from those of the last century.

434 LECTUEE VIII.

The deeper appreciation manifested by them of
the systems which they disbelieve, and the more
delicate learning of which they are able to avail
themselves, constitute features formerly lacking in
the works of even the most serious-minded deists ,
and require a difference in the spirit, if not in the
mode, in which Christians must seek to refute them.

The solution of this remarkable phenomenon is to
be found in the universal change which has passed
over every department of mental activity in England
in the present century. The peculiar feature of it
may be described by the word spirituality, if that
word be used to imply, in contrast to the utilitarian
and materialist tendencies of the last century, the
consciousness in ourselves, and appreciation in others,
of the operation of the human spirit, its rights, its
powers, and its effects. This conviction stimulates
in one the vivid consciousness of duty and moral
earnestness ; in another it hallows human labour,
and throws a blessedness around the struggles of
industry ; in another it kindles the inspiration of art,
breaking up conventionalities of style, or expresses
itself in poetry, in soliloquies on the inner feelings
or in meditations on life, as a set of problems to be
explained by the heart. Elsewhere it lifts the man
of science above the grovelling idea that discoveries
must be sought solely for the purpose of utility.
Again, transferring its perception of the operation of

c Such as Herbert and Morgan.

LECTURE VIII. 435

spirit to the world of nature, it not unfrequently
attributes a soul thereto, and induces a subtle pan
theism. Sometimes too by a singular reaction it
has a tendency, by the moral earnestness which it
stimulates, to depress intellectual speculation, and to
wear the appearance of fostering the utilitarianism
which it combats.

Such is the central principle which characterises
our literature, and which, through the diffusion of
reading, has moulded the public judgment, and,
operating in every department of educated thought,
has even altered the form in which unbelief ex
presses itself.

Probably the successive steps of the growth of this
subjective tendency in literature might admit of easy
statement. The meditative school of poetry, which
flourished early in the century d among a few refined
minds at the English lakes ; which loved to ponder
mystically on nature or on the spiritual world, or to

d On the influence of the Lake school of poetry, see D. M. Moir s
Sketches of the Poetical Literature of the past half century, 1851,
ch. i. and ii. The Lake school being a reaction against the mate
rialist school, which almost degraded spirit to matter, traced a soul
in nature, and was in danger of elevating matter to spirit. Other
branches of art besides poetry exhibit a similar change of tone.
This is remarkably manifest in the modern landscape art of Eng
land, and is developed incidentally in Mr. Ruskin s work, The Modern
Painters. We have already had occasion, in Lecture VI, to advert
to the similarity in result of the Lake school of English poetry
to the Romantic school of Germany. Both were spiritual schools ;
but the former strove to learn from the freshness of nature, the latter
from the freshness of an earlier stage of civilization.

F f 2

43G LECTURE VIII.

catch the thought excited in the mind by nature,
and follow the series of thoughts which the law of
mental association suggested 6 , was one means of
creating a subjective and spiritual taste among the
youth of the generation which succeeded.

Another cause was found in the philosophy which
arose. The years following the general declaration
of peace, while the public attention was directed
to the political reforms which were consummated
in the Reform act, were marked by the thorough
investigation of the first principles of every branch of
knowledge. Two minds of that period have, more
than any other, affected the succeeding generation ;
the one a utilitarian philosopher, the other an in
tuitional.

Both alike carried out the system which Descartes
and Bacon had inaugurated, of finding the standard
of truth in the analysis of the powers of the human
understanding. But Bentham criticised to destroy
the past ; Coleridge to rebuild it. The one asked, Is a
doctrine true? The other asked, what men had meant
by it who had thought it so f ? The one overlooked
the truth previously known; the other too boldly
strove to rebuild it from his own consciousness, after

e A very able analysis of the mental character of Wordsworth,
to whom the words in the text allude, was given in the National
Review, No. 7, Jan. 1857.

f Two very valuable essays occur, on Bentham and Coleridge
respectively, in Mr. J. S. Mill s Essays and Dissertations, vol. i.
(reprinted from the Westminster Review, Aug. 1838 and March 1840).
See especially the comparison of these two philosophers at p. 395 seq.

LECTUEE VIII. 437

surrendering the old proofs of it. The one, with
the practical spirit of the Englishman, looked upon
an opposing opinion only as an object suited for
attack ; the other, with a spirit caught from Germany,
felt that there was some truth everywhere latent.
But both were reformers; both stimulated the revolt
against the cold spirit of the last century ; both con
tributed to create, the one indirectly, the other inten
tionally, a subjective spirit by their psychological
analysis.

Even movements which at first sight seem most
alien to this spirit in character, have really been
affected unconsciously by its. The ecclesiastical
reaction which sprang up about a quarter of a cen
tury ago, though seemingly most objective in its
nature, witnessed not less than the very opposite, or
rationalistic tendency, to the presence of this influ
ence. For both alike were founded on the idea that
religion lacked a philosophical groundwork : both
sought a new ground of faith different from that of
the last century; the one in those utterances of con
sciousness which created a reverence for historic
tradition ; the other in those intuitions which were
supposed to rise above scripture and tradition, and to
form the basis and measure of both.

The causes just named in literature and philo-

s This is shown in a very striking manner in the National Review,
Oct. 1856, in which a comparison is instituted of the effects on the
English mind of the three teachers, J. H. Newman, Coleridge, and
Carlyle.

438 LECTURE VIII.

sophy respectively, are some of those which have
contributed to create or to foster the change in the
character of the literature, and in the spirit of the
age, which has produced the alteration of tone which
exists in the modern sceptical literature.

In passing from these remarks on the peculiarly
subjective tone of modern unbelief, and the literary
influences which have produced the general change
in the public taste, of which it is only one example,
to an enumeration of the authors who have given
expression to doubt, and of the specific forms of
doubt now existing, we encounter a difficulty of
classification.

The most obvious arrangement would be to place
the writers in groups, according as they manifest a ten
dency toward atheism, pantheism, deism, or rational
ism 11 , respectively; but the mode which more nearly
accords with our general purpose would be to adopt
a philosophical rather than a theological classifica
tion, and arrange them according to the variety in
the tests of truth employed by them, and the sources
from which their arguments start, rather than the con
clusions at which they arrive. Perhaps the advantage
of both plans will be in a great degree combined, if
we classify them according to the branch of science,
physical, mental, or critical, from which the doubts
take their rise.

We shall commence with those writers who make

h This is the arrangement adopted in Mr. Pearson s work on
Infidelity, named on p. 18, note.

LECTURE VIII. 439

sensation to be the last appeal in belief, or whose
doubts arise either from the methods or the results
of physical science. This class of opinions varies
from positive disbelief of the supernatural, generated
by the fixed belief in the stability of nature and dis
belief of miraculous interference, to merely isolated
objections suggested by the conflict between the dis
coveries of natural science and the statements of holy
scripture.

The name which most fitly describes the extreme
form of unbelief is Positivism 1 . This system of phi
losophy, already stated to have been invented by
Comte, is silent about the existence of a Deity. It
inculcates the belief in general laws, and acknow
ledges the order in Nature, which we are accustomed
to regard as the result of mind ; but declines to argue
to the existence of a designing mind, where the evi
dence cannot be verified by proof referable to sen-

* Concerning Conite s philosophy see the note on p. 416. The
Westminster fieview is the periodical which at present embodies its
spirit. The works of Mr. G. H. Lewes, his History of Philosophy,
and his exposition of Comte (Bohn 1853), ma y ^ e noticed as books
in which the philosophical, and, to some extent, the theological spirit
of positivism prevails. The mind of Mr. J. S. Mill has been largely
influenced by this philosophy, to which his tastes for natural sci
ence disposed him ; though the influence on him of the philosophy
of his father, James Mill, and of Bentham, as well as his own ori
ginality of mind, prevents him from being a mere disciple of Comte.
These writers however have almost abstained from touching directly
on the subject of religion. The character of Positivism, as an intel
lectual tendency, has been sketched by Mr. Morell, in the Lectures
on the Philosophical tendencies of the Age, .1 848.

440 LECTURE VIII.

sation. Nature s laws are in its view the only Provi
dence ; obedience to them the only piety. A few
minds may be found, which not only accept the posi
tive philosophy, but even receive the religion taught
in the positivist catechism k . Unable to satisfy the
longings of their heart by this system of Cosmism,
they receive the extravagant idea of the worship of
humanity, which Comte invented in his later days.

Such a creed cannot hold the masses. But Posi
tivism in another shape, called Secularism 1 , is actively

k The view of religion as a worship of the ideal of humanity, in
the form of practical ethics and social study, which is taken by the
better class of Positivists, is stated at length in the Westminster
Review for April 1858, together with an explanation of the extra
vagant views of Comte, in the Catechisme Positiviste, which has been
translated by one who was formerly highly respected as an indefati
gable teacher, in one of the public schools, and afterwards in one of
the universities.

1 Secularism is the name adopted a few years ago by Mr. G. J.
Holyoake. See Christianity and Secularism ; Report of the Public
Discussion between the Rev. B. Grant and Mr. Holyoake ; also,
Modern Atheism, or the Pretensions of Secularism examined; a
course of four Lectures, delivered in the Athenaeum, Bradford, by
the Rev. J. Gregory, &c. 1852 ; Secular Tracts, by the Rev. J. H.
Hinton ; The Outcast and the Poor of London, Whitehall Sermons,
by the Rev. F. Meyrick, p. 91 seq. In its social aspect it is the form
of naturalism which has been borrowed from Owen and Combe ; in
its religious, from Comte. The political tone of this system is ex
pressed in a poem, The Purgatory of Suicides ; a Prison Rhyme, by
Thomas Cooper the Chartist, 1858 ; and the religious in the Con
fessions of Joseph Barker, a Convert from Christianity, 1858. Also
in the tracts of Mr. Holyoake, e. g. The Logic of Death, written in
1849, during the cholera. These last two writers are the chief teachers
of the system. Some small magazines are devoted to its propaga-

LECTUEE VIII. 441

propagated among the lower orders. Replacing the
sensuous philosophy and political antipathies of
Owen, it is taught, unconnected with the political
agitation which marked his views, as a philosophy
of life, and a substitute for religion. It asserts three
great principles: first, that nature is the only subject
of knowledge; the existence of a personal God being
regarded as uncertain : secondly, that science is the
only Providence : and thirdly, that the great business
of man is, as the name, secularism, implies, to attend
to the affairs of the present world, which is certain,
rather than of a future, which is uncertain. Not
content however with this negative position, the
writers of this class, as was to be expected, have
directed positive attacks against the special doctrines
of Christianity, and regard the Bible to be the enemy
of progress m .

tion. A criticism on these tendencies among the working classes
will be found, from the Unitarian point of view, in the National
Review, No. 15, Jan. 1859, where tn i g c l ass of political and religious
obstacles, encountered in dealing with the working classes, is con
trasted with the mere animalism described in Miss Marsh s English
Hearts and Hands; and from a more sceptical point of view, in the
Westminster Review for Jan. 1862, where an extract is given (p. 83)
concerning Holyoake s view of Deity. The following terrible utter
ance, taken from his Discussion with Townley (p. 68), will give an
idea of his tone : " Science has shown us that we are under the
dominion of general laws, and that there is no special Providence.
Nature acts with fearful uniformity : stern as fate, absolute as
tyranny, merciless as death ; too vast to praise, too inexplicable to
worship, too inexorable to propitiate ; it has no ear for prayer, no
heart for sympathy, no arm to save."

m The chief points against which the objections have been taken

442 LECTURE VIII.

It is impossible to estimate the extent to which
these views are diffused. The statistics of the sale
of secularist tracts would doubtless give an exagge
rated idea of it. The high standard of morality
advocated in them, so likely to attract rather than
repel, the clear writing, and the agreement of the
views with the experience afforded by the daily life
of working men, give them power among the lower
orders. The absorbing character of labour has a
tendency, especially in an advanced state of civiliza
tion, to depress the sense of the supernatural in man,
and fix his thoughts on the present world : and it is
generally the sense of trouble alone which can lift
men out of themselves, and recall to their remem
brance the presence of a God on whom the sorrowing
heart may lean for help.

Opinions derived from positivism, or at least from
physical science, enter into other spheres of thought
than those just named; and both affect writers who
hardly touch upon the subject of religion; and create
difficulties in the minds of Christians themselves,
either in reference to prime doctrines of religion, or
the particular teaching on physical questions implied
in the sacred books.

The diffusion of the fundamental conception of the
perpetuity of nature s laws, has a tendency to create

are, the scriptural account of the character of Christ, the doctrine
of atonement, and the necessity of faith to salvation. See the
Keport of the discussion which is referred to at the commencement
of the last note.

LECTURE VIII. 443

in literature a mode of viewing the world alien to
the providential view of the divine government im
plied in religion. The application of statistics in so
cial philosophy for the discovery of the general laws
which regulate society and create civilization, not
unfrequently leaves an impression that man as well
as matter depends upon fixed laws; which is irrecon-
cileable with belief in human freedom or in divine
interference, and sometimes causes religion to be
regarded as a conservative force, which in its nature
is* alien to civilization n .

Nor is the danger confined to the various branches
of secular literature : the views of even religious men
are not unfrequently modified by it, or painful
doubts are created where the head contradicts the
heart. In proportion as phenomena are shown not
to depend on chance, the misgiving is felt as to the
reality of special providence and the value of prayer,
in reference to temporal affairs. The sphere for con
fiding petitions is felt to be narrowed; and miracles,
instead of becoming an evidence for religion, become
a difficulty. Even where fundamental difficulties,
such as these, do not sap the religious life, the belief
that the inspiration of the sacred books guarantees
the truth of the views of physical science, the cos
mogony, physiology, ethnology, and chronology, con
tained therein, creates a further body of difficulties ,

n Mr. Buckle s work on the History of Civilization is an instance
to which these statements apply.

The difficulties alluded to are, those suggested by geology, con-

444 LECTUEE VIII.

less fundamental but more painful, because founded
on the apparent want of harmony of scripture with
the progressive discoveries of natural science.

While these are the species of temptations to un
belief which appertain to one source of opinions, viz.
that which relies upon sensation as the ultimate test
of truth ; doubts similar in character, though different
in cause, manifest themselves in that portion of our
literature which appea]s for its proof to the faculty
of insight, and which believes in mental sources of
information which are independent of sensation. If
the one tends towards atheism, or to a deism in
which the world is viewed as a machine; the other
tends towards pantheism or to naturalism, wherein
no opportunity for interposition by miraculous reve
lation is retained, but the inner consciousness of man
is regarded as able to create a religion. The former
class of views belongs to minds accustomed to ex
perimental science; this to those which are conver
sant with spiritual or aesthetic subjects : the former
expresses itself in the region of science, and tempts
men of thought; the latter expresses itself rather in
the region of literature, and tempts men of senti
ment.

One writer, a prince in the region of letters P, may

cerning the narrative of creation, the deluge, and the date of the
creation of man ; or by physiology, concerning the longevity of the
patriarchs ; or by ethnology, concerning the unity of mankind.

P T. Carlyle. The character of his writings and philosophy is
explained and criticised in Morell s History of Philosophy, ii. 249

LECTURE VIII. 445

be adduced, many of whose works imply, directly or
indirectly, a mode of viewing the world and society
contrary to that which is taught in Christianity. He
is the highest type of the antagonist position which
literature now assumes in reference to the Christian
faith, and which finds some parallel in the contest
which occurred in Julian s time, and at the Renais
sance.

Though possessing too much originality to borrow
consciously from the literature of Germany, yet it is
easy to discover that the fire of his imagination has
been kindled in contact with the marvellous insight
of Goethe, the pathos of Jean Paul, and the faith
in eternal truth which marked Jacobi. Their rival
rather than disciple, he hails the philosophy of his
own country as a first approximation to truth ; but
regards the German mind as having seen more
deeply than any other of modern times into the
mysteries of existence. Though not formal enough
to throw his philosophy into a system, he has left an
impress on the English literature of this century.
In every branch of literature which he has surveyed,
he has made it his mission to expose the hollow
formalism, the cold materialism, which he considers
that utilitarian philosophy had produced. " Self in

seq. ; and in an able manner in the Westminster Review, Oct. 1839 ;
both which sources have been much used in the following brief
account. The latter article would be considered probably to need a
slight alteration, in consequence of the slight change of character in
Carlyle s more recent works.

446 LECTURE VIII.

the sense of selfishness, and God as the artificial pro
perty of a party ;" these have been said to be the two
faults which he sees in politics, in science, in law, in
literature, in religion : and, to oppose this inrush of
objective knowledge ; to call man to a recognition
of his better self, to the unaltering spiritual laws
stamped in the structure of the human consciousness,
and to God as the eternal, infinite Divinity, whose
presence fills creation; this is the mission which he
has striven to effect.

Yet can there be no doubt that the victory of this
great truth is won at the sacrifice of others ; and that
in the general tone of his writings, and above all in his
memoir of the doubter Sterling % he occupies a posi
tion opposed to the particular forms of religious truth
taught by Christianity, and one which a philosopher
of tastes cognate to his own, Coleridge, forming him
self under the pyschological rather than the literary
influence of German thought, strove to retain. In
elevating the doctrine of the revelation in the soul,
he regards as unnecessary the revelation in the
book 1 " : his teaching tends to inculcate a worship
of earnestness, and to ignore all consideration of the
object toward which the earnestness is directed. In
asserting the reality of spiritual laws in the soul, he
has implied the veracity of all religions, caring only
for the subjective zeal of the believer, not for the

^ Cfr. his Life of Sterling, 1850, pp. 126, 7.
r It may be enough to refer to such a passage as Past and Present,
PP- 305-9-

LECTURE VIII. 447

objects of his belief 8 . In opposing the mechanical
view of the universe, he is so overwhelmed with the
mystery which belongs to it, that the soul recoils in
the hopelessness of speculation, to rest content with
work rather than belief. And his readers, attracted
by his power of satire and depth of insight, ex
pressed in a style full of force by reason of its pecu
liarity, return to their daily life after imbibing his
teaching, excited to greater earnestness and faithful
ness, but filled, it is to be feared, with a contempt for^
objective systems, for dogmatic truth, and for the
Christian creed 1 .

In the master the strong and deep sense of per
sonality and of freedom obliterates the tendency to
absorb human individuality in the overpowering
mystery of the universe ; but this tendency is de
veloped in the early works of an American writer 11 ,
who has drawn from some of the same sources as the
author just described, but who also owes much directly
to him. In him philosophy seems to degenerate into
pantheism. Nature is a vast whole, in which we are
parts, vibrations of a chord, radiations of the eternal
light*. Starting from a Unitarian point of view,

8 Past and Present, pp. 193, 4.

t Id. pp. 271,2.

u Mr. Emerson : it ought to be noticed however that the follow
ing remarks are applicable mainly, if not wholly, to his earlier works ;
on which there is a criticism, similar to that cited in reference to
Carlyle, in the Westminster Review, March 1840.

x " I am nothing I see all the currents of the universal being
circulate through me lam part or particle of God." Nature, p. 13.

448 LECTUEE VIII.

Christianity appears to be resolved into natural reli
gion ; and the historic view of Christianity, and the
habit of considering the revelation as something long
ago given, are regarded as being at the bottom of the
decay of religion. In his admiration of genius, he
seems to imply an idolatry of mere intellect ; and
developes that tendency which has been always ob
servable in pantheism to unite the worlds of good
and evil, and teach that evil is " good in the making."
The universe is God ; evil and good are equally
essential parts of it.

This peculiar tendency to narrow the barrier be
tween the two worlds is observable, not merely in
direct admissions of writers like the one just adduced,
but lurks as a peculiar danger in the modern litera
ture of fiction. The danger in fiction, as in all art,
can arise only from the character of the subject
portrayed, or the manner employed in producing
the copy. In the present day the evil arises specially
from the latter cause. The subjective spirit, causing
a perception of the duty of exactness, has contributed
to foster a realistic taste in art, which requires such
minuteness of treatment, that a work of fiction so
constructed, while preserving the freshness of nature,
may violate moral perspective, and leave the impres-

These were the words which this author formerly used. The same
tendency can probably be traced in the characters of Plato and
Goethe in his Representative Men. See also the Oration on the
Christian Teacher.

LECTURE VIII. 449

sion that good and evil are inseparably intermixed in
each character or in nature itself. The very photogra
phic exactness of the modern novel copies the features
without selection or discrimination, and presents each
moral character as a mixed one, and makes evil pass
into good, and good into evil. Though it is quite true
that no character is unmixed, yet it ought not to be
forgotten that the evil is present as a disease, the
good as the normal state. If approached from the
philosophical side, the presence of evil as well as its
origin is inexplicable, save by the pantheistic hypo
thesis ; if approached however from the moral, our
own instincts tell us that it is diametrically opposed
to good ; and it is important to be on our guard
against the influence of modern literature, which in
any way implies the contrary.

We have hitherto exhibited the systems in the
present day, which by their influence, direct or in
direct, assume a position antagonistic to Christianity.
Commencing with positivism, we explained the doubts
which, being built on a sensationalist basis, reject the
possibility of revelation; or, on an ideal, reject its
necessity. We now proceed to describe the works
written as direct attacks upon Christianity, founded
indeed on an idealist basis, but in which the philo
sophy is in the main subordinate to the critical in
vestigation. Marked by the improved tone which
was before described, and enriched with the fruits
of the researches of German theologians, they form
at once the books which are likely to meet us in

450 LECTURE VIII

daily life ; and equal those of past generations in
subtlety and danger. We shall commence with
those which are most openly infidel, and gra
dually pass onward to those which shade off
almost into unitarianism, until we reach the cri
tical difficulties which in the writings of avowedly
Christian professors have given ground for the charge
of rationalism.

The first writer to be named y is one who in two
works, the one " a Comparison of the Intellectual
Progress of Hebrews and Greeks in their religious
development/ the other on " the Origin of Christi
anity," has made a daring attempt, not to refute
Christianity directly, but to grapple with the historic
problem of the origin of revealed religions ; and
endeavoured to explain them by regular historic and
psychical considerations. In making this attempt
he has availed himself of the modern investigations
into mythology, and the relation which it bears at
once to the soul, to philosophy, and to religion. In
the last century mythology was either derided in a
Lucian-like spirit, or else regarded as the relic of
primitive traditions. In the present these views
have mostly Disappeared ; and the theories which
exist in reference to it are chiefly two, in the one
of which myths are explained by nature-worship,

&gt; R. "W. Mackay, whose two works are, The Progress of the Intellect
as exemplified in the Religious Development of the Greeks and Hebrews,
2 vols. 1850, and The Rise and Progress of Christianity, 1854.
(No. 7. of Chapman s Quarterly Series.)

LECTUEE VIII. 451

and sacred mysteries, and are regarded as parables
descriptive of natural processes ; in the other they
are regarded as being connected with the origin of
language, and the transfer of names from one object
to another. (47) It is the former view which this
writer has employed. Commencing with the Hebrew
Cosmogony 2 , he traces the origin of the metaphysical
notion of God a through personification and polythe
ism, up to theism; and next the origin of the moral
notion of God l) , regarding the notion of a fall to be a
hypothesis to account for sin; and explains away the
idea of mediation by the absurd theory of supposing
it to be made up of the two notions, of emanation, and
of a waning deity derived from the personification of
natural processes 6 . Having thus used mythology,
in the manner of Volney, to illustrate the rise of
these conceptions among the Greeks and Hebrews
respectively, he enters d upon the religious history
of the Hebrew people, and attempts to show that
the idea of the theocracy with temporary rewards
suggested the two correlative ideas of temporary re
verse, and eventual restoration ; and thus, by the
personification of the people s suffering, led to the
idea of a suffering Messiah 6 . Discussing the complex
Messianic conception, he tries to explain its origin

z Progress of Intellect, vol. i. ch. ii. on " Mythical Geography and
Cosmogony."

a Ch. iii. b Ch. iv.

c Vol. ii. ch. v. 3 and 9. He illustrates from natural processes ;
such as the decay of nature.

a Ch. vi. e Ch. vii.

Gg 2

452 LECTURE VIII.

by natural causes, by resolving it f into a combination
of the different types of thought, presented in the
earlier history. Approaching the subject of Chris
tianity, he considers it to be one of the Jewish sects,
a lawful continuation of the prophetic reforms & ;
therein anticipating the idea which he has developed
in the second work above named, concerning the rise
and progress of Christianity ; in which he has adopted
the views of the historical criticism of the school
of Tubingen. Regarding Christianity to be a reform
of Judaism mixed with Greek dogmas h , he attributes
to St. Paul, in contrast to the Jewish apostles, the
idea of giving it universality ; and to the early
Roman church the idea of giving it unity 1 ; illus
trating by natural causes the gradual origin of the
church k , and the pretended concretion of dogmas 1 by
mixture with Alexandrian philosophy.

These works, too recondite to be popular, and too
unsatisfactory to be dangerous, do not appear likely
to affect largely the English inquirer ; but the case
is different with the work which next meets us by
another author, " the Creed of Christendom 111 / which,

f Ch. viii. The types of thought which he traces in it are, the
conception of prophet as taught by Moses ; the idea of a supernatural
incarnation ; the Davidic conception of a temporal sovereign ; and
the suffering Messiah of the book of Daniel.

8 Ch. ix. and x. h fii se of Christianity, parts i. and ii.

1 Part iii. k Part iv. 1 Parts v. and vii.

m The Creed of Christendom, its Foundation and Superstructure,
by W. Kathbone Greg, 1851. A review of it by Mr. Martineau may
be seen in Studies on Christianity (reprinted from the Westminster
Review), and by Remusat in Revue des Deux Mondes, Jan. 1859.

LECTUEE VIII 453

on account of its clearness of statement and variety of
material, is the most dangerous work of unbelief of
this age.

In the first part of the work the writer attacks
the idea of inspiration 11 , with all modifications of the
notion, as a gratuitous assumption ; and tries to dis
prove it by recapitulating the controversy respecting
the authorship of the Pentateuch, and the authority
of the Old Testament canon , as well as by the pre
tended non-fulfilment of the prophetic writings?,
and the gradually progressive development of the
Theism of the Jews^. Applying a similar process to
the Gospels, he states the difficulties which attend the
literary question of their origin r and fidelity of the
narrative s ; trying to show that the apostles differed
from each other, and held views differing from those
taught by the Saviour, as recorded in the first three
Gospels 1 . Approaching the subject of the use of
miracles as an evidence, he contends that they cannot
prove a doctrine, and that their existence cannot
be proved by documents". In the examination of
Christianity he holds only the humanity of Christ,
and regards Christianity not to be superhuman, but
an eclecticism from the Jewish religion ; a conception,

n Cli. i. and ii. Ch. iii. P Ch. iv.

&lt;i Ch. v. r Ch. vi. s Ch. vii.

. t Ch. viii.-xii. He adopts the view of the new Tubingen school,
in exaggerating the contrast between the description of the character
and teaching of Christ in the " Synoptical " evangelists, and in the
fourth Gospel.

u Ch. xiii. x Ch. xiv.

454 LECTURE VIII.

not a revelation y. Successively attacking 2 the most
sacred doctrines of our faith, prayer, pardon, sin,
he is at last landed in the doubt of a future life, save
so far as the intuitions seem to suggest it a ; and in
conclusion he contents himself with the religion
which consists in obedience to the physical, moral,
intellectual, and social laws ; confessing however that
the heart dictates to prayer and religion, but main
taining that the idea of general laws forbids the
possibility of their reality 13 .

The next writer whom we must name c , has not
rested content with a literary examination of existing
religious forms, but has shown the consummation
to which the modern criticism of religion leads. The
work, " Thoughts in aid of Faith," that is, hints to

y Ch. xv. z Ch. xvi.

a Ch. xvii. He quotes the beautiful lines of Wordsworth, (Ode on
Intimations of Immortality, 5.) " Heaven lies about us in our
infancy," &c. as illustrative of the instinctive feeling of man in
reference to immortality.

b Page 303.

c Miss S. Hennell, whose chief writings are, Christianity and
Infidelity, a prize essay, an exposition of the arguments on both
sides, 1857 ; The Sceptical Tendency of Butler s Analogy, 1859 ;
The Early Christian Anticipation of the End of the World, 1860 ;
Thoughts in Aid of Faith, gathered chiefly from recent works in
Theology and Philosophy, 1860. Her views originally were the
same as those of her brother, a deceased Unitarian minister, author
of a work on Theism (1852), in which the use of miracles as an
evidence was depreciated. It is hoped that it will not be considered
improper to have named a writer, whose sex might be expected to
shelter her from remark ; but her writings are too able to be unpro
ductive of influence.

LECTURE VIII. 455

advise those who have given up all other faith,
is too characteristic of a certain type of thought to
be omitted. It is an instance where the final result,
to which philosophical investigation has conducted,
bears a resemblance to that reached by Feuerbach
in Germany d . In the treatment of the subject, the
tenderness of human character has not disappeared ;
and belief in the teaching of religion is surrendered
with painful sadness. Staiting at first from the
Unitarian point of view, this writer has gradually
advanced, by the aid of the modern philosophy, to
the very pantheism at which philosophy stood in the
early ages of oriental speculation. In a review of
the historical and psychical e origin of religion and
Christianity, the idea of a divine Being is regarded
as merely the giving existence to an abstraction, the
objectifying of the subjective; and Christianity, as the
form in which the notion of a personal God neces
sarily clothes itself : so that the idea of God becomes
a fiction created by the mind; Christianity a fiction
created by the heart. Though an appreciation is
shown of ancient forms of religion f , all are regarded
as visionary ; and, in looking forward to the future,
philosophy affords no cheering hope : nothing re-

d Thoughts in Aid of Faith, ch. i. This work was reviewed in
the Westminster Review, July 1860, and the North British Review
for Nov. 1860.

e Ch. ii.

f E. g. ch. v.

456 LECTURE VIII.

mains, save the annihilation taught by the ancient
Buddhists 8 .

The course of the history now brings before us
two writers, who stand distinguished from the last
group by their firm theism, and strong protest
against pantheism in every form. One of them
was an American h ; the other an alumnus of this
university *.

The life and work of the former, so far as they
relate to our inquiries, may soon be told k . In early

s Ch. vi. and vii. It is a result not unlike that of positivism, but
reached from the ontological instead of the physical side.

h Mr. Theodore Parker of Boston.

1 Mr. F. Newman. The wide spread of the works of these two
writers, especially of the latter, is the reason why it is thought
desirable to exhibit their views at some length. The pathos and
eloquence which belong to their writings impart to them a fascina
tion which makes it the more necessary that readers should be on
their guard, by understanding the position which these authors hold
in relation to faith and to unbelief.

k The particulars are obtained from the account of Mr. Parker s
ministry, prefixed to his Sermons on Theism. He was at first a
Unitarian minister ; but, changing from unitarianism into deism, he
left that body, and became a preacher in Boston, until he was com
pelled to visit Europe on account of enfeebled health. He died at
Florence, 1860. His doctrinal views may be learned from the
Discourse on Matters pertaining to Religion, written in 1846, and the
Sermons on Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology, 1853 j anc ^
his critical and literary views, from the Introduction to the Old Testa
ment, based on De Wette ; and from his Miscellaneous Writings,
1848. A comparison of him with Strauss, which has been here
used, was given in the Westm. Rev. for April 1847. His character
and life have also been sketched in the Nat. Rev. Jan. 1860, and
especially by A Reville in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. 1861,

LECTURE VIII. 457

life a Unitarian minister, he caught the spirit of
intellectual inquiry and reconsideration which Chan-
ning had excited; and devoted himself with inde
fatigable industry to study the modern philosophy
and criticism of Germany, until he became one of
the most learned men of the American continent.
In his own country his fearless and uncompromising
denunciation of slavery, as well as of political and
commercial hollowness, caused him to be viewed as
a social reformer rather than a theological teacher.
In ours he is viewed as a teacher of deism. The
cause of his power is obvious. Feeling that his
mission was not merely to pull down, but to build
up, he spoke with the vigour of a dogmatist, not
with the coldness of a critic. To a burning elo
quence and native wit he united the picturesque
power of the novelist or the artist. But his vigour
of style was deformed by a power of sarcasm which
often invested the most sacred subjects with carica
ture and vulgarity ; a boundless malignity against
supposed errors. How different is the tone of his
satire from the delicate touches of the modern
French critic l who was named in the last lecture !
and yet, on the other hand, how changed from that
of the infidel writers of the last century. Though
he equals Paine in vulgarity, and Voltaire in sar
casm, his spirit and moral tone are higher. They
wrote, actuated by a bitter spirit against the Christian
religion, without earnestness, without religious aspi-

1 E. Iienan. See p. 426.

458 LECTUKE VIII.

rations, with the coldness of unbelievers : he, with
the earnestness of a preacher touched with the
deepest feelings ; and though the Christian writer
will shudder at his remarks as much as at theirs,
yet he sees them modified by passages of pathetic
sentiment, in which, in words unrivalled in scepti
cal literature, admiration is expressed of Christ, of
Christianity, and of scripture 111 .

Such was the man as a teacher. What was his
doctrine ? He sought and found in the human
faculties the test of truth, not dwelling, like Strauss,
on their tendency to deceive ; but, like Schelling, on
their certitude. He placed the ground of religion
on the emotional side of the soul, in the feeling of
dependence" ; and correlatively, on the intellectual
side, in the intuitions of God, the moral law, and
immortal life.

Assuming, on the principle of spiritual supply and
demand, that capacity proves object, (the natural
realism which we attribute to the senses being thus
applied to the intellectual instincts,) he regarded the
intuitions to be real, and traced the mode in which
reasoning and experience develope them into concep
tions . But, afraid of giving too anthropomorphic

m In the Discourse pertaining to Matters of Religion, books ii,
iii, iv. The writer is unable to put the exact references to this
work in the remarks which follow ; having omitted to note them
clown when he had the book at hand.

n Discourse, book i.

The steps through which he considers that the idea of God is

LECTURE VIII. 459

a form to his conception of deity, he fell almost
into the abstract conception of the English deists ;
and in the notion of God s general providence, lost
the fatherlike conception of the divine Being with
which the human analogy invests Him. Few nobler
attacks however on atheism P, or defences of the
benevolent character of the divine Being &lt;*, exist, than
those which he has supplied. But at this point the
Christian must altogether part company with him;
for he next proceeded to argue against the possibility
of miracle or special providence ; identifying inspira
tion with the utterance of human genius, and regard
ing Christianity merely as the best exponent of man s
moral nature; as one foim of religion, but not the
final one. The Bible, which as a collection of literary
works, the religious literature of a Semitic people,
he appreciated with enthusiastic admiration 8 , was
degraded from its position of a final authoritative
utterance of religious truth, and was regarded as
the embodiment of the thoughts of spiritual men of
old time who were striving after truth, and spoke
according to the light which they possessed. The
religion which he taught was called by him "the

developed into a conception are, Fetishism, Polytheism, and Mono
theism ; Dualism and Pantheism being errors which lead astray
from Monotheism.

P Sermons on Theism, sermons i. and ii.

Q Id. sermons ix. and x.

r Discourse on Religion, books ii. and iv.

s E. g. in Discourse, book iii. and several passages in the Intro-
duction to the Old Testament.

460 LECTUKE VIII.

absolute religion." It was merely deism, built on
a sounder basis, and spiritualized by contact with a
truer philosophy.

The other writer* to whom allusion has been
made, though superior to the one just described
in refinement and acuteness, resembles him in pos
sessing deep aspirations and serious research, and
in standing apart from the unbelief of the last
century, which manifested no loftiness of aim, nor
earnest conviction. He stands forth too in a more
interesting position, from the circumstance that his
starting-point was not unitarianism, but the creed of
our own church ; and that he has given a psycho
logical autobiography, a painful and thrilling self-
portraiture u ; in which he traces step by step his
vsurrender of his early opinions, from the time of his
first doubts, when he was a student in this university,
to his fully developed deism.

The destructive side of his teaching is conveyed in
the narrative of the " Phases" of his faith. Educated
in the tenets of the more spiritual section of the
church, he gradually began, as he has stated, to re
consider his opinions as his mind was awakened by
study. The moral identity of Sabbath and Sunday;
the practice of infant baptism ; the connexion of a
spiritual effect with what he considered to be a
material cause implied in baptismal regeneration ;
the reasons for the superior efficacy of Christ s sacri-

* Mr. F. W. Newman.. " Ttie Phases of Faith, 1850.

LECTURE VIII. 461

fice over the Mosaic ; the discovery of gradual de
velopment in scripture ; these were the first thoughts
that agitated him x . Unable to solve them to his
satisfaction, he hesitated not to abandon, with noble
and manly self-sacrifice, the friends that he held
dear ; and to wander forth from the established
church, to seek a primitive Christianity elsewhere.
Puzzled by the difficulty of the supposed mistake of
the apostolic church, in expecting the sudden return
of Christianity, he adopted the chiliastic hypothesis ;
and, unable to join in ministerial work in England,
went as a missionary into the East?. On his return,
alienated from the friends of his youth and from the
new instructors with whom he had consorted, he
sought truth in the solitude of his own heart ; and
was led to throw off Calvinism and adopt Unitarian-
ism^ His fourth phase of faith led him, while
clinging to Christianity, to renounce the religion of
the Book. It consisted in an examination of many
of the difficulties which criticism has discovered ;
from which he was unhappily led to conclude that
the Bible was not free from error, nor above moral
criticism a ; believing nevertheless that the Bible was
made for man, though not man for the Bible. The
two concluding phases of his faith b consisted in ap
preciating the great law of progress which he con
siders to mark religion ; and discovering that faith

x Ch. i. y Ch. ii. z Ch. iii.

a Ch. iv. b Ch. v. and vi.

462 LECTURE VIII

at second hand is vain, and that the historical truth
fulness of Christianity is unimportant, the ideas em
bodied in it constituting its truth .

In reading this painful record, we feel ourselves
in contact with a mind cultivated in miscellaneous
science and in the Semitic languages, disciplined as
well as informed; which lays bare with transparent
sincerity the history of the stages through which he
has successively passed. Hitherto we have seen only
the destructive side of his teaching ; but he also strove
to attain a definite dogma : his truth-searching
spirit, touched by deep longings for the presence of
God, could not rest in the blank of unbelief. The
nature of this attempt is developed in a work on "the
Soul d ," in which the author lays bare at once his psy
chology, his ethics, and his religion; which in sub
stance are not unlike those of the writer last named.
He lays the foundation of religion in the spiritual
faculty, the sense of the infinite personality ; show-

c To complete this account it is necessary to add, that Mr. New
man has developed some portion of the critical investigations of his
studies of Jewish history in the History of the Hebrew Monarchy,
1847. I* is a treatment of the Old Testament analogous to that to
which we are accustomed in classical history ; the answer to which
would be by denying that the records of the Hebrew history are
amenable to criticism, inasmuch as they do not partake of the
ordinary conditions which appertain to human literature.

& The Soul, her /Sorrows and her Aspirations, 1849. ^ n t
date of publication this preceded the Phases. Mr. Newman has subse
quently published, Theism, Doctrinal, Practical, or Didactic, 1858.
The most complete view of his scheme, but of course wholly favour
able to him, is in the Westminster Review, Oct. 1858.

LECTURE VIII. 463

ing the generation of the various complex feelings
which make up religion awe, wonder, admiration,
reverence as the attributes of this divine Person
ality successively discover themselves 6 . Holding
strongly the doctrine of human freedom and the
natural existence of a moral sense, he allows fully
the existence of the consciousness of sin f , and the
necessity of spiritual regeneration ; asserting the be
lief in God s sympathy and communion with the soul,
the efficacy of prayer, and the duty of encouraging
holy aspirations s.

Few more suggestive, and in many respects few
truer, specimens exist of the analysis of those facts
of human nature which concern the basis of natural
religion and of the spiritual life 11 , than that which
he has offered in order to find a psychological basis
for religion. The deep spiritual longing for com
munion with God, the belief in prayer and in moral
renewal, are evidences of a creed which separate
him utterly from the naturalism and pantheism
before described, and place him almost on the fron
tier line between Christianity and deism 1 . And we
may be permitted to express the belief, that philo
sophy could not have raised him to his present moral

* Ch. i. f Ch. ii. s Ch. iii. and iv.

h Ch. i. The scheme much resembles that of Schleiermacher.

1 Deism and Unitarianism are both monotheistic ; but the latter
allows the existence of a revelation, the former denies it. The
modern school of Unitarians, however, nearly approach to the position
of Mr. Newman. See end of Note 6.

464 LECTURE VIII

standard. His spirituality is due to the fragments
of Christianity which he has retained in his system.
It has been truly said, that the defenders of natural
religion furtively kindle their torches by the light of
revealed.

In the course of this sketch of contemporary unbe
lief, we have gradually advanced from the forms
most alien to faith, till we have reached the threshold
of the Christian church. The necessity for making
the narrative complete compels us to pass within its
limits, and to indicate, though it be by a brief notice
and with a delicate hand, the forms of the movement
of free thought therein which have given rise to the
charge of rationalism. This movement of thought
is separated from those just described, in that it
loyally holds that God has revealed His will to man ;
but it varies from the general view of the church of
Christ in reference to the extent and manner in
which He has been pleased to reveal Himself : and,
under the pressure of the difficulties, doctrinal or
literary, which the progress of knowledge or of spe
culation has suggested, proposes to separate in the
holy scripture, or in the immemorial teaching of the
church, that which it regards to be the eternal ele
ment of revealed truth from that which it ventures
to conceive to be temporary ; the heavenly trea
sure from the earthen vessels in which it is con
tained. The literary parallel to this tendency is not
to be found in the deism of the last century, but in
some of the schools of free thought in Germany and

LECTURE VIII. 465

France in the present. Like them it professes to be
conservative of revelation, desiring to surrender a
part in order to save the remainder k .

The movement is characterised by two forms ; the
one philosophical, the other critical. We shall indi
cate their general character, without specifying indi
vidual writings 1 .

It is perhaps to the influence of Coleridge, more
than to that of any other single person, that the origin

k In many respects it resembles the " Mediation school" of Ger
many, described in Lectures VI. and VII, and the modern school of
the French protestant church, described in p. 429, and in Note 46.

1 It would be more delicate perhaps to leave to the reader the
application of these tendencies, and to omit the mention of names ;
but as the practice in this work has been to give the names even in
contemporary history, fairness requires the enumeration. The ten
dencies in the text however are rather a combination from the views
of different modern authors, and cannot be definitely referred as
a whole to any one single writer. Probably the reader will himself
conjecture that the first tendency is meant in the main to describe
the teaching of Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley ; the second, of Pro
fessor Jowett ; the third, of some of the writers in Essays and
Reviews. But if this be approximately true, it must not be sup
posed that every specific statement in the following account is in
tended to be charged upon these respective authors. The descrip
tion is meant to indicate certain tendencies of free thought, of which
their writings among others seem to exhibit instances. It is always
hard to judge of a movement which is in progress, and of which we
are ourselves spectators. The view here taken is the result of the
attempt which the writer of these lectures has made in his own
studies, to adjust the existing forms of free thought into their true
position in the history of speculation. If injustice is done, it is at
least not intended.

466 LECTURE VIII.

of this philosophical movement can be traced k . We
have already 1 had occasion to mention the general
design of his philosophy. At a time when the world
was wishing to break with the past, in politics, in
literature, and in religion, his spirit was conservative
of older truth, while sympathetic with that which was
new. In looking backwards, he sought to discover
what mankind had meant by their beliefs; in look
ing around, he asked what were the elements which
the present generation disapproved: and, wishing to
eliminate the error of the past and appropriate the
truth of the present, he looked inwards into the
human heart, and thought that he perceived a faculty
there which unveiled to man the eternal, absolute
truth, the true, the beautiful, and the good; which

k It may be useful to draw attention to a book on the relation of
Coleridge to recent theological thought, Modern Anglican Tlieology,
by the Rev. J. H. ffigg, 1857. The book is by a Wesleyan minister, and
is written from that point of view. The tone of censure on the writers
criticised is in some parts severe, and has, it is understood, caused
pain to some of them. Apart from its tone, objection may perhaps
be taken to it, as discovering in their works as positive teaching, doc
trines which probably only exist as incipient tendencies. Neverthe
less it contains material suggestive of serious thought ; and certainly
gives the clue to the interpretation of many points which are usually
felt to be obscure in the systems of several of the writers described.
The author does not however appear to have distinguished sufficiently
between the two forms of modern historical inquiry, (see Note 9 of
these lectures). He consequently makes the last of the list of writers
whom he criticises (ch.xiii.) to be a disciple of Coleridge; whereas he
rather belongs to the other form of the historico-philosophical school,
i Page 436.

LECTURE VIII. 467

had been the object of search in all systems, the end
for which all earnest spirits had ever yearned. This
faculty, "the reason" or intuition, thus became the
guide, by the light of which he was able to thread
his way through the manifold systems of thought of
past times 111 . Not content with applying it to other
subjects, he carried it also into the domain of re
vealed religion. It was the engine by which he
hoped to get a view of the truth which the ancient
writers of holy scripture intended to convey. It
would become the means of interpreting their
thoughts, by raising the student to a perception of
the same objects, similar in kind to that which they
possessed. Their inspiration was regarded as only
an elevated form of this faculty. When accordingly
this method was applied by him to the study of
Christianity, it did not lead him to pare down the
supernatural by the cold interpretation of the older
rationalism, but gave the explanation of the mys
teries by raising men to a state where mysteries
ceased to be such any longer. It did not pull down
revelation to the level of the mind, but strove

m The reference to Mr. J. S. Mill s dissertation 011 Coleridge has
been already given (p. 436.) See also the Essay by Mr. Hort in the
Cambridge Essays, 1856 ; the British Quarterly Review, Jan. 1854;
Morell s History of Philosophy, ii. 343 seq. ; and Remusat in
Revue des Deux Mondes, Oct. 1856. Coleridge s philosophy of
religion is especially to be found in his Aids to Reflection ; and his
critical views of inspiration in the Confessions of an Inquiring
Spirit.

H h 2

468 LECTURE VIII.

vainly" to raise the mind to a level with reve
lation.

If viewed in reference to cognate schools of
Christian philosophy, it bears similitude in many
respects to some of the schools of Germany. In
the analysis offered of the human faculties, it has
much akin to Kant : in the deep conviction that
the highest truth is revealed to a faculty of faith,
and in the undoubting belief in our own intuitions
and the conviction of their reality, it resembles Jacobi
and Schelling : in regarding the human reason to
be the impersonal reason, the divinity in man, it
resembles Schelling or Cousin. But it also has an
element akin to the ancient Neo-Platonic philosophy
of Alexandria . This is seen both in the view taken
of the organ of knowledge, and in the scheme of
philosophy evolved by it. The intuitive reason,
the divine faculty above described, which reveals
eternal truth, is viewed as the divine Ao ^o? in man,

n The distinctness of the " reason" (vovs) from the " understand
ing" (Aoyos or didvoia) has been allowed in these lectures ; but only
as guaranteeing the reality of the objects of intuition, not as allow
ing the mind to create a religion ct, priori. The objection in the
text is accordingly not so much directed against the psychological
theory as its theological application.

The sources for studying Neo-Platonism have been given in
Note 10. Among writers influenced by Coleridge, the element of
thought which is derived from Neo-Platonism is stronger in the
writings of Mr. Kingsley than in those of Mr. Maurice ; but it is
sufficiently observable in both to form a separation, by marked
philosophical features, between their teaching and the system of
Schleiermacher.

LECTURE VIII. 469

as was taught by the Neo-PlatonistsP. Inspiration is
the action of the same Aoyo?. This branch of human
intellect is absorbed in divinity : a divine teacher
is considered to exist in the human mind i. And
as the view of the faculty is parallel with the teaching
of this ancient school, so the explanations suggested
of divine mysteries 1 " like the Trinity or Redemption
are similar. These explanations are the mystical
expressions of the thoughts apprehended by this
faculty, when it strives to raise itself to oneness
with the infinite object which it contemplates.

These remarks will explain the philosophical sys
tem taught by Coleridge, and will furnish the clue to
interpret the form of theological thought which has
originated from him. The parallel between his system
and those with which it has now been compared, will
be no less obvious in noticing the results of it. The
system of Schleiermacher was the theological corol
lary from the theories of German philosophy above

P The Ao -yos of Philo and of the Neo-Platonists is not to be contrasted
with the faculty called reason by Coleridge, and vovs by other au
thors, but to be identified with it. For Philo s views, see Gfrorer,
Philo, and Dahne s article Philo in Ersch and Grueber s Encyclo
paedia : see also Jowett s Commentary on /St. Paul s Epistles, vol. i.
(Essay on Philo, i.)

q The existence of a divine teacher in the human mind in the
faculty of conscience would be generally allowed ; especially by
those who adopt the theory of the distinctness of the faculty of
reason from that of understanding; but the idea implied in the
hypothesis referred to in the text is the existence of a faculty which
is supreme over revelation.

r Cfr. Biogr. Lit, p. 321. find Aids to Reflection, vol. i. 204 seq.

470 LECTURE VIII.

named ; and the school of the Alexandrian fathers was
the corresponding one which resulted from the Neo-
Platonic 8 . We should therefore expect that, if the phi
losophy of Coleridge was a mixture of the two schools
above described, the teaching of his disciples would
combine the two theological schools which flowed
from those systems. Attentive consideration of the
philosophical side of the modern movement of free
thought in English theology will confirm this anti
cipation, and show that its chief elements are a union
of these two theological schools. The tendency to
require that the human soul shall apprehend divine
mysteries intellectually, as well as feel their saving
power emotionally ; the reduction of inspiration
theologically, as well as psychologically, to an elevated
but natural state 1 of the human consciousness ; the
inclination to regard the work of Christ as the office
of the divine teacher to humanity, and human history
as the longing for such a divine voice ; the description
of the w r ork of Christ as a divine manifestation of a
reconciliation which previously existed, instead of
being the mode of effecting it ; the tendency to view
the death of Christ by the light of the incarnation,
instead of regarding the incarnation by the light of

s On the school of the Alexandrian fathers, see note on p. 82.

t Cfr. the note on p. 40, where we have conceded the probability
that inspiration is, if analysed psychologically, a form of the "reason ;"
but considered it, if viewed theologically, to be an elevated state of
this faculty, brought about by the miraculous and direct operation of
God s Spirit : so that in this view it differs in kind, and not merely
in degree, from human genius.

LECTURE VIII. 471

the atonement, the death of Christ as the solution of
the enigma of God becoming flesh ; these seem all
to be corollaries from the philosophy of the Neo-Pla-
tonists, and find their parallel in the school of the
Alexandrian fathers : they express too, though with
some differences, which will be apparent by recalling
the remarks in a preceding lecture", the fundamental
religious conceptions of Schleiermacher, to which we
before had occasion to object as inverting the gospel
scheme, and falling short of the dogmatic teaching
of the revelation of God.

The causes and character of the philosophical
movement of free thought in the church will now be
clear. We stated that there had been also a critical
tendency. A stricter analysis would probably sub
divide the critical movement into two ; viz. a philo
sophical form of it which examines facts x , and a
literary one which examines documents.

This philosophical movement differs from the
former, in that it neither approaches the subject of
inquiry from a lofty speculative point of view, which
is intended to furnish a solution of the mysteries
of nature and revelation ; nor seeks by means of
the intuitive reason to penetrate beneath the doc
trines of ancient teachers, and discover the absolute
truth after which they were striving. It rather
disbelieves in the possibility of tho attainment of
absolute truth by the human mind, and regards
all truth to be relative to the age in which it was

11 Lecfc. VI. pp. 346-50. x Cfr. note on p. 465.

472

LECTUEE VIII.

expressed F. Like the former movement it pos*
a method ; but one which is tentative and critical, n&lt;
speculative ; empirical, not d priori ; founding ii
knowledge on history, not on philosophy. The mod&lt;
of investigation is probably indirectly a result of the
teaching of Hegel, as that which was before described
was the result of the rival schools contemporary with
him ; but it is the adoption of Hegel s method, and
not of his philosophy. In this respect it may be
regarded as a critical tendency rather than a philo
sophical ; but one which is critical of the truths and
religious facts of revelation, and of its doctrinal teach
ing, and not merely of the documents which record it.
Hence, when applied to revealed religion, in exa
mining the teaching of the scripture writers, it does
not attempt, as the former school, to raise the mind to
a level with that of the writers, in order to apprehend
the eternal truth which was revealed alike to theii
intuition and to ours ; but it throws itself into the
circumstances of their age, so as to understand their
meaning ; and tests it by the altered conceptions
which the progress of ages has given to the world.
Thus the inquirer not only asks what the write]
meant, but views the truth which they taught as
relative to their own age ; and regards the office oi
criticism to be, to discriminate in it that which is
conceived to have been temporary and local, and that
which applies to all time. This school thus resembles

y Cfr. Note 9, and the remarks in the Preface on the historic
method of study.

LECTUEE VIII. 473

the last, in asking what the scripture writers meant
in their own time, and what their meaning is to us ;
but it seeks the answer, by using the same methods
for the investigation which would be applied in
ordinary literature ; not by abstract speculation, apart
from literary study of actual documents. It makes
the conceptions which civilization and history have
created, to be the test for comparison, not the eternal
truths of reason which are supposed to exist irre
spective of civilization and history.

We may select one illustration. In surveying the
doctrine of the atoning work of Christ, the former
school seeks to apprehend the absolute meaning of the
atonement as the manifestation of an act previously
wrought out ; and, starting with the notion of the
divdne teacher of humanity, the A 0709 of God in
Christ teaching the world, and the A 070? in the
soul of man apprehending this teaching, it construes
the atoning work of Christ from its didactic side,
as teaching man concerning God s love by means
of a majestic example of self-sacrifice. The second
school treats the doctrine historically; and, when it
has separated the apostolic teaching from all subse
quent additions, compares this doctrine with the age
in which it was expressed, in order to separate what
it conceives to be the permanent from the temporary ;
and hence comes to view the atonement, apart from
all the hallowed associations of propitiatory sacrifice
which in the minds of the early converts were insepa
rably united with it. These ideas, which the doctrine

474 LECTUEE VIII.

of the church regards as integral portions of revealed
verity, it considers to be the peculiarity of the age
in which the revelation was communicated. The
revealed doctrines are handled in the same manner
as corresponding doctrines of philosophy.

The minuteness of this method, its disposition to
seek for truth in the investigation of details rather
than by approaching a subject from some gene
ral principle, connects it with the other form of
the critical tendency above named, which employs
itself in the literary criticism of the sacred records.
The main object of this movement consists in ex
amining the questions, first, of the origin of the
canon, its grounds and contents ; next, the authen
ticity and genuineness of the books ; lastly, the
credibility of their contents. It is plain that,
however objectionable may be the conclusions ar
rived at on questions such as these, they are too
recondite and literary in character to possess the
same doctrinal and pastoral importance as those of
the former kind ; though the alarm which they may
cause will often be greater, because the variation
from ordinary belief is more easily apprehended by
the mind, and, being a variation in fact, and not
only in idea, cannot be concealed by any ambiguity
in the use of theological terms, as may be the case in
the former instances. Yet in the third of these three
questions, this species of criticism may have a very
intimate relation to practice ; for it may so affect the
rule of faith as to overthrow the standard on which

LECTURE VIII. 475

we repose for the proof of revealed doctrines. In
truth, in this branch it becomes identical with the
critical method before described, save so far as that
examined the credibility of doctrines, this of facts.
But in spirit they are identical. It proceeds upon
the assumption, that the same critical process is
applicable in the investigation of the sacred history,
as the former assumed in the investigation of the
sacred philosophy. The attitude of both is inde
pendent : both teach that the sacred books are not to
be approached with a preconceived definition of their
character or meaning : prepossessions are not to bar
the way to the exercise of criticism. The difference
from the first method above described will be equally
obvious. We may adopt the doctrine of inspiration
as an illustration. The first view would approach
the contents of scripture with a psychological theory
of inspiration, as being a form of the intuition, which
may furnish an instrument for eclecticism : the second
and third would investigate the question empirically,
and, declining on the one hand to accept the psycho
logical definition just described, and on the other to
approach Scripture with the preconceived notion of
the nature of inspiration, as held by the Church,
would seek to determine the notion of inspiration
from the contents of scripture 2 .

z It is a truth indeed to which all will assent, that we must learn
from scripture what is meant by inspiration : but the difference
between the view here described and the view of the church of Christ
is this : the Church discovers in scripture the statements of the
writers concerning the reality and nature and authority of their

476 LECTURE VIII.

The relation to holy scripture of the critical modes
of inquiry will obviously be as intimate in reference
to the standard of faith, as that of the philosophical
in reference to doctrine. If the first of the three
methods which we enumerated* overlays doctrine with
philosophy; the second is in danger of subtracting
from it integral elements of its system ; and the third
of disintegrating it by criticism, and introducing
uncertainty with regard to the sacred books, which
are the basis of doctrine. In questions relating to
literary criticism, like those which are made the
subject of investigation in the last-named method, it
is impossible to lay down, so absolutely as in the
two former cases, the tests to distinguish truth from
error. The creeds are a practical gauge in the
former instances which is partly wanting in the latter.
The greater difficulty however which thus appertains
to the latter, of placing the limits to which reverent
criticism may extend without endangering faith, ought
to generate the more solemn caution in its application.

We have dwelt long upon the modern forms of
free thought which exist within the church of Christ,
because they have a living interest for us. They meet
us in life as well as in literature ; and we must daily
form our judgment upon their truth and falsehood.

own inspiration ; and considers henceforth that the character of the
revelation is in its substance removed beyond the limits of critical
investigation j and can only admit that an empirical inquiry can be
useful in settling the limits to which inspiration extends, and de
termining the question as to the writings to be accounted the sub
ject of it. z Pages 465 and 471.

LECTURE VIII. 477

They are not indeed peculiar to one church, nor to one
country a ; but form the theological question which is
presented to the Christian church in this age.

The result of our inquiries in reference to the free

a The existence of this movement in foreign churches is stated in
Lecture VII. and also in Notes 43 and 46. In America, besides
those instances which have occurred in this lecture, the writings of
Mr. Bushnell are thought to exhibit a free spirit. They however
deviate very slightly from traditional dogmas, and may be compared
with the writings of the late archdeacon Hare. In England, in the es
tablished church, there have been several works, besides those referred
to in p. 465. They chiefly belong to the first and third classes of
the three named in the text. The sermons of the late F. W. Robertson
of Brighton, matchless in freshness, but most unsound in questions
of vital doctrine ; the sermons, &c. of the Rev. J. L. Davies ; bishop
Colenso s Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (1861) ; and
the Tracts for Priests and People (1861, 62), may be considered to
be examples of the first type of thought j but, if breathing the same
spirit as Coleridge, they express his thoughts with a clearness which
was wanting in him. The doubts of Blanco White and Sterling;
and of Mr. Macnaught, in his work on Inspiration (1856); Mr. Fox-
ton s Popular Christianity (1849) j bishop Colenso s work on the
Pentateuch (1862) ; and the Christian Orthodoxy (1857) f Dr.
Donaldson, a name honoured by the philological student ; are in
stances of the third tendency named in the text. A tribute of ac
knowledgment is nevertheless due to many of these writers, for the
earnest and truth-seeking tone which pervades their works. The
movement of free thought exists also outside the national church.
The recent work of Dr. S. Davidson, Introduction to the Old Testa
ment (second edition) is an instance. The views however of this
eminent biblical scholar met with so little sympathy in his own de
nomination, that he was made to suffer for an earlier edition (1856)
of the same work, which deviated in a much slighter degree from
received opinions. In the Unitarian body also free thought has
wrought a change. (See Note 7.) The influence of Cousin has
expelled the old utilitarianism. Mr. Martineau and Mr. W. J. Fox
(see his Religious Ideas, 1849,) are illustrations of the new spirit.

478 LECTURE VIII.

thought of the present time has been especially to
exhibit three main tendencies; one, arising from Po
sitivism, a tendency to deny the possibility of revela
tion 1 *; a second, from an opposite philosophy, to deny
its necessity 6 ; and a third, to accept it only in part d .
These are the three tendencies by which the world
and church of the coming generation are likely to be
influenced. Our path in life will be in a world
where they are operating ; and we shall have need
to be armed with the whole armour of God. If we
have in our personal history so investigated the evi
dences of our faith, as to feel that we have a well-
grounded hope, unassailable by these doubts, we may
be thankful : if we have gone safely through the
perilous test of a careful examination of them, some
times staggering perhaps in our faith, yet strug
gling after truth in prayerful trust that the Lord
would himself be our teacher, until we now are able
to feel that we have our faith grounded on a Rock,
a faith which is the result of inquiry, not of igno
rance, let us be still more thankful, and exemplify
our thankfulness by trying to assist the doubter with
our tender sympathy, and to aid him in finding

k Cfr. p. 440, and the note to it. Positivism only differs from
Naturalism (see Note 21), in that it expresses a particular theory
concerning the limits and method of science, as well as the dis
belief in the supernatural implied by the latter term.

R Cfr. p. 446.

d An instructive sketch of the tendencies of modern thought was
given by principal Tullock, in his Inaugural Lecture at St. Andrew s,
1845.

LECTURE VIII. 479

the truth and peace which Christ has given to us.
Our attitude in moments of peril must be that of
solemn reliance on God s help ; and our behaviour
towards others ought to exhibit Christian firmness,
mingled with candour and tenderness ; evincing the
moderation of true learning, joined to the uncompro
mising adherence to the Christian faith.

The history now given, of the doubt which is ex
pressed at present through the English language,
completes the account of the fourth great crisis of
belief in church history 6 ; and with it we bring to
an end our long survey of the history of free
thought.

Since the commencement of the second lecture, we
have been so involved in the details of the investiga
tion, that, to those who have lost sight of the plan
proposed in the commencement, the lectures may
have appeared historical rather than controversial,
and hardly compatible with the purpose of the
founder of the Lecture. We have been like travellers
moving in a tangled plain, where the path at times
seems lost. Before entering upon it, we took our
stand, as it were, on an eminence ; and indicated the
plan of the route; pointed to the kind of territory
through which it would conduct us, and the direction
to which it would tend. Now, that we have at last
extricated ourselves from its windings, and rest after

e See p. 14. This crisis has occupied our attention since the
middle of Lecture III. p. 147.

480 LECTURE VIII.

our journey, let us cast a glance backward over its
course, and see how far the result has verified our
anticipations. Let vis reconsider the purpose designed
by this course of inquiry ; notice how far the pro
mises in respect to it have been fulfilled ; show its
relation to controversial purpose ; and collect the
moral lessons which are derivable.

It will be remembered that we stated f the topic
to be, a critical history of free thought in Europe
in relation to the Christian religion. Our criticism
started from a Christian point of view, and assumed
alike the miraculous character of Christianity, the
exceptional character of the religious inspiration of
the first teachers of it, and the reality of its chief doc
trines. From this point of view we proposed to con
sider the attempts of the human mind to get free
from the authority of the Christian religion, either
by rejecting it in whole or in parts. Four great
crises of faith were enumerated in church history 11 ;
the first, the struggle, literary and philosophical, of
early heathenism against Christianity i ; the second,
the reawakening of free thought in the middle ages k ;
the third, that which appertained to the revival of
classical literature 1 ; the fourth, to the growth of
modern philosophy 111 ; a series of epochs which ex
hibit the struggle of Christianity in the great centres

f Lect. I. page i. Page 9.

h Page 10. i This was treated in Lecture II.

k Lecture III. page 106 seq. ] Lecture III. page 129 seq.
m Lectures IV. to VIII.

LECTURE VIII. 481

of thought and civilization, ancient or modern ; and
it was proposed that our investigation should not
only contain a chronicle of the facts, but explain
the causes, and teach the moral 11 . We considered
that the causes which make thought develope into
unbelief are chiefly two, the emotional and the
intellectual ; and, while vindicating distinctness of
operation for the intellectual under certain circum
stances P, yet we allowed the union of them with the
moral to be so intimate q , that not only must account
always be taken of the latter in estimating the un
belief of individuals, but the exclusive study of the
former, without allowing for the existence of the
latter, must be regarded as likely to lead to an im
perfect and injurious idea of unbelief.

The intellectual causes were however selected as the
special subject of our study 1 "; partly because they have
been much neglected by Christian writers, partly
because they are the forms which for the most part
create the doubts which Christians encounter in the
present age. The principal intellectual causes were
considered 8 to be, either the new material of know-
ledge, such as the physical or metaphysical sciences,
which may present truth antagonistic to the teaching
of the sacred literature ; or new methods of criticism,
the application of which creates opinions differing
from those of the traditionary belief; and, above
all, the effects of the application of particular tests

n Page 4. Page 18. P Pages 23, 24.

q Pages 19-23, r Page 27. s Page 28.

I i

482 LECTURE VIII.

of truth, sense, reason, intuition, feeling to the doc
trines of revealed religion.

This was our plan; and we have been employed
in tracing the influence of these causes in generating
doubt in the four great crises, with a minuteness
which may almost have been tedious ; endeavouring
to supply the natural as well as the literary history;
analysing each successive step of thought into the
causes which produced it ; searching for them when
necessary in the intellectual biography of individuals ;
and, if not refuting results, at least laying bare by
criticism the processes through which they were at
tained. At the same time we have attempted to
show the grounds on which the faith of the church
has reposed in the various ages of history. A defence,
itself also twofold in its character emotional and in
tellectual has been generated by the attack in each
of the crises, and an example thus furnished of the
law which governs human society, progress by anta
gonism. Permanent gain to truth was seen to be the
result of the various controversies ; quiet and refresh
ment after the discharge of the storm had cleared the
atmosphere from the intellectual and moral ills with
which it was charged.

The utility of the inquiry will now, it is hoped, be
apparent. Though these lectures must be regarded
as instructive for the believer, rather than polemic
against the unbeliever, yet they are intended to serve
also a controversial purpose.

There are times indeed when the mere instructive-

LECTURE VIII. 483

ness of a history, independently of practical use, is a
sufficient justification for writing it ; times when it
is important to take the gauge of past knowledge as
the condition of a step forward in the future. Those
who are accustomed to meditate on the present age,
on the multifarious elements which in a time of great
peace are quietly laying the basis of great changes,
and on the unity of intellectual condition which the
international intercourse is creating in the world of
letters, as really as in that of industry, will perhaps
think that the present is such a period, when the
knowledge of the history of the former perils of the
Christian faith, the nature of the attack and of the
defence, is itself of value in regard to the prospects
of the future*. Those again also, who are accustomed
to look at the contemporary works of evidence in our
own country, will deplore the fact that in many cases,
however well meant in spirit, they are essentially
deficient in a due appreciation of the precise origin
and character of present forms of doubt, and the
natural and literary history of doubt in general" ;
reproducing arguments unanswerable against older
kinds of doubt, but unavailing against the modern,
like wooden walls against modern weapons of war.
We stand in the presence of forms of doubt, which

* Cfr. remarks in Note 9.

u This remark does not apply to the principal writers (named in
Note 49), nor to the literature called out by the " Essays and Re
views " controversy ; but it applies to many of the popular manuals
which are directed against old deist literature, and are not adapted
to modern critical doubts.

I i 2

484 LECTUKE VIII.

press us more nearly than those of former times, be
cause they do not supersede Christianity by disbelief,
but disintegrate it by eclecticism ; which come in the
guise of erudition, unknown in former times, appeal
ing to new canons of truth, reposing on new methods,
invested with a new air. In such a moment a re
consideration of the struggles of past ages becomes
indirectly a contribution to the evidences, by supply
ing the knowledge of similarity and contrast, which
is necessary, as a preliminary, before entering on a
new conflict.

The dangers to faith in the present day are some
times exaggerated; but there cannot be a doubt that
we live in a time when old creeds are in peril; when
the doubt is the result not of ignorance, but of know
ledge, and acts in the minds that are pre-eminent
for intellectual influence, and advances with a firm
ness that is not to be repelled by force but by argu
ment. It is not the duty of Christians to shut their
eyes to the danger, like the ostrich, which supposes
by burying her eyes in the sand to avoid the hunts
man s arrow. There seems accordingly special reason
why in such an age an acquaintance with the forms
of doubt is requisite on the part of those who have to
minister the religion which is the subject of attack.

If accordingly a clergy is to be trained up likely
to supply the intellectual cravings of the pre
sent day, they must be placed on a level with its
ripest knowledge, and be acquainted with the nature
and origin of the forms of doubt which they will

LECTURE VIII. 485

encounter. The church has indeed a large field,
where work and not thought is to be the engine
which the clergy must use in their labours ; truly
a home mission, where men and women for whom
Christ died, require to be lifted out of their mere
animalism, and taught the simplest truths of Christ,
and prayer, and immortality : and noble are the
efforts that Christians have made, and are making, for
an object so religious and philanthropic; but there is
a danger lest this very energy of work, which accords
so naturally with the utilitarianism of the English
character, should lead us to forget that there is an
opposite stratum of society, to which also Christianity
has its message, which is only to be reached by the
delicate gifts of intellect and by the ripest learning.
If Christianity is to be presented to this class,
adapted to the demands of the age so far as they are
reasonable, but unmutilated and unaltered in its body
of revealed doctrine, preserving in its integrity the
faith delivered to the saints; so that apostles might
recognize it as being that which they themselves
taught, and for which they laid down their lives ; it
is necessary that Christian students should be trained
specially for the work, by a learned and intelligent
appreciation of truth, such as will create orthodoxy
without bigotry, and charity without latitude. If
we have to dread their going forth with hesitating
opinions, teaching, through their very silence con
cerning the mysterious realities which constitute the
very essence of Christianity, another gospel than that

486 LECTURE VIII.

which was once for all miraculously revealed ; there
is almost equal ground for alarm if they go forth, able
only to repeat the shibboleths of a professional creed,
and unable to give a reason of the glorious hope that
is in them. In the former case they will fail to
teach historic and dogmatic Christianity, because
they do not believe it; in the latter because they do
not understand its meaning and evidence. If they
need piety as the first requisite, they need knowledge
as the second. In certain conditions of the church,
study is second only to prayer itself as an instrument
for the Christian evangelist.

It is hoped, therefore, that a sketch of a depart
ment not previously treated as a whole, may indi
rectly be an aid to the Christian faith, if it shall per
form the humble office of supplying some elements
of instruction to the Christian student.

Such a purpose however would hardly have justi
fied the introduction of the subject here. The motive
which dictated its consideration was much more
practical. It was hoped that the answer to many
species of doubt would be found by referring them
to the forms of thought or of philosophy from which
they had sprung ; that it would be possible to per
ceive how they might be refuted, by understanding
why and how men have come to believe them x .
This is a study of mental pathology seldom under
taken. The practical aim of Christian writers has
generally suggested to them a readier mode of

x See note on p. 30.

LECTUEE VIII 487

treating the history of unbelief, by referring its
origin to intellectual pride ; and, if any margin re
mained unaccounted for by this explanation, to refer
it to an invisible agent, the direct operation of Satan y.
Such a method, however true, commits the error,
against which Bacon utters a warning, of ascending
at once to the most general causes without interpo
lating the intermediate. It ignores the intellectual
class of causes, and omits to trace the subtlety of
their mode of manifestation; a problem equally
interesting, whether they be regarded as original
causes of doubt, or only as secondary instruments,
obeying the impulse of the emotional causes. It
would have been possible to investigate the subject,
by selecting a few leading instances to illustrate the
natural history of doubt ; but the most likely mode
for exhausting the subject, as well as for presenting
it in a manner which would fall in with the historic
tastes of the age, seemed to be, to treat it by means
of a critical history, presenting the antidote by a
running criticism ; and to ask, frankly and fully,
what have been the grounds on which Christianity
has been doubted ; and what have been those on
which the faith of Christians in their hour of peril
has reposed ; and then finally to gather up the
lessons which the history itself teaches.

The inquiry has been analogous to the study of

Y Van Mildert so exclusively adopted this latter view in his Boyle
Lectures, that his opponents charged him with Manichseism. See
remarks on him in the Preface to this volume.

488 LECTURE VIII.

the histoiy of a disease ; and scientific rigour re
quired that it should be conducted with a similar
spirit of fairness towards those that manifest its
symptoms. As the physiologist, who wishes to
learn the laws of a disease, watches patiently the
symptoms in the subject of it, not reproaching the
sufferer, even if the malady be self-caused ; so in
moral diagnosis, the student of mental and religious
error must carry out his inquiries in the spirit of
cold analysis, if he would arrive at the real character
of the intricate facts which he studies. The candour
of our examination has not been prompted by any
spirit of indifference to truth, nor by sympathy with
error; but partly by the demands of historical accu
racy, partly by deep pity for those who are the
subject of spiritual doubts, even when the doubts
are of their own fault.

This view of the inquiry, as an analysis of the
intellectual causes of doubt, will also explain one
or two peculiarities in it, which, if left unnoticed,
might leave an impression of its inutility.

It will be seen, for example, that in the investi
gation of the natural history of doubt, and in the
explanation of the antecedent metaphysical or critical
questions which have produced it, we have indicated
the schools of thought which have created it, but have
abstained from insisting on the inherent necessity
of the relation which subsists between the metaphy
sical tests of truth and the religious conclusions
discussed. The reason is, that it seemed unfit to

LECTUEE VIII. 489

assume a side eagerly in the metaphysical contro
versy ; and therefore, while showing that the use of
certain grounds of belief and methods of inquiry
has produced, both as a matter of history and logic,
certain species of doubt or disbelief; we have not
attempted to condemn the particular metaphysical
theories on the ground of the logical consequences
which are supposed to flow from them, nor to deny
that they could be so amended, as either to avoid the
sceptical conclusions to which our objections are
taken, or be rendered innocuous by the co-existence
of other causes. Science only shows the general
tendency or law of logical connection between intel
lectual causes and effects. The production of the
results in particular cases is subject to exception
from the introduction of interfering causes z .

Another peculiarity which appertains to the ana
lysis of the intellectual sources of doubt, besides the
seeming absence of invariable necessity in their
operation, might be thought to destroy the practical
value of the inquiry ; viz. the feeling of disappoint
ment excited when it is perceived that they do not
wholly explain the phenomenon, and are merely
antecedents or elements, not causes. This arises from
the very nature of mental analysis. Being in nature
like chemical, it aims only at the detection of the
elements that make up the compound, and furnishes
the material or formal causes, not the efficient. This
longing of the mind to find causes, and to discover

z Cfr. the notes on pp. 36 and 44,

490 LECTURE VIII.

the original motive power, is however a witness to
the ineffaceable connection of the idea of power with
that of will. And while it does not destroy the
completeness of the analysis, as the solution of the
intellectual problem proposed, it nevertheless points
to the instinctive wish of the heart to resolve the
causes of doubt into some ultimate source in the
will ; and is thus a witness to the truth of the
position which we have always asserted a , that the
intellectual causes selected for our special study are
only one branch, and must be united to the emotional
in order to attain a full explanation of the pheno
menon of doubt.

Thus the analysis offered will have, it is hoped, a
utility in the limited sphere which was claimed for
it, in supplying the account of the tangled and subtle
processes through which doubt has insinuated itself.

What then are the lessons which the whole history
teaches \ To discover these was part of our original
purpose b , as well as to learn the facts and find the
causes ; to satisfy the longings of the heart, no less
than the curiosity of the understanding.

First, What has been the office of doubt in his
tory ? Has it been wholly an injury, a chronic dis
ease \ or simply a gain ? or has it operated in both
ways ? Let us find the answer, by testing each of
these theories of its office by means of the facts.

The first of the three is that which has generally
a Pages 1 9, 99, &c. b Page 4.

LECTURE VIII. 491

been held within the Christian church. It dates
from the first ages of the church, and witnesses to a
valuable truth. The sacred care with which the
Christians treasured the doctrine, and spurned the
attempts of heretics to explain it away, proves the
strength of the conviction that they possessed a defi
nite treasure of divine truth, introduced at a definite
period. Their very want of toleration c , the tenacity
of their attachment to the faith, is a proof of their
undoubting conviction concerning the historic verity
of the facts connected with redemption, and the
definite character of the dogmas which interpreted
the facts. In later ages however, the same idea of
sacredness has been extended by the Romish church
to the mass of error which Christianity has taken
up into itself in the progress of ages ; and in Pro
testant countries has led to the attempt to restrain
the thoughts of men even on the secular subjects
most remote from religion, where the ancient sacred
literature seemed to suggest any indirect information.
The doubt on the part of religious men, of any pro
gress being made by free thought, has often expressed
itself too in the affirmation, that the history of un
belief shows an exact recurrence of the same doubts,
without progress from age to age, and an intimation
that new suggestions of doubt are only old foes
under new faces.

c This is seen in their scrupulous care against heresy, and is at
tested by the very complaint of their opponent Celsus. (Orig. Contr.
Gels. i. 9, iii. 44..)

492 LECTURE VIII.

While Christians have thus generally regarded
free inquiry in religion as wholly a loss ; free
thinkers have taken the very opposite view, and
regarded it as an unmixed gain. The distinguished
writer d of our own time on the history of civilisa
tion, whose premature death will prevent the fulfil
ment of his large design, has illustrated, with the
clearness and grasp over facts which constitute some
of his excellences, the office of scepticism, in securing
for the human mind the political liberty and toleration
which he prized so dearly. His central thought was,
that civilisation depended upon the progress of intel
lect 6 , the emancipation of the human mind from all
authority save that of inductive science: he pointed
out with triumphant enthusiasm, the services which
he conceived that unbelief had performed, in rescuing
Europe from degrading beliefs like witchcraft, and
from the introduction of supernatural causes for
natural events, and in securing in France, in the eigh
teenth century, the political rights of the lower orders
against the claims of the church. Accordingly in
his opinion scepticism was an almost unmixed boon.

Those who recall the outline of the history will
probably think that each of these views, taken alone,
is one-sided, and contains a partial truth. The review
of facts shows that free thought has had an office in
the world; and, like most human agencies permitted

d H. T. Buckle, the news of whose death, at the end of May 1862,
had just reached England when this lecture was delivered.
e History of Civilisation, vol. i. ch. iv.

LECTURE VIII. 493

under the administration of a benevolent Providence,
its influence has neither been unmixed evil nor un
mixed good. It has been an evil, so far as in the
conflict of opinions it has invaded the body of essen
tial truth which forms the treasure given to the
world, in the miraculous revelation of our Lord Jesus
Christ; but it has been a good, so far as it has con
tributed, either directly to further human progress
intellectually and socially, or indirectly to bring out
into higher relief these very truths by the progress
of discussion.

When, for example, Christian doctrine has been over
laid from age to age by concretions which had gathered
round it, as was the case previously to the Refor
mation, it has been free thought which has attacked
the system, and, piercing the error, has removed those
elements which had been superadded. Or, when the
church has attempted to fetter human thought in
other departments than its own proper domain of
religion, as when the ecclesiastical authorities dis
graced themselves by vetoing the discoveries of Ga
lileo , it has been to free thought that we owe the
emancipation of the human mind. Or, when the
church linked itself in alliance with a decaying poli
tical system, as in the last century in France, it was

f History of Civilisation, ch. xii and xiii.

g An article by a distinguished scientific writer appeared in the
North British Review for Nov. 1860 ; in which the question of
Galileo s trial was discussed in reference to the recent re-examination
of the subject.

494 LECTURE VIII.

free thought that recalled to it the lesson to render to
Caesar the things that were Caesar s, and to God the
things that were God s. It is instances like these,
where free thought has been the means of making
undoubted contributions to human improvement, or
of asserting toleration, which have led writers to
describe it as almost innocuous, and hastily to regard
the ratio of the emancipation of the human mind
from the teaching of the priesthood to be the sole
measure of human improvement.

In many instances also, free thought has indirectly
contributed to intellectual good, in points where it
has run a greater risk, than in those just cited, of
trespassing upon the sacred truths of religion; in
stances, in fact, where the benefit resulting has been
owing to the overruling Providence which brings
good out of evil, rather than to any direct intention
on the part of those who have exercised it. Exam*
pies are to be found in those epochs, when some
sudden outburst of knowledge compelled a recon
sideration of old truths by the light of new dis
coveries. The awakening of the mind in the mid
dle age, the Renaissance, the advance of modern
science, the birth of literary criticism, are instances
of such moments, wherein free inquiry has been a
necessity forced on the mind by outward circum
stances, not self-prompted. This attitude of inquiry,
this exercise of a provisional doubt, was not, like that
described, called forth merely by the circumstance
that religion had received additions from error, but

LECTURE VIII. 495

must have arisen even if the faith once delivered
had been preserved uncorrupted. For religion being
a fixed truth, while truth in other departments is
progressive, it would have been impossible to avoid
the necessity of comparison of it with them from time
to time, in those spheres where it intersected the field
occupied by them.

Such examples, indeed, are not restricted to Christ
ian history, but are general facts of the history of
the human mind. The fifth century B.C. was such
an epoch in Greece 11 ; when various causes, social
and intellectual, created a sudden awakening of the
human mind to reconsider its old beliefs, and find a
home for the new views of nature and of the world
which were opening. The free thought of the
Sophists was the scepticism of doubt, of distrust; the
proposal to surrender, to destroy the old : the free
thought of Socrates was the scepticism of inquiry,
the attempt to reconsider first principles, to rebuild
truth anew. In all such moments, investigation is
indirectly the means of stimulating knowledge. The
history of the progress of it, in reference to the diffi
culties which have beset the Christian church, shows
us that the epochs of doubt have not generally been
produced by unbelief taking the initiative in attack
ing old truths without some fresh stimulus, and re
peating old objections so as to exhibit perpetually

h Cfr. Grote s History of Greece, vol. viii. ch. Ixvii ; Lewes,
History of Philosophy (chapter on Sophists) ; Grant, Aristotle s
Ethics, vol. i ; essay ii.

496 LECTURE VIII.

recurring cycles of unbelief. We have rather seen
that doubt is reawakened by the introduction of new
forms of knowledge; and though old doubts recur,
yet that they come arrayed in a new garb, suggested
by different motives, deduced from fresh premises,
and accompanied by doubts of a new kind before
unknown. In a practical point of view, frequently
they may be thought not to differ widely in appear
ance from old ones, and to present similar effects as
well as forms ; but in a scientific one, they ought not
to be confounded, inasmuch as they do not present
identity of cause. There has been a slow but real
progress in knowledge, and a slow but real change in
the modes of applying it to Christian religion. The
effect of the defence offered for Christianity is equally
powerful in leaving its impress on subsequent doubt,
as the progress of knowledge is in suggesting no
velty of form. The sphere is narrowed, or the direc
tion changed. If thought seems to have come round
in its revolution to the same spot in its orbit, it will
be found to be moving not on a circle, but on a
spiral ; slowly but surely approaching a little nearer
to the great central truth, toward which it is uncon
sciously attracted.

The value of the free inquiry in this latter class
of cases is not in the process, but in the results; in
producing the branch of theology which sets forth
the evidences of revealed truth. We have previously
had occasion to imply that the Christian evidences
are too often regarded as mere weapons of defence ;

LECTURE VITI. 497

like the battle-fields of history, monuments of the
struggle of evil. Being a form of truth which would
never have been called forth if the church had not
been attacked, the apologetic literature is usually re
garded, either as obsolete because controversial, or as
useless for believers. Yet truths brought to light by
it, though dearly purchased, are a real contribution
to Christian knowledge. As miracles are a part of
Christianity as well as an evidence, so apologetic
literature, while useful in argument, serves the pur
pose of instruction as well as of defence*. The con
troversy with heresy or unbelief has caused truths to
be perceived explicitly, which otherwise would have
been only implicit ; and has illustrated features of
the Christian doctrine which might otherwise have
remained hidden. Though these good results have
not been designed by unbelievers, and cannot there
fore warrant the claim asserted for scepticism, that it
is always innocuous, nor be set down to the credit of
free thought . as a spirit ; yet they evidence the value
of it as a method ; the free thought, that is, which is
inquiry and consideration, not that which is disbelief.
While therefore fully appreciating the reverent
wish of Christian men to defend the truth with
sacred tenacity, which leads them to regard all doubt
with alarm ; we can frankly allow the function and
use of the phenomenon of doubt in history, when
viewed as an intellectual fact. The use of it is to
test all beliefs, with the view of bringing out their
1 See above, Lecture IV. p. 225.
Kk

498 LECTURE VIIL

truth and error. But the good result has often, we
perceive, been undesigned. It has frequently too been
dearly bought, attained at an incalculable spiritual
loss to the souls of those who have doubted. The
result accordingly leaves untouched the responsibility
of the doubter, and only shows the use which an all-
wise Providence makes free thought subserve in the
general progress of the world.

But the heart asks a further moral. Though it
derives satisfaction from perceiving that even fea
tures of history which seem the darkest, and mo
ments the most perilous, bear witness to the presence
of a benevolent Creator, who overrules all for the
improvement of man and the progress of the church ;
it still claims to know what those limits are, where
doubt must expire in awe, and speculation in adora
tion. It longs to exercise inquiry, and yet retain the
Christian faith. It asks earnestly what does the his
tory teach us concerning the doubts that are most
likely to meet us in our lifetime, and what lessons
are supplied by it in reference to the best mode at
once of maintaining our own faith, and of leading
those who doubt to the faith which we receive. The
materials are supplied for an answer to these ques
tions ; probably even the materials for the final
answer which the church can give to them.

We venture not to utter predictions in reference
to the future ; but the thought is interesting and so
lemn, that there seems some reason to believe that the
weapons which doubt on the one hand, and religion

LECTURE VIII. 499

on the other, must use in the final adjudication of
their claims, at least in reference to all fundamental
questions, are already in men s hands. Though our
express denial that doubt perpetually recurs in cycles
might cause it to be supposed that we should be
inclined to anticipate the existence of future crises
of faith ; yet we. have remarked that such crises are
always produced by the opening of some unexplored
field of knowledge, the introduction, of a collection
of new ideas or of a new spirit excited by new ideas,
on subjects traversed either by the Christian religion,
or by the Christian inspired books. A survey of the
present state of knowledge would probably lead us to
think that no field lies unexamined from which such
new material can hereafter come. The physical sci
ences which, by the discovery of an order of nature
and general laws of causation, have heretofore sug
gested difficulties in reference to miraculous interpo
sition, and, by means of the discoveries in astronomy
and geology, have come into conflict with the ancient
Hebrew cosmogony, are not likely to suggest fresh
ones distinct in kind from the past. If there be not
ground for discouragement in science, nor for doubt
ing that the present state of it, which seems to offer
employment for originality of mind rather in track
ing old principles into details than in ascending to
new ones k , is merely a temporary one, destined to
pass away when some happy guess shall reveal the
highest laws which now baffle inquiry; yet it is not
k Cfr. Mill s Logic, vol. i. book iii. ch. xiii. 7.
K k 2

500 LECTURE VIII.

probable that such an advance will traverse the pro
vince of religion. The survey of those regions where
discovery seems most hopeful, will explain the reason
of this assumption.

If the present examination of some of the subtler
forms of matter or offeree 1 , and of their existence in
other globes of the solar system than our own, should
hereafter lead to a generalization which shall extend
natural philosophy as widely beyond its present
limits as the discovery made by Newton beyond those
of his predecessors, yet these discoveries can have no
bearing, favourable or unfavourable to religion, dis
tinct in kind from that of present ones. If even a
still mightier stride should be taken, and physiology
be able to lay bare the subtle processes through
which mind acts on body m ; yet the difficulty would

only be an enhanced form of that which is already

1 The allusion is to the discoveries, such as that of Kirchoff, of the
existence of some of the material elements in the solar atmosphere,
which exist in our own ; also of the connexion between the periodic
recurrence of the solar spots, and terrestrial magnetism ; and espe
cially to the discussion on " the correlation of physical forces," con
tained in Mr. Grove s work, and in Sir H. Holland s Essays (essays
i. and ii.), reprinted from the Edinburgh Review, July 1858 and
Jan. 1859.

m The discoveries of the distinction between the sensational and
motor nerves, by sir C. Bell ; of the phenomena of reflex action, by
Dr. M. Hall j of the connexion of the same phenomena with those
of sensation, by Dr. Carpenter ; and the identification of the centres
of conscious activity with separate departments of the cerebral
organism, by Dr. Laycock ; are instances of hints toward the solu
tion of this problem. Many continental physiologists, such as

LECTUEE VIII. 501

used to discredit the spirituality and immortality of
the soul.

If we pass from the physical to the moral or meta
physical sciences, there is still less ground for expect
ing progress. True so far as they go, they offer no
opportunity for enlargement, unless perhaps a more
careful analysis, by means of the fertile principle of
mental association", should cast light on the sensa
tional source of ideas and the physiological side of
mind ; and even this would" leave the independent
evidence of the mental data, moral and intellectual,
of religion, on the same basis as at present. Critical
science again has attained such perfection, that there
is no possibility of an entirely new range of critical
thought springing up in reference to religion, such
as arose when the German mind was creating the
science of historical criticism.

Thus, though each branch of science, physical,
metaphysical, and critical, offers grounds of hope to
the labourer, there is no reason to fear that sceptical
difficulties will be generated by any of them, distinct
in kind from those which now exist And a similar

Miiller, Cams, Wagner, and Brown-Sequard, have worked toward
the same end. J. F. Herbart in Germany, and Mr. H. Spencer in
England, are writers who have approached the psychological problem
from the physiological side.

n Bayn s Senses and Intellect, 1855 ; Emotions and Will, 1859 j
and Spencer s Principles of Psychology, 1855 ; are works in which
analysis of this character is carried farther than in former works. A
popular view of past attempts of this kind is given in an article on
Mental Association, in the Edinburgh Review for Oct. 1859.

502 LECTURE VIII.

line of argument will suggest, that there is little
reason to hope, on the other hand, for enlargement of
the grounds of the evidence of natural and revealed
religion. If this be the case, the materials are accord
ingly supplied, from which thoughtful students must
make up their minds finally on the questions at issue.
Indeed the survey of modern thought which we have
already made, will have shown that men are already
taking their place in hostile array ; and will have
revealed differences so "fundamental in reference to
religion, on subjects where no further evidence can
be offered, that there can be little reason to hope for
the alteration of the state of parties to the end of time.
Never was there an age wherein Christianity had so
real, so potent an effect as the present ; yet never
was there one which, while so largely moulded by it,
was so really hostile to it . It is the hostility, not of
opposition which regards Christianity as false, but of
the criticism which views it as obsolete, and considers
it to be one phase of the world s religious thought,
the eternal truths of which may be assimilated with
out the historic and dogmatic basis under which its
originators conceived it. Though the special forms
of doubt that now exist derive their lineage, philo
sophical and historical, from the modern German and

An example is seen in Strauss. No one can be more inimical
to the dogmatic and historical Christianity of the church than he ;
yet he asserts firmly that Christ and Christianity is the highest
moral ideal to which the world can ever expect to attain. (Solilo
quies, E. T. 1845. part ii. 27-30.)

LECTUEE VIII. 503

French sources, which we have studied in the last
two lectures ; yet it is in an older age of European
history that the nearest general parallel to the present
state of feeling may perhaps be found ; and there is a
deep truth in the analogy which the learned and
excellent critic P, who has recently made a special
study of the struggle of classical heathenism against
Christianity, has pointed out, between the feeling of
philosophers in the second and third centuries of the
Christian era and in the present time.

Amid very wide differences in tone and learning,
there is this fundamental agreement between the age
which was enriched with the accumulated learning
of the old civilization, and the present, enriched with
that of the new. There is the same spirit of natural
ism ; the same indisposition to rise to the belief of the
interference of Deity ; the same feeling of contempt
for positive religions ; the same sensation of heart-
weariness, the utterance as it were of the desponding
feeling, "Who will show us any good?" the same
lofty theory of stoic morality, and disposition to find
perfection in obedience to nature s laws, physical and
moral ; the same approximation to the Christian
ideal of perfection, while destroying the very proof
of the means by which it is to be acquired. And if
it be true that the state of intellectual men presents
so marked a parallel, so in like manner the study of
the arguments by which the early fathers in their

P E. de Pressense. Histoire 2 e Serie, ii. 524.

504 LECTURE VIII.

apologetic treatises met the doubts of such minds, be
comes a question of great practical as well as literary
interest*.

What then are the doubts which are most likely to
meet us, either insinuating themselves into our own
minds, or offering their difficulty to those who intend
to become ministers of Christ ? and what are the means
by which they may be most effectually repelled ?

The main difficulties may be summed up as three :

(1) The question of the relation of religion, and
more particularly of Christianity, to the human soul ;
whether religion is anything but morality, and Chris
tianity its highest type.

(2) The question of the relation of the work of
Christ to the human race, whether it involves a secret
mystery of redemption known only to God, and hid
den from the ken of man, except so far as revealed ;
or whether it is to be measured by the human mind,
and reduced to the proportions which can be appro
priated or understood by man.

(3) The question of the relation of the Bible to the
human mind, whether it is to be that of a friend or a
master; and its religious teaching to be a record or
an oracular authority.

The history of recent doubt has brought before us
some whose minds doubt wholly of the supernatural.
In the case of a few of these, but only of a few, the
doubt has passed into positive unbelief; their con
victions have become so fixed that they manifest a
&lt;i Pressense lias devoted attention to this point, (vol. iv. book iv.)

LECTUEE VIII. 505

fierce spirit of proselytism, and can dare to point the
finger of scorn at those who still believe in the unseen
and supernatural relations of God to the human soul.
Between these and religious men the struggle is
internecine. We can have no sympathy with them :
we can rejoice that they retain a moral standard,
where they have rejected many of the most potent
motives which support it ; but must tremble lest their
unbelief end in thorough animalism; lest Epicureanism
be their final philosophy. But there are many more
whose tone is that of sadness, not of scorn ; the
temper of Heracleitus, not Democritus ; whose souls
feel the longing want which nothing but communion
with a Father in heaven can supply, but who are so
clouded with doubt, and retain so faint a hold on the
thought of God s interference, and on the reality of
the supernatural, that they are unable to soar on the
wings of faith beyond the natural, either material or
spiritual, up to the throne of God.

The history of such men generally tells of some
mighty mental convulsion, which has driven them
from their anchor-ground of belief. Sometimes the
study of science, as it is seen gradually to absorb
successive ranges of phenomena into the regular
operation of universal law, until it removes God far
away, and creation seems to move on without His
interference, has been the cause : in other cases
philanthropic pity, musing on the sad catastrophes
which daily occur, when the happiness and lives
of innocent human beings are for ever destroyed

506 LECTUEE VIII.

by the stern unyielding action of nature s laws,
leading the heart to doubt God s nearness, and
the fact of a special Providence: in other cases
again, the study of the human mind in history, and
the perception of the manner in which the gradual
growth of knowledge seems to lessen the region of
the supernatural, until the mind doubts whether the
supernatural itself is not the mere idolum tribiis,
a mere giving objective being to a subjective idea,
a truth relative merely to a particular stage of civil
ization. Such causes as these, producing a convul
sion of feeling, may form the sad occasion from which
the soul dates its loss of the grasp which it has
heretofore had over the belief of God s nearness, and
of religion ; and mark the moment from which it-
has gradually doubted whether anything exists save
eternal law; or whether a personal Deity, if he
exist, really communes with man ; whether, in short,
religion be anything but duty, and Christianity
anything but the noble type of it to which one
branch of the Semitic people was happy enough to
attain.

Doubts like these, where they exist in a high-
principled and delicate mind, are the saddest sight
in nature. The spirit that feels them does not try to
proselytise ; they are his sorrow : he wishes not others
to taste their bitterness. Any one of us who may
have ever felt chilled, as the thought insinuated it
self, of the remote possibility of the perception of the
machine-like sweep of universal law removing our

LECTUEE VIII. 507

belief of the guardian care of Him to whom alone we
can fly for refuge when heart or flesh faileth, as to a
Father as infinite in tenderness as in condescension, the
friend of the friendless : whoever has known the
bitterness of the thought of a universe unguided by
a God of justice, and without an eternity wherein the
ciy of an afflicted creation shall no longer remain
unavenged, has known the first taste of the cup of
sorrow which is mournfully drunk by spirits such as
we are describing. And who that has known it
would grudge the labour of a life, if by example, by
exhortation, by prayer, he might be the means of
rescuing one such soul ?

Yet no task is so hard; argument well nigh fails,
because the doubts refer to those very ultimate facts
which are usually required as data for argument.
If intellectual means are sought for remedy, it is
philosophy to which we must look to supply it; the
philosophy which recalls man to the natural realism
of the heart, to the simple unsophisticated trust in
the reality of the spiritual intuitions, not as derived
from sense only, nor merely as necessary forms of
thought, but as the vision of a personal God by the
human soul.

If however there is any field which requires the
presence of moral means, it is this: and we who
believe in a God who careth so much for man that
He spared not His own Son for our sakes, may well
look upwards for help in such instances; in hope
that the infinite Father, whose love overlooks not one

508 LECTUKE VIII.

single solitary case of sorrowing doubt, will con
descend to reveal himself to all such hearts which
are groping after Him, if haply they may find Him.
The soul of such doubters is like the clouded sky :
the warming beams of the Sun of righteousness can
alone absorb the mist, and restore the unclouded
brightness of a believing heart.

The instances however are rare, where we meet
with a chaos of faith, half pantheism, half atheism,
such as that which we have just described. The
great majority of doubters are persons who not only
retain a tenacious grasp over monotheism, but even
possess a love for Christianity. Their love is however
for a modified form of it, different from that which
the apostles taught. They cordially believe that God
cares for man, and that He has spoken to man
through His Son. They accept the superhuman,
perhaps the divine, character of Christ ; but they
consider his life to be a mere example of unrivalled
teaching, and of marvellous self-sacrifice ; his death
the mere martyrdom that formed the crowning act
of majestic self-devotion. God s gift of His son is
accordingly, in their view, to reconcile man to God ;
to remove the obstacle of distrust which prevented
man from coming to God, by showing forth the love
which God already bore to the world; not to remove
obstacles, known or unknown, which prevented God
from showing mercy to man. Christ is accepted as
a teacher, and as a king, but not as a priest. His
work is viewed as having for its purpose, to incul-

LECTURE VIII. 509

cate and embody a higher type of morality, not to
work out a scheme of redemption. The ethical ele
ment of Christianity becomes elevated above the dog
matic. The sermon on the mount is regarded as the
very soul of Christ s teaching. And in looking for
ward to the future of Christianity, the Christian reli
gion is considered likely to become the religion of
the world, merely because it will have ceased to be
the religion of form and dogma, and become the
highest type of ethics.

Views like these are common, and their com
patibility with Christianity is defended in different
ways: sometimes by the bold attempt, as in the
speculations of the Tubingen school, to prove that pri
mitive Christianity was such a religion as that just
described ; that the dogmatic Christianity of the early
fathers was the addition made by philosophy to the
first doctrine, the idola theatri, which haunted the
minds of the early teachers; and that the books of
the New Testament, to which we appeal to prove
the contrary, belong to a later date than that usually
assigned : sometimes, with less consistency, admit
ting the antiquity of the dogmas, by representing that
we can penetrate into the philosophy of the apostolic
doctrine, and express in modern phrase, more clearly
than in the ancient, the meaning which was intended
to be conveyed : at other times, by regarding all
truth as relative to its age, and supposing that
Christ s work was seen by the light of the sacrificial
and Messianic ideas common in the apostolic times.

510 LECTURE VIII.

Connected with this fundamental disagreement
with the ordinary teaching of the Christian church,
on the central question of Christ s work and the
nature of Christianity, is the cognate question con
cerning the relation of the Bible as a rule of faith.
Its superiority to ordinary books is admitted, as cor
dially as the superiority of Christ s work to that of
ordinary beings ; but the religious contents of it, not
to speak of the literary, are criticised, not indeed in
a polemical, but in an independent spirit ; and are
measured in the manner just described, and approved
or rejected in accordance with it.

Thus these two questions, the atoning work of
Christ, and the authority of the scriptures, are the
two forms of doubt which are most likely to meet
us in the present age.

The expression of them in the clergy of any
particular church may of course, if it be deemed
necessary, be prevented by political means. A church,
if regarded merely in a worldly point of view,
is a political as well as a spiritual institution,
where the members cede somewhat of individual
freedom for the good of the whole ; a compact where
certain privileges and remunerations are granted, in
return for the communication of certain kinds of
instruction, and the performance of certain offices :
and no one can object that the terms of a treaty be
maintained ; but the prevention of the expression of
doubt is not the extinction of the feeling. And such
nets of repression cannot reach the laity of the

LECTUEE VIII. 511

church, even if they touch the clergy. The inquiry
accordingly here intended, as to the means for re
pressing such doubts, does not descend to the poli
tical question, but is a spiritual one; viz. if these
doctrines are contrary to Christ, how can such
thinkers be directed by moral means to the truth
which we believe ? or what reason can we give for the
hope that is in us, which leads us to decline yield
ing up one iota of dogmatic Christianity to them I

The history of evidences offers a series of experi
ments, in which we may find an answer to these
questions, by studying the different methods adopted
in various centuries for spreading Christianity.

In the earliest age of the church, previous to the
establishment of Christianity as the state religion,
we observe the unaided appeal to argument, and
especially the abundant use made of the internal
evidence, or philosophical argument concerning the
excellence of Christianity, as a means for arresting
attention, preparatory to the presentation of the
external and historic proof r . In the long interval
of the middle ages, the church was able to supple
ment or supersede argument by force ; yet it must be
admitted that the political and intellectual condition
of the European mind was then, to a large extent,
such as to receive benefit from the imposition of an
external rule of religious authority and doctrine, in
the same manner that individuals, when in a state
of childhood, need a rule, not a principle ; a law,

r Cfr. Pressense, vol. iv. book iv. 161, 521.

512 LECTURE VIII.

not a reason 8 . This method however was unsuited-
when the mind of Europe awoke, and when free
thought could no longer be suppressed by force.

The history of evidences since the spread of
modern unbelief exhibits not only the return to the
ancient Christian weapon of argument instead of
force ; but not unfrequently to the ancient mode of
presenting the philosophical proof prior to the
historical.

An attempt of this kind was intermingled with
the English school of evidences of the last century ;
and the argument of analogy used by Butler, if
viewed as constructive, and not refutative, may be
considered to have for its object to prepare the mind
for accepting revealed religion, by first showing the
probability of it on the ground of its similarity to
nature. (48) And in the German movement, where
the doubt thrown by criticism over the historical
evidences even still more compelled the resort to the
philosophical argument on the part of those who strove
to defend the faith, we have seen various attempts to
reconstruct Christianity from the philosophical side .
Both methods, the philosophical and the historical,
have had their place ; but their use has varied with
the wants of the age. In proportion as the pressure
of doubt left less opportunity for the constraining

8 This is the view at which Guizot arrives ; Hist, de la Civil.
leon v, vi, x.

4 E. g. in Kant, Jacobi, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. See Lec
tures VI. and VII.

LECTURE VIII. 513

force of the latter, the persuasiveness of the d priori
moral argument has been used.

The history of the means which have been suc
cessful in removing doubts lends little support to
the opinion which would save the faith by the
sacrifice of the reason, or woiild imperil the truth
of religion by throwing discredit on the immutability
of moral distinctions, perceived by the conscience
which Providence has placed in the human mind ;
to which the great writers on evidence have been
wont to make their appeal ; and which they have
justly perceived must lie at the basis of the evidences
themselves. " If the light that is in thee be dark
ness, how great is that darkness ! "

The two periods in church history among those
here named, which offer most instruction to us in
consequence of affording examples of the same class
of difficulties as those which we encounter, are, the
struggle in the early centuries, and that in Germany
during the present. The line of argument which
was used in the former of these crises is seen in the
Alexandrian school of the fathers in the third cen
tury, and that used in the latter, in the school of
Schleiermacher. The study of the life and mental
development of Schleiermacher s disciple, Neander,
would be in this view one of the most valuable in
history". He was himself led by the mercy and
providence of God to the knowledge of Christ ; his

u References for the study of Neander s life are given in a note
on page 353.

514 LECTURE VIII

own spirit was rescued from doubts such as we
describe ; his life was spent in trying to save others
from the like difficulties, and to plant their feet upon
the rock upon which he himself stood : and it is
only the secrets of the great day that will declare the
number of the souls that were led by his teaching to
find Christ and salvation.

In both these periods the method adopted for
recommending Christianity was, to carry out the
plan used by St. Paul at Athens x , to lay a basis for
the proof of it by developing the moral and philo
sophical argument.

In the Alexandrian period the method used was,
to show that all former religions, all former philo
sophies, were not unmixed error, but contained the
germ of truth, which Christianity gathered into itself;
to exhibit Christianity as the fulfilment in the field of
history of the world s yearnings, and thus to awaken
the response of the heart to the narrative of its
messaged Reasons, to which allusion has before
been made 2 , may have lessened the utility at that
period of the positive evidence, which proves the
fact that a Redeemer had been given ; but we cannot
doubt that, independently of this circumstance, a
deep philosophical reason suggested the stress which
was laid on the moral argument, on account of its

x See Acts xvii. 22-31.

y Cfr. Pressense on Clement and Origen, Hist. iv. pp. 203, 360,
and the references there given.
z Page 1 02.

LECTURE VIII 515

suitability for convincing the opponent ; a reason
indeed to which the history of some of the fathers
gave a personal force in the fact that it was by this
manner that they had themselves been led to accept
of Christianity a .

In the German period the same method has been
adopted, with the corresponding alterations suggested
by modern philosophy. Not to mention the in
structive attempts of the school of Kant to find a phi
losophy from the subjective side of religion, in the
denial of its possibility if attempted on the objective,
and to exhibit the limitations of the human mind
in speculating on the subject of religious method ;
nor again to mention the bold attempt of Hegel,
to which we have previously taken exception as
opposing the simplicity that is in Christ, to work
out this forbidden problem, and find a philosophy
for Christianity on the objective side : we allude to
that which has marked the disciples of Schleier-
macher to find it on the subjective as a life, and fact,
and doctrine, which fulfils the yearnings of the in
dividual heart.

In pursuing a method of this kind, the appeal
must be made to the inextinguishable feeling of guilt ;
to our personal consciousness of a personal judge ; our
terror at the sense of justice ; our penitence for our
own ill deserts ; the deep consciousness of the load of

a E. g. Justin Martyr, who gives the account of his own conversion
to Christianity in the introduction to the Dialogue with Trypho ;
and Clement of Alexandria.

Ll 2

510 LECTURE VIII.

sin as an insupportable burden from which we cannot
rescue ourselves ; and to the guilt of it which sepa
rates between us and God, as a bitter memory that we
are powerless to wipe away b . When these facts are
not only established as psychological realities, but ap
propriated as personal convictions, then the way is
prepared for the reception of Christianity. The heart,
by realising the personality of God, is at once elevated
above naturalism or pantheism. It feels that in
Christ s incarnation it finds God near, the infinite
become finite, God linked to the heart of a man ;
and in his atonement it finds God merciful. Its deep
instinct leads it to reject the theories which would
pare down the marvel of that mystery. Its conscious
ness of guilt tells it of an obstacle which it cannot
believe to lie merely in itself, but attributes to the
mind of the infinite Spirit which it wants a method
for removing. No mere example of majestic self-
sacrifice proclaiming God s love to man suffices to
solace its sorrows. Some mighty process, wrought
out between the Son and the almighty Father, is
instinctively felt to be necessary, as the means by
which God can be just and yet the justifier of the
sinful. And when philosophy has thus prepared the
heart by its appeal to the yearnings of the soul,
and brought it to long for the very remedy which
Christianity supplies ; then the historic argument can

b Cfr. Lect. I. p. 39. Suggestions on this point are given in
Miller s Bampton Lectures, 1817. u The Divine Authority of Holy
Scripture asserted from its adaptation to Human Nature."

LECTURE VIII. 517

be properly introduced, to afford the solid comforting
assurance that the remedy wanted has really been
given ; that miracles and prophecy are divine evi
dences, attesting the truth of the claim that certain
teachers at a particular period received superhuman
aid to reveal certain religious truths. (49)

The work of persuasion however is not yet com
pleted ; for, ere the heart can fully trust with adoring
thankfulness, there are no less than three questions
which must still be answered, if the object be to
direct doubt instead of suppressing it, and to lead a
sinner to Christ by the bands of love.

The first will be the literary one, as to the trust
worthiness of the books of the New Testament, which
are the record of this teaching.

The second, the inquiry into the fact whether the
books teach, and whether the early church taught,
dogmatic Christianity as the church now presents it.

The third, though of such a nature as in a great
degree to be suppressed by the claim of authority
already conceded to the apostolic teachers, may still
rise up to harass the mind if a further answer be not
supplied : it refers to the reason that we possess for
believing, that if these teachers asserted such truths
as dogmatic Christianity, and especially vicarious
atonement, these doctrines were a real verity, and not
merely a passing form under which the truth pre
sented itself to their minds, to be explained away by
after ages into less mysterious and more self-evident
truths.

518 LECTURE VIII.

The first of these questions, which concerns the
trustworthiness of the books, has been most thoroughly
tested by the historical criticism of Germany. The
data are thus presented for forming a final decision,
which in the opinion of most persons will probably
be widely different from that which has been ar
rived at by critics in that country. Yet, supposing we
should meet with a doubter who accepted all the views
of the Tubingen school 6 , there are nevertheless four
books of the New Testament, the genuineness of
which the most extravagant criticism fully admits ;
viz. the Epistles of St. Paul to the Romans, to the
Galatians, and the two to the Corinthians. These
four would be sufficient to establish the main articles
of dogmatic teaching as presented in the creeds of
the Christian church, and the main outline of Gospel
and Jewish history as facts on the reality of which
St. Paul and his converts relied, and for which he
was staking his life. Suppose the Gospels and the
Acts d involved in the historic uncertainty which these
critics have attributed to them ; yet we possess in the
Galatians the outline of the life of Paul, the statement
of the reason why Paul accepted a religion which he

c See above, p. 391.

1 The question of the attacks made on the historic character of
the Acts was not noticed in Lecture VII. The statement of the
difficulties which have given rise to them may be seen in Baur s
Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi, 1845, an d m an article in the
National Review, No. 20, for April 1860 ; and a refutation of them
m Dr. S. Davidson s Introduction to the New Testament, vol ii.

LECTURE VIII. 519

detested. The incomparable argument of Lyttleton 6
irrefragably proves his honesty. He cannot have
been a deceiver. Let the reader of the Galatians say
if he was deceived. The two Epistles to Corinth
attest the history of the early church ; the Epistle
to the Homans its dogmatic beliefs. If there is a
doubting heart, thoroughly imbued with the most
destructive criticism, unable to find historical standing-
ground in scripture, he may surely find it in the
study of these four works of St. Paul.

The second question, whether the great features of
the dogmatic teaching which we receive, and especially
the doctrine of vicarious atonement, are taught in the
New Testament, admits of satisfactory settlement.
The negative of this position has been asserted, in
consequence of the alleged fact that this particular
doctrine is rather expressed implicitly than explicitly
in the earliest fathers; which is to be accounted for
by the tendency, while contending against Jewish
monotheism, or heathen theism, to put forward the
messiahship and incarnation of Christ, in comparison
with other religions, rather than his atoning work f .

e Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship oj St. Paul, by
Lord Lyttleton, 1747. Cfr. also the note above, on p. 294.

f The history of the doctrine of the atonement is given in Bp.
Thomson s Bampton Lectures, 1853 (lectures vi. and vii.), and in
the essay on the Atonement in Aids to Faith, 1862 ; also in Hagen-
bach s Dogmengeschichte, 68, 134, 180, 268, and 300. The two
chief works on the subject are, Chr. Baur s Lehre von der Versohnung,
1838, and Dorner s Lehre von der Person Christi. The fair con
clusion in respect to the doctrine of the early church on the sub-

520 LECTURE VIII.

Careful study will soon decide a question of this
kind, if directed first to the text of scripture ; and
secondly, as is most important in all questions of the
history of doctrine, to the fathers, as the historic wit
nesses at once to the teaching of their day, and to the
traditions of the teaching of an older age than their
own*?.

Supposing however that the authenticity of the
books be granted, and the existence in them of
dogmatic teaching, as we now hold it, be conceded ;
how are we to answer the final misgiving which
might arise, that a doctrine like the atonement was
not merely truth relatively to the age in which it
was taught, to be surrendered if it conflict with the
moral sense? If indeed miraculous attestation, the
authority of supernatural assistance, be conceded, this
doubt will be extinguished in most minds by such an
admission ; but how is it to be fully met, consistently
with our object to point out how a doubter may be
directed, who desires not to have the natural revela
tion in his heart crushed, and yet who does not claim,

ject seems to be the one stated in the text. The doctrine of the
atonement was believed and taught ; but for the reason here named
it was not drawn out into such explicit statement as in modern
times. Anselm developed it by eliciting what was already con
tained in it, not by superadding any human elements which did
not exist there before. It is Baur, to whom allusion is made in
the text, who implies the contrary ; and some English writers have
followed him.

g The work of the late Professor Blunt on the right use of t!ie
Fathers may be consulted for a true and right view of their value.

LECTUEE VIII. 521

like the deists, that he must comprehend that which
he believes, but only that at least he must appre
hend it h ?

We concede the authority of the moral sense to
check all dogmas that are not shown to be part of
the teaching of men supernatural ly inspired ; and
we should feel surprised if there were a direct conflict
between God s voice through the apostles and God s
voice through the human conscience. Probably it
could be shown that no such conflict exists ; but
if it did, we should be inclined to ask whether the
moral sense, infallible in what it forbids, is equally
so in what it asserts 1 : whether it cannot possibly
admit of such improvement as would cause the dif
ficulty not to be felt ; or, if felt, to be cancelled by
one of those mental antinomies k , the existence of
which is undeniable : or whether there is not still
independent and contemporary evidence, to which
appeal can be made, to corroborate the apostles
teaching.

Let us, for example, suppose that we have come to
the conclusion, that the apostles taught the doctrine of

h We apprefiend a fact when we recognise its existence \ we com
prehend it when we can refer it to the cause which produces it.

1 Cfr. the remarks in Dr. Whewell s preface to his edition of
Butler s first three sermons for some suggestions on the nature of
conscience. His object is to show that Butler taught only its psy
chological supremacy, not its moral infallibility. Cfr. also his Lec
ture on Moral Philosophy in England, p. 129 seq.

k Page 117. Cfr. also bishop Thomson s Eampton Lectures
(lect. v. p. 1 25).

522 LECTURE VIII.

the atonement ; and that our moral sense is puzzled
with the justice of the system, of the transfer of
merit implied in those analogies under which the
mysterious verity is unveiled to us, and with its
apparent incompatibility with a corrective theory
of punishment : the thought of error, or of merely
relative truth, in the apostles teaching in such a
matter, is forbidden to the mind of any one who
admits the least divine inspiration in them, from the
fact that this is the innermost and most sacred truth
of their creed. We could imagine the early teachers
left unaided in all matters irrelevant to religion; nay,
by a stretch of supposition, possibly even in some un
important things appertaining to religion itself: but
a mistake on the work and office of Christ, the very-
point which, of all others, they were commissioned to
teach ; an ingredient of error insinuating itself here,
is utterly improbable. If even the inspired authority
were denied, the improbability would be hardly less
apparent. For this was not a doctrine of the head,
but of the feelings; not a fact coldly believed, but ap
propriated ; the voice of the inmost consciousness. If
the story of the apostles be true, that the belief of this
doctrine, and the prayers founded upon it, had made
them changed men ; if too their history testifies to
the reality of their professions of extraordinary holi
ness ; we could not, even if we did not know from
their writings that they were men who were accus
tomed to the careful analysis of their own feelings,
conceive a fatal falsehood to lurk here, in a point

LECTUEE VIII 523

where the mixture of inference with consciousness
must have been reduced to a minimum.

In this particular case of the atonement, there is
however an independent proof of the correctness of
the apostles teaching, through the corroboration of
it which is offered by the Christian consciousness
of the church. We have before had occasion 1 to ex
plain the introduction of this idea in the teaching
of Schleiermacher, and to protest against the use
which he proposed to make of it as a source of truth,
independently of the Christian consciousness of the
apostles and first teachers ; as the gradual source of
doctrinal progress, the oracular utterance to this age,
as the apostolic consciousness was to the first age.

But there is a deep truth in it, if we use the
Christian consciousness, not to supersede scripture,
but as the living corroboration and interpreter of it.
The Spirit of God still works on the hearts of men
morally, as upon the apostles of old ; not by confer
ring the intellectual gift of inspiration, but in the
moral gifts of penitence, of conversion, of pardon,
of holiness. Holy men now feel the Spirit of God
striving with them as the apostles did, and appro
priate the excellence of Christianity, and feel its
renovating power now as then. Therefore the at
testation of these men, such as is collected by an
induction founded on their biographies, to the fact
that when they analyse their secret feelings with
the most exact care, they recognise that the pardon

346 seq.

524 LECTURE VIII.

which they receive is through the mercy of Christ ;
that their moments of most hallowed communion
with the Father-spirit are when they approach the
throne of mercy through the mediation and inter
cession of another, Christ Jesus; that the victory
vouchsafed to them over temptation, is by His
merits ; that their heart finds no Father for one
moment except through him; this evidence, if it
can be accepted, is an independent corroboration of
dogmatic truth. It may be explained away, by de
nying the truth of their analysis, or by referring
their feeling to mental association ; but it cannot
fail to have a persuasive force for those who have
faith in the instinctive utterances of the human soul :
and the reliance upon it is not more extraordinary
than that on which we depend in cognate subjects
like aesthetics, where the taste of practical skill is
trusted. Christian consciousness thus becomes a new
source of facts in theological study ; the living voice
of the church for illustrating and confirming in some
degree the utterance of men of old, who spake that
which was revealed to their souls by the inspiring
Spirit.

Such are the chief steps which the history of
evidences, in the contest with early heathenism, as
well as in the recent struggle in Germany, seems to
point out as the most likely to lead a doubter to
Christ ; and such the order in which the philosophical
and historical evidences ought to be respectively pre
sented, if our object be to give due heed to the desire

LECTURE VIII. 525

which an inquirer evinces to appropriate the truth
which he believes. Such too, if the opinion already
advanced concerning the future of modern doubt be
correct, seems to be the final answer which the church
can give. Without undue compromise, commencing
with the internal evidence, we thus lead men to the
external, and make philosophy as it were the school
master to lead to Christ.

The third question of those which we enumerated
as likely to press upon us, viz. that which refers to
the inspiration of the scriptures, requires only a few
words ; inasmuch as the treatment of it has already,
to some extent, been implied.

This question has been elevated, since the Reforma
tion, to an importance which it hardly possessed be
fore. Since the authority of the Bible has been
substituted for the authority of the church, it has
been usual to regard the scriptures as the mode of
leading men to Christ, instead of considering the
knowledge of Christ received through the ministra
tions of the church as the clue to interpret scripture.
Logically, the scripture is the rule of faith, the
ground of the church s teaching ; but chronologically,
the teaching of the church is the means of our know
ing the scripture m .

A caution hence arises, that we should not be will
ing to allow preliminary difficulties, which a doubter

m Similarly, an innate law of thought is logically prior as a con
dition in attaining knowledge ; but experience is chronologically
prior.

52G LECTURE VIII.

may have in reference to the scriptures, to deter us
from leading him straight to Christ, and then allow
ing him by the light of this teaching to reconsider
the question of the scripture. The difficulties will
generally be found to have reference to the historical
and literary portions, rather than the doctrinal, or
those portions of the literature which contain the
doctrinal. If indeed they refer to the doctrinal, they
must be answered at the outset in the manner already
shown. If however to the Irterary, they will be viewed
in a different light, if the doubter has been brought
to appreciate the central truths of Christianity, from
that which they will bear if wrangled out on the
threshold of his approach. In the last century indeed,
the comparative importance of the doctrinal parts of
scripture over the literary was so perceived, when
doubts were pressed on the attention of the clergy
by the pertinacity of the deist controversialists, that
many of the eminent writers restricted the plenary
inspiration of the scripture writers to the appropriate
matter of the revelation, the supernatural communi
cation of the miraculous system of redemption; and
conceived that it was no derogation from the supreme
religious authority of the sacred writers, but rather
compatible with the loftiest idea of the providential
adaptation of means to ends, to suppose them un
assisted in literary matters, such as the transcription
of genealogies, the reference to natural phenomena,
or the literal exactitude of quotations. The jewel of
divine truth did not, in their opinion, sparkle less

LECTURE VIII. 527

brilliantly because it was handed down in a frame
of antique setting. (50) In the present day there is
a strong reaction in religious minds in favour of
the opposite view, identical with the one held in the
seventeenth century by the Puritans. The reaction
is only a special instance of the general movement in
favour of authority, political and ecclesiastical, which
has taken a sudden advance throughout the religious
part of Europe, in opposition to the subjective tend
ency already noticed in secular literature". This
special view however is dictated by a noble motive,
a watchful fear lest the loss of a single atom may
weaken the whole structure. Whether it be true or
not is not at present under consideration, but merely the
caution which ought to be used in pressing it upon
doubters at the outset of an approach to the subject
of religion. If the object be really to draw them to
Christ, we must become all things to all men ; and,
while not mutilating the heavenly message, take
heed not to repel the weak believer from coming
to the Saviour, by interposing unnecessary literary
obstacles.

It is very common to hear or to read the dilemma put
before the doubter, that he must accept everything
or nothing in Christianity and the Bible . Such
an alternative, though dictated by a commendable

n It has been shown above (p. 437.) that this very reaction is
itself indirectly a result of the subjective tendency.

E. g. in R. E. H. Greyson (H. Rogers) Correspondence. Cfr.
the remarks on it in the National Review for Oct. 1857.

528 LECTURE VIII.

motive, is likely to prove ineffectual. The Dilemma
is a form of reasoning which rarely persuades. Its ob
ject is rather to silence than to convince. It is more
a trick of rhetoric than an argument of logic. It may
make a person pause by showing him his apparent
position ; but the heart, if not the head, can always
find means to escape from an alternative which it
dislikes. And in this particular case the use of it
involves the risk of overlooking the different degrees
of importance which belong to different portions of
religion, and the very different degrees of evidence
on which different portions of it rest. Though the
smallest circumstances in reference to it are of im
portance, yet it were less vital to doubt the miracu
lous inspiration of a genealogy than the authoritative
teaching of an epistle ; or to doubt the date of a book
than its contents. No doubt is unimportant; but it
were merely repeating the sophistry of the Stoics, in
making all sins equal, to deny gradations of im
portance in doubts ; gradations which however are
not here put forward to defend eclecticism, but to
enforce the lesson, that, in dealing with a doubter,
the consideration of this fact must guide us in the
order in which we present the evidence of different
parts to his mind. It not unfrequently happens that
the perusal of the holy scripture is the means of
drawing a soul to Christ; the volume in its solitary
majesty telling its own tale : or, to speak more re
verently, applied to the heart by the Spirit of God :
but generally, if a doubter s heart be filled with his-

LECTUEE VIII. 529

torical and critical doubts, he must be led through
Christ to the Bible, rather than conversely, and
through the New Testament to the Old. If once he
can be brought to the perception of a Saviour for
sinful man, his doubts will assume a new aspect, and
will adjust themselves into their true place, or per
haps find their own solution.

Yet, when we have used all methods of argument
which the survey of the history has given us reason
to believe may prove useful, it were affectation to
conceal our belief in the perpetual operation, secret
and unobserved, of an invisible monitor and per
suader, the blessed Spirit of God. Though we may
look to philosophy to prepare the way, by exciting
an appreciation of the wants which Christianity sup
plies, and an apprehension of the suitability of
Christianity as the perfection of our spiritual nature ;
we must confess that it is to the unseen leadings of
the Spirit of God that we trust, to make the heart
feel the truth as well as perceive it, and love as well
as appreciate it. If we accept the fact of God s
interference to effect man s salvation, and regard it
as His special will to bring men to the knowledge
of Christ, and trust His promise of assistance to the
church P, it is not enthusiasm, but the most rational
faith, to expect divine assistance to attend con
stantly on the efforts made to spread the truth which
He has been pleased to reveal; not to interfere indeed
with the fixed laws of the rational faculties, but to

P Matt, xxviii. 20.
M m

530 LECTURE VIII.

remove prejudices of the heart which might blind
the apprehension, and to hallow the soul into a tem
ple for the enshrinement of His truth.

More especially if it be true, as we have per
petually insisted, that there is a large region for
the influence of emotional causes of doubt, in addi
tion to the intellectual, which have been the subject
of our special study, we may well believe that here
is a field where the Holy Spirit alone can enter, and
in which He only has the power to operate. Evidence,
as evidence, is apprehended and tested by the intel
lectual faculties ; but whatever is the subtle influence,
consciously or unconsciously exercised by the emo
tions, in a matter where the evidence is probable, not
demonstrative, this offers a sphere where the help of
an all-loving God may be hoped for to dissipate the
alienation of prejudice or indifference. Paul may
plant, and Apollos may water; but it is God that
giveth the increase.

We have now considered the lessons taught by the
history, both as to the moral function of free thought,
the forms of it which are most likely to meet Christ
ians in the present day, and the means which seem
most useful for guiding a doubter into truth.

The history may teach a final lesson to us as
Christian students, not so much in reference to lead
ing others to truth, as in relation to the means by
which we can attain it ourselves.

In all the days of peril through which the church

LECTURE VIII. 531

has passed, the means used by those who have striven
to find the truth, and become a blessing to the world,
have been, study and prayer. In the solitude of
their own hearts, by quiet meditation, they have
sought to understand the utterance of the inspired
volume; and to secure by prayer the illuminating in
fluence of the divine Spirit, to cause them to behold
wondrous things in God s law**. And thus in an age
of coldness they have kept the flame of divine love
burning with unextinguished glory on the altar of
their hearts ; and in an age of questioning have been
able to burst forth from their prison-house of doubt,
and gaze with the clearness of unclouded faith on the
truth once for all delivered to the saints. If, in the
dark night of doubt or sin which has spread its veil
over the world, there have been stars that have
shown to the pilgrim steadier and clearer light than
the other luminaries of the heavens, the cause has
been that they have reflected some rays of the Divine
glory, which had been concentrated in the sunlike
brightness of the apostolic inspiration.

If we have found that the present age offers its
peculiar intellectual trials; and if we feel ourselves
set in the midst of so many and great dangers ; let us
not be paralysed by the consciousness of them, so as
to deem the search for truth unimportant, or antici
pate that it will be unsuccessful ; but rather be led to
increased energy in striving to follow the example of

&lt;l E. g. Augustin, Anselm, and in modern times sucli men as
Bengel and Neander.

M m 2

532 LECTURE VIII.

those who have overcome by the blood of the Lamb,
and by the word of their testimony 1 . Let us realise
the solemnity of our position as responsible and im
mortal beings. We are creatures of a day, soon to pass
into eternity ; placed here to prepare ourselves for that
unknown world into which we shall carry the moral
character that has been stamped upon us here ; and
capable, whilst we are here, of doing untold good
by a godly example, or of contributing to the ruin of
the souls of our fellow men. How important, both
for ourselves and others, that we should learn and
appropriate that truth which is to be the means of
our salvation ! how important for ourselves, lest we
be castaway ! how important for others, lest we help
them to build a structure of wood, hay, stubble 8 ,
which shall be consumed in the day of the Lord !

Let us strive to use the two methods of finding-
truth, study and prayer. Let us gain more know
ledge, and consecrate it to the investigation of the
highest problems of life and of religion ; especially
applying ourselves, by the help of the ripest aid
which miscellaneous literature or church history
can afford us, to the study of the sacred scriptures.
But above all these intellectual instruments, let us
add the further one of prayer. For prayer not only
has a reflex value on ourselves, purifying our hearts,
dispersing our prejudices, hushing our troubled spirits
into peace ; but it acts really, though mysteriously,
on God. It ascends far away from earth to the spot

Rev. xii. n. s i Cor. iii. 12.

LECTURE VIII. 533

where He has His dwelling-place. The infinite God
condescends to enter into communion with our spirits,
as really as a man that talketh with a friend. The
Saviour of pity will Himself look down upon us, and
condescend to become our teacher, and give us the
purity of heart which will lead us into truth. Our
own trials, our own struggles for truth and holiness,
the desire to know Christ and to be known by Him,
will excite . our deep pity for those who endure the
like temptations, and prepare us for effectually mini
stering to the good of others. And if the struggle in
our own hearts be long, and there be moments when
we seem to have our Gethsemane ; let us cleave the
closer, with the more simple trust, to our heavenly
Father; still imploring Him to grant us in this world
knowledge of his truth, and in the world to come life
everlasting ; assured that the clouds shall one day
disperse, and the vision of truth be unveiled to us
in the bright light of the eternal morning.

I shall be well content that all that I have said to
you be forgotten ; and when these lectures take their
humble place in the series of which they form a part,
deriving an honour, not their own, from the great
names with which they are associated, I shall be
willing that they be consigned to neglect ; if I can
only hope that this final exhortation to prayerful study
may remain fixed in the memory of any one of those
that now hear these words, or may impress the
mind of any chance student who, in traversing the
same ground, may hereafter have occasion to peruse

534 LECTURE VIII.

them, at a time perhaps when the voice that now
speaks shall be hushed in the tomb, and the spirit
shall have gone to its account.

The lectures are now ended. May God forgive the
errors, and sanctify any truth that has been uttered
to His honour ! The faults are mine : the truth is
His, not mine. To Him be the glory.

NOTES.

NOTE S.

LECTURE I.

Note 1. p. 4.

SUBDIVISIONS OF HISTORICAL INQUIRY.

A FEW words may explain the distinctions intended in the
text.

History has been properly distinguished by Macaulay into
two branches, the artistic or descriptive, and the scientific or
analytic. (Essays, vol. i. 2, on Hallam.) If viewed in the
former aspect, history aims as far as possible to reproduce
what has been, to recover a picture of the past. Hence it is
obedient to the two conditions which rule all art, precise
outline in details, and preservation of perspective in the com
bination. In the latter, theory in some slight degree steps
in, but theory dictated by the instinct of taste rather than
by reflection. It is in this branch, in which the historian is
the critic, that the border line lies between art and science.
For it is hard to measure the precise amount which is due in
the appreciation of facts respectively to artistic intuition and
to reflective analysis a .

Supposing the facts to be thus given, it is the province of the
science of history to ascertain their causes. Two living writers,

a In the able work on Tite Live by H. Taine, (Couronne, 1856,) will be
found a study of Livy as a critic and as a philosopher ; which illustrates not
only the scientific aspect of history, but the influence of science in the special
determination of the facts, which has frequently been attributed to art.

538 NOTE 1. [LECT. I.

Mr. Mill (System of Logic), and Dr. Whewell (Philosophy of
Inductive Sciences), have given an account of the logic of
science. That of the latter is more suitable to the conception
which we are here forming of history ; for history is exactly
one of the class of sciences which he calls " PalsetiologicaL"
(vol. i. b. x.) It requires first, that we recover the record of
the successive stages of facts, the narrative of the past, before
searching for the causes. The causes are then to be sought
by transferring backward for the explanation of the past those
which are at present operating. The search will probably ex
hibit three successive stages in the process of examination.
First, causes will be found which are the mere antecedents of
the events, the mere links which connect the phenomena.
Next, a cyclical law of the recurrence of the facts is perceived,
such e. g. as Vico s well-known law concerning the develop
ment of political society. Such a law as this, supposing it to
hold good without exception within the limits of experience,
is what Mr. Mill calls an " empirical law." (Logic, vol. ii. b. iii.
ch. xvi.) Next, this law must be analysed into its causes.
Mr. Mill gives three forms which this third stage of analysis
may assume in science. (Id. vol. i. b. iii. ch. xii.) Probably
in history it will generally assume the one of the three in
which the complex result is analysed into its simpler com
ponent elements. (Id. 2.)

This inquiry would complete the study of history as a
science. But when we deal with moral as distinct from
material relations, we feel that there is a question of philo
sophy as well as science, one of ethics and metaphysics, which
rises above all lower ones. We instinctively wish to measure
the responsibility of the moral agents who have contributed
to work out the results which have been studied. We turn
to the personal and biographical question for the purpose of
the ethical lesson. The theist also asks another question.
Believing that nature and man are the work, direct or indirect,
of a personal Creator and Governor, of infinite power and
goodness, he strives to search out the purposes of Providence,
hoping to find in the drama of universal history the solution

LECT. I.] NOTE 2. 539

of the plot which he could not expect to attain by the study
of a portion of it.

Such are the ideas which are intended in the text.

Note 2. p. 5.

THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF RELIGIONS.

The comparison of Christianity with other religions was
necessarily forced upon the Christian church by contact with
the heathen world.

We meet in the early fathers with two distinct opinions ;
the one held in the Alexandrian school, that the heathen re
ligions were imperfect but had a germ of truth, and that phi
losophy was a schoolmaster to bring men to Christ ; the other
chiefly in the African school, that they were entire errors, and
an obstacle to the conversion of mankind.

In the middle ages, contact with Mahometan life (see
Lect. III. p. 123.) created a sceptical mode of comparing
Christianity with other creeds ; circumstances compelling
toleration, and toleration passing into indifference. A similar
spirit is also seen in the hasty attempt of the French phi
losophers of the last century to resolve all religion into
priestcraft.

It is only in still more recent times that the first scientific
conception of a comparative study of religion arose. Even in
Herder the comparison is a3sthetical more than scientific, and
relates to the comparison of literatures more than of religious
ideas. Benjamin Constant (De la Religion Consider ee dans
sa source, ses formes et ses developpements, 1824) seems to have
been the first who really suggested a serious psychological
examination ; and hence there soon arose the idea of compara
tive theology analogous to comparative anatomy. His spirit
has pervaded French literature subsequently. The religious
speculations of the eclectic school give expression to it ; e. g.
Quinet (Le Genie des Religions, vol. i.); and the mode of con
templating religion in Renan (Etudes de VHistoire Religieuse)

540 NOTE 3. [LECT. I.

is based upon it. Caution in using the method is necessary on
the part of those who believe in the unique and miraculous
character of the Jewish and Christian revelations. In Lect.
III. (p. 122.) we have given an enumeration of three modes;
the one true, the others false ; in which Christianity may be
put into comparison with other creeds.

Mr. Maurice s Boyle Lectures on the Religions of Ike World
refer to this subject ; and some useful remarks exist in
MorelFs Philosophy of Religion, (c. iii. and iv.) But the book
most full of information is the interesting Christian Advocate s
Publication, of the late archdeacon Hardwick, Christ and other
Masters ; a work full of learning and piety, unfortunately left
unfinished by the tragedy of his premature death in August
1859. In the parts published he has compared Christianity
with the Egyptian and Persian religions (part iv.), with the
Hindoo (part ii.), and the Chinese (part iii.); and he was pre
paring materials for its comparison with the Teutonic, and
with those of the classic nations.

Note 3. p. 6.

ZEND AND SANSKRIT LITERATURE.

The purpose of this note is to indicate the sources of in
formation in reference to (i) the Zend and (2) the Sanskrit
literature, for illustrating the comparative history of religion.

i. It was about the middle of the last century (1762) that
Anquetil du Perron brought manuscripts to Europe from
Guzerat, written in the Zend or ancient Persian tongue. For
some time the relation of the language to the Sanskrit was
not understood. The great scholar to whom are due both the
study of the tongue and the editing of the Yagna, was Eugene
Burnouf. The work just named is the first of the three works
which make up the Vendidad Sade ; parts of which possibly
go back to a period almost coeval with Zoroaster, i. e. perhaps
the sixth century B. C. Two other works exist for the study
of the Persian theology, though much more modern in date,

LECT. I.] NOTE 3. 541

the Desatir of the ninth century A. D., and the Dabistan
of the seventeenth, which both contain fragments of ancient
traditions embedded in their texts. The Avesta, of which the
Vendidad is one of the oldest parts, has been edited by Spiegel.
References to the older literature concerning it may be found
in Heeren s History of the Asiatic Nations, vol. i. ch. ii.

An account of the present results of comparative philology
in reference to Persian is given by professor Max Miiller in
Bunsen s Philosophy of History, vol. i. p. no. E. T. The
Persian theology brought to light by these investigations is
discussed by A. Franck, in a paper, Les Doctrines Retigieuses et
Pkilosophiquea de la Perse, in his Etudes Orientates, 1861 ; also
in Dr. John Wilson s Parsi Religion, 1843; Martin Haug s
Essays on the Par sis, 1861, founded on Burnouf s researches ;
and in archdeacon Hard wick s Christ and other Masters, part
iv. ch. iii. (Hyde s Hist. Relig. Vet. Pers. 1700, is obsolete.)

2. The Sanskrit literature has been the subject of still more
careful study by a series of learned men. See Donaldson s
Oratylus, b. i. ch. ii. 36. 3d ed. Nearly the whole of the
literature indirectly offers materials for a history of the altera
tion and deterioration of religious and ethical ideas, and of
the relation of schools of philosophy to a national creed pre
served by the priesthood and deposited in books esteemed
sacred. The literary works can be placed in their relative
order, though the absence of all chronological dates from the
time of the contact of the Indians with the Greeks (third
century B. C.), down to the visits of the Chinese Buddhist
pilgrims in the fourth and seventh centuries A. D., whose
works have been translated into French by A. Remusat and
Stanislas Julien b , and the Mahometan histories, renders the
determination of absolute dates impossible. The following are
the dates approximately given for the chief works of Sanskrit
literature. The Vedas, especially the oldest, date from B. C.
1 200 to 600. The Epic Poems, the Rdmdyana and Mahdbhdrata,

b Voyage dans Vlnde par C. Falcian traduit par A. Remusat, 1837, atl ^
Hist, de la Vie de Hiouen Thsang, being vol. i. of Memoires sur les Contrees
Occidentals, 1858, by Stan. Julien. The former travelled about A. D. 400 ;
the latter in the seventh century.

542 NOTE 3. [LECT. I.

are perhaps of the third century B. C. ; the laws of Manu,
or more truly of the family which claimed descent from the
mythical Manu, contain materials dating from several cen
turies B. C., but were put into their present form probably
several centuries A. D. ; the Bhagavat Gitd, an episode in
the Mahdbhdrata bearing traces of a Christian influence, dates
some centuries A. D. The Hindu drama is perhaps subsequent
to 500 A. D. The Pur anas carry on the literature to mediaeval
times. Several of the systems of philosophy were probably
constructed anterior to the Christian era ; but the date at which
they were put into their present form is undetermined.

The earlier literature is regarded as the most valuable for
the study of the growth of religious ideas and institutions.
The development or deterioration may be traced from the
simple nature-worship of the Vedas, to the accumulation of
legends which disgrace the modern creed. The causes which
gave birth to mythology are no longer a matter of conjecture;
the study of the Sanskrit language and literature having ex
hibited an historical instance of it. In this way the early
Sanskrit literature becomes one of the most precious treasures
to the mental philosopher who approaches his subject from
the historical side.

The earliest Veda is in course of publication by Professor
Max Miiller. It has been partly translated by the late pro
fessor H. H. Wilson, and wholly by Langlois. Mr. M. Miiller
has given the results of his studies of this early literature in
his admirable work, the History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature,
1 859 ; which is full of instruction for the philosopher who
is inquiring concerning intellectual and religious history.
Most of the other works named above have also been translated
into European languages, viz. the Epic Poems, the Rdmdyana,
in Italian by Gorresio, and in French by H. Fauche, 1854;
and Episodes from the Mahdbhdrata by P. E. Foucaux, 1862;
also thel/aws of Manu c , in English by Sir W. Jones, and in
French by A. Loiseleur Des-Lonchamps ; the Bhagavat Gitd
by Wilkins, 1 809, the text of which was edited by Schlegel,

c The abbe Migne is publishing in French, Livres Sacres de toutes les Religions
sauf (a Jteliy-ioii Chretienne.

LECT. I.] NOTE 3. 543

1823; the 2d ed. by C. Lassen, 1846. One of the Purdnas
(the Vishnu] has been translated by Wilson ; and part of the
Bhagavat by Burnouf, who has also edited the text.

Concerning the systems of Hindu philosophy ; see Bitter s
History of Philosophy, E. T. vol. iv. b. xii. ch. v ; Archer
Butler s Lectures on Philosophy, vol. i. p. 243 seq. ; Cole-
brooke s Essays on the Philosophy of the Hindus, 1837 ; Apho
risms of Hindu Philosophy, printed under the care of Dr.
Ballantyne for the Benares government college ; and Dr. B.
Williams s Christianity and Hinduism, 1856. The work of the
late archdeacon Hard wick, Christ and other Masters, also con
tains a brief account of three of the systems of philosophy,
the Veddnta, founded on the sacred books, the Sdnkhya or
atheistic, and the Yoga or mystic, together with a compari
son of them with Christianity (part ii.). An explanation of
a part of the Nydya or Logical Philosophy, is given by Max
Miiller in the Appendix to Dr. Thomson s Outlines of the Laws
of Thought, 3d ed.

On the system of thought in Buddhism, on Avhich the study
of the Pali has thrown light, consult E. Burnouf s Introduc
tion a l } Historic du Buddhisme Indien ; and Spence Hardy s
Manual of Budhism, 1853. Also archdeacon Hardwick s
work above named. The Hindu history, exhibiting its
double movement, of philosophy on the one hand and of the
Buddhist reformation on the other, has been thought to offer
a distant analogy to the mental history of Europe in the
double movement of the scholastic philosophy and the refor
mation.

The celebrated works of C. Lassen, Indische Alterthum-
skunde, 1844-47, and A. Weber, Indische Studien, 1850, are
well known as sources of information in reference to the
general subject. Also Dr. J. Muir has lately published (1858)
Sanskrit Text s on the Origin and Progress of the Religion and
Institutions of India. Several articles in reviews have appeared
which contain much popular information ; e. g. in the North
British Review, Nov. 1858; Westminster Review, April 1860;
Edinburgh Review, Oct. 1860. On the general subject of this
note compare also Quinet, (Euvres, t. i. 1. 2, 3.

544 NOTE 4. [LECT. I.

Note 4. p. 17.

THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND JEWS.

The history of the controversy of Christianity with Judaism
is so connected in the writings of the early apologists with the
contemporaneous one directed against Paganism, and in recent
times so related in one of its aspects to rationalism, that these
reasons seem sufficient, independently of the literary interest,
to justify the insertion of a brief notice of it, and of the
sources of information with respect to it.

The controversy with the Jew varies in different ages.
We can distinguish three separate phases; (i) that which is
seen in the early centuries, (2) in the middle ages, and early
modern times, (3) the position which is taken up by the
educated Jew at the present day. The sources for under
standing the contest are, partly the Jewish writings, and
partly those of Christians who have written against them.

1. In the early ages the controversy merely turned upon
the question whether Jesus was the Christ. The Jews did
not deny the fact of the Christian miracles, but explained
them away ; and the controversy accordingly turned on the
interpretation of Jewish prophecy. This phase of the contest
is seen in the New Testament, in the Apology of Justin
Martyr against Trypho, to which a new kind of objection
expressive of prejudice is added in the discourse which Celsus,
as preserved in Origen (Contr. Cels. b. i. and ii.), puts into the
mouth of the Jew whom he introduces. In reference to it,
the commentators on these fathers, and especially Semisch s
work on Justin Martyr (translated), and the works on the
Jewish Talmudic literature and philosophy, may be consulted.
The contest is continued at intervals in treatises by inferior
writers ; an account of which may be found in the sources of
information hereafter given, and in Hagenback s Dogmengesch.

144-

2. The second phase of the contest is seen in the middle
ages, and in modern times till about 1700 A. D. It is marked

LECT. I.] NOTE 4. 545

by two lines of thought on the part of the Jewish writers ;
a system of defence of their own tenets by a method of
scriptural interpretation; and the attack of calumny or of
argument against Christianity. The former existed especially
in Moorish Spain about the twelfth century, the golden age
of Jewish literature. For a brief account of the theological
literature of the Jewish nation at that time, and in the period
which had intervened since the early ages, the writer may be
permitted to refer to one of his own Sermons, and the re
ferences there given (Science in Theology, 1859, Sermon IV.) ;
to which references add Beugnot s Les Juifs d 3 Occident, 1830,
and the new work of De Los Rios on Spanish Literature.
The movement included both a philosophical side in Mai-
monides, and a critical in Jarchi, Aben Ezra, Kimchi, &c.

The other movement, which was hostile to Christianity,
was marked by a series of works, written by Jews for their
own nation, and carefully hidden from the sight of Christians,
probably for fear of persecution and suffering ; which were
given to the world by the learning of the foreign Hebrew
scholars of the seventeenth century. The chief of these works
are, the Nizzachon Vetus of the twelfth century, first pub
lished in WagenseiFs Tela Ignea Satance, 1681. In the
thirteenth, the Disputatio Jechielis cum Nickolao, Disputatio
NacJimanidis cumfratre Paolo, and the celebrated Toldos Jesc/m
or Jewish view of Christ s life. About 1399 the Rabbin
Lipmann wrote the second book Nizzackon, which was pub
lished by Hackspan, 1644; and also the Carmen Memorials;
and about I58o d the Rabbin Isaac wrote the noted Chissuk

d In the work quoted above, Science in Theology, the date of this Rabbin
was erroneously given as the seventeenth century (p. 123). This was the date
when Wagenseil by great good fortune obtained a copy of his work, and first
made it public. The writer avails himself of this opportunity, in which he has
occasion to name his own volume, to correct a few mistakes, and make a few
alterations where subsequent study has convinced him that he was in error.
E.g. In Sermon IV the illustration from Indian history (p. in) is based on
the view, now known to be wrong, that Buddhism preceded Brahminism in
origin. Also the view (p. 109) of the date of the introduction of the Chaldee
character has been rendered doubtful by the arguments which Hupfeld has
directed to the subject (Ausfuhrliche Hebraische Grammatik}, in which he

N n

546 NOTE 4. [LECT. I.

or Munimen Fidei. All these (with the exception of
the second Nizzachon) are contained in Wagenseil. During
the period one important defence of Christianity against the
Jews appeared, the Pugio Fidei by Raymund Martin, in
Arragon, about 1278, which has been edited with an intro
duction by De Voisin 1651, and by Carpzov. Another defence
was by Alphonso de Spina. Fortalitium Fidei contra Jud&os,
Saracenos, 1487. In Eichhorn s Geschickte der Liter atur, vol. vi.
26, another treatise is named by a writer called Hieronymus,

During the period just considered the contest with the
Jews was carried on chiefly in Spain, or the few Jewish settle
ments of Lithuania. Henceforth it is chiefly seen in Germany
and Holland, where the learned Dutch and German theolo
gians of the seventeenth century were brought into contact
with them, or were attracted to the study of the controversy by
an interest in the newly awakened taste for Hebrew learning.
This age supplies works of great value in gaining a know
ledge of Jewish literature, some of which will be named
below, and a few treatises, such as, one by Micraelius (De
Messid, 1647) ; a brief notice by Hoornbeek, Summa Controv.

shows that the corruption of the language was gradual, and that the adoption
of the square Chaldee character did not take place till after Christ. (See a
brief account of his views in Davidson s Introd. to Old Test. 1856, ch. ii.) Also,
p. 12 1, the use of the word surnamed for Jarchi disguises the origin of the name.
In Sermon I. (sd div.) the order of chronology is not sufficiently observed in
the quotations from the Old Testament. In Serm. VIII. (p. 244.) the apologetic
worth of miracles (suggested by a remarkable speech of Bp. Wilberforce in
the Town Hall, Oxford, Nov. 28, 1846. See Oxford Herald of Dec. 5.) is perhaps
hardly sufficient. In Serm. VI. the view that the early church held the
doctrine of atonement implicitly rather than explicitly, in life rather than
dogma, till Anselm s time, is insufficient, and liable to convey an erroneous
impression. (See Bp. Thomson s restatement of the historic question in Aids
to Faith, pp. 339 352). The revelation of God in the New Testament is
most express on the subject of substitutional atonement. Of this the writer
of these Sermons never had any doubt ; but he now thinks that there are
clearer evidences of it in the fathers than he had stated. Reasons are perceiv
able in the circumstance of the constant struggle against heathen religions, in
which the fathers were involved, which led them to dwell on the incarnation
rather than on the atonement. Anselm only gave expression to the doctrine
which the apostles had clearly taught.

LECT. I.] NOTE 4. 547

1653 (p. 65) ; an unfinished treatise by Hulsius, Theotogia
Judaica, 1653 ; and one by Cocceius, Jud. Respons. Consid.
1662. The activity of the Jews is seen in the fact that
an unfair attack by Bentz, 1614, was answered in the Theriaca
Judaica of the Jew Salomo Zebi, Hanover 1615, which again
met with a Christian respondent in Wulferus, 1681. Also
Limborch had a dispute with a Jew in his Arnica Cotlatio cum
Erudito Judao (Dr. Orobrius), 1687. The controversy con
tinued through the eighteenth century, probably outlasting
its cause ; for defences on the side of the Jews ceased. We
meet with two works by Difenbach, Jud&us convertendus, 1696,
and Jud&us Conversus, 1709; Calvoer s Gloria Christi, 1710;
Mornseus De Vent. Relig. Christiana, 1707 ; and, in England,
Bp. Kidder s and Dr. Stanhope s Boyle Lectures, the former of
which was the basis of the treatise, The Demonstration of the
Messias, 1700 ; and C. Leslie s Short Method with the Jews.
Catalogues of the writings, of which the above are the best
known, may be found in J. A. Fabricius s Biblioth. Graec.
(ed. 1715), vii. 125; and De Verit. Relig. Christiana, 1725,
ch. xxxi ; and Blasphemia Judaorum, Id. ch. xxxvii ; Walch s
Blblioth. Theol. Selecta, vol. i. c. v. sect. 8. (1757); also in
Bartollocci s Dictionary of Jewish Authors, 1678, and Imbo-
nati s Dictionary of Christian Writers concerning the Jews,
1694; and especially in Wolff s Bibtioth. Heir. 1715, and De
Rossi s Dizionario degti Autori Ebrei, 1802. For information
concerning sources of Jewish theology and literature, it is
enough to cite Hottinger s Historia Orientalis, Carpzov s
Introdnctio, and Owen s Prelim. Exercitationes.

3. In the third phase of the controversy, viz. that which
exists with the modern Jew, the controversy is a little
changed. The old prejudices against Christianity are in a
great degree made obsolete by the freedom of commercial
intercourse, and the enjoyment of protection and civil liberty ;
and hence the contest takes two forms ; either the continuation
of the argument concerning the meaning of Jewish prophecy,
or a discussion on the function of the Jewish religion in
history. Sources for the former are found in the older books of

N n 2

548 NOTE 4. [LECT. I.

evidence. A digest of the arguments concerning it is given in
J. Fabricius (not the celebrated Fabricius), Consideratio Varia-
rum Controversiarum, 1704, p. 41, and in Stapfer s Institut.
Theolog. Polemic, vol. iii. 1-288, 1752 ; or in the modern
works, Greville E wing s Essays addressed to the Jews, and
Dr. McCaul s Old Paths, 1837, and his Warburton Lectures,
1846. The condition of Jewish life and thought may be
seen in Allen s Modern Judaism. The system of interpretation
on which the controversy is conducted is either the ancient
Messianic and allegorical of the Targums and Talmud, or
the literal and grammatical introduced by the Spanish medi
aeval commentators e .

The other form of Jewish argument which Christians have
to encounter is more novel, and, being confined to educated
Jews, its influence is less wide, and does not actuate the
stratum of Jewish life with which missionaries generally
come into contact. It is based on modern rationalist specula
tions, and is seen in a work of Dr. Philippsohn, late rabbin
at Magdeburg, Development of the Religious Idea in Judaism,
Christianity, and Mahometanism, (translated both into English
1855, and also into French,) and in the writings of Salvador.
Dr. Philippsohn regards the mission of Judaism to be, from
first to last, to teach to the world the lesson of monotheism.
He traces the struggle in the Jewish church between priestism
and prophetism; and regards Christianity as an abnormal
form of the latter, which has led the world away to Tritheism :
and, so far from regarding the office of Judaism to be extinct,
he considers that its mission is still to restore monotheism to
the world. A comparison with the statement of the views of
the Tubingen school in Lect. VII. or the speculations of Mr.

e There are congregations of reformed Jews in some countries who reject the
Talmud as a system of interpretation. They are Jewish protestants. Their
stand-point only differs from that of the old Jews in laying stress on the ethical
aspect of religion. Sermons by one of them, the Eabbin Marks, have lately
been published in England. It will be understood from the above account
that the modern Jews include three parties ; the orthodox Jews, the reformed,
and the rationalistic.

LECT. I.] NOTE 5. 549

Mackay in Lect. VIII. will show how completely this argu
ment is borrowed from the later forms of German historical
criticism.

The views of Salvador in France (see p. 421.) are too original
to be regarded as typical of the views of a party. They
reproduce the critical difficulties of Maimonides and Spinoza,
which seem never to have found favour with the Jews ; but
the general similarity of the doctrinal part of Salvador s
system to that just described is very observable.

Note 5. p. 17.

THE CONTEST CHRISTIANITY WITH MAHOMETANISM.

The contest of Christianity with Mahometanism, so far
as it has been a struggle of argument and not of the sword,
offers few remarkable points. In the first sweep of the
Mahometan conquest, when the Christian nations succumbed
both in the east and west, there was no field for a question of
truth. It was only in Christian nations which were removed
from peril, and yet sufficiently in contact to entertain the
question of the claims of the Mahometan religion, that a
consideration of its nature, regarded as a system of doctrine,
could arise. Accordingly it is in Constantinople, or in Spain
and the other parts of western Europe which came into con
nexion with the Moors, that works of this character appear.

The history may be conveniently arranged in three periods,
each of which is marked by works of defence, some called
forth by danger, a real demand, but subsiding into or con
nected with inquiries prompted only by literary tastes. The
first is from the twelfth to the middle of the sixteenth century ;
the second during the seventeenth and eighteenth ; the third
during the present century.

i . A notice of the Mahometan religion exists in a work of
J. Damascenus, in the eighth century ; and Euthymius Ziga-
benus, a Byzantine writer of the twelfth : but the first
important treatise written directly against it was in 1210,
Richardi Confutatio, edited in 1543 by Bibliander from a

550 NOTE 5. [LECT. I.

Greek copy. The refutation of Averroes by Aquinas, about
1250, can hardly be quoted as an instance of a work against
the Mahometan religion, being rather against its philosophy.
A treatise exists by John Cantacuzene, written a little after
1 350 ; which is to be explained probably by the circumstance
that the danger from Mahometan powers in the east directed
the attention of a literary man to the religion and institu
tions which they professed. Thus far the works were called
forth by a real demand.

A series of treatises however commences about the time
of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the cause of the
existence of which is not so easy of explanation. Such are
those in Spain by Alphonso de Spina, 1487, and by Turre-
cremata (see Eichhorn s Gesch. der Lit. vi.) ; by Nicholas de
Cuza, published in 1543 ; in Italy about 1500 by Ludovicus
Vives, and Volterranus ; one by Philip Melancthon in refer
ence to the reading of the Koran ; and a collection of treatises,
including those of Richardus, Cantacuzene, Vives, and Me
lancthon, published by Bibliander in 1543. Probably the
first two of this list may have been the relic of the crusade of
Christianity against the Moorish religion ; the next two
possibly were called forth by the interest excited in reference
to Mahometans by reason of their conquests, or less probably
by the influence of their philosophy at Padua (see Lect. III.
p. 139 seq.). The two last are hardly to be explained, except
by supposing them to be an offshoot of the Renaissance, and
called forth by the largeness of literary taste and inquiry
excited by that event.

2. When we pass into the seventeenth century, we find a
series of treatises on the same subject, which must be ex
plained by the cause just named, the newly acquired interest
in Arabic and other eastern tongues. We meet however with
others, called forth by the missionary exertions which had
brought the Christians into contact with Mahometans in the
east.

The treatise by Bleda, Defensio Fidel Christian &lt;%, 1610,
stands alone, unconnected with any cause. It was partly a

LECT. L] NOTE 5. 551

defence of the conduct of Christians towards the Mahometans.
A real interest however belongs to the work of Guadagnoli in
1631. A catholic missionary, Hieronymo Xavier, had com
posed in 1596 a treatise in Persian against Mahometanism,
in which the general principle of theism was laid down as
opposed to the Mahometan doctrine of absorption ; next the
peculiar doctrines of Christianity stated ; and lastly, a contrast
drawn between the two religions. See Lee s Tracts on Christ
ianity and Mahometanism (below, pref. p. 5 seq.) .

This work was answered in 1621 by a Persian nobleman
named Ahmed Ibn Zain Elebidm. The line adopted by
him was, (i) to show that the coming of Mahomet was pre
dicted in the Old Testament (Hab. iii. 3.) ; (2) to argue that
Mahomet s teaching was not more opposed to Christ s than
his was to that of Moses, and that therefore both ought to be
admitted, or both rejected ; (3) to point out critically the dis
crepancies in the Gospels ; (4) to attack the doctrines of the
Trinity and Christ s deity. (Lee,pref. 41 seq.)

This work was answered (1631) by a treatise in Latin by
P. Guadagnoli, dedicated to Pope Urban VIII. It is divided
into four parts; (i) respecting the objections about the
Trinity ; (2) the Incarnation ; (3) the authority of Scripture ;
(4) the claims of the Koran and of Mahomet. (Lee,pref. 108
seq. who also gives references (p. 113.) to a few other writers,
chiefly in the seventeenth century.)

The further works of defence produced in this century
arose as it were accidentally. The lengthy summary of the
Mahometan controversy in Hoornbeek s Summa Controver-
siarum, 1653, p. 75 seq. was either introduced merely to give
completeness to the work as a treatise on polemic, or was
called forth by considerations connected with missions, as is
made probable by his work De Conversione Gentilium et In-
dorum. Le Moy lie s publication on the subject in the Varia
Sacra, vol. i. 1685, arose from the accidental discovery of an
old treatise, Bartholomai Edess. Confutatio Hagareni. A third
work of this kind, Maracci s Criticism on the Koran , 1698,
arose from the circumstance that the pope would not allow

552 NOTE 5. [LECT. I.

the publication of an edition of the Koran, without an ac
companying refutation of each part of it. The work of
Hottinger (Hist. Orient, b. i.), Pfeiffer s Theol. Jud-aica et Ma-
hom. and Kortholt s De Relig. Mahom. 1663, form the transi
tion into an independent literary investigation ; which is seen
in the literary inquiries concerning the life of Mahomet, as
well as his doctrine, in Poeock, Prideaux 1697, Reland 1707,
Boulainvilliers 1730, and the translation of the Koran b t y
Sale 1734. A slightly controversial tone pervades some of
them. The materials collected by them were occasionally
used by deist and infidel writers (e. g. by .Chubb), for in
stituting an unfavourable comparison between Christ and
Mahomet.

The great literary historians of that period give lists of the
previous writers connected with the investigation. See J. A.
Fabricius, Bibliotk. Grac. ed. 1715, vol. vii. p. 136; Walch,
BiMiotk. Tkeol. Sel. vol. i. ch. v. sect. 9. A summary of the
arguments used in the controversy is given in J. Fabricius,
Delectus Argumentorum, p. 41, &c. and Stapfer s Inst. Tkeol.
Polem. iii. p. 289, &c.

3. In the present century the literature in reference to Ma-
home tanism is, as in the former instances, twofold in kind.
Part of it has been called forth by missionary contests in the
east ; part by literary or historic tastes, and the modern love
of carrying the comparative method of study into every branch
of history.

The first class is illustrated by the discussions at Shiraz in
1 8 ii, between the saintly Henry Martyn and some Persian
Moollas. The controversy was opened by a tract, sophistical
but acute, written by Mirza Ibrahim ; (Lee, pp. 1-39.) ; the
object of which was to show the superiority of the standing
miracle seen in the excellence of the Koran, over the ancient
miracles of Christianity. Martyn replied to this in a series
of tracts (Lee, p. 80 seq.), and was again met by Mohammed
Ruza of Hamadan, in a much more elaborate work, in which,
among other arguments, the writer attempts to show predic
tions of Mahomet in the Old Testament, and in the New ap-

LECT. I.] NOTE 5. 553

plying to him the promise of the Paraclete (Lee, pp. 161-450) .
These tracts were translated in 1824, with an elaborate preface
containing an account of the preceding controversy of Guadag-
noli, by Professor S. Lee of Cambridge, Controversial Tracts
on Christianity and Mahometanism, which is the work so
frequently cited above. To complete the history it is neces
sary to add, that a discussion was held a few years ago be
tween an accomplished Mahometan and Mr. French, a learned
missionary at Agra.

The literary aspect of the subject, not however wholly free
from controversy, was opened by White, in the Bampton
Lectures for 1784; and abundant sources have lately been
furnished. Among them are, Sprenger s Life of Mahomet,
1851, and Muir s, 1858. Also a new translation of the Koran
by the Rev. J. M. Rodwell, where the Suras are arranged
chronologically. The following ought also to be added, Dr.
Macbride s Mahometan Religion Explained, 1 857 ; Arnold on
Mahometanism,i859 ; Tholuck s Vermischte Schriften, i. (1-27);
Die Wunder Mohammed s und der Character des Religionstif-
ters ; Dr. Stanley s Lectures on the History of the Eastern
Church, lect. viii, and the references there given; Maurice s
Religions of the World ; and Kenan s Etudes d Histoire Reli-
gieuse. (Ess. iv.) The modern study has been directed more
especially to attain a greater knowledge of Mahomet s life,
character, and writings ; the antecedent religious condition of
Arabia 6 ; and the characteristics of Mahometanism, when
put into comparison with other creeds, and when viewed
psychologically in relation to the human mind.

The materials also for a study of the Mahometan form
of philosophy, both in itself and in its relation to the religion,
have been furnished by Aug. Schmoelders, Essai sur les Ecoles
Philosophises chez les Arabes, 1842. See also Ritter s Chr.
Phil. iii. 665 seq ; iv. 1-181.

e Cfr. Havernick s Introd. to Old Test. (E. T.) 23, 24.

554 NOTE 6. [LECT. I.

Note 6. p. 17.

UNITARIANISM.

It may be useful to indicate the chief stages of the history
of Unitarianism, and the sources of information with regard
to it, as it bears a close analogy to some forms of free
thought, such as deism f , and connects itself more or less
nearly with forms of rationalism which occur in the course of
the history.

The first instance of it is in the early ages, either as a
Jewish Gnostic sect, Ebionitism, or in some of the other
forms of Gnosticism ; passing in the east into Arianism, which
lowered God, and in the west into Pelagianism, which elevated
man. For this period see F. Lange, Geschichte und Lekrbeyriff
d. Unitarier vor d. Nicaenischen Synode, 1831 ; Hagenbach s
Dogmengetckickte, 23 ; and the church histories which treat
of this period.

In the middle ages the tendency may be considered to be
mainly represented by Mahometanism, and hardly exists at
all in the Christian church.

Its modern form arises at the time of the Reformation.

1. Originating in Italy, it exists as a doctrine in Switzer
land and Germany from 1525-1560. See F. TrechsePs Die
Protest. Antitrinitarier vor Faustus Socinus, 1844. The best
known names are Servetus, Lelio Sozini, and Ochino.

2. It exists as a church at Racow in Poland, where the
exiles found a refuge. Here Faustus Sozinus (15391603),
nephew of Lelio, and J. Crellius, are the best known names.
In 1609 Schmelz drew up the Socinian Formula, the Racovian
Catechism. It was also here that the collection of Socinian
writers, the Bibliotheca Fratrum Polonomm, 1626, was pub
lished. The history of the sect up to this point may be

f Cfr. Bp. Horsley s Letters against Priestley, Lett, xvi, p. 264.

LECT. I.] NOTE 6. 555

found in the Introduction to Rees s Translation of the Racovian
Catechism, 1818. Also see Hallam s History of IMerature,
i. 554. ii. 335 ; Mosheim s Church History, sixteenth century,
2. P.ii. ch. iv; Hase s Church History (Engl.Transl.), 371, 2.
The Socinians were driven out of Poland in 1658, by the in
fluence of the Jesuits; and, passing 1 into Holland, became
absorbed in the church of the Remonstrants or Arminians.

3. The next stage of Socinianism is, as a doctrine, in Eng
land in the seventeenth century. In 1611 two persons, Ham-
mont and Lewis, suffered martyrdom for it; and it spread
widely during the Long Parliament. See Dr. Owen s Vinci.
Evangel, pref.) The chief teacher was J. Biddle (16151662).
The interest of it arises from its supposed parallelism to the
Arminianism of Hales in the time of Charles I, and to the
latitudinarian party of Whichcote and More in that of
Charles II. But the parallel is not quite correct. The study
of Arminius s writings (see J. Nicholls s translation, 1825.)
shows that he was not a Pelagians, if even his successors
were. But even Episcopius and Limborch hardly reached
this point. Hales resembled Episcopius. Nor is the parallel
much nearer with " the latitude men " for Socinianism lacked
their Platonizing tendency. The Arian tendency, which com
menced at the end of the century, both in the church, in such
writers as Whiston and Clarke, and among the presbyterians,
offers a nearer parallel, in being, like Socinianism, Unitarian in
tendency. On this period see Hagenbach s DogmengescJi. (Notes
to 234.)

4. Its next form, was as a set of congregations in England
in the eighteenth century, chiefly arising out of the presby
terians ; marked by great names, such as Lardner, Lowman,
Priestley h . Shortly before the close of the century it was
introduced into America.

The nearest English parallel to the teaching of Arminius personally (as
distinct from that of his successors), on the quinquarticular controversy, is the
doctrine of John Wesley. The nearest parallel to the general views of Episco
pius and Limborch was Hey of Cambridge at the close of the last century.

h A sketch of Priestley is given in Mr. Martineau s Miscellanies.

556 NOTE 7. [LECT. I.

5. Its last form is a modification of the old Socinian view,
formed under the pressure of evangelical religion on the one
side and rationalist criticism on the other. The accomplished
writers, Channing in America and Mr. J. Martineau in Eng
land, are the best types of this form. Priestley, Channing,
and Martineau, are the examples of the successive phases of
modern Unitarianism : Priestley, of the old Socinianism build
ing itself upon a sensational philosophy; Channing, of the
attempt to gain a larger development of the spiritual element ;
Martineau, of the elevation of view induced by the philosophy
of Cousin, and the introduction of the idea of historical pro
gress in religious ideas. In reference to this part of the
history see E. Kenan s Essay on Channing, Etudes de I Hist.
Relig. p. 357 ; E. Ellis s Half Century of Unitarian Controversy
(in America), 1858 ; J. J. Taylor s Retrospect of Religious Life
in England j 1 845 ; Dr. Beard s Unitarianism in its Actual State ;
and other references given in the notes to H. B. Smith s
translation of Hagenbach s Dogmengesch. New York, 1862.
ii. p. 441.

In addition to the above references, materials for the history
will be found in Sandius, Biolioth. Antitrin. 1684; Bock s
Hist. Antitrin. 1774; Otto Foch s Der Socinianismus, &c.
1 847 ; and an article in the North British Review, No. 60, for
May 1859. The history of the controversial literature on
the subject is given in Pfaff s Introd. in Hist. Theol. Lit.
vol. ii. p. 320 seq. ; and more fully in Walch s Biblioth. Theol.
Select, vol. i. p. 902 seq. For a digest of the arguments used
in the controversy, see Hoornbeek s Summa Controv. 1653,
p. 440 ; J. Fabricius, Consid. Var. Controv. pp. 99208 ; and
Stapfer s Inst. Theol. Polem. vol. iii. c. 12.

Note 7. p. 33.

CLASSIFICATION OF METAPHYSICAL INQUIRIES.

The following scheme will perhaps facilitate the reading of
the text :

LECT. I.]

NOTE 7.

557

3* l

S-CTQ.

S^ g

CD i*

558 NOTE 7. [LECT. I.

The writer is perfectly aware of the many objections which
may be directed against particular parts of this scheme. It is
merely introduced here that the reader may be put in posses
sion of his meaning. The following notes may further con
tribute to the same end.

(a) This first subdivision of Metaphysics into Psychology

and Ontology is very neatly stated by Professor
Mansel (art. Metaphysics in Encycl. Britann. 8th ed.
p. 555, and p. 23 in the reprint of the article, 1860) ;
Cfr. also Archer Butler s Lect. on Phil. vol. i. lect.
i-iii.

(b) It must be understood, that when we pass here from a

division of the inquiries concerning the mind to a
supposed division of the mind itself, we imply only
a division of states of consciousness or mental
functions, not an absolute and real division of the
mind itself. Distinctness of structure is only the
inference ; distinctness of function is a fact, given in
the act of consciousness.

emotions will be disputed by many. It is main
tained by Maine de Biran, and the Eclectic school of
France. Mr. Mill, Logic, vol. ii. b. vi. ch. ii, implies
the contrary, and regards Will to be a particular
state of feeling.

(d) The difference of the presentative from the repre

sentative conciousness is now generally understood,
since the arguments of Sir W. Hamilton have been
commonly known. See his edition of Reid, note B.
p. 804; Discussions, Ess. ii. and Lect. on Metaphysics;
ManseFs work above cited, p. 560, 584; MorelFs
Phil. o/Relig. ch. ii.

(e) The separation of Intuition from Perception is a point

much disputed. It is maintained by Schelling and
by Cousin, and made familiar by Coleridge, Aids to
Reflection, i. p. 168 seq. See also Morell s Philos. of

LECT. I.] NOTE 8. 559

Relig. ch. ii; Hist, of Phil. ii. p. 487 seq. Among
English psychologists however, intuition is identified
with perception ; or if slightly distinguished, as by
Mr. Mansel, it is made synonymous with every
" presentative" act of consciousness, and thus in
cludes the consciousness of our own minds, as well
as the sensational consciousness usually denoted by
the word " perception." With reference to the view
intended on this subject in these lectures, see a note
on p. 39.

(/) With reference to these schools, see MorelFs Hist, of
Philosophy (vol. i. Introduction) ; and Cousin s Cours
de la Philosophic du i8 me Siecle.

(g) This subdivision of the subject matter of Ontology
is well stated by Mansel in the Encyc. Britann.
above cited, 603, 613 seq. This work of Mr. Mansel
is on the whole the clearest exposition of Psychology,
studied from the side of consciousness, which has
appeared. Mr. Morell s recent work on Psychology
presents a view different from his former ones, and
unites the physiological treatment of the inquiry;
being borrowed partly from the recent speculations
which the teaching of Herbert has induced in Ger
many. See Note 41.

Note 8. p. 39.

QUOTATION FROM GUIZOT ON PRAYER.

The following eloquent remarks seem worth quoting, as illus
trative of the instinct in the soul of man to perform the act
of prayer ; the natural outgoing of the human soul after the
infinite Being. They are taken from Guizot, L Eglise et la
Societe Chretienne, 1861.

" Seul entre tous les etres ici-bas Fhomme prie. Parmi ses
instincts moraux, il n y en a point de plus nature!, de plus
universel, de plus invincible que la priere. I/enfant s y porte

500 NOTE 9. [LECT. I

avec une docilite empressee. Le vieillard s y replie comme
dans un refuge centre la decadence et Fisolement. La priere
monte d elle-meme sur les jeunes levres qui balbutient a peine
le nom de Dieu et sur les levres mourantes qui n ont plus la
force de le prononcer. Chez tons les peuples, celebres ou
obscurs, civilises ou barbares, on rencontre a chaque pas des
actes et des formules d invocation. Partout ou vivent des
hommes, dans certaines circonstances, a certaines heures, sous
Fempire de certaines impressions de Fame, les yeux s elevent,
les mains se joignent, les genoux flechissent, pour implorer
ou pour rendre graces, pour adorer ou pour apaiser. Avec
transport ou avec tremblement, publiquement ou dans le
secret de son cceur, c est a la priere que Fhomme s adresse, en
dernier recours, pour combler les vides de son ame ou porter
les fardeaux de sa destinee ; c est dans la priere qu il cherche,
quand tout lui manque, de Fappui pour sa faiblesse, de la
consolation dans ses douleurs, de Fesperance pour sa vertu."
(p. 22.)

" II y a/ dans Facte naturel et universel de la priere, une
foi naturelle et universelle dans cette action permanente, et
toujours libre, de Dieu sur Fhomme et sur sa destinee." (p. 24.)

" Les voies de Dieu ne sont pas nos voies : nous y
marchons sans les connaitre; croire sans voir et prier sans
prevoir, c est la condition que Dieu a faite a Fhomme en ce
monde, pour tout ce qui en depasse les limites." (p. 25.)

Note 9. p. 44.

ON THE MODERN VIEW OF THE HISTORICAL METHOD IN
PHILOSOPHY.

It has been implied in the text, at this place, and also in
the preface, that the " historic method of study" is the great
feature of this century. The term is ambiguous. The mean
ing of it however is, that each problem ought to be approached
from the historic side. Whether the problem be a fact of
society, or of thought, or of morals, in each case the questions

LECT. LJ NOTE 9. 561

are asked What are its antecedents ? how did it happen ?
How came it that men accepted it ? This is a method exactly
the reverse of that which was common in the last century.
The question then was, Is a thing true ? The question now
is a preliminary one, How came it that it was thought to be
true ? It is probable that in many minds there is a slight
tendency to pantheism in this method of study. The universe
is looked at as ever in course of development ; evil as " good
in the making " no fact as wholly bad; no thought as wholly
false. But, without involving such a tendency, whatever is
true in the method may be appropriated. It starts only with
the assumption that the human race is in a state of move
ment; and that Providence has lessons to teach us if we
watch this movement. It is the method of learning by ex
perience of the past, a lesson for conduct in the future.

The method thus explained, however, is used for two differ
ent purposes. Either it is intended to be the preliminary
process preparatory to discovery, or it is designed to take the
place of discovery. In the former case, we ask why men have
thought a thing true, for the purpose of afterwards discover
ing, by the use of other methods, what is true ; in the latter
we rest content with the historical investigation, and con
sider the attempt to discover absolute truth to be impossible ;
and regard the problem of philosophy to be, to gather up the
elements of truth in the past. In the former case truth is
absolute, though particular ages may have blindly groped
after it ; in the latter it is relative. In the former, the history
of philosophy is the preliminary to philosophy ; in the latter
it is philosophy. In the former, philosophy is a science ; in
the latter it is a form of criticism. The former view is held
by the school of Schelling and Cousin ; the latter is an off
shoot of that of Hegel. The former marked French literature
until recent years ; the latter is expressed in it at the present
time ; and is stated by no one so clearly as by Renan and
Scherer. Most English writers will justly prefer the former
view; but the explanation of the latter, given in the two
passages which follow, is expressed with such clearness, and

o o

562 NOTE 9. [LECT. I.

will be of so much use in explaining subsequent allusions in
these lectures (especially Lect. VII. and VIII.), that it is
desirable to print it here.

" Le trait caracteristique du I9 e siecle est d avoir sub-
stitue la methode historique a la methode dogmatique, dans
toutes les etudes relatives a Fesprit humain. La critique
litteraire n est plus que Fexpose des formes diverses de la
beaute, c est a dire des manieres dont les differentes families
et les differentes ages de Fhumanite ont resolu le probleme
esthetique. La philosophic n est que le tableau des solutions
proposees pour resoudre le probleme philosophique. La the-
ologie ne doit plus etre que Fhistoire des efforts spontanes
tentes pour resoudre le probleme divin. L histoire, en effet,
est la forme necessaire de la science de tout ce qui est soumis
aux lois de la vie changeante et successive. La science des
langues, c est Fhistoire des langues ; la science des litteratures
et des philosophies, c est Fhistoire des litteratures et des
philosophies; la science de Fesprit humain c est, de meme,
Fhistoire de Tesprit humain, et non pas seulement ^analyse
des rouages de Fame individuelle. La psychologic n^envisage
que Tindividu, et elle ^envisage d^une maniere abstraite, ab-
solue, comme un sujet permanent et toujours identique a lui-
memej aux yeux de la critique la conscience se fait dans
Fhumanite comme Findividu ; elle a son histoire. Le grand
progres de la critique a ete de substituer la categoric du
devenir a la categoric de Vetre, la conception du relatif a la
conception de Fabsolu, le mouvement a Fimmobilite. Autre-
fois, tout etait considere comme etant; on parlait de philo
sophic, de droit, de politique, d art, de poesie, d^une maniere
absolue ; maintenant tout est considere comme en voie de se
faire. ~ * * * A ce point de vue de la science critique,
ce qu on recherche dans Fhistoire de la philosophic, c est
beaucoup moins de la philosophic proprement dite que de
Fhistoire." (E. Renan, Pref. to Averroes, p. vi.)

Tout n est que relatif, disions-nous tout a Fheure ; il faut
aj outer maintenant: tout n est que relation. Verite impor
tune pour Fhomme qui, dans le fatal courant ou il est plonge,

LECT. I.] NOTE 9. 563

voudrait trouver un point fixe s arreter un instant, se faire
illusion sur la vanite des choses ! Verite feconde pour la
science, qui lui doit une intelligence nouvelle de la realite,
une intuition infiniment plus penetrante du jeu des forces
qui composent le monde. C^est ce principe qui a fait de
Tliistoire une science et de toutes les sciences une histoire.
C est en vertu de ce principe qu il n y a plus de philosophic
mais des philosophies qui se succedent, qui se complement en
se succedant, et dont chacune represente avec un element du
vrai, une phase du developpement de la pense e universelle.
Ainsi la science s organise elle-meme et porte en soi sa
critique. La classification rationnelle des systemes est leur
succession, et le seul jugement equitable et utile qu on puisse
passer sur eux est celui quails passent sur eux-memes en se
transformant. Le vrai n est plus vrai en soi. Ce n est plus
une quantite fixe qu il s^agit de degager, un objet rond ou
carre qu^on puisse tenir dans la main. Le vrai, le beau, le
juste meme se font perpetuellement ; ils sont a jamais en
train de se constituer, parce quails ne sont autre chose que
Fesprit humain, qui, en se deployant, se retrouve et se re-
connait/ E. Scherer, (article on Hegel in Eev^le des Deux
j Feb. 15, 1861.)

002

LECTURE II.

Note 10. p. 63.

NEO-PLATONISM.

ON the nature and history of Neo-Platonism, see Hitter s
History of Philosophy, E. T. vol. iv. b. xiii ; Creuzer s Prole
gomena to Plotinus ; Tennemann s Manual of Philosophy , 200-
322 ; Hase s Church History, 50, with the references which
the two latter supply ; Jules Simon s and Vacherot s works on
the Ecole d Alexandria ; B. Constant s Du Polytheisme, b. xv.
Among 1 English works,, see Archer Butler s Lectures on Phi
losophy } vol. ii. 348 seq. ; Lewes History of Philosophy ;
Maurice s History of Philosophy (part ii.) ; Donaldson s
History of Greek Liter ature } ch. 53 and 57 ; and an essay in
B. A. Vaughan s Essays and Remains , 1858.

The mystic and oriental tendency which Neo-Platonism
embodied is seen as early as Philo in the middle of the first
century; but it was Ammonius Saccus (A. D. 163-243) who
developed the new system about A. D. 200. The chief
teachers of it were Plotinus (born 203), who introduced it at
Rome; Porphyry (233-305), who however manifested more
of the mystic Pythagorean spirit and less of the dialectical
Platonic; lamblichus, a generation later, who also inclined
to theurgy; and in the fifth century Hypatia, killed 415;
and Proclus (412-485), who taught at Athens. A growth of
thought is perceptible in the successive members of the school.
The sketches of several of the above-named writers in Smith s
Biographical Dictionary are full of information, and furnished
with useful references.

LECT. II.] NOTES 11, 12. 565

Note 11. p. 66.

THE PSEUDO-CLEMENTINE LITERATURE.

The Pseudo-Clementine literature consists of Homilies and
Recognitions ; the latter being in a Latin translation by
Kufinus. It is published in Cotelerius s Sancti Patres, 1698,
vol. i.

A noble Roman, harassed by his doubts and eager for truth,
travels to the east, and there learns Christian truth, which
makes him happy. It is the former part of the narrative,
viz. the doubts of Clemens before becoming a Christian, which
is alluded to in the text, and is adduced by Neander, Kirchen-
geschichte, i. pp. 54-56, as an instance of the preparation for
the reception of Christianity made by a sense of want in many
hearts. But it is the latter part which is valuable in a literary
point of view, on account of the light which the exposition of
Christian doctrine contained in it throws upon the Judaizing
Gnostics, being an attempt to reconcile Ebionitism with the
teaching of St. Paul. Its interest in this point of view has
caused it to be made the subject of several monographs by
German theologians. A list of them, with an account of the
phases of doctrine described, is given in Kurtz s Church
History, E. T. 48, and in Hase s Church History, 35, 75,
and 80. One of the most important of them is Schliemann s
Die Clementinen, 1844.

Note 12. p. 67.

THE ABSENCE OF REFERENCES TO CHRISTIANITY IN HEATHEN
WRITERS OF THE SECOND CENTURY.

Tzchirner has investigated this subject in an interesting
dissertation, Graci et Romani Scriptores cur rerun Christian-
arum raro meminerint ; Opusc. Acad. p. 283. Lips. 1829, (trans
lated in the -Journal of Sacred Literature, Jan. 1853 ;) and has

566 NOTE 12. [LECT II.

discussed the passages where mention is made of Christianity.
The following is the substance of his inquiries.

Though the notices concerning Christianity in heathen
writers are scanty, the silence of Eusebius gives good ground
for inferring, that not many further notices existed concerning
it in the works which are lost, than have been preserved to us.
Perhaps a few passages may have been erased in which Christ
ianity was blasphemed, even in that which is preserved.

The silence concerning Christianity during the first century
is not surprising ; because the Christians, if known at all,
would be regarded as a Jewish sect, as in Acts xviii. 15; xxiii.
29 ; xxv. 19. In the third century they are both noticed and
attacked. The inquiry therefore with regard to the silence about
them, refers only to the period from about A.D. 80-180.

During this period, among the Greek writers who omit all
mention of Christianity, are Dio Chrysostom; Plutarch (for the
passage, Qutest. iv. 4. 3, about happiness consisting in hope,
probably does not refer to them) ; CEnomaus, who wrote ex
pressly to ridicule religion ; Maximus Tyrius ; and Pausanias :
and among Latin ones, Juvenal, who several times mentions
the Jews, but only indirectly refers to the Christians (Sat. i.
185-7), Aulus Gellius, and Apuleius; (for the opinion of
Warburton, Div. Leg. b. ii.