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 ETERNAL LIFE
 
 PRINTED BY 
 MORRISON AND G1BB LIMITED, 
 
 FOR 
 
 T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH. 
 
 LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITEDv 
 NEW YORK : CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS.
 
 ETERNAL LIFE 
 
 A STUDY OF 
 ITS IMPLICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS 
 
 BY 
 
 BARON FRIEDRICH VON HUGEL 
 
 MEMBER OF THE CAMBRIDGE PHILOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
 
 AUTHOR OF "THE MYSTICAL ELEMENT OF RELIGION, AS STUDIED 
 
 IN SAINT CATHERINE OF GENOA AND HER FRIENDS" 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 (REVISED) 
 
 ( V 
 
 ■ 
 
 ... J 
 
 I 
 
 Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street 
 
 i9 J 3 
 
 100845
 
 I was as a beast before Thee. 
 Nevertheless I am continually with Thee : 
 Thou holdest me fast by my right hand. 
 Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? 
 And beside Thee I desire naught upon earth. 
 Though my flesh and my heart fail : 
 Thou, God, abidest my rock and my portion for ever. 
 
 PS. Ixxiii. 22, 23, 25, 26. 
 
 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He 
 loved us. We love, because He first loved us. 
 
 1 John iv. 10, 19. 
 
 Thou hast created us unto Thyself, O Lord ; and 
 our heart finds no rest until it rests in Thee. 
 
 St. Augustine, Confessions, 1. i. 1. 
 
 1 .
 
 PREFACE 
 
 N 
 
 
 
 ro 
 
 The history of the following book is indeed 
 
 *j simple yet somewhat unusual. The Rev. Dr. 
 James Hastings invited me to contribute to his 
 
 ^ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics ; and his 
 instructions concerning " Eternal Life," the first of 
 the articles thus undertaken by me, were to make 
 
 ") the paper as long as the subject-matter might 
 seem to deserve or require. He was, in this, 
 doubtless thinking primarily of his Encyclopaedia 
 as a whole ; whereas I myself became so engrossed 
 in my subject that I allowed my composition to 
 
 ^ grow as long as its great subject-matter pressed 
 it to become. The result, anyhow, was that the 
 article, when sent in, was found to be far too long 
 for the scope of the Encyclopaedia ; and Dr. 
 Hastings kindly arranged with Messrs. T. & T. 
 Clark, the publishers of the Encyclopaedia, to 
 issue my article as a separate book — the present 
 volume. Both Dr. Hastings and Messrs. Clark 
 have been very patient and truly generous in
 
 vi Preface 
 
 their dealings with me throughout these agree- 
 ments ; and I now beg to thank them cordially. 
 
 This little private history is recounted here in 
 order to explain how any writer possessed of 
 even average modesty could venture on so be- 
 wilderingly vast a subject. I sincerely doubt 
 whether I would ever have dared directly to 
 undertake a volume upon this subject-matter. 
 Yet this task, thus originally undertaken as but 
 one of several articles, did not, somehow, appear 
 preposterously ambitious ; the work, once it was 
 started, seemed to grow under my hands; and 
 nothing as yet attempted by me has flowed so 
 readily from my pen. The subject had doubt- 
 less been occupying my mind and life for many 
 a year; and thus there is some reason to hope 
 that these pages may, in their turn, live for a 
 while and that they may, here and there, help 
 some religious students and strugglers. 
 
 This is presumably the right place for saying a 
 few words about certain peculiarities of the book, 
 in the order of their appearance within its pages. 
 
 The Method is very deliberately an analysis 
 of more or less advanced states of soul — of con- 
 siderable spiritual experience and of considerable 
 articulation of such experience ; it is not a history
 
 Preface vii 
 
 claiming to begin with the beginnings, or at 
 least with the really early experiences and utter- 
 ances of mankind. Much is now made of the 
 savage, the supposedly brute-like beginnings of 
 man ; and a purely historical, an entirely genetic 
 method and account is now often demanded. 
 Yet, as a matter of simple fact, we really know 
 man only as man ; and the interior significance 
 of his earlier and earliest acts and utterances 
 we understand, where we understand them at 
 all, only from analyses of his more advanced 
 and more articulate condition. I am, of course, 
 fully aware that Buddhism and the Dionysiac 
 Cult appeared late in the history of man. Yet 
 at this, comparatively late, stage we are offered 
 an amount of experience, and of articulation of 
 this experience, sufficient, when explained in 
 the light of still later experiences and articula- 
 tions, for us to arrive at some sober, reasonably 
 certain conclusions ; whereas much further back 
 we do not get such volume and such clearness 
 of material. 
 
 I have striven hard throughout the book 
 never to lose sight of the very important element 
 of truth embodied, even, I think, exaggerated, 
 in the attempts at a "purely genetic method," 
 and in such Naturalism in Anthropology. Hence 
 I have endeavoured to remain continuously
 
 viii Preface 
 
 alive to the profound need and continuous action 
 of the body, of the senses, of sensible objects 
 and of the physical environment, within and for 
 man's mental, spiritual, religious life. And I 
 have attempted, on reaching at last the very 
 late period at which this fundamental fact has 
 been systematically recognized even to excess, 
 sincerely to appraise the strength and the 
 weakness of this Method and Naturalism. 
 
 A strong insistence will be found throughout 
 these pages upon the Parozisia, the Proximate 
 Second Coming — upon the Eschatological Ele- 
 ment operative in the life and teaching of Our 
 Lord and in all genuine and fruitful Christianity. 
 The problem involved is so delicate and so far- 
 reaching that we cannot wonder if the great 
 majority of believers have, ever since the first 
 enthusiastic age, turned away from it with 
 instinctive fear or sickening dismay. Yet no 
 repudiation of historico-critical scholars, however 
 audacious or one-sided they may be in part 
 of their conclusions, will prevent the battle con- 
 cerning Christianity — the testing of its claim 
 abidingly to supply the full sanity and truth 
 of religion and of life — from turning, more and 
 more, in this and the next two or three genera- 
 tions, around the precise significance, place,
 
 Preface ix 
 
 and range of this element in Christian teaching. 
 In any case, the writer could not, in a serious 
 study of Eternal Life, pass over this, the deepest 
 and most operative revelation concerning the 
 Temporal and the Eternal ever vouchsafed to man. 
 And here he would take his stand very deliberately 
 with those who indeed find a genuine and full 
 eschatolosfical element in Our Lord's life and 
 teaching, yet who discover it there as but one of 
 two movements or elements, — a gradual, prophetic, 
 immanental, predominantly ethical element ; and 
 this sudden, apocalyptic, transcendental, purely 
 religious element. Indeed, the interaction, the 
 tension, between these two elements or move- 
 ments, is ultimately found to be an essential con- 
 stituent, and part of the mainspring, of Christianity, 
 of religion, and (in some form) even of all the 
 deepest spiritual life. 
 
 It is, surely, very interesting to note how 
 that brilliant German-French teacher and writer, 
 Albert Schweitzer, who insists, more exclusively 
 again than Professor Loisy, upon one single 
 element, the Eschatological and Apocalyptic, in 
 Our Lord's life and teaching, has found even this 
 picture of Christ so deeply fascinating for his 
 own soul, that he has abandoned his high posts 
 and brilliant prospects in Europe, and has gone, 
 as a simple medical missionary — the Lutheran
 
 x Preface 
 
 Church authorities having refused him a clerical 
 ordination and appointment — to labour at win- 
 ning the heathen to this purely ascetical and trans- 
 cendental Messiah -Christ and Saviour. This 
 picture of Our Lord is deeply repulsive — I am 
 convinced, most rightly repulsive — to the large 
 majority of believers. And yet the Eschatological 
 element will have to be apprehended, accepted, 
 and practised with renewed vigour and a new range 
 — within a larger, more varied world than ever 
 before, as one out of two movements in the Life 
 of our life. And so practised, as an enriching 
 heroism and wise enthusiasm apprehensive of the 
 Eternal God, it will reawaken Christianity to its 
 fullest attractiveness and vigour. 
 
 I have had much trouble as to where to draw 
 the line between Modern Times and the Present 
 Day — as to how to group Kant and his deriva- 
 tives. I first attempted to take Kant, his four 
 great successors (Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel, 
 and Schopenhauer), and Ritschl, all together ; 
 as already conjointly forming part of our con- 
 temporary life. But this arrangement refused to 
 work well. So then I tried to treat Kant and 
 his four immediate successors as concluding the 
 Historical Retrospect, and to retain Ritschl alone 
 in the Contemporary Survey. I found, how-
 
 Preface xi 
 
 ever, that especially Schleiermacher and Schopen- 
 hauer, and indeed also Fichte and Hegel, are 
 more copiously and more directly operative 
 within our own lives than is Kant ; and, again, 
 that Ritschlianism, though it could never have 
 existed without Kant, is, nevertheless, largely 
 determined by a quite un-Kantian attitude 
 towards the Historic Christ and towards the 
 Christian Community. I continue to dislike the 
 break between Kant and those four great 
 followers of his, and, still more, the position, so 
 far away and so far down, of Ritschlianism. Yet 
 Kant, those four Kantians, and Ritschl appear 
 thus at last to occupy the places naturally 
 marked out for them by their origins and 
 affinities. Especially does Ritschlianism really 
 belong to the group of Institutional Religion, 
 in spite of its largely forced interpretation and 
 its grave impoverishing of the experience and 
 tradition furnished by these Institutions. 
 
 There is throughout the book a vigilant attention 
 to the nature, range, and implications of our know- 
 ledge — to Epistemology, especially to the ontologi- 
 cal character and witness of Religion — the central 
 position occupied, in the fullest experiences and 
 articulations of Religion, by the Reality, the 
 Difference, and yet the Likeness, of God. A
 
 xii Preface 
 
 critical Realism — a Realism not of Categories or 
 Ideas but of Organisms and Spirits, of the Spirit, 
 a purified but firm Anthropomorphism are here 
 maintained throughout as essential to the full 
 vigour and clear articulation of Religion. It is 
 plain that this difficult subject is indeed inexhaust- 
 ible, and that much discussion and discrimination 
 will be required in this matter from ourselves and 
 from our successors ; yet it is, surely, quite as 
 plain that Subjectivism has had its day for a 
 good long while to come. Certainly, nothing can 
 well be more arid, more drearily reiterative and 
 useless, in face of the entrancing richness and the 
 tragic reality of life, than is most of the still 
 copious literature, not seldom proceeding from 
 thinkers of distinction and technical competence, 
 which attempts to find or to make a world worthy 
 of man's deepest, ever costly and difficult, re- 
 quirements and ideals, within avowedly mere 
 projections of himself. We have thus everywhere 
 man's wants and man's illusions — illusions which, 
 at their best, are of a tribal or even racial range 
 and utility, but which, one and all, convey no trust- 
 worthy intimation of any trans-subjective, more 
 than merely human validity and reality whatsoever. 
 
 The chapter on our present-day Social 
 Problems does not, of course, aim at any
 
 Preface xiii 
 
 description or solution of these problems as such, 
 but only endeavours to elucidate the causes at 
 work here against or for the experience and 
 conception of Eternal Life. The largely still 
 obscure, but abiding and deep, instincts and 
 needs of a spiritual kind struggling for expres- 
 sion in the present acute social agitations and 
 troubles appear to fit in well with the Theory of 
 Knowledge articulated in this book, and especially 
 with the Two Movements found here to be 
 essential to all fully fruitful religion. And thus 
 these very agitations and troubles contribute 
 powerful, because quite spontaneous and un- 
 expected, additional reasons for holding those 
 analyses of philosophy and of religion to be sub- 
 stantially true and adequate to the central facts of 
 life. We have up to this point simply sought 
 and sincerely followed the lines of the fullest life 
 and of continual rebirth : and hence the joys as 
 well as the pangs of expansion can now be ours, 
 and not the sorry pleasures and dreary pains of 
 contraction or, at least, of rigidity in face of the 
 agitated present and the dim future apparently 
 confronting our race. And that joy, pang, and 
 expansion is, each and all, in the closest touch 
 with, and is occasioned and sustained by, the 
 experience of Eternal Life — the reality of the 
 Abiding God.
 
 xiv Preface 
 
 I much wished to avoid the acute problems 
 and conflicts of the present concerning Church 
 Authority, and thus to keep myself and my reader 
 in regions undisturbed by such immediate and 
 embittering controversies. But I soon discovered 
 that I could only escape the questions concerning 
 Religious Institutions on the hypothesis that 
 Eternal Life can be vividly experienced and clearly 
 conceived outside all such Institutions. Yet all 
 sane and full Epistemology, and all the more 
 complete, characteristic and fruitful religious ex- 
 periences and personalities imperatively demand, 
 in the writer's judgment, some genuine Institu- 
 tionalism. And the excesses and defects traceable 
 in Epistemology and in Religion compel us to 
 search out the precise place, function, need, 
 and checks of Institutionalism within the full 
 religious complex, and especially within the 
 experience of Eternal Life — as these have been, 
 and continue to be apprehended by earnest and 
 saintly souls. If man's spirit is awakened by 
 contact with the things of sense, and if his con- 
 sciousness of the Eternal and the Omnipresent is 
 aroused and (in the long run) sustained only by 
 the aid of Happenings in Time and in Space, then 
 the Historical, Institutional, Sacramental must be 
 allowed a necessary position and function in the 
 full religious life. No cutting of knots however
 
 Preface xv 
 
 difficult, no revolt against, no evasion of abuses 
 however irritating or benumbing, are adequate 
 solutions. Only the proper location, the heroic use, 
 the wise integration of the Institutional within the 
 full spiritual life are really sufficient. The writer is 
 no Quaker, but a convinced Roman Catholic ; and 
 hence, do what he will, he cannot avoid, he cannot 
 even minimize these for himself utterly intrinsic 
 questions. 
 
 The Bibliography has been kept very short and 
 sober — only such works have been mentioned here 
 as appeared to be of first-rate importance for the 
 elucidation of the subject, and amongst these, 
 generally only such as have been fully assimilated 
 by the writer's mind. The book makes no pre- 
 tension to exhaustiveness ; and bibliographies, in 
 proportion as they are at all complete, readily 
 distract both writer and reader from the experiences 
 and realities professedly in view. 
 
 I regret, however, not to have found room for 
 the following authors and writings so entirely 
 within my two conditions. 
 
 After Kierkegaard, it would have been well 
 briefly to have quoted and analysed the utterances 
 concerning Eternal Life to be found in Paul de 
 Lagardes Paper on the Relation of the German 
 State to Theology, Church, and Religion, first 
 published in 1873 aR d finally reprinted in his
 
 xvi Preface 
 
 "Deutsche Schriften," ed. 1886. Amidst much 
 that is prejudiced, wayward, even perverse, we 
 get here a poignant sense of the continuous real 
 presence of the Eternal, and of our persistent 
 need and search of the Eternal, within all religious 
 History and Succession — a sense all the more 
 striking since it proceeds from one engrossed 
 throughout a lifetime in the most minute textual 
 and linguistic studies. 
 
 There ought to have appeared, perhaps as 
 the conclusion to the remarks upon Naturalism 
 in Anthropology, a grateful acceptance of the 
 admirable pages of C. P. Tiele, in his " Elements 
 of the Science of Religion," 1897, v °l» "•» concern- 
 ing the Infinite present within man — pages which 
 sprang so fresh and deep and admirably adequate 
 from the pen of that great scholar and genuine 
 believer. 
 
 It would have been right, perhaps in connection 
 with Kant's Epistemology, to have made appreci- 
 ative mention of Oswald Kiilpes "Einleitung in die 
 Philosophic" For this little volume, first published 
 in 1895, an< 3 already at its fifth edition in 19 10, is 
 a cheering proof that a carefully self-consistent, 
 sober, and non-subjec'tivist theory of knowledge 
 can, in the Germany of our day, be furnished in 
 a short handbook, and that it can find there a 
 large world of appreciative readers.
 
 Preface xvii 
 
 And, finally, some careful attention ought pro- 
 bably to have been given, at the end of the 
 Feuerbach section, to Professor Paul Natorps 
 positions in his " Religion innerhalb der Grenzen 
 der Humanitat," 2nd ed. 1908. This exquisitely 
 written booklet is indeed but a variant (distin- 
 guished by greater sobriety, elasticity, and peda- 
 gogic, accommodating tact) of the Feuerbachian 
 Illusionism. Yet the attempt to "save" Religion 
 by the elimination of all Ontology, and by re- 
 ducing it to a purely human-social Moralism, is too 
 characteristic of the atmosphere of our times, and is 
 too subtly and completely destructive of religion, not 
 to deserve the most repeated study and refutation. 
 The Contents and Index, on the contrary, err, 
 if at all, on the side of over-copiousness ; yet such 
 a book as the present, if serviceable at all, seemed 
 to require ready aids to its study in almost any 
 reasonable direction and combination. 
 
 There now remain only two obligations, as 
 pressing as they are pleasant. 
 
 I have very gratefully to thank the friends who 
 have most kindly helped me to make this work 
 less unworthy of its great theme. 
 
 Mr. Edmund G. Gardner, Lecturer on Dante 
 
 at University College, London, aided me especially 
 b
 
 xviii Preface 
 
 in the sections on St. Thomas, Darwin, and Marx, 
 and in the chapter on Institutional Religion. I 
 remain indeed alone responsible for everything 
 printed here ; yet I am anxious to acknowledge 
 the support which I have derived from the careful 
 reading of this my fellow- Roman Catholic. 
 
 Mr. Clement C. J. Webb, Wilde Lecturer on 
 Natural and Comparative Religion in the Univer- 
 sity of Oxford, was of much service on points 
 connected with Plato and Aristotle, in regard to 
 the translations from Spinoza, and also as to 
 Kant and Schopenhauer, and concerning Epi- 
 genesis and Evolution. 
 
 And two other friends have most patiently and 
 skilfully criticized throughout the form and sequence 
 of the book ; and it is to their generous aid that 
 the reader largely owes such clearness and sim- 
 plicity as these pages may now show. 
 
 And I have once again, as in the case of my 
 Mystical Element, to submit these my conclu- 
 sions — conclusions which cannot fail to be at least 
 imperfect in many ways and degrees — to my 
 fellow-workers, and above all to the test and 
 judgment of my fellow-Christians and of the 
 
 Catholic Church. 
 
 FRIEDRICH VON HUGEL. 
 
 Kensington, 
 
 1st October 19 12,
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 INTRODUTION 
 
 A generous range and development necessary in any fruitful 
 study of Eternal Life ..... 
 
 Eternal Life, an experience and conception latent, and in 
 various degrees patent, throughout all specifically human 
 life ; but fully operative and vividly recognized in re- 
 ligion alone ...... 
 
 It involves, in proportion to such fulness and vividness, 
 Simultaneity, a complete Present and Presence 
 
 Indication of the three parts of this work — an Historical 
 Retrospect, a Contemporary Survey, and Prospects and 
 Conclusions ...... 
 
 PART I 
 
 HISTORICAL RETROSPECT 
 
 Rough division into evidences furnished by the Oriental 
 religions, properly so called, and those supplied by the 
 Grseco-Roman and the Jewish- Christian worlds and 
 their intermixtures, inclusive of Mediaeval and Modern 
 West European and North American civilization 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS 
 
 The writer without first-hand experience or knowledge here. 
 
 Range of his competence and contribution . .7,8 
 
 Four Oriental complexes of life and doctrine of special 
 
 interest for Eternal Life ..... 8 
 
 xix
 
 xx Contents 
 
 PAGE? 
 
 1. Buddhism. The Nirvana described and analyzed by 
 
 Lehmann and Oldenberg . . . . 8, 9 
 
 Belief in Nirvana and apprehension of life as sheer flux 
 strictly interconnected. Lesson of this interconnec- 
 tion, with respect to Eternal Life . . .10 
 
 2. Hindooism. Ramanuja largely escapes from Monism 
 
 into Theism and belief in Free-Will and Grace . 10-12 
 
 The apprehension and conception of Eternal Life 
 traceable here . . . . . .12 
 
 3. Zarathustra : the Gatha-hymns may well go back to 
 
 him. Their doctrine profoundly ethical and dualistic. 
 The Yasht-hymns teach an Eternal Light . . 12, 13 
 
 How far Eternal Life is apprehended here . . 13 
 
 4. The old Egyptian religion articulates or implies with 
 
 certainty little or nothing concerning Eternal Life. 
 Illustration : the God Ra and the souls identified with 
 him . . . . . . . 13, 14 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 ISRAELITISH RELIGION 
 
 First of seven chapters devoted to the Jewish-Christian, 
 Grasco-Roman, and Modern European revelations, con- 
 ceptions, civilizations . . . . .15 
 
 Range of Israelitish times ; considerably narrower range 
 
 of the Israelitish utterances concerning Eternal Life . 15, 16 
 
 1. Utterances of the Israelitish Jahvist writer, and the 
 
 history of Elijah's conflict with the Baal worship . 16, 17 
 The prophet Amos : Israel's special responsibilities 
 
 and moral dispositions, declared more central than all 
 
 ritual observance . . . . .17 
 
 Isaiah of Jerusalem : the vision of his vocation ; his 
 
 parable of God and His vineyard . . . 17, 18 
 
 The prophet Micah\ the ethical character of God . 18 
 
 2. Jeremiah: God the fountain of living waters . . 18 
 Deuteronomy : man is to love God with all he is and 
 
 has . . . . . . .18 
 
 3. Ezekiel : God as the good shepherd ; as re-animating 
 
 the dead ; as the boundless healing waters . . 19, 20 
 
 The Priestly Code, akin to Ezekiel's spirit . . 20 
 
 4. Lateness of Israel's awaking to conviction of soul's 
 
 full, indeed heightened, life after death. Reasons 
 and profound instructiveness of this fact . .21,22 
 
 The Greeks in full contrast with all this. Yet the 
 Greeks gradually contribute much towards articulation 
 and completion of the Jewish spiritual outlook . 22, 23
 
 Contents xxi 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 THE HELLENIC EXPERIENCES 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Their range in time ...... 23 
 
 1. The Orgiastic Cultus of Dionysus, as described by 
 
 Rohde : ecstatic states here awaken apprehension of 
 
 the Non-successive, the Eternal . . . 23-25 
 
 The soul here felt itself immortal, divine — the soul as 
 
 out of the body, in spite of the body . . .25, 26 
 
 Centre of the experience is here the apparent timeless- 
 
 ness, eternity of the trance state . . .27 
 
 2. The Orphics utilize and transform the Dionysiac cult ; 
 
 their doctrine of the Dionysian and the Titanic 
 elements in man . . . . . 27, 28 
 
 The soul's escape from the wheel of births, like yet 
 unlike here to Buddhism . . . . 28, 29 
 
 The soul here is to regain memory of her earthly life 
 in the Beyond — oblivion is here an evil . . 29, 30 
 
 Two currents of conception in the Orphic Tablets ; 
 traces in the mystical current of two characteristics of 
 ecstatic states . . . . . - 30, 31 
 
 3. Parmenides first precisely formulates the Totum Simul 
 
 of Eternity. The clearest of all purely abstract and 
 monistic, static, and determinist professions . . 31, 32 
 
 4. Plato attains the most vivid apprehension and formula- 
 
 tion of Eternity as distinct from Time . . .32 
 
 Three stages of his growth and corresponding three 
 groups of his writings. Only last two groups furnish 
 teachings concerning Eternal Life . . .32, 33 
 
 (1) Passages concerning Eternal Life in the Phadrus 
 
 and Republic ; in the Thecctetits ; in the Sophist ; 
 and in the Parmenides . . . • 33) 34 
 
 The passages concerning Purgation in this second 
 
 group ...... 35 
 
 (2) Passages in the third group — the Symposium and 
 
 the Timceus . . . . . . 35—37 
 
 Plato's two defects. The four great insights, com- 
 bined in Plato for the first and the last time 
 amongst Graco-Roman non-Christian souls : the 
 position of philosophy well within a large national 
 and individual life ; the need of purification and 
 the function of the Thumos ; the continuous search 
 for the organism in all reality ; and a deep sense 
 of an inexhaustible transcendent Beauty, Truth, 
 and Goodness, man's love of which constitutes all 
 his worth . . . . . • 37> 3^
 
 xxii Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Aristotle drops Plato's Purification and his Thirst after 
 the Transcendent. Yet conception of the Un- 
 moving Energy here a profound contribution to 
 expression of the experiences concerning Eternal Life 38 
 
 (1) The Pure Energeia of God, in the Ethics and the 
 
 Metaphysics. Dr. Schiller's analysis of the 
 doctrine .... . 38-40 
 
 (2) Nous and Energeia as operative in human life . 40, 41 
 Intolerably abstract features of this scheme. Yet 
 
 abiding greatness of intuition that succession not 
 an essential, but a defect, of life. The richness of 
 the life will, however, alone give full worth to the 
 simultaneity, as the simultaneity gives same to the 
 richness . . . . . . 41, 42 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JEWISH HELLENISTIC TIMES 
 
 Range of these times, and stages of interaction between the 
 
 Pagan and the Jewish currents . . . . 42, 43 
 
 1. Stoicism. Oriental, partly Semitic, origin of all its 
 
 earlier chiefs and the historical circumstances of its 
 beginnings largely explain its three peculiarities. 
 
 (1) Its Pantheistic-materialistic basis. The system has 
 
 no room for Eternal Life . . . 43-45 
 
 (2) Its Ethical Rigorism and abstractness of outlook . 45, 46 
 
 (3) Yet its deeply organic conception of human society 
 
 prepares and eventually aids articulation of 
 experiences concerning Eternal Life . . 47, 48 
 
 2. The Post-Exilic Biblical, Apocryphal, and Pseud- 
 
 epigraphic Jewish books, upon the whole less rich and 
 pregnant than the Israelitish writings . . .48 
 
 But there are here — 
 
 (1) A series of magnificent utterances in the Psalms, 
 
 most of which probably belong to this period ; . 48 
 
 (2) The first explicit mention of "Eternal" or "Ever- 
 
 lasting Life," with a clear enunciation of the 
 resurrection of some souls to it, and of some other 
 souls to "everlasting contempt," in the book of 
 Daniel ; and statements in Ecclesiasticus, the 
 Second Book of Maccabees, the Apocalypse of 
 Baruch and the Psalms of Solomon ; . . 49, 50 
 
 (3) Clear indications of the qualitative conception of 
 
 Eternal Life in the Wisdom of Solomon. Two 
 remarks concerning such qualitativeness . . 50
 
 Contents xxiii 
 
 The Alexandrian Jew Philo : his attempt to interpret 
 the Israelite and Jewish religion by means of Platonic, 
 Aristotelian, and Stoic categories . . 50, 51 
 
 (1) God, as Pure Action and as Eternal— outside of 
 
 Time . . • • • • 5 1 
 
 (2) God's relation to Life conceived in two-fold manner. 
 
 God possesses fullest Life; hence He can and 
 does communicate it in a lesser degree and kind . 52, 53 
 Or God is above, more than Life ; He is He Who is 53 
 Yet the devoted Jew Philo often pictures God as 
 self-communicative, and man as insufficient to 
 himself . . • • • • 53. 54 
 
 (3) The Stoic Apathy far too influential here. Yet, on 
 
 this point also, the spontaneity and richness of 
 
 the Jewish religion predominates . . -54 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Primitive Christian utterances form three groups, as 
 proceeding from Jesus Himself, or from St. Paul, or from 
 the Johannine writer . . . . -55 
 
 I. The actual utterances of Our Lord— the three con- 
 ditions of their right apprehension ; their abiding 
 power ...... 
 
 (1) The Kingdom of God in the foreground here, and 
 
 nowhere clearly pictured as a pure simultaneity . 56 
 The Kingdom is future, imminent, sudden, a pure 
 
 gift of God (and apparently successive) . . 56, 57 
 
 Relation of " Life " and of " Life Everlasting " to the 
 
 Kingdom . . . . . • 57> 5^ 
 
 Certainty of presence and operativeness of the four- 
 fold conviction concerning the Kingdom within 
 Our Lord's life and teaching. Difficulty, since 
 early times, especially concerning the imminence. 
 Yet this teaching of Our Lord, if taken generally, 
 and as one of two essential movements, found to 
 convey the deepest religious experience and truth 58, 59 
 
 (2) This purely religious, intensely transcendental out- 
 
 look certainly prevalent in Our Lord's teaching 
 from Peter's confession at Caesarea Philippi 
 onwards. But another, relatively immanental, 
 predominantly ethical outlook on to present, slow, 
 humanly operative realities, also to be admitted, 
 especially in earlier period of Jesus's life . . 59, 60 
 
 55, 56
 
 xxiv Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 This results from His attitude concerning the 
 exorcisms ...... 60 
 
 from His plant-parables . . 60, 61 
 
 from His references to His personal 
 
 presence . . . . 61, 62 
 
 (3) Our Lord conceives the Kingdom everywhere as a 
 
 social organism : four sets of indications . . 62, 63 
 
 (4) And the Future Life also to be rich, indeed complete, 
 
 as to each soul's powers, and social as to each 
 soul's occupation with other souls amidst the 
 same soul's vision and adoration of God . . 63, 64 
 
 (5) Yet God here, everywhere, beginning, centre, 
 
 medium, and end of the entire final life. The 
 soul's self-donation to Him, effected in utter 
 dependence upon His aid, yet with fullest actua- 
 tion of its noblest feelings, motives, passions, 
 supremely exemplified by Our Lord's own life . 64, 65 
 The negative movement thus planted right within 
 even the purest attachments to the best of things; 
 with the whole impelled by, and culminating in, 
 apprehension and lovingly awed acceptance of 
 the deepest Reality, a holy Love and all-wise 
 
 Will 65, 66 
 
 . St. PauPs teachings, though affected only by a part of 
 Our Lord's life and revelation, generally more 
 complex or systematic than Jesus's sayings. Yet 
 enthusiastic absorption in most fundamental dis- 
 positions and aims of the historic Jesus, and in 
 development of Christian organism gives to St. Paul's 
 speculation a deep experimental content . . 66, 67 
 
 Dominating double fact of St. Paul's life — his conversion 
 to a present Christ, yet without having known the 
 earthly Jesus. He turns away from the past, earthly, 
 Jewish Messiah to the present, eternal Christ, the 
 universal Saviour ; his dominant category becomes, 
 not Kingdom of God, nor Eternal Life, but Pneuma, 
 the Spirit . . . . . .67 
 
 (1) St. Paul's fully developed anthropological scheme : 
 
 Psyche and Flesh ; and Pneuma and Body : their 
 connotations ..... 67-69 
 
 (2) A certain de-personalization observable in the 
 
 Pauline Christ-image. Christ-Spirit taken as 
 though an element . . . . .69 
 
 (3) The presence of this, intrinsically eternal, Spirit 
 
 within us here and now, our surety of immortality 
 and resurrection. The Kingdom of God thus, 
 here also, partly a present possession . . 70 
 
 (4) This Christ-Spirit effects and maintains the 
 
 universal human brotherhood : its articulation in
 
 Contents xxV 
 
 PAGES 
 
 the Christian Church. The Stoic World-City here 
 far exceeded in tenderness, vitality, spirituality . 71, 72 
 (5) And Stoicism again overcome by an amazing range 
 of experience, and by sense of prevenience and 
 omnipresent holiness and love of God . . 72 
 
 . The Johannine Writings — Pauline in their central 
 Christian convictions, Philonian in their general con- 
 ception of God and of His worship, and in their free 
 allegorical treatment of O.T. . . . -73 
 
 Utilization of the Logos conception ; the earthly life of 
 Jesus here set in a frame of Eternity . . .73, 74 
 
 (1) All true existence comes from above, as already in 
 
 St. Paul ; but heightened stress laid here upon 
 "knowing" and "truth" . . . .74,75 
 
 (2) Eternal Life here the culminating conviction. Its 
 
 meaning, compared with the Synoptic and 
 Pauline sayings ..... 75-77 
 Eternal Life, an already present possession . . yy, 78 
 
 (3) The interpenetration of spirits ; the abiding of the 
 
 Father in the Son, and of the Son in the Father ; 
 and the prevenience of God in His relations with 
 man . . _ . . . . . 78, 79 
 
 (4) Range and variety of perfect life here much re- 
 
 stricted, as compared with life actually lived and 
 proposed by Jesus Himself. Yet here every- 
 where a keen sense of the two great concrete 
 Realities — God fully extant and operative inde- 
 pendently of our apprehension and action ; and 
 Jesus, who actually lived in the flesh here below, 
 the lowly servant of human souls . . .79, 80 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHRISTIAN HELLENISTIC TIMES 
 
 Their range and three representatives . . .81 
 
 1. Plotinus : Instructiveness of conflict throughout his 
 writings between profound religious experiences and 
 intensely abstract philosophy . . . . 81, 82 
 
 (1) Thus God, utterly transcendent ; nevertheless the 
 
 soul consists and breathes in Him, and strives 
 after contact with Him. But nowhere here does 
 the One strive after us . . . 82-84 
 
 (2) Plotinus drives home the trend of Greek philosophy, 
 
 increasingly abstractive from Plato onwards, con- 
 cerning God, man, the extant world, and relations 
 between God and man — all in contradiction to
 
 xxvi Contents 
 
 PACES 
 
 his, Plotinus's, own deep experiences and 
 intuitions ...... 85 
 
 (3) What to retain from Plotinus's teaching : spaceless, 
 timeless nature of God ; His distinct reality and 
 otherness, and yet immense nearness to, and 
 contact with, human soul ; and priority and 
 excess of all reality over all theory concerning it . 86, 87 
 2 St. Augustine — the historical circumstances of his life . 87 
 
 (1) He takes over and deepens Plotinus's apprehensions 
 concerning non-spatial and non-temporal nature, 
 the Eternity, of God . . . . 87-89 
 
 (2) Experience of Eternity achieved by St. Augustine 
 in time . . . . . . 89, 90 
 
 (3) Sense of Eternity, of Beatitude, proceeds from 
 
 immediate presence of God within our lives . 90, 91 
 
 Insistence upon God's prevenience . . .91, 92 
 
 (4) Keen apprehension of Historical Element of religion 
 
 — the self-humiliation of the Eternal in Time and 
 Space . . . . . . 92, 93 
 
 (5) Emphasis upon need of Social Organism — the 
 
 Church. The Two Cities : certain excesses here ; 
 
 yet the fierceness intermingled with the very 
 
 spirit of Jesus Christ . . . . 93, 94 
 
 Here again our Lord's own statements alone quite 
 
 full and balanced ..... 94 
 3. Pseudo-Dionysius, the last great expression of thirst 
 after Eternal Life of ancient European and Near 
 Eastern world. His profound, abiding influence. 
 His country, position, date, character. He takes 
 over Proclus on the largest scale. 
 
 (1) Proclus, the great Neo-Platonist scholastic, a 
 
 hierophant. The circular process of Plotinus 
 here everywhere articulated in triadic develop- 
 ment. Beings perfect in proportion to poverty of 
 their attributes. Especially the One is even above 
 Being. But the intermediaries between the One 
 and man's even highest constituents more 
 numerous than in Plotinus . . . . 95, 96 
 
 But Proclus, as against Plotinus, sometimes censures 
 those who hold that the soul can become the very 
 One ....... 96 
 
 (2) Pseudo-Dionysius assimilates practically all the 
 
 chief doctrines, terms, similes of Proclus ; and 
 forms a compound of Christian priestly and 
 sacramental organization and of Proclian ultra- 
 transcendence and abstractiveness. Yet tender 
 truth of Plotinus's experiences and supreme 
 reality of Jesus's life and teaching vivify much of 
 this strange amalgam .... 97-99
 
 Contents xxvii 
 
 (3) And in about one-fourth of his text Dionysius adopts 
 
 Aristotle's general identification between relative 
 elevation in scale of reality and relative rich- 
 ness of attributes ; and applies this principle, in 
 full contradiction to Neo-Platonism, to God 
 Himself ...... 99 
 
 (4) But Dionysius, following here many Greek Fathers, 
 
 speaks with almost as little reserve as Plotinus of 
 
 the " Deification " of the perfect soul . . 100 
 
 (5) Absence of historic sense, and purely negative 
 
 character attributed to Evil, here grave defects ; 
 but these partly balanced by Platonist and 
 Christian insistence upon the need of purification 
 by the soul that would experience Eternal Life . 100 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MIDDLE AGES 
 
 Two teachers selected here ..... 100 
 1. St. Thomas Aqui?ias : His antecedents, times, character, 
 life-work, and fortunes. His strength and limita- 
 tions ...... 101, 102 
 
 (1) Aquinas compared with Augustine, as to temper, 
 
 sources, and authorities of his religion . 102,103 
 
 (2) His usual, and his exceptional but deeper, teaching 
 
 concerning man's knowledge of God . 103, 104 
 
 (3) Aquinas follows Boethius on Eternity. His position 
 
 concerning Aevum, as between Time and Eternity, 
 
 a groping after Duree . . . 104-106 
 
 (4) His two currents of teaching concerning the perfect 
 
 life: 
 
 (a) The solus cum Solo, abstractive, more intel- 
 
 lectualist, Aristotelian and Neo-Platonist 
 current . . . . 107, 108 
 
 (b) The social, concrete current, which finds 
 
 perfection in creative power and love, and 
 
 is deeply Christian . . 108, 109 
 
 (5) Within latter current, a deep sense of right and 
 
 dignity of true individuality . . . 109 
 
 \/ (6) Evil mostly held to be negative, in wake of 
 Dionysius ; the estimate of human nature, milder 
 than in Augustine, yet still rather Pauline than 
 Synoptic ..... 109, no 
 
 2 Joannes Eckhart : His antecedents and character . no 
 Vivid apprehension of one, and predominant blindness 
 to other, of two movements of religious life. The
 
 xxviii Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Monistic instinct has here largely the last word, and 
 hence acts destructively . . . no, in 
 
 (i) His fundamental position : absolute identity of God 
 
 and Being . . . . .in 
 
 (2) His anthropology : the soul's highest powers touch 
 
 Eternity, the lower touch Time. The Reason 
 more truly God's servant than the Will or Love. 
 This Reason penetrates to the simple, unmoving 
 Divine Being which neither gives nor takes 112, 113 
 
 (3) 'God' and 'Godhead' sharply contrasted in more 
 
 characteristic passages. Abstractive nature of 
 
 this contrast . . . . 113, 114 
 
 (4) God's relation to the world : impressive and inade- 
 
 quate representations of it. Time and space here 
 frequently without any function in spiritual life. 
 Monistic conception of Creation, and Neo- 
 Platonist insistence upon mere negativity of 
 Evil . . . . . . 115, 116 
 
 (5) Eckhart's Ethics— 
 
 (a) partly rich, religious, Christian ; . .116 
 
 (b) partly monistic to vanishing-point . . 117 
 
 (6) Completion of Circle by soul's return to its Origin — 
 
 the bare Godhead . . . . 117,118 
 
 General considerations. The three thirsts in 
 Eckhart : they presuppose a mighty thirster, and 
 a profound Cause or Causer, and a Quencher, of 
 all this thirst. The religious thirst by far the 
 deepest, and implies volitional and positive char- 
 acter of Evil. Eckhart drawn away, not by 
 experience but by abstractive logic, from all 
 history and concreteness, from all richness in 
 reality — especially^the supreme richness of God 118, 119 
 Rome's condemnation objectively deserved. Indeed 
 the further experiences concerning conditions 
 governing spiritual fruitfulness point away from 
 Eckhart's scheme. . . . 119,120 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MODERN TIMES 
 
 The two thinkers chosen here . .... 121 
 
 1. Baruch Spinoza : Circumstances of his life . 121 
 
 Stoicism, Neo-Platonism, Mathematical Physics and 
 strongest prejudice against historic and dogmatic 
 elements of" Jewish and Christian religion continuously 
 operative in his mind . . . • 121, 122
 
 Contents xxix 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Yet he is perennially instructive through combination 
 of deeply religious temper, a keen instinct as to man's 
 constant need of purification, and a steady sense of 
 help supplied towards such discipline by Determinist 
 Science, with mistaken conception as to character of 
 deepest Reality apprehended by man, as to means, 
 categories, tests appropriate to this apprehension, and 
 hence as to place and range of such Science within 
 man's Spiritual Life . . . . 122, 123 
 
 (1) Ultimate object of philosophy conceived Stoic-wise 
 
 with strain of Neo-Platonism : as directly ethical, 
 practical, individual ; as difficult and of rare attain- 
 ment ..... 123, 124 
 
 (2) Method everywhere mathematical (geometrical); the 
 
 test, utter clearness . . . 124, 125 
 
 (3) Fundamental category, Substance. Its Attributes 
 
 varyingly conceived . . . 125, 126 
 
 The Attributes apprehended by us in countless 
 Modes, none of which necessarily involve existence 
 or eternity . . . . . 126,127 
 
 Eternity, in logic of system, rather a simultaneous 
 infinite spatial extension ; and Time here ever 
 considered as clearly as possible, i.e. as merely 
 Clock-Time. Thus the system as such without 
 depth of life, hence without Eternal Life . . 127 
 
 (4) Utter Determinism and purely negative conception 
 
 of Evil pervade the system . . 128,129 
 
 (5) Spinoza's self-contradictions concerning the Attri- 
 
 butes and Modes, the Human Passions, and 
 Reality and Perfection . . . .130 
 
 (6) Culminating inconsistency : admission of ethical 
 
 emancipation by individual soul . . 130,131 
 
 Spinoza here especially utterly sincere, and driven 
 to acute self-contradiction by facts of deeper 
 life and by his sensitiveness to their signific- 
 ance ...... 131, 132 
 
 (7) He is also ceaselessly awake to continuous influence 
 
 and importance of human body ; to organic 
 character and irreplaceable educative worth of 
 human society ; and to necessity for inclusion 
 within highest perfection of right self-seeking 132, 133 
 
 But this self-seeking here far too superficial — pene- 
 tration by God's Spirit, and Christ's Cross badly 
 wanted here. . . . . 133 
 
 Determinist Science useful for purification only in 
 middle distance and as means. And test of truth 
 of convictions, not utter clearness, but richness 
 and fruitfulness . . . . 133, 134 
 
 Yet Faith and Libertarianism themselves require
 
 xxx Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Fate and Science to be largely operative within 
 
 seeking and finding of Eternal Life . 134, 135 
 
 2. Immanuel Kant : his greatness lies not in Religion, but 
 
 in Epistemology and Ethics, and even here more in 
 
 detection of precise nature and position of certain 
 
 crucial problems than in consistency and adequacy of 
 
 proposed solutions . . . . 135, 136 
 
 His origin and chief life-dates ; his three periods ; 
 
 restriction of present study to his critical period 136, 137 
 His nobly ethical motive against Hume . . 137, 138 
 
 (1) Kant's Epistemology : its most important positions 
 
 for present purpose. 
 
 (a) Assumption of possibility of conceiving 
 
 knowledge as independent of an object 139, 140 
 
 (b) Contradiction between fundamental principle 
 
 that reason cannot be used assertively con- 
 cerning any Noiwtena, and ceaseless 
 assertive conviction that Reality is en- 
 tirely heterogeneous to our conception of 
 it . . . . 140, 141 
 
 (c) Assimilation of cognition to manufacture 
 
 or building. . . . 141,142 
 
 ((f) Wise admission, with Leibniz, of immeasur- 
 able range of our obscure apprehensions, 
 as compared with narrow extent of our 
 clear apprehensions . . 142, 143 
 
 (e) And fruitful retention of certain parallelism, 
 even at deeper levels of life, between Space 
 and Time ; but failure to discriminate, in 
 each, between the real and the concep- 
 tual, and to consider them of any import- 
 ance in soul's deepest, i.e. its religious, 
 life ..... 143, 144 
 
 (2) Kant's Ethics bring one great help and two grave 
 
 obstacles to experience and conception of Eternal 
 Life. 
 
 (a) Evil here everywhere not privation, or a 
 
 substance ; but positive, and an act or 
 habit of the will . . . 144,146 
 
 (b) Ethics here formalist, monotonous — virtue 
 
 recognized only where laborious and dis- 
 tasteful, and the affective element treated 
 with suspicion. Causes of this . 146,147 
 
 (c) Excessive individualism of these Ethics 
 
 arises from same causes . . 147, 148 
 
 Life's experience far richer than Kant's 
 
 prescriptions . . . 148, 149 
 
 (3) The Critical Kant's Religion, hardly more than his 
 
 critical Epistemology and Ethics applied to a
 
 •7 
 
 Contents xxxi 
 
 subject-matter recalcitrant to both, yet which says 
 nothing specific to him and raises no suspicion in 
 him as to truth or applicability of those tests . 150 
 
 (a) Kant's opposition to Ontological Argument 
 
 for Existence of God, the inevitable conse- 
 quence of his epistemological principles 150, 151 
 
 His objections . . . 151, 15 
 
 Traditional (Anselmian) form of argument, 
 largely unsatisfactory. Yet the argument, 
 at its best, covers three great abiding facts 
 and necessities of life and mind . 152,153 
 
 All knowledge, knowledge of reality. Our 
 knowledge of things, ever accompanied by 
 sense of their contingency, insufficiency, 
 not furnished by themselves, even in their 
 totality. Thorough failure of attempts to 
 explain this sense as mere projection of 
 man's empty wishes . . 153,154 
 
 Kant's position here instructively halting. 
 
 Continuous inconsistency of scepticism 154, 155 
 
 What the Ontological argument, taken alone, 
 
 does and what it does not prove . 155, 156 
 
 (b) Kant's declarations, where he is critically 
 
 active and unchecked by his more religious 
 apprehensions, concerning Grace. 156, 157 
 
 Religious Worship . . 157,158 
 
 Religious History . . 158, 159 
 
 Kant's motives here also understandable and 
 high. Yet abuses of Religion satisfac- 
 torily curable only by deepening of 
 Religion . . . . 159, 160 
 
 Religion ever centrally Adoration . 160, 161 
 
 Is a Certainty, proclaims a Givenness. 
 
 Hypothesis and Stoicism no equivalents . 161 
 
 Kant's objections with regard to Grace, 
 refuted by experience of life also in non- 
 religious fields . . . 161, 162 
 
 His objections to Religious Worship stand 
 and fall with his Epistemology . 162, 163 
 
 And those against History disclose diffi- 
 culties and dangers of appeal to contingent 
 happenings, but leave need of concrete 
 persons and events as strong as ever 164, 165 
 
 Kant's hostility to treatment of Jesus Christ 
 even as simply unique, again inevitably 
 results from his theory of knowledge. 
 Lessing's self-contradiction concerning 
 religious equivalence and religious unique- 
 ness .... 165, 166
 
 xxxii Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Nevertheless Kant's deepest strivings 
 against an impossible universal equival- 
 ence of religion. Religion deep and 
 strong only as a particular religion. . 167 
 
 PART II 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SURVEY 
 
 Four Philosophies derivative from Kant, and their main 
 present-day utilizations, to be taken together. Next a 
 great Biological Doctrine. Then Socialism and other 
 now prevalent social problems and conditions. And 
 lastly Institutional Religion . . . .171 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PHILOSOPHIES DERIVATIVE FROM KANT 
 
 Fichte, Schleiermacher, Hegel, Schopenhauer to be studied 
 
 in conjunction here. Reasons why . . . 172 
 
 I. J. G. Fichte. His violently ethical character, and 
 change from Spinoza to Kant. His Epistemology 
 more uniformly conceives knowledge as independent 
 of its object than Kant ; and his Religion as entirely 
 rooted in Categorical Imperative as with Kant. Yet 
 Fichte increasingly possesses a deeper religious 
 apprehension than Kant . . . 172, 173 
 
 (1) Fichte's entirely Immanental Critical System articu- 
 
 lates wide-spread present-day feelings of con- 
 straint from whatever is not somehow my own 
 mind or its creation . . . 173, 174 
 
 (2) Yet he insists upon a Moral Ordering outside finite 
 
 moral beings, but opposes conception of an 
 Orderer ...... 174 
 
 Nevertheless this Ordering is conceived religiously 174, 175 
 Deeply religious sayings of his later stage con- 
 cerning Love, the Blessed Life and Death 175, 176 
 
 (3) Close interdependence of souls, and even self- 
 
 subsistence of the Absolute affirmed ; and Kant's 
 rigorism overcome . . . . 176, 177 
 
 Yet mysterious uniqueness attaching to all History 
 
 never adequately recognized . . . 177 
 
 (4) Accusation of Atheism against Fichte not altogether 
 
 unfair. His account in 1792 of origin and worth 
 of idea of God as sceptical as anything to be 
 found in Kant . . . . 177, 178
 
 Contents xxxiii 
 
 PAGE5 
 
 Fichte re-stated by Hugo Miinsterberg : weaknesses 
 
 of Fichtean positions even here . . 178,179 
 
 Rudolf Eucken blends a Fichtean trend with 
 Platonist and Hegelian doctrines ; and a con- 
 tinuous keen sense of significance of History 
 and of Evil makes him very largely satisfactory. 
 Yet even here Fichte's influence unfortunate upon 
 two points . . . . . 179, 180 
 
 Friedrich Schleiermacher. His nature more aesthetic 
 than religious, and more religious than ethical. His 
 upbringing and career . . . . 180, 181 
 
 His times. Moravian, then Spinozist influences affect 
 him throughout his two periods, of the Reden and of 
 the Glaubeiislehre . . . . 1 81-183 
 
 (1) In the Reden, 
 
 (a) Essence of Religion : Intuition and Feeling of 
 
 Infinite, of the Universe . . 183, 184 
 
 This Intuition-Feeling, an influence of the 
 
 universe contemplated . . 184, 185 
 
 The generative moment of Religion . 185,186 
 
 Consideration of these positions. Satisfactory 
 
 points. . . . . .186 
 
 Yet we still have here an anti-dogmatic 
 
 dogmatist Epistemology . . 186-188 
 
 And the intuition is hardly religious . 188, 189 
 
 (6) Intuition ever something simple, separate. 
 Not religion but its systematizers have filled 
 the world with strife . . . .189 
 
 Indeed religious feelings naturally paralyse 
 man's energy of action. Yet religious 
 feelings also vehement and shattering : men 
 should do nothing from Religion but every- 
 thing with Religion. Yet love, compassion, 
 gratitude, humility, contrition, are not 
 Morality but Religion . . 189, 190 
 
 These positions considered : 
 
 As to Intuition-Feeling . . 190, 191 
 
 and as to Religion and Practical Action 191, 192 
 Schleiermacher, however, sees greatly further 
 than Kant in that Religion here is also 
 contemplative and recollective, and that 
 the deep worth and religious root of love, 
 humility, contrition are laid bare . . 192 
 
 (f) History in strictest sense, the highest object 
 
 of Religion — all here to be organic life . 192 
 Yet God only one of many religious ways of 
 
 viewing universe . . . 192, 193 
 
 And Immortality considered as mostly taken 
 
 in a spirit directly contrary to Religion 193, 194 
 C
 
 xxxiv Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Here the emphasis upon History shatters 
 entire Pantheistic scheme and temper. In- 
 difference to Theism and Immortality be- 
 come then impossible or affectatious 194, 195 
 (2) The Glaubenslehre : its four changes. 
 
 (a) Religion now the consciousness of our 
 
 unlimited dependence, I.e. of our relatedness 
 to God .... 195, 196 
 
 Persistent inadequacy traced here . . 196 
 
 (b) Everywhere now we have God ; but the 
 
 determinations concerning Him are Spin- 
 ozistic. So too with Sin and with Prayer . 197 
 
 (c) Now Christ and Christianity enclose, in their 
 
 past and future, the entirety and finality of 
 religion. Schleiermacher here goes even 
 beyond average orthodoxy. Double danger 
 of this intense Christocentrism . 197, 198 
 
 (d) And now root of Religion found in the 
 
 experience of the religious community. 
 This change a profound improvement . 198 
 
 Ernst Troeltsch considers himself largely a suc- 
 cessor of Schleiermacher, yet his superiority 
 great. Troeltsch's four profound apprehensions . 199 
 His declarations concerning Eternal Life — tension 
 and polarity of religion . . . 199,200 
 
 3. G. W. F. Hegel : main dates of his life . . . 201 
 
 All-important influence of Schelling . . . 201 
 
 Change to opposition against the Identity-Philosophy. 
 Yet Hegel adopts an anti-identity principle, but 
 retains two positions of identification . 201, 202 
 
 (1) His profound, rich principle : Reality not substance 
 but subject, system ; it is self-subsisting, definite, 
 self-knowing ..... 202 
 
 This a deliberate traversing of the Identity- 
 Philosophy ...... 203 
 
 Hegel's admirable survey and comparison of the 
 categories of the human mind, from emptiest to 
 fullest, i.e. most real — bare Being to Spirit 
 (Absolute Spirit and Absolute Knowledge no 
 more belong to this principle) . . . 203 
 
 So far, rock-ground. We know God is at least all 
 
 our fullest categories carry with them . 203, 204 
 
 Thus a Critical Anthropomorphism, the sole self- 
 consistent escape from sheer mythology . 204, 205 
 Also outside Philosophy, insistent evidences and 
 
 motives for such Anthropomorphism . 205, 206 
 
 In any case, sincerity demands admission that our 
 imperishable requirements are truly of this 
 Theistic kind ..... 206
 
 Contents xxxv 
 
 TAGES 
 
 (2) But Hegel prevented from this logical consequence 
 
 of his own anti-identity principle by his two 
 positions of identification . . . 206, 207 
 
 (a) Identification of Thinking and Reality — 
 
 transformation of Logic into Metaphysic, 
 indeed Life . . . 207, 208 
 
 Trendelenburg's analysis of this procedure 208, 209 
 The crucial passages containing this transi- 
 tion from abstractions to realities . 
 Impossibility of such a jump 
 
 (b) Identification of human and Absolute Reason 
 
 and Consciousness . . .211 
 
 How Hegel arrives at this identification 211, 212 
 Crucial passages . . . 212, 213 
 
 He shrinks from, yet ventures upon, full 
 identification of human history and of 
 history of the Absolute, and then attempts 
 some distinction . . . 213, 21 5 
 
 Absolute Knowledge indeed the system's 
 culmination ; Religion here never more 
 than the penultimate end and standard 
 of man . . . . 215, 216 
 
 Identification here of two very distinct, even 
 different things — the need and reality of 
 history for durational man, and the nature 
 and operation of the Eternal God 216, 217 
 
 Accumulation of improbabilities thus intro- 
 duced .... 217, 218 
 
 (3) The deceased English Hegelians : T. H. Green, 
 
 R. L. Nettleship, John and Edward Caird. How 
 much they owed to Hegel, and how much Hegel 
 owed to them .... 218-220 
 
 Yet even here Hegel's influence not simply bene- 
 ficent : 
 
 Insufficient recognition of the senses, the body, 
 the material world — their function within the 
 mind's life ..... 220 
 Of essentially ontological character of the 
 religious affirmations — adoration and sense 
 of sin ..... 220, 221 
 
 Of insistent need of the Institutional in 
 
 religion . . . . .221, 222 
 
 And of abiding distinction between Philosophy 
 
 and Religion .... 222, 223 
 
 (4) T. E. M'-Taggarfs peculiar combination of 
 
 convictions ..... 223, 224 
 
 (a) His declarations concerning — 
 
 The need of metaphysics in Life and in 
 
 Religion . . . . .224
 
 xxxvi Contents 
 
 His declarations concerning — 
 Personal identity, as consisting in identity 
 
 of substance .... 224 
 A non-omnipotent, non-creative God, as 
 a conception worthy of serious con- 
 sideration . . . 224, 225 
 A perfect community of spirits as the 
 actual reality and as excluding any 
 single omnipotent Person . 224, 225 
 Immortality as necessarily coupled with 
 Pre-existence, and lapse of memory as 
 no bar to identity of lives thus separ- 
 ated ; and Time and Existence as two 
 distinct, separable characteristics 225, 226 
 {b) Consideration of these declarations. 
 
 Satisfactoriness of Metaphysical attitude 226, 227 
 But strange revival here of a Monadism less 
 
 interior than Leibniz's own . 227, 228 
 
 The Realized Perfection thus resides at any 
 one moment not in Hegel's highest cate- 
 gory, self-consciousness, but in lower cate- 
 gory, substance. Reason of this choice 228, 229 
 Man here great even simply in himself — 
 
 contrary to Christianity and experience . 229 
 The God here refused and the God con- 
 sidered possible, only mannikins, as 
 against God of Christianity and Roman 
 Church who alone penetrates depths of 
 human mind and will . . 229, 230 
 
 The scheme leaves virtually unexplained 
 and unutilized the characteristic, indelibly 
 human sense of the Infinite, the Other, — 
 of dissatisfaction with all that is merely 
 human ..... 230 
 What admissions appear to be necessary 
 
 here .... 230-232 
 
 The Christian consciousness finds multi- 
 plicity of Persons in God's Unity ; but 
 'Person' here not as in Dr. M'Taggart's 
 construction .... 232 
 
 (5) Ludwig Feuerbach, ablest exponent of destructive 
 implications of Hegelian Absolutism. Lesson 
 fully cogent only by inclusion of contrast between 
 his Essence of Christianity 1841, and his Essence 
 pf Religion 1851 . . . . . 233 
 
 («) His main positions in 1841. 
 
 Our consciousness of Infinite, merely con- 
 sciousness of Infinity of our conscious- 
 ness .... 233, 234
 
 Contents xxxvii 
 
 PAGES 
 
 God a purely human presupposition. Yet 
 that man alone the true Atheist to whom 
 the predicates of the Divine Being — Love, 
 Wisdom, Justice — are nothing, not he to 
 whom merely the subject of these pre- 
 dicates is nothing .... 234 
 
 But religion knows nothing of anthropomor- 
 phisms ; they are pronounced such only 
 by the understanding which reflects on 
 religion . . . . .235 
 
 (b) Consideration of these positions. 
 
 At last here the human mind unambigu- 
 ously knows nothing whatsoever but 
 itself, and attains this real self-knowledge 
 by means of no other realities than itself 235, 236 
 
 Yet in actual life we never know ourselves 
 alone, but only with, on occasion of, by 
 means of, other realities . . 236, 237 
 
 Our consciousness of Infinite cannot, then, 
 be straightaway declared necessarily 
 nothing but consciousness of Infinity of 
 this our consciousness. And the specific- 
 ally religious consciousness testifies to a 
 different Infinite — to a Perfect Present 
 Reality . . . . 237, 238 
 
 Soul's consciousness of this Infinite awakes 
 only with consciousness of mind and 
 of senses to their several objects and 
 activities. But this true of our every 
 other consciousness and knowledge 238, 239 
 
 Man's religious apprehensions never entirely 
 adequate, and often erroneous, as are also 
 his apprehensions in Physical Science. 
 Yet no necessary connection between some 
 error and all illusion : in both cases reality 
 really apprehended from first . . 239 
 
 Conditions and effects of religious attestation 
 witness strongly against a conclusion of 
 all illusion .... 240, 241 
 
 Painful sense of inadequacy of all merely 
 
 human apprehension left unexplained 241, 242 
 
 Yet this sense, noblest, costliest, most fruit- 
 ful possessed by man : special intolerable- 
 ness of scepticism here . . 242, 243 
 
 Religion, as sense of Infinite, does know of 
 anthropomorphisms — e.g. St. Paul and 
 St. John of the Cross . . . 243 
 
 (c) Feuerbach's own final utter scepticism and 
 
 materialism, in 1851, a tragic proof that
 
 xxxviii Contents 
 
 denial of an abiding subject to predicates 
 love, wisdom, goodness, does matter most 
 profoundly .... 243, 244 
 
 Arthur Schopenhauer, to be studied here in four of his 
 
 positions ..... 244, 245 
 
 His antecedents and character. Practically author of 
 one single book ..... 245 
 
 (1) His Epistemology as a Metaphysical Dualism 245, 246 
 Leading to an Oriental Dreaminess . . 246, 247 
 A strangely un- Kantian conclusion from Kantian 
 
 premises ...... 247 
 
 One admirable epistemological instinct here : 
 
 preference of intuition to abstraction . . 248 
 
 (2) His Epistemology as radically inconsistent in its 
 
 attainment of the Thing-in-itself. This Thing-in- 
 itself, the will — a will bereft of all reason and 
 logic ...... 248, 249 
 
 Angry denunciation of Pantheism. Its reason. 
 Fine insight into special intolerableness of 
 Pantheistic Optimism .... 249 
 
 History everywhere to be driven out . . 249, 250 
 
 The three self-contradictions of this position . 250 
 
 Its two truths . .... 250,251 
 
 (3) Schopenhauer's Pessimism : its general character . 251 
 Opposition to Hegelianism, Judaism, Moham- 
 medanism, as optimistic ; esteem of Christianity 
 
 and Buddhism as pessimistic . . 251,252 
 
 Condemnation of anti-celibate Protestantism and 
 
 rationalist Christianity .... 252 
 
 The Fall, the one valuable doctrine of O.T. . 252, 253 
 
 Criticism. — Truth and need of a pessimistic and 
 ascetical movement. But this movement must 
 stand within larger whole of two interdependent 
 movements . . . . . .253 
 
 Need of movement of attachment for awakening 
 
 sense of Infinite ..... 254 
 
 The asceticism here, not Christian but Gnostic : 
 
 purificableness of body, essential to Christianity . 255 
 Consequent injustice to Judaism and Islam. Fulness 
 of spiritual life requires both preliminary Pessi- 
 mism and final Optimism . . . 255, 256 
 
 (4) His Nirvana : statements concerning it . 256, 257 
 Schopenhauer's intensity of yearning after, and real 
 
 faith in, an unutterable Perfect Life and Abiding 
 Reality appear thus at the last . . . 257 
 
 And we learn weakness and strength, with respect 
 to religion, of such dim, mostly despairing outlooks. 
 
 Their weakness . . . .258 
 
 Their strength .... 258, 259
 
 Contents xxxix 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The double requirement of Religion with regard to 
 
 Philosophy here is advantageous to Philosophy . 259 
 
 Relation to Schopenhauer of Richard Wagner and 
 Leo Tolstoi, but especially of Kierkegaard and 
 Nietzsche ...... 260 
 
 (5) Soren Kierkegaard. His historic affinities : his 
 
 special interest — combination of deep modernity of 
 mind with massively ontological religion . . 260 
 
 His declarations concerning God's Reality and 
 
 Difference, and our utter need of Him . . 261 
 
 Lesson of his life : all-importance for Religion of 
 Reality and Difference, but also of Likeness of 
 God ; the last wanting in Kierkegaard . . 262 
 
 Ibsen's Brand, suggested by Kierkegaard's figure, 
 
 vividly drives home this lesson . . . 262 
 
 (6) Friedrich Nietzsche. Primary causes of his great 
 
 vogue. Which of his writings are likely to live. 
 His anti-religious excesses spring doubtless largely 
 from a thirst for what religion alone can satisfy — 
 e.g. his Super-man . . . 263-264 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BIOLOGY AND EPIGENESIS 
 
 Range of present study on Darwin and the thinkers especi- 
 ally influenced by him .... 264, 265 
 
 1. Charles Darwin's declarations concerning his own 
 
 sense of religion, of poetry, of metaphysics . 265,266 
 
 Theism ..... 266, 267 
 
 Immortality ...... 268 
 
 Conscience, Duty, Sin .... 268 
 
 2. Study of these declarations and their implications. 
 
 (1) Profound difference between Evolution proper and 
 
 Epigenesis ..... 268, 269 
 
 Darwin confuses the two . . . 269, 270 
 
 His one great obstacle to full continuous adhesion 
 
 to Theism : its probable origin . . 270, 271 
 
 (2) The Sciences recommend some doctrine of Descent ; 
 
 but precise character and mechanism of this 
 Descent certainly very complex and still pre- 
 dominantly obscure for us. Kernel of the riddle 
 lies in continuous presence of the necessary 
 beginnings of useful variations ( Weissmann) . 271 
 We are thus thrown back upon some Providing 
 Power. Purely mythological character of the 
 alternatives ...... 272
 
 xl Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 (3) A. R. Wallace on the faculties special to man ; on 
 
 three stages in development of organic world 
 where some new cause must necessarily have 
 come into action : and on reality of these changes, 
 however imperceptible at their origin . 272, 273 
 
 Even greater definiteness of statement desirable 
 
 h ere 273, 274 
 
 Significance of Dr. Wallace's example . . 274 
 
 (4) Professor Huxley : original position and question 
 
 of his Romanes Lecture . . . 274,275 
 
 A direct challenge to inevitable concomitant of every 
 
 doctrine of Descent taken as self-explanatory . 275 
 Professor Andrew Seth completes and guards the 
 
 challenge . . . . . .275 
 
 Only one further requirement here : a plurality of 
 
 worlds . . . . . 276, 277 
 
 The Huxley-Seth positions alone furnish a sufficient 
 
 home for Darwin's own sense of duty . . 277 
 
 (5) Anthropology and Comparative History of Religions 
 
 still largely influenced by Naturalism. This all 
 
 but inevitable .... 277, 278 
 
 R. R. Marretfs "Anthropology" instructively com- 
 bines all the insights and some of the imperfections 
 here considered .... 278, 279 
 
 The finest of the analytic historical workers appar- 
 ently penetrate deeper into humanity, present and 
 past, than do even the most learned "purely 
 genetic " biological explorers . . . 279 
 
 , Confirmation and growth brought, in three respects, to 
 apprehension and formulation of religious and 
 moral experience, by biological-evolutionary move- 
 ment. 
 (1) The movement, at its best, brings scientific attention 
 back from dead or abstract things to concrete, 
 living beings. Illustrations from Darwin's own 
 life . . . . . . 280, 281 
 
 Full adhesion here of all fruitful Epistemology, 
 
 Ethics, Religion, Life in general . . .281 
 
 This graduated love of the graduated realities of the 
 rich, real world will triumph over the fierce passion 
 for levelling all reality down to abstraction of 
 purely mechanical causality. Ernst Haeckel: his 
 main positions .... 281, 282 
 
 His cheery destruction of all "dualism," i.e. 
 religion ..... 282, 283 
 
 The more abstract and unreal the notions, the more 
 they here oust concrete, experienced reality. 
 Three causes of vogue of such materialistic 
 Monism ..,,,. 283
 
 Contents xli 
 
 PAGES 
 
 (2) The Rev. /. R. Tennanfs attempt to elucidate 
 
 experiences of temptation and guilt by Descent 
 
 Theory : its interest . . . 283, 284 
 
 Main positions of Tennant and of Archdeacon 
 
 Wilson ..... 284, 285 
 
 Insufficiencies and satisfactory points of this 
 
 attempt ..... 285, 286 
 
 (3) Continuity and Immediacy of Divine Action in- 
 
 volved in adequate doctrine of Creation, allowed, 
 indeed required, by an Epigenesis content to be a 
 process and description .... 286 
 
 The Rev. Philip Waggetfs statements . 286, 287 
 
 Two additions suggested here . . 287, 288 
 
 4. Two philosophers, Herbert Spencer and Henri Bergson, 
 might be considered here. Henri Bergson chosen 
 out ....... 288 
 
 Grateful acceptance of his central conception — Duree 
 as distinct from Clock-time ; of his more restricted 
 descriptions of both ; and specially of his insist- 
 ence on essential role played by Duration in man's 
 entire life. Here only certain still more funda- 
 mental applications or conceptions of Bergson to 
 be considered: as to Time and Space, and as to 
 Finalism and place and character of Trans- 
 formism ..... 288, 289 
 
 (1) Bergson's Essai : its fundamental antinomy — the 
 Durational (Qualitative) and the Extensional 
 (Quantitative). Origin of latter . . 289, 290 
 
 Time as really experienced and Time as clearly 
 
 pictured. Function of Space . . 290, 291 
 
 Considerations. Difference of method pursued 
 here as to Time and as to Space . . 291, 292 
 
 Intense abstractness of the two " realities " here 
 
 remaining ..... 292 
 
 Bergson himself indicates that Duration is not 
 
 sheer Becoming . . . 293, 294 
 
 He has broken our living organic conscious- 
 ness into two separate worlds, each unreal, 
 and jointly exclusive of personality . . 294 
 
 v (2) Bergson's Evolution Creatrice : its fundamental 
 thesis : utter heterogeneity and unpurposive 
 character of all Duration and Life ; Transformism 
 essentially a dissociation and distinction of 
 elements ..... 294, 295 
 
 Yet, here too, indications of persistence, purpose, 
 
 graduated worth . . . . 295, 296 
 
 Nevertheless the system here conceives existence as 
 strictly for existence only ; change or advance 
 here only in the means, not in the end of life 296, 297
 
 xlii Contents 
 
 (3) General conclusions. 
 
 Man requires Real Space and Conceptual Space 
 as well as Real Time (Duration) and Conceptual 
 Time ; and, in his consciousness of Duration, a 
 sense of Simultaneity as well as of Succession 297, 298 
 
 Duration at its highest in its element of Perman- 
 ence ...... 298 
 
 Berg son's conception of Liberty too "pure," i.e. 
 artificially one-sided . . . 298, 299 
 
 This shown by facts of consciousness, especially 
 
 of conation ..... 299 
 
 And by insufficiency of reasons given for his 
 
 high esteem of the Free Act . . 299-301 
 
 He has removed the mechanical obstacles to 
 Liberty, but has not discovered its spiritual 
 conditions ..... 301 
 
 As to Eternal Life : the distinctive being of 
 personality is inversely as its dependence on 
 successiveness {Bosanquet) . . 301, 302 
 
 Religion can and must experience and conceive 
 full Eternity as the characteristic of the Eternal 
 God present and operative within man's 
 durational, i.e. quasi-eternal spirit. . • 302 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOCIALISM AND PRESENT SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 The world of the West European and North American 
 
 workmen genuinely new. Chief causes operative here 303, 304 
 This complex to be studied here only in its relation to 
 Eternal Life — in its anti-transcendental trend ; in the 
 reasons productive of such secularism ; and in the 
 conditions and dispositions here hopeful or already 
 satisfactory for religion ..... 304 
 1. Karl Marx : his two great discoveries — the Material- 
 istic Conception of History and the secret of 
 Capitalist Production. The former derived from 
 Hegel through Feuerbach . . . 304, 305 
 
 Yet this conception pushed by Marx and Engels to the 
 full materialism and anti-religiousness of Feuerbach's 
 last period ..... 304, 305 
 
 Capitalistic question here passed over. Yet re- 
 minder necessary that original Marxist Socialism 
 wages relentless war against all the natural 
 organizations other than the State, omnipotent and 
 sole , 306-307
 
 Contents xliii 
 
 2. Three causes generally operative within these classes 
 
 and movements in direction of Secularism. 
 
 (i) Man's limited capacity of attention and interests 
 
 ordinarily extended only by great, unbroken 
 
 traditions of spiritual experience and training. 
 
 These traditions practically unknown here ; men 
 
 absorbed here in other needs which appear to be 
 
 more immediately important . . . 307 
 
 Baffling complexity, scale, acuteness of these 
 
 needs ..... 307, 308 
 
 Only a great moral miracle could preserve such 
 
 a world from all Secularism . . 308, 309 
 
 (2) A positive revulsion against the Churches and Sects 
 
 here frequent ; predominantly social and political 
 in origin, it is largely religious {i.e. anti-religious) 
 in effect . . . . 309 
 
 (3) A peculiar atrophy and deformation of the soul. 
 
 First, widespread ignorance or misunderstand- 
 ing of religion and of perennial spiritual needs of 
 man . . . . . . 309> 3 IQ 
 
 Clear superficial abstraction thus wins against 
 
 dimmer deep reality . . . .310 
 
 Leads to highly militant, acutely problematic creed 
 of purely immanental yet apocalyptic millennial 
 character ..... 310, 311 
 
 Allows a superficial expectation of soul's full satis- 
 faction by entire realization of such purely earthly 
 programme, as against John Mill's deepest insight 311 
 
 And, by concentration of entire man upon this 
 admittedly difficult realization, it greatly increases 
 the Secularism already furnished by the absorp- 
 tion and revulsion already considered . . 312 
 3. Three sets of conditions and dispositions here religiously 
 hopeful. 
 
 (1) Certain general effects operative within all men 
 
 throughout the countries concerned : 
 
 Our confrontation by masses of men free from 
 the maladies of the more fully educated 
 mind, and possessing a certain sincerity, 
 simplicity, self-sacrifice ; . . 312, 313 
 
 and the awakening of upper classes by the social- 
 ist militancy in various much-needed ways . 313 
 
 (2) This double general gain can be specially advan- 
 
 tageous to religious souls, particularly as regards 
 Eternal Life. For thus we attain insight into 
 large dependence of religion of average man 
 upon certain social and physical conditions. The 
 "poor" declared blessed by our Lord and by the 
 Poverello ...... 314
 
 xliv Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 This dependence parodied by the Socialists and 
 more wisely apprehended by the Christian social 
 workers . . . . . 315 
 
 And thus too we are thrown anew upon the costly 
 two-fold movement — Christianity's renovative 
 power. For religion thus forced to be more than 
 ever Temporal — Spatial — Immanental . 315, 316 
 
 Yet also more than ever Eternal and Omnipresent 
 
 — Transcendent .... 316, 317 
 
 Only the two movements together of the real, 
 durational soul supported by the real Eternal God 
 here adequate . . . . 317 
 
 Sir Charles Booth's testimony concerning London 317, 318 
 And only such Transcendence in Immanence can 
 preserve enthusiasm from fanaticism followed by 
 cynicism . . . . . 318, 319 
 
 (3) Symptoms amongst Socialist leaders and masses 
 of subsidence of angry Secularism, perhaps 
 also of indifference to religion — 
 
 in Germany . . . . 319, 320 
 
 Belgium and Italy .... 320 
 
 France : M. Georges Sorel — 
 on mystery and pessimism ; on Pantheism ; 
 
 and on Institutional Christianity . 320, 322 
 
 on the Encyclopedists ; on monastic asceti- 
 cism ; on the Christian tradition . 322, 323 
 Sorel not far from fuller experience and 
 clearer conception of Eternal Life . . 323 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 
 
 To be studied only as home and training ground of Eternal 
 Life — as bringing help or occasioning obstacles, or as 
 itself purified and checked by this life. Three groups 
 of facts and questions to be studied . . 323,325 
 
 I. Increasing clearness as to central position held in 
 religion by Cultus — Social Worship, and by Symbols 
 and Sacraments — contacts between spirit and matter 325 
 Instances of powerful operation of the Institutional 325, 326 
 This Social Institutional need really treble : 
 (1) Need of common worship : Professor Troeltsch's 
 
 utterances ..... 326, 327 
 
 Our Lord's institutions and the intrinsic needs of 
 religion ..... 327, 328
 
 Contents xlv 
 
 PAGES 
 
 (2) Need of efficacious sensible signs and contacts : 
 
 weakness of Liberal Protestantism here . 328, 329 
 
 The anti-sacramental passion historically under- 
 standable ; yet it has not resolved the problem 
 and has exceeded the facts and necessities of 
 human nature and of religion . . . 329 
 
 Use and commendation of such signs by Our Lord, 
 St. Paul, the Fourth Gospel ; and the intrinsic 
 requirements of religion here . . 329, 330 
 
 (3) And need of interrelation between Religion and the 
 
 other complexes and organizations of human life . 330 
 
 Wilhelm Hermann here essentially inadequate in 
 
 his opposition to all Mysticism . . 330, 331 
 
 And in his reduction of Religion to recognition of 
 
 Categorical Imperative and the Historic Jesus 331, 332 
 
 Impossible for religion to ignore or suppress the 
 other activities, or for these activities to suppress 
 religion. Especially impossible for Christianity . 332 
 
 Increasing impossibility of such reduction amongst 
 educated West Europeans. Official Church 
 persistently conceives and practises life in an all- 
 inclusive manner .... 332, 333 
 
 (4) Yet the fully developed Institutional Religions losing 
 
 ground for many a day — 
 
 in Germany . . . . 333, 334 
 
 France, Portugal, Spain, Italy . . . 334 
 
 United States ..... 334 
 and in England . . . . -335 
 
 These losses not all simply ascribable to perversity 
 
 of human nature ..... 335 
 Where, then, besides the social causes already 
 
 studied, are we to seek the inhibition ? . 335, 336 
 
 , Essential strength and incidental weakness of Institu- 
 tional Religion, studied from within Roman Catholic 
 Church, appears in five pairs of closely related power 
 and defect ...... 336 
 
 (1) Large continuous utilization by Religion of Philo- 
 
 sophy and Science. Its antiquity and ad- 
 vantages ..... 337, 338 
 
 Yet two great weaknesses here : 
 
 Philosophy essentially free . . . 338 
 
 but Theology often oppressive towards Philo- 
 sophy ... . . 338, 339 
 And Aristotelianism in particular profoundly 
 
 unhistorical in temper .... 340 
 
 As to Natural Science : a tolerable latitude appears 
 
 finally assured to it . . . . 340,341 
 
 (2) Close connection of Religion with History : Tight- 
 
 ness, necessity, fruitfulness of this . . 342, 343
 
 xlvi Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 The difficulties of all the Institutional Religions 
 here . ... . . 343, 344 
 
 Rome's special difficulties from her rejection of 
 
 Pietism . . . . . 344,345 
 
 and from her very large and ancient toleration 
 
 of the uncertain and legendary in history . 345 
 
 No grave intrinsic difficulty with respect to earliest, 
 mostly sober constituents of such beliefs, within 
 secondary subject-matters. But more or less 
 grave trouble surrounds questions concerning 
 factual character of certain constituents of the 
 complex of Christian doctrine . . . 346 
 
 The Church's abiding insistence apparently covers 
 three points. Limits to reasonable demands of 
 theologians in historical and documentary matters. 
 Parallel of the Heliocentric controversy . 346, 347 
 
 (3) Insistence upon supreme importance of Religious 
 
 Truth and Unity. Deep, abidingly precious 
 insight thus manifested .... 348 
 
 The corresponding trouble : persecution. Instances 
 
 of it throughout Church History . . 348, 349 
 
 Yet contrary current also very real in ancient 
 
 Church . . . ' . . 349, 350 
 
 amongst Popes of late antiquity and of Middle 
 
 Ages . . . . . -35° 
 
 in the great Jesuit theologian Cardinal de Lugo 
 
 and Pope Pius IX. . . . 350,351 
 
 Implications of the Church's solemn self-commit- 
 ment to entire O.T. as divinely inspired . 351 
 
 Excommunications. Schisms. Cardinal Manning on 
 supernatural grace amongst non-Roman Catholic 
 Christians ..... 351, 352 
 
 And great variety of spiritual types within Roman 
 Church also aids this wider, gentler out- 
 look . . . . . . 352 
 
 Permanent predominance of the gentler current 
 would again render the Roman Church fully 
 lovable. In any case, scepticism and indifference 
 only excuse and aggravate bigotry and persecution. 
 A vigilant sense of Reality of Abiding God are 
 here alone of sufficient avail . . 35 2 j 353 
 
 (4) Persistence, consolidation, domination of Canon 
 
 Law. 
 
 Religion rightly conceived as also concerned 
 with Law. Christianity contrary to Gnosti- 
 cism here. Evidence of Acts of the Apostles. 
 Hence only the spirit, position, and effects of 
 such law can reasonably be called in 
 question .... 353, 354
 
 Contents xlvii 
 
 TAGES 
 
 Yet Church's persuasiveness now for long in inverse 
 
 ratio to her coercive character. 
 Contentions of Lutheran Canonist Rudolf S ohm :_ 
 Catholicism essentially the non-discrimination 
 between Church in the religious sense and 
 Church in the legal sense . . 354, 355 
 
 Christians knew from first only one Church, the 
 same Catholic Church; the only change since, 
 an all-pervading interior transformation of this 
 One Church from an entirely free, charismatic 
 body into a predominantly coercive, legalist 
 organisation . . . • 355? 356 
 
 Considerations : 
 
 Primitive Christian, average Roman Catholic, 
 Lutheran, and Curialist attitudes towards 
 relation between Visible and Invisible Church. 
 Neither simple identity nor complete inde- 
 pendence are primitive or fruitfully possible 
 solutions .... 356, 357 
 
 Here again all superfine Idealism, all " pure " 
 
 spirituality a snare .... 357 
 Yet Canon Law largely late medieval, i.e. 
 strongly theocratic. It was then largely 
 checked and completed by other forces 
 still vigorous in those times . . 357, 358 
 
 The Protestant Reformation, still more the 
 French Revolution, have changed habits 
 of mind operative when this part of 
 Canon Law flourished, and yet have also 
 abolished the checks within Church upon 
 this Law's full development. Operative 
 constitution of visible Roman Church now 
 an autocracy .... 358, 359 
 
 Three reflections and encouragements as to 
 
 future possibilities .... 360 
 (5) Insistence upon connection between Religion and 
 
 Politics. Undeniable as a general principle . 361 
 Yet no modern, Western attempt at a direct con- 
 nection long successful. Hostility of the finest of 
 present-day religious minds to such combina- 
 tion . . • • • 361, 362 
 Apparent deathlessness of political ambitions with- 
 in Roman Curia .... 362, 363 
 Hopes with regard to this trouble . . 363, 364 
 . How the experiences and convictions of Eternal Life, 
 which Institutions alone fully aw, iken, can aid against 
 the evils incidental to Institutionalism to be now de- 
 scribed and illustrated. Limitations of this double 
 study.
 
 xlviii Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 (i) The complex of vivid operative convictions con- 
 nected with Eternal Life, fundamentally fivefold : 
 Double sense of Abidingness — 
 
 Divine Eternity, human Duration . 365, 366 
 
 Special work effected by this sense . . 366 
 
 Sense of Otherness in Likeness — 
 We are like and are unlike the Realized 
 
 Perfection . 360 
 
 Function of this sense . . . 366,367 
 
 Sense of Other-Worldliness in contrast with 
 This-Worldliness — spiritual personality begun 
 here, consummated hereafter . . . 367 
 
 Effect of this sense . . . 367, 368 
 
 Sense of Reality — realities environing us, real 
 beings, and the Reality of realities sustaining 
 all . . . . . .368 
 
 Consequences of this sense . . 368, 369 
 
 Finally, sense of Unity in all multiplicity and 
 of multiplicity in all Unity — organisms every- 
 where in the real world . . 369, 370 
 Operation of this sense . . . 370,371 
 (2) Illustrations of Institutions awakening, and their 
 operation kept pure by, strong sense of Eternal 
 Life. 
 
 Sir Charles Booth's London experiences . 371 
 
 Poignant literary expression of this sense in 
 recent Jewish, Anglican, Greek-Russian 
 Church writings . . . 371, 372 
 
 Four recent Roman Catholic examples dwelt on in 
 some detail. 
 
 Father Damien at Antipodes slowly dying 
 
 amongst the lepers .... 372 
 
 The Beatified Cure d'Ars, J. B. Vianney— 
 his sayings as to Prayer, God alone, and 
 Suffering . . . . 372, 373 
 
 Eugenie Smet, Mere Marie de la Providence, 
 
 her heroic life and painful blissful death 373, 374 
 And the Abbe Huvelin. His personality and 
 
 life-work . . . . ^74, 375 
 
 His sayings in connection with — 
 
 S. Frangois de Sales . . 375, 376 
 
 Pere de Condren .... 376 
 
 M. Olier . . . . .376 
 
 S. Vincent de Paul . . 376, 377 
 
 and the Trappist Abbe de Ranee . 2>77 
 
 General conclusion concerning all these 
 examples .... 377, 378
 
 Contents xlix 
 
 PART III 
 
 PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 FINAL DISCRIMINATIONS 
 
 Attempt at sketch of lines along which consciousness of 
 Eternal Life has been revealed to us and requires to 
 
 PAGE3 
 
 381 
 
 grow ....... 
 
 1. Operative conviction of Eternal Life primarily a matter 
 
 not of speculation but of characteristically human 
 experience awakened and illuminated by Religion . 382 
 
 2. Not an ultimate cause evolving living subjects, but 
 
 simply the effect of a living Reality within other 
 realities .... . 3 82 > 3 8 3 
 
 3. Eternal Life in fullest sense involves plenitude of all 
 
 goods and energizings that abide, entire self- 
 consciousness of Being which constitutes them, and 
 pure activity, non-successiveness, of this Being. It 
 excludes space and clock-time : reasons why . . 383 
 
 4. Eternal Life, in a real but not the fullest sense, 
 
 attributable to man ; Duration its true form . 383, 384 
 
 5. Man's apprehension of Eternal Life ever achieved 
 
 only more or less in, contrasting with, finite, changing 
 things ; and obscurely, but with immense range of 
 influence. Its ultimate cause : the actual presence 
 of the Eternal Living Spirit within man's durational 
 spirit . . • • • 3^4) 3 8 5 
 
 6. Hence necessity of Real Time, Duration, for develop- 
 
 ment of human consciousness of Divine Eternity 386, 387 
 
 7. Necessity also of spatial imagery and concepts : 
 
 the reasons of this .... 3^7)3^8 
 
 Place of Mathematics in full spiritual life. Preliminary 
 Pantheism, the preservative against Ultimate 
 Pantheism ...... 388 
 
 8. Material things also continuously check or stimulate 
 
 durational human spirits — in this life at least. Matter 
 and things — a rich, wise contact with them — as 
 occasions and means of soul's awaking to Eternal 
 Life 389 
 
 9. The sole self-consistent alternative to such costly 
 
 acceptance of Eternal Life, a more or less obscure 
 but real and profoundly operative evasion of man's 
 true call, of his deepest requirements — a self-stultifica- 
 tion and spiritual death . . . 389, 390 
 
 d
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Eventual difference of souls thus quantitative as well 
 as qualitative : almost fully eternalized spirits and 
 almost entirely phenomenalized souls . . 390, 391 
 
 10. Eternal Life requires deep sense of human weakness 
 
 and sin, and of our constant need of God's preveni- 
 ence and purification, but excludes conceptions of 
 total corruption of human nature or of essential 
 impurity of human body. Our Lord's own practice 
 and utterances give the normative balance and 
 combination ..... 391, 392 
 
 11. And Eternal Life not simply a Moralism plus a 
 
 reference to God as its source and sanction, but 
 centrally Religious — Adoration, a Cultus, and a 
 Finding of God in Art, Speculation, and Analysis, 
 in the Senses and the Body, as well as in Ethics and 
 Heroic Self-dedication ..... 392 
 
 12. All this seems hopelessly to bind us to exclusive 
 
 ecclesiasticism, indeed to persecution and oppression. 
 But three strong counteractions against this con- 
 tinuously operative in religion as here conceived 392, 393 
 
 Religion true in its degree exists and functions here 
 in various stages ..... 393 
 
 Religion, even in its totality, here not the only activity 
 and response of man's spirit . . . 393, 394 
 
 And Religion here ever conscious of a real inter- 
 dependence between all these various realities and 
 complexes as all caused and sustained by the 
 Reality of realities, the self-giving Eternal God . 394 
 
 13. Apparently intolerable complexity of all this. Parallel 
 
 of all simple-seeming life and its attempted ever 
 elaborate analysis. Three essentials of Religion 
 continually bring to it expansion and simplicity . 395 
 
 Religion social horizontally — a division of labour 
 amongst souls ...... 395 
 
 Social vertically — asustainment ofthesoulby God 395, 396 
 And essentially also other-worldly — a life beyond 
 the grave for fullest energizing of durational man 
 within the utterly Abiding God, pure Eternal 
 Life ...... 396
 
 INTRODUCTION
 
 ETERNAL LIFE 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Eternal Life cannot be studied with any fruit, 
 except a generous range and a careful, many- 
 sided development be allowed to its study. For 
 the direct subject-matter here is not, indeed, 
 Time and Eternity, nor Body and Spirit, nor 
 the Supreme Good, subjects predominantly phil- 
 osophical. Nor is it Immortality or Eschatology, 
 nor the Kingdom of God, nor Ecstasy or Pure 
 Love, all primarily religious matters. Yet some- 
 thing about all these things will have, all but 
 continuously, to be implied, said, and decided here. 
 We shall have to begin by roughly assuming and 
 defining, and we hope to end by clearly exhibit- 
 ing, Eternal Life as an experience, requirement, 
 force, conception, ideal which is, in endless 
 degrees and ways, latent or patent in every 
 specifically human life and act ; which, in its 
 
 fullest operativeness and its most vivid recocr- 
 
 i
 
 2 Eternal Life: Introduction 
 
 nition, is specifically religious ; and which, in 
 proportion to such fulness and recognition, is 
 found to involve the consciousness, or posses- 
 sion, of all the highest realities and goods sought 
 after or found by man, and the sense (more or 
 less) of non-succession, of a complete Present and 
 Presence, of an utterly abiding Here and Now. 
 
 Let us, then, in a First Part, look back, at 
 some length, upon the chief types and stages of 
 this experience and conception, as furnished by 
 the great religious revealers and the chief philo- 
 sophical formulators of the past. Precise leading 
 utterances will here be given some precise con- 
 sideration or criticism. Let us next, in a Second 
 Part, look round at the present-day situation, the 
 chief needs, forces, aids, and difficulties operative 
 now in religious and philosophical and also in 
 apparently quite non-religious or non-philosophical 
 departments, for or against that experience and 
 conception. Here again we shall be busy with 
 specific, characteristic declarations, although we can 
 more confidently attempt to reach back, through 
 these, to the forces moving the personalities that 
 uttered them. And let us finally, in a Third 
 Part, attempt a more abiding and systematic 
 elucidation of the elements and realities involved 
 in Eternal Life, and some forecast of, and some 
 demands upon, the future, in this case simply
 
 Temporal Things, Durational Men, Eternal God 3 
 
 in our own words and with a direct reference 
 to practice. Here again we shall have to utilize 
 philosophy ; yet what we now, at last, attempt 
 directly to make explicit, and thus to strengthen, 
 appears, in this its fulness, as a specifically 
 religious sense — a sense of the closest of re- 
 lations, of the most delicate difference within 
 affinity, between two, the deepest and most real 
 of all realities really known to us, our finite, 
 durational spirit, and the infinite, eternal Spirit, 
 God.
 
 PART I 
 
 HISTORICAL RETROSPECT
 
 PART I 
 
 HISTORICAL RETROSPECT 
 
 We can conveniently, though somewhat artifici- 
 ally, divide the historical evidences into those 
 furnished by the Oriental religions, properly so 
 called ; and those supplied by the Graeco-Roman 
 and the Jewish-Christian worlds and their inter- 
 mixtures, inclusive of the Mediaeval and the 
 Modern European (and American) civilization 
 and philosophies, which are still so predominantly 
 derived from these two worlds and their manifold 
 conflicts and combinations. 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS 
 
 Introductory — Buddhism — Hindooism— Zarathustrism— Egyptian 
 
 Religion. 
 
 The present writer cannot pretend to any first- 
 hand experience, or knowledge of, the Oriental 
 religions, and must restrict himself to a repro-
 
 8 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 duction of some translations of texts and of the 
 most sober conclusions maintained by careful and 
 sympathetic specialists in these difficult subject- 
 matters, with simply the addition of certain 
 general applications of his own. We can, in 
 strictness, ignore Mohammedanism, since its 
 orthodox type hardly seems to contain any 
 clear or vivid apprehension of non-successive- 
 ness, whilst the Sufis are indeed important, as 
 exhibiting a religious life full of the sense of 
 Eternity ; but the articulation of this life is 
 probably derived from, and certainly like either 
 Vedantic Pantheism, or the Buddhist Nirvana, 
 or Neo-Platonism. We arrive thus at four, 
 predominantly original and characteristic, Oriental 
 types of experience and conception which, really 
 or seemingly, are concerned with Eternal Life. 
 
 i. In Buddhism (Gautama Buddha died B.C. 
 477) we appear to get, in the Nirvana, — in so 
 far as we can take it as not simply annihilation, — 
 a state or condition ultimate, abiding, eternal. 
 Yet, as Professor Lehmann impressively puts it, 
 " in the Buddhist Weltanschauung we have 
 colossal dimensions, innumerable worlds, a ver- 
 tiginous succession of endlessnesses constituting 
 the course of time, — everything without beginning 
 and without end, everything in process of be-
 
 The Buddhist Nirvana and Sheer Flux g 
 
 coming and of passing away. It knows no 
 Brahma, no Atman, as the World-spirit, — no 
 Being that consists in itself and through which 
 other things exist. There is here no fixed point 
 for existence, no genuine being." And Professor 
 Oldenberg says strikingly : " The speculation of 
 the Brahmans finds Being in all Becoming ; the 
 speculation of the Buddhists finds, in all apparent 
 Being, nothing but Becoming." Thus "an 
 Ego," declares Lehmann, " exists only apparently 
 for the Buddhist ; there exists, for him, a 
 series of concepts and of other forms of con- 
 sciousness, but a self-subsisting subject of all 
 these conditions can neither be traced nor 
 thought" in this system. The Nirvana is the 
 condition in which the suffering life's endless 
 reincarnations are abolished. It is declared to 
 involve the extinction of Desire and of Cognition ; 
 and though we are not told that it also includes 
 the extinction of Life, such an extinction would 
 be in the logical consequence of Buddhism, since 
 the evil from which man is to save himself, 
 namely, suffering, consists precisely in existence. 
 The Nirvana can," however, "only be defined 
 negatively : not Desire, and not Consciousness, not 
 Life, yet also not Death. Only this can be said 
 positively concerning it, — that it is the condition 
 in which the soul is freed from transmigration ;
 
 io Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 only from the point of view of the endless births, 
 with their life and death and death and life, is 
 it possible to attach any conception whatsoever 
 to the term Nirvana." 1 
 
 Thus, even if the Nirvana still be life of some 
 kind, and even though all succession appears to 
 be eliminated from it, we do not get here any 
 positive affirmation of Eternal Life. Yet we are 
 here given perhaps the most impressive of all ex- 
 emplifications of the intolerable horror felt, by the 
 wide-awake human soul, for mere succession of 
 any kind. The pain of such sheer flux, already 
 simply because it is sheer flux, is here seen to be 
 such that the soul, which is haunted by the image 
 and sense of such a flux, is too much absorbed in 
 the relief afforded by any and every complete 
 escape from this pain to move on towards the ap- 
 prehension of full spiritual life, — of duration, and 
 of perfect Simultaneity, as respectively the cease- 
 less characteristic and the deepest implication of 
 that life. And yet that horror eloquently expresses 
 this very characteristic and this very implication 
 of the human soul's deeper and deepest life. 
 
 2. In Hindooism there is the great Ramanuja 
 who, in the eleventh century a.d., founded a 
 
 1 Edvin Lehmann, in Chantepie de la Saussaye's Lehrbuch der 
 Religionsgeschichte, 3rd ed., 1905, vol. ii. pp. 90, 91, 93, 96, 97 ; 
 Oldenberg, Buddha, 3rd ed., 1897, pp. 304-328.
 
 Ramanuja s Theistic Hindooism 1 1 
 
 sect which indeed conceives the world, as does 
 the orthodox Vedanta, thoroughly monistically. 
 There exists nothing but the one, all-compre- 
 hending Being. Yet this Being is not mere 
 Thought and Existence without qualities ; Exist- 
 ence and Thought are here not the substance, 
 they are simply qualities, of Being ; the Absolute 
 does not consist of Existence and Thinking, but 
 is a Being which exists and thinks and which 
 possesses all other qualities, and these in so perfect 
 a way that they confer upon it absolute power 
 and absolute worth. Thus Brahma is here 
 conceived as an all-penetrating, all-powerful, all- 
 knowing, all-merciful Being. He is not an un- 
 differentiated Unity, for the manifold world of 
 reality exists in Him ; souls and the material 
 elements form His body but not His nature; 
 they are subordinate to Him as our body is to 
 our spirit, and exist in Him with a relative 
 independence. All that lives is in process of 
 transmigration (samsara), from which the soul 
 can free itself, — through the knowledge of 
 Brahma, not through good works ; the soul is 
 then raised into the world of Brahma, to an 
 eternal, blessed life, and participates in Brahma's 
 divine qualities, except in His power to emit and 
 to rule the world and to receive it back into 
 Himself. Sometimes it is even said, not that
 
 11 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 souls exist in Brahma, but that Brahma dwells 
 in them as their constitutive principle. And the 
 soul here does not attain liberation from trans- 
 migration, through recognizing Brahma and being 
 absorbed in Him by means of its own power, 
 but through its learning to know and to con- 
 template His nature by the gracious aid of 
 Brahma Himself, and thus attaining to the 
 highest condition of eternal liberty and beatitude 
 in His heaven. 1 
 
 Here indeed, especially in so far as Brahma's 
 own life may be considered to be non-successive 
 in itself, we clearly have Eternal Life, its 
 apprehension and conception. 
 
 3. Zarathustra lived in North-Western Media, 
 probably between 700 and 650 b.c. ; and the 
 oldest parts of the Avesta, especially the Gatha- 
 hymns, may well go back to him or to his im- 
 mediate disciples. In these Gathas the supreme 
 God does not yet bear the proper name of, but is 
 already qualified as, Ahura Mazda, the Lord 
 possessing Wisdom, — the perfect discrimination 
 between Good (Faith) and Evil (Delusion). Or 
 
 1 Edv. Lehmann, ibid. p. 143. See the actual texts of Ramanuja, 
 in his Commentary to the Vedanta-Sutras, tr. by G. Thibaut, 
 Oxford, 1904, esp. p. 208: "The Brahman ... is nothing else 
 but the highest Person capable of the thought 'of becoming 
 many' by manifesting himself in a world comprising manifold 
 sentient and non-sentient creatures."
 
 Zarathustrd s Excessive Spiritual Dualism 13 
 
 he is called the Holy Spirit, and we are told : 
 " In the beginning were the two Spirits, which 
 were there as twins and each by itself." "And 
 when the two Spirits met each other they created, 
 as first created things, Life and Death, and that, 
 at the last, Hell should be for the Wicked and 
 Heaven for the Just." And in the younger 
 Yasht-hymns the soul of the departed just man 
 is led, by his religion, his own profession of faith, 
 to his good thoughts, to his good words, to his 
 good works ; and, through these three forecourts 
 of Paradise, he arrives at the Eternal Light." 1 
 
 Here, in the insistence upon Good and Evil, 
 as equally powerful ; upon these positive forces, 
 as productive of abiding consequences ; and upon 
 good works, as the fullest and most final of the 
 essentials for salvation ; we get some elements of 
 an even excessively ethical religion, yet which, 
 as such, is in fruitful contrast to the thin in- 
 tellectualism, and to the conception of Evil as 
 merely negative, so dominant elsewhere. And 
 Eternal Light may here, apparently, be taken as 
 non-successive Life, apprehended as such in God, 
 or even lived by the soul itself. 
 
 4. The old Egyptian religion, so bewilderingly 
 rich in its habits and conceptions with regard to 
 
 1 Edv. Lehmann, ibid. pp. 170, 171, 174, 188, 199, 223.
 
 14 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 the dead and to a life beyond or in the grave, 
 appears to articulate, or even to imply with 
 certainty, little or nothing of Eternal life. For 
 the Gods are here, apparently, all and always, 
 conceived as occupied in purely successive 
 actions ; and the texts from all periods (right 
 back to the most ancient pyramid-texts), which 
 identify the individual dead with a God, ever 
 represent this individual as occupied, together 
 with or in this God, in such purely successive, 
 even if monotonously repeated, actions. Thus 
 the dead can be completely identified with Ra, 
 the Sun-God, the dispenser of all life ; but this 
 confers upon them no more than the God himself 
 possesses and does, — for the dead man now arises 
 in the heavens, courses through them, descends in 
 the West and arises again in the East. 1 
 
 We have, here, Immortality indeed, but, ap- 
 parently, not a touch of Eternity. 
 
 1 H. O. Lange, in Chantepie de la Saussaye's Lehrbuch der 
 Religio?isgeschichte, 3rd ed., 1905, vol. i. pp. 124, 200.
 
 Three Stages of Israelite Prophetism 1 5 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ISRAELITISH RELIGION 
 
 The Jahvist Narratives and the first Prophets : Elijah, Amos, Isaiah, 
 Micah — Deuteronomy and Jeremiah — Ezekiel and the Priestly 
 Code — Late appearance of belief in a fulness of life after death, 
 and abiding significance of this fact. 
 
 In now taking the Jewish-Christian, the Graeco- 
 Roman, and the Modern European revelations, 
 conceptions, civilizations, in so far as these are 
 concerned with Eternal Life, we shall do so as 
 constituting seven periods, stages, and conditions 
 of inter-relation, help, and check. Continuing our 
 numeration from our Chapter on the Oriental 
 Religions we thus get Chapters concerned with the 
 following times; II. Israelitish ; III. Hellenic; 
 IV. Jewish Hellenistic ; V. Primitive Christian ; 
 VI. Christian Hellenistic; VII. Mediaeval; and 
 VIII. Modern. 
 
 The Israelitish times range from, say, b.c. 
 1320, the Israelite Exodus from Egypt under 
 Moses, to B.C. 597, the first deportation of the 
 Jews and their King Jehoiachin to Babylon, 
 indeed to b.c. 538, the return of the Jews from 
 the Captivity. But we find little or nothing
 
 1 6 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 to our purpose till about b.c. 880 (the Book 
 of the Covenant in its present form, Exodus 
 xxi.-xxiii.), and about B.C. 850 (the Jahvist 
 document of the Pentateuch), — the times of 
 King Omri's building of Samaria and of the 
 activity of the great prophets Elijah and 
 Elisha. 
 
 1. The Jahvist tells us, in the beautiful story 
 of Hagar's desolation in the wilderness, of "the 
 well of the Living One who seeth me" (Gen. 
 xvi. 14, xxiv. 62, xxv. 11); and however much 
 the occasion of the interpretation may be a 
 previous, pagan, proper name of the well, the 
 Jahvist writer himself is evidently full of the 
 sense of God's living presence. Indeed Ezekiel, 
 after b.c. 593, still makes God asseverate, "As I 
 live, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
 wicked " (xxxiii. 11): God's power and His merciful 
 love are thus bound up with His livingness. The 
 magnificent account of Elijah (1 Kings xvii.- 
 xix., xxi.) doubtless goes back, by oral tradition, 
 to eye-witnesses, and, even in its written form, 
 must be almost entirely as old as about B.C. 790. 
 And here we see how for Elijah " there existed 
 everywhere only one holy, only one mighty Power, 
 that revealed Itself, not like Baal, in the life of 
 mere nature, but, like Jahveh, in the ethical
 
 Elijah, Amos, Isaiah, upon God 17 
 
 requirements of the spirit." 1 In the great ordeal 
 upon Carmel, Jahveh is apprehended by Elijah 
 as so alive and active, and Baal as so dead and 
 inert, that, throughout that long day, the prophet 
 mockingly invites the throng of Baal-priests to 
 invoke Baal and to sacrifice to him (1 Kings 
 xviii. 25-29). 
 
 The oldest of the literary prophets, Amos, with 
 his eyes fixed upon the approach of the Assyrians 
 (about B.C. 760), makes Jahveh announce to the 
 Israelites: "You only have I known of all the 
 families of the earth : therefore — it is you I will 
 punish for all your iniquities." And again : " Seek 
 good and not evil, that ye may live." And finally ■. 
 " Though ye offer Me burnt offerings and your 
 meat offerings, I will not accept them. . . . Take 
 thou away from Me the noise of thy song . . . but 
 let judgment roll along as waters, and righteous- 
 ness as a mighty stream" (iii. 2, v. 14, 22-24). 
 Here the Israelite's special privileges are made 
 the very ground of special responsibilities, and 
 the living God is one to whom moral dispositions 
 are above all ritual observance. 
 
 And then the great Isaiah of Jerusalem tells us 
 how, in about B.C. 740, he " saw the Lord sitting 
 upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the hems 
 
 1 J. Wellhausen, Abriss der Geschichte Israels unci Judas, 1884, 
 P-33-
 
 1 8 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 of His garment filled the temple. Seraphs stood 
 before Him, each with six wings. With twain 
 each covered his face . . . And one cried to the 
 other : Holy, holy, holy is Jahveh of hosts, all 
 lands His glory fills." And Isaiah exclaims : 
 " Woe is me, I am undone ; for I am a man of 
 impure lips" (vi. 1-3, 5). The living God is 
 thus realized to be transcendent as well as im- 
 manent, and man, in His presence, feels himself 
 painfully weak and sinful. And then the prophet, 
 with his lips purified, not by himself but by an 
 angel of God, addresses, in God's name, a parable 
 to God's people : " Now judge, I pray you, betwixt 
 Me and My vineyard. What more could have 
 been done to My vineyard, that I have not done 
 in it?" (v. 4). Thus this overflowingly living, 
 all-powerful God truly cares for weak, sinful 
 man. ,, 
 
 Micak, in about 696 b.c, exclaims: "Will 
 the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams ? 
 . . . shall I perchance give my firstborn . . . 
 in penance for my life ? He hath told thee, O 
 man, what is good ; and what doth Jahveh 
 demand of thee, but to do justice, and to love 
 mercy, and to walk humbly before thy God ? " 
 (vi. 7, 8). The ethical character of the all- 
 powerful, living One is here again magnificently 
 emphasized,
 
 Micah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, upon God 19 
 
 2. Jeremiah, called to the prophetical office in 
 628 B.C., makes God declare Himself "the 
 fountain of living waters," which His people 
 have forsaken; and insists that "the Lord is 
 the living God and an everlasting King; at His 
 wrath the earth shall tremble" (ii. 13, x. 11). 
 Thus God more clearly appears as One possessing 
 the reason of His existence within Himself, and 
 who, as such, is ceaselessly, perfectly active. 
 And then Deuteronomy reasserts, and interprets 
 by means of some two and a half centuries of 
 prophetic teaching, and closely in the spirit of 
 Jeremiah, the earlier (Mosaic, Covenantal, Jahvist, 
 and Ephraimite) teachings, and exhorts Israel 
 "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all 
 thy might" (vi. 5), and thus strenuously insists, 
 as central to man's life, upon the most living of 
 relations with the Living One. 
 
 3. And, finally, at the beginning of the Exile, 
 the priest-prophet Ezekiel (called in b.c. 593, 
 his book completed in 573 B.C.) announces in the 
 name of Jahveh ; " Behold, I am against the 
 shepherds, and I will require My flock at their 
 hands. Behold, I Myself will search My sheep. 
 I will deliver them out of all places where they 
 have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.
 
 20 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 I will feed My flock ; I will seek that which was 
 lost, and will bind up that which was broken. Ye 
 are My flock, . . . and I am your God " (xxxiv. 
 10-12, 1 6, 31). And in the prophet's vision of 
 the valley full of bones, it is God, "the ever- 
 lasting," who "will put breath into them, and 
 they shall live" (xxxvii. 1, 6). And finally, in 
 his vision of the new temple, the prophet is 
 shown waters that issue from under the threshold 
 of the temple-house, and these, flowing eastward, 
 rapidly become " a river that could not be crossed 
 over." And the interpreting angel explains to 
 Ezekiel : " These waters go down into the Araba, 
 and when they come into the sour waters " of the 
 Dead Sea, "the waters shall be sweetened. And 
 everything that liveth, whithersoever the waters 
 shall come, shall live ; and there shall be a very 
 great multitude of fish, — they shall be as the fish 
 of the great sea" (xvii. 1, 5, 8, 9, 10). Thus 
 here God Himself, all life, purity, health, ex- 
 pansion, self-donation, moves out to the weak, 
 the impure, the stricken and contracted, and 
 Himself vivifies, heals, purifies, and infinitely 
 fructifies all He touches. The Priestly Code 
 too contains, amidst much detailed legalism 
 and dry schematism, passages of magnificent 
 insight and outlook, akin to those of the priest 
 Ezekiel.
 
 Attention to Immortality, late in Israel 21 
 
 4. It is especially impressive to note how, 
 throughout these eight centuries, the emphasis and 
 the detail of the religious experience and teaching 
 are ever upon God, not upon man, and, neverthe- 
 less, upon this life, not upon the next. The various 
 heathen round about had, indeed, much of necro- 
 mancy, animism, preoccupation with a temporal 
 beyond of all kinds, and little sense of anything 
 otherwise beyond nature, — they had, as yet, but 
 a very slender spiritual and ethical sense. But 
 Israel, in spite of not a few still lingering traces 
 of analogous worship (here, of a mountain- and 
 storm-god) and a largely hard and fierce social 
 code, is, by the prophets, made to abstain from 
 all such animistic practices and indeed from any 
 active thought concerning the individual soul's 
 beyond ; and nevertheless it is made to realize, 
 with, at that time, incomparable power and purity, 
 the Other Life of God, present somehow within the 
 soul, here and now, and the unique joy and self- 
 realization, to be found by man's soul, in belonging 
 to Him alone in all its acts and states. And we 
 shall find that it is these spiritual-ethical "this- 
 life" experiences and teachings, and not those 
 naturalistic-magical guesses and practices as to 
 a subsequent life, which heralded, prepared, and 
 entered into the substance of, whatever was fully 
 fruitful and abiding in the further, eventually also
 
 22 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 "next-life," teachings concerning Eternal Life. 
 In a word, it is the convictions of the reality 
 and the spiritual-ethical character of God, of a 
 spiritual-ethical soul in man, and of this soul's 
 relation to that God — the reality of a spiritual- 
 ethical kind, already within this life before the 
 body's death — that are the root of every sane and 
 spiritual apprehension of Eternal Life. And 
 though these convictions involve logically, and 
 in the long run are developed by, the faith in 
 the soul's non-diminished life after the body's 
 death, it is not this faith in survival after death 
 that is the basis of these great convictions, but 
 it is, contrariwise, these great convictions that 
 support and postulate that faith. 1 
 
 And yet, as our third Chapter will now show, 
 how much light has been thrown upon the 
 workings of man's mind and spirit, and how 
 much noble, at bottom deeply religious, aspira- 
 tion, precisely concerning Eternal Life, has been 
 contributed by the Greeks ! Indeed how much, 
 after the dross and fever of their earlier experi- 
 ences and speculations had been dropped and 
 
 1 For an admirable account of the long abstention of the Jewish 
 religious world from all other-life speculations and practices, and 
 of the causes and effects of this strikingly persistent religious 
 concentration and reserve, see Dr. R. H. Charles's Critical 
 History of the Doctrine of a Future Life, 1899 ; or his quite short 
 " Rise and Development in Israel of the Belief in a Future Life," 
 Expositor, January 1903.
 
 Maladif Beginnings of the Greek Experiences 23 
 
 overcome, did they aid in helping even the Jewish 
 saints and seers to articulate and to complete their 
 spiritual outlook ! 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE HELLENIC EXPERIENCES 
 
 The Dionysiac Cult — Orphism — Parmenides — Plato and his four 
 abiding contributions — Aristotle and the Unmoving Energeia. 
 
 The Hellenic experiences here considered range, 
 from about 550 B.C., to the deaths of Alexander 
 the Great and Aristotle, 323, 321 b.c. 
 
 1. The precise local and temporal antecedents 
 and occasions of Orphism are still, in some 
 measure, matters of debate. I shall here, for 
 these questions, follow chiefly Miss Jane Harrison 
 and Professor Gilbert Murray. But the psychic 
 experiences, disagreeably maladif or even im- 
 moral though they doubtless largely were, can 
 be securely traced ; and in this, the point that 
 alone directly concerns us, Erwin Rohde's great 
 Psyche book remains a guide, unsurpassed in 
 delicate penetration and power of sympathetic 
 re-evocation. 
 
 It is, in any case, certain that the orgiastic
 
 24 Eter7ial Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 worship of Dionysus, was one of the occasions 
 of Orphism, so largely different in its attitude and 
 spirit. Rohde describes the beginnnigs of that 
 worship in the change that came over Greek 
 thought in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. : " The 
 continuous life of the soul, which the cultus of 
 the dead presupposes and guarantees, is," so far, 
 "completely tied to the memory of the survivors 
 upon earth, to the care which these survivors 
 may choose to devote to the soul of the prede- 
 ceased ancestor. If this memory ceases, if the 
 reverent care of the living relaxes, the element is 
 withdrawn from the soul of the departed, in 
 which alone it still possessed a shadow of exis- 
 tence. Not from such a cultus could the idea 
 arise of a true immortality of the soul, of its 
 persistent life, working independently within its 
 own energy. If the soul is truly immortal, it is, 
 in its essential quality, equal to God. He who, 
 amongst the Greeks, says immortal, says God; 
 the conceptions are interchangeable. And, in 
 the religion of the Greek people, it is a fzcnda- 
 mental principle that, in the divine order of the 
 world, humanity and Divine Being are locally 
 and essentially separate and distinct, and are 
 intended to remain so. The religious relation of 
 man to the Divine is essentially based upon this 
 difference ; the ethics of the Greek popular con-
 
 Orgiastic Night-Worship of Dionysus 25 
 
 sciousness are rooted in willing resignation to 
 the limitation and relativity of human capacity 
 and of human claims to happiness and power, — 
 all this as essentially different from the life and 
 lot of the world of the Gods." And yet, " since 
 a certain time there appears in Greece, and 
 nowhere so early in such clear articulation as in 
 Greece, the thought of the divinity of the human 
 soul, and of the immortality resulting from this, 
 its divine, nature. This thought belongs entirely 
 to Mysticism, a second kind of religion which, 
 but little noticed by the popular religion, created 
 a field for itself in isolated sects, influenced cer- 
 tain philosophical schools, and was able, thence, 
 to convey to far-away posterity in the West and 
 in the East the doctrine of the essential unity, 
 of the union to be striven for bv religion, between 
 the divine and the human spirit — of the divine 
 nature of the soul, and of its eternity." 
 
 The orgiastic night - worship of Dionysus 
 Sabasios in the Thracian mountain-forests leads 
 to the experience of, here a wild, feverish, thus 
 all the more easily observed, " possession," 
 Karexo/AevoL ere jov deou, evdeoi : and an absence of the 
 mind, o vovs ovtceri iv avrw eveariv : the soul's croincr 
 out, standing out, of the body, cko-tcio-is (Plato, 
 Meno, 99 D ; Ion, 534 B). This ecstasy is here 
 a sacred madness, in which the soul unites itself
 
 26 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 with the Godhead : lepofidvia (Clemens Alex., 
 Protrepi. g D ; Plato, Phcedr. 253 D). And this 
 experience could not fail strongly to aid a peculiar 
 development of belief in the immortality, indeed 
 in the eternity, of the soul. Thus Herodotus and 
 others tell of Thracian tribes whose faith "made 
 men immortal " — Terai ol aQavaii^ovr^ (4. 93, 94). 
 Transmigration of souls appears to have been 
 taught. But it is the cultus itself, its aim and 
 its return-effect upon the worshipper's conviction, 
 that we can follow out clearly. " The aim, indeed 
 the task, of the cultus, was to drive its participants 
 as far as ' ecstasy,' to tear their souls out of 
 their ordinary, humanly limited, mode of existence, 
 and to raise them, as free gods, to communion 
 with the God and his satellites. This experience 
 could be gained in ecstasy by the soul, but by it 
 alone, — the spiritual being living invisibly within 
 man, — not by the entire human being, composed 
 of body and soul. The feeling of its own divinity, 
 of its eternity, which, in the ecstasy, had revealed 
 itself, as in a lightning-flash, to the soul, could 
 develop into the abiding conviction that this soul 
 is of a divine nature, called to a divine life, as 
 soon as the body leaves it free — as in ecstasy for 
 a short while, so in death for ever." 1 
 
 1 Ei-win Rohde, Psyche, 2nd ed., 1898, vol. ii. pp. 1, 2, 11, 12, 28, 
 32, 33. The entire section, pp. 1-37, is a classic of the purest water.
 
 Sense of Simultaneity Central in Ecstasy 27 
 
 I would only insist, even more than Rohde, 
 upon the fact that all states of trance, or indeed 
 of rapt attention, notoriously appear to the 
 experiencing soul, in proportion to their con- 
 centration, as timeless ; i.e. as non-successive, 
 simultaneous, hence as eternal. They appear 
 thus to the soul, if not during, at least soon 
 after, the experience. And hence the eternity of 
 the soul is not, here, a conclusion drawn from the 
 apparent God-likeness, in other respects, of the 
 soul when in this condition, but the eternity, on 
 the contrary, is the very centre of the experience 
 itself, and is the chief inducement to the soul for 
 holding itself to be divine. The soul's immortality 
 cannot be experienced in advance of death, whilst 
 its eternity, in the sense indicated, is, or seems to 
 be, directly experienced in such " this-life " states ; 
 hence the belief in immortality is here derivative, 
 that in eternity is primary. 
 
 2. It was the religious sect of the Orphics 
 that took over this experience and conviction 
 from those orgiastic Dionysus-worshippers, whilst 
 greatly altering, in part directly reversing, the 
 cultual acts and the ethical practice and disposi- 
 tions. Orphic communities appear to have 
 formed themselves in Greek regions soon after 
 550 B.C. ; certainly Onomakritos established such
 
 28 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 a community in Athens, under the Peisistratidae, 
 about 530-5 ic B.C., and presents the Orphic 
 doctrines in poetic form. In the poetry and 
 cultus of the sect a long genealogy of the Gods 
 ended with Dionysus or Zagreus, the son of 
 Zeus and Persephone, entrusted by his father 
 with the rule of the world. The Titans, Zeus's 
 enemies, attack Dionysus, who escapes in various 
 disguises ; but at last, in the form of a bull, 
 Dionysus is overcome, torn to pieces, and 
 devoured by his savage enemies. Zeus destroys 
 the Titans with a thunderbolt ; and out of their 
 ashes arises the human race, possessing the good 
 which descends from Dionysus, mixed up with 
 the evil derived from the Titans. Thus the 
 good, in the several human souls, is so many 
 fragments of one single soul, broken up by a 
 crime ; and man's task is to free himself from 
 the Titanic element in his present nature, 
 and to bring his Dionysian part back pure 
 to the God of whom, essentially, it forms a 
 part. 
 
 Thus the soul will escape " the circle of 
 necessity," "the wheel of births," 6 t^o^o? t% 
 yevecreoos, endless transmigrations ; here we have 
 a truly Buddhist feeling. But this escape can 
 only be brought by Orpheus and his Bacchic 
 initiations. It is Aiowaos \vo-ios, 0eol Xvaioi, and
 
 Orphism like and tinlike Buddhism 29 
 
 not man's own strength, which here liberate man, 
 — here we get beyond Gautama's teaching. 1 
 
 Now this Orphic cultus and life are full of 
 abstinence and purification, and are as intensely 
 dualistic in their attitude towards the body as 
 is Buddhism itself. The awixa-ariiia play-upon- 
 words, the body, the soul's grave, is Orphic, as 
 Plato tells us, Cratylus, 400 C. Yet the Orphics 
 not only very certainly believed in a future life, 
 but the remains of their actual cultus and practice 
 (as distinguished from literary utilizations and 
 eclectic transformations of their teachings, such 
 as those of the largely sceptical Euripides) show 
 us how important, how alive and intense an 
 element in their religion was this belief, and also 
 how decidedly not a Nirvana, not an unconscious- 
 ness or lowered consciousness, this future life 
 was conceived by them to be. 
 
 Thus, in the absolutely authentic, contemporary 
 Orphic Tablets the soul, on coming, at its death, 
 into the Beyond, declares that " I am son of 
 Earth," the Titans, "and of starry Heaven," Zeus, 
 through Dionysus ; that " out of the pure," from 
 Orphic purification, " I come, pure queen of them 
 below," Persephone; and that "I have" in con- 
 sequence "flown out of the sorrowful weary 
 
 1 For all this, see Miss Jane Harrison's careful account in Pro- 
 legomena to the History of Greek Religion, 1908, pp. 478-496.
 
 30 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 wheel" of flux and transmigration. But how 
 utterly non-Buddhist is the life here, which the 
 Orphic expects, and desires, to live after death ! 
 For the soul, thus arrived in the Beyond, is 
 not to approach a certain Well-spring there, 
 but is to draw near to another, " by the lake 
 of Memory," and to beseech the guardians of 
 it " Lo, I am parched with thirst and I perish, 
 give quickly the cold water flowing forth from 
 the lake." The first well is doubtless Lethe, 
 Forgetfulness, since already Hesiod, in about 720 
 B.C., holds Lethe to be bad {Theog. 227); and in 
 Plato the river Ameles or Lethe brings pollution 
 to those who do not succeed in crossing it suc- 
 cessfully [Rep. x. 6210, c), and the soul that 
 refuses to soar, sinks to earth "full" simul- 
 taneously "of forgetfulness {\^6n) and vice" 
 (Phcedr. 2484 1 
 
 The world presented by these tablets is a com- 
 plicated one, since the soul, in spite of its divinity, 
 requires, even when freed from the body, first to 
 find and to utilize certain means for regaining the 
 memory of its own past. And, again, the soul 
 seems thus, even when it has attained this 
 memory, to find its bliss, not in a vision of, and 
 
 1 Jane Harrison, op. cit. pp. 572-599, and Prof. Gilbert Murray, 
 ibid. 659-673, give a most careful and full account and elucidation 
 of these eight tablets, the former not, I think, without a con- 
 siderable over-estimate of the elevation of religion here attained.
 
 Parmenides s Formnlationof Sheer Simultaneity 3 1 
 
 intercourse with, the Gods, but in the regaining 
 of its past joys and insights. Perhaps, however, 
 the memory here intended is primarily the soul's 
 re-awakening to its pre-natal experience and 
 knowledge. Yet, even so, we miss any simple 
 consciousness, not of its own past or future, but 
 of a present Reality, and any non-successiveness 
 or eternity in this its consciousness. I take it that 
 the popular, non-mystical Greek religion, with its 
 conception of a merely shadowy continuance after 
 death, has been strongly operative here, and has 
 been respectively reinforced and overcome by the 
 two apparently contradictory characteristics of all 
 concentrated or ecstatic states — an apparent ob- 
 livion of all things, even including the object 
 fixed by the mind, and a finding of delightful 
 freshness both in this object and in all other 
 things. 
 
 3. It is in Parmenides, who owes so much to 
 the Orphics and Pythagoreans (he was born in 
 Greek Southern Italy about 544 B.C.) that we get 
 the first quite plain and precise discrimination, still 
 accessible to us, between an Eternal Now and all 
 Succession. 
 
 fiovvos 8' eVi iu,v0o<; oSoto 
 
 \€LTT€rai ft)? eariv' ravrrjo S' iirl a7]fjbar hacri 
 
 TroWa fid\' } ft)? aye'vrjTOV ibv teal avdokeOpuu iariv
 
 32 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 ov\ov fJbovvo<yeve<i re icai arpefih ?}S' dreXearov. 
 ovSe ttqt r)v ouS' carat, eVel vvv eartv 6fiov nrav, 
 ev, avvexes. 1 
 
 " There remains then still only to give an 
 account of One way — that Being exists indeed. 
 Many directing posts stand upon it : because 
 unborn, it is also indestructible, entire, only- 
 begotten, unshakable, and without end. It never 
 was and it will never be, since it is, all of it 
 together, only present in the Now, one and in- 
 divisible." Thus the first clear promulgation of 
 the Totuni Sinml of Eternity is also the clearest 
 of all purely abstractive and Monistic, utterly 
 static and determinist, professions of faith, — and, 
 like all such professions, takes Mathematical 
 transparency and lucid spatial picturings as 
 directly applicable to the deepest of realities, and 
 as the test and measure of our attaining to the 
 truth concerning them. 
 
 4. But it is in Plato (born in Athens about 
 427 B.C., died there in 347) that the apprehension 
 of an Eternal Now, and the conception of a 
 To turn Simul, attain their greatest vividness and 
 clearness, though far from their greatest richness 
 of content, so far for all time. Let us accept as 
 
 1 8. 1-3, 5, 6. Diels, Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, 2te Aufl., 
 1906, vol. i. pp. 118, 119.
 
 Three Stages in Plato s Teaching 33 
 
 now established, in at least their main outlines, 
 the three stages of Plato's growth, and the three 
 corresponding groups of the Platonic writings. 
 The first, beginning with the Lysis and ending 
 with the Meno, is a continuation of Socrates's 
 work, and hardly more articulated than it ; the 
 second, beginning with the Gorgias and ending 
 with the Phcedmts, turns away from the Here 
 to the There ; and the third, beginning with the 
 Symposium and ending with the Laws, is a com- 
 promise between the later orientation towards 
 the Beyond and the earlier position in the visible 
 world. Hence only in the second and third 
 groups do we find teachings to our purpose. The 
 Republic is a mosaic of contributions from all three 
 periods. 
 
 (1) In the second group, then, we get the 
 passages in the Phccdrus and Republic, which are 
 already mentioned as hostile to forgetfulness, and 
 so strongly insist upon how Remembering-Again, 
 avdfxvrja^ (like unto the Orphic fivrjuoavvr), Memory), 
 and not Unmindfulness or Forgetting, is the lot of 
 the purified soul in the Beyond. In the Thecetetus 
 (ij6a, b) Socrates affirms : " It behoves us to 
 attempt to escape hence thither, as swiftly as 
 possible ; and this flight thither consists in a 
 likeness to God (6/xotWi? tm 6e<p) as far as possible ; 
 and this likeness consists in becoming just and 
 3
 
 34 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 holy and wise." Thus the soul is not identical 
 with God : it can attain to some likeness to 
 Him ; and He is possessed of ethical qualities 
 in a supreme degree and way. Indeed in the 
 Sophist (248^, 249a: ), the Eleatic stranger breaks 
 out with : " Can we, O heavens, ever be made to 
 believe that motion and life and soul and mind 
 are not present in Absolute Being ? Can we 
 imagine Being to be devoid of life and mind, and 
 to remain a venerable, holy, mindless, unmoving 
 fixture (aiclvT)Tov eo-ro?) ? " The clear, cold, fixed, 
 empty abstraction of Parmenides has, here at 
 least and for a little while, been replaced by a 
 vivid, warm apprehension of the Reality, as full of 
 life and energy and as rich in self-communication. 
 And the Pannenides vigorously criticizes, surely, 
 as a reductio ad absurdum, the doctrine of One, 
 or of the One, when taken strictly, as exclusive of 
 all multiplicity and relations, and thus criticizes it 
 also in respect to its view of Time. " The One 
 cannot exist in Time at all," it is argued (141 A) ; 
 the various forms of Time are each examined and 
 rejected, and amongst such forms appears also 
 " is," — " is not ' is ' simply the form of Time when 
 now present ? " ( 1 4 1 E ) ; and hence, these forms of 
 Time being the only possible modes of Being, 
 " the One " of Parmenides, it is concluded, " cannot 
 possibly partake of Being" (141 E).
 
 Intrinsic Voluntary Purification^ in Plato 35 
 
 It is in this second group also that we find most 
 of Plato's utterances and picturings as to an after- 
 death purification from bad habits in souls that 
 are good in their active, dominant intention at 
 the moment of death, a purification deliberately 
 chosen by such souls. These intrinsically neces- 
 sary purifications, freely willed by the soul itself, 
 most advantageously replace the quite un-intrinsic 
 delay in attaining to a blissful consciousness noted 
 by us in the Orphic Tablets. These chief purga- 
 torial passages occur in the Gorgias, pp. 525^, c, 
 526c, d; the Pkcsdrus, p. 249$; the Republic, x. 
 pp. 617^, 6iQ£, 920^; and the Pkcedo, pp. 110b- 
 1 i^d} 
 
 (2) It is, however, in the third period and 
 group of writings that Plato most strenuously 
 strives after, and most nearly attains to, a way 
 from the Contingent to the Necessary, and 
 gives us a clear definition of the essential 
 nature of, and contrast between, Time and 
 Eternity. In the Symposium, Diotima, in her 
 great speech as to the soul's mounting up, by 
 
 1 For the sequence of the Dialogues, see Prof. Henry Jackson's 
 " Plato's later Theory of Ideas," The Journal of Philology, Cam- 
 bridge, vols, x.-xv., 1882-1886. I have accepted the three stages 
 in the composition of the Republic demanded by Rohde, Psyche, 
 ed. 1898, vol. i. pp. 266, 269 note, and E. Pfleiderer, Socrates 
 und Plato, 1896, pp. 124-136. For Plato's Purgatorial teachings, 
 see my Mystical Element of ReligioJi, 1908, vol. ii. pp. 123-126, 
 205-211.
 
 36 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 ever greater purification and abstraction, to the 
 momentary vision of, and union with, Eternal 
 Beauty, tells us how, when the purified seeker 
 " comes towards the end, he will suddenly perceive 
 a Nature of wondrous beauty, neither growing nor 
 decaying . . . but Beauty absolute, separate, 
 simple and everlasting " — del 6v koX ovre yiyvofxevov 
 ovre aTroWvfievov (210E, 2ii A). Here we have 
 indeed an Eternal that truly is, and indeed that is 
 even, somehow, supremely beautiful. Yet not all 
 the rapture of the loving soul can prevent that 
 Eternal from here appearing cold and unattrac- 
 tive ; for it is not here possessed, as, for a 
 •noment, it was in the Sophist, of energy and life 
 and, at least by implication, of self-communication. 
 Eros, the soul's movement up to the Eromenon, 
 the beloved One, is indeed here ; but the 
 Eromenon is not an Eron, there is no previous 
 movement down to the soul from the One ; no 
 lonorinor for our longingr no << He hath first loved 
 us," hardly the dawn of Agape, is as yet discover- 
 able here. 
 
 It is in the Timceus that Plato achieves the 
 clearest extant contrast between Eternity and 
 Time. For, in the account of the fashioning of 
 the world, we see how the Father who begat the 
 world " whilst he was ordering the universe, 
 made, of Eternity which abides in unity, an
 
 Gods Utter Simultaneity, in Plato $7 
 
 eternal image moving according to number, even 
 that which we have named Time. . . . Days and 
 nights and months and years, are all portions of 
 Time ; and was and shall be are forms of Time 
 that have come to be, although we are wont 
 wrongly to ascribe them to the Eternal Essence. 
 For we say that It was and shall be, yet, in truth, 
 is alone belongs to It" (37 E). "Is," taken thus 
 strictly, is here no more one of the forms of Time, 
 but is the characteristic form of Eternity. Hence 
 Eternity is essentially simultaneous, and quite 
 distinct from everlasting duration, from succession, 
 from Time. 1 
 
 In spite of his distressing insensibility to the 
 odiousness of certain Pagan vices, and of his 
 dangerous, because excessively abstractive, method 
 and temper, especially during his middle period, 
 Plato, at his best, remains the first and last 
 of the Graeco-Roman non-Christian souls and 
 thinkers to unite, especially also in his thirst 
 and search after Eternal Life, four things never 
 to be disunited without a great impoverishment of 
 experience and outlook. Philosophy with him 
 stands in the midst of a great social and political 
 as well as individual life, and strives to understand 
 and to aid this life ; it ever retains the need and 
 
 1 For the passage in the Ttmceus, see Archer Hind's good notes, 
 1880. 
 
 100845
 
 38 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 practice of purification, whilst enlisting in this 
 struggle all the nobler passions, the Thumos as 
 well as the Reason, against the lower passions ; it 
 ever strives to find multiplicity in all unity, and 
 unity in all multiplicity ; and it never ceases to be 
 kept profoundly alive, and very largely humble 
 and sweet, by the sense of an inexhaustible, 
 transcendent Beauty, Truth, and Goodness, our 
 love of which constitutes all our worth. 
 
 5. In Aristotle, Alexander the Great's great 
 tutor, 384-322 B.C., we miss much of what, in 
 Plato, deep souls will never let die, — especially 
 the /cddapais, the turning of the whole soul, as 
 ever the essential condition for its attainment of 
 spiritual truth and life ; the retention and training 
 of the Thumos, as the born auxiliary of reason in 
 its difficult fight against ignoble passion ; and the, 
 already largely theistic, thirst after more than all 
 merely human, merely contingent, things and 
 states. Yet, in his conception of the Unmoving 
 Energy, Aristotle also has made a profound 
 and permanent contribution to the expression 
 and stimulation of the experiences and problems 
 involved in Eternal Life. 
 
 (1) In the Nicomachean Ethics there are such 
 sayings as that "to be is to be active," iapev S' 
 ivepyeia (ix. 1 1 68a, 3) ; that " men are unable to be
 
 The Unmoving Energeia, in Aristotle 39 
 
 continuously active, and hence pleasure does not 
 continuously arise in their lives, for pleasure 
 follows upon energeia " (x. 1 1750, 9) ; and that " all 
 men have held the gods to be alive and to 
 energize, and not to be asleep like Endymion" 
 (x. 1178^, 7). God alone is always completely 
 and actually all that He can be ; hence the divine 
 energeia is kept up inexhaustively, and ever 
 generates the supreme pleasure of self-contempla- 
 tion (v6t]ctl<s vorjaew) which constitutes the divine 
 happiness. It follows, as a matter of course, that 
 
 this ivepyeta is above Kivr)<ji<i — it is ive'pyeca aKLvqaiaq 
 
 or rjpe'fiia. Hence "if the nature of anything 
 were simple, the same action would ever be sweet 
 to it. And this is the reason why God always 
 enjoys a single and simple pleasure ; for there is 
 not only an activity of motion but also one void 
 of motion, and pleasure is rather in constancy 
 than in motion. And change of all things is 
 sweet" to us men "because of a certain defect" 
 in us (vii. 1 154^). 
 
 And in the Metaphysics we have the account of 
 the divine life : " And life subsists there ; for the 
 activity of pure reason (ivipyeia votfcrea?) is life 
 and He is sheer activity (r) ivepyeid) ; and His 
 activity, ever busy with itself, constitutes His 
 perfect and eternal life. We say, then, that 
 God is an eternal perfect being, so that life, and
 
 40 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 continuous and eternal duration [alcbv <rv^; koL 
 atSios), pertain to God, for God is indeed all this " 
 (xi. 1072^). 
 
 We have in the above, especially also in the 
 important translation of rjpefua by "constancy," 
 been following Dr. F. C. Schiller, in his admir- 
 able study of the Unmoving Energy. And it 
 is he also who, most instructively, points out 
 how "Aristotle does not, as we commonly do, 
 regard a ' function' {ivepyeia) as a sort of ' process ' 
 (yeveo-is), or try, materialistically, to reduce all things 
 to 'matter' in 'motion.' He does the very op- 
 posite. Instead of classifying ivepyeia under klvtjo-is, 
 he simply makes ivepyeia the wider and supremer 
 notion, and subsumes Kurqavi under it as a par- 
 ticular species, viz. an imperfect ivepyeia." l 
 
 (2) Applying his principles of Nous and Ener- 
 geia to human life, Aristotle declares "such a 
 life" (of philosophy, as described by him) 
 " would be a life superior to ordinary human life ; 
 for it cannot be lived in so far as man is merely 
 man, but only in so far as a divine element {Qelov n) 
 subsists in him." This element is pure intelligence 
 (6 1/0O9) ; and in proportion as such Nous exceeds 
 man as a composite being, in the same proportion 
 does the activity of this element exceed the activity 
 
 1 F. C. Schiller, "Activity and Substance," in Humanism, 1903, 
 pp. 204-227
 
 Simultaneity and Richness entirely Compatible 41 
 
 directed to the virtues of the practical life. 
 " Wherefore, in so far as we can, we must live the 
 immortal life (aOavari^etv) and do our utmost to 
 live according to the highest principle within us " 
 {Ethics, x. 1177 b, 8). 
 
 Especially the Christian revelation and ex- 
 perience will show us presently how intolerably 
 thin and shadowy, in this entire Aristotelian 
 scheme, is this "Thinking of Thought," and this 
 isolating of intelligence from all the emotive 
 and operative activities and outgoing interests of 
 the soul. Yet the great intuitions that succession 
 is not essential to, but a defect of, life, and that 
 the perfect human life will approximate to such 
 non-successiveness, prove all the more, indeed 
 only then really, satisfactory, when we keep 
 and make the human life as rich as possible 
 with variously picturing, reasoning, cognizing, 
 emotive, volitional, operative activities, interests, 
 sufferings, and joys ; and when we hold that the 
 fundamental causes and final objects of all that is 
 truest and best in these our experiences and 
 necessities are somehow present in God, in a 
 most real, though for us quite unpicturable, 
 manner. The simultaneity of ten thousand 
 different activities applied to myriads upon 
 myriads of mutually differing creatures is no more 
 incredible, no more anthropomorphic, than is the
 
 42 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 simultaneity of a sheer thinking of sheer thought ; 
 and only such an infinitely rich content gives its 
 true value to the simultaneity, just as the simul- 
 taneity, in its turn, gives its full worth to that 
 richness. But only an immense increase of light 
 as to man's spiritual needs and miseries, and as 
 to the nature of the deepest ethical perfection, 
 could break up, to any advantage, the thin, deistic 
 constituents of this Aristotelian outlook ; and this 
 light was not to be for yet awhile. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 JEWISH HELLENISTIC TIMES 
 Introductory — Stoicism — O.T. Apocrypha — Philo. 
 
 The pre-Christian Hellenistic experiences and 
 conceptions range, in strictness, from the death 
 of Alexander at Babylon (323 B.C.), to our Lord's 
 public ministry in Galilee (about a.d. 30). Let us, 
 however, here take the Pagan and the Jewish 
 developments (even though these latter begin 
 already with the return from the Exile, in 
 538 B.C.) in close juxtaposition ; and this because 
 of the considerable influence, at least after 
 Alexander's death, exercised probably by each
 
 Stoicism, Semitic and Pantheistic 43 
 
 upon the other. And let us consider thus suc- 
 cessively Stoicism, the Old Testament Apocrypha, 
 and Philo, as the most important sources for our 
 present purpose. 
 
 1. The Oriental, partly Phoenician, hence 
 Semitic, origin of all the earlier Stoic chiefs — 
 especially Zeno, the founder (Cyprus), about 342- 
 270 B.C.; C leant hes (Troas), about 331-251 B.C.; 
 and Chrysippus (Cilicia), about 281-208 B.C. — is 
 very striking. And the rapid up-building, and the 
 as rapid break-up, of Alexander's world-empire 
 occurs at this time. The ethnic origin and the 
 historical occasion help to explain the school's 
 otherwise strangely persistent combination of an 
 emphatically materialistic Pantheism, a deep 
 moral earnestness, an intuitive, prophetic habit of 
 mind, and a both sad and enthusiastic, largely 
 non-political, non-patriotic, yet, for the most part, 
 socially organized, cosmopolitanism. 
 
 (1) The pantheistic-materialist basis of Stoicism 
 is described by Diogenes Laertius (vii. 40) : <( The 
 Stoics liken philosophy to a living creature — the 
 Logic to the bones and muscles, the Ethics to 
 the fleshy parts, and the Physics to the soul " ; 
 and by Cicero (Acad. post. 1. 11): "Zeno differs 
 from his predecessors in holding that nothing that 
 effects anything, and nothing that is effected, can
 
 44 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 be other than a body." The First Principle is 
 ether or fire, a fiery ether or warm fluid ; and this 
 moves through a regular change from fire to air, 
 air to water, water to earth, and back again to 
 fire — to a conflagration (eWypcoo-t?) which, at the 
 end of each age of the world, destroys all that 
 has been produced between whiles, inclusively of 
 all souls and of all consciousness. Thus pure 
 matter without any quality, fire, is, after each 
 such inevitable crisis, all that exists (Diog. Laert. 
 vii. 136, 142, 157). 
 
 The Stoics, indeed, call God "an immortal, 
 living being, endowed with reason (\0yuc6v), 
 with forethought for the world and for all things 
 in the world" (Diog. Laert. 147). But all this, 
 taken as part of the system, means no more 
 than the necessity, the law, entirely immanent in 
 the material universe. God is the Universe, and 
 the Universe is God. 
 
 Hence we cannot, here, consistently speak of 
 Eternal Life, in the sense of an abiding con- 
 sciousness on the part of the human soul, or 
 even of a momentary consciousness on the part 
 of the First Principle, of the Infinite God. The 
 finite spirit here survives the body, at longest, 
 up to the Ecpyrosis only ; and an Infinite 
 Spirit, self-conscious and distinct from the world, 
 exists at no time, since, when implicit, such
 
 Stoicism, as suck, without Eternal Life 45 
 
 spirit as is allowed at all is but pure material 
 fire, and, when explicit, this fire moves through 
 material changes, or itself constitutes these 
 changes, having, during part of this time, self- 
 conscious finite minds for its concomitants and 
 effects. A certain appearance of livingness and 
 richness is, indeed, introduced through the con- 
 ception of the First Principle as also the Logos, 
 as Reason, which permeates, conjoins, sustains 
 all things, and which thus resembles Plato's 
 World-Soul, but is in strong contrast with the 
 Platonic supreme Idea, conceived as outside of all 
 movement and becoming. Yet the identification 
 of this Logos with material fire, its complete 
 immanence in the world, and its lack of con- 
 sciousness effectually disqualify it from acceptance 
 as the sufficient bearer, cause, and object of 
 Eternal Life, in the fuller sense of the word. 
 
 (2) And the Ethical Rigorism also takes us 
 farther away from Eternal Life than was Plato, if 
 we hold such Life to retain, indeed to consummate, 
 the development, purification, harmony and 
 organization of all man's nobler passions and 
 emotions, or of their deepest roots and equivalents. 
 "Whilst the earlier philosophers did not abolish 
 perturbations of soul from out of man, but only 
 restricted their range, Zeno required his sage 
 to be free from them all, as so many diseases
 
 46 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 of the soul," says Cicero (Acad. i. 10, 38). The 
 objects to be striven after or avoided are also 
 greatly restricted: "Good things consist for the 
 Stoics in the virtues," prudence ((f>p6vr)cn<;) standing 
 first ; " evil things consist in the opposite," 
 thoughtlessness coming first; "and the things 
 that are neither good nor evil are those that 
 neither benefit nor damage us, such as life, 
 health . . . and their opposites, death, dis- 
 ease . . ." Again, the perfect life and its acts 
 have here lost indefinitely in variety, dramatic 
 contrast, and fruitful tension. " The Stoics 
 declare that the sage practises all the virtues 
 in each one of his acts, since his entire activity 
 is perfect," Stobaeus tells us [Eel. ii. p. 116). 
 The outlook on mankind is terribly simplified : 
 " Zeno holds that there exist only two classes 
 of men, the class of the earnest (the good) and 
 that of the worthless ; and that, throughout their 
 respective lives, the former practise the virtues, 
 the latter the vices" (Stobaeus, Eel. ii. p. 198). 
 And above all, there is no deep richness of 
 relation between spirits, because there is no 
 sufficiently intimate dependence of spirit upon 
 Spirit: "monstro quod ipse tibi possis dare," 
 " I here prescribe what you yourself can give 
 yourself," says Juvenal, truly Stoically, of the 
 very highest devotedness and resignation.
 
 The Stoic World-City 47 
 
 (3) And yet the system nobly preaches the 
 profound necessity of self-control and of the 
 renunciation of all petty or low desires. And, in 
 its deeply organic conception of human society, 
 it directly prepares, and eventually aids, the 
 powerful articulation of the requirements and of 
 the conception of Eternal Life as effected by 
 Christianity. " They consider the world to be, 
 as it were, a common city and state of men and 
 of Gods, and that each one of us constitutes a 
 part of that world, whence it follows that we 
 should put the common advantage above our 
 own," says Cicero (de Fin. iii. 19, 64). And the 
 Stoic Seneca tells us : " We are members of one 
 great body"; "it behoves thee to live for thy 
 neighbour, if thou wouldst live for thyself 
 (Bp. 95, 52, 47, 3). From Zeno's work, the 
 Politeia, through the writings of Polybius and 
 Cicero, up to the school's culmination, as to 
 tenderness, in the discourses of the freedman 
 Epictetus, and as to mournful, moral splendour 
 of human outlook, in the memoirs of the emperor 
 Marcus Aurelius, we get this most fruitful per- 
 ception of the essentially organic character of 
 human society, and insistence upon finding its 
 image in the human body, which is constituted by, 
 and which still more constitutes, the several, yet 
 interdependent and mutually complementary,
 
 48 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 parts and members and their differing specific 
 positions, functions, and characters. 1 
 
 2. The experiences and conceptions of the 
 Jews since the return from the Exile, 538 B.C., 
 and especially since their submission to Alexander 
 the Great, 332 B.C., and to his successors, are, 
 upon the whole, less rich and pregnant than are 
 the deepest of the previous Israelitish prophetic 
 teachings. 
 
 (1) There is, indeed, a series of magnificent 
 utterances in the Psalms, of which the greater part 
 probably belong to this period, such as, "With 
 Thee is the fountain of Life, and in Thy light we 
 shall see light " (xxxvi. 9) ; and " Whom have I in 
 heaven but Thee ? and, having Thee, I delight not 
 in aught that is on earth. My flesh and my heart 
 faileth, but God is the rock of my heart and my 
 portion for ever" (lxxiii. 25, 26). Thus here, 
 without any speculation concerning time and 
 eternity, we have the fundamental elements of 
 Eternal Life, the human spirit finding its peace and 
 support in the Divine Spirit, its origin and home. 
 
 1 E. Zeller's standard account in his Philosophie der Griechen, 
 part iii. vol. i., ed. 1880, has been the chief help here. Von 
 Arnim's Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta gives Zeno in vol. i., 1905, 
 pp. 1-71, and Cleanthes, pp. 103-139. See also James Adam in 
 The Vitality of Platonism, 191 1, pp. 104-189, for a beautiful 
 account of Stoicism at its best.
 
 The Psalms, Daniel, Ecclesiasticus upon Life 49 
 
 (2) The Book of Daniel (an apocalyptic con- 
 solatory address, which but little resembles the 
 pre-Exilic prophecies, written between 168 and 
 165 B.C.) gives a description of the era of sal- 
 vation : " Many of them that sleep in the dust 
 of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting 
 life, and some to everlasting contempt" (xii. 2) — 
 the only passage in the Old Testament which 
 explicitly speaks of " everlasting " or " eternal " 
 life. The resurrection extends here as yet only 
 to " many " — apparently only to the Jewish 
 martyrs and to their persecutors ; and still we 
 cannot press the "everlasting" as involving 
 simultaneity. 
 
 Amongst the Apocryphal and the Pseudo-Epi- 
 graphic writings, Ecclesiasticus, originally written 
 in Hebrew between 190 and 170 B.C., still 
 articulates only the quantitative conception, the 
 soul's endless duration, together with the resurrec- 
 tion of the body. God is " He that liveth for 
 ever" (0 £coy els rov alSiva) ; and "He gave the 
 law of life for an inheritance" (xviii. 1). The 
 Second Book of Maccabees (about 100-80 B.C.) has 
 "the Lord of life and spirit" (xiv. 46); and 
 the Apocalypse of Baruch, possibly as late as 
 a.d. 40-70, has " Thy deep thoughts, O God, 
 that are full of life" (liv. 12). The Psalms of 
 Solomon, so strongly Pharisee, of about 65-45 B.C., 
 4
 
 50 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 also have the quantitative conception: "the life 
 of the just lasteth for ever" (xiii. n); "the law 
 which He hath vouchsafed to our life." 
 
 (3) It is in the Wisdom of Solomon, doubtless 
 written in Egypt, probably between 100 and 50 B.C., 
 that, in addition to the quantitative conception, — 
 endless duration : "the just live for ever" (ek rov 
 alwva %aiai), v. 45, — we find also clear indications 
 of the qualitative conception. Thus God created 
 man unto " incorruption " (acpddpaia), ii. 23; "to 
 know Thy power is the root of immortality " 
 [aOavdcna), xv. 3 ; and, above all, " incorruption 
 maketh us near to God," vi. 20. 
 
 It is important, however, clearly to realize, 
 that simultaneity of itself is as little spiritually 
 qualitative a conception as is succession by itself ; 
 and to note how again, in these passages, it is 
 God, His purity and power, who centrally occupies 
 the soul : intercourse with, proximity to, Him — 
 this is Eternal Life. 1 
 
 3. And lastly the Alexandrian Jew P/iilo, who 
 lived from about 3° B - c - to a.d. 50, is deeply 
 interesting in his attempt to retain, indeed to 
 propagate, the intensely personalist, racial and 
 
 1 See the excellent collection ot translations with introductions 
 and notes, Die Apokryphen und Pseudepigraplien des A.T., 
 edited by E. Kautzsch, 2 vols., 1900.
 
 Alexandrian Jtidaism upon Life 51 
 
 theistic, Israelite and Jewish, religion, within and 
 by means of the categories of Greek philosophy 
 — especially those of Platonism, so largely im- 
 personal, and those of Stoicism, so strongly 
 materialist, pantheistic, and cosmopolitan. 
 
 (1) Philo, then, insists, adopting Aristotle's 
 terms, upon how " God never ceases from action ; as 
 the fire's property is to burn, so God's property 
 is to act"; indeed "He is the origin of the 
 activity of all things." And He ceases not from 
 this His activity even on the Sabbath (Leg. Alleg. 
 3, 6; Cohn and Wendland's ed. of Philo, vol. i., 
 1896, pp. 62, 65). And, following Plato, he 
 describes God's Eternity as exclusive of all 
 succession : " God is withdrawn from both ends 
 of Time. For His Life is not so much Time as 
 Eternity (alcov), the archetype and pattern of 
 Time. And in Eternity there is nothing past 
 and nothing future, but only present " (Quod Dens 
 sit Lmmut. 6 ; CW. ii. 63). 
 
 (2) As to Life, Philo is subject to two currents 
 of thought. Along one current God is possessed 
 of the fullest life, and, because of this, can and 
 does communicate it, in a lesser degree and kind : 
 " There are three kinds of life : life as it concerns 
 God ; life as it concerns the creature ; and a third, 
 intermediate life, a mixture of the former two. 
 Now life as it concerns God has not descended
 
 52 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 to us, nor has it entered into the necessities of 
 the body." The second kind of life is "life 
 according to sense," "life as resident in the blood 
 (£■«>? evaifio?)." But only those who live the 
 third kind of life are " truly living " : for Moses 
 tells us that " the soul's nature is double : that of 
 the soul generally is blood, that of its most leading 
 part is divine spirit " (irvevfia Oetov). And Philo 
 finds, here following the Stoics, this Pneuma 
 to be Logos. " Hence there are two kinds 
 of men — those living by the divine spirit and 
 reason (Xoyioyto?), and those living by the blood 
 and the lust of the flesh" (Quis rer. div. keres, 
 9, ii, 12; CW. iii. 11, 13, 14). "God" Himself 
 "breathed into man's earthly mind the power of 
 the true life ; thus it is that man becomes a 
 mental, a truly living soul." Hence God is the 
 fountain of reason, and such a reasonable life is 
 a life of God (Leg. Alleg. 1, 12; CW. i. 69; 
 Poster. Cain, 20; CW. ii. 15). Indeed this divine 
 life, even as man can begin to live it here by a 
 holy life, and still more as, after such a life, he 
 will live it in the Beyond, is sometimes character- 
 ized as strictly eternal, i.e. non-successive. " Is 
 not the flight to true Being (to 6v) Life Eternal ? " 
 To such souls " Moses promises incorruption : ' Ye 
 shall live to-day,' for 'to-day' is boundless and 
 inexhaustible eternity (alcov)." "They participate
 
 Philo upon God and Life 53 
 
 in the immaterial and incorruptible life of the 
 Unbegotten and Incorruptible" (Profug. 15; 
 CW. iii. 126 ; de Fuga, ii. ; CW. iii. 122 ; Gigant. 
 3 ; CW. ii. 44). 
 
 Yet Philo follows also another current in 
 which, fully adopting and pushing home certain 
 tendencies of Plato, he already largely anticipates 
 the exclusive transcendence and excessive abstrac- 
 tion of Plotinus, perhaps even of Proclus. God, 
 here, is indeed " the cause of soul and life " ; but 
 "God" Himself "is something more than life; 
 He is, as He says Himself, the ever-flowing 
 fountain of life" (de Fuga, 36; CW. iii. 152). 
 For Philo, in this his more strictly philosophical 
 mood, God is not the Living One, but He 
 
 TTT1 T / ' " \ V « V >' \ il V \ \ 
 
 WhO IS (O COV, TO OV, OVTC0<J (OV, TO OVTC0S OV, TO 7rp0$ 
 
 a\r)6elav 6v}. 
 
 And yet this devoted Jew is too sensitively 
 religious with the great, historical religion of the 
 Old Testament, not also (and then enthusiastically) 
 to picture God as graciously self-communicative 
 to man's spirit, which spirit, in deliberate differ- 
 ence from Stoicism, is here not sufficient to itself. 
 Thus "often," beyond all man's endeavours and 
 in spite of all man's temptations and corruption, 
 "God, by His grace, pours a sweet flood of 
 waters, in place of its salt flood, into the soul " ; 
 "it is God who moves and leads the soul's chariot
 
 54 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 whither He chooses " ; and " the soul must confess 
 that, not its own power has effected the moral 
 good, but He who vouchsafed to it its very love 
 for this good" {Leg. Alleg. ii. 9, 21 ; CW. i. 97, 
 107, iii. 46 ; CW. 143). 
 
 (3) The Stoic Apathy, again, influences Philo far 
 too much. Thus " Moses considers it necessary 
 that all desire shall be excised from the soul, 
 since he loves not a moderation of the passions 
 but a complete apathy." Yet on this point also 
 the spontaneity and richness of the Jewish religion 
 mostly predominates, e.g., " virtue is naturally a 
 matter of delight, and he who possesses it rejoices 
 continually" (Leg. Alleg. iii. 46; CW. i. 143; de 
 Mutat. nom. 31 ; CW. iii. 185). 1 
 
 1 James Drummond's Philo Judcsus, 2 vols., 1888, remains the 
 fullest, and an excellent, account: "Time and Eternity," i. 292- 
 295 ; "The Two Conceptions of God," i. 1-64 ; "Apathy and the 
 Higher Anthropology," ii. 320-324. J. Grill, Untersuchungen 
 iiber Entstehung des vierten Evangeliums, 1902, "' Life' in Philo," 
 207-211.
 
 Our Lord's Personal Teaching : its Character 55 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The utterances of Jesus : the Kingdom — Teachings of St. Paul : 
 the Spirit — Conceptions of the Johannine writer : Eternal Life. 
 
 The chief Primitive Christian teachings fall 
 into three groups, according as they proceed 
 from Jesus Himself, from St. Paul, or from the 
 Johannine Writer. 
 
 1. The actual utterances of Our Lord, as we 
 can still find them in the Synoptic Gospels, 
 cannot be rightly estimated unless they are first 
 taken as entirely occasional — hence are interpreted 
 within their context of special circumstances ; as 
 utterly exoteric — homely words addressed to the 
 homely spiritual and ethical experiences and needs 
 of simple unlettered folk, or to the (almost as 
 homely) preachers' requirements of His apostolic 
 little band ; and as specifically not philosophical 
 nor even moral, but religious. Studied, above 
 all practised thus, as far as possible in the spirit 
 of their first enunciation, they reveal, across the 
 experience of the ages, within their grandly 
 baffling simplicity, a richness of elements, indeed
 
 56 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 a tension of apparently irreconcilable antinomies, 
 which keep them, in their substance, as operative 
 and soul-transforming now as on the day when 
 He uttered His sacred spirit through them. 
 
 (1) Now in Jesus' personal teaching, not 
 Eternal Life, but the Kingdom of God is in 
 the foreground. And this Kingdom is presented, 
 directly and emphatically, as, not present but 
 future ; not distant, but imminent ; not gradual, 
 but sudden ; not as at all achieved by man, but 
 as simply given by God. Nor is this Kingdom 
 presented as consisting, for man, when it does 
 come to him, of an Eternal Now ; indeed, the 
 life of God Himself is here nowhere clearly 
 pictured as a pure Simultaneity. 
 
 The Kingdom is future : " many shall come 
 . . . and shall recline ... in the Kingdom of 
 heaven"; "ye shall sit upon twelve thrones"; 
 "then shall the just shine like the sun in the 
 Kingdom of their father" ; and " I shall drink the 
 generation of the vine with you anew in the 
 Kingdom of God" (Matt. viii. 11, xix. 28, xiii. 
 43; Mark xiv. 25). The Kingdom is imminent: 
 " Amen I say unto you, there are some here 
 standing who shall not taste of death until they 
 see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom"; 
 "Amen I say unto you, this generation shall not 
 pass until all these things shall be fulfilled " ;
 
 Jesus s Kingdom, partly Transcendent, Ascetic 57 
 
 "henceforth ye shall see the Son of Man coming 
 upon the clouds of heaven" (Matt. xvi. 28, xxiv. 
 33, xxvi. 64). The Kingdom is sudden: "as 
 the lightning cometh forth from the east and 
 shineth unto the west," "as men in the days of 
 Noah knew not till the flood came," "so shall the 
 coming," the presence, irapovaia, "of the Son of 
 Man be" ; and "if the master of the house knew 
 at what hour the thief would come, he would 
 watch" (Matt. xxiv. 27, xxxix. 43). Every- 
 where, here and in other places, the Kingdom is 
 not a human achievement but a pure gift of God, 
 as also in the Apocalypse of John, xxi. 2, the 
 "New Jerusalem" descends "from heaven, from 
 God, prepared as a bride for her husband." And 
 Life in the Kingdom appears as simply successive : 
 "many shall recline with Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob" at the Messianic banquet ; indeed God's 
 own life seems to be successive, since it includes 
 the very feeding of the fowls of the air, and the 
 clothing of the grass of the field (Matt. viii. 11, 
 vi. 26, 30). Where "life" or " life everlasting " 
 occurs in Jesus' own sayings, it is ever placed in 
 the future, as a reward for previous virtue, and 
 expresses the totality of good to be conferred in 
 the Kingdom of God. " Good master, what shall 
 I do, that I may inherit eternal life?" Jesus is 
 asked. And He answers, " Thou knowest the
 
 58 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 commandments," and "sell all thou hast and give 
 to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in 
 heaven"; and declares "how hardly shall they 
 that have riches enter into the Kingdom of 
 God!" (Mark x. 17, 19, 21, 23). 
 
 Nothing can well be more certain than the 
 presence and deep operativeness of this con- 
 viction, as to the futurity, imminence, sudden- 
 ness, and pure God-givenness of the Kingdom 
 of God, within our Lord's life and teaching. 
 One especially amongst the features of this out- 
 look — the imminence — has, almost from the first, 
 been a grave difficulty for those whom reason 
 and conscience constrain to combine a frank 
 acceptance of the textual evidences with a deep 
 conviction of Our Lord's profound spiritual 
 insight and supreme normality. And yet this His 
 attitude of mind and will, if taken generally, and 
 as one of two essential spiritual movements, is 
 found, by the spiritually fully awake and earnest 
 soul, to inflict upon it, and ever anew to awaken 
 within it, an easily overlooked or forgotten, yet 
 most necessary, utterly abiding, element and re- 
 quirement of the deepest spiritual life. Detach- 
 ment, even from the very things to which also 
 we owe attachment ; the irremediable inadequacy 
 of even the totality of all our present earthly 
 conditions, though improved to the utmost, — in
 
 Jesus s Kingdom, partly Immanental, Expansive 59 
 
 so far as these conditions do not include, or lead 
 up to, God and His presence, — to satisfy the 
 soul's wants ; our utter dependence upon a Will, 
 a Spirit, distinct from our own, Who precedes, 
 and from Whom proceed, all our very capacities 
 for good, and Whose very "rewards" are rooted 
 in an order of pure creative donation, indeed of 
 self-donation : all this and more, of specifically 
 religious truth and fact, is given us here. And it 
 is all presented with so forcible a dramatic vivid- 
 ness, and with such richness of Jewish details, as 
 easily to obscure, for even religious spirits, in our 
 own lands and times, the sobriety in sublimity of 
 the abiding substance thus conveyed. 
 
 (2) Now the purely religious, intensely tran- 
 scendent and dualistic, outlook, with its apocalyptic 
 form, as just described, appears to have been 
 attained and developed by Our Lord's humanity 
 under the stress of the resistance to His teach- 
 ing, and of the approach of a violent death and 
 apparently utter defeat. Certainly it is from the 
 great scene of Peter's confession at Csesarea 
 Philippi onwards (Mark viii. 31 = Matt. xvi. 21 = 
 Luke ix. 22) that this outlook prevails in His 
 teaching. Nevertheless, especially in the earlier 
 period, another outlook which is, relatively, im- 
 manental, monistic, and ethical, and possesses 
 prophetical form, must also be admitted in Jesus's
 
 6o Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 temper and teaching, unless we would, more or 
 less violently, explain away texts no less certain 
 than those of the transcendental and apocalyptic 
 kind, and would thus artificially unify His life. 
 
 Thus, on Jesus's very first public appearance, 
 "all marvelled saying . . . 'He even commands 
 the impure spirits and they obey Him'" (Mark 
 i. 27); whilst Jesus declares, even considerably 
 later, "if I cast out devils in the spirit of God, 
 the Kingdom of God has indeed come to you " 
 (e<f>0ao-ev e\/>' v/xas) (Matt. xii. 28), and He can 
 then tell His disciples, who assure Him "the 
 devils also obey us in Thy name," " I saw Satan 
 fall like lightning from heaven " (Luke x. 17, 18). 
 The Kingdom of God is thus in process of estab- 
 lishment, in proportion as the kingdom of Satan 
 is driven back and broken up. Hence the 
 disciples are bidden simultaneously to "preach 
 that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand," and to 
 "heal the sick" and "cast out devils" (Matt. x. 
 7, 8 ; Luke x. 9). 
 
 Again, the plant-life parables (as truly charac- 
 teristic of this first, relatively peaceful, period 
 as are the expectancy parables of the second, 
 storm-and-stress period) are full of corre- 
 sponding conceptions. The fundamental parable, 
 that of the Sower (Mark iv. 3-9 and parallels), 
 indicates how the Kingdom of God is subject,
 
 Instances of Jesus s Immanental Teaching 61 
 
 in its growth, to laws analogous to those 
 obtaining in the natural world ; since the results 
 of the preaching of the Kingdom depend upon 
 the differing dispositions of the hearers' hearts, 
 much as the results of sowing plant-seed depend 
 upon the nature of the soil sown upon. And the 
 profoundly authentic and fresh parable of the 
 Seed that grows of itself (Mark iv. 26-29) l avs 
 the stress of the comparison upon the gradual un- 
 folding and prosperity of the seed which takes 
 time to grow. Thus similarly the Kingdom of 
 God, once it is planted, rises slowly but surely to 
 an ever-richer development, and reaches maturity 
 simply through the divine power immanent 
 within it. 
 
 And finally, Jesus's answer to the Baptist's 
 messengers as to whether He is the Messiah — a 
 simple reference to the cures, awakenings, preach- 
 ings they see Him perform (Matt. xi. 4) — also 
 implies that the Kingdom is already present. 
 Indeed, Jesus's very presence involves, in a very 
 real degree and way, the presence of the Kingdom. 
 " The acceptable year of the Lord " (Luke iv. 19) 
 is itself already present ; the disciples cannot fast, 
 since "the bridegroom is" already now "with 
 them" (Mark ii. 19); and "blessed are the eyes 
 that see what you are" actually "seeing" (Luke 
 x. 23). Hence Jesus can speak of when they
 
 62 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 "shall see the Kingdom of God coming' in 
 power" (Mark ix. i), in contradistinction to 
 the Kingdom as already come in obscurity and 
 weakness. 1 
 
 (3) The Kingdom of God, whether insisted 
 upon apocalyptically or prophetically, is through- 
 out conceived by Our Lord as a social organism. 
 For the Kingdom of God, present wheresoever 
 God's will is done on earth as in heaven (Matt, 
 vi. 10, 11), evidently coincides with the totality 
 of those through whom God's will is ac- 
 complished — we have thus, not one soul but 
 many. If the Kingdom is primarily an interior 
 disposition, it must contain many differently 
 situated, yet similarly disposed, souls — since only 
 thus can there be lesser and greater (Matt. v. 
 19, xi. 11). And if the perfection of the 
 Kingdom consists in the greatest within it being 
 he who is the servant of all (Matt. xx. 26, 27), 
 it must again be an organized community. And 
 indeed Jesus forms and sends out a special little 
 
 1 H. J. Holtzmann's Lehrbuch der N.T. Theologie, 2nd ed. 
 191 1, vol. i. pp. 284-295, in its admirable sobriety as to the 
 Kingdom of God, has, after much independent study of my own, 
 been chiefly followed above. Brilliant, very instructive, but, I 
 think, too exclusive, insistence upon the apocalyptic element, in 
 Albert Schweitzer's Von Reimarus zu Wrede, 1907 ; Eng. trans., 
 The Quest of the Historic Jesus, 1909 ; and even in Alfred Loisy's 
 Les Evangiles Synoptiques, 2 vols., 1901, a work of quite extra- 
 ordinary penetration, in most of its treatment of the discourses,
 
 Jesus s Kingdom, Social and Concrete 63 
 
 band of apostles to aid them in winning this 
 larger community (Matt. ix. 35 - x. 16, and 
 parallels). These apostles are, in the future 
 world, to sit with Jesus as judges over the tribes 
 of Israel (Matt. xix. 28) ; and meanwhile they are 
 to be the salt of the earth, the yeast that is to 
 leaven the Jewish people (Matt. v. 13, xiii. 33)- 1 
 
 (4) And the future, final life of souls is to 
 remain, and more than ever to become, not only 
 social as between soul and soul, but also complete 
 as regards each soul's powers. Nowhere is there 
 a trace, in Our Lord's conception of this ultimate 
 life, of the solus cum solo, or of the survival of the 
 abstractive intellect alone, as we found the latter 
 in Aristotle, and as we shall find the former in 
 Plotinus. Thus the very angels who "see in 
 heaven, without ceasing, the face of God," are 
 also simultaneously attentive to any contempt 
 shown towards their human charges upon earth 
 (Matt, xviii. 10); and "there is joy before the 
 angels of God over one sinner doing penance " 
 upon earth (Luke xv. 10). Indeed, everywhere 
 these popular sayings, with their current imagery 
 of the Messianic banquet and the thrones and 
 other strongly spatial pictures, vividly portray 
 and insist on the great fact and truth that the 
 inner spiritual life, to be deep and genuine, per- 
 
 1 See H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der N.T, Theologie, pp. 265-268,
 
 64 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 manentiy requires a rich variety and organization 
 within a strongly social life with fellow-souls. 
 
 (5) Yet it is not man or men, but God Who, 
 here as everywhere in Jesus's experience and 
 teaching, is the beginning, centre, medium, and 
 end of the whole of this final life. " Have you 
 not read what was said to you [Ex. iii. 6] by 
 God : ' I am the God of Abraham and the God 
 of Isaac and the God of Jacob'? He is, then, 
 ' not the God of the dead but of the living ' " 
 (Matt. xxii. 32). The Simultaneity, as well as 
 the Self-Identity, of the intensely living God 
 is doubtless here implied, as alone upholding, 
 because exceeding and enclosing, the minor alive- 
 ness and successiveness of the generations of 
 men. The soul's perfection is thus practised and 
 proclaimed by Jesus as its complete self-donation 
 to the service of man for God and of God in man. 
 And this self-donation is effected in utter depend- 
 ence upon God's aid, and yet with the fullest 
 actuation of all the feelings, motives, and passions 
 of chaste fear, tender pity, manly wrath, childlike 
 simplicity and humility, homely heroism, joy in 
 God, love of our very enemies, sense of and 
 contrition for sin, and trust in God's fatherly care 
 even in deep desolation and an agonizing death. 
 The expansive happiness of His early ministry ; 
 the loving observation of flower and bird, sky,
 
 Eternity in Time, Transcendence in Immanence 65 
 
 wind, and wave ; the lonely night-watches on the 
 mountain-side ; the delight in children ; the merci- 
 fulness to publicans and sinners ; the standing in 
 the midst of the disciples as a servant (Luke xxii. 
 27) ; the emphatic anger in purifying the temple ; 
 the sadness of the Last Supper ; the craving for 
 the disciples' sympathy and the terror of death 
 in Gethsemane ; the lofty silence before Caiaphas 
 and Pilate ; the cry of desolation on the Cross : are 
 here all constituents, occasions, and expressions 
 of a ceaseless sense, possession, and operativeness 
 of Eternal Life. 
 
 Thus the negative movement, of detachment 
 and renunciation, is planted here, by the de- 
 voted soul, not outside of, but right within, 
 even the purest attachments to the best of 
 things, in order to keep them and itself (ever, in 
 itself, so weak and changeable) pure and fruitful. 
 A wise and noble, warm because ever love- 
 impelled, asceticism is here the instrument, 
 concomitant and guardian, though never the first 
 motive or last end, of the entire life, in precise 
 proportion to this life's depth and richness. 
 Plato's wisely wide acceptance of the Tkumos is 
 here far surpassed by the delicacy, elasticity, and 
 depth with which the entire gamut of the soul's 
 impulsions and necessities is utilized, cultivated, 
 and organized ; and the Stoic renunciation is 
 
 5
 
 66 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 practised here, within a boundless, richly difficult 
 material, with infinite variety, tension, and fruit- 
 fulness. And both the acceptance and the re- 
 nunciation, each in and through and with the 
 other, are not here caused by, nor do they here 
 end in, the sorry superficiality of a mere self- 
 culture, but they follow upon, or lead up to, the 
 vivid apprehension and awed acceptance of the 
 deepest Reality as Spirit, a holy Love and all-wise 
 Will. All here comes from, or leads to, a life 
 lived, within the more or less successiveness of 
 our own mode of existence, in willed touch and 
 deliberate union with God, the Simultaneous and 
 Eternal. 1 
 
 2. St. Paul's spontaneous self-communications 
 and formal teachings, whilst demonstrably 
 affected by, and occupied with, only a part of the 
 immense range and depth of Our Lord's life and 
 revelation, are mostly far more complex or sys- 
 tematic than Jesus's sayings. They are, in their 
 form, where at all doctrinal, utterances of a 
 rabbinically trained theologian, in which Philo- 
 like, Platonic, and Stoic ingredients are often not 
 
 1 The above insistence upon two complementary movements, as 
 equally necessary to the deepest religion and Christianity, has been 
 largely learnt from Ernst Troeltsch's great writings, especially his 
 " Was ist Wesen des Christenthums ? " in Die Christliche Welt, 
 1903, i., coll. 583, 584.
 
 St. Paul's Training and Experiences 6j 
 
 difficult to trace. And yet it is the manner and 
 decree in which his great soul is filled with the 
 love and reproduction of the most fundamental 
 of the dispositions and aims of the historic Jesus, 
 and with the conception and development of the 
 spiritual organism of the Christian community, 
 which grive to these and to the other currents of 
 his reflective thought an experimental content 
 and rich sobriety far beyond what they bring 
 by themselves alone. 
 
 The dominating double fact of St. Paul's life, 
 his conversion to enthusiastic faith in a present 
 Christ, yet this without ever having known the 
 earthly Jesus, led him to concentrate all his 
 attention and love, away from the earthly, the 
 past, the Jewish Jesus, upon the heavenly, the 
 present and eternal Christ, the Saviour of Man- 
 kind. Indeed, in the earthly life only the Passion 
 and Death and the Resurrection of Jesus were 
 retained, as constituting, respectively, the sowing 
 and death, and the up-springing and life, of the 
 Seed — of the Second Adam, the heavenly Man. 
 And since Christ had revealed Himself to Saul 
 on the way to Damascus, in a substantially 
 pneumatic manner, the convert Saul's, Paul's 
 dominant category is, henceforth, not the Kingdom 
 of God, not Eternal Life, but Pneuma, the Spirit. 
 
 (i) St. Paul's fully developed scheme as to
 
 68 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 man's natural endowments and supernatural gifts 
 says relatively little about man's highest natural 
 endowment, his vovs, or Mind, but insists much 
 upon two strongly contrasted, indeed mutually 
 exclusive, couples : a couple of natural, strictly 
 human, incurably mortal constituents, -yjrvxv, the 
 sensual soul, and o-apf, the flesh ; and a couple 
 consisting of Ilvevixa, Spirit, which is essentially 
 divine and eternal, and of aobfia, Body, which is 
 potentially immortal, ever capable of being re- 
 woven, of being raised to life, by the Pneuma 
 which first constituted it. Thus "the psychic 
 man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, 
 for they are a foolishness unto him ; neither can 
 he know them, because they are (only) spiritually 
 discerned. But he that is pnettmatic judgeth all 
 things, yet he himself is judged of no man " 
 (i Cor. ii. 14, 15). "Ye are not in the flesh but 
 in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwelleth in 
 you " (Rom. viii. 9). Only where certain compari- 
 sons require it, and in loosely worded popular 
 passages, is pneuma, spirit, also attributed to 
 man, as such. " The pneuma of man knows the 
 things of man and the Pneuma of God knows the 
 things of God," is said in 1 Cor. ii. 11 ; but here 
 we find also the even looser terms, irvevfia tov 
 Koo-fiov, "the spirit of the world" (ver. 12) (like 
 "the God of this world" applied to the devil,
 
 St. PauVs Fundamental Category, Spirit 69 
 
 2 Cor. iv. 4), and vom Kvptov, "the mind of God" 
 (ver. 16). 
 
 (2) Although it was the precise deeds, words, 
 and character of the historic Jesus of Nazareth, 
 and their specific effect upon the dispositions of 
 particular human witnesses which gave its rich- 
 ness and tenderness to St. Paul's imaoe of the 
 Christ, the special circumstances of his conversion 
 and apostolate occasioned a certain depersonaliza- 
 tion of his conception of this same Christ. Thus 
 St. Paul can teach that, in His resurrection, Christ, 
 "the Second Adam, was made a life-giving- 
 Spirit" (1 Cor. xv. 45); man, living no more for 
 the flesh or the psyche, can, by and with that 
 quickening Spirit, become spirit too. And Spirit 
 and spirit, unlike material things, can be each 
 within the other. Human spirits can be " in 
 Christ" (Rom. viii. 1), or "Christ," "the Spirit of 
 God," can be " in them " (Rom. viii. 10, 9). This 
 formula, iv Xpiarm, parallel to iv irvevfian, is often 
 used by St. Paul in a pregnant mystical sense, 
 with a strongly local suggestion — Christ-Spirit 
 is here the element by which the human spirit is 
 surrounded and penetrated, as man is by the air 
 which he breathes and by which he lives. Thus 
 we are baptized, dipped, into Christ, Spirit ; we 
 can drink Christ, the Spirit (Rom. vi. 3; Gal. iii. 
 27 ; 1 Cor. x. 3, 4).
 
 yo Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (3) It is the presence of this intrinsically 
 immortal, eternal Spirit within us that constitutes 
 our surety of immortality, ever accompanied, in 
 St. Paul's conviction, by the resurrection of the 
 body. " If the Spirit of Him that raised Jesus 
 from the dead dwelleth in you, He . . . will give 
 life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit 
 that dwelleth within you" (Rom. viii. 11); "I 
 die daily"; "daily we bear about in our bodies 
 the death of Jesus, in order that," in a measure 
 already here and now, "also the life of Jesus may 
 be manifested in our bodies" (1 Cor. xv. 31 ; 
 2 Cor. iv. 10, 11). 
 
 The Kingdom of God is thus, with St. Paul 
 also, in part a present possession ; " the King- 
 dom of God consists not in word but in power," 
 " it is justice and peace and joy in the Holy 
 Spirit" (1 Cor. iv. 20; Rom. xiv. 17); yet 
 still more is it a future gift: "flesh and blood," 
 the unrighteous, "shall not inherit the King- 
 dom of God" (1 Cor. xv. 50, vi. 9). Hence 
 " whether we live or whether we die, we are the 
 Lord's" ; "to me to live is Christ" ; already "not 
 I but Christ- liveth in me" (Rom. xiv. 8; Phil. i. 
 21 ; 1 Cor. ii. 20). And the Corinthian Chris- 
 tians can be told that "Jesus Christ is" already 
 "within you" (2 Cor. xiii. 5). 
 
 (4) And it is in and through this element and
 
 The Christ- Spirit, the Universal Bond Ji 
 
 medium of the Christ-Spirit that the universal 
 brotherhood of mankind is effected and main- 
 tained : ''there is not among you Jew or Gentile, 
 slave or freeman, male or female ; for all of you 
 are one — in Christ Jesus " (Gal. viii. 28). And this 
 Spirit-Christ articulates, locates in particular posts 
 and functions, keeps in continuous interchange 
 of selfless love and service, and thus develops 
 and constitutes, the several human spirits, as 
 variously necessary parts and members of the 
 one Christian Society and Church. The Stoic 
 conception of the human body-politic, constituted 
 by, and constituting, the several sexes, orders, 
 capacities of mankind, has here attained the 
 greatest possible elasticity, tenderness, and 
 vitality. For an all-embracing self-conscious 
 Spirit — the Spirit of one who loved, and immo- 
 lated Himself, wholly and to the end — is here 
 the link and medium by and in which all human 
 spirits, in proportion to their awakeness and 
 acceptance, are bound and fitted together. And 
 further, the conception presupposes throughout, 
 not the self-sufficingness of the individual spirit, 
 but the utter, pressing need, for each human 
 spirit, of all the others, and, for the totality of 
 human spirits, of the Christ, the Spirit, God — 
 of His initiation, purification, sustainment, and 
 crowning of it all. " As the body is one and
 
 J 2 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 hath many members, and all the members of 
 that one body, being many, are one body, so 
 also is Christ"; "ye are the body of Christ, 
 and members of it severally " ; and " whether 
 one member suffer, all the members suffer with 
 it ; or one member is honoured, all the members 
 rejoice with it" (i Cor. xii. 12, 27, 26). The 
 Stoic cosmopolitanism has here widened and 
 deepened to an outlook into the Invisible and 
 Eternal: "our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil, 
 iii. 20). 
 
 (5) And we have here, amidst some Stoic 
 terms, an amazing range and richness of volitional 
 and emotional attitude and experience — anger, 
 scorn, pity, tenderness, zeal, joy, rapture, contri- 
 tion, sadness, loneliness — the whole steeped in a 
 manly humility and deepest creatureliness, and in a 
 sense of the prevenience, the omnipresent holiness 
 and love, of God. " I have learnt, in whatever 
 circumstances I am, to be self-sufficing (avrapK^) ; 
 I have all strength — in Him who giveth me 
 power." "All things are yours, — and ye are 
 Christ's, and Christ is God's." "Christ is all 
 things in all" (Phil. iv. 11, 13; 1 Cor. iii. 22, 23; 
 Col. iii. 1 1). 1 
 
 1 See H. J. Holtzmann, Lehrbuch der N.T. Theologie, vol. ii. 
 pp. 88-90, 218, 219, 260. The Pauline section of this great work 
 is, in spite of Albert Schweitzer's vivid criticisms, probably the most 
 thorough study of the difficult subject extant.
 
 Central Characteristics of Johannine Writings ?$ 
 
 3. The Johannine writings may be briefly de- 
 scribed as Pauline in their central convictions 
 and emotions, and as Philonian in their general 
 conception of God and of the worship of God, 
 and in their, reverential yet astonishingly free, 
 allegorical treatment of the Old Testament. 
 "God is a Spirit"; "neither have ye ever heard 
 His voice nor seen His shape" (iv. 24, v. 37); 
 "My Father worketh until now" — ever, even on 
 the Sabbath (v. 17, 16); "the hour cometh when 
 men will adore the Father neither on this mount," 
 Gerizim, "nor in Jerusalem," "the true adorers 
 will adore Him in spirit and in truth " (iv. 21, 23). 
 All this, in spite of the Theophanies, the one 
 sole legitimate sanctuary, the Sabbath-rest of 
 God, in Genesis and Deuteronomy. Indeed 
 Philo's Life of Moses, as the mediator, reconciler, 
 intercessor, the one great organ of divine revela- 
 tion, the pattern and leader upwards of souls 
 eager for salvation, is a true literary precursor of 
 this pragmatic, mystical Life of Christ. 
 
 And by the utilization, and development to full 
 personality, of the Heracleitean, then Stoic, and 
 lastly Alexandrian conception of the Logos, the 
 earthly life of Jesus is here set in a frame and 
 background of an Eternity extant before, behind, 
 and after this our earthly world of space and time. 
 For the Prologue shows us the Eternal Son of
 
 74 Eternal Life ; Historical Retrospect 
 
 God blessedly resting in the bosom of the invisible 
 Father (i. 18), as, towards the end, the ideal 
 disciple, representative of all Christ's genuine 
 followers, rests in the bosom of Jesus, the Logos 
 hidden under human form (xiii. 23). We get 
 thus a development of such Pauline passages as 
 "Christ, the image of God," and "the image of 
 the invisible God, the first-born of all creation " 
 (2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Col. i. 15). 
 
 (1) All true existence, all "truth," thus comes 
 from above, where is the real world, down to us 
 here below, where is only the derivative, a blurred 
 copy : a man is " born " spiritually " from above " 
 (iii. 3). " Every one who is of the truth heareth 
 My voice " — follows Me back to whence I 
 came (xviii. i>7)- All this is conformable, in 
 its intellectual framework, to Plato and to St. 
 Paul. 
 
 But a heightened stress is laid here upon 
 "knowing" and "truth" — thus Yivcoa/ceiv appears, 
 in the short First Epistle alone, twenty-five times. 
 " If ye are truly My disciples, ye shall know the 
 truth, and the truth shall make you free"; "the 
 spirit of truth shall lead you into all truth"; "for 
 this I came into the world, that I might witness 
 unto the truth" (viii. 31, 32, xviii. 37). This 
 apparent hegemony given to truth and knowing 
 is the feature which approximates this, otherwise
 
 Knowing, Truth, Life in St. John 75 
 
 deeply and deliberately anti-Gnostic, writer to 
 the Gnostics, all characterized by their insistence 
 upon 7J/aj<Tt«?. And this knowing is taken to be 
 intuitive, as analogous to physical sight (opav, l&eh, 
 deaadcu, fiXeireiv, decopelv), and to conform to the 
 Stoic principle that "like is apprehended by 
 like" (Sextus Empiricus, 7. 92). "Only He 
 who is with the Father, hath seen the Father " ; 
 " he who is of the earth, speaketh of the earth " 
 (vi. 46, iii. 31). 
 
 (2) Yet it is not Knowledge, however intuitive, 
 nor Truth, however heavenly, but Life, Eternal 
 Life, which constitutes the culmination of the 
 Johannine convictions. Christ here declares " I 
 am the Way, the Truth, and the Life," in an 
 ascending scale of values, and this is the inner 
 meaning of the raising of Lazarus, the greatest 
 and last of the seven great miracle-symbols of 
 this gospel of Eternal Life (xi. 25). 
 
 True, in the direct teaching of Jesus, Eternal 
 Life depends upon the observance of the twin 
 commandments of the love of God and of man 
 (Luke x. 25-28, and parallels), whilst here "this 
 is eternal life, that men may know Thee the one 
 true God, and Jesus Christ whom Thou hast 
 sent" (xvii. 2, 3). Yet the great saying, "If any 
 man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the 
 doctrine whether it is of God" (vii. 17), is the
 
 7 6 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 precise equivalent of Jesus's actual words, "Blessed 
 are the pure of heart, for they shall see God" 
 (Matt. v. 8). The Johannine doctrine of Life has 
 indeed taken over and refashioned the Synoptic 
 conceptions of Life and of the Kingdom of God 
 — the latter term appearing here in one passage 
 only, iii. 3, 5. And though this gospel begins 
 with the Logos conception, and attaches "Life" 
 to that conception (i. 1, 4), yet, in the progress 
 of the work, a richness of content is given to 
 "Life" which it derives, not from the Stoic- 
 Philonian categories, but from the life of Jesus, 
 as actually lived by Him, and from this Jesus's 
 teachings concerning the Kingdom of God and 
 the conditions for entering it, as these teachings 
 had reached the writer through persons who had 
 actually heard them. Thus Life here means, in 
 itself, indissolubility, though not as a conse- 
 quence, but as a presupposition, of the resurrec- 
 tion : "that every one who seeth the Son and 
 believeth in Him, may have eternal life ; and I 
 will raise him up at the last day " (vi. 40). For 
 its possessor's consciousness, such Life means 
 beatitude: "that they may have life and may 
 have it abundantly" (x. 10). In its ethical 
 relation, it is the immediate concomitant of all 
 acts pleasing to God : " His commandment is 
 eternal life" (xii. 50). And with respect to
 
 The Gospel of Eternal Life jj 
 
 knowing, it is enlightenment: "This is eternal 
 life, that they may know" (xvii. 3). 
 
 St. Paul's teaching, " In Christ all shall be made 
 alive" (1 Cor. xv. 22), yields here, as developed 
 in Christ's great speech (v. 21-29), a wondrously 
 deep content for the conception of Life Eternal. 
 "As the Father raises the dead and maketh 
 them alive, so also the Son maketh alive whom 
 He willeth"; for "the Spirit it is that maketh 
 alive," and " the words that I have spoken to 
 you are spirit and are life." Hence "he who 
 hearkeneth to My word . . . hath eternal life, 
 and hath passed over from death to life" (v. 21, 
 vi. 63, v. 24). Such believer already here and 
 now possesses eternal life ; already here and now 
 has accomplished the transition from death to 
 life; he "has" already "tasted the powers of 
 the coming age" (Heb. vi. 5). The believer 
 "will not die for ever," will not die at all, whilst 
 Martha, the ordinary Palestinian Jew, affirms 
 that "he," her brother, "will rise again at the 
 last day " (xi. 26, 24). " This " already " is eternal 
 life," that men may know God and the Christ ; 
 " these things have I spoken to you, that . . . your 
 joy may" already "be fulfilled" (xv. 11). The 
 emphasis in the pre-Exilic Old Testament lies 
 upon the past, upon the absence of all beginning 
 in God ; in Jesus's teaching it lies upon the future,
 
 78 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 the coming of the Kingdom, and upon the direct, 
 explicit preparations for it ; in the specifically 
 Johannine passages, it lies upon an Eternal Now. 
 Thus Christ, as God, is free from all successive- 
 ness: " before Abraham was (became), I," not was, 
 but " am " (viii. 58). It is in the less characteristic 
 passages of these writings that we get the very 
 valuable, strictly necessary, compensatory move- 
 ment, — an insistence upon the future, — the bodily 
 resurrection and the increase of the soul's stability 
 and joy in the beyond. 
 
 (3) The social, organically interconnected and 
 variously graduated, life of spirits, of each with 
 all the others, and of all in and through the Spirit, 
 Christ, and God, so deeply embedded in our 
 Lord's own teaching and so clearly articulated by 
 St. Paul, is here explicitly insisted on by Christ 
 Himself : " I am the true vine, ye are the branches, 
 and My Father is the husbandman " (xv. 1, 5). 
 And the Pauline vivid realization of the non- 
 spatiality, the interpenetrability, of spirits appears 
 here in fullest force : "I am in the Father and 
 Thou, Father, art in Me " ; " he who abideth in Me 
 and I in him " ; "I in them and Thou in Me " (xiv. 
 10, xv. 5, xvii. 23). And the human spirit's utter 
 need of God, and the prevenience of God in the 
 relations between man and God, are magnificently 
 emphasized. " Not we loved God (first), but He
 
 The Spirit's Need, the Divine Prevenience Jg 
 
 (first) loved us"; "let us love Him, because He 
 first loved us" (i John iv. 10, 19); "no man can 
 come to Me, unless the Father draw him " (vi. 44). 
 And this drawing effects a hunger and thirst for 
 Christ and God (iv. 14, vi. 35). Thus man's 
 spirit, so largely merely potential, can respond 
 actively to the historic Jesus, because it has been 
 already touched by, and thus made hungry for, 
 the all-actual, eternal Spirit-God who created 
 that human spirit akin unto Himself. 
 
 (4) Yet, finally, the range and variety of the 
 perfect life is, in these writings, much restricted, 
 as compared with the inexhaustible richness and 
 spontaneity actually lived and proposed to us by 
 Jesus Himself. In the Synoptists Jesus "grows 
 in favour with God and man " ; passes through 
 a profoundly real individual experience in His 
 Baptism and Temptation ; prays alone on the 
 mountain-side ; suffers an agony of fear and seeks 
 His disciples' sympathy in Gethsemane ; and dies 
 with a cry of desolation upon Calvary. In the 
 Fourth Gospel the Logos's watchword is " I am " ; 
 there is no Baptism and no Temptation ; He has 
 deliberately to stir up emotion in Himself; He 
 prays only for others ; and in the Garden and on 
 the Cross He shows naught but self-possession. 
 And men's duty, although, besides the " knowing " 
 and believing, it includes the loving of God and
 
 80 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 of man, appears correspondingly to lack variety, 
 spontaneity, tension, incident. Nevertheless, all 
 through this great work's apparent thinness and 
 abstractness, pulses the sense and the effect of the 
 two great concrete Realities — God, the already 
 fully extant and operative eternal Beauty, Truth, 
 Love and Goodness, infinite Personality and Spirit, 
 Who is all this independently of our apprehen- 
 sion and action ; and Jesus, Who actually lived 
 in the flesh here below amongst us, the lowly 
 servant of human souls. Thus here the Christ 
 tells us : " God so loved the world, that He 
 gave His only-begotten Son, so that whosoever 
 believeth in Him should . . . have everlasting 
 life" ; and that "the Father will give you another 
 Helper, the Spirit of Truth, who will abide with 
 you for ever " (iii. 16, xiv. 15). And perhaps the 
 most solemnly introduced, and the most deeply 
 felt, of all the scenes here given, is that of Christ 
 washing the disciples' feet, and inculcating a 
 similar service of each to all the others, a passage 
 which expands words actually spoken in a parable 
 by Jesus (Luke xii. 35-37) into an appealing 
 summary and picture of the aim and disposition 
 of His entire life and teaching (xiii. 1-17). 1 
 
 1 The most many-sided discussion of all the above and allied 
 points is in H. J. Holtzmann's LehrbucJi d. N.T. Theologie, 
 especially in the greatly improved 2nd ed. 191 1, vol. ii. pp. 390- 
 437. The above sketch, after much personal study of the texts,
 
 Plotinus % Thinker and Religious Soul 81 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 CHRISTIAN-HELLENISTIC TIMES 
 
 Plotinus— St. Augustine — Pseudo-Dionysius (Proclus). 
 
 We will next take the three most typical and 
 influential teachers of Eternal Life that flourished 
 between the appearance of the Johannine literature 
 and the closing of the Pagan schools of phil- 
 sophy, — from about a.d. ioo to a.d. 529, — 
 Plotinus, St. Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius. 
 
 I. Plotinus (a.d. 204-270), who, born in Egypt, 
 taught during his last twenty-five years in Rome, 
 has left us, in his ever succinct, though generally 
 obscure writings, utterances of the most delicate 
 spiritual experience and of the noblest religious 
 passion and tenderness. They are deeply in- 
 structive also because of the ceaseless conflict 
 
 and with certain value-judgments of my own, is based almost 
 throughout upon these pages. Careful work is to be found also in 
 Bp. Westcott's The Epistles of Si. John, 1886, pp. 214-218; in 
 A. Loisy's extraordinarily rich and suggestive Le Quatrieme 
 Evangile, 1903, pp. 1 51-199, 420-481 ; in Pere Th. Calmes's 
 E Evangile selon S. Jean, 1904, pp. 81-144, 239-262 ; and in 
 E. F. Scott's The Fourth Gospel, 1906, pp. 234-294 (the most 
 incisive and clear of the English books upon the subject). 
 6
 
 82 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 within them between the formal principles of the 
 philosopher, which indeed are themselves in part 
 determined by a sensitively spiritual sense of the 
 distinct reality and qualitative difference of God, 
 and the experiences of a profoundly religious soul. 
 The philosopher Plotinus here leaves the First, 
 God, without qualities, internal activities, or 
 outgoing action whatsoever, and conceives man's 
 approach to Him as a literal emptying of him- 
 self, even down to his ethical qualities. But 
 Plotinus, the religious soul, ever turns to, thirsts 
 after, and loves, that God Whom, in spite of 
 those principles, he continuously discovers as 
 a very ocean of Life and Loveableness, hence, 
 surely, of Love also. 
 
 (i) Thus, as to the utter Transcendence of God, 
 we are told : " The First had no desire of any 
 kind, for otherwise it would have been imperfect ; 
 there was, too, nothing whatever extant, to which 
 It might stretch Itself." "If anything is the 
 simplest of all things, It will not think Itself, for 
 otherwise It would possess multiplicity . . . nor 
 can there be any thinking of It." "We say what 
 It is not; what It is we do not say" . . . " It 
 is neither . . . Intellect nor Soul, It neither 
 moves nor stands still, It is neither in space nor in 
 time, but It is . . . the Formless before all form, 
 before all movement, before all rest" (v. 3. 12;
 
 Plotinuss Theory and Experience at Variance 8 
 
 13; 14 ; vi. 9. 3). Nevertheless, this First can 
 be experienced by man ; indeed, the real contact 
 of man's spirit with, and his self-surrender to, It, 
 constitute that spirit's very life and sole true joy. 
 In fact, in spite of the philosopher's insistence 
 upon the emptiness of God, and the corresponding 
 need of emptiness in the soul that would approach 
 Him, Plotinus's words, where his own mystical 
 experience speaks, really convey or imply the 
 very opposite — the unspeakable richness of God in 
 life, love, and joy ; His ever immediate, protective 
 closeness to man's soul ; and this soul's discovery 
 of Him, the Lover, by becoming aware of, and 
 by completely willing, His actual contact, when it 
 freely, heroically turns its whole being, away from 
 the narrow self, to Him, its root and its true, 
 overflowing life. 
 
 " The One can be apprehended only Kara irap- 
 ovalav iin<TTr)iJLr)$ Kpeirrova, through a presence," an 
 immediate contact, " which is above knowledge " ; 
 by "an ecstasy, a simplification, and a self- 
 donation, a striving after contact («</»;), a quiet, 
 and a musing upon union with It." " Bodies 
 cannot enter into real communion with each 
 other, but incorporeal things . . . are separated 
 from each other, if at all, not by place but by 
 difference and antagonism. When therefore this 
 difference is absent, they are immediately present
 
 84 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 to each other." And as to the One, "we are 
 always gathered around It, but we do not always 
 gaze upon It. When, however, we do so gaze, 
 we attain to the end of our desires and to the 
 rest of our souls." "We are not cut off from It 
 nor severed from It . . . but we breathe and 
 consist in It, since It does not give and then 
 withdraw, but ever bears and directs us (x°P^ ei ) 
 as long as It is what It is. . . . There the soul 
 rests free from evils . . . and the true life is 
 there." " For since the soul is different from 
 God, but springs from Him, it longs after Him 
 by a necessity of its nature " (vi. 9. 4 ; 11; 
 
 8 ; 9). 
 
 Yet we cannot accept the following as an 
 adequate explanation of this supreme attraction 
 and lovableness of God, and of the supreme joy 
 thus imparted by His real touch of man's soul. 
 "The One does not strive after us, so that It 
 would encircle us, but we have to strive after It, 
 so that we may circle around It." " If something 
 came to be, after It, this something came to be, 
 by the First remaining in Its own being." And 
 "since the One is perfect, since It neither seeks 
 nor possesses nor requires anything, it was, so 
 to speak, an overflow of the One, Its overfulness, 
 that brought forth other things" (vi. 3. 12 ; 2. 1 ; 
 9.8).
 
 Loss and Gain in Plotinus s Teaching 85 
 
 (2) Thus Plotinus the philosopher drives home 
 the increasingly abstractive trend of Greek philo- 
 sophy from Plato onwards. Aristotle's God only 
 thinks, and only thinks Himself; Aristotle's 
 world, KLvet co? ipco/xevov, is in motion, not as 
 loved by God but solely as loving Him ; and 
 Aristotle's man approaches God, the abstract 
 Thinker, by abstractive thought. But Plotinus's 
 God does not even think at all, and Plotinus's 
 man attains to the sheer One by the real cessa- 
 tion of every mental or even vital activity. And 
 since Plotinus, the religious soul, shrinks con- 
 currently from allowing any necessitation in God, 
 even though a purely spiritual one resulting from 
 His own nature, he has to treat the undeniably 
 extant world as a quasi-physical, an automatic, 
 result of God, unknown, unwilled by Him ; and 
 although love is evoked by Him in man, this love 
 has nothing corresponding to itself in God. The 
 entire relations between God and man consist 
 here, in reality, in one relation and movement 
 only, — from man up to God, since no such move- 
 ment or relation is explicitly allowed from God 
 down to man. And thus in Plotinus's philosophy 
 God is exiled from His world and His world 
 from Him, whilst Plotinus's experiences and in- 
 tuitions find God to be the very atmosphere and 
 home of all souls.
 
 86 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (3) It is, then, Plotinus's deep spiritual instincts 
 and experiences, and the religious motive opera- 
 tive in the very excesses of his negation, that 
 demand retention and development, whilst his 
 abstractive method and theories require a corre- 
 sponding check or rejection. What is here so 
 specially valuable is doubtless Plotinus's constant, 
 vivid sense of the spaceless, timeless character 
 of God ; of God's distinct reality and otherness, 
 and yet of His immense nearness ; of the real 
 contact between the real God and the real soul, 
 and of the precedence and excess of this contact 
 before and beyond all theories concerning this, 
 the actual ultimate cause of the soul's life and 
 healing. Indeed, reality of all kinds here 
 rightly appears as ever exceeding our intui- 
 tion of it, and our intuitions as ever exceeding 
 our discursive reasonings and analyses. And, on 
 the other hand, the one-sided abstractiveness of 
 the method leads to his profoundly unsocial 
 conception of man's relation to God, and of the 
 moments when this relation is at its deepest, — 
 alone with the Alone, — and to the exclusion, 
 from the soul's deepest, ultimate life, of all 
 multiplicity and discursiveness of thought, and 
 of all distinct acts and productiveness of the will. 
 Here we have grave omissions, and here Plotinus 
 compares most unfavourably with the frankly
 
 St. Augustine : the Soul Non-Spatial 87 
 
 social and serving condition of the blessed, here 
 and in the beyond, in Our Lord's own preaching. 1 
 
 2. The great African-Roman, St. Augustine, 
 born in a.d. 354, a convert from Manichaeism 
 and an impure life in 386, wrote his Confessions 
 in 397. He had lived to see the Roman Empire 
 united, for the last time, under Theodosius the 
 Great, and soon again divided, between his two 
 sons, in 394-395. And later on, in 410, came 
 the capture and sack of Rome by the Visigoth 
 Alaric. It was under the impressions of these 
 immense events — the clear dissolution of a mighty 
 past and the dim presage of a problematical 
 future — that he wrote his great work, The City 
 of God, in 413-427, and died in 430 at Hippo, 
 his episcopal city, whilst the Vandals were 
 besieging it. 
 
 (1) St. Augustine himself tells us how much 
 he owes to " the Platonists " — i.e., quite pre- 
 dominantly, to Plotinus — his final emancipation 
 from Manichsean, variously materialistic, concep- 
 tions of God. 
 
 The Confessions especially are full of the 
 noblest expressions as to the non-spatial character 
 
 1 E. Caird's Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, 
 1904, vol. ii. pp. 210-233, 289-316, is the most balanced extant 
 discussion of Plotinus on the above points.
 
 88 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 of God, of the soul's dispositions, and of the 
 relations between the soul and God. "What 
 place is there within me, whither my God can 
 come ? . . . I would not exist at all, unless Thou 
 wert already within me." "Thou wast never a 
 place, and yet we have receded from Thee ; we 
 have drawn near to Thee, and yet Thou wast 
 never a place." "Are we submerged and do we 
 emerge ? Yet it is not places into which we are 
 plunged and out of which we rise. What can be 
 more like places and, yet, more unlike ? For here 
 the affections are in case " (Con/, i. 2. i ; x. 26 ; 
 xiii. 7). "The spiritual creature can only be 
 changed by times," by a succession within dura- 
 tion, "by remembering what it had forgotten, 
 or by learning what it did not know, or by 
 willing what it did not will. The bodily creature 
 can be changed by times and places, say from 
 east to west." "That thing is not moved 
 through space which is not extended in space . . . 
 the soul is not considered to move in space, 
 except it be held to be a body" (De Genesi ad 
 litteram, viii. 39; 43; ed. Ben., col. 387 B, vol. 
 iii. 389 A). 
 
 As to time, St. Augustine has gone much 
 deeper than Plotinus, and indeed still remains 
 unequalled in the delicate splendour of his in- 
 sight. "Thou, O God, precedest all past times
 
 St. Augustine : Time and Eternity 89 
 
 by the height of Thine ever-present Eternity ; 
 and Thou exceedest all future times, since these 
 are future and, once they have come, will be 
 past times. . . . Thy years neither come nor go ; 
 but these years of ours both come and go, that 
 so they may all come. All Thy years abide 
 together, because they abide . . . but these our 
 years will all be, only when they will all have 
 ceased to be. Thy years are but one day ; and 
 this Thy day is not every day but to-day. This 
 Thy to-day is Eternity." "Who shall hold 
 man's vain heart, and fix it, so that it may for a 
 little abide, and may for a little grasp the splendour 
 of ever-abiding Eternity, and may compare it 
 with the never-abiding times, and may thus see 
 how Eternity is not comparable with them?" 
 {Conf. xi. 13. 2). "True Eternity is present 
 where there is nothing of time " ( Tract, in 
 Joann. Evang. xxxiii. 9 ; ed. Ben., vol. iii. 
 col. 1953 A). 
 
 (2) Yet moments of a vivid apprehension, of a 
 real experience, of Eternity do occur, even in this 
 life. In the great scene at the window in Ostia, 
 autumn 387, Augustine and his mother Monica 
 rise (in form by ever-increasing abstraction from, 
 in reality by ever-increasing concentration upon, 
 the deepest constituents of their actual experiences 
 and necessities) to a vivid apprehension of Eternal
 
 96 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 Life in the beyond. " And we transcended our 
 very minds, so as to touch the region of unfailing 
 plenty, where Thou feedest Israel for ever with 
 the food of truth ; and where life is the Wisdom," 
 the Word, " by Which all things become that both 
 were and are to be, yet Which, Itself, does not 
 become, but Which is as It was and ever will be, 
 . . . since It is eternal. . . . And we touched It 
 slightly, by an impulse of all our heart (modice, 
 toto ictu cordis) ; and we sighed, and returned to 
 the sound of our own voices, to where the " human 
 " word begins and ends. And what is there, O 
 Lord, that is like unto Thy Word, that abideth 
 within Itself without growing old, and yet re- 
 neweth all things? . . ." And " if that our touch, 
 by our rapidly passing thought, of the Eternal 
 Wisdom which abideth above all things . . . were 
 to be continued ... so that Eternal Life would 
 be like that moment of intelligence, — would not 
 that be the meaning of the words ' enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord?'" (Con/, ix. 10. 2, 3). 
 Hence "perchance . . . when 'we shall be like 
 Him,' our thoughts will no more ... go from 
 one thing to another, but we shall see all we 
 know simultaneously, in one intuition " (De 
 Trinit. xv. 26 ; ed. Ben., vol. viii. col. 1492 D). 
 
 (3) And this sense of Eternity, of Beatitude, 
 of God and His nature generally, proceeds, at
 
 God's Immediate Presence <Xnd Prevenience 91 
 
 bottom, from His immediate presence in our lives. 
 Thus the supremely Real, Rich, Concrete is 
 before, is the cause, occasion, and object, of all 
 abstractions, indeed of all rich and real conscious- 
 ness concerning our own weakness, or sin, or 
 support, or profoundest peace. " This day of ours 
 does not pass within Thee, and yet it does pass 
 within Thee, since all these things have no means 
 of passing, unless, somehow, Thou dost contain 
 them all." " In Thee abide the causes of all 
 unabiding things, and the unchanging origins of 
 all chang-inCT things • and in Thee live the eternal 
 reasons of all things that are unpossessed of 
 reason and are temporal " (Con/, i. 6. 3 ; 2). 
 
 " Behold Thou wast within, and I was without 
 . . . Thou wast with me, but I was not with 
 Thee." " Thou hast made us for Thyself, and 
 restless is our heart until it rests in Thee." " Is 
 not the blessed life precisely that life which all 
 men desire ? We evidently possess that life, I 
 know not in what manner ; and there is another 
 manner in which a man possesses it when he is 
 truly blessed. Yet even those who only hope 
 to be blessed, would not, unless they, in some 
 manner, already possessed the blessed life, desire 
 to be blessed as, in fact, it is most certain that 
 they desire to be " (Con/, x. 27 ; xiii. 1). 
 
 Hence a strenuous insistence here upon the pre-
 
 92 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 venience of God, and the soul's utter need of Him. 
 " Thou hast not forgotten me, who have forgotten 
 Thee. I call Thee into my soul which Thou hast 
 prepared to receive Thee by means of the desire 
 for Thee which Thou Thyself instillest into it. 
 . . . Before I was, Thou wast ; and here I am, 
 the whole of me that Thou hast made, and every- 
 thing out of which Thou hast made me, springing 
 from Thy prevenient goodness.'' " There liveth 
 in Thee, without any diminution, our Good which 
 Thou art Thyself, O God ; we need not fear to 
 have nowhere whither we can return, after we 
 have fallen away from thence. For whilst we were 
 away from it, our home has not fallen, — our home 
 Thy Eternity." " My soul is a land without 
 water before Thee ; it cannot enlighten, it cannot 
 satiate, itself from itself or by itself. Thus ' with 
 Thee is the fountain of life,' since ' in Thy light we 
 shall see light.' " " O God, forsake not Thine own 
 gifts" (Conf. xiii. i; iv. 16. 5; xiii. 16; xi. 2. 3). 
 (4) And then there is the keen sense of the 
 Historical Element, — of the self-humiliation of the 
 Infinite in time and space, and of the irreplace- 
 able appropriateness and greatness of humility in 
 the finite spirits thus taught and loved. " Thy 
 Word, the eternal Truth . . . built for Itself, in 
 this lower world, a dwelling of our clay . . . heal- 
 ing thus our inflation and feeding our love."
 
 St. Augustine: History, the Social Organism 93 
 
 "Where," in the Neo-Platonists' teaching, "was 
 that charity that builds itself up on that founda- 
 tion of humility which is Christ Jesus? These 
 pages have not the expression of this piety — the 
 tears of confession, the sacrifice dear to Thee — 
 a troubled spirit, a contrite and humbled heart, 
 the salvation of Thy people, the bridal city, the 
 first-fruits of the Holy Spirit, the chalice of our 
 ransom" (Conf. vii. 18; 20. 2; 21. 2). 
 
 (5) And thus also the Social Organism, result- 
 ing from, and in return aiding and in part con- 
 stituting, such a rich, strong life of the soul, 
 becomes more and more developed and emphasized 
 in his writings. The City of God is directly 
 devoted to it, although the social conceptions 
 here are, in some respects, even more strongly 
 influenced by the Greek Republic of Plato, and 
 its abstractiveness, and by the Roman Empire, 
 with its massive coercion, now broken up before 
 the writer's very eyes, than by the Kingdom of 
 Heaven as preached to Galilsean fishermen and 
 peasants. And yet it is from that deathless 
 life and preaching that this, in part fierce, 
 hard, and gloomy African, derived his melting 
 tendernesses, humility, fullest spiritual fruitfulness, 
 and splendidly perennial youth. " Two cities 
 were built for themselves by two loves, — an 
 earthly city by the love of self, up to the contempt
 
 94 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 of God ; and a heavenly city by the love of God, 
 up to the contempt of self. . . . This entire time 
 . . . from which men withdraw at death and to 
 which men succeed at birth, is but the evolution of 
 these two cities" (De Civit. Dei, xiv. 28 ; xv. 1). 
 Great yet terribly dangerous conception, if applied 
 directly to entire groups of men, with the one set 
 thus easily assumed to be all angelic and ever 
 right, the other set all diabolic and ever wrong ; 
 and here mostly thus interpreted, owing to this 
 great convert's profound distrust of human nature ! 
 Thus, when facing St. Augustine, we once more 
 cannot but recognize that it is Jesus Our Lord 
 Himself Who alone gives us the quite full and 
 costingly balanced statement within which the 
 experiences and doctrines as to the social organism 
 and as to sin have to find their place and level. 
 And yet a deep sense of the need of such an 
 organism and of the reality of sin will constantly 
 be necessary to a sane and solid conception and 
 practice of Eternal Life ; and such a sense is 
 ever, even excessively though not uniformly, 
 operative within the vast scheme of St. Augustine. 1 
 
 3. The last great expression, by the ancient 
 Western and Near Eastern world, of the thirst 
 
 1 For St. Augustine's teachings, see the still most useful Index 
 to the Benedictine edition of his works,
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius : Proclus, his Chief Source 95 
 
 and search after Eternal Life, and which pro- 
 foundly influenced the whole course of Mediaeval, 
 and hence largely of Modern thought, are the 
 Pseudo-Dionysian writings. Composed probably 
 in Syria, certainly by a Christian cleric, presum- 
 ably by a bishop, somewhere between a.d. 490- 
 500, they constitute the most wholesale adoption 
 of non-Christian philosophy ever, so far, endorsed 
 by the official Christian Church. It is especially 
 Prochis, the last of the greater Hellenistic philo- 
 sophers (a.d. 410-485, born in Constantinople, 
 he taught in Athens after 430), who is thus taken 
 over on the largest scale. 
 
 (1) Now Proclus, the great Neo-Platonist 
 systematizer and scholastic, is as abstractive as 
 Plotinus, and far more dominated, not by experi- 
 ences and necessities of the human spirit, but by 
 formal logic, an uncriticized philosophical tradition, 
 and the latest Hellenistic theosophy. Genuine 
 favourite sayings of his are that " he would, were 
 he master, leave only the collection of the Divine 
 Oracles" (Delphic, Orphic, and such-like sayings) 
 "and Plato's Timceus in general circulation" ; and 
 " it behoves the philosopher to be the hierophant 
 of the whole world." Plotinus's conception of the 
 circular process of all things, the Many moving 
 from the One back to the One, is rigorously carried 
 out by Proclus, throughout, and for every stage
 
 g6 Etej'nal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 and province of, life, in its triadic development of 
 fiovrj, the abiding of the produced in the producer — 
 similarity, unity; 777300809, the going-fort 'h of the pro- 
 duced from the producer — difference; and iinarpo^ri, 
 the return of the former to the latter — assimilation, 
 unification. And here, too, all beings are perfect 
 and powerful in proportion to the poverty of their 
 attributes — the pyramid of our abstract thinking 
 and regressive simplification represents the actual 
 condition of reality. Thus here especially the First, 
 the One, to "Ev, is above all reason, life, good- 
 ness, even, strictly, enreicetva rov ehai., " above being " ; 
 It is, too, avairlas clItlov, " Cause, yet not Cause " 
 (In Republic. 429 middle). But the realities inter- 
 mediary between the One and man's even highest 
 constituents are here more numerous than in 
 Plotinus, and both those intermediaries and these 
 constituents are almost endlessly, most subtly 
 sub-divided. 
 
 On only one, most important, point is there 
 a greater sobriety than in Plotinus ; indeed, we 
 get here some sense of a glaring Neo-Platonist 
 inconsistency : for Proclus at times censures those 
 who hold that the soul, forsaking all that is lower, 
 becomes the very One and the Intelligible (hi 
 Tim. 310 A). 1 
 
 1 See E. Zeller, Plulosophie der Griechen^ 1881, iii. 3, pp. 774-793, 
 823-826.
 
 The Circle and Transcendence in Dionysius 97 
 
 (2) Pseudo-Dionysius assimilates practically all 
 the chief doctrines, terms, similes, of Proclus, far 
 more than he takes from Aristotle or even from 
 Plato or Plotinus ; and forms a curious compound 
 of Christian priestly and sacramental organization 
 and of Proclian ultra-transcendence and abstract- 
 iveness. Yet the tender truth and beauty of 
 Plotinus's experiences, and the supreme reality 
 of Jesus's life and teaching, vivify much of this 
 strange amalgam. 
 
 Thus also in Dionysius " the super-essential 
 Illimitability is placed above things essential, and 
 the Unity above mind is placed above the minds " 
 (the angels); ''and the Good above word is un- 
 utterable by word . . . and the Cause of being to 
 all, Itself is not being." " To none who are lovers 
 of the Truth above all truth is it permitted to 
 celebrate the supremely divine Essentiality, either 
 as word or as power, as mind, life, or essence, but 
 only as pre-eminently separated from every con- 
 dition . . , surmise . . . infinitude, all things 
 whatsoever." "There is no contact (eV«<£>/) with 
 the Deity, nor has it any communion with the 
 things participating in it " (De Div. Norn. i. 1 ; 
 
 5; »• 5)- 
 
 Yet here also " we are brought into contact 
 
 (awaTTTOfieda) with things unutterable and un- 
 known, in a manner unutterable and unknown." 
 
 7
 
 98 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 "All things aspire to It: things intellectual, by means 
 of knowledge ; things inferior to these, through the 
 senses ; and other things, by living movement, or 
 by substantial and habitual aptitude." And " the 
 Divine Love whirls round, as it were an everlast- 
 ing circle, because of the Good, from the Good, 
 in the Good, and to the Good, ever advancing and 
 remaining and returning" (ibid. i. 1 ; 5 ; iv. 14). 
 
 But the Christian here, in various degrees 
 and ways, colours or modifies, in the direction 
 of deliberate self-revelation and of direct pre- 
 occupation with His creatures, the Plotinian- 
 Proclian concept of God's automatic overflowing. 
 " Even as our sun, by its very being, enlightens 
 all things able to partake of its light in their own 
 degree, so too the Good, by I ts very existence, sends, 
 to all things that be, the rays of Its whole good- 
 ness, according to their capacity." " Love Itself 
 . . . moved Itself to creation." "The very 
 Author of all things . . . becomes out of Himself 
 by His providences for all existing things " (ibid. 
 iv. 1 ; iv. 10 ; 10). And, in return and imitation, 
 " Divine love," that is, the creature's love for 
 God, " is ecstatic, not permitting any to be lovers of 
 themselves." " By all things the Beautiful and 
 Good is . . . loved ; and because of It, and for 
 Its sake, the lesser things love the greater sup- 
 pliantly ; and those of the same rank, their fellows
 
 Dionysius as Christian and Aristotelian 99 
 
 brotherly ; and the greater the lesser, consider- 
 ately." " The fulness of the perfect Peace passes 
 through all existing things, yoking all together 
 in one connatural friendship" {ibid. iv. 13; 10; 
 xi. 2). 
 
 (3) In a fundamental point of general outlook 
 indeed, Dionysius, in, say, one-fourth of his text, 
 adopts the Aristotelian identification between rela- 
 tive elevation of position in the scale of reality 
 and relative richness of attributes, and applies 
 this principle, in complete opposition to Neo- 
 Platonism, to God Himself. He finds, indeed, that 
 Being has a wider application than Life, and Life 
 a wider than Wisdom. " For what reason, then, 
 do we affirm that Life is superior to Being, and 
 Wisdom to Life ? " " Things with Life," so answers 
 the author, "are doubtless above things that merely 
 exist, things sensible above those that merely live, 
 and things rational above these last. . . . The 
 things that participate more in the One, the 
 boundless-giving God, are more near to Him . . . 
 than those that come behind them " (in gifts). 
 "Are not Life and Goodness more cognate 
 (crvyyevearepov) to God than air and stone ? And 
 is He not further removed from debauch and 
 wrath than He is from ineffableness and incom- 
 prehensibility ? " (De Div. Nom. v. 1. 2; Myst. 
 Theol. iii.).
 
 ioo Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (4) But in the important theological, indeed 
 religious, matter as to the perfect soul's relation 
 to God, Dionysius, following here many of the 
 Greek Fathers, speaks with less reserve than 
 Proclus and with almost as little as Plotinus. 
 "The Deification (detwo-ie) from Itself"; "the 
 many who become Gods (6eoL) " ; " the Deifica- 
 tion of those that turn jto Him " (De Div. Nom. 
 ii. 11). It is as though the initial excess of 
 distance avenged itself, at the end, in an excess 
 of closeness. 
 
 (5) The absence of the historic sense, — of any 
 intrinsic and necessary function, within the spirit's 
 life, of apparently contingent happenings, — and 
 the purely negative character attributed to Evil 
 are as prominent here as in the entire Platonist 
 tradition, and this in spite of certain orthodox 
 saving clauses, and of the noble insistence, 
 Platonist and Christian, upon the need of purifica- 
 tion by the soul that would experience and obtain 
 Eternal Life. 1 
 
 1 On Dionysius and Proclus : Hugo Koch, Psendo-Dionysius 
 Areopagita in seinen Beziehiaigen zutn Keiiplatonismus und 
 Mysterienwesen, 1900, is a very careful, thoroughly conclusive 
 study.
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas s Character and Limits 101 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MIDDLE AGES 
 
 St. Thomas Aquinas : the two currents in his teaching — 
 Eckhart's two tendencies. 
 
 For the Middle Ages, let us take St. Thomas 
 and Eckhart, as specially influential and instructive 
 teachers concerning Eternal Life. 
 
 i. Thomas (a.d. 1225 or 1 227-1 274), born to a 
 noble, of Norman descent, in his castle of Rocca 
 Secca, near Aquino, educated by the Benedictines 
 of Monte Cassino, and early won to the Dominican 
 Order, dedicated his life to the defence of the (now 
 four centuries old) West-European Christian civil- 
 ization and Church, both in his day at their apogee, 
 against the sapping, then proceeding apace, of 
 Mohammedan- Aristotelian science and philosophy. 
 His adoption of Aristotle is almost as complete as 
 that of Proclus by Pseudo-Dionysius. A sensible, 
 solid, capacious, balanced mind, a sane, pure, 
 equitable, laborious soul, which ever possessed, 
 and never lost nor gained, the Christian and 
 Catholic faith, and which embraced and embodied, 
 in fullest sincerity, all the best knowledge and
 
 102 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 method of his time, he most richly deserved his 
 adoption as dominant exponent of Roman Catholic 
 orthodoxy, from soon after his death onwards. 
 Yet such security of traditional tenure, such 
 restriction to the intellectual systematization of 
 what, some eight centuries earlier, had been 
 forced to prove the superiority of its very sub- 
 stance in agonizing wrestlings with the most 
 formidable forces, and such peaceful, ingenious 
 accommodation, have necessarily limited his help- 
 fulness, as the ages have moved on. Especially 
 is there here no adequate sense as to the intrinsic, 
 ultimate trend and affinities of Aristotle, the least 
 religious among the greater Greek philosophers, 
 or as to the precise contexts and differences 
 surrounding, and observable between, Synoptic 
 and other New Testament sayings. And Eternal 
 Life, in particular, is conceived, upon the whole, 
 with less consistency and depth by Aquinas than 
 by Augustine, yet, on one point, with additional 
 richness. 
 
 (i) Everywhere Aquinas is primarily concerned 
 with carrying through his fundamental, precise de- 
 limitation between doctrines of Natural Religion, 
 directly accessible to, and demonstrable by, reason, 
 and doctrines of Revealed Religion, capable only 
 of being proved by reason to be actually revealed 
 by God, and to be not contrary to reason. In
 
 Aquinas contrasted with Augustine 103 
 
 both cases, specific written authorities decide — 
 the Philosopher, Aristotle, and Scripture and the 
 Fathers, respectively. The same rigid delimita- 
 tion is not present in Augustine : the appeal there 
 is primarily to the human soul ; and to Plato and 
 Plotinus, so deeply penetrated by the twice-born 
 temper, as hungerers after the Infinite, and the 
 New Testament, as furnishing the full articulation 
 of this hunger, and its true, complete assuage- 
 ment. Hence in Augustine, at his best, a costly 
 tension, Uan, dynamism ; in Thomas, practically 
 everywhere, a comfortable balance, quiet circum- 
 spection, a static quality. Augustine cries : 
 "Thou hast made us for Thyself, and restless 
 is our heart until it rests in Thee " ; Thomas 
 reflects : " To know that God exists, in a certain 
 general and confused way, is connatural to us, 
 since God is man's beatitude, and what man 
 naturally desires, man naturally knows. But this 
 is not simply to know that God exists . . . since 
 many hold man's beatitude to consist of riches, 
 others of pleasures, and others again of other 
 things" (Coufessioncs, i. 1. 1. Summa Theologica, 
 i. qu. ii. art. 1, ad 1). 
 
 (2) Aquinas's usual teaching is that " Reason 
 cannot attain to the Simple Form (God), so as to 
 know what It is [quid est) ; but it can know 
 whether It is (an est)" (Summ. Theol. i. qu. xii.
 
 104 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 art. 12, ad I, and often elsewhere). Yet, also 
 generally, he allows that " the names that we give 
 to God and to creatures, are predicated of God 
 according to a certain " real " relation of the 
 creature to God, as its Principle and Cause, in 
 Which the perfections of all things pre-exist in 
 an excellent manner" {ibid. i. qu. xiii. art. 5, 
 concl. et in corp.). This still seems to exclude 
 all real contact, however little analysable, between 
 the soul and God. But in an important direct dis- 
 cussion of the point, Aquinas admits that " it is im- 
 possible, with regard to anything, to know whether 
 it exists, unless we somehow know what is its 
 nature," at least "with a confused knowledge"; 
 whence "also with regard to God, we could not 
 know whether He exists," which we do know, 
 " unless we somehow knew, even though con- 
 fusedly, what He is " (In Librnm Boethii De 
 Trinitate : D. Thomae, Opera, ed. veneta altera, 
 1776, pp. 341^, 342a). It is indeed clear that 
 only such positive knowledge can justify the 
 numerous confident assertions as to God not being 
 this or that. 
 
 (3) Aquinas, as indeed is the case with the 
 Middle Ages generally, derives his conception of 
 Eternity predominantly from the same Boethius, 
 who, in his Consolatio Philosophies, written in 
 prison at Pavia about a.d. 524, gives us the
 
 Aquinas on Immediate Knowledge of God 105 
 
 definition : " Eternity consists in the completely 
 simultaneous {tota simul) and perfect possession 
 of interminable life." Thus, e.g., Aquinas, in his 
 Summa Theologica (i. qu. x. art. 1, ad 1), opens 
 the discussion concerning the Eternity of God 
 with the quotation of this strongly Platonist 
 passage from that monument of late classical 
 antiquity, so perplexing in its Christian origin 
 and yet freedom from all specifically Christian 
 conceptions. 
 
 And Aquinas insists, in an interesting fashion, 
 upon a mode of existence lying between Time 
 and Eternity, which he calls Aevum. " Even 
 supposing Time to last for ever, we can still 
 distinguish within it a beginning and an end, by 
 noting various parts of it. Eternity, on the other 
 hand, is all together (tola simul)." But "Aevum 
 is intermediate between Time and Eternity, par- 
 ticipating in each ; since, whilst Time has a before 
 and an after," and " Eternity neither has, nor can 
 suffer, a before nor an after," " the Aevum has not," 
 of necessity, " either a before or an after, although 
 they can be conjoined to it." Now "spiritual 
 creatures, as regards their affections and intellec- 
 tions, in which there exists succession, are measured 
 by Time ; as regards their natural being, they are 
 measured by the Aevum ; and as regards their 
 vision of glory, they participate in Eternity"
 
 io6 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 {Summ. Theol. i. qu. x. art. 5, in corp. et 
 ad 1). 
 
 We have here an interesting groping after 
 what M. Beroson now describes under the desiof- 
 nation of Dur£e, the succession which is never 
 all change, since its constituents, in varying 
 degrees, overlap and interpenetrate each other ; 
 a succession which can be anything from just 
 above the chain of mutually exclusive, ever equal 
 moments, — artificial, clock-time, — to just below 
 the entire interpenetration and Totum Simul of 
 Eternity. Taken thus, the conception appears 
 indeed to account for all the experiences con- 
 cerned. For it indicates that man, even in the 
 beyond, will — pace St. Thomas — still remain more 
 or less subject to duration, though there he will 
 be indefinitely more penetrated by, or aware of, 
 that Eternity, that Eternal God, Who already 
 here and now supports and penetrates him through 
 and through. And this same conception suggests 
 that even here and now, in his deepest experi- 
 ences, man apprehends and loves that Eternity 
 by means of and within, and as akin to, yet 
 contrasting with, his own duration, his quasi- 
 eternity. 
 
 (4) Aquinas, again, has two, instructively con- 
 tradictory, currents of teaching concerning the 
 character of the perfect life, in God and for man.
 
 Aquinas on Time, Aevum, Eternity 107 
 
 (a) There is, first, the solus cum solo current, a 
 compound, varying in its proportions, of the 
 Aristotelian, abstractive, more or less purely intel- 
 lectualist and contemplative ideal, and the, still 
 more abstractive although mystical, Neo-Plato- 
 nist aspiration. Thus " in the active life, occupied 
 with many things, there is less beatitude than in 
 the contemplative life, busy with one thing only — 
 the contemplation of truth"; " beatitude consists 
 essentially in the action of the intellect, only 
 accidentally in the action of the will." "God's 
 intelligence is His substance" ; whereas "volition 
 cannot but be in God, since there is intelligence 
 in Him," and "love has to be there, since there 
 is volition there." And "as God understands 
 things other than Himself by understanding His 
 own essence, so also does God will things other 
 than Himself by willing His own goodness." 
 "God enjoys Himself alone." Hence, corre- 
 spondingly among men, " 'he who knoweth Thee 
 and creatures,' as Augustine says, ' is not happier 
 than if he knew them not, but is happy because 
 of Thee alone.' " " The perfection of love is " thus 
 " essential to our beatitude, only with respect to 
 the love of God, not with respect to the love of 
 our neighbour ; were there but one soul only to 
 enjoy God, it would be blessed, even if it had 
 not a single fellow-creature whom it could love "
 
 io8 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (Summ. Theol. i. ii. qu. iii. art. 2, ad 4 ; art. 4, 
 concl.-i. qu. xiv. art. 4 in corp. ; qu. xix. art. 1, 
 concl. ; qu. xx. art. 1, concl.-i. qu. xix. art. 2, 
 ad 2 ; 1. ii. qu. iii. art. 2, ad 4.-1. qu. xii. art. 3, 
 ad 4 ; 1. ii. qu. iv. art. 8, ad 3). 
 
 (b) But there is also a deeply Christian current, 
 where the Saint keenly realizes that direct, detailed 
 knowledge, love and care of individual things and 
 souls, and the greatest possible operativeness, are 
 absolute essentials of all true perfection. " To 
 understand something merely in general, not in 
 particular, is to know it imperfectly" ; and "since 
 Our Lord says that ' the very hairs of our head are 
 numbered,' God must know also all other individual 
 things with a distinct and proper knowledge." 
 " A thing," again, " is most perfect, when it can 
 make another like unto itself. Hence everything 
 tends to be like God, in proportion as it tends to be 
 the cause of other things." And "everything in 
 nature has, with respect to its own good, a certain 
 inclination to diffuse itself amongst others as far 
 as possible ; and this applies, in a supreme degree, 
 to the Divine Goodness, from which all perfection 
 is derived." "Love, Joy, Delight can be pre- 
 dicated of God" — love " which, of its own nature, 
 causes the lover to bear himself to the beloved as 
 to his own self." " He, the very cause of all 
 things, moves out of Himself by the abundance
 
 Non-Social and Social Currents in Aquinas 109 
 
 of His loving goodness" {Summ. Theol. i. qu. 
 xiv. art. 8, in corp. ; art. 11, contra et concl. ; 
 art. 8, concl.; art. 11, concl.; Contra Gentiles, 
 lib. iii. c. xxi. in fine ; Summ. Theol. 11. ii. 
 qu. iii. art. 4, ad 4 ; 1. qu. xix. art. 2, in corp. ; 
 qu. xx. art. 1, ad 1 ; ad 3 ; art. 2, ad 1). 
 
 (5) And further, Aquinas has, in his concrete, 
 Christian current, a deep sense of the right and 
 dignity of true individuality. " The multitude 
 and diversity of natures in the universe proceed 
 directly from the intention of God, Who brought 
 them into being, so as to communicate His good- 
 ness to them and to have it represented by them. 
 And since this goodness could not be sufficiently 
 represented by one creature only, He produced 
 many and diverse ones, so that what is wanting 
 in the one towards this office may be supplied by 
 the other." Hence "the multiplication of the 
 angels," each of whom constitutes a separate 
 species, "adds more to the nobility and perfection 
 of the universe, than does the multiplication of 
 men," who differ only as individuals of one 
 species (Summ. Theol. i. qu. xlvii. art. 1, in 
 corp. ; Contra Gentiles, lib. ii. c. xciv. init. ; 
 c. xciii.). 
 
 (6) The negative character of Evil is, for the 
 most part, maintained, in the wake of the Pseudo- 
 Dionysius. The estimate of human nature is
 
 no Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 milder than in St. Augustine, but still rather 
 Pauline than Synoptic. 1 
 
 2. Joannes Eckhart (b. about a.d. 1260; d. 
 1327), the son of a noble near Gotha, still an 
 immediate disciple of Albert the Great, St. 
 Thomas's master, is a Dominican, as pure of life, 
 as ceaselessly active in teaching, and as unworldly 
 in character, as Aquinas himself. And precisely 
 on the subject-matter of Eternal Life Eckhart's 
 preaching has, at the first hearing, a far greater 
 persuasiveness than is to be found in the cautiously 
 checked and counter-checked teaching of the 
 Angel of the Schools. And again, Eckhart's 
 deep religiousness, and his sincere conviction that 
 his positions were fully compatible with, indeed 
 that they only developed, the Christian, Catholic, 
 Scholastic experiences and traditions, cannot be 
 doubted. Nevertheless, the special interest of his 
 life and writings, in particular his extraordinarily 
 eloquent German Sermons, lies elsewhere. For 
 Eckhart brings to poignantly full expression both 
 the power of the Neo-Platonist outlook and 
 method (so largely already operative in the 
 Pseudo-Dionysius) to express one of the two 
 
 1 Ueberweg-Heinze's Grundriss der Philosophie d. ftatristischen 
 u. scholastischen Zeit, ed. 1898, contains, pp. 270-290, an admir- 
 able digest, elucidation, and criticism of Aquinas's doctrine. 
 Schutz's Thomas-Lexikon, ed. 1895, is most useful.
 
 Eckhart : the Lessons of his Life iii 
 
 fundamental apprehensions and movements of 
 the deepest religious life and faith, and the 
 terrible blindness and destructiveness of that same 
 philosophy (if taken as complete and ultimate) as 
 regards the other, the still deeper, apprehension 
 and movement of that life and faith. And special 
 interest lies here also in observing the way in which 
 the distinctively modern passion for utter logical 
 clearness and consistency — the hunger of the mind 
 which seeks its satisfaction in the mathematical 
 and physical sciences — here largely takes the 
 place of the spirit's thirst after the Spirit, God, 
 and gives a tragic intensity and substance to 
 that negative current. The Monistic instinct, 
 so entirely right and indirectly so necessary and 
 fruitful even for religion, when it functions in 
 its proper place, here appears, largely, as the 
 first and last word of life, and hence as impover- 
 ishing and destructive. 
 
 (i) Eckhart's fundamental position is: "God 
 and Being are one and the same thing. All 
 things have being from Being Itself, as all white 
 things are white from whiteness." 1 
 
 (2) In Psychology he tells us: "The soul is 
 created a thing between a first and a second. 
 The first is Eternity, which ever holds itself 
 
 1 Eckhart's Latcinische Schriften, ed. Denifle, Archiv f. Litter- 
 atur- u. Kirchen-geschichte des Mittelalters, 1886, ii. p. 537.
 
 1 1 2 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 within itself and is uniform ; the second is Time, 
 which changes and is manifold. With its highest 
 powers (memory, understanding, will, like unto 
 the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost) the soul 
 touches Eternity, that is God ; and with its lower 
 powers (apprehension, temperament, desire) it 
 touches Time, and thus the soul becomes change- 
 able and inclined to bodily things, and loses her 
 nobility." More characteristically: "The little 
 spark of reason is found only in God; in Him 
 its birth occurs, and this not once in a year, or 
 in a month, or in a day, but at all times — 
 according to the ' Time ' above, in which there 
 is neither Here nor Now." With intense, 
 abstractive intellectualism : " Reason is more 
 truly God's servant than will or love. For will 
 and love are directed to God, in so far as He 
 is good, and, were He not good, they would not 
 approach Him; but reason penetrates into His 
 Being, before considering whether this Being is 
 goodness, power, wisdom, or this or that which, 
 accidentally, is applicable to God." Indeed, 
 " Being and Cognition are entirely one : what 
 is not, that one does not know ; and what has 
 most being, that one knows the most." Hence 
 " Man is not blessed because God is so near 
 him, but because man knows how near God is 
 to him." And " I advise you to grow in under-
 
 Eckhart's Intellectualism and Abstractiveness 1 1 3 
 
 standing how God has made you out of nothing 
 into something (into being), and has united you 
 with the divine nature. But, if you cannot thus 
 understand the divine nature, believe in Christ 
 and follow His holy image." 
 
 "The light in the soul which is increate 
 apprehends God without means, without veil, 
 as He is in Himself. . . . This spark is not 
 satisfied with (knowledge of) the three Persons, 
 in so far as each subsists in its difference, nor 
 with the unity of a fruitful kind in the Divine 
 Nature, nor with the simple, unmoving Divine 
 Being that neither gives nor takes ; but it is 
 determined to know whence this Being comes, 
 to penetrate into the Simple Ground, into the 
 Silent Desert within which never any difference 
 has lain . . . and there it is more at one than 
 it ever is in itself." * 
 
 (3) God and Godhead are sharply contrasted in 
 all the most characteristic passages, although the 
 terminology is not always carried through. " So 
 long as thy soul has any image, it is without 
 simplicity ; and as long as it is without simplicity, 
 it does not rightly love God ( = the Godhead). 
 How then am I to love God ( = the Godhead)? 
 Thou shalt love Him as He is : a non-God, a 
 
 x Meister Eckhart, ed. Pfeiffer, 1857, pp. 170, 319, 320; no; 
 221 ; 498 ; 193 ; 194. 
 8
 
 U4 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 non-spirit, a non-person, a non-image ; as a sheer 
 pure One ; and in this One we are eternally to 
 sink from nothing to nothing, so help us God." 
 " The soul receives, from the Trinity, all that 
 can be measured by the powers of the soul ; (but) 
 from the sheer Godhead, a simple light shines 
 into the simple being of the soul, which the soul's 
 powers cannot receive." And "when the soul" 
 of man "comes to the sheer Being of the God- 
 head, it knoweth all things, down to the lowest 
 creature." Nevertheless, " the Persons " in God 
 "are Eternal, they are in no wise creatures, since 
 they have no before nor after," and " wherever 
 God is, there He must act and speak His 
 Word" (Pfeiffer, pp. 320, 540, 541, 677 ; 11). 
 
 Hence, after all, we have but a mere abstrac- 
 tion in that conception of the "desert Godhead," 
 except in so far as this conception emphasizes, 
 however one-sidedly, the very real difference 
 (in likeness) between the immensely rich and 
 harmonious Spirit, God, and ourselves, the rela- 
 tively ever poor, and now largely chaotic human 
 spirits, and their unpurified apprehension of 
 Him. 
 
 (4) God's relation to the world is represented 
 in correspondingly varying fashion and adequacy. 
 As to Eternity and Time, we have the fine 
 saying : " The Now in which God made the
 
 The Divine Desert and Timeless Reason 1 1 5 
 
 world, is as near to the present time, as is the now 
 within which I am speaking ; and the Last Day is 
 as near to that Now as is our yesterday." With 
 strong intellectualism and depreciation of history 
 he says : " Reason" ( Verniinftigkeit) severs us from 
 "here" and from "now." "The (human) now 
 is the smallest part of Time — yet all that Time 
 touches must go." "'Here' is indeed a small 
 Space . . . but it must go, if I am to see God." 
 " Temporal becoming ends in eternal dissolution 
 (un-becoming) ; and the Eternal Becoming is 
 a work of the Eternal Nature, and hence has 
 neither beginning nor ending." And Neo- 
 Platonist and Monistic inadequacies in face of 
 creation and of Evil appear strikingly in the 
 startling sayings : " The prophet (Ps. lxi. 2) says 
 ' God said one thing, and I heard two things.' 
 Thus when God speaks, it is God (only) ; but 
 here," in man's apprehension, " it is (God 
 and) creature." "All things are the same in 
 God, and are God Himself." "God alone has 
 Unity. . . . The soul is all things — God is one." 
 " Evil is nothing but a privation or absence of 
 beinsf. . . . Evil is not an effect, but a defect." 
 " Since God, in a certain way, also wills that I 
 shall have committed sins, I do not wish not 
 to have committed them " (Pfeiffer, pp. 207, 
 323; Denifle, 602 ; Pfeiffer, 426).
 
 n6 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (5) The Ethics taught by Eckhart are partly 
 rich, religious, Christian ; and in part are subli- 
 mated by Monism to vanishing-point. 
 
 (a) ' ' That is beautiful which is well-ordered. The 
 soul ought, with its lower powers, to be ordered 
 under the higher, and, with the higher, under 
 God." "The right and perfect state of the soul 
 would be, not simply that it should practise virtues, 
 but that all the virtues should constitute her state, 
 without being practised with deliberation." Yet 
 " Some men say ' if I have God and God's love, 
 I can do whatever I like ! ' But they misunder- 
 stand this saying. For so long as you are capable 
 of doing anything that is against God and His 
 command, thou art without God's love." And 
 " In proportion as thou hast love for Him, art 
 thou certain that He has, out of all comparison, 
 more love for thee, and is incomparably more 
 faithful to thee, since He is indeed fidelity itself." 
 Also " It is better, when there is a genuine 
 necessity, to do the works of the outer man, in 
 compassion towards oneself or others, than to 
 place oneself in a condition of interior liberation 
 from all particular knowledge and desire." And 
 there is the deep saying : " An interior work (of 
 the soul) is one that neither Time nor Space can 
 limit or comprehend, and in this such a work is 
 like to God."
 
 Eckhart partly Christian, partly Monistic 117 
 
 (b) But then there are also sayings which, 
 pressed, would dissolve all human endeavour, 
 contrition, special work, and social contribution. 
 "He who is still mounting and increasing in 
 graces and in light, never comes to God, for 
 God is not an increasing light." " Follow your 
 bare nature, and seeli no other abode than the 
 undesiring Nothing. God, who created thee 
 out of nothing, will Himself be thine abode, in 
 His desireless Nothing and in His Unmovingness. 
 There thou shalt become more immoveable than 
 nothingness itself." "We are wont to say, 'this 
 man is not that man, / am not you, and yoic are 
 not /.' But lay aside the nothing," your individu- 
 ality, "and we are all One. What is this One? 
 It is the Son, whom the Father generates." 
 "There is not more than one natural outflowing 
 of Sonship (in God) ; not two but one ... ye 
 must be an only Son, — not many Sons, but one 
 Son." Hence "As little as the Heavenly Father 
 can forsake His Son, can He forsake the soul 
 in which He generates His Son" (Pfeiffer, 
 pp. 514; 524; 232; 559; 330; 434. 510; 620; 
 157; 652. 
 
 (6) The Circle attains its completion by the 
 soul's return to the bare Godhead whence it came. 
 " I stood bare and empty, increate, in God ; God 
 created all things and I" was "with Him."
 
 1 1 8 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 "Can God understand Himself without my soul? 
 No . . . I stand in the ground of the Eternal 
 Godhead where He works out all His works, 
 understandingly, through me, and all that is thus 
 understood I am." " The soul is created . . . 
 that it may flow back into the bottom of the 
 bottomless fountain whence it flowed forth," 
 "where it will occupy itself as little with anything 
 as it did before it existed" (Pfeiffer, pp. 581-583 ; 
 511 ; 242). 
 
 We thus find in Eckhart a deeply impressive 
 and instructive combination of a religious, Platonist 
 and Christian, thirst for spiritual purification and 
 union with God ; a scientific, still predominantly 
 Proclian, thirst for intellectual utter simplicity 
 and clearness, for the logical ladder and pyramid ; 
 and an apparent thirst, of a more or less Buddhist 
 kind, for an utter Nothingness. Yet all three 
 thirsts presuppose a mightily thirsting, hence an 
 intensely real, and a richly endowed and ex- 
 periencing, thirster, and, indeed, a still more real 
 and operative prevenient Cause or Causer, and 
 subsequent Quencher, of all this thirst. And 
 especially the religious thirst, as it is by far the 
 deepest, so is it also much the richest in content, 
 and doubtless implies the positiveness, the voli- 
 tional character, of Evil. Hence, not real ex-
 
 Reality, Life, Richness are co-extensive I19 
 
 perience, but the abstractive process of logical 
 regression from, and the artificial, ever-increasing, 
 impoverishment of, this real experience, and the 
 subsequent attempt to explain reality and experi- 
 ence in terms of mere scheme and skeleton, 
 take Eckhart away from all history and con- 
 creteness, and from the sense of their abiding 
 value and necessity ; and from all richness in 
 reality, especially from the supreme richness in 
 the Godhead. 
 
 No wonder that Rome, in 1329, condemned 
 twenty-eight such propositions, as objectively 
 incompatible with the Catholic faith. But, indeed, 
 the further experiences, since then, of mankind 
 in the spiritual life, and the various attempts 
 that have been made to discover and describe, 
 as precisely and unforcedly as possible, the 
 fountains and channels of spiritual fruitfulness 
 also point (and in our times increasingly) away 
 from such a scheme. We cannot take bare Being, 
 or any other such abstraction, as first, either in 
 existence or in value. For we ever find more 
 and more richness, vividness, and difficulty of 
 definition in reality, the deeper and the more 
 ultimate this reality is ; and, contrariwise, we 
 find the more poverty, clearness, and facility of 
 definition, the shallower and less ultimate, or 
 the nearer to a simple abstraction of our own
 
 120 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 minds, such a reality, genuine or supposed, 
 may be. 
 
 Certainly Eternal Life, its practice and con- 
 ception, can but suffer from any attempt to restrict 
 the spirit's action to one of its two movements 
 — to abstraction and negation only ; or to cut 
 religion loose from the mysteriously mighty 
 stimulation accruing - to it, in and through the 
 very tension and difficulties, from historic person- 
 alities and the happenings and operations in 
 time and space ; or, above all, from the full, vivid 
 conviction of the distinctness from our own spirits, 
 and of the supreme, stupendous richness, of the 
 life of the Spirit — of God, the Godhead. 1 
 
 1 On Eckhart generally, see the admirable digest of his teaching 
 by Prof. A. Lasson, in Ueberwig's Grundriss der Geschichte der 
 Philosofihie 6 , 1898, pp. 314-331 ; and the important elucidation of 
 the even excessively scholastic character of his teaching by Fr. 
 Denifle, in Archiv f. Litteratur- und Kirchen-geschichte des 
 MittelalterS) 1886, ii. pp. 417-669.
 
 Spinoza s Antecedents and Character 12 i 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MODERN TIMES 
 
 Introductory — Spinoza, his object, method, and fundamental cate- 
 gory ; his utter determinism ; his primary inconsistencies ; 
 the abiding truths and lessons of his life and teaching — Kant, 
 his Epistemology, Ethics, Religion, and their special strength 
 and weakness. 
 
 Let us take Baruch Spinoza and Immanuel 
 Kant as the two thinkers who, in their very 
 paralogisms or insensibilities, are probably, for 
 these modern times, the most typical, influential, 
 and instructive, as to the experiences and con- 
 ceptions concerning Eternal Life. 
 
 i. Baruch Spinoza was born in 1632, in 
 Amsterdam, of Jewish immigrants, from Spain 
 and its Inquisition, into relatively free, largely 
 Deistic Holland ; was excommunicated by the 
 Synagogue for his doctrines in 1656; and died, 
 amidst loneliness, poverty, and patient toil, at The 
 Hague, in 1677. Within his great, pure, strong soul 
 and throughout a strangely inadequate method 
 there move, beneath a baffling clearness and 
 sudden and serene self-contradictions, three ereat 
 currents of previously extant (indeed, for the most
 
 122 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 part, of very ancient) requirement and thought, 
 and one very understandable, continuously opera- 
 tive prejudice. Thus Stoicism is here taken over 
 in the largest quantities ; yet the ultimate temper 
 of the soul is rather Neo-Platonist. And Neo- 
 Platonism is adopted, in its negative, abstractive 
 trend and in its mystical attrait ; yet the general 
 mental affinities are rather with Stoicism, especially 
 in the high importance here attached to the body. 
 And these two ancient philosophies are here, for 
 the first time fully and calmly, reinforced, supple- 
 mented, and permeated, by the method and ideal, 
 taken as universally applicable, of absolutely clear, 
 rigorously deductive, unrestrictedly determinisl 
 Mathematical Physics, as these had now been 
 developed by distinguished natural philosophers. 
 And the strongest prejudice, a coldly angry 
 contempt is, unlike the Stoics, here everywhere 
 at work, and occasionally patent, against the 
 historic and dogmatic elements and temper of 
 the Jewish and Christian religion and theology — 
 feelings all but inevitable in one already naturally 
 so devoid of the sense for the need and use of 
 history, so largely the child of a profoundly 
 unhistorical age, and so near to the terrible, 
 apparently logical, consummation of those ele- 
 ments in the prisons and fires of the Inquisition. 
 Yet Spinoza is rendered perennially pathetic
 
 Discordant Constituents of Spinoza *s Teaching 123 
 
 by a rare combination of insights and in- 
 adequacies. There is a deeply heroic, indeed 
 Religious Temper of soul, a delicately true instinct 
 as to man's constant and immense need of Purifi- 
 cation from his petty self, and a remarkable sense 
 as to the helps towards such a discipline to be 
 found in Mathematical, determinist Science. 
 And there is also a mistaken conviction as to 
 the nature of the deepest Reality apprehended 
 by man, as to the means, categories, and tests 
 appropriate to this apprehension and to its ex- 
 pression, and hence as to the place and range to 
 be assigned, within the spiritual life of man, to 
 such science. 
 
 (1) Now the ultimate object of Spinoza's 
 philosophy is conceived predominantly Stoic- 
 wise, with a strain of Neo-Platonism ; hence as 
 directly ethical, practical, individual. " The things 
 which, for the most part, are considered amongst 
 men as the Highest Good are reducible to three : 
 riches, honour, lust. And by these three things 
 the mind is distracted, so as to be unable to 
 think of any other good." And "happiness or 
 unhappiness resides alone in the quality of the 
 object to which we adhere by love. Sadness, envy, 
 fear, hate ; all these affections occur in the love 
 of perishable things. But the love of what is 
 Eternal and Infinite feeds the soul with joy
 
 1 24 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 alone — a thing greatly to be desired and sought '' 
 (De Intell. Emend. ; Opera, ed. Van Vloten et 
 
 Land, 1895, v °l- l - P- 3)- 
 
 And the noble conclusion of his Ethics warns 
 us : "If the way that leads to the mind's power 
 over the affections and to its liberty appears as 
 excessively arduous, yet it can be found. And 
 that indeed must be arduous which is so rarely 
 found. For how could it happen, were salvation 
 easy, that it should be neglected by almost every 
 one ? But, in truth, all things great are as 
 difficult as they are rare " {ibid. p. 266). 
 
 (2) The method which he believes himself to 
 be everywhere following is vividly described 
 where he tells us : " When I applied my mind 
 to Politics, I determined, in order that I might 
 inquire into the matters of this science with the 
 same liberty of mind as that with which we are 
 wont to treat things mathematical, not to ridicule, 
 to lament, or to detest the actions of men, but 
 to understand them ; and to contemplate their 
 affections and passions, not as vices of human 
 nature, but as properties pertaining to it, in the 
 same way as heat, cold, storm, belong to the 
 nature of the atmosphere" {Tract. Polit. § iv., 
 ed. V. et L. i. p. 270). Indeed, "the truth" 
 generally " might for ever have remained hidden 
 from the human race, had not Mathematics,
 
 Utter Clearness, the Test of Truth 125 
 
 which look, not to the final cause of figures, 
 but to their essential nature and to the pro- 
 perties attaching to it, revealed another type of 
 truth to man " (Etkica, i. prop. 36, App., V. et L. i. 
 p. 6S). His chief, last work is consequently 
 entitled " Ethics demonstrated in Geometrical 
 Order." 
 
 Everywhere utter Clearness is thus, following 
 Descartes, the test and measure of truth ; and 
 Spatial imagery is everywhere sought, indeed is 
 often, unconsciously, taken, even in contradiction 
 of the system's logic, as itself a proof or cor- 
 roboration of truth. And yet, as we shall see, 
 a motive springing from depths utterly beyond 
 the ken of mathematics is largely determining 
 Spinoza thus persistently to sacrifice what he has 
 come to think are mere feelings and prejudices, 
 or fantastically apprehended facts and happen- 
 ings, to such entirely clear, spatially figured, 
 abstractions. 
 
 (3) The fundamental category here is, most 
 characteristically, not Spirit, but Substance. 
 " By Substance I understand what subsists in 
 itself, and whose concept does not involve the 
 concept of another thing ; and by Attribute I 
 understand the same thing, except that ' Attri- 
 bute ' is said with respect to the intellect that 
 attributes such a nature to the Substance "
 
 126 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (Ep. xii. = olim xxix., V. et L. ii. p. 230). Here 
 the Attributes seem to be merely refractions, within 
 our minds, of a Substance free in itself from all 
 Attributes ; yet Spinoza's dominant doctrine is 
 certainly that Attributes are intrinsic to the Sub- 
 stance. " The more of Reality a being possesses, 
 the more Attributes are attributable to it ; and the 
 more Attributes I attribute to a being, the more I 
 am compelled to attribute Existence to it" (id id.). 
 Yet the supreme, in the last resort the sole, 
 Infinite Substance, God, only possesses, or at 
 least is not known by us to possess more than, 
 two Attributes — it is a res cogitans and a res 
 extensa ; Thought and Extension are absolutely 
 equal, co-present, simply parallel, Attributes of 
 God. All single thoughts anywhere have God 
 as a thinking being for their cause, as all single 
 bodies have Him, as an extended being, for their 
 cause ; the thoughts are never caused by per- 
 ceived things, nor are things ever caused by 
 thoughts. And " the order and connection of 
 the Ideas is the same as the order and connection 
 of the Things " ; for the Attributes, from which 
 each series follows, necessarily express the being 
 of the One Substance (Et/z. ii. props, i.-vii., V. 
 et L. i. pp. 73-77)- 
 
 The Attributes, again, are apprehended by us in 
 various Modes, and these Modes do not, anywhere
 
 One Substance, tivo Attributes, cotmtless Modes 127 
 
 in Spinoza, necessarily involve Existence or 
 Eternity. "We conceive the Existence of Sub- 
 stance as altogether different from that of the 
 Modes ; whence arises the difference between 
 Eternity and Duration, since it is only the 
 Existence of the Modes that we can explain by 
 Duration, but the Existence of Substance we 
 explain by Eternity — that is, the infinite fruition 
 of existing or of being" (Ep. xii. = olim xxix., 
 V. et L. ii. p. 230). And to such Modes belong- 
 all " Quantity, as it is in our imagination, — 
 divisible, finite, composed of parts and manifold " ; 
 "quantity, as it is in our intellect, being found 
 there infinite, indivisible, unique " ; all Measure, 
 Time, and Number ; and all Configuration 
 (ibid. p. 231 ; Ep. 1., ibid. p. 361). Note 
 how Eternity is here, in the logic of the system, 
 not a Simultaneity of infinite Self-Conscious- 
 ness, but ever, more or less, a simultaneous 
 infinite Spatial Extension ; and how Duration here 
 is never differentiated from Time, which latter is 
 also conceived as clearly as possible, i.e. under 
 the Spatial imagery of a chain of equally long, 
 mutually exclusive moments. Thus here too it is 
 the res extensa, as the more clearly conceived, that 
 dominates even where the res cogitans would have 
 special claims. There is thus, in this system as 
 such, no depth of life, and hence no Eternal Life,
 
 128 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (4) The position, everywhere present here, that 
 "all determination is negation," and the resolution 
 of all concretion and interiority into the abstractest 
 of categories, necessarily empty God, Free-will, 
 and Evil of all reality, and find everything equally 
 perfect, in its precise place and time, as part and 
 parcel of the one necessary, utterly determined and 
 utterly determining Whole. 
 
 Thus " I do not assign to God any human 
 attributes, such as will, intelligence, awareness." 
 Indeed, "it is certain that he who declares God 
 to be one or unique, has no true idea of God" 
 (Ep. liv. =olim lviii., V. et L. ii. p. 370; Ep. 1., 
 ibid. p. 361). 
 
 " If we assume a little worm to live in blood, 
 and capable of discerning the several particles of 
 blood, lymph, etc., and the reactions of each 
 particle under the impact of the others, such a 
 worm would live in the blood, as we live in this 
 part of the universe, and could not know that 
 certain motions and changes in the blood spring 
 really from causes external to it. . . . Yet the 
 nature of the universe is not limited, as is that of 
 the blood, but is absolutely infinite, and hence its 
 parts are affected in infinite ways. And, as One 
 substance, each part of the universe has a still 
 closer union with its totality" (Ep. xxxii. =olim 
 xv. ; ibid. pp. 310, 311).
 
 Sheer Determinism; N on- Reality of Evil 129 
 
 " Evil is a state of privation ; and privation is 
 named with respect to our human intelligence, 
 not with respect to that of God. We comprise all 
 single things of the same kind," say all individual 
 visible men, "under a single definition; and we 
 then judge all these things to be equally capable 
 of the highest perfection deducible by us from our 
 definition. And when we find one such thing 
 which conflicts with such a perfection, we judge 
 it to be deprived of this perfection, and as erring 
 from its nature. . . . But God does not attribute 
 to things more of reality than the divine intelli- 
 gence and power has implanted in them " (Ep. 
 xix. = olim xxxii. p. 254). In a word, "by 
 Reality and Perfection I understand one and the 
 same thing." " The whole of Nature is one and 
 the same Individual whose parts, that is, all bodies, 
 vary in infinite Modes without any mutation of the 
 Individual." "All things, if viewed in them- 
 selves, or related to God," the whole, "are 
 neither beautiful nor deformed. I do not know 
 in what respect spirits express God more than do 
 other creatures ; the difference between the most 
 perfect finite creature and God, the Infinite, is no 
 other than that obtaining between God and the 
 least creature " (Etkica, ii. Defin. vi., V. et L. i. 
 p. 73; Lemma vi. Schol., ibid. ; Ep. liv. =olim 
 lxviii., ibid. ii. pp. 370, 371). 
 9
 
 130 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (5) Yet precisely with respect to these greatest 
 ethical and spiritual matters, Spinoza's self-con- 
 tradictions, in detail and in principle, are the most 
 glaring, though all are quite unconscious and 
 were doubtless produced by the pressure of the 
 actual nature of reality upon his fine nature and 
 quite inadequate system. Thus the two Attri- 
 butes are ever to remain parallel, each closed to 
 the other ; yet the human minds, mere Modes of 
 the one Attribute (of Thinking), here clearly and 
 continuously conceive also the other Attribute 
 (of Extension), with its various Modes. The 
 human passions, painted with classic power in 
 the great Fourth Book of the Ethics, are described 
 as terribly, powerfully extant ; and though all 
 that is at all is assumed, by the system, to be in 
 so far perfect, they are not treated as perfect, and 
 to be accepted if we would be perfect, but, on the 
 contrary, as to be combated, and as somehow so 
 real that such combat is ever rare and heroic. 
 And though no one thing, in this system, ex- 
 presses Reality, Perfection, more than another, 
 yet " God's Eternal Wisdom, which has manifested 
 itself in all things, has done so most in the human 
 mind, and supremely in Christ Jesus" (Ep. Ixxiii. 
 = olim xxi., V. et L. ii. 412). 
 
 (6) But the inconsistency which, above all, 
 introduces an element of grave unreality into the
 
 Spinoza s Greatness shatters his Determinism 1 3 1 
 
 system precisely at its culminating, crucial point, is 
 the admission of victory by the individual soul, — 
 by but one amongst countless fleeting Modes of 
 one of the Attributes of the Infinite Substance, a 
 Substance bereft of all Will, Love, Self-Conscious- 
 ness. For the soul, thus utterly determined, al- 
 ready necessarily perfect for and in its place within 
 the Whole, somehow does achieve emancipation 
 from this its lot, a lot somehow keenly felt to be 
 somehow unworthy, and attains identification — 
 for a little while — with, now, a somehow all-wise 
 and all-holy Will, Love, Self-Consciousness. At 
 least, the rapturous, partly Christian, partly Neo- 
 Platonist, final outlook and appeal of the 
 system, in its vibrating sincerity, doubtlessly 
 means or implies all this, since otherwise it would 
 be but empty words. " Even if we knew that 
 our mind is not eternal, we should give the first 
 place to piety, religion, and generally to all things 
 that are connected with greatness and generosity 
 of soul." "The free man thinks of nothing less 
 than of death ; his wisdom consists in a medi- 
 tation, not of death but of Life." And "the 
 mind's intellectual love of God is the very love 
 with which God loves Himself" (Bth. v. prop, 
 xli., V. et L. i. p. 264 ; iv. prop, lxvii., ibid. 
 pp. 226, 277 ; v. prop, xxxvi., ibid. p. 260). 
 
 The fact is, very certainly, not that Spinoza,
 
 132 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 in order to win toleration for his Mathematical 
 Pantheism, here prudently adopts an ethical 
 and theistic phraseology beyond his own sincerest 
 convictions, but, contrariwise, that life is far too 
 rich and Spinoza is far too sensitive to this its 
 richness, for him not to be carried, quite without 
 intention or awareness, entirely beyond the limits 
 of his highly artificial system. 
 
 (7) Yet, over and above this most impressive 
 lesson, Spinoza can teach us, more and better 
 than the Stoics, on points where the Stoics 
 have already taught us much, even though here 
 again his antagonism to rival, in part richer, 
 convictions tends to limit the fruitfulness of the 
 teaching. 
 
 There is, then, a ceaseless sense of the 
 presence and the immense, continuous importance 
 of the human Body, for good as well as for evil. 
 Not all the materialistic, and yet also dualistic, 
 inadequacies of his formulations can rob Spinoza 
 of the glory of this deep, wholesome, terribly 
 neglected insight. 
 
 There is, too, the sense of the organic character, 
 and of the irreplaceable educative worth, for all 
 human beings, of human Society. " Men can 
 desire nothing more helpful towards the preserva- 
 tion of their own being, than that the minds and 
 bodies of all men shall compose, as it were, one
 
 Lessons of Spinoza's Life and Teaching 133 
 
 single mind and body " (Etk. iv. prop, xviii. 
 Schol., V. et L. i. pp. 193, 194). 
 
 And, above all, there is the constant sense 
 that, somehow, the highest perfection must include 
 a wise, right Self-seeking ; that the initial self- 
 seeking requires an arduous Purification ; and 
 that Determinist Science can and should con- 
 tribute to this purification. Yet here especially 
 the inadequacies of his execution readily obscure 
 the delicate truth of his fundamental instincts. 
 
 The Self-seeking, for one thing, remains here, 
 after all, far too much a rationalist fighting for 
 what we, more or less explicitly, hold from the 
 first. "To act from virtue is in us nothing- else 
 than to act, to live, to maintain our being as 
 reason directs, and that on the principle of seeking 
 what is useful to the self" (Etk. iv. prop. xxiv. ; 
 V. et L. p. 198). God, Spirit, and His penetra- 
 tion and support of our spirit in its search for its 
 own depth in Him, and the Cross, a practice of 
 death in life to attain the deepest life, are badly 
 wanted here. 
 
 Determinist Mathematical Science and its utter 
 clearness prove true and fruitful instruments of 
 purification, only if these things are assigned, not 
 the ultimate, but an intermediate place ; if they 
 remain means and do not become quite ultimate 
 ends ; if we accept and practise, as the deepest
 
 134 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 experiences of the soul, not perfect clearness but 
 rich vividness, not interchangeableness but more 
 or less of uniqueness, not automatic happenings 
 but effortful doings, not Physics but History, 
 not Determinism and Abstraction, not the prin- 
 ciple that "all determination is negation," but 
 Libertarianism and Concrete Apprehension, and 
 the sense that all Reality involves Determination. 
 And, in that case, a life will ever repose upon 
 the conviction that it ever more requires to be 
 built up, developed and defended anew, with 
 never complete success ; it will contain a sense of 
 Sin and of its utter need of God — of God, not 
 Substance but Spirit, and of His continuous pre- 
 venience. The soul will feel its deepest con- 
 victions to be inadequate, not because they are not 
 clear, but because they are not sufficiently rich, 
 as over against the great Reality, the ultimate, 
 yet intimately present, source, support, and end 
 of all we are. And the test of the growth in 
 adequacy of our convictions will be their fruitful- 
 ness, their power of practically explaining, still 
 more of effectuating, things and growths in and 
 for life in the most disparate fields. 
 
 And yet even such a continuously renewed 
 apprehension and practice of a more than purely 
 human Libertarianism, will not, of itself, suffice to 
 purify us from our immediate, less than nobly
 
 Kant's Greatness, Ethical, not Religiotis 135 
 
 human, wilfulness ; but there must ever flow, 
 between that noble background or groundwork 
 and this petty foreground, a river of cleansing 
 pain and discipline, such as, especially for some 
 ages and civilizations, the absolutely clear, 
 determinist Mathematical Physics can supply. 
 In this way Faith will turn Fate itself into a 
 means for the soul's growth in likeness, not to 
 Fate, but to God, Free-willing Spirit ; and that 
 strict Determinism, ready Interchangeableness, 
 utter Clearness can, and ought to, find a large 
 abiding place and function in the experience of, 
 and search after, Eternal Life. 1 
 
 2. Immanuel Kant may well conclude our 
 series of characters and minds which, in the past, 
 have best or worst understood, and have most aided, 
 deflected, or checked, the experiences and con- 
 ceptions of Eternal Life. For Kant was the first, 
 and remains still the most powerful, formulator 
 of certain presumptions and of a frame of mind, 
 which are now again, after a considerable break, 
 
 1 Probably still the most balanced English estimate is Dr. E. 
 Caird's " Cartesianism," Essays Literary and Philosophical, 1890, 
 vol. ii. On the subtly swift transition from servitude to liberty in 
 the Ethics, see V. Delbos' delicate study, La Morale de Spinoza, 
 1890. On Stoic constituents, W. Dithey's brilliant "Autonomic 
 des Denkens im 17 Jahrhundert," Archiv f. Geschichte der 
 Philosophies 1894, pp. 74-91. Valuable general considerations 
 are to be found in R. Eucken's Problem of Htiman Life, Eng. tr. 
 1911, pp. 362-379.
 
 136 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 most largely operative, and which deprive those 
 religious experiences and conceptions of most of 
 their native character, and of the certainty of their 
 function and vigour. Indeed, Kant's greatness 
 undoubtedly lies, not in Religion, but in Epis- 
 temology and Ethics ; and, even in these, more 
 in his acute detection of the precise nature and 
 whereabouts of certain crucial problems and com- 
 plications, than in the consistency and satisfactory 
 character of the solutions proposed. Three or 
 more, mutually inconsistent, principles are often 
 operative in what claims to be a single, self- 
 consistent solution ; and certain strong general 
 prejudices, unbeknown to the author, can often 
 be traced as largely deciding the starting-point. 
 And then these epistemological, and other more 
 or less inadequate solutions, confirm him in 
 certain strong, specifically theological, antipathies 
 and insensibilities, when he comes to religious 
 matters, and render his attitude as regards 
 Eternal Life particularly unsatisfactory. 
 
 Kant was born, the son of a saddler of Scottish 
 descent and of a purely German mother, at 
 Konigsberg in 1724; was brought up in strict 
 Lutheran pietism, and was tutor for a while in a 
 Calvinist pastor's family ; taught as Professor at 
 Konigsberg University, 1770-97, and died, in 
 that far-away little seaport town, in 1804. His
 
 Kanfs Origin, Periods, Motives 137 
 
 rationalist period, as a follower of Leibniz- Wolff, 
 up to 1762, and his empirical time, up to 1769, 
 were followed by his, alone fully characteristic, 
 critical years and works. His chief work, the 
 Kritik dcr reinen Vermtnft, took twelve years of 
 thinking but only some five months of writing, 
 first edition 1781, second edition 1787. His 
 Religion innerhalb der Grenzen dcr blosscn Ver- 
 nunft, 1793, and his Metaphysik der Sitten, 
 1797, are applications of these critical principles 
 to Religion and Ethics respectively. For our 
 purpose, we can, all but entirely, restrict ourselves 
 to certain main passages in these three works, 
 although any such selection is rendered specially 
 difficult, for the reason already given. The 
 Ethics shall stand between the Epistemology and 
 the Religion. 
 
 First, however, we must fully realize, never to 
 forget, the abidingly strong and deeply sincere, 
 the nobly ethical, motive of Kant's bewilderingly 
 complex, in a sense intensely scholastic, system- 
 building. This Metaphysic was, once for all, to 
 put an end to all Metaphysic, as the arch-im- 
 periller, the arch-perverter, of all Knowledge, all 
 Ethics, all Faith. Bishop Berkeley (1685— 1753), 
 in his overmastering desire once for all to abolish 
 the very possibility of materialism, had attained 
 to the conviction that percipient minds alone are
 
 138 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 real, whilst matter and the entire external world 
 were but so many floating ideas utterly dependent 
 upon these minds — their very essence consists 
 in being perceived. Berkeley, thus extending 
 Locke's conviction as to the purely mental and 
 subjective nature of the secondary qualities of 
 material objects (light, heat, colour, etc.), to these 
 objects' primary qualities also (extension, resist- 
 ance, figure), believed himself to be furnishing 
 a final refutation of the materialist Mandevilie. 
 And so also Kant believed himself to have utterly 
 demolished Hume, especially in the latter's con- 
 tentions that all our ideas are but copies of per- 
 ceptions ; that the mere association and complex 
 of these impressions and ideas constitutes our 
 soul-life, which thus requires no unitary substrate ; 
 and that no conclusion from the empirically given 
 to what exceeds the entire range of sensible 
 experience, such as God and Immortality, is 
 admissible. Kant thus comes to trace, in refuta- 
 tion, the intense operativeness of the Mind in 
 its elaboration of sense-impressions, and to seek 
 exclusively in this mind, so immensely productive 
 of order, harmony, unity within the unordered 
 manifold of sense, and, beyond this mind, in the 
 implications and requirements of Moral Obliga- 
 tion, the motives and reasons for belief in Free- 
 dom, Immortality, and God.
 
 Knowledge never without Knower and Known 139 
 
 (1) As to Epistemology, the following amongst 
 often considerably varying, parallel positions 
 seem to be the most important for our purpose. 
 
 (a) The question which appears to Kant as 
 supremely legitimate and simply fundamental is : 
 " What is meant by an Object corresponding to 
 Knowledge and therefore distinct from it ? " And 
 he answers : " It is easy to see that this object must 
 be thought of as something in general, as x, 
 since we have nothing- outside our knowledge 
 
 o o 
 
 that we can place opposite to this our present 
 knowledge, as corresponding to it." That is to 
 say, — of Things-in-themselves we only know 
 that they are, not what they are ; and hence, in 
 any one case, as here, we can but infer an x. 
 " But we find that our thought of the relation of 
 all Knowledge to its Object carries with it some- 
 thing of necessity, since this Object is regarded 
 as what prevents our knowings (Brkenntnisse) 
 from being determined at random, since, in that 
 they are to relate to an Object, they must have 
 that unity which constitutes the conception of an 
 Object" (Kr. der r. Vern. 1781, p. 104= Werke, 
 ed. Berlin Academy, 1903, vol. iv. p. 80). 
 
 Kant thus assumes the possibility of conceiving 
 Knowledge as independent of an Object, and of 
 studying such Knowledge as a sufficiently com- 
 plete subject-matter of research. Yet Knowledge
 
 140 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 thus independent is simply unthinkable, hence not 
 a legitimate subject of inquiry at all. The true 
 question is not " Can I know?" or " How can I 
 introduce an Object into my Knowledge?" but 
 " How ^ I know ? " " What are the ever-present 
 constituents in all my knowledge ? " I can but 
 analyse such knowledge as is actually in my 
 possession, as I have to presuppose in all my 
 negations as well as affirmations, epistemological 
 or otherwise. And the Thing-in-itself appears 
 here to be somehow known, since the unity of 
 its parts is known to us as such, and somehow 
 constitutes the unity of our knowledge of it. 
 
 The fact is, it is not really possible for the 
 mind to get, self-consistently, beyond the given 
 complex of a somehow knowing subject and a 
 somehow known object, in all and every act 
 and state of Knowledge; and Kant himself 
 manages to break up this given trinity, only at the 
 cost of the most varied, subtle inconsistencies. 
 
 (b) " Things - in - themselves, Noumena, are," 
 then, "to be thought of only under the name of 
 an unknown something"; "the conception of a 
 Noumenon is thus simply a limiting conception 
 (Grenzbegriff), fit to keep within bounds the pre- 
 tensions of the senses, — my reason cannot be 
 used assertively concerning any objects outside 
 the field of sense" (ibid. p. 255 = Wer&e, ed.
 
 The Human Mind apprehends Reality 141 
 
 Berlin Academy, vol. iv. p. 166). Yet Kant 
 habitually knows, most assertively, that reality 
 is entirely heterogeneous to our conception of it. 
 Thus in 1772 we find the view "that God has 
 implanted into the human mind categories and 
 concepts of a kind spontaneously to harmonize 
 with things" to be "the most preposterous 
 solution that we could possibly choose " {Briefe, 
 ed. Berlin Academy, 1900, vol. i. p. 126). 
 
 Thus what, until contrary evidence be forthcom- 
 ing, should be reckoned only the Epistemological 
 Difference between Presentation and the Thine-in- 
 itself, becomes, prior to any such evidence or 
 even inquiry, a Metaphysical Exclusion of each 
 by the other. We thus get an Exclusive Sub- 
 jectivism of a " dogmatic " kind from the strongly 
 anti-" dogmatic " Kant; and this, although there 
 is no fact of experience or of thought to prevent 
 what is my presentation from existing also, as to 
 the content of that presentation, independently of 
 such a presentation. Indeed, Epistemology has 
 increasingly obliged us to abandon such excessive, 
 indeed gratuitous, dualism. 
 
 (c) "The order and conformity to law in the 
 phenomena which we call Nature, we introduce 
 ourselves ; and we could not find them there, had 
 not we, or the nature of our mind (Gemuth), 
 originally placed it there." Thus "without our
 
 142 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 human understanding ( Verstand) there would 
 nowhere exist Nature, that is, the synthetic unity 
 of the manifold of phenomena according to rules " 
 {ibid. pp. 125, I26;.ed. Berlin Academy, vol. iv. 
 p. 92). 
 
 Here cognition is assimilated to manufacture 
 or construction, the synthesis being limited by 
 the nature of the constructive mind, and by the 
 nature of the constructional material, the manifold 
 of sense ; and consequently much stress is laid 
 upon the " recognition " of the synthesis, and upon 
 self-consciousness in the act of knowledge. Yet 
 the nature of knowledge presupposes that what 
 we know is already extant, even where we 
 happen ourselves to make what we know. 1 
 
 (d) It is but fair to Kant, otherwise so readily 
 classable with Descartes as regards the demand 
 and esteem for direct and clear apprehensions and 
 concepts, to remember his declaration (in 1798), 
 in full acceptance of the great facts methodically 
 established by Leibniz in 1701-9 : "We can 
 be mediately conscious of an apprehension as 
 to which we have no direct consciousness " ; and 
 "the field of such obscure apprehensions is im- 
 measurable, whereas clear apprehensions constitute 
 
 1 See J. Volkelt's penetrating Immanuel Kanfs Erkenntniss- 
 theorie, 1879, esp. p. 241 ; and H. A. Prichard's sane and solid 
 Kant's Theory of K?ww ledge, 1909, esp. pp. 114, 124 ; 233-236.
 
 Concrete and Abstract Time and Space 14 
 
 ■> 
 
 but a very few points within the complete extent 
 of our mental life." * 
 
 (e) The difficult, yet fundamentally important, 
 questions as to the nature of Time and of Space, 
 and as to their precise function and worth in the 
 spiritual awakening of the soul, and hence in 
 the growth of the sense of Eternal Life, have 
 been undoubtedly much advanced since Kant's 
 examination of them. In this place we would 
 only insist upon the importance of keeping both 
 Time and Space vigorously apprehended in our 
 life, and clearly analysed in our philosophy ; and 
 of distinguishing, in both cases, between Time 
 and Space, as actually perceived and experienced, 
 and Time and Space, as abstractively conceived 
 by us. Not only the vivid perception of Time, 
 but also that of Space (one or the other or both 
 of them, ever actually experienced, in various 
 degrees and ways, in all the finite things or 
 realities which we apprehend at all), turns out to 
 be most necessary for the awakening of any deep 
 sense of the contrasting Other, of the Non-Con- 
 tingent, the Infinite and Abiding. And not only 
 the clear conception of abstract Space, but also 
 that of abstract Time, though, as such, ever 
 
 1 " Anthropologic," Werke, ed. Berlin Academy, 1907, vol. vii. pp. 
 *35> *3 D - G. W. Leibniz, " Nouveaux Essais sur l'Entendement," 
 in Die ■philosophischen Schriften von G. IV. Z., ed. Gerhardt, 
 1882, vol. v. pp. 45, 69 ; 100 ; I2i, 122.
 
 144 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 artificial products of the reflecting mind, turns 
 out to be, in different ways yet similar degrees, 
 necessary to the greatest possible adequacy and 
 clearness of philosophy. According to this, Kant 
 was indeed right, as against such of his modern 
 critics as Bergson, in retaining a parallelism, 
 even at the deeper levels of life, between Time 
 and Space ; but he was wrong in not discrim- 
 inating between them as perceived and as 
 conceived, and in treating even the perception 
 of them predominantly as indeed necessary but 
 empty forms of the mind, and hence in refusing 
 all importance to these experiences and categories 
 when he came to the soul's deepest, i.e. to its 
 religious life. 1 
 
 (2) Kant's Ethics are characterized by one 
 profound help towards, and by two serious 
 obstacles to, the experience and conception of 
 Eternal Life. 
 
 (a) Kant's imperishable service is that, strangely 
 late in the day, he, with but some anticipations on 
 the part of Plato, first amongst professed philo- 
 sophers, has everywhere conceived Evil, not in 
 terms of privation or of a substance, but as 
 Positive ; as capable of, indeed as essentially 
 consisting in, flight from, or revolt against, the 
 
 1 See the excellent discussion in J. M'Kellar Stewart's Critical 
 Exposition of Bergs oris Philosophy, 191 1, pp. 212-245, 300, 301.
 
 Evil Positive, Volitional, Radical 145 
 
 lio-ht, and hence as an act or habit of the Will. 
 Here he indeed rises, head and shoulders, above 
 all the previous or subsequent Enlightenment, 
 indeed above the entire Neo-Platonist strain, 
 present, in strange contrast with their deep 
 Christian experience and directly personal 
 teaching, even in St. Augustine's and Aquinas's 
 pages. "Nowhere in this our world, nowhere even 
 outside it, is anything thinkable as good without 
 any reservation, excepting the good will alone," 
 he exclaims, with an impressive one-sidedness. 
 And, contrariwise, "that a corrupt inclination to 
 evil is rooted in man, does not require formal 
 proof, in view of the clamorous examples fur- 
 nished to all men by the experience of human 
 behaviour. If you would have such cases from 
 the so-called state of nature," take "the unpro- 
 voked cruelties enacted in New Zealand or 
 North-Western America." Or " if you prefer to 
 study civilized humanity, you will have to listen 
 to a long string of accusations, of secret treachery, 
 even amongst friends ; of an inclination to hate 
 him to whom we owe much ... so that you 
 will prefer to turn away your look from human 
 nature altogether, lest you fall yourself into another 
 vice — that of hatred of mankind (" Grundlegung 
 zur Metaphysik der Sitten," Werke, ed. Berlin 
 
 Academy, 1903, vol. iv. p. 393; "Religion 
 10
 
 146 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 innerhalb d. Grenzen der blossen Vernunft," 
 Erstes St. iii., ibid. 1907, vol. vi. pp. 32-34). 
 This nobly truthful, virile insight was unfortu- 
 nately lost again by such post-Kantians as Hegel 
 and Schleiermacher, who, in this deep matter, 
 revert to Spinoza. Yet, without such an insight, 
 there is wanting a sufficiently imperative motive 
 for the soul to gain the greatest livingness in its 
 turning utterly away from self to God, its strength 
 and purifier. 
 
 (b) On the other hand, Kant's Ethics are 
 distressingly formalist and doctrinaire, and 
 remarkably lacking in richness and variety of 
 motivation, especially in any consciousness that 
 the highest virtue may be indeed easy and de- 
 lightful to a spontaneously high nature or to a 
 laboriously acquired disposition. " A man can 
 advance his own happiness, not from inclination, 
 but from the motive of duty ; and only in such a 
 case his behaviour possesses moral worth." And 
 " Love, as inclination, cannot be commanded ; but 
 benevolence, from a sense of duty, even when no 
 inclination drives a man to it, and indeed when 
 natural and insuperable repulsion is struggling 
 against it, is practical and not pathological love, 
 and this can be commanded" (" Grundlegung zur 
 Metaphysik der Sitten," Erster Abschnitt. Werke, 
 ed. Berlin Academy, 1903, vol. iv. p. 399).
 
 Kant's Ethics, Formalist and Doctrinaire 147 
 
 There is here a painful lack of spontaneously 
 affective as well as effective love, of the beauti- 
 ful tenderness of Our Lord or of St. Francis, 
 where there is no thought of a law, but a joyous 
 absorption in realities, spirits, persons, loving 
 and loved, serving and served. The general 
 thinness and formalism of Kant's moral outlook 
 proceeds indeed largely from the artificiality 
 of his Epistemology and the slightness of his 
 specifically religious sense. For thus he is ever 
 fearful lest, by any moving away from Ethics, 
 consciously willed as so much costly Categorical 
 Imperative, we fall into Sentimentality and Sub- 
 jectivism, since here it is not spiritual realities 
 other than ourselves, and the certainty of our 
 relatedness to them, which constitute for us a 
 world prior to our moral acts and life ; but, on the 
 contrary, it is our sense of ethical obligation alone 
 upon which our assurance of, and approach to, 
 any such world is built up. 
 
 (c) There is also, doubtless for the same 
 reasons, an excessive individualism in Kant's 
 Ethics. In one of the Fragments he declares: 
 " There can be nothing more terrible than that 
 the actions of a man should be required to be 
 subject to the will of another. For the like 
 of this does a child become embittered, if it is 
 to do what others will, without their having
 
 148 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 striven to make the thing attractive to it." And 
 indeed in his Metaphysic of Morals, 1797, he 
 defines the Ends of action, which are at the same 
 time Duties, as "our own Perfection" and "our 
 neighbour's Happiness." And he explains how 
 "all men indeed possess the End of their own 
 Happiness, by an impulse of nature ; but this End 
 cannot, without a self-contradiction, be conceived 
 as a Duty, since Duty is a compulsion to an 
 End which is accepted without liking" ; and how 
 "it is a similar contradiction to make the Per- 
 fection of another my End, and to consider its 
 furtherance as my Duty, since precisely in this 
 consists the Perfection of my neighbour, as a 
 person, that he is himself capable of determining 
 his own End in accordance with his conceptions 
 of Duty ; and hence I cannot consistently be 
 required to do what no other than he himself 
 can do " (Zweiter Theil, Einleitung iv., Werke, 
 ed. Berlin Academy, vol. vi. pp. 385, 386). 
 
 Such systematic non-interference would, how- 
 ever, render all education of children impracticable. 
 Indeed, throughout life, there is no deep spiritual 
 advance possible, without a break-up, not only of 
 the soul's habits but even of its standards ; and 
 this break-up will often be occasioned by the 
 " interference " of another soul, more advanced and 
 more devoted than our own. Life, in short, is
 
 Man never perfects himself alone 149 
 
 indefinitely richer than that Kantian distinction 
 assumes ; and this its richness here again depends 
 upon our ability really to know and to love, to 
 love and to know — in this case, our fellow-souls. 
 Monica and Augustine, Clare and Francis of Assisi, 
 and analogous minor experiences in the lives of 
 us all, cry aloud against any necessary limitation, 
 in one soul's knowledge of another, to impressions, 
 of a simply hypothetical evidential value, made 
 and received by each upon and from the other. 
 For here again I get to know myself, ever in- 
 completely yet in various degrees really, in the 
 same act by which I get to know others really. 
 And in this really known world of realities there 
 is serving and commanding, as well as self-de- 
 fensive equality ; and thwarting, as well as careful 
 abstention from all checks. Indeed, Kant himself 
 was too full of devoted service for his Ethics 
 not frequently to have a tone more richly true 
 than the principles here considered would logically 
 permit ; and these principles themselves are, in 
 part, most understandable reactions against certain 
 contrary extremes. 1 
 
 1 On Kant's Ethics, see the excellent short annotations in 
 Ueberweg-Heinze, Gritndriss der Geschichte der Philosophie der 
 Nenzeit, 1880, pp. 228-238 ; and James Seth's A Study of 
 Ethical Principles, 1894, nth ed. 1910, with its instructive 
 contrast between Eitdcemonism, retentive of the Supreme Good and 
 finding Happiness in the elaboration of the raw material of sense 
 by means of the Moral Law, and, at the one extreme, Hedonism,
 
 150 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 (3) Now the Kantian Religion, where Kant 
 treats it ex ftrofesso, contains strangely little 
 of what history at large, and our own souls, 
 where these are spiritually awake, show us as 
 specifically religious ; Kant's " Religion " is then 
 but the Kantian Epistemology and Ethics applied 
 to a subject-matter which says nothing specific 
 to him, and which, hence, cannot awaken any 
 suspicion within him as to the intrinsic truth, 
 or as to the applicability here, of the tests thus 
 ruthlessly applied by him to a strongly recalcitrant 
 material. The following are probably the chief 
 of such applications to be found in Kant, qua 
 the critical philosopher of Religion. 
 
 (a) Among the three main arguments for the 
 Existence of God, in the Kritik der reinen Ver- 
 7iunft, the Ontological, the Cosmological, and the 
 Physico-Theological (or Argument from Design), 
 Kant, in strict consistency with his fundamental 
 epistemological principles, cannot but consider 
 the Ontological argument as especially demand- 
 ing, and as especially succumbing to, his de- 
 structive criticism. For if Knowledge, even of 
 the least thing, is ever, for us men, not knowledge 
 of that thing's Reality, but only of its appearance 
 
 engrossed in the sensational Material to the neglect of the Form, 
 and, at the other end, Rigorism or Rationalism (Kant), neglecting 
 the Material whilst engrossed in the Moral Form and End of 
 action.
 
 Kant inevitably 'unjust to Ontological Argument 1 5 1 
 
 to our senses and of the elaboration of this appear- 
 ance by our minds ; if of Reality we only know, 
 somehow, that it exists distinct from our senses 
 and minds, and, somehow, that it is radically 
 different from these our apprehensions and 
 elaborations ; if hence everywhere our strongest 
 impressions that we know Reality are but 
 illusions : then the Existence of an Infinite, 
 Necessary Reality will, in a supreme degree and 
 in a normative manner, be absolutely unreachable 
 from any amount or kind of impressions or 
 implications to that effect. For here we have 
 the supreme application of, and trust in, that 
 minimum of a realistic conviction, the denial of 
 which indeed lands Kant, elsewhere, in continuous 
 difficulties of various kinds, and, at this point, 
 tears up the elementary experience and affirma- 
 tion of religion by the roots. 
 
 "There exists here," says Kant, "the strangely 
 irrational situation, that the conclusion from a 
 Given Existence generally," i.e. a Being than 
 whom no greater can be conceived, "to an un- 
 conditionally Necessary Existence, appears to 
 be urgent and correct," since otherwise we could 
 think of a greater Being; "and yet that we have 
 all the conditions of our understanding, which 
 are necessary for our conceiving the idea of such 
 a necessity, entirely against us." True, "the
 
 152 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 analytic indication of Possible Existence, which 
 consists in that simple positions (realities) do not 
 generate contradictions, cannot be denied to a 
 Supreme Being"; such a conception "is" even, 
 " in many respects, a very useful idea " : but, 
 "precisely because a mere idea, it is quite in- 
 capable, by itself, of enlarging our knowledge 
 concerning the Extant." For "if I think of a 
 Being as the highest Reality, there still remains 
 the question whether it exists or not ; since, 
 even if nothing be lacking in my conception of 
 the possible real content of a thing, there may still 
 be a lack with respect to the condition which under- 
 lies all my thinking, namely, that the knowledge 
 of an object shall also be possible a posteriori" 
 Now "our consciousness of all Existence belongs 
 entirely to the Unity of our Experience ; and an 
 Existence outside of this field cannot, indeed, be 
 declared simply impossible, but is a supposition 
 which we cannot justify by anything." 
 
 Here we may note that the traditional (Ansel- 
 mian) form of the Ontological Argument has, 
 indeed, been largely unfortunate, and that Kant 
 has taken full advantage of this. The addition 
 of the predicate of Existence does not add 
 to the content of the thing affirmed to exist ; 
 and certainly not any simple determination on 
 our own part to think any particular thing in-
 
 Immense Significance of Onfological Sense 15 
 
 1 
 
 volves that thing's Existence. Yet, this argument, 
 at its best, covers three great abiding facts, 
 general experiences and strict necessities of life 
 and mind, which, taken together, remain un- 
 refuted by Kant, and which indeed strongly 
 influence him throughout his work. 
 
 As already seen, — in all Knowledge there is 
 never that abstraction, simply knowledge of 
 knowledge, or knowledge of phenomena which 
 hide or travesty reality ; there is knowledge of 
 reality. All Knowledge is thus ever a trinity 
 of Subject, Object, and the subject's Knowing 
 which simultaneously includes knowledge of the 
 Object and of itself, the Subject. We do not 
 know the Thing-in-itself, in the sense that we 
 know nothing exhaustively, and that we do 
 not, of course, know the Thing as outside our 
 Knowledge of it. But we do know the Thing- 
 in our Knowledge of it, and we there know it 
 without further mediation. Again, in all our 
 knowledge of Single Things there is ever con- 
 currently, in contrast with, and entering into, the 
 apprehension of them, a sense of their Finitude, 
 Contingency, Incompleteness, Insufficiency, which 
 is not furnished by themselves even in their 
 totality, — since they each and all can and do 
 furnish only endless varieties of such Contingency. 
 It is not that we contrast a permanence, or an
 
 154 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 endless succession, of such contingent objects, 
 with the fleetingness of any one of them; but 
 that all mere Succession and Fleetingness is 
 keenly apprehended and felt as contrasting 
 with (and it spontaneously awakens) a sense of 
 Simultaneity and Abidingness, as somehow 
 superior to and normative of, as somehow alone 
 giving dignity and worth to, all that flux and 
 relativity. And finally, the attempts at explaining 
 this sense as a mere projection of man's empty, 
 undisciplined wishes, and at ridiculing it from 
 out of all serious consideration, have certainly 
 not succeeded, even in the limited sense of 
 having been consistently practised by the very 
 protagonists of such explanation and ridicule. 
 
 Indeed, Kant's own position has ever remained 
 instructively halting. Halting in theory : for 
 Things - in - themselves certainly exist ; God, 
 Freedom, Immortality must be postulated ; yet we 
 can never know what the Things are, and we can 
 never proclaim the latter three great convictions 
 as more than practically necessary and intellect- 
 ually admissible as hypotheses. And halting in 
 practice : for his deep awe before the starry heavens 
 and the voice of conscience is quite obviously more 
 than a contented ignorance, or even than a doubt, 
 concerning the more than human yet still ethical 
 character of more than human Spiritual Reality.
 
 Kant's Position ha/ting as to Ontology 155 
 
 As a matter of simple fact, all that is deepest in 
 human achievement and conviction, — the nobler, 
 the most disinterested, negations included, — 
 springs persistently from, and grows with, such 
 an elementary belief and trust in a World and 
 Reality more than even universally human. 
 Only through and with such conviction does man 
 become fully himself. And it is a useless in- 
 genuity and a perverse excess of caution to try 
 to build up any ultimate philosophy upon an 
 assumption of the actual (or even the possible) 
 illusion of that which, even to be sufficiently in 
 earnest in affirming such illusion, we have to 
 assume as true. 
 
 Kant, however, is no doubt right in refusing 
 to accept the Ontological Argument as, of itself, 
 proving Theism. It does not, alone, prove more 
 than that, in all our knowledge of beings as 
 finite and contingent, a contrasting knowledge of 
 an Infinite and Necessary Reality is involved. 
 And the more precise nature of this Reality will 
 have to be revealed to us, at all fully and vividly, 
 by the experience and testimony of the positive 
 religions, where these latter, by their fruitful illumi- 
 nation and enrichment of the other stages of life, 
 prove themselves to be authentic expressions of 
 the deepest Knowledge of the deepest Reality: 
 namely, of the Religious Knowledge of prevenient
 
 156 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 Spirit. And yet the Ontological proof is one far 
 beyond any simple deduction, and consists in an 
 infinitely multipliable tracing of the Religious 
 Knowledge in all our ordinary knowledge, and of 
 the ceaseless elevating operation of this Religious 
 Knowledge within our human lives. So far and 
 no further philosophy seems both to be able 
 to supply, and to be reasonably bound to accept, 
 reasons for a first step towards Theism, and for 
 a conviction which, apart from any such support, 
 contributes much towards the faith in and practice 
 of Eternal Life. 1 
 
 (d) Again, where Kant is critically active and 
 unchecked by his deeper, more religious appre- 
 hensions, we must expect a non-understanding 
 of Grace, of Waiting upon God, of Religious 
 Worship, of Religious History and Institutions. 
 Indeed, all these things have to go, except in 
 so far as they can be affirmed as demonstrably 
 harmless or useful hypotheses, or can be practised 
 as transparently human expressions of the all- 
 devouring Moral Imperative. 
 
 Thus as to Grace. " Whether over and above 
 all that we can do, there may not exist something 
 
 1 See the still admirably fresh " Die Selbstandigkeit der Religion " 
 of Professor E. Troeltsch, Zeitschrift f. Theologie u. Kirche, 1895, 
 pp. 361-436 ; my paper, "Experience and Transcendence," Dublin 
 Review, April 1906 ; and Clement Webb's clear and firm discus- 
 sion, in Problems in the Relations bewcen God and Man, 191 1, 
 pp. 157-159, 179-188.
 
 Kant inadequate as to Grace and Worship 157 
 
 which God alone can do, in order to make us 
 into men well pleasing to Himself, is not herewith 
 decided negatively"; indeed, "at times certain 
 movements, operative in the direction of morality, 
 occur within ourselves, as to which our ignorance 
 is forced to confess that ' the wind bloweth 
 whither it listeth, but we know not whence it 
 cometh.'" Yet "the persuasion that we are 
 able to distinguish between the effects of Grace 
 and those of Nature (Virtue) or even to produce 
 the former within ourselves, is fanaticism, since 
 we can neither recognize a super-sensible object 
 within our experience, nor exercise an influence 
 upon it"; and "a feeling of the immediate 
 presence of the Supreme Being, distinct from 
 every other, even moral, feeling, would mean 
 a capacity for a perception, for which there is 
 no place within human nature." 
 
 As to Religious Worship. "All that man 
 thinks he can do, outside of a good life, towards 
 pleasing God, is sheer religious illusion and false 
 worship of God." " A disposition to execute all 
 our actions as though they took place in the 
 service of God is the spirit of praying ' without 
 ceasing.' But to incorporate this wish, even 
 interiorly, in words can, at most, only have the 
 value of a means for the repeated awakening of 
 that disposition within us." Indeed, any "devout
 
 158 Eternal Life : Historical Retrospect 
 
 but still, as regards pure religious conceptions, 
 backward man, whom another would surprise 
 even simply in the attitude indicative of praying 
 aloud" would be expected "at once to become 
 confused, as over a condition of which he has to 
 be ashamed." In short, " It is a superstitious 
 illusion to attempt to become pleasing to God 
 by confessions of statutory articles of faith, 
 observance of ecclesiastical discipline, etc., since 
 merely natural, non-moral means have here been 
 selected, which can effect simply nothing with 
 respect to what is not nature, that is, the morally 
 good." 
 
 And, finally, as to Religious History. "It is 
 reasonable to assume that, not only ' the wise 
 according to the flesh,' but also ' what is foolish 
 before the world ' should be able to lay claim 
 to such a saving instruction and interior convic- 
 tion. ... Now there exists a practical cognition 
 which, although reposing upon reason alone and 
 requiring no historical information, lies, never- 
 theless, as near even to the simplest of men as 
 if it were literally written on his heart, — a law 
 which carries with it an unconditional obligation 
 in the consciousness of every man, — namely, the 
 law of morality. Moreover, this cognition either 
 leads, already of itself, to belief in God, or at 
 least it alone determines the concept of Him as
 
 Nobility of Kant's Motives 159 
 
 of a moral law-giver ; and hence it leads us to a 
 pure religious faith, which is not only under- 
 standable but also supremely venerable to every 
 man " (" Religion innerhalb d. Grenzen d. blossen 
 Vernunft," Viertes Stuck, §§ 2, 3, Werke, ed. 
 Berlin Academy, pp. 170, 174, 175, 190, 194, 
 195 and n., 181, 182). 
 
 Here again let us be fair to Kant's motives, 
 and not forget the terrible abuses — ascetical, 
 mystical, hierarchical, and the checks, conflicts 
 and oppressions introduced or furthered by them 
 in the racial, political, social, and scientific life 
 of mankind, such as Kant himself, with fairly 
 complete oblivion of the immense beneficence 
 of the positive religions, yet in large part truly 
 and with deeply sincere indignation, describes 
 here (in the second division of the Third Piece, 
 Werke, ed. Berlin Academy, vol. vi. pp. 130, 131). 
 To have done away for ever with the very 
 possibility of religious pressure and persecution, 
 and of attempts to force upon men a choice between 
 insincerity towards growing Science and Criticism 
 and insincerity towards cast-iron detailed profes- 
 sions of Historic faith; and yet to retain Ethics 
 (increasingly pure and universally benevolent 
 Ethics) ; and this still with the background, indeed 
 the sanction, of God, Freedom, Immortality — this, 
 Kant believed himself to be here achieving. And
 
 160 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 yet those abuses of Religion must evidently be 
 met by a deepening of Religion as such ; whereas 
 here we get, unmistakably, a thinning out, and 
 a violent explaining away, of Religion, in precisely 
 its specific characteristics, especially as these con- 
 cern the experience of Eternal Life and the habits 
 of mind favourable to such experience. 
 
 Religion, indeed, has ever been, at its fullest 
 and deepest, Adoration, hence apprehension and 
 affirmation of, and joy in, what already is ; and the 
 Prevenience of God, His part in the religious act, 
 has consequently, by the Prophets and Psalmists, 
 by Jesus and St. Paul, by St. Augustine and 
 Pascal, been dwelt upon almost to the exclusion 
 of our own part. Kant, as usual, seizes the 
 central difficulty here, and rightly rejects ex- 
 clusively divine acts within our souls ; doubtless 
 the Divine Action must be conceived as ever 
 inviting our own, and as, where an act pleasing 
 to God is the result, ever accompanied by some 
 human, presumably our own, activity. Yet that 
 divine environment and prevenience, the all-in-all 
 of God, Who Himself has deigned to limit Him- 
 self in order to leave to us the kind and degree of 
 liberty He has chosen for us ; the great fact, not 
 of our own action, but of what renders that action 
 possible, especially in forms and with motives too 
 high and too wide for the world of simple sense
 
 Kant ignores God's Presence and Prevenience 1 6 1 
 
 •» 
 
 or of unaided nature : these are the realities and 
 truths central to the religious consciousness. 
 
 Where Kant's view remains religious, and he is 
 reasoning ex professo, he at once becomes hypo- 
 thetic. But who ever found the religious soul 
 hypothetic ? The very desolations of Gethsemane 
 and Calvary imply certainty, not hypothesis. 
 And, indeed, it is doubtless this grand sense of 
 Givenness, of Grace, which, as much as anything, 
 won the humanity of the Roman Empire from 
 Stoicism, with its " Monstro quod ipse tibi possis 
 dare," to Christianity, with its "Our sufficiency is 
 from God." And thus any and every Stoicism, 
 Kant's included, comes too late. As a matter ot 
 fact, we daily, in a lesser degree, experience, in 
 any and every deep and pure human intercourse, 
 the soul-enlarging mystery of the awakening of 
 our mind and will, to fuller life and fruitfulness, by 
 minds and wills stronger, where they are also more 
 devoted, than our own ; hence there is nothing 
 unreasonable, nothing even simply without ex- 
 perimental parallel for us, in belief in an action of 
 God's Spirit awakening the depths of our own. 
 
 Nor is the impossibility of deciding infallibly, 
 at any moment, and concerning any particular 
 thought or act, whether it is of Grace or of 
 Nature, decisive, as Kant assumes ; unless my 
 inability to pick out infallibly precisely what I 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 owe to my friend's influence is decisive against 
 the reality of that influence, and stamps my 
 belief in it as superstitious or unwholesome. 
 Of course, if Nature is, with Kant, assumed, 
 for this occasion, to be identical with Virtue, 
 Grace will, to any pure Moralist, readily appear 
 a superfluity. And yet the Givenness, and the 
 sense of Givenness, will infuse a special character 
 into all the virtues. There are, too, such heroic 
 virtues as the forgiving of enemies, which postulate 
 and require precisely such a realm of Divine 
 Prevenience and generosity. Again, our very 
 acceptance of never more than trust, than moral 
 certainty, as to the supernatural character of any 
 one of our acts or states adds a further touch of 
 utterly appropriate humility to such an already 
 rich outlook. And finally, such general, yet 
 also practically precise, discriminations between 
 Nature and Grace as are given, say, by Thomas 
 a Kempis, remain founded upon an experience 
 safe against all final overthrow. 
 
 As to Religious Worship, it is, of course, plain 
 that without a God, the Spirit of Spirits of 
 Theism, and a certainty of His Reality and Pres- 
 ence amongst us, it would no doubt be super- 
 stitious ; and indeed we can hardly find any 
 place for it in a world of phenomena that alone 
 are certain and known, and of noumena known, at
 
 Givenness and Worship essential to Religion 163 
 
 most, just simply to exist. But in a world of 
 diversely deep realities, from stone and tree up 
 to animal and man, with a Supreme Reality up- 
 holding and penetrating it all, a world known 
 really to one of these its real constituents, man, 
 there is nothing necessarily superstitious in, there 
 is indeed a need for, Cultual Acts. For if each 
 and all finite objects and acts awaken in our souls 
 the sense of the Infinite, we cannot but expect 
 that finite objects and acts specially representative 
 of specifically religious requirements and disposi- 
 tions, and specially introduced by and com- 
 memorative of great religious teachers and 
 revealers, will (though never alone, but only 
 where used and spiritually willed by human souls, 
 in and with a religious society) be the means, 
 occasions, and vehicles of a more precise, deep, 
 and expansive religious enlightenment and voli- 
 tion. Only if sense is simply cut off from Spirit, 
 and if, say, close contact with mathematico- 
 physical science can do nothing for the awaken- 
 ing and disciplining of the human soul, can we 
 rule out non-moral things and acts as necessarily 
 incapable of mediating spiritual benefit. Cer- 
 tainly, neither stocks nor stones can, as such and 
 separately, profit my soul ; but the element of 
 inexorable Fate, of impersonal Law, and of 
 opaque Thing, must be placed somewhere in the
 
 164 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 totality of my life, even of my spiritual life ; and, 
 placed in the middle-distance of this my life, and 
 used rightly by me, so largely still a mere natural 
 individual in the foreground, I can touch and pass 
 through that element, ever again, as through an 
 awakening and purifying river, out on to the 
 background and heights, having become thus, 
 more and more, a spiritual person. 
 
 And, finally, History most certainly introduces 
 endless difficulties as to the evidence for, and as 
 to the abiding applicability of, its facts, and many 
 temptations to oppression and insincerity. Yet 
 the broad fact remains that, in every department 
 of experience, but supremely so in the very 
 deepest, in that of religion, we men learn to know 
 truth and goodness, not abstractly, as Laws, but 
 concretely, as qualities of Persons. And what 
 we thus learn most fully has cost their all, of 
 sweat and tears and blood, to these our teachers, 
 and costs anxiety, self-discipline, and humble 
 docility of soul to us the learners. Those utterly 
 concrete, ever more or less unique, experiences and 
 revelations of the Infinite Spirit are thus offered 
 and accepted, never automatically or compulsorily, 
 but ever freely and expensively. And those great 
 teachers and revealers, qua religious, ever en- 
 lighten and win us primarily with regard to God's 
 reality, character, claims, and approachableness.
 
 Truth and Goodness revealed through Persons 165 
 
 For, even though, in proportion as the religion 
 thus lived and announced is high and developed, 
 the ethical requirements become increasingly ex- 
 acting and continuous, they in no wise oust God 
 from the centre, the beginning, and end of the 
 entire life ; but this life remains, with corre- 
 spondingly increased consciousness, more than, 
 though inclusive of, all these requirements. 1 And 
 especially do the individual religious Historical 
 Events not remain, or become, mere symbols of a 
 stream or tendency ; they are now, not less but 
 more, conceived as expressive of the religious 
 Personality which lived them, and such a Person- 
 ality again is recognized as the vehicle and mani- 
 festation of abiding, self-conscious Spirit. 
 
 It is easy to trace, throughout his book on 
 Religion (in spite of his deeply Christian attitude 
 towards Evil, and of his finely suggestive ideal 
 " the Son of God "), Kant's angry hostility to any 
 treatment of Jesus Christ, we will not say as 
 
 1 Certainly, in the case of the Buddha, we get an apparently 
 complete exception to this rule. But this primitive Buddhism is, 
 I think, most correctly taken as an extraordinarily immanental, 
 self-absorbed, estimate of, and attitude towards, life, and as a 
 spiritually attuned moralism ; and not as directly a religion at all. 
 All human life, all life, apprehended as a sheer wheel of generation 
 and mere change — such a conception can but issue in the desire 
 for a complete cessation of all life. A more healthy and adequate 
 perception of the real content and evidences of human life has ever 
 to precede, accompany, or succeed the religious sense, where this 
 is at all fully awake.
 
 1 66 Eternal Life: Historical Retrospect 
 
 God, but even simply as, somehow, unique. But 
 we should carefully note that Kant's quarrel with 
 orthodoxy here lies far further back, and extends 
 much further afield, than the symbols of Nicsea 
 and Chalcedon. What he, faithful to his general 
 position, objects to, first and foremost, is the 
 assumption of man's ability to know Reality of any 
 kind in and through phenomena of any kind. 
 Even the most general incarnational doctrine, — 
 that Reality, especially Spirit, and supremely God, 
 manifest their true natures to us, precisely in and 
 through and on occasion of Sense, must, then, be 
 Superstition or Fanaticism for him. Judaism and 
 Mohammedanism, indeed Brahmanism and the 
 later, theistically enriched, Buddhism cannot fail, 
 for this general reason, to be also obnoxious to 
 him. Indeed, the three golden rings in Lessing's 
 Nathan, symbolizing the utter equivalence of 
 the three great Theistic faiths, Christianity, 
 Judaism, Mohammedanism, ought not, logically, 
 to satisfy Kant, except with an evisceration which 
 would leave each unrecognizable to itself and to 
 the others ; but he would have to exclaim, as does 
 Sultan Saladin in that great play which, on this 
 its central point, is so interestingly, because 
 unconsciously, inconsistent : " If I could but find 
 a man who would be satisfied with being ust 
 simply a man ! "
 
 Spirit manifests Itself in Sense 167 
 
 And yet, no. Kant himself is too great and 
 deep ever consciously to work, or to wish, for 
 such a sheer, fortunately impossible, naturaliza- 
 tion of man. Indeed, his whole philosophy con- 
 sists in one long, heroic attempt to regain, for 
 and by the Practical Reason, those certainties 
 of more than human realities and destinies 
 which the Pure Reason had to abandon, yet 
 which remain largely operative in all his 
 deepest convictions. In any case, Lessing's 
 man of no particular religion would be no more 
 typically a man, than is the savage wearing no 
 particular clothes, using no particular tools, 
 owning to no particular family ties or sexual 
 traditions. In all these cases, not to have these 
 things in particular, is not to have them at all. 
 And especially as to the soul's sense of the 
 Infinite and Abiding, — these will be, ccsteris 
 paribus, at their deepest and keenest, in the soul's 
 closest contacts, its most loving familiarity, its 
 most heroic struggles, with and for the Concrete, 
 Historical manifestations of such Eternal Life. 1 
 
 1 On Kant's attitude towards Grace, see Clement Webb, op. cit. 
 pp. 92-117 ; on the necessity of Cultus in religion, Ernst Troeltsch, 
 Die Bedeutung der Geschichtlichkeit Jesu fur den Glauben, 191 1, 
 pp. 25-33 » anf l on tne need of History, the same deep thinker's 
 Das Historische in Kanfs Religionspliilosophie, Kant Studien, 1904. 
 On Kant's "ignoring of religion, i.e. of the reality which historically 
 is thus denominated," see the vivid picture and incisive criticism 
 in Georg Simmel's Kant, 1904, pp. 125-135.
 
 PART II 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SURVEY 
 
 169
 
 PART II 
 
 CONTEMPORARY SURVEY 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Let us now attempt some characterization of 
 such amongst the chief movements in philosophy, 
 life, religion, as have come to their full expansion 
 since Kant's zenith and are still at all power- 
 fully among us, and as express or aid or hinder 
 the experience and conception of Eternal Life. 
 We will here take, first, four Philosophers and 
 their main present-day followers ; next, a great 
 Scientist and a mighty biological doctrine ; and 
 lastly, those two massive things — Socialism (so 
 largely still averse from all Transcendence) and 
 Institutional Religion. We thus again move 
 throughout, as far as possible, in historical order, 
 although we keep for the last what, though 
 doubtless still the home and training-school of an 
 indefinitely larger number of religiously awake 
 souls than are decisively influenced by all the 
 previous groups put together, is, nevertheless, 
 
 incomparably older than them all. 
 
 171
 
 172 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PHILOSOPHIES DERIVATIVE FROM KANT 
 
 Introductory — J. G. Fichte, his radical criticism ; his acceptance of 
 a Moral Ordering, not an Orderer ; his social, affective ethics ; 
 his sceptical bent — Miinsterberg, Eucken — Schleiermacher, his 
 Reden, his Glaubenslehre — Troeltsch— Hegel, his fruitful anti- 
 identity principle, and his two destructive identifications — The 
 English Hegelians, J. E. M'Taggart, Feuerbach — Schopen- 
 hauer, his two main epistemological positions, his pessimism 
 and asceticism, his Nirvana — Kierkegaard, Nietzsche. 
 
 Let us first, then, consider Fichte, Schleier- 
 macher, Hegel, and Schopenhauer. We take 
 these men thus together, since, however different 
 in nature from each other and from Kant, they 
 each and all build philosophically upon Kant's 
 most characteristic assumptions. And we take 
 them as influences of our own times, because all 
 four are still, or again, largely operative, even if 
 mostly through repulsion, especially by means of 
 now living writers and movements of vast, though 
 often veiled, present-day importance. 
 
 1. Johann Gottlieb Fichte, born in poverty, the 
 iron-willed, violently ethical, heroic character and 
 mind (1762-18 14), moved, in 1790, away from
 
 Fichte s Radical ', Immanental Criticism 173 
 
 Spinoza's Determinism to Kant's Criticism, in 
 order here to find room for Free Will. But whilst, 
 from 1794 onwards, he elaborated a conception 
 of knowledge more consistently independent of 
 the object than ever Kant systematically pro- 
 pounded, and though, as strongly as ever Kant 
 did, he found the root and worth of Religion 
 entirely in the Categorical Imperative, he 
 nevertheless retained, and increasingly (1801-6) 
 articulated, a greater depth, delicacy, and range of 
 specifically religious apprehension and feeling than 
 are to be found in Kant. 
 
 (1) Thus, as to Knowledge and the Thing-in- 
 itself, Fichte insists, already in 1794, that every 
 philosophy is still " dogmatic " which admits any- 
 thing as equal to, or as contrasted with, the Ego. 
 In the (true) Critical System, the Thing is posited 
 in the Ego ; in the Dogmatic System, the Thing is 
 that wherein the Ego itself is posited ; hence the 
 Critical System is immanent, placing everything 
 within the Ego, the Dogmatic System is tran- 
 scendent, going beyond the Ego. So does Fichte 
 most fully articulate the feeling, unknown to the 
 ancient and mediaeval worlds, but so characteristic 
 still of large tracts of modern life, of constraint 
 from, and irritation against, whatsoever is not 
 somehow his own mind or the creation of this 
 his mind, empirical and limited or absolute — the
 
 174 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Absolute creating and seeing in and through this 
 mind and its fellows. 
 
 (2) True, in 1798 and 1800 he insists upon the 
 existence of "a Moral or Intelligible Order, con- 
 tradistinguished from the Order of Nature " and 
 outside of finite moral beings ; and says that 
 "here, in this necessary thought and demand of 
 an Intelligible Order, through which all genuine 
 morality has necessary consequences, is the place 
 of Religious Faith." But he adds : " This faith is 
 faith full and entire ; that living and active Moral 
 Order is itself God, we do not require, and 
 we cannot apprehend, any other " (Siimmtliche 
 Werke, 8 vols., 1845, 1846; vol. v. pp. 392, 394; 
 186). 
 
 Yet it is not simply " the demands of an 
 empty system" (ibid. p. 180), but the spontaneous 
 religious consciousness, that goes beyond this ; 
 and it is incumbent upon philosophy, if it would 
 find room for religion, to derive its knowledge of 
 the fundamentals of religion from the unadul- 
 terated religious sense itself. Indeed, Fichte's 
 warmth of conviction that "without this active 
 moral Ordering," which is in no wise an Orderer, 
 " not a hair falls from my head and not a sparrow 
 from the roof" (ibid. p. 188), undoubtedly pro- 
 ceeds from Religion, as distinct from Ethics and 
 Philosophy. And, if such a belief is accepted
 
 An Ordering affirmed, an Orderer denied 175 
 
 from Religion by Philosophy at all, it also invites 
 Philosophy to admit Religion's conjoint affirma- 
 tion of a self-conscious Orderer, an affirmation 
 more consistent with this belief, and one not less 
 in accordance with our difficult life's experience. 
 
 Plainly here in Fichte there is no irritation 
 against the conception of a Reality distinct from 
 any apprehending spirit, so long as this Reality is 
 a spiritual law and not a Spirit expressing Him- 
 self in a law, and so long as this law is conceived 
 as fundamentally moral only, and as apprehensible 
 by moral sense, in action, alone. Yet, especially 
 in his later stage, his deep religious instinct allows 
 Fichte and his readers often to forget his vehement, 
 exclusive moralism and all the unnatural strain 
 of a system that would make man, as subject, find 
 the entire objective world simply by producing 
 it in and through the purest self-activity, of, at 
 deepest, an exclusively ethical kind. For we then 
 get sayings which, taken separately, reveal a 
 tender religious insight beyond the range of Kant. 
 Thus, in the Directions for a Blessed Life, of 
 1806, we hear: "Thou, O Soul, art what thou 
 lovest " ; and " Blessedness consists in love and 
 in the eternal satisfaction of love," where Fichte 
 doubtless thinks of self-conscious spirits living on 
 eternally, since no Ego that has ever really become 
 — i,e. that has developed — something of universal
 
 176 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 and eternal validity can, according to him, ever 
 be destroyed. And he here adds strikingly : 
 "True, blessedness exists also beyond the grave, 
 for the man for whom it has already begun here ; 
 and it exists there in no other way and kind than 
 as it can begin on this side of the grave at any 
 moment ; by the mere getting oneself buried, one 
 cannot arrive at blessedness " (S. IV. vol. v. pp. 
 409, 403). 
 
 (3) Already, in the Destination of Man, 1801, he 
 had impressively proclaimed the close interdepend- 
 ence of souls : " The individual finds and under- 
 stands and loves himself only in another, and 
 every spirit develops itself only in contact with 
 other spirits " ; and he had even, here, addressed 
 God as "the life which binds spirits with spirits 
 into one, as the air and ether of the one intellig- 
 ible world " (S.W. vol. v. p. 316). And if such 
 expressions in this apologetic, exoteric work can- 
 not be pressed, we get, in his Thatsachen des 
 Bewusstseins, amongst much of contrary import, 
 the description of God as "the Absolute, the 
 Self-Subsistent, that which does not enter into 
 process and has never come into being " (S. W. 
 vol. ii. p. 687). 
 
 In his latest stage Fichte gets clear of Kant's 
 Ethical Rigorism: "'The inclinations which I 
 have to sacrifice,' so thinks the religious man, 'are
 
 Subjectivist Foundation of Fichtes Philosophy i jj 
 
 not really my inclinations, but are inclinations 
 which are directed against myself and my higher 
 being ; they are my enemies that cannot die too 
 soon'" (S. W. vol. vii. p. 234). 
 
 It is, however, instructive to note how Fichte's 
 usual identification of the totality of individual 
 souls with God fails to produce, doubtless it even 
 tends to hinder, a sufficient recognition of the 
 uniqueness of historical personalities. Thus, in 
 the Anweisung, the Eternal Word becomes 
 flesh, " in entirely the same way as in Jesus Christ, 
 in every one who vividly recognizes his unity with 
 God, and who truly and actually abandons his 
 entire individual life to the Divine Life" (S.W. 
 vol. v. p. 402). Only under the influence of 
 patriotism, in his Reden an die Deutsche 
 Nation, 1807-8, does he somewhat more 
 adequately realize and express the mysterious 
 uniqueness attaching to all History. 
 
 (4) Fichte is so heroic a character, and he is so 
 largely moved by sensitively Christian tradition 
 and feeling, that it is easy to be unfair to his 
 adversaries in their accusations of Atheism, 
 especially in their expulsion of him from Jena in 
 1799, 1800; and to forget the deliberately hypo- 
 thetic and subjectivist foundation and limitation 
 of his entire Philosophy of Religion. For he 
 never appears to have fully and finally abandoned, 
 
 12
 
 178 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 or to have pushed deeper down than, the posi- 
 tion of his Verstuh einer Kritik alter Offen- 
 barung of 1792 : "The idea of God, as lawgiver 
 by means of the moral law within us, is based 
 upon a transference of something subjective within 
 us, to a being without us, and this projection 
 (Entaussertmg) is the specific principle of religion, 
 in so far as it is to be used for determining our 
 will " (S. W. vol. v. p. 55). It is plain that here we 
 have Kant in his most hypothetic, indeed sceptical, 
 mood ; that, here again, we get simply the inevit- 
 able culmination of a complete attitude of mind 
 — a conclusion inevitable if, but only if, that 
 general attitude is held to be complete. It is plain 
 too that it would be impossible, whilst retaining one 
 of the elements of the religious consciousness, to 
 deny more flatly, and reverse more violently, the 
 sense attached to all those elements by this very 
 consciousness, or more utterly to reduce its 
 evidential value, from the deepest of truths, to a 
 double-dyed error of the most childish kind. 
 
 Professor Hugo Miinsterberg especially has 
 now made vigorous attemps to restate Fichte with 
 a foreground of modern psychology, and with a 
 carefully equal emphasis upon the ^Esthetic, 
 Noetic, and Ethical requirements and values. But 
 not all his earnest eloquence can hide a certain
 
 Httgo Miinsterbe7'g ; Rudolf Eucken 179 
 
 violence in the process of affirming, as binding at a 
 great cost, a Law nowhere prepared and nowhere 
 indicated in the entire range of the demonstrative 
 and experimental sciences, and which we con- 
 sciously project from ourselves ; and a certain 
 doctrinaire superiority to. or forcing of, evidence, 
 in that here something is alone to be authentic, 
 reasonable religion, which no positive religion 
 has ever held or admitted. 
 
 The Fichtean trend in Professor Rudolf Eucken 
 remains much less provocative, since it is blended 
 with Platonist and Hegelian doctrines, and es- 
 pecially since it is checked by a continuous deep 
 sense of the character and significance of History 
 and of Evil. And indeed Eucken is ever nobly 
 insistent on Religion as precisely our need ; and on 
 the presence of the Abiding and Eternal within 
 all our persistent and passing (deeper) trials and 
 sufferings, and in all the genuine productions 
 (always so largely conditioned by History) of 
 Science, Art, Philosophy, and Ethics. Yet even 
 here the Kantian, Fichtean irritation against the 
 very idea of any Reality not, in a sense, produced, 
 and recognized as produced, by the mind which 
 acknowledges it, and the resolute ignoring of 
 the necessity of the mind's contact with thing, for 
 the mind's awakening even to religion, remain, 
 we think, weaknesses intrinsically hostile to the
 
 180 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 noble intention and large effectiveness of Eucken's 
 virile stand against all Naturalism and sceptical 
 Subjectivity. 1 
 
 2. Friedrich Schleiermacher (i 768-1 834) offers 
 us a combination of experience and formulation 
 instructively unlike (whilst like), in their respective 
 strength and inadequacy, to the combinations 
 presented by Spinoza, Kant, and Fichte, even 
 though it is these three powerful personalities, 
 especially Spinoza, who everywhere suggest, and 
 indeed for the most part determine, the theories 
 and analyses of Schleiermacher. 
 
 Born at Breslau, the son of a Calvinist minister, 
 Schleiermacher was brought up, 1783-86, by the 
 Moravian brethren, the nearest German equivalent 
 to our English Quakers. And here this ardent, 
 impressionable and sensuous, rather aesthetic than 
 
 1 There is a good short account of Fichte in Ueberweg-Heinze, 
 Grundriss d. Geschichte d. Philosophie der Neu-Zeit, 1880, pp. 
 258-269. H. Rikert's Fichte 1 s Atheismusstreit, 1899, is a finely 
 balanced estimate ; and A. Seth's " Fichte," in his Hegelianisjn 
 and Personality, ed. 1893, pp. 42-78, a sound criticism. E. 
 Lask's Fichte's Idealismus und die Geschichte, 1902, is very 
 careful ; and Fritz Medicus's J. G. Fichte, 1905, a reasonably 
 enthusiastic, useful popular account. H. Miinsterberg's Philo- 
 sophie der Werte, 1909 (which exists also in English), especially 
 in its last two chapters, and R. Eucken's Der Kamfif um einen 
 geistigen Lebensinhalt, 2nd ed. 1907, have been taken as the 
 most Fichtean amongst these authors' works. Eucken is particu- 
 larly striking concerning the Eternal and History, in his " Philo- 
 sophie der Geschichte," Kidtar der Gegenwart, i. 6, 1907 ; and in 
 The Truth of Religion, 191 1, pp. 270-273.
 
 Schleiermacker ^Esthetic, Pietistic, Pantheistic 181 
 
 religious, and rather religious than ethical, nature 
 received, amongst these pure, simple, out-of-the 
 world and other-worldly souls (in however one- 
 sidedly mystical, even fantastically individualist 
 a form), the most precious insights of his rich 
 life, — a life, for the rest, almost entirely beset by 
 artistic and non-moral, by pantheistic and deter- 
 minist, and by variously subjectivist or even 
 sceptical minds and moods. A student at Halle 
 University in 1788-89, tutor in a West- 
 Prussian Calvinist noble family in 1790-93, he 
 was, from 1796 to 1802, a Calvinist minister and 
 pedagogue, and afterwards, from 1806 to the end, 
 lived as a Professor of the University in Berlin. 
 
 Thus Schleiermacher's most varied life covered, 
 in the first period, the last years of that 
 " Beautiful Soul," the Moravian-minded Susanna 
 von Klettenberg (d. 1774) — whose but slightly 
 modified " Confessions " Goethe included, as a 
 dainty pathological curiosity, in his Wilhelm 
 Meisters Lehrjahre> 1 796 ; the change of Goethe, 
 in 1772-73, from habits of prayer, church-going, 
 and Christian Theism generally, to a Spinozist- 
 Pantheistic habit of mind (which did not indeed 
 prevent his attainment, in maturity, of a wide 
 range of moral and even religious insight, yet 
 which undoubtedly leaves his utterances on re- 
 ligion bereft of the deepest notes) ; and (unknown
 
 1 82 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 to Schleiermacher at the time) the interview, 
 July 1780, between Lessing and Jacobi, where 
 Lessing also, as against Jacobi, showed himself 
 much influenced by Spinoza. It was indeed from 
 Jacobi's letters to Moses Mendelssohn, On the 
 Doctrine of Spinoza, 1785, that Schleiermacher 
 first learnt to know Spinoza. And in 1 794 he writes 
 a criticism of Kant, in which (finding that Kant 
 considers the world of sense merely a product of 
 the world of the understanding and of man) he 
 thinks that for Kant "the world of Noumena is 
 in the same way cause of the world of sense, as 
 Spinoza's Infinite Thing is cause of finite things." 
 And he even asks : " Is it then quite certain that 
 a distinct Noumenon underlies every several 
 consciousness ? The individualizing conscious- 
 ness extends only to the phenomenal level 
 (Erscheinung)." There is now in Schleiermacher 
 both an interior antagonism against any scientific 
 or demonstratively philosophical completion of the 
 world in which we live by a second, more valuable, 
 and harmonious world, and a deep enthusiasm for 
 the person and power of Christ, as the awakener 
 of the religious life — of the moments " expres- 
 sive of the highest feeling in our whole being." 1 
 This period of preparation results in his Reden 
 
 1 W. Dilthey, Leben Schleiermacher* s y 1873, from MS. material, 
 pp. 149, 145.
 
 Schleiermacher s Tiuo Periods 181 
 
 o 
 
 iiber die Religion, 1799, and the Monologen, 1800, 
 the former the religious, the latter the moral, 
 manifesto of his early enthusiastic manhood. 
 
 And from 1806 onwards we have his second 
 period, in which his later, more sober mind 
 develops and expresses itself in the relatively 
 cautious, compromise-loving, in some respects 
 institutionally tempered work, Der christliche 
 Glaube nach den Grundsatzen der Evangelischen 
 Kirche, 182 1. 
 
 It is the second of the romantically eloquent 
 and boundlessly daring Reden, " On the Nature 
 of Religion," and the corresponding, very 
 technical and dry, first chapter of the Intro- 
 duction to the Glaubenslekre, " Towards the 
 Elucidation of Dogmatics," which alone here 
 concern us. The former demands to be taken 
 in its first text. 1 
 
 (1) In the Reden, then, the following passages 
 well express Schleiermacher's position towards the 
 essence of Religion and of Eternal Life. 
 
 (a) " The Essence of Religion is neither 
 Thought nor Action, but Intuition and Feeling. 
 Religion desires to contemplate the Universe, 
 devoutly to overhear it, in this Universe's own 
 representations and actions ; to let itself be seized 
 and filled, in childlike passivity, by this Uni- 
 
 1 Critical Edition by Piinjer, 1879.
 
 184 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 verse's immediate influences. Metaphysics start 
 from the finite nature of man, and desire de- 
 liberately to determine, from that nature's simplest 
 concept, from the range of its powers and its 
 receptivity, what the Universe can be for man, 
 and how, of necessity, he must perceive it. Also 
 Religion lives out its whole life in nature, but in 
 the Infinite Nature of the Whole, the One and 
 All. Morality starts from the Consciousness of 
 Freedom, and desires to enlarge its kingdom to 
 infinity and to subject all things to it. Religion 
 breathes where Freedom itself has again become 
 Nature ; it seizes man beyond the play of his 
 particular powers and personality, and views him 
 from whence he must of necessity be what he is, 
 whether he so wills or not" (pp. 50-52). Thus 
 " Religion is opposed to Metaphysics and Morals, 
 in all that constitutes its essence and that charac- 
 terizes its effects. Practical Life is Art, Speculation 
 is Science ; Religion is Sense and Taste for the 
 Infinite" (pp. 52, 53). Hence "the Intuition of 
 the Universe is the widest and highest formula 
 of Religion, from which you can most precisely 
 determine its essence and its limits" (p. 55). 
 
 Now "all Intuition proceeds from an influence 
 of the thing contemplated upon the contemplator ; 
 it is an original, independent action of the 
 former, received, collected, and understood by the
 
 Religion, as Sense for the Infinite 1S5 
 
 latter, according to the latter's nature. Did not 
 the efflux of light, quite without action of your 
 own, touch your visual organ, you would see 
 nothing ; yet what you see is not the nature of 
 things, but these things' action upon you ; and 
 what you know or believe concerning these things 
 lies far beyond the domain of intuition. So with 
 Religion. The Universe is in ceaseless activity 
 and self-revelation ; every form, being, event 
 produced by it, is an action of its own upon us. 
 And thus to take every single thing as part of 
 the Whole, everything limited as a representative 
 of the Infinite — this is Religion ; but what would 
 penetrate beyond, into the nature and substance 
 of the Whole, is no more Religion ; and, if it 
 insists upon being considered such, will inevit- 
 ably sink back into empty Mythology" (p. 55). 
 
 And daringly vivid descriptions then drive 
 home the reality of this contact, in undifferentiated 
 intuition and feeling, between the Object and 
 Subject. " Intuition without Feeling, and Feeling 
 without Intuition, are both nothing; only then 
 and therefore are they something, when and 
 because they are one and indivisible. That first 
 mysterious moment, which occurs in every 
 sensible perception, before intuition and feeling 
 separate, and where sense and its object have 
 become one, is indescribable. ... I lie at the
 
 1 86 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 bosom of the Infinite World ; I am, in that 
 moment, her soul, I feel all her infinite life as my 
 own ; and she is, in that moment, my body, for 
 I penetrate her frame as though it were my 
 own. . . . This is the generative moment of all 
 that is living in Religion " (pp. 73, 64). 
 
 We have here a remarkably vivid, experimental 
 knowledge of certain characteristics of Religion, — 
 its intuitive-emotional quality and its difference 
 from Speculation and Practice. The insistence 
 on Religion, as a sense both of contact between 
 finite realities and of the Infinite Reality within, 
 and in contrast to, those finites, is indeed admir- 
 ably conformable to the central constituent of the 
 religious experience. Yet even at this crucial 
 point a critical Subjectivism, here also largely 
 and unconsciously inconsistent, prevents these 
 perceptions from attaining, in two all-important 
 respects, to adequate expression. 
 
 For one thing, Metaphysics are here reduced 
 to an Epistemology of the anti- "dogmatic" 
 dogmatist type. Here man knows indeed that 
 the Universe qua Universe exists distinct from 
 his perception and conception of it ; yet Schleier- 
 macher is so haunted by the, somehow necessary, 
 unlikeness of this Universe itself to the per- 
 ception and conception through which we know 
 it, that he dares not affirm anything ontological
 
 Intuition-Feeling s/iut up in Itself 187 
 
 about it. True, Religion seems, at first sight, to 
 contrast with such "Metaphysics," not only as to 
 its mode (Religion, purely intuitive and emotional, 
 as against Metaphysics, so largely conceptual, 
 analytic, speculative), but, above all, as to its reach 
 (for Religion is insisted upon as Contact between 
 Realities), with intuition and feeling as conse- 
 quences of this contact. And so far we have 
 the unadulterated testimony of the sense con- 
 cerned. But Schleiermacher then vehemently 
 checks the testimony directly furnished by the 
 sense he has so vehemently endorsed. And as 
 in the critical Kant we °ret a orenuine knowledge 
 only of human knowledge generally, as distinct 
 from the objects through knowing which alone we 
 have any knowledge, so here we are, correspond- 
 ingly, shut up in a genuine feeling only of human 
 feeling generally, without the unequivocal accept- 
 ance of any object distinct from, and the cause of, 
 such feeling. And yet the religious experience in 
 question is, essentially, an intuition and feeling of 
 Reality as distinct from, as prior and subsequent 
 to, as indefinitely more than, and as the cause of, 
 the activities through which we apprehend it. In 
 this sense, not of the affirmation of a detailed 
 system, or of an abstract principle, but of an 
 elementary instinct and affirmation of Reality, 
 Religion is indeed unchangeably Metaphysical,
 
 1 88 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Dogmatic ; and if all Ontology is illusion, then all 
 Religion is so likewise. 
 
 And again, the sense we get here is rather of 
 the Spatial Infinite, or, at most, of the connection 
 between every and any, between this part of life 
 and every other part. The strictly religious sense 
 is, however, of a depth of Reality greater and other 
 than any and all of these parts, or than the 
 whole, in so far as it is made up of them. True, 
 our mind's contact with the Finite is a necessary 
 condition for the awakening of this our sense of 
 the Infinite ; the Infinite, however, to which we are 
 thus awakened is then, as far as the experience 
 is religious, not simply a boundless extension, in 
 space or even in time, of that Finite — of life at 
 its surface or middle depths, or even of the totality 
 of such life — but of a Reality contrasting with, 
 whilst partially expressing Itself in, those finitudes, 
 a Reality helpful towards, because Itself possessing, 
 in an unspeakable manner and degree, all that 
 is highest in ourselves. Certainly, precisely the 
 acknowledged classical exponents of Religion, as 
 distinct from those of Metaphysics and Ethics, 
 have thus articulated this sense of the Infinite ; 
 Augustine's great cry, " Restless is our heart 
 until it rests in Thee," — in a spiritual Reality 
 present always and everywhere, but not simply 
 the sum-total of the various parts of the
 
 The Religious Infinite, a Spiritual Reality 189 
 
 world, — well expresses this specifically religious 
 sense. 
 
 (5) " Intuition ever remains something simple, 
 separate — it is an immediate perception, and 
 nothing more ; to combine it with other things, 
 to place it within a whole, is no more the business 
 of intuition but of abstract thinking. Thus does 
 religion restrict itself to its immediate experiences, 
 of the existence and action of the Universe, through 
 its single intuitions and feelings ; derivation and 
 connection are the things most repugnant to its 
 nature. A system of intuitions, can anything be 
 more fantastic? The Infinite Chaos of the 
 starry heavens, with each point a world, is the 
 fittest symbol of religion : in each, only the single 
 is true and necessary" (p. 58). And it is the 
 systematizers, " the adherents of the dead letter 
 rejected by religion," who "have filled the world 
 with strife and tumult. But the true contemplators 
 of the Eternal were ever quiet souls, living alone 
 by themselves with the Infinite ; or, if they looked 
 about them, granting to every one, provided he 
 knew the great word, his own way " (pp. 64, 65). 
 
 Indeed, "the religious feelings, by their very 
 nature, paralyse man's energy of action, and invite 
 him to a still, engrossed enjoyment ; whence the 
 men who lacked other motives for action, and 
 who were nothing but religious, forsook the world
 
 190 Eternal Life: Contemporary Szirvey 
 
 and completely abandoned themselves to idle con- 
 templation." Yet "quiet and deliberateness are 
 lost, if man allows himself to be driven to action 
 by the vehementand shatteringfeelingsof Religion." 
 " All action, properly so called, should be moral 
 and can indeed be such ; but the religious feelings 
 should (only) accompany all man's actions as a 
 sacred music ; man should do all things with 
 Religion, nothing from Religion " (pp. 69, 68). 
 But then " Morality cares not about love and 
 inclination, but only for action proceeding entirely 
 from its own law ; condemns as impure acts pro- 
 duced by compassion or gratitude ; despises 
 humility ; and treats contrition as a waste of time. 
 And indeed none of these feelings aim at action, 
 they end in themselves, as functions of our inner- 
 most, highest life ; — they are Religion " (p. 111). 
 
 Here we have deeply instructive inconsistencies 
 and insights. For the intuition here considered, 
 whether or no it acts separately within the soul's 
 life, is, according to Schleiermacher, precisely not 
 an intuition of separate things, as such, but of 
 connection, of a whole ; although the connection 
 is perceived and not derived. We thus have, not 
 indeed a system of intuition, but still an intuition 
 of a system. Indeed, Schleiermacher is himself 
 steeped in a particular philosophical system — that of 
 Spinoza — as shown by his enthusiastic apostrophe :
 
 Absolutely Pure Intuition-Feeling, Non-Extant 1 9 1 
 
 " Sacrifice reverently with me a lock to the Manes 
 of the holy, repudiated Spinoza ; the Universe was 
 his sole, eternal love" (p. 55). Indeed, Schleier- 
 macher's general attitude, especially towards Evil, 
 is predominantly Spinozist : " Contemplate nothing 
 separately, but rejoice over everything at the spot 
 where it stands" (p. 91). And already St. Paul 
 and the Johannine writer most largely utilize partic- 
 ular philosophical systems for the articulation of 
 their deepest, abidingly religious experiences. In 
 a word, the entire notion of absolutely pure and 
 separate intuition-feeling, which becomes neces- 
 sarily adulterated and weakened even by differentia- 
 tion between the two constituents, and still more 
 by any and every derivation, connection, system 
 and speculation, is paradoxical and unworkable. 
 Rather do each of the faculties of man's wondrous 
 range aid all the others, though each does so only 
 in certain ways, combinations, and antagonisms. 
 
 Again, religious feeling is here seen, at one 
 moment, to be violent and to require exclusion 
 from all direct control of action, as indeed all 
 sober-minded Mystics, e.g. St. Teresa, have ever 
 taught ; at another moment it is held to be so 
 peaceful, that only the system-building of reason is 
 to blame for the spirit of persecution. Yet, here 
 also, the just balance is, for man, an ideal never 
 completely reached, but one which can be approxi-
 
 192 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 mated only within and through the obstacles and 
 not outside of them, and especially not at the cost 
 of a denial of the reality of Evil. Certainly the 
 Johannine and the Augustinian writings contain 
 many a fierce denunciation, although they are 
 amongst the chief religious classics. 
 
 And finally, as to Action, Jesus's curing of the 
 sick and cleansing of the Temple were, surely, 
 as religious as His night-watches and His Trans- 
 figuration. Schleiermacher, however, pierces to 
 the very core of the facts by representing religion 
 as normally occupied also (he attempts to make it 
 only) with contemplation and recollection ; and 
 as alone furnishing sufficiently deep motives, and 
 sufficiently vivid environment, for the steady 
 persistence of such difficult, precious dispositions 
 as love, humility, contrition. How immensely 
 deeper does Schleiermacher here see than Kant ! 
 
 (c) "History, in the strictest sense, is the 
 highest object of Religion. In this territory lie 
 its loftiest intuitions." " Nothing," in the inten- 
 tion of Religion, " is to be a dead mass, moved 
 only by a dead impact, and resisting only by un- 
 conscious friction ; all is to be genuine, organic, 
 manifold, heightened life" (pp. 100, 103). 
 
 But " for me the Godhead can only be one 
 out of many religious ways of viewing things ; 
 and from my standpoint there is no such alterna-
 
 Aloofness from God and Immortality 193 
 
 tive as 'no God, no Religion."' "For most 
 men, God is evidently merely the Genius of man- 
 kind. But mankind is only an infinitely small 
 part, only one of the passing forms, of the 
 Universe ; can then such a God be what is 
 highest in religion ? A God conceived as an 
 Individual entirely distinct from Mankind, a 
 single specimen of a special genus, would still, 
 as every genus with its individual, be subor- 
 dinated to the Universe." No: "to possess 
 Religion " simply " means to contemplate the 
 Universe ; and on the manner in which you 
 contemplate it, and on the principle which you 
 find in its actions, depends the value of your 
 Religion. And since the idea of God accommo- 
 dates itself to every such manner of contempla- 
 tion, a religion without a God may be better than 
 another religion with a God" (pp. 125, 126). 
 
 And " as to Immortality, it is taken by most 
 men in a spirit directly contrary to Religion. 
 For Religion strives, above all, that the clear- 
 cut outlines of our personality shall gradually be 
 lost in the Infinite — that, by the contemplation of 
 the Universe, we may, as far as possible, become 
 one with it; whilst those men oppose the Infinite 
 and" want to be nothing but just themselves." 
 " Immortality has no right to be a wish, if it has 
 not previously been a task which you have
 
 194 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 resolved. To become one with the Infinite and 
 to be Eternal in a moment, — this is the true 
 Immortality of Religion " (pp. 130, 131; 133). 
 
 Here we have an interesting inconsistency 
 — an emphasis upon History as the highest 
 object of Religion, hence as the deepest action 
 of the Universe. For this emphasis, if carried 
 out, utterly shatters the entire Pantheistic 
 scheme and temper, since we have thus, not 
 the Universe, but self-conscious Spirit revealing 
 Itself, in various degrees and ways, throughout 
 the Universe, yet with the greatest fulness in 
 specifically human History. And indifference 
 to Theism, and hostility to Immortality, then 
 become impossible or affectations ; since Deter- 
 minist Laws, Mathematical Clearness, Boundless 
 Extension, Spatial Concepts cannot now be 
 accepted as the Richest known to us — the dis- 
 tinction of rich and empty being now admitted 
 to be intrinsic and fundamentally important. 
 Personality and its attainment by the soul have 
 now to be admitted as higher than all these de- 
 terminisms and their admission ; however higher, 
 in their turn, such determinisms and admission 
 may be than all mere Individuality. Under, 
 in, and through all that Determinism we now 
 find Spirit, Will, Love in operation ; and Indi- 
 vidualism can now be lost, and Personality can
 
 Religion as Sense of Sheer Dependence 195 
 
 be won, by the human spirit's abandonment of self 
 and the development of its true self; by seeking, 
 findine, willing God in and behind those inter- 
 mediate, secondary Things, Laws, and Concepts. 
 
 (2) The Glaubenslehre of 1821, 1831, has 
 made four changes, of which two are rather 
 apparent than real, and two are real, one of these 
 indeed being a pure gain. 
 
 (a) The Essence of Religion or of Piety is now 
 "that we are conscious of our unconditional 
 dependence, or (the same thing) of our relatedness 
 to God." For " every " human " self-conscious- 
 ness presupposes, besides the self, still something 
 else, without which it would not be this particular 
 self-consciousness," indeed, " not self-conscious- 
 ness at all." "The sense that we are, and that 
 we become, ourselves somehow from within, is 
 our Feeling of Freedom ; the sense that we have 
 become thus from elsewhere, still more, that we 
 could not become thus except from elsewhere, is 
 our Feeling of Dependence." A feeling of un- 
 conditional freedom is impossible. For, as an 
 activity of the self moving away out of the self, 
 freedom supposes a given object, and "such an 
 object never comes about absolutely through our 
 own activity " ; and, as an interior self-activity, 
 " our existence is never felt by us as proceeding 
 simply from such self-activity." But "a Feel-
 
 196 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 ing of Unconditional Dependence is possible, and 
 indeed is actually present in our self-consciousness, 
 which accompanies our entire self-activity and 
 our entire existence, and contradicts all absolute 
 freedom." Now " the Whence of our receptive 
 and self-active being is expressed by the term 
 God." "This Whence is not the world, in the 
 sense of the totality of temporal being, still less 
 of any one of its parts " ; " nor is this sense of 
 dependence conditioned by any previous know- 
 ledge of God." But " the feeling of unconditional 
 dependence and the consciousness of one's re- 
 latedness to God, are one and the same thing " ; 
 "consciousness of God and self-consciousness are 
 inseparable" — "God is given us in feeling, in a 
 primitive way" (Sechste Ausgabe, 1884, vol. i. 
 pp. 14-16, 18-20). 
 
 Thus the Glaubenslehre insists upon a Feeling 
 of Unconditional Dependence, whereas the Reden 
 emphasize the Intuition of the Infinite. But each 
 is doubtless conceived as involving the other. 
 And if the Feeling avoids the spatial connotation 
 which unfavourably characterized the Intuition, 
 this Feeling also appears strangely thin as an 
 analysis of the religious consciousness, since 
 there is no mention here of any sense of obli- 
 gation to God, of affinity with Him, or of eleva- 
 tion to Him.
 
 The " Glaubenslekre" still largely Spinozist 197 
 
 (d) Everywhere in the Glaubenslehre we have 
 now God ; yet the determinations concern- 
 ing Him can readily be traced back to Spinoza. 
 God is just the unity of the multiplicity which 
 appears as world ; everything is, and becomes, 
 entirely through its natural connection (since 
 each thing consists through everything), and 
 everything is and becomes entirely through the 
 Divine Omnipotence (since everything consists 
 undividedly through the One) ; and all distinc- 
 tions, attributes, and actions of God, are only such 
 in our human consciousness of God, and have no 
 foundation in the Divine Being Itself. Again, 
 the sense of Sin is simply the predominance of 
 the sensuous or sensual consciousness over the 
 divine consciousness, and the inhibition of the 
 latter by the former ; and the sense of Grace is 
 the predominance of the divine consciousness 
 over the sensuous or sensual consciousness, and 
 the liberation of the former from the latter : thus 
 Sin is not here a contradiction of the spiritual law 
 within the mind itself. And Prayer, indeed the 
 soul's entire doings, affect only itself, not God in 
 any way. We have thus still a predominantly 
 Pantheistic doctrine and temper, as to God and 
 Sin and Prayer. 
 
 (c) Instead of, as in the Reden, an endless, 
 simultaneous and successive, qualitatively equal
 
 198 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 yet immensely diverse, self- differentiation of 
 religion, we now get Christ and Christianity as 
 enclosing, within their past and future experience 
 and development, the entire and final culmination 
 of all religion. Indeed, Schleiermacher here 
 goes even beyond average orthodoxy, and insists 
 upon the Johannine picture as so entirely 
 historical and an eye-witness's testimony, and, 
 generally, upon so intense a Christocentrism, as 
 to prepare acute collisions with Biblical Criticism 
 and with the patent presence of various lights and 
 graces in the Old Testament and in the different 
 ethnic religions and spiritual philosophies. 
 
 (d) And instead of basing all religion upon 
 the individual consciousness, he now finds the 
 root of religion in the experience of the religious 
 community, whence his high estimate of Church 
 life. This fourth change gives now an im- 
 mensely heightened cogency and breadth to 
 Schleiermacher's appeal to experience, and only 
 requires to be combined with genuinely Theistic 
 conceptions as to the first two points, and with 
 a less Christocentric position as to the third, in 
 order to show forth its profound fruitfulness. 1 
 
 1 W. Dilthey's Leben Schleiermacher's, 1870, vol. i., unfor- 
 tunately reaching only to 1802, is a most brilliant, indeed exquisite, 
 presentation of the very soul of Schleiermacher's life. See 
 especially pp. 78-87, 365-377, 377-413. Mostly very sensible 
 criticism of Schleiermacher can be found in O. Pfleiderer's Ent- 
 wicklwtg der Protestantischen Theologie, 1891, pp. 42-53, 102-120.
 
 Troeltsch : Religion's Tension and Polarity 199 
 
 Professor Ernst Troeltsch considers himself as 
 largely a successor of Schleiermacher ; yet it is 
 impossible not to realize (in face of the abiding 
 forces and necessities of religion and of life, and 
 of the extraordinary extension and precision of 
 documentary evidence, historical criticism, and of 
 psychological and epistemological analysis since 
 Schleiermacher's day) the great superiority of 
 Troeltsch. For here we get a sensitive richness 
 in the apprehension and analysis of the religious 
 experience, — this experience ever here possess- 
 ing a double polarity, — of other-worldliness and 
 detachment, and of this-worldliness and attach- 
 ment ; a courageous persistence of the Onto- 
 logical, Theistic sense ; a continuous remem- 
 brance that God's Spirit works also outside of 
 Christendom (even though we find here but an 
 imperfect insight into the finer special gifts of 
 Catholic Christianity) ; and a strenuous insight 
 into the abiding need of association and external 
 worship for a vigorous religious life. 
 
 Such a profound declaration as the following 
 directly concerns Eternal Life : "The formula for 
 the specific nature of Christianity cannot fail to 
 be complex " ; it will be but " the special Christian 
 form," articulation and correction, "of the funda- 
 mental thoughts concerning God, World, Man, 
 Redemption, which are found existing together,"
 
 200 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 with indefinite variations of fulness and worth, 
 "in all the religions. And the tension present in 
 this multiplicity of elements is of an importance 
 equal to that of the multiplicity itself ; indeed in 
 this tension resides the main driving-force of 
 Religion. Christianity," in particular, " resembles, 
 not a circle with one centre, but an ellipse with 
 two focuses. It is" unchangeably "an Ethic of 
 Redemption, with a conception of the world both 
 optimistic and pessimistic, both transcendental 
 and immanental, and an apprehension both of a 
 severe antagonism, and of a close interior union, 
 between the world and God. Neither of these 
 poles may be completely absent, if the Christian 
 outlook is to be maintained. Yet the original 
 germ of the whole vast growth and movement 
 ever remains an intensely, abruptly Transcendental 
 Ethic, and can never simply pass over into a purely 
 Immanental Ethic. And the importance of that 
 classical beginning ever consists in continually call- 
 ing back the human heart, away from all Culture 
 and Immanence, to that which lies above both." 1 
 
 1 "Was heisst Wesen der Christenthums?" Christliche Welt, 
 1903, i. coll. 583, 584. Troeltsch's fullest work so far is his "Die 
 Selbstandigkeit der Religion " (Zeitschrift f. Theologie u. Kirche, 
 1895, 1896); "Geschichte u. Metaphysik" {ibid. 1898); the as- 
 tonishingly rich and vivid " Protestantisches Christenthum u. Kirche 
 in der Neuzeit" (Kultur der Gegeiiivart : "Geschichte der Christ- 
 lichen Religion," 2nded. 1909) ; and his very lengthy but profound 
 £>ie Soziallehren der Christ lichen Kirche n, 191 2,
 
 Hegel profoundly influenced by Sc helling 201 
 
 3. Gcorg W. F. Hegel, born at Stuttgart in 
 1770, the son of a Government official, studied at 
 Tubingen University 1788-93, was Lecturer 
 in Jena University, 1 801-3, and Professor, first 
 in Heidelberg, 1816-18, and then in Berlin up 
 to his death in 1831. 
 
 The all-important influence in Hegel's life was 
 doubtless that of Schelling (1775-1854), in the 
 direction of the latter's Identity - Philosophy, 
 especially whilst the two men were together at 
 Tubingen and at Jena. Thus, in his Disserta- 
 tion " On the Difference between Fichte's and 
 Schelling's Philosophical Systems," Hegel declares : 
 " In philosophy the reason recognizes, and deals 
 with, its own self alone " ; "the essence of know- 
 ledge consists in the Identity of the Given under 
 the two forms of Thought and of Being " ; and 
 " the principle of all genuine speculation, the 
 Identity of Subject and Object," has been "ex- 
 pressed, with all clearness, in Kant's deduction 
 of the forms of the understanding." 
 
 Gradually, from 1803 onwards, a sense of 
 acute difference from Schelling arose in Hegel's 
 mind, and, from the publication of the Pheno- 
 menology of the Spirit in 1806, Schelling looked 
 upon Hegel as his antagonist. Hegel indeed 
 insists, most freshly in this amazingly rich 
 Phenomenology, but most fully in his longer
 
 202 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Logic, 1818, 1 83 1, upon a principle directly 
 opposite to the fundamental position of the 
 Identity- Philosophy. Yet, already here, and still 
 more in his later works, he is in part (more or 
 less unconsciously) inclined to and haunted by, 
 in part (deliberately) committed to, other two 
 positions which undoubtedly belong to the 
 Identity-Philosophy, and have no satisfactory 
 place within Hegel's own anti-identity principle. 
 Certainly the principle allows, and as certainly 
 the positions refuse, room and expression for the 
 experiences of vital religion, and especially of 
 Eternal Life. 1 
 
 (1) Hegel's profoundly rich, immensely ap- 
 plicable principle is that "the True" (Reality) 
 "is to be apprehended, not as Substance, but 
 as Subject"; God is self-conscious; and "since 
 Form is as essential to Being as is Being itself, 
 the Absolute must be conceived equally as Form, 
 indeed as possessing the full richness of the de- 
 veloped Form ; only thus is it apprehended as 
 Real." " The True is real only as System " ; " the 
 Absolute is Spirit, Self-subsistent, the Definite ; 
 It is For-Itself, is Its own Object; It knows 
 Itself" (Phaenomenologie, ed. 1907, pp. 12, 13, 
 
 17). 
 
 1 For Hegel's early writings and publications, see G. Lasson's 
 interesting introduction to the Phaenomenologie des Geistes, ed. 
 1907, especially pp. lxiv, lxy.
 
 Hegel doubly contradicts Himself 203 
 
 All this directly traverses the Identity- 
 Philosophy, which "takes monotony and abstract 
 universality for the Absolute," and " holds the 
 dissolution of the discriminated and determined 
 to be the true mode of speculation. In such an 
 Absolute, A = A, we have the night in which ' all 
 cows are black' " {ibid. p. 12). 
 
 And then Hegel undertakes a systematic survey 
 and comparison of the fundamental Categories of 
 the human mind, studying them simply from 
 within and trusting them all equally, without 
 Kant's hopeless attempt to get outside the mind 
 and to discriminate between objectively true and 
 only regulatively useful categories. And he takes 
 the Categories in the order from the emptiest, 
 least real and least " true," to the fullest, most 
 real and "most true," — from bare Consciousness 
 (in the Logic, indeed, from bare Being) right on 
 to Spirit, in Religion. (The culmination in 
 Absolute Spirit and Absolute Knowledge does 
 not belong to this principle.) 
 
 Now so far, with Hegel's deep sense here of 
 the Concrete, of History, of Inner Experience 
 and Personality, we are on bed-rock ; and such 
 a systematic survey of the Categories allows us to 
 realize clearly their varying fulness and worth — 
 some are " truer," i.e. more adequate to the deeper 
 and deepest Realities. And thus we are preserved
 
 204 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 from conceiving God simply as Being or Infinite 
 Substance, or as the First Mover or even the 
 First Cause ; for, though we cannot indeed 
 adequately know God, we have richer, deeper 
 categories than those, hence we know that God is 
 more than those emptier concepts and that He is 
 at least all that our fullest categories carry with 
 them. We thus, here as everywhere, deliberately 
 resist all artificial simplification of Reality by its 
 reduction to simpler categories — all omission of 
 essential features whilst claiming to express the 
 whole truth. 
 
 And this settles the question of Anthropo- 
 morphism, since we here see that we cannot 
 but be nearer to, not further from, an adequate 
 apprehension of God, by conceiving Him as 
 distinct, self-subsistent, self-conscious, than by 
 eliminating all such attributes. We remain 
 certain indeed that He possesses these character- 
 istics in a degree and manner indefinitely superior 
 to our own ; somewhat as, in the opposite direction, 
 we are sure that animals, and indeed plants, possess 
 a consciousness or vitality not all unlike to, yet 
 very different from, our own. In both cases, as 
 everywhere, we apprehend and elucidate in and 
 through what we are ourselves ; yet now we do 
 so, very deliberately, by the highest that we are 
 and know. And if the world in which we find
 
 A Critical Anthropomorphism Mans Limit 205 
 
 ourselves is inter-connected, and if philosophy is 
 essentially an understanding of the less known 
 and the lower (as far as this is possible) by the best 
 known to, and the highest experienced by, the 
 philosopher, such a procedure cannot fail to leave 
 us, or to put us, in touch with reality, and to be 
 truly philosophical. We can in no case escape 
 Anthropomorphism ; but by this procedure we 
 can and do escape an uncritical Anthropomorph- 
 ism, and a superfine and unconscious, hence quite 
 unchecked, Anthropomorphism, indeed Mythology, 
 such as we shall find in the huge mythical con- 
 structions of the Hegelians of the Left. 
 
 Indeed, also outside of Philosophy, the evidences 
 and motives for such a critical Anthropomorph- 
 ism are great and insistent. Certainly Religion, in 
 its most articulate utterances, is profoundly, at its 
 best nobly, anthropomorphic ; and the cheery con- 
 tempt for this evidence, if taken as in any way 
 testifying to a corresponding distinct Reality, 
 which is still so largely prevalent amongst cultured 
 West Europeans, cannot be reason's last word. 
 And the ethical, practical necessities of man, at 
 his deepest, press strongly in the same direction. 
 For it remains, in the long-run, impossible for 
 man to accept, to act in accordance with, to 
 abandon himself to, a world and a power, as the 
 very ground, home, and end of his being, and as
 
 206 Eternal Life: Contemporary Stirvey 
 
 rightfully claiming the most difficult virtues and 
 heroisms, if he sees it to be no more than, indeed 
 to be a mere abstraction formed by, himself; and 
 impossible for him not to note that mere " Being," 
 " Substance," " Totality," " Law," " Life," " Evo- 
 lution," are all in this case. 
 
 In truth, even if all the evidences of other facts 
 and experiences were to rule out the satisfaction 
 of these our requirements, full sincerity would still 
 demand our admission that our requirements, hence 
 these our human facts and experiences, are truly 
 of the kind described. Those abstractions and 
 half-truths doubtless derive such persuasiveness 
 and power as they possess, either from the still per- 
 sisting (though unperceived) influence of the old, 
 rich Theistic convictions; or from the clearness, 
 and the fruitfulness in other — the Mathematical 
 and Physical — fields, of such abstractions; or, lastly, 
 from a most understandable yet excessive (possibly 
 an all but unconscious) fear of, and reaction 
 against, the dangers and abuses apparently in- 
 separable from Theism and Institutional Religion. 
 Our sections on Schopenhauer, Darwin, and 
 Institutional Religion will respectively consider 
 these points. 1 
 
 (2) But from such a logical development of his 
 
 1 See, in Prof. A. Seth's Hegelia7iism and Personality, ed. 1893, 
 the admirable pages 73~78 ; S4-94 ; 103, 104 ; 235.
 
 Hegel identifies Thinking and Reality 207 
 
 own fundamental anti-identity principle, Hegel is 
 prevented by his other two, almost as fundamental, 
 positions. And by these two positions, taken 
 in their full destructiveness of that principle, 
 Hegel, doubtless much against his prevailing 
 intention, became shortly after his death 
 (through the ablest of his followers, the Hegelians 
 of the Left) one of the fountain-heads of the 
 indifference, hostility, and contempt, so largely 
 extant against the entire Theistic tradition and 
 evidences. 
 
 (a) We have, first, the Identity of Thinking 
 and Reality, — the transformation of Logic into 
 Metaphysic, of the analysis of the categories 
 immanent to the human mind into an exhibition 
 of the forces productive and constitutive of the real 
 Universe. Thus Hegel is, indeed, aware, even to 
 contemptuousness, of the artificial (i.e. abstractive) 
 origin, and of the poverty of content, of such con- 
 cepts as " Pure Being." Yet throughout the 
 examination and comparison of all the categories 
 (instituted for the very purpose of giving us a full 
 sureness in the use of the richer categories for the 
 explanation of the poorer, and in resistance to all 
 inversion of this procedure) he is also haunted by 
 what (even according to this, his root-principle 
 and motive) is a delusion, and destructive of that 
 principle. For in his practice he comes to hold
 
 208 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 that the richer categories are explained by, are 
 even caused by, a combination of the poorer, — 
 indeed that this world of the categories, which is 
 (in varying degrees) ever abstract, secondary, and 
 instrumental, itself apprehends and penetrates, 
 indeed creates, even is, the Real World. 
 
 When in this mood, he thinks himself deter- 
 mined solely by " the coldly progressing necessity 
 of the subject-matter itself"; "the difference 
 between the philosophical systems " appears here 
 as "the progressive development of the Truth, 
 of Reality, itself" (Pkaenomenologie, ed. 1907, 
 pp. 7, 4). And thus step by step the Dialectic is 
 and becomes something in itself alive, in itself 
 productive of "Truth," of Reality. Yet Trend- 
 elenburg has fully shown how the notions of this 
 logic are but the instruments of daily thought, 
 ranged in the inverse order of their richness and 
 
 o 
 
 adequacy ; how the earlier, more abstract notions 
 here seem to live, and to insist upon their own 
 growth by the incorporation of their "contradic- 
 tory," simply because the man who thinks them is 
 aware of their abstract (i.e. artificial) character, and 
 strives to regain for them their natural complements ; 
 and finally how these complements are not (as 
 Hegel describes them) logical contradictories, but 
 real contraries, determinations of, and within, the 
 organism of the real thing. For example, "Pure
 
 He unconsciously transforms Logic into Reality 209 
 
 Being, ever self-identical, is rest ; Nothing, also 
 ever self-identical, is also rest. Out of these 
 admitted abstractions it is impossible that Becom- 
 ing shall suddenly arise, this concrete perception, 
 which presides over life and death." 1 
 
 Indeed, Hegel himself admits that "every begin- 
 ning has to be made with the Absolute, and all 
 advance is but its exposition " ; " the movement 
 forward is a movement backward to the Ground of 
 the whole, to the Original and the True," the Real, 
 "on which depends our beginning" (" Logik," 
 Werke, v. 334, iii. 64). Nevertheless, the logical 
 abstractions and successions imperceptibly become 
 living forces, productive of, indeed the constituents 
 of, the concrete realities and simultaneities of which 
 they were admittedly but the pale shadows and 
 ever partial generalizations. Thus "the Ethical 
 World, the World torn asunder into a Here and 
 a Beyond, and the Moral conception of the World 
 are the spirits whose ' outward ' movement and 
 ' inward ' return develop into the simple life 
 lived for Itself by the Spirit" {Phaenomenologie, 
 ed. 1907, p. 287). And the "Logic" concludes 
 with the transition from thought to Reality as 
 follows: "The Absolute Idea," the highest 
 category, "is still only logical. But inasmuch as 
 
 1 A. Trendelenburg, Logische Forschungen, ed. 1870, vol. i. 
 p. 38 ; A. Seth, op. cit. pp. 95-100. 
 
 14
 
 210 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 the pure idea of knowledge is thus still shut up 
 in" a kind of "subjectivity, it is so much impul- 
 sion to remove this limitation ; and thus the pure 
 truth becomes, in its last result, also the beginning 
 of another sphere and science. The Idea, by 
 taking itself as the absolute unity of the pure 
 notion and its reality, hence by concentrating 
 itself {sick zusammennimmt) immediately into 
 Being, is, in the Totality of this form, Nature. 
 This determination of itself is not, however, a 
 process of becoming or a transition," such as the 
 "Locqc" has hitherto described. "Rather the 
 Idea freely lets itself go, absolutely sure of itself, 
 and at rest within itself." And " on account of 
 this freedom, the form of its determination is like- 
 wise unconditionally free — namely, the externality 
 of space and time, extant absolutely for itself 
 without subjectivity." We have here "the 
 resolve of the Pure Idea to determine itself as 
 External Idea" (Logik, v. 352, 353; and Seth, 
 op. cit. pp. 1 1 1— 1 13). 
 
 We cannot, however, thus jump from Logic 
 to Reality, and deduce Reality from Logic ; and 
 yet those critics and disciples of Hegel are, surely, 
 right, who take such production of concrete ex- 
 istence by sheer thinking without a thinker, as 
 an essential element of Hegel's (thus profoundly 
 inconsistent) system. Face to face with such
 
 Human and Absolute Reason identified 1 1 1 
 
 amazing mythology we can but exclaim, with the 
 ex- Hegelian Professor Pringle Pattison : " No 
 sophistry can permanently obscure our perception 
 that the real must be given. Thought cannot 
 make it ; thought only describes what it finds " 
 (ibid. pp. 125, 127). 
 
 (b) Hegel has, however, a still ampler identity 
 — that of the human and of the Absolute Reason 
 and Consciousness. Here again we can trace 
 largely opposite intentions. Thus in the " Phe- 
 nomenology " and in the 4< Logic " his funda- 
 mental object is to trace the concomitance of 
 richness of content and of degree of "truth" 
 (correspondence to reality) in the various cate- 
 gories successively described ; but the descriptions 
 of the elements, as though so many stages 
 within these categories, are not originally in- 
 tended for necessarily more than logically ordered 
 analyses of the, presumably simultaneous, mental 
 constituents of these mental conceptions. And 
 we know how severe is Hegel's criticism of 
 Fichte for not possessing somewhere an Absolute 
 above all temporal flux and succession. 
 
 Yet, hand in hand with his hypostatizing of the 
 categories, Hegel rapidly comes to treat the 
 systematic analyses of these categories as so 
 many historic accounts ; and since Thinking 
 now not only apprehends but produces Reality,
 
 212 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 and since the more general, shallower stages 
 of thinking produce the higher and fuller, 
 Thinking in general produces Absolute Think- 
 ing, and such Absolute Thinking produces 
 the Absolute Reality. On looking back, this 
 Absolute Reality is, in a sense, found to have 
 been present from the first ; yet Absolute 
 Idea, Absolute Spirit, God, and human reason 
 and spirit, and Reason and Spirit generally, 
 are (at any of their corresponding stages) ever 
 one and the same. And since Hegel's sense 
 of the importance of History for man is admirably 
 strong, he makes even premature and over- 
 ambitious attempts to take the successive stages 
 of human history as so many manifestations of 
 those categories of the human mind, and thus as 
 so many tests of their respective " truth." Indeed, 
 the very range and slowness of such an immense, 
 assumedly necessary, foretellable evolution further 
 helps him to identify this continuous growth in 
 richness of content with the self-explication, the 
 attainment to full consciousness, of the Absolute 
 Itself. 
 
 Thus Hegel can say : " The living Substance 
 is truly real, only in so far as it is, not an original 
 unity as such, but a division of the simple, and 
 again the negation of this difference — a Becoming 
 of Itself, a Circle which presupposes, and begins
 
 The Neo-Platonist Circle in Hegel 2 1 3 
 
 with, its end as its aim, and which is real only 
 by the execution and its end " {Phaenomen- 
 ologie, ed. cit. p. 13). We have here a kind 
 of Neo-Platonist treble movement ; and such a 
 Self-Consciousness could, so far (if taken as 
 unlimited in range and as complete and non- 
 successive "from the first", i.e. as an Eternal 
 Present), be well attributed to God, and to God 
 alone. But the identification of the Absolute 
 Reason and Consciousness with the admittedly 
 historical, temporal doings, sufferings, and growth 
 of mankind is here nearly complete. "The Life 
 and Knowledge of God may doubtless be ex- 
 pressed as Love's playing with Itself ; but this idea 
 sinks to triviality, if the seriousness, the pain, the 
 patience, the labour of the Negative are absent 
 therefrom. In Itself that life may well be the 
 untroubled equality and union with Itself, Which 
 has no serious concern with being other and 
 overcoming such otherness. But such In Itself 
 is but the abstract generality, in which we have 
 ignored that Life's nature — of being For Itself, 
 and, therewith, the Self- Movement of the Form." 
 All " existent Reality is movement and developed 
 becoming ; precisely this unrest constitutes the 
 Self" (Phaenomenologie, ed. cit. pp. 14, 15). 
 
 Yet even Hegel does not venture entirely 
 to carry our poor chequered human history into
 
 214 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 God, nor to bring God directly into all this our 
 human happening and doing. In the Philo- 
 sophy of Religion he does, indeed, outline an 
 identification of his Neo-Platonist treble move- 
 ment of all reality with the three Persons of 
 the Christian Trinity ; yet he does not dare 
 to take our actual and complete human history as 
 the simple self-expression of the Son. In the 
 History of Philosophy the Absolute Spirit is 
 both in time and out of time, hence evolving 
 slowly in time! "As to the slowness of this 
 World- Spirit" in "achieving for itself a philo- 
 sophy," let us remember that it has no need to 
 hurry, "'a thousand years are before Thee as 
 one day ' ; it has time enough, precisely because 
 it is out of time, because eternal " ( Werke, 
 vol. xiii. p. 49). And, in the Philosophy of 
 Law, the Preface (Berlin, 1820) even angrily 
 insists upon the immediately divine character 
 and work of and within the Prussian State as 
 then and there extant. " Philosophy, as the 
 penetration of the Rational, is, already therewith, 
 a comprehension of the Present and Actual, and 
 not the putting up of a Beyond supposed to be 
 God alone knows where." "The Rational is 
 the Real ; and the Real is the Rational." Indeed, 
 " those who live in the reality of the State, and 
 find their knowledge and their will satisfied therein,
 
 Excesses tempered by Inconsistencies 215 
 
 are, at bottom, all men"; and "the Germanic 
 monarchy" brings "the turning-point, the in- 
 finite positiveness of the Substantial," the Absolute, 
 " Spirit "( Werke, vol. viii. ed. 1854, pp. 16, 17; 
 9; 428, 431). Yet Hegel thereupon promptly 
 attempts to restrict philosophy to " the recognition, 
 within the appearances of the temporal and 
 transitory, of the Substance and the Eternal, there 
 immanent and present." And as to the crucial 
 point — how to discriminate between the two, this is 
 haughtily waved aside : " The infinitely manifold 
 circumstances, formed in this externality through 
 the irradiation of the Substance, — this infinite 
 material and its regulation, — are no subject-matter 
 of Philosophy " {ibid. p. 17). Yet, surely, they are 
 the subject-matter of an Absolute Philosophy. 
 
 The Hegelian system, indeed, in all its parts, 
 presupposes, and culminates in, Absolute Know- 
 ledge, equivalent to Absolute Reality's Absolute 
 Self- Consciousness. Religion is everywhere 
 the penultimate, never the ultimate, end and 
 standard of man. The end, as in Eckhart, 
 is "the Spirit's Self-Knowledge in its pure, 
 transparent Unity — not simply the contemplation 
 of the Divine, but the Divine's own Self-Con- 
 templation." "Truth," Reality, "is here not only 
 completely coextensive with" the mind's "certainty, 
 but truth exists here in the form of certainty
 
 216 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 peculiarly its own — it exists, for the knowing spirit, 
 in the form of this spirit's own self-knowledge." 
 " But this Spirit consists in its Becoming what it 
 is from the first in Itself; and only this Becom- 
 ing, in its reflection in Itself, is" (in full truth 
 or reality) " Spirit." " Not then till the World- 
 Spirit is complete in Itself can it attain com- 
 pleteness as Self-Conscious Spirit"; and "Com- 
 prehended History forms both the memorial and 
 the calvary of the Absolute Spirit, — that without 
 which It would be Lifeless Solitude" (Pkaeno- 
 menologie, ed. cit. pp. 511, 514, 516, 521). 
 
 Here, as practically everywhere in Hegel, we 
 have what, I take it, both life and thought per- 
 sistently prove to be a dangerous identification 
 of two very distinct and largely different things. 
 There is a magnificent sense of the fundamental 
 importance of History for man ; of the mysterious 
 presence and necessity of a negative, self-re- 
 nouncing element and movement ; of the Christian 
 "dying to live," throughout such history; and 
 of the presence, within this durational history, 
 of a Concrete Reality, giving to this history 
 its full worth and an abiding, indeed Eternal, 
 meaning. And there is everywhere more or 
 less an assumption, and sometimes a formal 
 affirmation, that this history, this "dying to live," 
 and this presence so profoundly necessary for us
 
 The One Consciousnessruins Hegel 's Philosophy 2 1 J 
 
 men, are as truly, directly, simply, indeed in the 
 same sense necessary elements in the life (con- 
 sidered here as a development) of the Absolute, 
 of God, as they are in man. 
 
 And thus here, at the end, we also find quite 
 an accumulation of incompatibilities. Especially 
 this : that a Completed Self-Consciousness was 
 to be the centre, the measure, and the moving 
 and directing force of the entire process ; but 
 now this Completed Self-Consciousness, sup- 
 posed to be the prius and cause, is seen 
 really to be the posteriits and effect, of all this 
 history. And such contradictions cannot here 
 be taken simply as indications that the Reality 
 sought after is more than our thought can com- 
 prehend. For here we have an Absolute System ; 
 we think the Absolute, because we are the 
 Absolute — we but analyse what we are. Yet 
 Self-Consciousness is nothing without Personality ; 
 and what gave Berkeley, Kant, Fichte their 
 passion and momentum was precisely the main- 
 tenance and development of Personality, as 
 against its dissolution by Materialism and 
 Scepticism. But Hegel begins with the pro- 
 duction, by mere categories of thinking, of 
 Self-Consciousness and Personality ; and he ends 
 with an extension of the Self-Consciousness, 
 thus strangely conjured out of an abstraction,
 
 2i8 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 into the widest and most ambitious, but again 
 the thinnest and most unworkable, of categories. 
 From abstraction, through the richest and most 
 costly of Concretions, on to, indeed back into, 
 abstraction — is such a Wheel of Generation 
 reasonable and worth its terrible expense ? 
 Does such a scheme correspond to the deepest 
 of Hegel's own convictions, to what is really 
 impelling him, and us, to our divine unrest ? 
 We take it, decidedly not. 1 
 
 (3) Probably the most impressive re-inter- 
 pretation presented, in a predominantly positive 
 direction and in entire lives and characters, since 
 Hegel's death, of Hegel's doctrine, has been 
 
 1 The excellent analyses and criticisms in Andrew Seth's 
 Hegelianism and Personality, ed. 1893, PP- 188-193, I 99~ 2 °3> 
 have, after careful study of Hegel's texts, been accepted above, 
 except where Seth appears to the writer to fall into certain 
 contrary extremes. Thus Seth declares : "In religion we are 
 altogether on human ground " (p. 204). Yet religion's very errors 
 postulate, we think, a dim but most real experience of that 
 intensely actual and operative, prevenient Infinite Spirit to which 
 those stammerings are the utterly inadequate response. And 
 again Seth says : " The only sense which the term ' eternal ' can 
 bear to us," even with reference to the Divine Being, "is the 
 abidance or persistence of the Ego through time" (p. 236, n.). 
 Yet the Simultaneity of God, as against the Duration (the 
 approximation to simultaneity) of Man, seems to the writer to 
 be simply necessary in explanation and defence of the deepest 
 experiences of the soul. But Professor A. S. Pringle Pattison 
 himself appears fully to have outgrown both these positions in his 
 admirable later writings — Theism, 1897, and "Martineau's Philo- 
 sophy," in The Philosophical Radicals, 1907.
 
 Green, Nettleship, the two Cairds 219 
 
 effected in England ; especially by Thomas Hill 
 Green (1836- 1882) and R. Lezvis Nettleship 
 (1846- 1 89 2) at Oxford, and by the brothers 
 John Caird (1 820-1 898) and Edward Caird 
 (1835-1908) at Glasgow and Oxford. All who 
 ever had the honour of learning much from, or 
 of personal intercourse with, any of these rarely 
 noble, spiritually sensitive, critically trained men, 
 could not but feel how much Hegel was to them ; 
 yet also how much their specifically English and 
 Scotch antecedents and characteristics had brought 
 of sobriety, and of sense concerning life's diffi- 
 culties and of man's limitations, to this their 
 Hegelianism. The nobly moving Memoirs of 
 Green, Nettleship, and John Caird, respectively 
 by Nettleship, A. C. Bradley, and Edward Caird, 
 exhibit, in their authors as well as in their heroes, 
 Hegel's continuous search of the whole in every 
 part of life and thought, and of parts in every 
 whole ; his profound respect for history, and con- 
 tinuous search for an orderly evolution of truth 
 within and through it ; and his deeply spiritual 
 sense of man's continuous need of "dying to 
 live " ; and they do so with a massively impress- 
 ive measure and reticence. And such work as 
 Green's Prolegomena to Ethics, Nettleship's 
 Letters, John Caird's University Sermons, and 
 Edward Caird's book on Comte, much of his
 
 220 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, 
 his paper, Christianity and the Historic Christ 
 (1897), and several of his Lay Sermons, bring 
 home to us still further the fine spiritual insight 
 and wide outlook of these devoted men. 
 
 And yet the influence of Hegel, or indeed of 
 Idealism generally, was, surely, not simply bene- 
 ficent even here. For man's life is, after all, 
 throughout its marvellous range (hence inclusively 
 of the supply of materials for his thinking and of 
 the very actuation of his consciousness and self- 
 consciousness, and thus also of the awakenino- 
 and persistence of his religious sense) profoundly 
 dependent, not simply upon the activity and cate- 
 gories of his reason, but on the stimulation of his 
 senses, on the action upon him, upon his body, of 
 the material world. And the Infinite Mind and 
 Spirit must be taken as somehow causing, and to 
 be in some degree traceable by our minds within, 
 what is lower than these our minds; indeed, 
 we shall never vividly apprehend that Spirit 
 as real, distinct from, and higher than, our own, 
 unless we allow realities distinct from, and 
 inferior to, these our own minds. Be superfine 
 at this lower end, and you will, in the long-run, 
 be sceptical or monistic at that upper end, of 
 your mind's range and informations. 
 
 And, after all, religion, in its most articulate and
 
 Their Specific Strength and Weakness 221 
 
 spontaneous utterances, is not directly a search for, 
 or presentation of, the Whole ; still less a finding of 
 man's own mind, or of mind in general, within or 
 as that Whole ; nor a striving after self-realization ; 
 nor a sense that nothing really matters, except 
 as merely out of place, or only for a time. 
 But religion is, in such utterances, a sense, a love, 
 an adoration, by spirits, conscious of their own 
 distinctness and reality, of an Infinite Self-Con- 
 scious Spirit, a Reality distinct from and prior to 
 themselves, though their original, infinitely pene- 
 trative, source ; a seeking of conformity by these 
 real minds and wills with that Real Spirit ; and 
 a consciousness of, a contrition for, Sin — a sense 
 of the intrinsic difference between, and of the 
 variously abiding results producible by, right and 
 wrong volition and character-building. Especially 
 is Green's elaborate hypostatizing of that abstrac- 
 tion, " consciousness in general," unsatisfactory ; 
 for thus neither God nor man is a complete 
 whole — there is nowhere a full self-consciousness 
 or personality. 
 
 And again, does their philosophy, as distinct 
 from their lives, not merely allow, but insistently 
 require, Institutional Religion as, after all, in 
 possession, as the irreplaceable means of a special 
 vigour and concreteness, and as furnishing that 
 bond of socially spiritual intercommunion with
 
 222 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 our fellows, of higher and lower social and edu- 
 cational grades than our own, which is so profound 
 a need for the fullest health of philosopher as 
 of peasant ? I think, it does not do so. 
 
 And finally, life, after all, at its deepest, 
 is a stretching out of faith and love to God 
 into the dark. Philosophy ends, surely, with 
 certain desiderata and possibilities, which religion 
 meets, exceeds, traverses, re-states ; and religion 
 is a circle of experience, possessed of its own 
 character, contents, and conditions, which, as 
 man's first and last and deepest experience, will 
 indeed greatly exceed philosophy in richness 
 but fall short of it in direct clearness and 
 detailed articulation. Whereas these writers, qua 
 Hegelians, give us, in and through philosophy, 
 already the substance of what we get in religion ; 
 both these variants of the final lieht and word 
 here are (seeing we are dealing with finite man's 
 ultimate apprehensions of the Infinite) astonish- 
 ingly clear and complete ; and indeed, clearness 
 and completeness being here the dominant, 
 determining, character, philosophy cannot escape 
 from being held the " truer," because the clearer 
 and completer, form of outlook. And yet how 
 can philosophy, or such a philosophy, be man's 
 ultimate faith, an outlook that ignores or minimizes 
 temptation, doubt, sin ; that knows so little of
 
 /. E. M'Taggart: his Peculiar Combinations 223 
 
 the homeliness alone truly appropriate to man, 
 the created and the weak ; that is not centrally 
 love seeking and finding Love in trial and in 
 darkness? Gethsemane and Calvary, are they 
 truly, fully here? 1 
 
 (4) Dr. J. E. M'Taggarfs positions as to 
 Eternal Life have special interest in that they 
 proceed from a mind which (in spite of its 
 intense conviction of the unique importance and 
 strict duty of Metaphysics and of consistency in 
 general, and of the all-round truth of Hegel's 
 main positions in particular) is still largely domi- 
 nated by certain conceptions, and by the temper 
 of mind, of the Enlightenment. Thus the cate- 
 gory, not of Self-Consciousness but of Substance, 
 is supreme at the critical points ; all Theism is 
 contemptuously dismissed, but a cheerful tolera- 
 tion is extended to a semi-modernized Deism ; 
 a family of interdependent (eternal but finite) 
 spirits are finally taken as the true determinations 
 and sole constituents of the Absolute, yet with an 
 inevitable discontinuity in their self-consciousness ; 
 and finally, a very careful, largely original appre- 
 hension of the nature and inter-relations of Time 
 and Eternity appears to fail, towards the end, 
 
 1 For Green's " Consciousness in General," see Andrew Seth's 
 Jlegelia7usm and Persoiiality, pp. 13-38.
 
 224 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 simply through the Hegelian refusal to allow 
 more than one (the simply human) centre and kind 
 of consciousness. 
 
 (a) Dr. M'Taggart, then, impressively insists 
 that "all other questions are abstract, as com- 
 pared with metaphysical problems ; and most, as 
 compared with these, are unpractical. It will 
 depend on our metaphysical beliefs whether we 
 can regard the troubles of the present, and the 
 uncertainties of the future, with the feelings of a 
 mouse towards a cat, or of a child towards its 
 father." " The world of our empirical knowledge 
 is probably less capable of satisfying us than it 
 used to be, for though it has doubtless improved, 
 it has not kept pace with our increasing demands 
 for improvement" (Some Dogmas of Religion, 
 1906, pp. 32, 33). And Religion is declared 
 rightly to insist upon Metaphysics, and Dogma 
 to be essentially distinct from morality, and to 
 rest, as a minimum, on the conviction that " the 
 universe is good on the whole" (pp. 1-32, 11). 
 
 And "the self is not a mere delusion, nor a 
 mere collection of adjectives referring to no sub- 
 stance except the Absolute. It is substance 
 existing in its own right. In the identity of the 
 substance lies, it seems to me, the personal 
 identity" (Shidies in Hegelian Cosmology, 
 1901, pp. 36, 2>7)- The conception of a non-
 
 M'Taggart Mquires a Perfect Community 225 
 
 omnipotent, non-creative God, " a person of 
 appreciable importance as against the whole 
 universe," is, in contrast with Theistic convictions, 
 treated as worthy of serious consideration. "If 
 we make God less than a creator, we make it 
 possible that He should be a person and that He 
 should be good. It is sufficiently certain that 
 His wisdom and power would excel our own" 
 {S. D. of R. p. 258). Yet there is no need 
 even of such a God if (as indeed it does) " reality 
 consists in a system of selves." " The perfect 
 community is the true kingdom of the spirit. 
 God, if represented adequately, is a community. 
 A perfect community may be as complete a unity 
 as any person. But a community cannot be a 
 person ; and the fact that it is a perfect community 
 and a perfect unity does not make it at all more 
 possible for it to be a person " (S. D. of R. p. 247 ; 
 H.C. p. 210). 
 
 Immortality is considered to require coupling 
 with Pre-Existence. " It is," indeed, " certain that 
 in this life we remember no previous lives." Yet 
 " exact similarity of attributes is always sufficient 
 to prove personal identity." For "if the same 
 self passes through '" several " lives, any change 
 happening to it any time must affect its state," 
 directly or indirectly, " in all future time " ; and 
 this is enough " to make the identity between 
 15
 
 226 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 the different lives real," — " in spite of the loss of 
 memory, it is the same person who lives in the 
 successive lives" (S. D. of R. pp. 130, 129, 
 128, 130). 
 
 And as to Time : " I cannot regard the ques- 
 tion of unending existence with the contempt 
 with which it is sometimes treated." Now, "in 
 so far as substances and events are real at all, 
 they exist." But, though " whatever is temporal 
 exists" (Lotze indeed considers that "time 
 is an essential characteristic of existence"), Dr. 
 M'Taggart holds that also "timeless existence is 
 possible " — " to exist and to be in time," he 
 strikingly insists, " seem to me two characteristics, 
 each quite distinct from the other " (" Relations of 
 Time and Eternity," University of California 
 Chronicle, 1908, pp. 4, 6, 7). And then the 
 differences and relations between Time and 
 Eternity are most carefully, in part very originally, 
 developed, on the supposition of the reality of 
 both. But Dr. M'Taggart's own final position is 
 that, " in spite of the very great difficulties of the 
 theory that all existence is really timeless, it must 
 be accepted as true" (ibid. pp. 12, 11). 
 
 (b) Now in the above positions we can but 
 admire the keen sense of man's need of Meta- 
 physics, and of the Metaphysical element in re- 
 ligion ; and of the necessity both for religion and
 
 Realized Perfection here Substance, not Spirit 227 
 
 Metaphysics, indeed, for life in general, of existent, 
 even of eternal, Reality. But it is strange, at first 
 sight, to note how these our needs of Metaphysics 
 and Reality, so characteristic of fully self-conscious 
 spirit and, surely, only of such, are here made to 
 seek and apparently to find, their satisfaction, not 
 in Self-Consciousness, but in Substance. 
 
 Indeed, even here, we have all reality still largely 
 conceived under the lurking image and connota- 
 tions of an immense mirror, composed of an in- 
 definite number of interfitting, interdependent, yet 
 not only distinct but mutually impenetrable parts — 
 a Monadism which somehow is, so far, less interior, 
 less persistently self-conscious, than is Leibniz's 
 own. The parts all really exist, they are all really 
 immortal, indeed, at bottom, they are eternal ; 
 they are all really parts of one Whole, and how- 
 ever much their attributes may successively appear 
 to vary under the varying conditions, their sub- 
 stances ever remain the same : what more can we 
 possibly want ? And we cannot, of course, have 
 those parts, thus constitutive of the entire mirror, 
 and another mirror, not made up of parts, and 
 distinct from the first mirror and any of its parts. 
 For in all these cases we have substances, and 
 does not any one substance exclude another ? 
 True, these substances are all purely minds, 
 spirits — matter does not exist anywhere ; and (as
 
 228 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 against the Esse of supposed Matter, which is 
 percipi) we have here the only true Esse, which is 
 percipere, and indeed other activities held to be 
 constitutive of persons such as are here alone con- 
 sidered to exist. Yet, all the same, these persons 
 are primarily not centres of self-consciousness, but 
 substances — spirits certainly of a strange kind. 
 For these spirits have their self-identity, not in 
 their self-consciousness and memory, their inter- 
 penetrativenessand spirituality ; but in their sub- 
 stance, in the persistence of this substance, and in 
 the outsideness of one to the other — their eternal 
 quasi-materiality. 
 
 And thus the Realized Perfection, which Hegel 
 required in the Universe, lies here, both as to 
 reality and as to perfection (even if we admit 
 the persistence and perfection of this society of 
 spirits), not, at any one moment and continu- 
 ously, in their self-consciousness, the highest of 
 Hegel's categories, but in their substance, a lower 
 amongst these same categories. The Absolute 
 here exists, in its perfection, only intermittently. 
 Indeed, without a Spirit of spirits other than, 
 though penetrating and sustaining, these lesser 
 spirits, such intermittence of self-consciousness is 
 inevitable. And it is doubtless this grim alterna- 
 tive that has forced Dr. M'Taggart to find the 
 persistence and identity of the Absolute in what,
 
 Man here Great without God 229 
 
 for Hegel and indeed for the deepest thought 
 generally, is simply not the fullest and "truest" 
 that we know. 
 
 Again, what a demand upon our belief, against 
 all our evidences, all our instincts, is the absolute 
 perfection of this poor little happy family of us 
 poor little men ! Nor let it be said that Chris- 
 tianity places man as high ; for it does nothing of 
 the sort. Whenever it places man high, it never 
 places him thus alone, but only as, and in so far 
 as, penetrated and sustained by another — the 
 Other, the Reality, God ; and only in so far as 
 man's mind and will vividly apprehend, and fully 
 endorse, this contrast, necessity, grace and Reality 
 within and for man's entire existence. 
 
 And all through, Dr. M'Taggart takes God, 
 not only as a person in the ordinary, human sense 
 of the word, but indeed without any of that in- 
 definitely penetrative and penetrable quality, that 
 power of embracing and stimulating other minds 
 and lives, which we know, from daily experience, 
 constitutes the very character, actuation, and worth 
 of these our spirits. The God here refused, and 
 the God here considered possible, are not even 
 men, they are but mannikins. At least the con- 
 cept of God here nowhere gets beyond that of an 
 orderer of matter from without, "a directing 
 person " (S. D. of R. p. 245) ; hence here every-
 
 230 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 where He is but one moving figure, one artificer, 
 amongst so many other artificers or things, 
 since He is nowhere conceived according to the 
 deepest of what we really know and really want. 
 The Roman Church has ever impressively taught 
 what is here so strangely overlooked ; for she who 
 certainly never undervalued the power of Saints 
 or of evil spirits, or the authority of ecclesiastical 
 persons, has continuously insisted that One, and 
 only One, possesses direct access to, and en- 
 lightening, moving power over, the depths of the 
 human mind and will — the Spirit of spirits, God 
 alone. 
 
 Thus this scheme leaves unutilized, indeed un- 
 explained (except violently as a pure illusion), 
 the sense of the Infinite, the Other, of Dissatis- 
 faction in all and everything, however extended, 
 however heightened, that is merely human — a 
 sense that lies, undeniably, in the depths of the 
 human soul. At this point no multiplication, no 
 eternalizing, of human society, minus that sense 
 and the Reality it indicates, is of any avail ; the 
 best and the most vital in man will ever overleap 
 all such artificial limitations. 
 
 And precisely the admission of the operative 
 presence within our spirits (as indeed everywhere) 
 of such a Spirit of spirits can alone, we think, 
 consistently explain the entirety of man's experi-
 
 Experience as to Time, Treble 231 
 
 ences and requirements with respect to Time. 
 For thus, and thus only, do we find full recogni- 
 tion of our actual experience and necessity. This 
 appears to be treble and as follows. 
 
 We recognize, then, phenomenal Time, the 
 equable succession of mutually exclusive, ever 
 equally long moments — clock-time, very clear 
 but shallow, indeed largely artificial ; real Time, 
 a varyingly concentrated or extended succes- 
 sion of ever more or less interpenetrating, 
 never equally long parts — duration, obscure or 
 vivid and deep, but never very clear; and 
 Eternity, this latter not owned, as such, by the 
 human subject, yet indirectly, contrastingly ex- 
 perienced by him, since it is owned by the Divine 
 Spirit which penetrates the human spirit, and 
 since this human spirit lives in real Time (that is, 
 in duration) and thus ever directly experiences 
 some simultaneity, that quasi-eternity. In this 
 way the vividness and dynamic force of man's ideal 
 — Eternity, full Abidingness — is accounted for by 
 man's real, however obscure, diffused, and pre- 
 dominantly indirect, experience of it. And all 
 fanaticism is excluded by the two admissions, that 
 this full Eternity is not, and never will be, man's 
 own ; and also that such experience as he has of 
 it is never pure and separate, but ever of it 
 only in, through, and over against, his various,
 
 232 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 ever more or less successive, directly human ex- 
 periences. But no "orderer of matter," no "direct- 
 ing person," would here be of any avail ; certainly 
 the deeper religious consciousness does not itself, 
 especially here, suggest to the religious mind such 
 a curiously external and limited cause for such 
 immense and profoundly interior effects. 
 
 We would only add, finally, that the Christian 
 consciousness has notoriously, and ever more ex- 
 plicitly throughout the orthodox Churches, found a 
 multiplicity of Persons to be constitutive of God's 
 Unity ; so that there is here a deep recognition 
 of what Dr. M'Taggart so reasonably thirsts for, 
 richness in Unity, indeed a Community as distinct 
 from a single "person." But we see no gain in 
 labouring this point, since God remains, in any 
 case, for the deeper religious consciousness, 
 neither "person" nor "persons" of the curious, 
 non-penetrative and non-penetrable, intermittently 
 self-remembering and self-conscious, kind so 
 laboriously constructed by Dr. M'Taggart. 1 
 
 1 On Dr. M'Taggart's category of Substance, see Professor 
 Pringle Pattison's The Philosophical Radicals, 1907, pp. 200-205. 
 On his conception of Person, see Clement Webb's Problems in the 
 Relations between God and Man, 191 1, pp. 145-154. The above 
 conception of real time was first clearly learnt from M. Bergson, 
 Essai sur les Donnees Immediates de la Conscience, ed. 1898, but 
 also from Dr. James Ward — see now The Realm of Ends, 191 1, 
 pp. 306, 307. On the quasi-eternity of time, as really experienced 
 by us, see also the fine passage in Dr. Bosanquet's The Principle 
 of Individuality and Value, 1912, p. 339.
 
 Fenerbacli s Middle and Latest Periods 233 
 
 (5) The most impressive articulation and de- 
 velopment ever given, by delicate psychology 
 and ruthlessly doctrinaire reasoning (and at the 
 terrible cost of a life's wreckage) to the destruc- 
 tive implications and elements of the Hegelian 
 Absolutism and indeed of the preceding Idealisms, 
 is doubtless furnished by Ludwig Eeuerbach 
 (1804-1872). Especially is the lesson cogent, if 
 we consider and contrast, as two successive con- 
 clusions of the same mind from the same premises, 
 Feuerbach's still ethically Christian, and psycho- 
 logically often most penetrating and delicate, 
 Essence of Christianity, 1841, 1843; an< ^ his 
 completely naturalistic and cynical Lectures on 
 the Essence of Religion, 185 1. Our quotations 
 shall be, all but exclusively, from the finer, earlier 
 work in George Eliot's translation, 1854. 
 
 (a) "The inner life of man is the life which 
 has relation to his general, as distinguished from 
 his individual, nature. Man thinks, that is, he 
 converses with himself." "The essential nature 
 of man is not only the ground, it is also the object 
 of religion. But religion is consciousness of the 
 Infinite ; thus it is, and can be, nothing else than 
 the consciousness which man has of his own — not 
 finite and limited, but infinite nature." " The 
 consciousness of the Infinite is," then, "nothing 
 else than the consciousness of the Infinity of the
 
 234 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 consciousness" (pp. i, 2). Thus "The Absolute, 
 the God of Man, is man's own nature " ; " Con- 
 sciousness of God is self-consciousness, know- 
 ledge of God is self-knowledge. . . . But ignor- 
 ance of this identity is fundamental to the peculiar 
 nature of religion." " Man first of all sees his 
 nature as if out of himself, before he finds it in 
 himself. Religion is the childlike condition of 
 humanity ; a man is then an object to himself, 
 under the form of another man. Hence the 
 historical progress of religion consists in this, that 
 what, by an earlier religion, was regarded as 
 objective, was worshipped as God, is now recog- 
 nized as subjective, is perceived to be something 
 human. The antithesis of divine and human is 
 nothing but the antithesis between human nature 
 in general and the human individual" (pp. 12, 
 
 ■3). 
 And again, " If the predicates of God are 
 
 anthropomorphisms, if love, goodness, personality 
 are human attributes, so also is the subject 
 which you suppose here, the existence of God, 
 the belief that there is a God, an anthropo- 
 morphism, a presupposition purely human." 
 " Yet he alone is the true Atheist to whom the 
 predicates of the Divine Being — e.g. love, wisdom, 
 justice — are nothing, not he to whom merely the 
 subject of these predicates is nothing. And in
 
 Positions of the Middle Period 235 
 
 nowise is the negation of the subject necessarily 
 also a negation of the predicates considered in 
 themselves. These have an intrinsic, independent 
 reality ; they force their recognition upon man by 
 their very nature. The idea of God is dependent 
 on the idea of justice, of goodness, of wisdom . . . 
 but the converse does not hold." " Religion," 
 however, " knows nothing of anthropomorphisms ; 
 to it they are not anthropomorphisms. . . . They 
 are pronounced to be images only by the under- 
 standing which reflects on religion" (pp. 17, 21, 
 
 24, 25). 
 
 (p) At this stage in Feuerbach's thought, we 
 have still two ideal convictions — the higher human 
 impulsions and ideals, with the bearer of them 
 left uncertain within the human range; and the 
 11 divine " predicates, with any divine bearer of 
 them denied. In both cases the Hegelian habits 
 of intense abstraction are still at work, — i.e. the 
 power and determination to give independent 
 reality and prodigious operativeness to demon- 
 strable abstractions, and to evade the question of 
 who, or whether anything, is, after all, the bearer 
 of such ideals and qualities. And here again 
 man consists essentially of mind alone. And, 
 here quite unambiguously, this human mind can 
 penetrate and be penetrated by, it can really know, 
 nothing whatsoever but itself; and it attains
 
 236 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 to this real self-knowledge never by means, or on 
 occasion, of other realities than man himself 
 — man, the human race, as distinct from the 
 selfishly particularist in this particular individual. 
 
 Yet actual life teaches us, beyond reasonable 
 doubt, that man is not merely mind, but also 
 sense, imagination, feeling, will ; that mind itself 
 is not simply abstractive and discursive, but in- 
 tuitive as well ; that the human personality, when 
 at all complete, holds and harmonizes all these 
 forces in a generally difficult, ever rich interpene- 
 tration ; that these various constituents of this one 
 personality are developed, and slowly built up, 
 by their possessor into his true manhood only 
 by means, and on occasion, of his contact with 
 other minds, other living beings, other things, and 
 through the interaction between himself and them 
 all ; and that, however superior or inferior he 
 may be to these other realities, and however 
 different he may be from them, he ever achieves 
 some real knowledge of them, whilst thus attain- 
 ing some real knowledge of himself. The mind, 
 a live force, finds itself in closest contact with 
 the other energizings and impulsions within the 
 human subject ; this entire subject is ever, in 
 the first instance, necessarily related, not to an 
 idea or representation of itself or of anything else, 
 but to some, to various, concrete realities distinct
 
 Man always knows more than himself 237 
 
 from, though not all unlike, itself. And it is the 
 action of all that objective, variously interrelated 
 world upon this human subject, itself a world within 
 that world, and this human subject's response (from 
 his senses up to his reason, feeling, will) to that 
 world's action, which is primary ; whereas the 
 abstracting activity is secondary and instrumental, 
 and necessarily never fully overtakes those primary 
 informations. The more real the subject stimu- 
 lated and reacting, and the more real the object 
 stimulating and acting, the more " inside " does 
 each possess, and the more rich, and the more 
 difficult clearly to analyse, will be the result of 
 such stimulus and response. 
 
 Hence, whether man's consciousness of the 
 Infinite on occasion of the Finite is or is not, as 
 a matter of fact, simply man's consciousness of 
 his own truly infinite consciousness, we cannot, 
 with Feuerbach, straightaway decide that "it 
 cannot be anything else." For we certainly, con- 
 comitantly with our awakening to self-conscious- 
 ness, acquire varyingly dim or vivid, but very 
 real, experiences of the existence (indeed, to some 
 degree, of the inner life) of other beings as well. 
 And, as a matter of fact, the specifically religious 
 consciousness cannot, even when thus challenged, 
 discover in itself merely the prolongation (even 
 if this be taken as simply potential) of the human
 
 238 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 individual's, or the human species', own achieve- 
 ments or efforts. But it finds, instead, an Infinite, 
 not the soul's own, present and operative here and 
 now in the world and in the soul; an Infinite 
 different in kind from any mere prolongation, since 
 the soul rests on It — on an actually present and 
 operative Perfect Reality. " On ne s'appuie que 
 sur ce qui resiste," said Napoleon ; we cannot, and 
 indeed we do not, lean upon a flux. 
 
 True, it appears certain that man has no 
 religious consciousness, until his mind and senses 
 are awake to their several objects and their activi- 
 ties. But this applies all round ; I have to 
 apprehend trees and stones or the like before, or 
 simultaneously with, my awareness of, and my 
 actual love of, my fellow-men. Every faculty 
 I possess, and every object at all within my 
 range, stimulates, feeds, checks everything else. 
 And especially with regard to the Infinite Spirit, 
 the ultimate ground and most intimate bond of 
 all that is real at all, we cannot, from the nature 
 of the case, expect to be able, apart from a review 
 of the totality of our life's requirements and im- 
 plications, to catch more than contrasting glimpses 
 and impulsions, on occasion of the awakening and 
 awakeness of all that life within and around us. 
 But my consciousness of God is no more, because 
 of this, simply my self-consciousness, than is my
 
 Science, Philosophy, Religion, not Illusions 239 
 
 consciousness of a pebble, of a plant, of my 
 friend. 
 
 Man's religious apprehensions and conceptions 
 will ever necessarily be mixed up with consider- 
 able inadequacy, mostly even of the avoidable 
 kind, and with much evil passion and positive 
 error ; hence at the later stages he considers the 
 earlier stages as full of, sometimes as sheer, 
 delusion. And these developments have, so far, 
 moved, chiefly, away from external nature to the 
 inner life of man. Yet also the much easier, be- 
 cause less deep, physical sciences have admittedly 
 maintained, for millenniums, the most far-reaching, 
 most fantastic errors, so that they readily appear, 
 if we insist on this fact, as sheer, incorrigible 
 illusions ; nevertheless we rightly maintain them, 
 as increasingly true and as possessed, from the 
 first, of some real connection with Reality. And 
 much points to man's again finding, in the future, 
 and then with indefinite increase of precision, 
 Spirit at work in the visible world. Unless the 
 Irishman's argument was sound that, because a 
 certain stove would save him half his fuel, two 
 such stoves would save it all, there is no necessary 
 consequence, from the admission of such an ad- 
 mixture of illusion with truth, to the negation of 
 the operative presence of some reality within this 
 long series of human apprehensions.
 
 240 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 And the special conditions and effects of the 
 religious attestation itself strongly point away 
 from such a theory of all-illusion. For in this 
 theory not any one particular impression, nor even 
 some particular yet persistent concomitant of 
 human experience in general, but an entire kind 
 of life, one held by mankind at large to be the 
 deepest, is declared to be a sheer projection, by 
 the individual man, of his mind's contents, — of the 
 general, but purely immanental, human require- 
 ments and ideals ; and this whilst the projector is 
 so entirely unaware of his own action as to consider 
 himself (the projector) as the creation of this (his 
 own) projection. And it is certain that man, 
 when he comes to doubt or to reject this or that 
 element, or apparently even the whole, of his 
 present religion, does not necessarily and pari 
 passu lose faith in trans-subjective, superhuman 
 Reality as such. Also note how, in Feuerbach's 
 scheme, it is precisely the illusion, the inversion, 
 it alone, which gives religion its entire special 
 power. Precisely the same content which, when 
 in its " true " place and character, leaves man 
 cold or but superficially moved, becomes, when 
 seen in its " false " place and character, the 
 greatest, often the most terrible, force known to 
 history. And yet not all the childishness, abuses, 
 trials, variously attributable to the different re-
 
 Evidence for the Trans-subjective in Man 241 
 
 ligions of the world, can permanently obscure the 
 magnificent, indeed unique, services of religion. 
 How can we retain Plato and Leibniz, Pheidias 
 and Michael Angelo, Homer and Shakespere in 
 highest honour, as revealers of various degrees 
 and kinds of reality and truth, if Amos and Isaiah, 
 Paul and Augustine, Francis of Assisi and Joan 
 of Arc are to be treated as pure illusionists, in 
 precisely that which constitutes their specific power 
 and attestation ? 
 
 It is, of course, most certain that our con- 
 ceptions both of God's predicates, and of God 
 their bearer, are anthropomorphic ; as Aquinas 
 (with Aristotle) ever insists : " Omne quod recipitur 
 in aliquo, recipitur in eo per modum recipientis " 
 — man cannot jump out of his skin. Yet this 
 decides nothing as to how much the skin may 
 hold or stretch, nor how much, and what, Reality 
 really affects him, and can or must reasonably be 
 admitted to be genuinely known by him. No 
 one, certainly, has ever explained how, if man is 
 completely shut up within a mode of apprehension 
 bearing no real relation to reality, and hence 
 without any ontological worth, he possesses a 
 sense of the inadequacy of all merely human ap- 
 prehension so fairly continuous, certainly so very 
 spontaneous, often so acutely painful. Whence, 
 
 e.g., does Feuerbach get his contempt for even the 
 16
 
 242 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 generally human categories, as soon as they are 
 made to claim trans-human truth ? And this 
 sense is so fundamentally human, and so much 
 determines the admittedly noblest achievements, 
 and the creaturely wistfulness, of Science, Philo- 
 sophy, Art, Ethics, Life in general, that it is 
 no less than gratuitously suicidal for man on 
 principle to declare this sense mere illusion, or, 
 equivalently, no more than the sheer projection 
 of the simply human race-instinct. 
 
 We are thus face to face with the least tolerable 
 and the most ruinous of all scepticisms. Well, 
 against all subjectivist Idealism, we first simply 
 admit the real existence and influence of countless 
 realities, more or less different from, though lower 
 than, or equal to, ourselves, and we contend that 
 only by and in real contact with these realities do 
 we ever awake to a consciousness and knowledge 
 of ourselves. We require now to continue and 
 to complete this apprehension and interpretation 
 of life and existence. We admit, then, the real 
 existence of a Perfect Reality which, prior to, 
 the cause of, and present throughout, those 
 other non-human realities and our real selves, 
 is sufficiently like us for us to be (dimly and 
 contrastingly yet most really) aware of this its 
 presence and action. And this Reality is thus, 
 though ever only in and through these lesser
 
 Theism or Atheism, an Immense Alternative 243 
 
 realities and through ourselves thus stimulated 
 and expanded, the fundamental and persistent 
 cause of this our noblest, most inalienable 
 characteristic — our dissatisfaction with anything 
 and with all things merely contingent and finite. 
 
 Religion thus, precisely as the sense of the 
 Infinite, does know of anthropomorphisms ; the 
 consciousness of the depth and mysteriousness of 
 life and reality is ever with it, as religion, from 
 first to last. "How unsearchable are God's 
 judgments, and His ways past finding out!" and 
 " One of the greatest favours bestowed on the 
 soul in this life" (thus like to the blessed in 
 heaven) "is to enable it to see so distinctly, and 
 to feel so profoundly, that it cannot comprehend 
 God." These exclamations of the intensely onto- 
 logical St. Paul and of the Spanish peasant 
 St. John of the Cross, merely express, respec- 
 tively, the very soul of religion and a delicate 
 concomitant of all its deepest experiences. 
 
 (c) And finally, Feuerbach's own history is one 
 more tragic proof that it does matter whether or 
 no we deny a subject as bearer of the predicates 
 "love, wisdom, goodness." For, in his latest 
 stage, the two abstractions of the earlier time — 
 man-in-general, and "divine" predicates con- 
 sidered as possessing a separate reality of their own 
 — fall away ; only empirical, individual men remain
 
 244 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 as real, and these appear to Feuerbach as far too 
 weak, vain, false, lustful, cruel to bear and to 
 exemplify (unless we add to all those vices a 
 ghastly hypocrisy in this our estimate) such 
 exalted virtues and ideals. These ideals must now 
 be declared sheer illusions and impracticable ; such 
 a declaration is the final truth attainable by man 
 concerning man. " Man is what he eats." 1 
 
 4. Arthur Schopenhauer (1 788-1 860), the 
 deliberate antipode of Hegel, interests us here, 
 in spite of his glaring inconsistencies and in- 
 adequacies, on account of certain of his convic- 
 tions. Two of these, primarily epistemological, 
 are concerned with the world as we find it, and 
 with very un-Kantian developments of strictly 
 Kantian positions; two others, primarily ethical and 
 spiritual, with the darkness and sinfulness of the 
 human self and the denial of this self, and with 
 
 1 The above is mostly extracted from a paper by the writer, 
 which appeared (in Italian) as "Religione ed Illusione," in the 
 Ccenobiiwi, Lugano, March-April 191 1. The writer has learnt most 
 from Professor Troeltsch's profound analysis of the true and the false 
 in Feuerbach, in his " Die Selbstandigkeit der Religion," Zeitschrift 
 f. Theologie u. Kirche, 1895, pp. 392-427. Das Wesen des Chris- 
 tenthums has appeared excellently re-edited by Quenzel, in 
 Reclam's Universal-bibliothek, 1904. Jodl's Ludwig Feuerbach^ 
 1904, is a useful precis and description of the, still variously rich, 
 psychology of Feuerbach's middle period ; but is intemperately 
 enthusiastic, and leaves practically unnoticed his last period, and 
 its significant difference, yet development, from that middle 
 period.
 
 Schopenhauer, both Strong and Weak '245 
 
 the possibility, indeed the shy conviction, of 
 quite another life and reality, attained by man 
 in and beyond Nirvana. 
 
 Already by temperament pessimistically, scep- 
 tically, dualistically inclined, with a nature as 
 strongly sensual as aspiring, early left without a 
 father and sent adrift by a clever, unprincipled 
 mother, Schopenhauer, with ample means and 
 leisure, turned to philosophy and art for at least 
 occasional escape, from his clamorous lower self, 
 into regions of abiding peace. The World as 
 Will and as Idea, its first volume published in 
 18 1 9, its second volume (as a commentary to the 
 first) in 1844, * s practically his sole work, since 
 his other writings are simply preparations for, or 
 elucidations of, this one book. And our present 
 artistic and literary world is even now once more 
 saturated with the feelings and ideas, with the 
 atmosphere expressed and extolled, in consummate 
 form, by this strange, strong, sincere, and stimu- 
 lating, but quite incomplete and, systematically, 
 impossible thinker. 
 
 (1) In his Epistemology Schopenhauer opens 
 with Kant's Subjectivism and also with the same 
 Kant's ready, though unconscious, transformation 
 of this Subjectivism into a Metaphysical Dualism ; 
 but he promptly conceives this Dualism in a quite 
 un- Kantian, Oriental, indeed Buddhist, fashion.
 
 246 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 " Our consciousness alone is and remains the 
 immediate ; everything else is first mediated and 
 conditioned by it, and hence dependent on it." 
 " Everything, in being in and for itself, is neces- 
 sarily subjective ; this same thing, in the perception 
 of another, is as necessarily objective ; a difference 
 which can never be completely resolved, for the 
 thing has thus radically changed its entire nature, 
 having entered into forms alien to its own essence, 
 since these new forms belong to that alien subject, 
 whose cognition of this thing becomes possible 
 only through them." Hence " our cognition ever 
 furnishes only appearances, never the nature of 
 things-in-themselves " (Sammtliche Werke, ed. 
 Grisebach, Reclam ; Die Welt als Wille unci 
 Vorstellung, vol. ii. pp. 12, 224, 225). 
 
 "The first among the many things," then, "which 
 render the world so strange and alarming to man, 
 is that, infinite and massive as may appear its 
 existence, it hangs on a single fine thread — the 
 particular consciousness in which, at the time, it 
 stands. Thus the same cerebral function which, as 
 though by magic, builds up, in our sleep, an entirely 
 objective, tangible world, must have an equal 
 share in the representation of the objective world 
 of our waking life." "All that proceeds from" 
 such purely subjective categories as " causes or 
 motives is but the Maja, the " Buddhists' " veil
 
 Kant's Epistemology as an Eastern Metaphysic 247 
 
 of deception, which causes mortals to see a world 
 of which one can neither say that it is nor that it 
 is not." "The Vedas," as the Brahmanic and 
 Buddhist literature generally, "breathe in Indian 
 air and in a primitive world akin to nature. How 
 the mind is here washed clean of all Jewish super- 
 stition," Libertarianism, Theism, Optimism, "and 
 of all the philosophy that does it slave's service ! " 
 This literature "has been the consolation of my 
 life, and will be that of my death " (ibid. vol. ii. 
 520; vol. i. 38, 39; " Zur Sanskrit- Litteratur," 
 ibid. vol. v. 418). 
 
 We find here, as with Kant, the strangely 
 instinctive, entirely unreasonable, assumption that 
 nothing that is my perception can, in its content, 
 resemble the reality ; and even that, because, 
 simply as my perception, it (of course) exists only 
 in this my perception, the content of my perception 
 cannot exist independently of this perception. A 
 critical Realism alone appears to be here fully 
 adequate to the facts. But then a turn — a quite 
 un-Kantian, un -" practical," an aesthetic and 
 Eastern, strangely floating and sentimental, turn 
 — is given to this Metaphysical Dualism ; reality, 
 which Kant set out to find by Idealism, has here 
 (as far as reality is to be apprehensible by the 
 reason or to be reasonable in itself) been dissolved 
 by Idealism into a dream.
 
 248 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Yet Schopenhauer's keen aesthetic instinct 
 yields one admirable epistemological position, — 
 the preference for intuition as against abstraction, 
 — although coupled with an inadequate sense of 
 the limited range within which intuition obtains. 
 " General concepts are the material of philo- 
 sophy, but only as marble is the material of the 
 sculptor ; it ought to work not from them, but 
 into them." "In most books the author has 
 thought, he has not seen " ( Werke, ii. Sy, 84). 
 This continuous search for intuition and direct 
 experience is one source of the perennial fresh- 
 ness of so much of Schopenhauer's work. 1 
 
 (2) But then, with a strange inconsistency, 
 which, however, has doubtless some of its roots 
 in Kant, Schopenhauer finds the Thing-in-itself 
 in the Will, a Will bereft of all reason and logic, 
 and well known to us within our own selves. 
 "The Will alone is, it, the Thing-in-itself, it, 
 the source of all appearances. The Will's self- 
 knowledge, and the Will's consequent self-affir- 
 mation or self-denial, is the sole event-in-itself." 
 "Everywhere a reason can be given only for" 
 different "appearances, for single things; never 
 for the Will itself, nor for the Idea," the World at 
 large, " in which this Will adequately objectifies 
 
 1 See J. Volkelt's admirable Arthur Schopenhauer, 1900, pp. 
 64-127.
 
 Pantheism too immediately Optimistic 249 
 
 itself; an endless striving, eternal becoming, a 
 boundless flux, are of its essence " ( Werke, 
 i. 250; 227, 229). 
 
 Schopenhauer sometimes admits that he has 
 the "Ev teal Hav in common with the Pantheists. 
 Indeed, his predominant vehemence against the 
 designation of "Pantheist" doubtless proceeds 
 from his antipathy to Theism, and this again 
 from his all-devouring subjectivism and pessim- 
 ism. Since these latter excesses prevent his 
 admission of Intelligence and Love, as present 
 and operative, even though hiddenly and mysteri- 
 ously, within this (at least superficially) often 
 terrible world, he, with a striking consistency, still 
 more emphatically refuses to believe that God 
 could "transform himself into such a world as the 
 one before us — countless millions of living- beings 
 
 o o 
 
 which all subsist, for a while, only through the 
 one devouring the other" (Werke, ii. 757, 758 ; 
 " Ueber den Pantheismus," ibid. v. 1 12). 
 
 And if Hegel was determined to find fullest 
 richness and life in supreme Reality, and knew 
 not how otherwise to do so than by carrying 
 Difference and Successiveness right into that 
 Reality, Schopenhauer is athirst for absolute 
 Identity and Rest — History is everywhere to be 
 driven out. " All such historical philosophy takes 
 Time as a determination of the Thing-in-itself " :
 
 1 50 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 whereas " the true philosophy asks not after the 
 Whence, the Whither, the Why, but ever only 
 after the What, the ever Self-Identical Essence 
 of the world, which appears in all relations, but 
 is not itself subject to them" (Werke, i. 358, 
 
 359). 
 
 We have here three fundamental self-contra- 
 dictions. For man was to be utterly incapable 
 of reaching the Thing-in-itself ; but now he knows 
 it thoroughly, in his Will, though not in his 
 Reason. The Thing-in-itself was held to be 
 quite cut off from all appearances ; yet now the 
 Thing-in-itself is recognized as a Will that unfolds 
 and manifests itself in the visible world. And 
 this Thing-in-itself, the Will, is held to be bereft 
 of all Reason ; yet now some of its appearances 
 are found to be beautiful and reasonable. But 
 indeed, as a question of fact, an absolutely ir- 
 rational will is quite unknown to us men, since 
 our various soul-forces never exist in this purely 
 separate and entirely contradictory form. We 
 have thus simply a projection of Schopenhauer's 
 abnormally divided and unhappy interior life. 
 
 Yet two points are profoundly valuable here — 
 the sense of the impossibility of an immediate, 
 pure Optimism, since Pantheism turns out to be 
 intolerable, precisely in the matters where already 
 Theism finds its greatest difficulties ; and, again,
 
 The Ultimate Reality \ Simultaneozis, Eternal 2 5 1 
 
 the sense that the Ultimate Reality must be 
 conceived as Simultaneous, Eternal. The 
 rejection of Theism, as the truth of the Ultimate 
 Reality, and the denial of all reality to Time, — 
 even concrete Time, that quasi-eternity. — prevent 
 these two admirable points from here attaining to 
 their full power. 1 
 
 (3) " There is, in life, no final end of the striving, 
 hence no limit to the suffering ; all life is essen- 
 tially suffering." "Thus each of these fleeting 
 formations and shallow thoughts of the Infinite 
 Spirit of Nature, that is, the individual, has to be 
 paid for, by the persistent Will to live, with many 
 deep sufferings and finally with a bitter death." 
 " As little as any exterior power can alter or 
 suppress this Will, so little can any exterior 
 power free it from the tortures which proceed 
 from the life which is the appearance of this same 
 Will" (Werke, i. 402, 403 ; 416 ; 417 ; 421). 
 
 "This poor earthly happiness, howsoever 
 fostered by men or favoured by fortune, is, at 
 bottom, but a hollow, deceitful, sorry affair, which 
 neither constitutions and legislation, nor steam- 
 engines and telegraphs will ever make into 
 something essentially better. Thus the glorifiers 
 of history are foolish Realists, Optimists, and 
 Eudaemonists, hence shallow fellows and incarnate 
 
 1 See Volkelt, op. cit. pp. 159-176, 200-210.
 
 1 52 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Philistines. Indeed, at bottom, they are bad 
 Christians ; for the true spirit of Christianity, as 
 of Brahmanism and Buddhism, is the knowledge 
 of the nothingness of earthly joy, the complete 
 turning away from it to an entirely different, 
 indeed contradictory, existence ; whence atheistic 
 Buddhism is much more nearly related to Chris- 
 tianity than is optimistic Judaism and its variety, 
 Islam." 
 
 And " Protestantism, by its elimination of 
 asceticism and of its centre, the meritoriousness 
 of celibacy, has, at bottom, abandoned the inner- 
 most kernel of Christianity. This has now 
 become evident by its gradual transformation 
 into a flat rationalism, modern Pelagianism." On 
 the contrary, "all times, peoples, languages have 
 ever sharply discriminated between a virtuous life 
 and a reasonable one. Thus we would consider 
 the designation of the sublime founder of Chris- 
 tianity as ' the most reasonable of men ' to be a 
 most unworthy, indeed blasphemous, expression, 
 and similarly if men said that his maxims are the 
 best instruction as to ' an entirely reasonable life ' 
 (Werke, ii. 521, 736; i. 653). 
 
 Indeed "the myth of the Fall is the one thing 
 in the Old Testament which reconciles me to it ; 
 for our existence resembles nothing so much as a 
 consequence of a trespass and of a culpable desire.
 
 Schopenhauer s Pessimism and Asceticism 253 
 
 The New Testament most wisely has promptly 
 utilized that myth, without which it would have 
 found nothing to which to cling in Judaism" 
 (Werke, ii. 683). 
 
 Certainly nothing can be more true and 
 necessary than a continuous keen sense of the 
 suffering, misery, and guilt to be found in life ; 
 of the shoddy Philistinism of most journalistic, 
 and of some philosophical, " progressiveness " 
 and " enlightenment " ; and of the splendidly 
 irreplaceable fruitfulness of the ascetical, self- 
 renunciatory movement, and of its essential place 
 in primitive, indeed in all authentic, Christianity. 
 The future is doubtless only with such convictions 
 and practices of life as will find full room and 
 work for these virile truths ; and in this they will 
 but continue the very spirit of Our Lord and of 
 His closest followers. Yet all this will be on one 
 condition, unfortunately almost entirely ruled out 
 by Schopenhauer. This movement must stand 
 within a larger whole, and be but one of two 
 movements. For the other movement — that of 
 seeking, of occupation with, of learning from and 
 of teaching, of being stimulated by and of leavening 
 and transforming, in a word, of loving, the actual 
 world of time and space around us and within us, is 
 also essential to Christianity, to all spirituality, to 
 all deeper and the deepest human life.
 
 254 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 And the outgoing movement is thus necessary, 
 not only because we have duties to others and 
 to things in time, which are co-ordinate to our 
 duties to ourselves and to God, to things eternal ; 
 but also, and more fundamentally, because only 
 through such occupation with the temporal, 
 spatial, finite can we thoroughly wake up our 
 sense and need of the Eternal and Infinite ; 
 just as, contrariwise, all this outward-going and 
 time-and-space occupation inevitably disperses 
 and empties the soul, unless the soul returns also 
 to recollection, detachment, abandonment to God. 
 For the fact is that somewhat as, in all our 
 genuine knowledge, we have a given world of re- 
 lations between realities — the real knower and the 
 real known ; and we have our concrete apprehen- 
 sion and abstractive reason and deductive reasoning 
 rendered possible, and supplied with materials, by 
 those previous realities, and made fully effective 
 by our acceptance of, and belief in, their operations 
 and intimations : so here, in all the deeper life in 
 general, we have indeed an important, even an irre- 
 placeable, negative, self-renunciatory movement, 
 but this within a given system of movements — 
 movements at work between previously extant, 
 variously deep realities — spatial temporal things, 
 finite durational spirits, and the Eternal Spirit, 
 God,
 
 Pessimism right as Preliminary and Constituent 255 
 
 Thus also, and especially, as to Marriage, 
 Schopenhauer's asceticism is, at bottom, not 
 Christian but Gnostic ; it aims not at the 
 spiritualization of the senses, and at the full 
 articulation of the human spirit by means of the 
 right use, as well as by the heroic continence, of 
 the body, but at the entire suppression of the 
 use, and at the extinction of, the body. Even 
 the bodily functions essential to the race are here 
 intrinsically impure and utterly incapable of being 
 spiritualized. We thus leave behind all sane 
 Monasticism, indeed the fundamental principle of 
 every incarnational doctrine ; only dervishes and 
 fakirs would keep Schopenhauer company. 
 
 And this same excess renders him unjust to 
 Judaism and Islam which, if insufficiently alive 
 to the negative movement of religion, strongly 
 realize the positive movement, and thus escape 
 such dangerous parodies of Asceticism. The 
 fact is that the full greatness, sanity, and fruit- 
 fulness of Christianity consists in the largest 
 presence, and the deepest interaction, of both these 
 movements ; and indeed only thus will there be, 
 in any and every life, a sufficient other-worldliness 
 without fanaticism, and a sufficient this-worldliness 
 without philistinism. And this again involves, 
 at bottom, a difficult, heroic, an ultimate, yet 
 thus all the more real, an inexpugnable, Optimism,
 
 256 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Theism thus remains in spite of, and is indeed 
 actually strengthened by, all these obscurities, 
 trials, renunciations ; a Theism which — on this 
 point in full accord with Schopenhauer — de- 
 liberately refuses to find man's full satisfaction 
 in his life before the crave. 1 
 
 (4) And this brings us to Schopenhauer's last 
 word and dearest aspiration — the Nirvana, as 
 something unspeakable, yet as hiding something 
 positive after all. " No absolute Nothing is 
 even thinkable ; every nothing is such only with 
 reference to something, and thus presupposes 
 this other." Doubtless " with the free abandon- 
 ment of the Will, also all the appearances of the 
 Will are abolished — even the general forms of 
 Time and Space, indeed Subject and Object ; no 
 Will, no Idea, no World. But that we so loathe 
 the Nothing," this Nothing, "only means that 
 we so intensely will life, and know nothing but 
 just this will. Yet if we turn our gaze away to 
 those who have overcome the world, who have 
 freely denied themselves, and who then only 
 wait to see the last trace of the will-to-live dis- 
 appear with the body in which this last trace 
 lingers, we find, in place of all that restless 
 pushing, that never-satisfied yet ceaseless expecta- 
 tion, which composes the life-dream of man, a 
 
 1 See Volkelt, op. at. pp. 211-258.
 
 Schopenhauer s Nirvana, Positive 257 
 
 peace which is higher than all reason, an Ocean- 
 calm of the soul, whose bare reflection upon the 
 countenance is already a full and sure Evangel ; 
 Knowledge alone has remained, the Will has 
 vanished." " For this contrast " with our present 
 world " we are without image, concept, or word ; 
 since all those we have are derived from the 
 objectivation of the will, and hence they can in 
 nowise express its absolute contrary, which latter 
 thus remains standing as a simple negative." We 
 can but use such terms as " Ecstasy, Illumina- 
 tion, Union with God." " Precisely at this point 
 it is where the Mystic, in contrast with the 
 Philosopher, proceeds positively ; and indeed from 
 hence onwards there remains to us nothing but 
 Mysticism" (Werke, i. 526, ii. 717; i. 525, ii. 
 720). 
 
 Here, at last, we see clearly how intense a 
 yearning after, indeed how real a faith in, an 
 unutterable Perfect Life and Abiding Reality 
 persists and works in this soul, which on the 
 surface is so bitter, sceptical, and pessimist. For 
 his conviction that there is such a Life and 
 Reality appears here, although shy and indirect, 
 to be almost as strong as that, if it is at all, it 
 utterly differs from all and everything we are 
 able to think or to imagine. And here we can 
 grasp more plainly in what, as concerns religion, 
 17
 
 258 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 such dim and despairing outlooks, when compared 
 with the clear and confident (such as that of Hegel), 
 are weak, and in what they are strong. 
 
 Such an outlook as Schopenhauer's is weak. 
 For it is certainly unnecessary, and, in the long- 
 run, impossible, to seek and to find the religious 
 realities thus entirely outside of all this visible 
 world and of all our reason and its categories. 
 Unless all the different departments of life and 
 all the different levels of our own activity and 
 experience, variously, in some degree and way, 
 prepare, imply, contain, or show spiritual realities 
 and spiritual necessities as somehow the deepest 
 facts and final crown and justification of life's 
 entire movement and travail, Religion in general 
 is untrue. And especially is Christianity then 
 untrue, with its incarnational conviction, its 
 profound reverence for the individual soul, the 
 historic fact, the social hierarchy, for spirit in 
 matter, for God in the soul. So far, then, a 
 reason-loving, immanental, clear, "civilized" out- 
 look and philosophy is favourable to religion, 
 provided there is here no doubt or denial of spirit 
 as distinct from, and higher than, matter ; and 
 of the Spirit, God, as distinct from, and higher 
 than, the world and man. 
 
 Yet, on the other hand, unless even all 
 that those different departments and experiences
 
 Dim and Clear Outlooks and Religion 259 
 
 can, of themselves, find in themselves, and all 
 that philosophy can establish, still leaves some- 
 thing further, distinct, real, and vital, for specific, 
 historical religion to develop, to infuse, and to 
 produce, religion will remain bereft of its full 
 power and persuasiveness. Something prophetic, 
 pictorial, deeply personal ; a great yearning and 
 trust ; a disquieting excess beyond our demon- 
 strative processes and immediate demands will 
 rightly, necessarily characterize such revelations 
 to man, and such attempts of man to articulate 
 his deepest experiences and certainties. And, 
 so far, an outlook and a philosophy of a "wild," 
 dim, transcendental trend will be favourable to 
 religion, provided it is not genuinely sceptical, 
 and does not seriously weaken the necessary 
 crispness of, and the friction between, the concrete 
 facts and necessities of life. 
 
 And this double need of religion with respect 
 to philosophy is to the advantage of philosophy 
 also. For thus philosophy need not be asked 
 to do more than lay certain foundations — than 
 discover certain necessities for, and the place 
 of, religion, and analyse, synthesize, and so far 
 utilize, as carefully and loyally as possible, the 
 materials offered by the religious experience 
 and history. 1 
 
 1 See Volkelt, op. cit. pp. 128-138, 311-328, 344-358.
 
 260 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Richard Wagner s enthusiasm for Schopenhauer 
 is well known. And Leo Tolstois affinity with 
 Schopenhauer is probably as great as is this 
 massive (but wayward and self-conscious) Russian's 
 dependence upon Rousseau. Yet doubtless the 
 Dane Sb'ren Kierkegaard '( 1813-55) and Friedrich 
 Nietzsche (active as a philosophical writer 1871- 
 88) are, respectively, the religiously deepest, and 
 the most widely (if probably not lastingly) 
 influential, among the present-day apostles of 
 an outlook akin to, or directly derived from, 
 Schopenhauer. 
 
 (5) Kierkegaard, the deep, melancholy, stren- 
 uous, utterly uncompromising Danish religionist, 
 is a spiritual brother of the great Frenchman, 
 Blaise Pascal, and of the striking English 
 Tractarian, Hurrell Froude, who died young 
 and still full of crudity, yet left an abiding mark 
 upon all who knew him well. Kierkegaard is 
 specially interesting in that he, otherwise a modern 
 of the moderns, is as massively ontological in 
 his religion as any ancient ; and that the tension 
 of his spiritual life arises, not from any doubt as 
 to whether or what God is, but from the keenest 
 certainty both that God is the very source and 
 home of man's spirit, and, yet, is utterly unlike 
 this human spirit.
 
 Kierkegaard's Religiotis Greatness 261 
 
 " What the conception of God, or of man's 
 eternal beatitude, is to effect in man is that 
 he shall remodel his entire existence according 
 to it ; but by this remodelling man dies to 
 his entire immediacy. As the fish lies out of 
 its element when left upon the sand, so is 
 the religious man caught in his absolute con- 
 ception of God ; for such absoluteness is not 
 directly the element of a finite being. No 
 wonder, then, if, for the Jew, to see God meant 
 death ; and if, for the Heathen, to stand in 
 relation to God portended madness. For if the 
 conception of God is our one absolute help, it 
 is also the sole conception capable of absolutely 
 showing to man his utter helplessness" (" Final 
 Unscientific Postscript to the ' Philosophical 
 Crumbs,' " chap. iv. " How can an Eternal Beati- 
 tude be based upon an Historical Knowledge?" 
 German translation of the Gesammelte Werke, 
 Jena, 1910, vol. vii. pp. 170, 171). And this 
 vivid sense of both the Reality and the Difference 
 of God is (most consistently) combined with the 
 strongest (indeed an excessive because exclusive) 
 realization of the eschatological, the other-worldly, 
 movement in Our Lord's teaching, a realization 
 which, indeed, leads Kierkegaard finally to break 
 with every and all ecclesiastical organization, as 
 essentially a compromise and hypocrisy.
 
 262 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 In Kierkegaard's ever occasional yet intense, 
 diffuse yet over-concentrated, one-sided yet mag- 
 nificently spiritual writings, especially in his pro- 
 found Postscript, 1 846 ; and in the short account 
 and criticism of this difficult thinker and heroic 
 life given us by his friend, the clear and elegant, 
 over-immanental, yet here sympathetic and mostly 
 very just, Professor Harald Hoffding, Soren 
 Kierkegaard (German translation, Stuttgart, 
 1896), we are given admirably fresh experiences 
 and warnings concerning " Eternal Life." For 
 here once more we see, most impressively, the 
 all-importance for religion of Ontology and 
 Difference, yet also of Likeness. Thus it is 
 Kierkegaard's profound apprehension of the On- 
 tology and the Difference which renders him 
 religiously deep and powerful, beyond all the 
 Subjectivists and Identity-thinkers put together ; 
 and it is his lack of insight as to the Likeness 
 which leaves his life strained to the verge of 
 insanity. 
 
 Ibsen's Brand, well translated into English 
 by Dr. Herford, 1894, 1903, was admittedly 
 suggested by the great Dane, and gives a vivid 
 picture of his intense other-worldliness, and 
 heroic straining and one-sidedness. Christ's self- 
 renunciation is here, but not His expansive 
 tenderness.
 
 Nietzsche Insufficient yet Significant 263 
 
 (6) Nietzsche, on the contrary, doubtless owes 
 his recently immense, and now still great, vogue 
 primarily, not to anything philosophical, still less 
 to anything religious, but (probably even more 
 than his original idol Schopenhauer) to his form 
 — his brilliant and biting, witty, aphoristic, French 
 esprit and style ; to the ceaseless intensity, 
 paradox, and transformations of his thought ; 
 and, not a little, to his piquant combination of 
 an aristocratic aloofness from the herd of men 
 with an (at least apparent) invitation to "heroic" 
 selfishness and "superior" immorality. And, 
 indeed, this clean liver and devoted brother is, 
 as a writer, destined to endure, not by his last 
 works, The Twilight of the Idols, and The 
 Antichrist, 1888, with their wild and vulgarly 
 violent attacks upon Christianity ; but by many 
 an exquisite saying or half-page in his booklets 
 on Strauss, on the Use and Drawback of History, 
 and on Schopenhauer ; in his Human, all-too- 
 Htiman ; and on to his Zarathustra. Even 
 in these writings we everywhere come upon 
 excesses, yet excesses which, if often (in form) 
 vehemently anti-religious, or even anti-moral, 
 spring doubtless largely from a thirst and search 
 for what religion alone can give. Especially is 
 this the case with Nietzsche's favourite idea of 
 the " Super-man," — that pathetically hopeless mis-
 
 264 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 application of our instinctive need of adoration, 
 — in which Professor Aloys Riehl, himself for 
 so long an aggressively negative philosopher, 
 finds one of the many significant and powerful 
 (because utterly sincere, indeed as yet unconscious) 
 reawakenings of the religious passion and con- 
 viction in these our times. 1 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 BIOLOGY AND EPIGENESIS 
 
 Introductory — Darwin's declarations concerning religion — Discus- 
 sion of these declarations — Three religious gains from Evolu- 
 tion, conceived as a means and method — Bergson. 
 
 The immense, seemingly all-pervading influence 
 of such ideas as Descent, Selection, Struggle for 
 Existence, indeed of Biology generally, as articu- 
 lated by Darwin, is admitted by all men, and yet 
 is probably even greater, for good or for evil, 
 than any of us can estimate. And again, the 
 
 1 The most instructive and just of the countless studies of 
 Nietzsche is probably A. Riehl's Friedrich Nietzsche, Stuttgart, 2nd 
 ed. 1898. William Wallace's two essays on Nietzsche, in his 
 Lectures and Essays on Natural Theology and Ethics, ed. by 
 Edward Caird, 1898, pp. 511-541, are, I think, wanting in sufficient 
 sympathy for the good and true richly present in that wayward, 
 chaotic man of letters.
 
 Darwin s Character, Influence, Deserts 265 
 
 touching greatness of Charles Darwin's character, 
 the range and depth of his achievement in detailed 
 observation and experiment, and the immense 
 stimulation given by his theories to such research, 
 wheresoever we deal with organisms and bodily 
 and instinctive life at all, are equally patent. 
 Here, however, we have but to consider the 
 orientation of mind of Darwin, and of intellects 
 specially influenced by his ideas and work, with 
 respect to the facts, experiences, and necessities 
 which we have found to constitute, or to be 
 essentially connected with, Eternal Life. Direct 
 quotations from Darwin himself shall give us our 
 first material, and then developments and criti- 
 cisms of our own and of others shall bring out 
 the special truths, mistakes, helps, and hindrances 
 here apparently involved. 
 
 1. Charles Darwin, surgeon, traveller, 
 geologist, botanist, zoologist (1 809-1 882), in his 
 winningly homely autobiography and letters, as 
 carefully published by his son, Mr. Francis Darwin, 
 writes of his own capabilities, in regard to our 
 subject-matter, in 1876 : "I do not think that the 
 religious sentiment was ever strongly developed 
 in me"; yet "formerly" he had "the firm con- 
 viction of the existence of God and of the 
 immortality of the soul." And in 1881 he notes:
 
 266 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 " Up to the age of thirty, or beyond it, poetry of 
 many kinds gave me great pleasure ; and even 
 as a schoolboy I took intense delight in Shake- 
 speare. Formerly pictures gave me considerable, 
 and music very great delight. But for many 
 years I cannot endure to read a line of poetry : I 
 have tried lately to read Shakespeare ... it 
 nauseated me. I have also almost lost my taste 
 for music and pictures. The loss of these tastes 
 may possibly be injurious to the intellect, and 
 more probably to the moral character, by en- 
 feebling the emotional part of our nature." He 
 also declares, in 1861 : "I am not at all accustomed 
 to metaphysical trains of thought " ; and in 1879 : 
 " What my own views may be," on the subject of 
 religion, " is a question of no consequence to any- 
 one but myself" {Charles Darwin, by Francis 
 Darwin, 1902, pp. 55 ; 60 ; 62 ; 50 ; 51 ; 62 ; 55). 
 As regards Theism, he writes (in 1876) of 
 "the extreme difficulty, or rather impossibility, 
 of conceiving this immense and wonderful 
 universe, including man with his capacity for 
 looking far backwards and far into futurity, as 
 the result of blind chance or necessity. When 
 thus reflecting, I feel compelled to look to a 
 First Cause, having an intelligent mind in some 
 decree analogous to that of man ; and I deserve 
 to be called a Theist. But then arises the doubt
 
 Darwin on Theism, Immortality, Conscience 267 
 
 — Can the mind of man, developed, I fully believe, 
 from a mind as low as that possessed by the 
 lowest animals, be trusted when it draws such 
 grand conclusions ? " And at other times : " There 
 seems to be no more design in the action of 
 natural selection than in the course which the 
 wind blows." Again, " I am aware that if we 
 admit a First Cause, the mind still craves to 
 know whence it came and how it arose. Nor 
 can I overlook the difficulty from the immense 
 amount of suffering throughout the world " ; and 
 "the number of men in the world is as nothine 
 compared with that of all other sentient beings, 
 which often suffer greatly without any moral 
 improvement " such as men may derive from their 
 sufferings. Yet, in spite of his own sufferings 
 ("I never pass twenty-four hours without many 
 hours of discomfort when I can do nothing 
 whatsoever "), he declares : " According to my 
 judgment, happiness decidedly prevails " in the 
 world. " In my extreme fluctuations I have 
 never been an Atheist, in the sense of denying 
 the existence of God. I think that generally 
 (and increasingly as I grow older), but not 
 always, that an Agnostic would be the more 
 correct description of my state of mind." His 
 son emphatically endorses this diagnosis {ibid. pp. 
 61, 64, 59; 57, 60, 56, 59; 55, 65 n.).
 
 268 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 With respect to Immortality and "the view 
 now held by most physicists that the sun with all 
 the planets will in time grow too cold for life," he 
 exclaims: "Believing as I do that man, in the 
 distant future, will be a far more perfect creature 
 than he now is, it is an intolerable thought, that 
 he and all other sentient beings are doomed to 
 complete annihilation after such long-continued 
 slow progress. To those who fully admit the 
 immortality of the human soul, the destruction of 
 our world will not appear so dreadful " (ibid. p. 61). 
 
 And finally, as to Conscience, Duty, Sin, he 
 writes in 1873 : " Man can do his duty" ; and in 
 1879 : "As for myself, I believe that I have acted 
 rightly in devoting my life to Science. I feel no 
 remorse for having committed any great sin, but 
 have often and often regretted that I have not 
 done more direct good to my fellow-creatures " 
 {ibid. pp. 57, 328). 1 
 
 2. The following points appear to be specially 
 important here : — 
 
 (1) Nothing can well be more different than 
 Evolution as understood, of simple Organisms or 
 Monads, by Leibniz, and in part already by 
 
 1 See the delightfully sympathetic reminiscences of Darwin, in 
 J. W. Judd's " Darwin and Geology," in Darwin and Modern 
 Science, 1909, pp. 337-384 ; and in his booklet, The Coming oj 
 Evolution, 191 1.
 
 Confusion between Evolution and Epigenesis 269 
 
 Cardinal Nicolas of Coes (d. 1464), or of the 
 Logical Idea and of the entire Universe, by 
 Heorel, on the one hand, and the Darwinian 
 " Evolution " on the other. The former is simply 
 an unfolding, an unpacking, of a content com- 
 pletely present in miniature from the first, or a 
 differentiation of a unity ; the latter is an integra- 
 tion of a plurality, — the parts here are not 
 present, in the organism or its embryo, from the 
 first, but are gradually superadded and organized, 
 one after the other. With the great anatomist 
 William Harvey (d. 1658), who prophetically 
 anticipated the conception and coined the term, 
 and with Professor James Ward, thus carefully 
 discriminative, we shall call this latter process, 
 not Evolution but Epigenesis (J. Ward, The 
 Realm of Ends, 191 1, pp. 97-99). 
 
 Now Darwin, in his misgivings as to the range 
 of man's mind, confounds, and uses with strange 
 inconsistencies and cross-purposes, these two 
 very different senses of "Evolution." "Man is 
 developed from the lower animals " seems here 
 to imply for him, "man's mind is still somehow 
 limited by that starting-point." Yet Darwin's 
 own " Evolution," Epigenesis, postulates the 
 integration of new organs and powers ; and 
 Leibnizian-Hegelian Evolution (rightly according 
 to the logic of that view) looks to the end, and
 
 270 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 not to the beginning, of the unfolding for the 
 true revelation of each organism's content. Thus 
 Darwin here follows, not his own Epigenesis 
 (for man in Epigenesis is indeed descended from 
 the monkey, yet is not now a monkey, but a 
 creature which, in the course of ages, has 
 integrated much that is new into what has 
 descended to it through the monkey), but the 
 Leibnizian Evolution (where man is now what 
 he was from the first). And yet Darwin here 
 adopts the Leibnizian Evolution only directly to 
 contradict the logic of this Evolution, which 
 requires, should it come to hold man to be 
 developed from a creature which in the past 
 seemed to be no more than a monkey, that the 
 apparent monkey was really a man, and not that 
 the latter fully explicitated being is no more 
 than a monkey. 
 
 But indeed, even if the logic of Darwin's 
 argument be self-consistent, it is impossible to 
 see what the kind or degree of intelligence 
 possessed by man's earliest ancestors has to do 
 with the nature and range of man's present 
 intelligence, any more than Newton's capacity 
 for apprehending the law of gravitation is called 
 in doubt by our remembering his animal-like 
 early infancy. I take this difficulty, which 
 evidently was the obstacle to Darwin's full and
 
 The Problem lies in the Varying 271 
 
 continuous adhesion to Theism, to have attained 
 to its great power over his mind, through his 
 immense absorption in, and intense picturing of, 
 the supposed earlier stages of living organisms. 
 This absorption would, when he turned to those 
 great, largely metaphysical questions, make him 
 involuntarily conceive human beings as still 
 facing these problems with powers not differing 
 in kind, and hardly in degree, from those of the 
 animals from which they sprang. 
 
 (2) If the evidence of Botany, Zoology, Anthro- 
 pology, amply endorsed and extended within each 
 of these sciences by Palaeontology, have more and 
 more recommended some degree and doctrine 
 of Descent, the immense and varied observations 
 and thought devoted to these questions since 
 The Origin of Species (1859) have, ever more 
 conclusively, shown how complex, and still 
 predominantly obscure for us, has been the 
 precise character and mechanism of this Descent. 
 Certainly " Natural Selection " and the " Struggle 
 for Existence" are now mostly admitted not to 
 suffice as explanations. And Professor Weiss- 
 mann has conclusively proved that " the kernel of 
 the riddle, in selection," even if we adopt it, " lies 
 in the varying," in the fact that " the necessary 
 beginnings of a useful variation are always present " 
 {Darwin and Modern Science, 1909, p. 27).
 
 272 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 We are thus thrown back, here also, upon 
 some Power — Theists will still conceive It as 
 God — Which ever provides these variations in 
 the right time and place, even if It does not 
 directly determine their selection. Indeed, in 
 whatever form we adopt Descent, we are ulti- 
 mately confronted with similar conditions, and 
 are driven to choose between this or that form 
 of Descent, as simply the mechanism and means 
 provided and used by Creative Intelligence and 
 Power ; or the direct attribution to Matter of 
 Consciousness and Mind ; or, at least, of the 
 Spontaneous Generation of these. And by such 
 attributions we are landed in pure Mythology. 
 
 (3) We all know of the beautifully generous 
 friendship that existed between A. R. Wallace 
 and Darwin, and how the former, admittedly a 
 simultaneous and independent elaborator of 
 " Darwinism," has, ever increasingly, combined 
 with this his " Darwinism " a full and deliberate 
 Theism. And probably the most valuable con- 
 tribution of this most patiently probing and 
 sincere biologist to the religious philosophy of 
 the question is his elucidation of how man 
 possesses certain faculties, the Mathematical, 
 Musical, Artistic, special to himself; how these 
 faculties cannot have been developed under the 
 law of Natural Selection ; and how no breach
 
 Three Creative Changes in Wallace 273 
 
 of continuity, no sudden or abrupt change, is 
 involved by the introduction, in the case of 
 man, of new causes into the continuity of 
 living beings. Indeed, as to this last objec- 
 tion, " there are at least three stages in the 
 development of the organic world when some 
 new cause or power must necessarily have come 
 into action " : the stage from inorganic to organic 
 — from a mere complexity, however great, of 
 chemical compounds, to living protoplasm, the 
 first plant-cell, a new thing in the world, with 
 its marvellous powers of growth, assimilation, 
 reproduction, variation, vitality ; the stage of 
 sensation or consciousness, a thing, the animal, 
 that feels its own existence ; and the stage of 
 full self -consciousness, reason, and volition, man. 
 These stages "point clearly to a world of spirit, 
 to which the world of matter is altogether sub- 
 ordinate." And the changes thus introduced 
 " may be none the less real because absolutely 
 imperceptible at their points of origin, as is the 
 change that takes place in the curve in which a 
 body is moving when the application of some 
 new force causes the curve to be slightly 
 altered" {Darwinism, reprint 1905, pp. 469-476). 
 We would only add to man's special character- 
 istics the sense of the Infinite, the non-contingent, 
 
 full Reality, the Perfect ; and we would so frame 
 18
 
 274 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 our description of this Reality as to guard 
 against any possibility of taking the Ultimate 
 as perhaps, after all, some super-conscious, 
 non-" personal " Spirituality, since what we here 
 require is not even "Spirit," but the Spirit, or 
 a family of Spirits. 
 
 In any case, Dr. Wallace's example is an im- 
 pressive direct demonstration of how little even 
 a lifelong devotion to, and pioneer work in, 
 Biology and Epigenesis necessarily involve 
 Atheism or even Agnosticism ; indeed how much 
 some such workers find their researches point to, 
 and to require as their fully satisfactory nidus and 
 explanation, Spiritualism and Theism. 
 
 (4) Many of us personally still remember 
 Professor Huxley s Romanes Lecture, Evolution 
 and Ethics, in 1893, the original main position 
 of which (though practically retracted by the 
 author in one of his notes added to the published 
 text, and plentifully " answered " by various 
 Naturalistic Evolutionists) has nowhere been 
 refuted. Is, or is there not, " a sanction for 
 morality in the ways of the cosmos " ? he asks ; 
 any justification there for the artificial world built 
 up by man within that cosmos, and which is in 
 perpetual conflict with that spatially wider world ? 
 " Cosmic evolution may teach us how the good 
 and the evil tendencies of man may have come
 
 Huxley on Evolution and Ethics 275 
 
 about ; but in itself it is incompetent to furnish 
 any better reason why what we call good is 
 preferable to what we call evil, than we had 
 before." "Cosmic nature is no school of virtue, 
 but the headquarters of the enemy of ethical 
 nature"; and hence "the ethical progress of 
 society depends, not on imitating the cosmic 
 process, still less in running away from it, but in 
 combating it " (pp. 31 ; 27 ; 34). 
 
 The rough heroism of the address formed a 
 striking contrast, and yet a frame and bulwark, to 
 the deep and delicate ethical sense of Darwin 
 himself. It was, however, nothing short of a 
 direct challenge to the inevitable consequence, 
 indeed concomitant, of every doctrine of Descent 
 and Evolution which would insist upon itself as 
 exhaustive and self-explanatory, and upon earlier 
 and shallower stages of life as the true and 
 complete explanation of the later and richer ones. 
 
 Professor Andrew Seth (Pringle Pattison) has 
 admirably illustrated, completed, and guarded 
 Professor Huxley's appeal. Especially does he 
 finely discriminate between the two meanings of 
 the word "nature" and their continual confusion 
 and identification in all naturalistic thinking - and 
 feeling — the lower or narrower sense of "all that 
 happens in the known world except the responsible 
 activities of human beings," and the higher and
 
 276 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 wider sense of "the entire nature of things." 
 And he insists that, "since the true nature of the 
 cause only becomes apparent in the effect," we 
 must, when we pass from one order of facts to 
 another, ever be careful not to press the account 
 of the preceding set of facts, out of which a fact of 
 another set seems to arise, as this latter fact's true 
 and full explanation. For "by so doing we 
 identify the fact with its antecedents, whereas 
 these antecedents, as understood by the natural- 
 istic theories, are not the causes of the consequents, 
 since here the antecedents are taken in abstraction 
 from their consequents, — as we might suppose them 
 to be if no such consequents had ever issued from 
 them. Hence the futility of all attempts to 
 explain human life in terms of the merely animal, 
 to explain life in terms of the inorganic, and 
 ultimately to find a sufficient formula for the 
 cosmic process in terms of the redistribution of 
 matter and motion." And yet we have no means 
 for a satisfactory conviction both of the world's 
 unity and of an intrinsically worthy end explana- 
 tory of existence, except the conclusion that the 
 end which we recognize as alone worthy of attain- 
 ment is also the end of existence as such (A. Seth's 
 Mans Place in the Cosmos, 1897, pp. 14, 15, 32). 
 Here we would only ever keep it abundantly 
 plain that we thus in no wise exclude the possibility,
 
 Pringle Pattison: Two Meanings of K Nature' 277 
 
 which is, surely, a great probability, that, in other 
 planets and stars, quite other, higher beings than 
 man may, simultaneously or subsequently, exist, 
 who know and practise indefinitely more of Reality 
 and of Love than man does or ever will do. 
 
 The Huxley-Seth positions here given, certainly 
 alone, in spite of the admitted difficulties of their 
 systematization and practice, find a sufficiently 
 spacious and strong home and justification for 
 Darwin's own touching sense of duty, of obliga- 
 tion, even of sin as possible, and above all, 
 perhaps, of the sacredness of careful veracity in 
 little things. Naturalism has really no logical 
 room for these difficult and magnificent things, 
 however sincerely individual " Naturalists " may 
 practise them and may think themselves consistent 
 in doing so. 
 
 (5) Anthropology and the Comparative His- 
 tory of Religions is, most understandably, still 
 largely, though perhaps no longer increasingly, 
 influenced by the " Naturalism" just considered, 
 even when their votaries show a fine sense of 
 the inadequacy of mechanical categories to all 
 living, hence to all human, things, and when they 
 discriminate, theoretically, between descriptive 
 accounts and ultimate explanations. And indeed 
 the earlier, ruder manifestations of man's social, 
 ethical, and religious instincts and requirements
 
 278 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 have been so much neglected and are so interest- 
 ing, and man's mental and spiritual nature is so 
 continuously and so closely awakened, nourished, 
 limited, deflected by his physical antecedents, 
 constituents, environment, and by the family, state, 
 race, into which he is born, that the attaching 
 even a proportionally excessive importance to 
 such things is, in these still early days of those 
 sciences, practically inevitable. 
 
 Such a pregnant little book as Mr. R. R. 
 Marelt's Anthropology, 191 2, seems to us an 
 instructive combination of all the insights and 
 advantages, and of some of the imperfections, 
 just indicated. "We anthropologists," he tells 
 us, "are out to secure this: that there shall 
 be but the same kind of history, with the same 
 evolutionary principle running right through 
 it, for all men, civilized and savage, present 
 and past." "Anthropology is likely to bring us 
 nearest to the true meaning of life, because the 
 life of human beings must always be nearer to 
 human students of life than, say, the life of plants." 
 And again : " Let us look upon ourselves as if we 
 were so many bees and ants, not forgetting, of 
 course, to make use of the inside information that, 
 in the case of the insects, we so conspicuously 
 lack" (pp. 11, 12 ; 13, 18). These passages seem 
 not free from the mistakes signalized above. But
 
 Naturalism in Anthropology 279 
 
 the following is refreshingly helpful : " Biology 
 finds that it cannot conveniently abstract away 
 the reference to time," nor " treat living things as 
 machines " ; " Anthropology is a history of vital 
 tendencies which are not natural in the sense of 
 merely physical"; and "the more you take in, 
 the better your chance of really understanding" 
 (pp. 14, 16, 17). 
 
 I will but briefly add how persistent is the writer's 
 impression of the greater penetration and sympa- 
 thetic evocation of present or past, civilized or 
 barbarous, humanity offered by such work as that 
 of Rohde, compared with that of the later 
 Nietzsche ; or, again, of Paul Wendland or 
 Willamowitz Mollendorff, contrasted with that of 
 more "biological" workers; and of the delicate 
 justice of such criticisms as Professor Loisy 
 bestows upon thought as brilliant as that of M. 
 Salomon Reinach, and upon certain theses so 
 learnedly maintained by Professor J. G. Frazer. 
 In all these and similar cases the superiority, 
 such as it is, appears to proceed from a more 
 wakeful sense of man's specific differences from 
 animals, plants, and inorganic things. 1 
 
 1 For Rohde-Nietzsche, see specially O. Crusius, Erwi?i Rohde, 
 1902, pp. 113, 158, 159. For P. Wendland, his Die Helle?iistisch- 
 Romische Kultur, 1907. For Willamowitz-Mbllendorff, the beautiful 
 preface to his Griechisches Lesebuch, i. 1, ed. 1907, p. viii. For 
 Loisy, A Propos cCHistoire des Religions, 191 1, pp. 1-99 ; 166-217.
 
 280 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 3. Yet the increase of light furnished by the 
 movement so predominatingly initiated by Darwin, 
 concerning the closeness of the relations between 
 man's spirit and man's body, between man and 
 other living beings, and between the whole living 
 world and its inorganic environment, has also 
 brought, as all sincere research cannot fail to bring, 
 much helpful criticism, confirmation, and growth 
 to our apprehension, analysis, and formulation of 
 the facts and requirements constitutive of our 
 religious and moral experience. We take this to 
 obtain in three ways. 
 
 (1) The movement, at its best, has brought the 
 scientific attention back from physical, mechanical, 
 chemical facts and laws, from things, to organisms, 
 to living beings. And in such living beings we 
 have inevitably a wondrous increase of significance 
 and reality. Thus the young traveller Darwin 
 is already especially absorbed in "the singular 
 relations of the animals and plants in the several 
 Galapagos Islands, and of all of these to the 
 inhabitants of South America " ; he ever loves 
 " to exalt plants in the scale of organized beings " ; 
 and, as to Buckle's materialist and monistic 
 History of Civilization, he " doubts whether his 
 generalizations are worth anything" {Charles 
 Darwin, pp. 29, 49, 35). The close intercon- 
 nection, the upward trend and varying worth,
 
 Darwin s Graduated, Upward-moving Love 281 
 
 and the deep difference between living organ- 
 isms and all mere matter and its mechanical 
 laws, are thus vividly apprehended here. 
 
 Now all wholesome and fruitful Ethics, Religion, 
 Life in general, and all balanced and circumspect 
 Epistemology, combine in insisting upon precisely 
 these mysterious differences, superiorities, and 
 connections. And especially Religion, above all 
 Christianity, awakens and develops its strength 
 in contact with the visible, especially the organic ; 
 and, in such contact and awakening, discovers 
 life, instinct, rudimentary or developed reason, 
 increasingly like unto man's own, and all these 
 as dim analogies of, and in real relation to, the 
 Divine Spirit and Life. Here Darwin's rapt 
 interest in the interrelated lives of plants and 
 insects, in a bird's colouring and a worm's 
 instincts, are, in their grandly self-oblivious out- 
 going to the humble and the little, most genuine 
 flowerings of the delicate Christian spirit in this 
 fierce, rough world of ours. Without such real 
 love, bridging over such real differences between 
 realities possessed of varyingly deep inner lives, 
 such studies instantly become impossible, or dry 
 and merely ingenious, or weakly sentimental. 
 
 And this deep, graduated glow of love for the 
 graduated realities of our real world will succeed 
 in withstanding the fierce flare of the ruinous
 
 282 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 passion for abstraction and for the logical pyramid 
 as now again manifested in Professor Haeckels 
 vehement monistic propaganda. Here " the 
 great abstract law of mechanical causality rules 
 the entire universe, as it does the mind of man." 
 Here, with the beginning of all things, we have 
 " the homogeneous primitive matter, prothyl, 
 at an enormous temperature " ; then, with the 
 cooling of the heavenly bodies, " protoplasm, 
 that wonderful substance which alone, as far as 
 we know, is the possessor of organic life," is 
 evolved ; the simplest organic beings, e.g. bacteria, 
 arise, "by spontaneous generation from the nitro- 
 carbonates" of those stars; "the radiation of 
 heat into space gradually lowers the temperature 
 until all water is turned into ice, — that is the end 
 of all organic life." "At length the moons fall 
 upon the planets, and the planets upon the sun. 
 The collision again produces an intense heat . . . 
 and the eternal drama of sun-birth begins again." 
 This, the Professor insists, is " a sublime picture " ; 
 Darwin, we saw, found even the much milder 
 monism of Buckle to be of doubtful worth, 
 and this picture "intolerable." 
 
 "Over all this 'perpetual motion,'" continues 
 the unconquerably cheerful Professor, " rules 
 the law of substance." We do not know what 
 'substance' is; but "from the obscure problem
 
 HaeckeVs Monistic Levelling-down 283 
 
 of substance we have evolved the clear law of 
 substance " ; and " the monism of the cosmos 
 which we establish thereon proclaims the absolute 
 dominion of ' the great eternal iron laws ' through- 
 out the universe," and "shatters the three central 
 dogmas of the dualistic philosophy — the person- 
 ality of God, the immortality of the soul, and 
 the freedom of the Will " ( The Riddle of the 
 Universe, 8th impression, 191 1, pp. 129-132, 
 
 134, 135). 
 
 Thus, the more abstract and unreal the notions, 
 
 the more they here oust and destroy the concrete, 
 
 the experienced, the real; - and man is invited to 
 
 admire this his own self-strangulation by means 
 
 of the thinnest cobwebs spun by his own brain ! 
 
 Such perversely clever feats are still very 
 
 popular. Yet they thrive, not on any intrinsic 
 
 adequacy or fruitfulness, but on the faults and 
 
 excesses committed by the representatives of the 
 
 richer and truer outlooks ; upon the admittedly 
 
 great triumphs, at shallower levels, of mechanical 
 
 science ; and especially upon the plausibility of 
 
 "clear" thoughts. 1 
 
 (2) The interesting attempt of the Rev. F. R. 
 
 Tennant, in his Origin and Propagation of Sin, 
 
 1 See the wise and firm discussion of Evolution in Professor 
 Eucken's Geistige Stromungen der Gege?vwart, 3rd ed. 1904, 
 pp. 185-225.
 
 284 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 1902, to elucidate the moral and religious experi- 
 ences of Temptation and Guilt, and the theological 
 definitions of these experiences, by means of the 
 Descent Theory, shows at least how this Theory 
 not only raises or intensifies difficulties, but can 
 also resolve some of the obscurities attaching to 
 these profoundly important matters. 
 
 "The further back we trace man, the less," 
 says Mr. Tennant, "do we find him the person 
 or even the individual"; "the 'tribal self pre- 
 ceded the 'personal self"; "the idea of moral 
 personality, in terms of which theology has been 
 wont exclusively to formulate its doctrine of the 
 origin of sin, emerged extremely late in human 
 thought." "The origin of sin, like other so- 
 called origins, thus appears as a gradual process, 
 rather than an abrupt, inexplicable plunge ; and 
 the first sin, instead of being the most heinous 
 and the most momentous in the race's history, 
 would rather be the least significant of all." And 
 " if man's physical nature is necessarily endowed 
 with instincts, appetites, impulsions, it contains 
 abundance of raw material for the production of 
 sin, as soon as these native propensities are brought 
 into relation with any restraining or condemning 
 influence." The universality of sin, in at least 
 many of its most general forms, becomes thus 
 attributed to " the self-assertion of powerful
 
 Tennant on Evohition mid Si?i 285 
 
 tendencies, with all their priority in time and 
 fixity in instinct and habit, after the acquisition 
 and superposition of a ' higher nature ' which 
 demands their subordination to less immediate 
 and tangible ends." Hence "the human infant is 
 simply a non-moral animal"; and "our lowest 
 appetites are means of self-realization in the 
 highest sense," whilst they are also "the fateful 
 rocks on which so many human lives make 
 shipwreck." " Indeed, it is because the mastery 
 of appetite and emotion by the moralized man 
 has always proved so difficult that human thought 
 has generally considered the animal side of our 
 nature to be positively evil." Or, as Archdeacon 
 Wilson tersely puts it, " to the " evolutionist 
 " believer sin is not an innovation, but the survival 
 or misuse of habits and tendencies that were 
 incidental to an earlier stage of development, and 
 whose sinfulness lies in their anachronism " ; and 
 "this conflict of freedom and conscience is" 
 precisely " what is related as ' The Fall,' sub specie 
 histories" {op. cit. pp. 89-93 > 95> 9 8 > IO °)- 
 
 The deepest root of sin, and the deeper and 
 deepest kinds of sin (such as self-centredness, 
 pride of intellect, self-adoration) are surely appre- 
 hended or explained here only very inadequately. 
 Yet it is certain that, of all the Christian Symbols 
 concerning Original Sin, the definition of the
 
 286 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Council of Trent (1546) is the least in conflict 
 with such a conception. And, in any case, it is 
 clear that there is nothing here to weaken our 
 sense of the profound duty and rightness of virtue, 
 our conviction concerning the grim reality and 
 wrongfulness of sin, or our longing for grace and 
 help against sinfulness and self. 
 
 (3) And finally, as regards Epigenesis and 
 Creation, a wider, and indeed deeper and richer, 
 conception of Creation, especially a concentration 
 upon, and vivid apprehension of, the continuity 
 and immediacy of the Divine Action involved in 
 any adequate doctrine of Creation, appears to leave 
 sufficient room within Creation for all probable 
 forms of Epigenesis, provided always that such 
 Epigenesis or Evolution is content to be, not the 
 all-sufficient reason and ultimate explanation, but 
 simply a process and description. 
 
 Thus the Rev. Philip Waggett strikingly 
 declares : " Science persistently presses on to 
 find the universal machinery of adaptation in 
 the planet " ; and " in whatsoever Science may 
 find this adaptation, it must always be opposed 
 to the conception of a Divine Power here and 
 there, but not everywhere, active. For Science 
 the Divine must be constant, operative every- 
 where and in every quality and power, in en- 
 vironment and in organism, in stimulus and in
 
 Waggett on Continuous Creation 287 
 
 reaction, in variation and in struggle, ... in 
 short, in the general wonder of life and the world. 
 And this is exactly what the Divine Power must 
 be for religious faith." And he points out that, 
 "whereas 'God rested' has been long taken in 
 the sense that God's activity, with respect to 
 the formation of living creatures, ceased at some 
 point in past time," " Creation, in the reformed 
 language of religion, comes now specially to 
 mean for us the mysterious and permanent 
 relation between the Infinite and the finite, 
 between the moving changes we know in part, 
 and the Power, after the fashion of that observa- 
 tion, unknown, which is itself ' unmoved all 
 motion's source' {Darwin and Modern Science, 
 1909, pp. 491, 492 ; 4S9, 49o). 
 
 I will but add that, in proportion as we move 
 up in the scale of reality, the more we have to 
 conceive the Divine Action as bafflingly rich 
 and varied in the manner, the degree, and the 
 restraint of its operation and aid ; and that, in 
 proportion as we insist upon God's Immanence 
 within the sensible and the human world, in 
 the same proportion does the problem of Evil 
 increase in urgency and difficulty. Yet both these 
 mysteries appear to be intrinsic to life, and 
 religion, which has not caused or imagined them, 
 can bear them ; indeed only religion can, if not
 
 288 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 theoretically explain, at least practically utilize and 
 surmount, the wondrous and dread capabilities and 
 realities thus experienced by us in our lives and in 
 the world. 
 
 4. Two philosophers, both largely followers of 
 Darwin, but otherwise strikingly different in their 
 entire orientation of mind and literary form, might 
 be considered here — Herbert Spencer, with 
 his Unknowable, and Henri Bergson, with his 
 Dur&e. We will, however, restrict ourselves to 
 M. Bergson, as by far the most penetrating, the 
 most likely to live, and the most instructive in 
 our particular subject-matter. 
 
 Bergson s form is so vibratingly alive and beauti- 
 ful, his success against a merely mechanical or 
 materialistic conception of life is so real, and his 
 intentions in favour of Libertarianism and Spirit- 
 uality are so evident and so worthy of respect, that 
 it is difficult, for one who has long loved and learnt 
 from him in all these ways, to take up an attitude 
 towards him that is at all critical. And then, in 
 spite of his admirable form, he is far from easy to 
 analyse or to understand. 
 
 But first I would once more gratefully accept 
 his cardinal distinction between Concrete Time 
 (Duration) and Conceptional Time (Clock-Time), 
 and the more restricted amongst his descriptions
 
 Bergsoiis Abiding Contribution, Durde 289 
 
 of both ; and especially his insistence upon the 
 essential, indeed immense, role played by Duration 
 in the entire life of man. Other philosophers 
 have indeed adumbrated these facts, but no one 
 has so continuously and so profitably elucidated 
 them. Let us here, then, only consider certain 
 other, still more fundamental and original, applica- 
 tions or conceptions of Bergson, under the two 
 rough headings of Time and Space, and of Finalism 
 and the place and character of Transformism. 
 Our texts shall come almost exclusively from his 
 fundamental book, the Essai stir les Donnees 
 Immediates de la Conscience, 2nd ed. 1898, and 
 from his most recent, largest, and most Dar- 
 winian work, V Evolution Crdatrice, 1907. My 
 quotations are made directly from the originals. 
 (1) As concerns Bergson's fundamental anti- 
 nomy of the Durational, Temporal, and Quali- 
 tative, and the Extensional, Spatial, and Quanti- 
 tative, the Essai, in its first chapter, warns us 
 that "we love simple things, and hence our 
 language is but ill constructed for rendering the 
 subtleties of psychological analysis " ; and then 
 attempts to show, in exquisitely developed ex- 
 amples, that our consciousness is ever qualitative, 
 never quantitative, in kind. Thus " without the 
 successive (muscular and other) reactions, the 
 intensity of pain would be a " constantly varying 
 19
 
 290 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 "quality, and not a quantity." But "in propor- 
 tion as the sensation ceases to be affective and 
 the reactions disappear, we come to perceive the 
 external object, the sensation's cause. And this 
 cause is extensive, i.e. measurable ; hence we now 
 associate the idea of a certain quantity in the cause 
 with a certain quality in the effect ; and we finally 
 put that quantity into this quality." Yet in reality 
 " there exists no contact between the unextended, 
 quality, and the extended, quantity," although 
 " Physics, which calculates the exterior causes of 
 our internal states, deliberately confounds the two, 
 and thus even exaggerates the illusion of common- 
 sense in this matter" (pp. 10; 28 ; 31, 32 ; 52). 
 
 And then the second chapter attempts to 
 establish that the sole reality experienced by us 
 is " Time Quality, with mutual penetration of its 
 parts, as against Time Quantity, with multiplicity 
 of juxtaposition"; that "every clear idea of 
 number implies a vision in Space," whilst "a 
 complex feeling contains indeed a considerable 
 number of simpler elements, but, as soon as the 
 consciousness distinctly perceives them, the psychic 
 state, the result of their synthesis, will, for that 
 very reason, be changed " ; and even that " the 
 actual, not only virtual, apperception of sub- 
 divisions in the individual is precisely what we 
 call objectivity." Thus, then, " we know two
 
 Time and Space differently treated 291 
 
 realities of different orders, — the one " purely 
 " heterogeneous, the reality of Sensible Qualities ; 
 the other " purely " homogeneous, which is Space. 
 It is Space which, clearly conceived by the in- 
 telligence, enables us to make precise distinctions, 
 to count, to abstract, perhaps also to speak." And 
 hence " in Duration there is never anything homo- 
 geneous, except what does not endure, namely, 
 Space, in which alone simultaneities appear drawn 
 up in line" ; and "in Movement there is nothing 
 homogeneous, except the Space which has been 
 traversed, that is, Immobility. Hence Science 
 operates upon Time and Movement only after 
 first eliminating from Time Duration, and from 
 Movement Mobility." In a word, "our percep- 
 tions, sensations, emotions, ideas are either clear 
 and precise, but then they are impersonal ; or 
 they are confused and infinitely mobile, but then 
 they are inexpressible" (ibid. pp. 57, n. 1 ; 60; 
 63, 64; 70; 74; 78; 86, 87; 97). 
 
 Now here we are, first of all, struck by the 
 strange difference of method pursued with regard 
 to Time and with regard to Space. For Time here 
 is most real when most concrete ; Space most real 
 when most abstract. Again, Time here is real 
 only when full of its characteristics, successions ; 
 Space is real only when empty of its character- 
 istics, simultaneities. And again, Time here is
 
 292 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 real only when it effects something real within 
 real beings that endure ; Space is real only as 
 a passive medium against which we, concrete 
 beings, can project the thin ghosts of our real 
 experiences, and can thus discriminate into clear 
 simultaneities the obscure successions of our 
 actual lives. Nor is it that Time, as Duration, is 
 here primary and alone real, and Space secondary 
 and everywhere subjective ; but both are to be 
 real, and yet they are to answer to directly con- 
 tradictory standards of reality. 
 
 And, again, we are baffled by the intense 
 abstractness of both these two sole realities. For 
 pure homogeneous Space and pure heterogeneous 
 Becoming are entirely beyond all human ex- 
 perience, which only knows Spatial and Temporal 
 Objects, in which the Space is never purely 
 homogeneous and the Becoming never purely 
 heterogeneous. Certainly such wholesale Spatial- 
 ization of Science would be the ruin of Science ; 
 for Science would then hover completely outside 
 of the concrete reality which it would still claim 
 to interpret. And such a complete Fluidification 
 of Human Life would be the destruction of this 
 Life, since there would be here no rational, spiritual 
 necessities, no ideal, organization, or end which 
 could lift the toil and trouble, the joy and sadness, 
 above sheer, blind happenings and soulless things.
 
 Duration not Sheer Becoming 29? 
 
 
 
 But indeed Bergson himself gives us two 
 indications that we cannot take Duration as the 
 sheer Change and Becoming which he usually 
 declares it to be. For Duration ever consists 
 with him in the interpenetration of its various 
 parts. Take away all these parts (however 
 obscurely discriminated and intimately interpene- 
 trative) and the Succession of Duration has be- 
 come as homogeneous as the Simultaneity of 
 Space — which is precisely what the entire system 
 does not want. Yet parts are ever parts of a 
 whole, and sheer Becoming has no room for 
 wholes, and hence none for parts. And again, 
 Bergson himself sometimes clearly realizes that 
 Metaphysics cannot simply consist in innumerable, 
 utterly independent and differing, intuitions of 
 an utterly disjointed, chaotically creative reality. 
 Thus, in the " Introduction a. la Metaphysique," 
 he says : " Metaphysics is never fully itself, 
 unless it emancipates itself from stiff and ready- 
 made concepts, and creates representations that 
 are supple, mobile, almost fluid, and are ever 
 ready to mould themselves on the elusive forms 
 of intuition " (Revue de Me'taphysique et de 
 Morale, Jan v. 1903, p. 9). Here again, then, 
 we are after a will-o'-the-wisp, unless the 
 reality which intuition grasps, and which is thus 
 to be conceptualized, contains some permanence,
 
 294 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 some tendency, requirement, or end within 
 itself. 
 
 The fact is, doubtless, that Bergson has broken 
 up the opposites, which together constitute our 
 consciousness and life, into two separate worlds ; 
 which worlds, then, are each unreal and excessive, 
 and refuse to come together again. For I, my 
 Self, am not more a sheer Becoming or a sheer 
 Creator than I am a mere Fixity or a mere 
 Result ; indeed my manhood consists precisely in 
 the permanence, and in my consciousness of 
 the permanence, of my one Self throughout its 
 changes, and in the upbuilding of my abiding per- 
 sonality by means of these vicissitudes. Doubt- 
 less without such changes there would be for me, 
 and for human beings in general (as these are 
 known to us in this earthly life), no permanence, 
 no upbuilding of the spiritual Self. Yet this Self 
 is not simply those changes, nor simply their 
 result, nor merely their contemplator ; but it is I, 
 myself, who, in and through those changes, main- 
 tain and build up this my personality. 
 
 (2) In the Evolution Creatrice, the utter 
 heterogeneity, unaccountableness, unpurposive 
 character of all Duration and Life, in precise pro- 
 portion to its depth, is perhaps even more 
 vehemently emphasized ; e.g. " whether as Matter 
 or as Spirit, Reality is a continual Becoming, it
 
 Evolution indicates Purpose 295 
 
 makes or unmakes itself, but it is never something 
 made" (p. 295). But in this work Bergson 
 attempts to enforce this his central conviction by- 
 means of various, often exquisite, studies in bio- 
 logical adaptation and animal instinct, all tending 
 to show that Evolution, Transformism, has ever 
 followed, and still follows, that course of utter 
 heterogeneity. He is attracted to Transformism, 
 both because he thinks it adds greatly to the con- 
 clusiveness of the considerations to be derived 
 from Duration against all mere Mechanism ; and 
 because he finds it to show that "life does not 
 proceed by association and addition of elements, 
 but by dissociation and distinction" (pp. 40, 97). 
 Indeed, his entire second chapter here is devoted 
 to " The Divergent Directions of the Evolution 
 of Life." 
 
 And yet we read here that " this entire study 
 tends to establish that the Vital is in the 
 direction of the Voluntary " ; and that " the Ab- 
 solute endures like to ourselves, but, on certain 
 sides, with infinitely greater concentration and re- 
 collection within itself." And as to our human 
 faculties, Kant indeed considers all our intuitions 
 to be only sensible, i.e. infra-intellectual. But 
 Bergson proposes to find " Science increasingly 
 symbolical, in proportion as it proceeds from the 
 physical to the psychical through the vital " ; so
 
 296 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 that, " since we must, in some manner, perceive a 
 thing if we are to be able to symbolize it, there 
 would exist an Intuition of the psychical, and more 
 generally of the vital, which the Intelligence would 
 indeed transpose and translate, but which, never- 
 theless, would exceed the Intelligence" — we would 
 thus possess "a supra-intellectual Intuition" (pp. 
 
 244, 3 2 3> 3 88 > 3 8 9). 
 
 Thus here again the same Flux and Becoming, 
 which is generally presented as absolutely without 
 purpose or aim, appears at times as moving in a 
 particular direction, as infinitely differing in worth, 
 and as most precious where most concentrated 
 and most nearly a simultaneity, an Eternity. Yet 
 here again, and on a larger scale than in the 
 Essai, we usually find that the immense stress and 
 struggle of life, and its various, simultaneous forms 
 or successive stages (inert, instinctive, rational), 
 are all only changes and growths in the means to 
 exist, and in the degree and kind of liberty and 
 capacity possessed by the various beings towards 
 their self-concentration and self-creation for such 
 existence. There is absolutely no change or 
 advance in the end striven for ; and no wonder, 
 for, from first to last, no end is striven for at all, 
 except existence, ever increasingly free indeed 
 from all compulsion, yet bereft throughout of all 
 rational, ethical, spiritual motive, aim, or ideal,
 
 Man Exists not simply to Exist 297 
 
 however obscure and inchoate. Thus in Bergson's 
 predominant view we struggle, suffer, live, and 
 die, in order to exist, and only to exist ; if we 
 seek anything in and through our existence 
 besides an ever more concentrated, an ever more 
 existing, existence, we are supposed to court a 
 Finalism less directly determinist than is Mechan- 
 ism, but which, in the long-run, is as ruinous to 
 liberty, and hence to life, as is Mechanism itself. 
 
 (3) To sum up. We are deeply grateful to 
 M. Berg-son for his great central discrimination 
 between Conceptual and Real Time, and for his 
 fine penetration into the irreplaceable function 
 performed by Real Time in all specifically human 
 activity and consciousness. But we must de- 
 mand a similar discrimination between Conceptual 
 and Real Space, and especially the admission of 
 the strictly artificial character of M. Bergson's 
 " Real " (i.e. Pure, Homogeneous) Space. These 
 changes will necessarily modify Bergson's usual 
 definitions, though not his occasional admissions, 
 concerning Real Time (Duration). For Real 
 Time will then be no more sheer Heterogeneity 
 and Creation, than Real Space will be sheer 
 Homogeneity and Emptiness. And thus we can 
 ever discover, in our consciousness and activity, 
 real Simultaneity as well as real Succession ; and 
 the first will not be pure fixity, nor the second pure
 
 298 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 fluidity. But our life will have a range around in 
 the present, as well as back into the past and on 
 into the future ; and it will have a variety in 
 which the new will ever revivify the old, and the 
 old will ever steady and extend the new. And 
 this position alone will be fully justifiable by 
 philosophy, since only thus do we systematically 
 trust and follow the highest, richest, best-known, 
 of our categories, Self-Consciousness and Person- 
 ality — a category which essentially consists in 
 precisely this mysterious union of opposites. 
 
 But even further. However real, however 
 simply ultimate (for man) may be Duration (and 
 this book strongly holds that Duration is indeed 
 thus real and ultimate), Duration is, surely, at its 
 highest, not in its element of Change, but in its 
 element of Permanence. Bergson almost ex- 
 clusively insists upon the Change, because only 
 boundless, ceaseless Change can, to his mind, 
 secure for Duration its free operativeness and 
 truly Creative power. And he is doubtless right 
 in his opposition to such a system as that of 
 Leibniz, where our seemingly free acts are but 
 the inevitable carrying out of a programme fixed 
 in every detail. Yet a full and unforced analysis 
 of the facts of our consciousness, and a careful 
 consideration of Bergson's own position, show 
 plainly, I think, that here again, in his idea of
 
 Conation absent from Bergsoris World 299 
 
 Liberty, we are given a "pure," i.e. an artificial, 
 a one-sidedly abstract, conception. 
 
 For, as to the facts of consciousness — all its 
 tension, friction, movement, Bergson indeed 
 admirably describes and defends them qua 
 realities operative for their own perpetuation, but 
 he fails fully to penetrate and to explain them, 
 and hence even adequately to describe them in 
 their deepest strivings. We have here nothing of 
 Professor G. F. Stout's persistent conviction that 
 "any specific activity must be thought of in 
 relation to some result which it either maintains 
 in existence or tends to bring into existence — an 
 end to which it is directed " (Analytic Psychology, 
 1909, vol. i. p. 126); and nothing of his fine 
 preoccupation with the relations between Interest 
 and Attention {ibid. pp. 224-240). Indeed, the 
 entire conception of the primary importance of 
 Conation, and of the essentially teleological 
 character of all Conation, is wholly absent from 
 the mind of Bergson. And this absence is truly 
 strange in a mind so delicately alert to all the 
 lesser characteristics of life, and so keenly anxious 
 to elucidate life's libertarian, spiritual character. 
 
 And as to the final result of Bergson's own 
 general position, it is doubtless his too simple 
 (because, in great part, only negative and natural- 
 istic) conception of Liberty, and his consequent
 
 300 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 aversion to all genuine Finalism, which prevent 
 his admirable beginnings and motives from 
 attaining their own requirements. How im- 
 pressive, for instance (as far as it goes), is, in the 
 Essai (pp. 175, 176), the account of the Free 
 Act, as an unusually extensive and close inter- 
 penetration of the successive parts of Duration — 
 as a momentary, almost complete, Concentration 
 and Simultaneity of the Agent's entire Succession. 
 Yet the same writer will find the essence of this 
 same Duration in an utterly heterogeneous flux, 
 bereft of all parts or any wholeness ; will oppose 
 all Simultaneity, as so much Spatialization and 
 hence as the destruction, of the living soul ; and, 
 above all, will (even in such otherwise exquisite 
 descriptions) ignore the most fundamental of all 
 the characteristics of full human self-consciousness, 
 according- to which the self-concentration of the 
 soul is never sought as admirable or precious 
 apart from the realization thereby of some end or 
 ideal other than such self-concentration. If, in 
 this free act, there is a self moved by necessities 
 and ideals, ultimately by realities, of a rational, 
 ethical, spiritual kind and worth ; if it can, in end- 
 less degrees, affirm, seek, and actuate within its 
 own life, or deny, evade, and almost forget, these 
 indestructible necessities and realities ; and if such 
 a spontaneous affirmation effects this human self's
 
 Personality measured by Abidingness 301 
 
 full depth and happiness : then, indeed, can such a 
 self-concentration be a fully moving spectacle for 
 the human mind ; then, but only then. 
 
 Bergson has thus, we feel, stopped half-way ; he 
 has removed the mechanical obstacles to Liberty, 
 but he has not discovered the spiritual conditions 
 and requisites for the same Liberty. Indeed, by 
 his strenuous exclusion of all permanence, and of 
 every aim and ideal, as of so many abstractions 
 essentially hostile to Freedom, he has, most 
 unintentionally, brought us back, in this anti- 
 Finalism, to that Naturalism which he had so 
 successfully resisted when it masqueraded as a 
 sheer Mechanism. And thus the present writer 
 can never get away for a little from the fascina- 
 tion of this exquisite and most brilliant mind, 
 without feeling this distressing antagonism in 
 his thought — a nobly sensitive awareness as 
 to the active nature, the rich variety, the range, 
 and the successiveness, essential to all life ; 
 and yet a strange insensibility to its purposive 
 character, its profound unity, organization, and 
 simultaneity. We thus get a spiritualistic begin- 
 ning crowned by a naturalistic conclusion, a 
 certain warmth with coldness, and depth with 
 shallowness. 
 
 And especially as regards Eternal Life, the 
 finest words yet spoken concerning Bergson's
 
 302 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 central conception are probably those of Professor 
 Bosanquet : " Succession and Continuity are," 
 indeed, "the two inseparable factors of a reality 
 which is fundamentally temporal " ; but once 
 the dual nature of time is thoroughly admitted, 
 " Durde is " seen to be " one with the relative 
 timelessness of a finite self." " The finite qua 
 finite has an aspect of succession"; yet "the 
 distinctive being of the self is inversely as its 
 dependence on successiveness " ( The Principle of 
 Individuality and Value, 191 2, pp. 338-340). 
 
 Let us only here insist, once more, upon the 
 right, privilege, and duty of Religion to experience 
 and conceive full Eternity and Simultaneity, not 
 simply as an ideal limit to which our quasi-eternity 
 can ever increasingly approach, but as already 
 fully extant — as the characteristic of the Spirit 
 of spirits, God, Who acts within these our quasi- 
 eternal spirits, and Who thus both awakens and 
 slakes within us our noblest desire, a keen sense 
 of Eternal Life. 1 
 
 1 On most of the points considered above, see J. M'Kellar 
 Stewart's excellent Critical Exposition of Bergsoris Philosophy, 
 191 1, pp. 205-254, 300, 301 ; and Mr. Boyce's Gibson's wise and 
 probing study, " The Intuitionism of Henri Bergson," The Quest, 
 Jan. 191 1.
 
 Present Social Problems essentially New 303 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SOCIALISM AND PRESENT SOCIAL PROBLEMS 
 
 Introductory — Marx's fundamental conceptions — Causes of the 
 prevalence of secularism in contemporary social movements — 
 Conditions and symptoms traceable here favourable to religion. 
 
 We are, next, face to face with quite a different 
 world, different difficulties, and yet also different 
 helps, as regards Eternal Life, from those directly 
 presented or supplied by the philosophers, singly 
 or collectively. This world, and these difficulties 
 and helps, are, in their special intensity, range, 
 and complication, a genuinely new experience in 
 the history of mankind. It is the world of the 
 West-European and North-American workmen, 
 with their special requirements, passions, and 
 mentality, as these have been developed within 
 the last sixty years. The advent of machinery, 
 especially of steam and electricity ; the huge 
 increase of population and its concentration in 
 great cities ; the amazing swiftness and continu- 
 ousness of international communication ; the 
 immense increase in the pace and range of men's 
 living, thinking, desiring ; the gigantic organiza-
 
 304 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 tions of capital and of labour ; the influence, both 
 stimulative and repellent, of the great French 
 Revolution, in the attempt of the bourgeois to 
 remodel society and the State in accordance with 
 the ideas of the sceptical Encyclopaedists ; and, 
 still more, the propagandist force of the Marxist, 
 utterly immanentist or directly irreligious, Social- 
 ism : all this, and the like, has unitedly pro- 
 duced conditions and problems of an acuteness 
 and difficulty without a match in the human 
 past. 
 
 Here, we are concerned with this huge complex 
 of troubles and aspirations, now seething all around 
 us, only in so far as it affects Eternal Life. Let 
 us, then, first consider briefly the attitude of Marx 
 to our group of experiences and convictions ; let 
 us next elucidate how and why not only Social- 
 ism, but our present social condition generally, 
 is unfavourable, or directly hostile, to that 
 deepest religious life ; and, finally, what are the 
 elements in this situation generally, and what are 
 the symptoms observable amongst Socialists in 
 particular, which are already satisfactory or 
 hopeful for the future. 
 
 1. Karl Marx (born in Treves in 1818; died 
 in London in 1883), as his collaborator Friedrich 
 Engels tells us, made " the two great discoveries
 
 Marx's Conception of History 305 
 
 of the Materialistic Conception of History, and 
 of the Secret of Capitalist Production ; and 
 through these discoveries Socialism became a 
 Science." That conception of History is simply 
 the affirmation of the continuous process of 
 Development of all things spiritual and material, 
 a process in which nothing is permanent except 
 this eternal Becoming and Dissolution, as Marx 
 and Engels tell us they found it in Hegel. But 
 they hailed with joy Feuerbach's elimination of 
 the dualism (still retained by Hegel) between 
 Spirit and Matter, and the same Feuerbach's 
 latest, frank proclamation of the entire spiritual 
 life of man as the product of mere matter. For 
 Marx, as for Feuerbach, there thus exists no 
 God ; man is not essentially distinct from the 
 brute ; thinking is only a chemical process ; death 
 is the end of all. 
 
 Yet Marx and Engels consider that they 
 have apprehended the evolutionary process more 
 deeply, again, than Feuerbach, through their dis- 
 covery that " production, and, next to produc- 
 tion, the exchange of the products, is the basis 
 of all social order " ; that " in every society which 
 arises in history the distribution of the products, 
 and therewith the social articulation into classes 
 or ranks, depends upon what, and how, men 
 
 produce in such a society, and upon how these 
 20
 
 306 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 products are exchanged therein. Thus the final 
 causes of all social and political changes are to 
 be sought, not in Philosophy, but in Economics." 
 And this fundamental law and vital movement, 
 of itself and quietly, eliminates all religion. For 
 with mankind's recognition of the fundamentally 
 economic character of its entire life, a new social 
 order arises, with a new law and a new morality ; 
 whilst religion disappears when man, thus fully 
 awake, enters upon the Socialist period of human 
 history. 
 
 We can here pass over the capitalistic question ; 
 but must, for a moment, remind ourselves how 
 this system, in its original, Marxist form, wages 
 a relentless war against all the natural orcraniza- 
 tions which are not the one (here sole and 
 omnipotent) organization of the State. For the 
 State here does not simply represent, co-ordinate, 
 regulate, and supplement the narrower, yet deeper 
 and more primitive, organizations of the family, 
 the clan, the class, the nation, society ; but ob- 
 viously supplants them all, since it possesses, 
 distributes, regulates, commands simply every- 
 thing. And this action of the State operates ac- 
 cording to rigidly equalitarian, strictly secularist 
 standards : marriage becomes a shifting, temporary 
 union ; the family, a co-ordination of so-many 
 citizens of the all-providing State; and educa-
 
 Mans Capacity of Attention, limited 307 
 
 tion, a training in economics by the State, for 
 the State. 1 
 
 2. Now if we look around amongst the classes, 
 the necessities, and the movements in view, we 
 find, I think, that three causes are, varyingly, 
 yet ever more or less, operative in the direction 
 of Secularism — of the insistentlv, even angrily, 
 this- world attitude here still so predominant. 
 
 (1) Man's capacity o^ attention and of per- 
 sistent operative interest is essentially limited ; 
 and only great, unbroken traditions of spiritual 
 experience and of mental training are, in ordinary 
 circumstances, able somewhat to extend these 
 limits. But those great traditions are, for the 
 most part, practically unknown in the world 
 we are now considering. Hence men will, 
 here, whatever may be their deepest require- 
 ments, be absorbed in other, more shallow vet 
 more immediate-seeming, needs. 
 
 These, the needs of physical existence, are, now- 
 adays and especially in these classes, dependent, 
 and are vividly seen to be dependent, upon 
 national and international, financial and social con- 
 
 1 The quotations are from F. Engels : Die Ent'xisklung cUs 
 Socialismus von der Utopie :ur Wissenschaft, 4th ed. 1891, pp. 
 26, 23 ; and from his Diihrin£s 1'rrj.jilzung, p. 253. I take these 
 quotations, and most of my description, from the very careful 
 discussion, "Der Socialismus, - '' in Victor Cathreir.'s Moral- 
 philosc' : d ed. 1S93, vol. ii. pp. 1 17-219 : pp. 12^. 125.
 
 308 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 ditions of the most various and varying, complex, 
 and hardly calculable character. And again, all 
 this is on a gigantic scale. Two years ago, the 
 railway workers of France almost succeeded in 
 suspending the entire traffic of the country, and 
 were stopped only by the Army ordered on to 
 the railway lines by an ex-Socialist Premier even 
 more resolute than the Syndicalist leaders of that 
 revolution. This year in Germany the Socialists 
 have returned over one hundred representatives 
 to the Reichstag ; and, if Germany possessed 
 proportional representation, they would avowedly 
 occupy double that number of seats. And at the 
 present moment England is in the throes of a coal 
 strike with over one million miners idle, with all 
 the mines at a standstill for a fortnight, and with 
 already nearly a million of other workmen de- 
 prived of employment. And the problem of the 
 chronically unemployed in all the great cities is 
 more anxious still, and indeed appears to be 
 practically insoluble. 
 
 What wonder, then, that those who find them- 
 selves the very subjects of such crushing necessi- 
 ties and of such immense excitements — necessities 
 and excitements all well within the range of the 
 senses and of the least-developed mentality — 
 show little or no ethical or spiritual experience 
 and requirement ? We should be face to face
 
 Social Animosities check Souls Growth 309 
 
 with a great moral miracle, did the case stand 
 otherwise. 
 
 (2) And to this absorption in the clear surface 
 and away from the dimmer depths of life, is 
 added a revulsion against the great Churches, 
 and largely even against the Chapels and Sects, 
 on grounds of political and social grievances, 
 real or imaginary. The bourgeois s old hatred of 
 the noble has, here, been in part continued, in part 
 replaced, by the worker's hostility to the capitalist ; 
 and both these incensed classes still largely see 
 in the Church the ally of the Castle, and in 
 the Clergy the paid apologists of the exploiters 
 and oppressors of labour. And such an alienation 
 from organized religious worship and instruction, 
 even where it is almost entirely political or social 
 in its origin, cannot fail gravely to weaken the 
 religious inclinations of those concerned. The 
 comparative ease and peace which characterized 
 the disestablishment of the Church in France 
 speaks volumes upon this point. 
 
 (3) Nevertheless, neither the absorption nor the 
 revulsion suffices fully to explain the phenomenon ; 
 we only get to its bottom if we add a widespread 
 ignorance, often a grave misunderstanding, of the 
 nature and history of religion and of mankind, 
 and of the perennial character and necessities of 
 the human soul. All that excited absorption in
 
 310 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 the physical requirements, and in the social- 
 economical basis, of our earthly existence natur- 
 ally disposes men to materialistic, mechanical 
 views, and to ignore, misunderstand, or silence 
 the deepest demands of the soul. True, these 
 demands have, in the past, time after time, 
 victoriously surmounted, or swept away, all lesser 
 necessities, howsoever tangible and urgent they 
 may have seemed ; and these same demands still 
 appear in man's universal restlessness until he 
 reaches those unfailing fountains of Eternal Life. 
 Yet meanwhile, and on the surface, the majority 
 of the men in question are still satisfied by such 
 clever and clear superficialities as are offered by 
 writers like Buckle, Haeckel, Clodd. 
 
 Indeed, the men of this mentality must also 
 inevitably fail to understand the true nature of 
 human society and the power of social arrange- 
 ments, although these are the very things in 
 which they are so absorbed. Thus they offer us, 
 in doctrinaire Socialism, a distinct, indeed a highly 
 militant and dogmatic, Creed, of an apocalyptic, 
 millennial character. A time of universal peace 
 and plenty, of absolute equality and entire con- 
 tentment, is here quite certainly to come, and 
 quite certainly by means of the Social Revolution 
 alone ; and all this is to be here below, entirely 
 within, entirely through, our simply human powers
 
 Self-Knowledge ousts Secularism % i I 
 
 and earthly lives. It is a sort of Kingdom of 
 God, but without a King and without a God — an 
 awakening of man to all his wants ; a finding that 
 these wants are all sublunar ; and a satisfying of 
 all these sublunar wants by purely sublunar means. 
 And all this is to be achieved with a complete- 
 ness demanding a faith more difficult than any 
 of the great religious faiths. For here we are 
 not simply to achieve an amelioration of man's 
 earthly lot, an insight into the spiritual utility of 
 suffering and of trial, and a conviction that our 
 final perfection and peace can only find their 
 preparation here, and their full achievement only 
 hereafter ; but this our earthly life alone, and its 
 non-religious elements alone, are to satisfy man, 
 by the sheer perfection of their development and 
 harmonization. John Stuart Mill could ask him- 
 self, when a richly cultivated young man of 
 twenty : " Suppose that all your objects in life 
 were realized ; that all the changes in institutions 
 and opinions which you are looking forward to, 
 could be completely effected at this very instant ; 
 would this be a great joy and happiness to you ? " 
 And " an irresistible self-consciousness distinctly 
 answered 'No 1 '!" {Autobiography, ed. 1875, pp. 
 133, 134). But here we have souls, of much 
 less development and self-knowledge, which 
 proclaim an unhesitating " yes."
 
 1 2 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 And finally, since happiness is here to arise 
 entirely from the perfection of exclusively earthly 
 conditions achieved by exclusively earthly means, 
 it is plain that all other-worldly, invisible, eternal 
 inclinations and seekings, even if any logical basis 
 remained for them here, have to be rigorously sup- 
 pressed. For that earthly perfection, and the conse- 
 quent happiness, are indeed completely achievable, 
 but they are very difficult to achieve. Hence no 
 distractions, no waste of energy, are permissible 
 here. Man, even in his holiday dreamings, is 
 no more to be an amphibious creature, longing 
 somehow for the boundless ocean ; he is no more 
 to be a denizen of two worlds and a link between 
 them ; but he is ever to be simply, exclusively, 
 a land-animal, a creature of earth alone. We 
 thus get an immense further enforcement of the 
 secularism already furnished by the absorption 
 and revulsion considered farther back. 
 
 3. Yet we can also trace three sets of con- 
 ditions and symptoms, in this great social move- 
 ment, which are full of promise for religion. 
 
 (1) First, there are certain general effects which, 
 in various degrees and ways, reach all men 
 throughout the countries concerned. We all 
 of us are here put face to face with great masses 
 of men who, if without the strength, are yet also
 
 The Social Problem aids Sincerity 313 
 
 without the maladies, of full education ; who are, 
 thus, without the dainty, dreamy scepticism so 
 largely prevalent amongst the leisured classes ; 
 and who frequently manifest a crude and violent, 
 yet sincere and simple, even self-sacrificing faith, 
 however materialistic and anti-religious most of 
 its form, and much of its substance, may still, 
 unfortunately, be. Certainly, the perfection of the 
 Socialist organization would be impossible without 
 the presence of much personal unselfishness. 
 
 And again, all this Socialistic militancy cer- 
 tainly does some real good outside of the 
 Socialist ranks, since it awakens and keeps 
 awake the middle and upper classes in various 
 much-needed ways, so that the complete dis- 
 appearance of some such incitement would 
 probably be almost as noxious as would be its 
 triumph. Our social problem indeed is, in its 
 substance, utterly real, natural, inevitable ; and 
 the Socialists have no more caused this its 
 substance than they could cure it. The Socialists, 
 however, can and do call the forcible attention of 
 the classes, and of the bureaucrats, ever so averse 
 to facing reality, to the grave troubles and re- 
 quirements of the masses. 
 
 (2) And this double gain, in reality of mind and 
 in public-spiritedness, brought by the Social 
 Problem to the general public, is, or can be, a
 
 • 
 
 i4 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 special advantage for religious souls and for the 
 Churches, especially as regards the experience 
 and conviction of Eternal Life. The advantage 
 here is in two directions. 
 
 For one thing, this gigantic Social Problem 
 brings home, even to the sleepy traditionalist or 
 recalcitrant official, with demonstrative clearness 
 and clamorous intensity, how large is the depend- 
 ence of the growth and power of the religious 
 experiences and requirements, amongst average 
 human beings, upon a certain security and 
 stability in the means and circumstances of 
 physical existence, and especially upon some 
 family life and leisure. The cases of the Galilean 
 "poor," i.e. small fishermen and husbandmen, 
 whom Our Lord declared to be blessed, or, again, 
 the Umbrian peasantry and workmen addressed 
 by the Poverello of Assisi in his homely open-air 
 discourses, are here nowise in point. The 
 problem is not simply intensified for us, it is 
 radically changed ; and this change has made 
 us realize, more clearly than ever before, the 
 great dependence of the chances and articulation 
 of religion upon the various social conditions of 
 the average human beings addressed by it. This 
 we now see to apply even to the Primitive 
 Christian and Mediaeval world and religion, and 
 it is doubly applicable to our present conditions.
 
 Our Present Needs, Christianity s Opporttmity 3 1 5 
 
 This indeed is the element of profound truth 
 parodied, because taken as complete, by the 
 Socialists, and almost as keenly, but more wisely, 
 apprehended by the various Christian Social 
 workers. For the latter, with whatever excesses 
 or even errors, all strongly realize the necessity, 
 for average man, of some social and sanitary 
 roominess and decency, some home life, some 
 assurance concerning the morrow, and some little 
 leisure, as preliminaries for the growth within him 
 of the religious instincts and of an echo to 
 religious appeals. Cardinal Manning in England, 
 Bishop Ketteler in Germany, and the dis- 
 tinguished M. le Play in France, all vividly 
 apprehended this truth, as indeed did Pope Leo 
 the Thirteenth himself. And the late Bishop 
 Westcott and the present Bishop Gore, amongst 
 Anglicans, have strenuously worked in the same 
 direction. 
 
 And then, secondly, a large and close occupa- 
 tion with these masses of our fellows, and with 
 these social problems, brings, in the long run 
 and in the most unexpected, overwhelming ways, 
 an admirable further revelation and example, to 
 believers and unbelievers alike, of the costly two- 
 fold source of Christianity's perennial youth and 
 renovative power. For Christianity is thus 
 obliged to be, more than ever, busy with the
 
 3 16 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 Temporal and Spatial, the Physical and Psychical, 
 since now it has to be all this according to 
 sciences, and in the midst of circumstances, and 
 on a scale, unknown even a century ago ; so that, 
 more than ever, any exclusive Other-Worldliness, 
 all quietistic suffering and listless waiting, would 
 be treason against both man and God. Thus less 
 than ever is the Immanentism and the Incarria- 
 tional Doctrine of Christianity an empty theory ; 
 indeed, its insistence that spirit shall penetrate 
 and transform matter, and shall thus awaken and 
 develop its own self, has never in the history of the 
 world had so gigantic a field, and such immense 
 difficulties, in which to show and to develop its 
 power, as it possesses now. In reality only a 
 vivid faith in the utterly real and perfect God, only 
 the experience and love of Eternal Life, are able, 
 in the long run, to supply a sufficiently deep, 
 steady, and tender love and service of our fellow- 
 creatures, precisely where, in their actual condition, 
 they most require, because they least deserve, such 
 selfless devotion. No wise regulations, no scientific 
 insight are here, by themselves, any substitutes 
 for this most difficult and most essential, this alone 
 creative, disposition. 
 
 This heroic love will thus be gained for men 
 but not simply from men ; it will be acquired in 
 close union with God. And this union will
 
 The Two Movements alone Stiffiaent here 317 
 
 demand, and will produce, a profound self- 
 knowledge and self-hatred within the devoted 
 lover of his fellows ; a deep, genuine, daily turning 
 away of the whole soul from the shallow, natural- 
 istic self. Asceticism, in its noblest and widest 
 sense and forms, will thus again operate as the 
 great instrument of love ; and will ever purify 
 and replenish that expansive outgoing to creatures 
 and intimacy with them. And the second, the 
 Other-World movement, the sense of Eternal Life, 
 will precisely correspond to, and continue, that 
 Transcendence in Our Lord's life and teaching 
 which the best historical criticism is a^ain dis- 
 covering as one (indeed as the chief) of the two 
 driving forces operative there, and which ever 
 anew reawakens the life of Christianity. 
 
 Yet it is only the two movements together, 
 the Transcendence in the Immanence, and the 
 Eternal in the Temporal — only this tension and 
 duality in harmony and union, which constitute 
 the Christian spirit's flower and strength. And 
 surely never was there a finer field for the 
 heroically joyous practice of these two movements 
 together, for the fructification of each by the other, 
 and for the full power of the Christian spirit 
 which is their origin and their result, than lies 
 before us now. Sir Charles Booth, in summing- 
 up his ten years' closest study of the conditions of
 
 318 Eternal Life: Contemporary Swvey 
 
 the poorer and working classes of London, tells 
 us, in spite of his very evident natural preposses- 
 sions against ecclesiasticism and celibacy : " The 
 saintly life of a St. Martin, sharing his cloak with 
 the beggar, is incompatible with family duties. 
 But the saintly, self-sacrificing life is that which 
 strikes the imagination of the poor as nothing else 
 does. . . . To do effective work among the poor 
 of London, a single life is essential." Hence, 
 in discussing the causes of the alienation of the 
 working classes from the Churches, Booth can 
 declare : " The Secularist propaganda is not a very 
 powerful influence ; the last twenty years have 
 witnessed a notable change in this respect. The 
 successes at the polls (for the Board of Guardians, 
 etc.) of men and women who, in the name of 
 religion, are giving their lives to the service of the 
 people, is one of the noteworthy facts of demo- 
 cratic rule." Indeed, " to live a life of voluntary 
 poverty seems to be the only road to the confi- 
 dence of the people in this matter" of religion 
 [Life and Labour of the People in London, 3rd 
 Series, "Religious Influences," vol. vii., Summary, 
 1902, pp. 24, 424, 428). 
 
 And let us note how this same religious con- 
 viction can alone save our enthusiasms, more 
 necessary and more difficult than ever before, from 
 Utopian fanaticism and from the inevitable reaction
 
 Symptoms of Religious Reawakening 3 1 9 
 
 into indifference and cynicism. For only by such 
 a faith do we obtain a motive for the most heroic 
 action and devoted love, free from any denial or 
 evasion of the dread facts of human life and 
 human nature, and from any insincere idealization 
 of the past, present, or future. Man here is to do 
 his utmost to improve his fellow-man's earthly 
 lot ; but that lot, whilst greatly improvable with 
 time and care, is deliberately held to find its com- 
 pletion in another life alone. And, in this faith, 
 such completion can become real and abiding for 
 each soul ; whereas, in the Secularist systems, the 
 perfection which they offer would (if attained) 
 be, even as regards the entire race, only for that 
 race's limited duration. 1 
 
 (3) There are, indeed, symptoms amongst the 
 Socialistic leaders and masses themselves, and 
 especially in the working-class world generally, 
 that certainly the angry secularism, perhaps also the 
 quiet indifference to religion, still so preponderant, 
 are in process of modification or disappearance. 
 
 Thus in Germany, Dr. Eduard Bernstein, the 
 Revisionist Socialist leader, in his orofan, the 
 
 1 As to the importance of the social factor even for the religious 
 life, and the irreplaceableness of Christianity, with its Transcend- 
 ence and Immanence, precisely in our present Social troubles, see 
 Professor E. Troeltsch's great book, Die Soziallehren der Christ- 
 lichen Kirchen, 1912, pp. 975~977, 974, 978, 979. Sensible admis- 
 sions appear and distinctions in V. Cathrein's article, " Sociale 
 Frage," in the Freiburg Kiixhenle r xikon, 1899, vol. xi. coll. 431-436.
 
 320 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Sozialistische Monatshefte, now modifies Marx- 
 ism in a more idealist and religious direction. 
 Indeed, Professor Troeltsch, so circumspect and 
 so profoundly experienced in the currents of 
 German thought, can declare : " The element in 
 Marx's doctrine which constituted a particular 
 view of life, is now already in process of complete 
 decomposition " ; and "it is very probable that 
 Social Democracy, the more its dreams of pro- 
 gress and its enthusiasm over development are 
 damped by the facts of life and by disillusions, 
 will hand over its believers to the Christian Sects — 
 since the Socialists have presumably lost for ever 
 all trust and all attraction towards the great 
 Churches " (" Die Kirche im Leben der Gegen- 
 wart," in Weltanschauung, 191 1, pp. 447, 436). 
 
 In Belgium, M. Van der Velde is certainly 
 friendly to religion, although he still treats it as 
 a simply individual concern. 
 
 In Italy, Giuseppe Rensi is the exponent of 
 an ethico-religious Socialism ; and Dr. Angelo 
 Crespi, who lives as much in England as in Italy, 
 has moved out of the Socialist system into an 
 organic and spiritual conception of Society, and an 
 explicit recognition of Institutional Christianity. 
 
 And in France, M. Georges Sorel, the Syndi- 
 calist leader, and a learned exponent of Marxism, 
 presents us (in spite of considerable disjointedness
 
 Sorel's Vigorozts Religious Sense 321 
 
 of thought and not a few crudities and injustices 
 
 as to past events and still living persons) with 
 
 certain interesting aspirations, or even convictions, 
 
 concerning Spirituality and Eternal Life. Thus 
 
 in his article, La Religion d 1 Aujourdhui, 1909, 
 
 and in his Preface to its Italian translation, 191 1, 
 
 he tells us : " The feeling of mystery is strictly 
 
 allied to pessimism ; and pessimism is the unfailing 
 
 source of ceaseless religious renovation " ; indeed, 
 
 "amongst ourselves to-day, the feeling of mystery 
 
 continues highly adapted to excite the desire for 
 
 the very highest activities, since a man's conviction 
 
 is strong in proportion to the domination exercised 
 
 within his soul by this feeling of mystery." And 
 
 Sorel is alertly opposed to all Pantheism. Thus : 
 
 " The religious man understands life only by 
 
 referring it to a Power, superior to Nature, with 
 
 Which he can enter into relation." " The problem 
 
 of the relations between Religion and Science will, 
 
 without doubt, ever more passionately interest 
 
 our successors." " One of the grave consequences 
 
 of the Pantheistic tendencies is a persistent 
 
 elimination of the doctrine of Sin ; indeed, even 
 
 Christianity, as we have it now, has singularly 
 
 attenuated the old teachings as to Grace and Sin." 
 
 " Modern piety would be quite content to find the 
 
 essence of Religion, with Renan, in sentimental 
 
 effusions." And he respects Institutional 
 21
 
 322 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 Christianity : " Catholicism will, without doubt, 
 live on in France, but it will undergo large 
 restrictions ; there will be only a limited number 
 of believers, but these will be genuine Christians " 
 (from the Italian translation, La Religione d Oggi, 
 1911, pp. 8-10; 14, 15 ; 125). 
 
 In his Les Illusions du Pr ogres, second edition, 
 191 1, we have a striking hatred of the Encyclo- 
 p'edistes, and a noble hunger for self-renunciation 
 and spiritual greatness. Thus : " At the end of the 
 Eighteenth Century the terror of Sin, the respect 
 for Chastity, and Pessimism, disappeared more or 
 less simultaneously ; hence Christianity disappeared 
 also." "All our efforts must tend to prevent the 
 bourgeois ideas from poisoning the class which is 
 now rising ; we can never do too much to break 
 every link between the people and the literature of 
 the Eighteenth Century." Again : " Catholicism 
 can regain its youth only if a crisis occurs within 
 it, under the action of men formed to the spiritual 
 life in the monastic institutions. History proves 
 that such crises can provoke prodigious effects 
 of" spiritual "greatness." " The present hour," 
 indeed, " is not favourable to the idea of greatness ; 
 but other times will come, since history tells us 
 that greatness cannot indefinitely be lacking to 
 that portion of humanity which possesses the 
 incomparable treasures of classical culture and of
 
 Institutional Religion and Eternal Life 32 
 
 0^0 
 
 the Christian tradition" (pp. 32, 286, 329,335). 
 And in the Reflections sur la Violence, 1909, he 
 admits that no historical movement is truly 
 efficacious unless its end is accepted as an 
 absolute finality. 
 
 Altogether, we are here not far from the 
 experience and conception of Eternal Life, its 
 bracing costliness and its irreplaceable greatness, 
 as operative within the creaturely soul, the 
 servant of the Perfect Reality, God. 1 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 INSTITUTIONAL RELIGION 
 
 Introductory — Strict necessity, yet apparently fatal decline, of 
 Institutional Religion — Causes of this decline — Institutional 
 Religion and Eternal Life. 
 
 We have reserved, for this last chapter of our 
 survey, the consideration of the Institutional 
 Religions, in so far as these are the homes and 
 training-grounds of the experiences and con- 
 victions concerning Eternal Life, and in so far 
 as they bring helps, or occasion obstacles, to 
 
 1 This last division owes much to the competence and kind aid 
 of Dr. Angelo Crespi.
 
 324 Eternal Life: Contemporary Sttrvey 
 
 these convictions, or, contrariwise, are themselves 
 checked and purified by these convictions. 
 
 Let us, then, first show clearly that religious 
 Institutions are indeed the normal requirements, 
 expressions, and instruments of the religious 
 sense; that Religion and its Institutions cannot, if 
 they would be strong in themselves and influential 
 outside of their own special territory, stand aloof 
 from the other ranges and levels of human life, 
 with their corresponding organizations ; and that, 
 nevertheless, there are numerous, broad symptoms 
 all around us of a deep-seated, widespread, and 
 still spreading, alienation from all Institutional 
 Religion. 
 
 Let us, next, explain the particular insights 
 and aids, and the corresponding special in- 
 sensibilities and deadlocks, traceable, as actually 
 operative at present, within such Institutional- 
 ism. Here we shall take, as representative of 
 the religious Institutions, the Roman Catholic 
 Church, as by far the oldest, most widespread, 
 and most consistent of all such bodies ; and as 
 alone, so it happens, known and well known 
 from within to the present writer. 
 
 And let us finally show how and why the ex- 
 periences and convictions concerning Eternal Life 
 surround, penetrate, supplement, purify, and check 
 the Durational, Institutional necessities, habits,
 
 Religions Need of Institutions, Treble 325 
 
 and aids ; and let us illustrate such an unconquer- 
 ably deep and all-fructifying sense of the Eternal, 
 Perfect God, as developed within and through 
 such Institutions, by the life and utterances of 
 a few recent spiritual seers and heroes at work 
 under these conditions. 
 
 1. It is now ever increasingly clear, to all 
 deep, impartial students, that Religion has ever 
 primarily expressed and formed itself in Cultus, 
 in social organization, social worship, intercourse 
 between soul and soul and between soul and 
 God ; and in Symbols and Sacraments, in con- 
 tacts between spirit and matter. Where we 
 cannot trace this Institutional Element in a soul's 
 life, we always find either that this soul's religion 
 has constantly been weak ; or that the soul is 
 suffering under a reaction from some religious 
 excess, and is losing its religion ; or that it is in 
 process of gaining some institutionalism ; or, 
 finally, that its religion, though non-institutional, 
 is indeed delicate and deep, but that this religion 
 was first awakened in this soul by some fervent 
 institutional religionist. We certainly find the 
 Institutional at work, both as cause and as effect 
 (often all the more powerfully because everywhere 
 assumed rather than anywhere formally ex- 
 pressed), in the great Israelitish and Jewish
 
 326 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Prophets ; in our Lord and the Apostles, especi- 
 ally St. Paul ; in Origen, Augustine, Aquinas ; but 
 also in Luther and Calvin ; especially again in 
 St. Teresa, in Pascal, Bossuet, Fenelon ; and in 
 Laud, Lancelot Andrewes, and William Law. 
 And again in such modern philosophers as 
 Nicolas of Coes, Leibniz, and Berkeley ; and, in 
 our own times, in Rosmini, Trendelenburg, 
 Fechner, the Cairds. The same element of 
 Institutionalism is, of course, observable in 
 post-Christian Judaism, in Mohammedanism, in 
 Brahmanism, in Buddhism. And this social- 
 institutional need of Religion turns out to be 
 threefold. 
 
 (1) There is the need of Common Worship. 
 Professor Troeltsch has admirably shown that 
 this necessity is rooted in the very nature of man 
 and of man's religion, and hence is logically 
 prior to, and more general than, any and 
 every positive incorporation by the founders of 
 the great historical religions. "It is a law of 
 social psychology that nowhere can men exist 
 alongside of each other, with merely parallel 
 feelings and thoughts, but that thousandfold 
 relations subsist between individual men ; and 
 that, out of these relations, there everywhere 
 arise social circles, which contain superordina- 
 tions and subordinations of their members, and
 
 Need of Common Worship 327 
 
 which all require a concrete centre. And this 
 general law applies also to the religious life." 
 Indeed, " one of the clearest results of all religious 
 history and religious psychology is that the 
 essence of all Religion is, not the Dogma and 
 Idea, but the Cultus and Communion, the living 
 intercourse with the Deity — an intercourse of the 
 entire community having its vital roots in Religion 
 and deriving its ultimate power of thus conjoining 
 individuals from its faith in God." And hence 
 " whatever the future may bring us, we cannot 
 expect a certainty and force of the knowledge 
 of God and of His redemptive power to subsist 
 without Communion and Cultus. And so long as 
 a Christianity of any kind shall exist at all, it will 
 be conjoined with a Cultus, and with Christ 
 holding a central position in this Cultus." Indeed, 
 " the absence of Communion and of Cultus is the 
 specific malady of modern Christianity and of 
 modern Religion generally " {Die Bedeutiing der 
 Geschichtlichkeit Jesn filr den Glauben, 191 1, pp. 
 27, 25, 29, 25). 
 
 We know that Our Lord instituted a Preaching 
 Band of Apostles, and that St. Paul (carrying out 
 Our Lord's spirit and the necessities of His work) 
 organized the Church with all the main outlines 
 of the Institution as we have them still. But, in 
 any case, the Church would have been, and is, a
 
 328 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 necessary consequence and necessary instrument 
 of Christianity ; the two, in the long run, ever 
 rise and sink, stand and fall, together. 
 
 (2) But religious psychology and religious 
 history testify, surely, in a similar manner, to 
 another, closely connected point, which Pro- 
 fessor Troeltsch will not allow. Like Harnack, 
 Eucken, and modern German Liberal Protestants 
 generally, Troeltsch is unfortunately very ready 
 to see Magic, and exclusively Heathen Rites and 
 Mysteries, in the attribution of any productive 
 efficacy (as distinct from a representation of 
 effects produced solely by the Spirit in spirits) to 
 any Symbol or Sacrament whatsoever. And yet 
 our study of the Idealist philosophers has probably 
 already convinced us of the artificiality of every 
 Theory of Knowledge which ignores or minimizes 
 the essential, persistent contribution furnished by 
 sense-stimulations and non-mental causes and 
 objects to our entire knowledge and our most 
 elementary self- consciousness. It would no 
 doubt be Materialism were we to attribute a 
 direct, exclusive efficacy, in the attainment of 
 our knowledge and self-consciousness, to sense- 
 stimulation and to material things ; and were we 
 to ignore our spirit, responsive and active here 
 throughout. And similarly, it is Superstition if 
 we attribute to sensible contacts and to material
 
 Need of Sensible Signs and Contacts 329 
 
 things any direct and exclusive efficacy ; and if we 
 ignore the action and intention of the individual 
 soul, or of the community of souls, which experi- 
 ence or apply such contacts. But, in either case, 
 to ignore the body is, surely, as little in accord- 
 ance with psychology and history, as it is to 
 ignore the community. 
 
 The anti-sacramental passion, indeed, as it 
 shows itself, e.g. in Wycliffe, seems to have been 
 in its origin, and to have had as its very under- 
 standable causes, a revolt against, and terror of, 
 interference and domination by a priestly caste, 
 especially in matters social and political ; and a con- 
 viction that the priestly power stands and falls with 
 the sacramental claims. Yet, here as everywhere, 
 to cut the knot is not to resolve the difficulty ; 
 and in fact the elimination of sensible impressions 
 and of sensible things, as joint-awakeners and 
 joint-vehicles of spiritual life, has against it all 
 the analogies of the various departments of human 
 existence. In any case, the appeal to psycho- 
 logy and history, as decisive in favour of Cultus, 
 carries logically with it the admission of some 
 Sensible Signs as contributing, when used by 
 souls in and with this Cultus, to the spiritual 
 awakening and sanctification of such souls. 
 
 Here again we have indications of the use and 
 of the recommendation of such efficacious sensible
 
 330 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 signs in Our Lord's life ; and we find them most 
 explicit and prominent in St. Paul's life and 
 writings, and everywhere implied or taught in the 
 Fourth Gospel. Yet, in any case, such Signs 
 belong to the necessities and fruitful functioning 
 of general human psychology ; and hence, in 
 special forms and degrees, they belong to Religion 
 also. 
 
 (3) And there is the third generally human, and 
 specifically religious, necessity, which Professor 
 Troeltsch again sees with admirable vividness — ■ 
 the need for Religion as a whole (although 
 itself a distinct, and in its way complete, ex- 
 perience, life, and organization) ever to keep aware 
 of, to accept or to combat, to assimilate or to 
 reject, the various chief forms and conclusions 
 presented by the other complexes and organiza- 
 tions of human life. Religion, indeed, is not 
 directly either Ethics or Philosophy, Economics 
 or Art ; yet, at the peril of emptiness and sterility, 
 it has to move out into, to learn from, to criticize, 
 and to teach, all these other apprehensions and 
 activities. 
 
 Here it is that Ritschlianism, still so vigorously 
 represented by Wilhelm Hermann, is essentially 
 artificial and inadequate. Thus Professor 
 Hermann rejects all Mysticism, as a mere sub- 
 jectivism which is ever incomparably beneath
 
 Need of Intercourse with Other Complexes 331 
 
 the great objects of Religion. Yet a particular 
 capacity and disposition of the soul is simply 
 necessary for the soul's apprehension of God ; and 
 the acknowledgment of this mediation need no 
 more render me self-engrossed or conceited than 
 I am thus influenced by my awareness that a 
 particular sense of vision, in my diminutive eyes, 
 is essential to my perception of that immense orb, 
 the sun. Indeed, in both cases, these necessities 
 and their supplies come from God, and I can love 
 Him in these His ordinations and gifts. 
 
 And then Hermann insists upon Religion being 
 complete in two experiences and acceptances alone 
 — those of the Categorical Imperative of the Moral 
 Conscience ; and those of the Historical Jesus, as 
 the uniquely perfect realization of this Impera- 
 tive, and hence as the unique revelation of the 
 depths of Reality, and the unique means towards 
 the human soul's execution of that Imperative. 
 Yet Religion, though closely related to Ethics, is 
 not identical with them ; nor are the Ethics to 
 which it is thus related, the legalistic formalism of 
 Kant. And there is an insufferable defiance to 
 History, and to the affinities and genius of 
 Christianity itself, in the restriction (so emphatic 
 in Hermann's scheme) of every degree of genuine 
 religion, of all true prayer, to those who explicitly 
 know and formally acknowledge the historic Jesus's
 
 332 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 earthly life. Here even the Spanish Inquisitors 
 were larger and more truly Christian. 
 
 The fact is that the Christian, indeed the man 
 of any religion, who wishes to make and to keep 
 his religion strong, will doubtless have to live it 
 with all he is and has ; but that Christians, and 
 indeed religionists of any kind, cannot (all of them 
 and in the long run) ignore the other activities of 
 man's manifold life, nor simply sacrifice either their 
 religion to these activities or these activities to 
 their religion. Christianity in particular will be 
 unable to do so, because Gnosticism is not true to 
 life. God is the God of the body as He is of the 
 soul ; of Science as He is of Faith ; of Criticism 
 and Theory as of Fact and Reality. And thus, 
 in the long run and upon the whole, man will, 
 even qua spirit, have to grow and to be through 
 conflict and temptation, through darkness and 
 humiliation, and through a triumph hardly won. 
 
 Assuredly countless souls, who never heard of 
 these questions and conflicts, have nevertheless 
 become great friends of God : the Poverello of 
 Assisi and Joan of Arc, what did these glorious 
 spirits know of such trials ? But the conditions of 
 Western Europe have radically changed since 
 those ages, and proofs are accumulating, with 
 saddening rapidity, to show that religion cannot 
 remain a joyous possession and a strong influence
 
 The Official Church ever Non-Pieiistic ^^ 
 
 in these countries and in these times, without, on 
 the part of its educated representatives and 
 followers, any cognizance, acceptance, criticism, 
 or rejection of current philosophical, scientific, 
 economic and other influences and positions. 
 True, the predominant, and apparently most 
 characteristic, trend of the Saints has been towards 
 an exclusive absorption in the direct relations 
 between the soul and God and the soul and other 
 souls. Yet we have already seen how large has 
 been the occupation, of precisely some of the 
 greatest of the Saints, with Philosophy, with the 
 larger Politics, and with Economic questions. 
 And the official Church especially has, from very 
 early times, persistently conceived and practised 
 life, not pietistically, but in a Catholic, i.e. an all- 
 inclusive manner. 1 
 
 (4) And yet, have not the institutional Religions, 
 inclusive of those that have developed specially 
 strong religious Organizations and Sacraments, 
 and that have largely adopted or combated Philo- 
 sophy and Science, lost ground now for many a 
 day, and are they not now losing it very rapidly ? 
 
 Thus there are now South German Catholic 
 
 1 Concerning Professor Hermann's positions, see my Mystical 
 Element of Religion, 1908, vol. ii. pp. 263-275, and the references 
 there given. Dr. Hermann's book, specially considered in this work 
 and in the present book, has now been translated into English as 
 The Communion oj the Christian with God, London, 1910.
 
 334 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 towns, where at most 30 per cent, and North 
 German Protestant towns, where only 3 per cent. 
 of the population, go to Church ; and probably not 
 more than a third of the entire German population 
 clings by conviction to Church and Clergy. In 
 Westphalia and the Rhineland, in the Bavarian 
 Highlands and the Austrian Tyrol, strongholds 
 of immemorial, patriarchal faith, Socialism or 
 other Secularisms are admittedly gaining ground. 
 
 In France, of the forty million Catholics only 
 about eleven millions appear to attach any value 
 to this profession ; the State is, in the widest 
 sense of the term, without religion, and the schools 
 stand outside of all Churches and all Creeds. The 
 number of students for the Priesthood has, up to 
 quite recently, greatly diminished ; and the number 
 of Catholic clerics who leave the Church, mostly 
 for some Deism or Scepticism, is considerable. 
 
 And especially in Portugal, but also in Spain, 
 and to a considerable extent in Italy, the anti- 
 clerical current is largely anti-Christian or even 
 radically anti-spiritual, and remains powerful, in- 
 transigent, alert. 
 
 In the United States of America only some 
 two-thirds of their hundred and one millions 
 appear to belong to any of the numerous de- 
 nominations there ; and at least five millions 
 confess themselves to be without religion.
 
 Apparent Decline of Institutional Religion 335 
 
 And as to England, there is a marked decline 
 in the social origin and the scholarship of the 
 average Anglican cleric ; the Nonconformist 
 ministers appear, in considerable part, carried 
 away, with their flocks, from all deeper and 
 more delicate spirituality, into party politics and 
 " Pleasant Sunday Afternoons " ; and the con- 
 versions to Rome, so numerous and remarkable 
 between 1845-70, have notably diminished, in 
 both respects, especially during the last decade. 1 
 
 Now the symptoms just described cannot one 
 and all be simply ascribed to the perversity and 
 wickedness of human nature. For it is obvious 
 that human nature remains essentially what it was 
 in the ages when the most institutional of the 
 Churches now still extant was the most popular 
 and the most generally influential of all the 
 organizations within the very lands and races 
 which now show the alienation just indicated. 
 And least of all can a Roman Catholic attempt 
 such an explanation, since his Church has never 
 accepted, indeed has solemnly condemned, the 
 doctrine of a total corruption and blindness of 
 human nature. 
 
 But if Institutions, Sacraments, and relations, 
 
 1 The figures for the continental countries given here are taken 
 from the very careful article, " Die Zukunftsaufgaben der Religion," 
 by the late Professor H. J. Holtzmann, in Die Christliche Religion, 
 vol. ii. 2nd ed. 1908, forming part of Die Kultur der Gegetvwart.
 
 3 36 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 both friendly and hostile, towards the various 
 manifestations within the other complexes of life, 
 are right and necessary for Religion ; if Religion 
 is the deepest truth and the ultimate joy of life ; 
 and if men still everywhere possess some glimpses 
 of truth and experiences of grace and of goodness, 
 and some aspirations after more of such pre- 
 veniences of God — where lies the mischief? 
 
 2. Now the present writer has long and pro- 
 foundly benefited by Institutional Religion, and 
 he watches wistfully its present-day operation and 
 men's alienation from it ; he does so from within 
 the most ancient, the most powerful, and the 
 richest of such Institutions, the Roman Catholic 
 Church ; and he is fully certain that what he may 
 accurately diagnose here applies, mutatis mutandis, 
 to all Institutional Religions throughout the 
 world. He finds, then, that the essential strength 
 and attraction, and the actual weakness and 
 repulsiveness, of such Institutional Religion are 
 closely intertwined ; and that they can be pre- 
 sented in five pairs of nearly related power and 
 defect. The first two pairs are primarily con- 
 cerned with intellectual matters; the last three pairs, 
 with moral affairs. I take them here approxi- 
 mately in the order of their increasing influence 
 with the majority of men.
 
 Religion and Philosophy interrelated 337 
 
 (1) The Roman Catholic Church continues 
 the immemorially ancient tradition of a large 
 and continuous utilization, discussion, acceptance 
 or rejection of Philosophical Systems and 
 Scientific Hypotheses on the part of Religion. 
 What was right for the author of the Book of 
 Wisdom, for St. Paul, and for the author of the 
 Fourth Gospel, for Augustine, the Pseudo- 
 Dionysius, and Aquinas, is right and good for 
 this Church. It is the unity of this Church's 
 Christian - Scholastic thought which doubtless 
 largely accounts for the relative success of Roman 
 Catholicism in Germany, against the Socialists, 
 with their unified, materialistic outlook. And the 
 future will (with a provisional and relative pacifica- 
 tion of our modern, storm-tossed world) bring also, 
 we may be sure, a great increase of this desire 
 for some such coherency of thought. And, again, 
 the maintenance of this Scholastic tradition has 
 rendered more easily possible that sympathetic 
 penetration and presentation of mediaeval thought, 
 which are so necessary for the clear understanding 
 of our modern ideals and impulsions ; and it has 
 also helped men to unveil the very real insuffi- 
 ciencies of the Idealist Epistemology and other 
 kindred weaknesses of modern philosophy. 
 Baumker and Denifle in Germany, Cardinal 
 
 Mercier in Belgium, Toniolo in Italy, and Maher, 
 22
 
 338 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Walker, and Joseph Rickaby in England, are 
 names genuinely respected by all competent 
 workers. 
 
 And yet two great weaknesses and dangers are 
 here intertwined with these considerable advan- 
 tages. For the absolute need (on the part of 
 Religion) of Philosophy in general, and the 
 practical need (on the part of the Church, at 
 any one period of its existence) of some particular 
 system of Philosophy, have here nearly coalesced 
 with the still deeper, far more delicate, and ever 
 different, necessities and authority of the religious 
 Experience and Tradition, and of the Church, 
 their chief witness and interpreter. Philosophy, 
 in itself, is essentially free ; i.e. Philosophy may 
 and does simply follow its own specific require- 
 ments and self-criticisms, or it is nothing. 
 
 This liberty of Philosophy leaves to the 
 Church Authority the fullest right and duty to 
 discountenance or condemn this or that philo- 
 sophical doctrine, or even system, as incompatible 
 with the Christian Faith. And it leaves this 
 same Authority entirely untrammelled in the 
 maintenance of some particular system of Philo- 
 sophy, as the general intellectual starting-point 
 of its clerical students. Philosophers constantly 
 criticize each other, on the ground that this or 
 that particular conception or system does not
 
 Yet Philosophy follows its own Requirements 339 
 
 adequately recognize some general and persistent 
 experience of mankind. Should not then the 
 chief home and guardian of the religious and 
 Christian life possess the right and duty of a far 
 more authoritative criticism and condemnation ? 
 And as to the particular system adopted, he would, 
 indeed, be a bold man who would insist, without 
 hesitation, upon the systems of Kant or Hegel, 
 or of Descartes or Leibniz, as, upon the whole, 
 more adequate to the abiding necessities of the 
 human mind and of the religious and Christian 
 experience, and as more appropriatively pene- 
 trative of the Christian theology throughout the 
 centuries, than is an intelligent Neo-Scholasticism. 
 But the liberty of Philosophy is indeed incom- 
 patible with the acceptance, as obligatory, of a 
 philosophical proposition or system as true, 
 simply and directly because of its imposition 
 by Church Authority. And yet it is plain 
 that the apparent eternity and sanctity of 
 Scholasticism is produced by such a conjunction 
 and coalescence of ecclesiastical authority and 
 philosophical appeal ; and that the bitter, and 
 often excessive reactions, which so readily turn 
 against all Ontology in Philosophy and all Institu- 
 tionalism in Religion, are, in considerable part, 
 determined by this bloc system, this theological 
 pressure in philosophical questions.
 
 34-0 Eternal Lije : Contemporary Survey 
 
 And then, Aristotelianism (even when enriched 
 with certain Neo-Platonist doctrines and when 
 modified by Scholasticism) is profoundly un- 
 historical, in its entire temper and outlook. It 
 would certainly be possible to remedy this defect, 
 now so dangerous, by the study of the most living 
 parts of Plato, Aristotle, and Plotinus, and of the 
 Ethics and spirituality of Aquinas, in a sym- 
 pathetically historical and critical manner. Such 
 a method would teach the student how to trace 
 the growth of philosophical thought and the 
 development of the Christian consciousness, and 
 how to criticize and value the stages and formu- 
 lations in each according to the central principles 
 and substance of each. And these principles and 
 this substance would be laid bare by a study of 
 their entire historical growth and development, and 
 would be known and relished in the daily practice 
 and testing applied to them by a devotedly earnest 
 and Christian life. 
 
 As regards discoveries and hypotheses in 
 Physical and Natural Science, it is highly in- 
 structive to note how entirely silent concerning 
 them the recent most strenuous papal campaign 
 against all and every " Modernism " has remained 
 throughout. Thus neither the Inquisition's 
 Decree Lamentabili, condemning sixty-five pro- 
 positions, nor the Papal Encyclical Pascendi,
 
 Physical Science has achieved Final Recognition 34 1 
 
 probably the longest Encyclical ever issued, says 
 one word about them. Yet there lay, for 
 centuries, the most dangerous " Modernism." 
 Thus Galileo's proposition, " the sun is the centre 
 of the world, and therefore immovable," was in 
 1 6 16 unanimously condemned by the Inquisition, 
 as " foolish and absurd in philosophy and formally 
 heretical"; and in 1633 Galileo was obliged 
 solemnly to abjure that doctrine before the same 
 tribunal. And not till 1820 was permission given 
 to teach that proposition as simply true ; and only 
 in 1835 did the Congregation of the Index with- 
 draw Heliocentric books from its list. Mental 
 Pathology and Biological Evolution have, indeed, 
 also had their troubles since then ; but, upon the 
 whole, scientific workers have, since (and outside 
 of) the Heliocentric controversy, suffered com- 
 paratively little. We can then reasonably assume 
 that a tolerable latitude is assured to Physico- 
 Mathematical, perhaps also to Biological, research 
 and science, in the Roman Catholic Church, now 
 and hereafter. 1 
 
 1 For Philosophy within the Roman Catholic Church, see Leon 
 Olle-Laprune, La Philosophic et le Temps Present, 2nd ed. 1894, 
 especially pp. 333-360 ; and Professor Maurice Blondel, Lettre stir 
 les Exigeances de la pensde contemporaine en matiere d'apologe'tiqiie 
 et sur la me'thode de la philosophic dans I ''c'tude duprobttme religieux, 
 1896. And for Science and Church Authority, see Dr. F. X. Funk's 
 very careful "Zur Galilei-Frage," in his Kirchengeschichtliche 
 Abhandlungcn und Untersuchungen, 1899, vol. ii. pp. 444-476;
 
 342 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 (2) The next pair concerns History. This is 
 doubtless, with the pair immediately to follow, the 
 crux of every Institutional Religion, and especially 
 of one so deeply Historical as is the Roman 
 Catholic Church. Yet here again, indeed here 
 particularly, there can be no doubt that the 
 Religions, and Rome especially, are right in their 
 general principles ; since only in and through 
 History, only by means of concrete happenings 
 in time and space, does man awaken to, does he 
 apprehend, Eternal Life and God, and do they 
 penetrate and win him. Nor will any systematic 
 or radical distinction between Historical Hap- 
 penings and Dogmatic " Facts " or Doctrines 
 really suffice here. For not only Rome, but all 
 genuine Religion absolutely requires, at every 
 stage, Ontology, a really extant God, and really 
 happened Historical Facts and Persons. Indeed, 
 Christianity's greatness resides especially in its 
 all-pervasive and persistent Incarnational trend ; 
 since God, the Eternal Spirit, here reveals 
 Himself to us, and touches us, in Duration and 
 through Matter. Indeed, it has been under the 
 influence of this same Christianity that man's 
 
 and, generally, Andrew White's copious History of the Warfare oj 
 Science with Theology in Christendom, 1903, 2 vols., especially 
 vol. ii. pp. 97-167. Important reflexions suggested by the latter 
 book are contained in George Tyrrell's " The Rights and Limits 
 of Theology," in his Through Scylla and Chary bdis, 1906.
 
 Religion and History, inevitably connected 343 
 
 apprehension has, slowly but surely, been 
 deepened and refined concerning the difference 
 between Historical Facts and purely Ideal 
 Symbols ; and that man, nevertheless, feels, in his 
 Religion, the need, as imperiously as ever, of some 
 assured instances of such Facts. And thus Rome, 
 the chief representative of Christianity, which is 
 itself so nobly Ontological and Factual, cannot 
 but be and remain profoundly wedded to Reality 
 and Facts. 
 
 But the difficulties here appear to be as follows. 
 The Religions, as we are now getting more and 
 more to know them in their historical growth, 
 always indeed proceed from some actual Happen- 
 ings ; and the faith of the votaries of the 
 Religions always necessarily includes a continuous 
 conviction as to the historical character of these 
 Happenings. But these same Religions also 
 live, and live still more, by their penetration of 
 the Spiritual Substance and Meaning of these 
 Happenings, by their sense of the Eternal's Self- 
 manifestation in these temporal events ; and — here 
 the difficulty comes in — they symbolize this their 
 interpretation of the Factual Happenings by 
 means of fact-like historical pictures which (once 
 a keen discrimination between factual and non- 
 factual becomes irresistible) cannot be taken as 
 directly, simply factual in the manner and degree
 
 344 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 in which those Happenings can be taken. The 
 later documents of the Hexateuch, and certain 
 scenes in the Fourth Gospel, are probably the 
 best illustrations of this process. 
 
 Now Rome's difficulties here are specially- 
 great, yet they are so, in large part, because 
 Rome sees so firmly and so very far. Thus 
 Rome is splendidly aware of Religion's absolute 
 need of a Real God, manifesting Himself in Real 
 Happenings and Effects. And Rome is finely 
 free from all Fideism or Pietism ; it appeals to 
 historical documents — taken as common sense and 
 good faith know and allow them — as historically 
 cogent proofs of the historical Happenings whose 
 historical character is fundamentally important for 
 this religion. Thus Rome can neither let go the 
 Happenings, qua Happenings ; nor can it, without 
 a deeply uncatholic pietism, withdraw these 
 Happenings, qua Happenings, from the cogniz- 
 ance and criticism of historians. Yet, on the 
 other hand, Rome cannot make the historical 
 evidence other than what it is ; nor appeal to it, 
 and yet insist upon keeping it above all discussion ; 
 nor change the simple, broad facts that men in 
 the past were but little alive to the difference 
 between Factual Event and Symbolical Narrative, 
 and that men in the present are keenly sensitive 
 to this difference. And yet even to insist upon
 
 Romes Special Difficulties from this Connection 345 
 
 the strict Factualness of all the factual-seeming 
 narratives, but to abandon the insistence upon the 
 demonstrative force of the documents concerned, 
 would already, no doubt, be a serious modification 
 of the very ancient, predominant attitude of 
 traditional theologians. 
 
 Again, there is no Church, with any large 
 following in our Western lands, which has 
 tolerated, or even encouraged, so many local 
 legends, so much floating, uncertain, or even 
 spurious history. And the still large, and 
 relatively ever more influential, peasant element 
 in the Church is very sensitively favourable to 
 such secondary beliefs. And besides, considerable 
 vested interests have grown around such, now 
 mostly severely fixed, traditions. We need only 
 refer to the supposed Apostolic Origin of the 
 Episcopal Sees of France, and to the legend of 
 the Transference of the Holy House from 
 Nazareth to Loretto, beliefs which are late and 
 without serious historical root, yet the challenging 
 of which has required great courage, on the part 
 of such thorough scholars as Monseigneur 
 Duchesne and Canon Ulysse Chevalier ; even 
 though the question as to the Origin of the 
 French Sees was already conclusively settled, in 
 the critical sense, by the great Maurist Bene- 
 dictines two centuries ago.
 
 346 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 In such secondary questions the Church 
 Authorities, when conclusive proofs have been 
 furnished, can discover no grave intrinsic difficulties 
 against the return to the earliest constituents or 
 forms of such beliefs, forms which are generally 
 sober and serious (as, e.g., here, the sub- Apostolic 
 origin of the Churches of Lyon and of Vienne, 
 and a very ancient picture of the Madonna 
 venerated at Loretto), and the encouragement of 
 those constituents alone. But as to the far more 
 difficult and important matters connected with 
 Biblical, and especially with New Testament and 
 Primitive Christian documents and evidences, the 
 Authorities will doubtless ever insist upon the 
 need for the reasonable and reasoned certainty 
 as to the factual character of a nucleus in the 
 Christian complex of doctrines, and upon the 
 inclusion, within our faith in God and in His 
 Church, of a full conviction that He will never 
 deprive us of such certainty concerning that 
 nucleus ; upon all the great Christian doctrines as 
 finally true, as interconnected, and as all either 
 directly descriptive of actual spiritual Realities and 
 Persons and factual Events, or as closely inter- 
 pretative and protective of those Realities, Persons, 
 or Events ; and, finally, upon the possession by the 
 Church, and by the Church alone, of the grace 
 and the right fully to penetrate, and finally to
 
 Catholic Abiding Principles and Prerequisites 347 
 
 decide, the spiritual truth and ultimate meaning of 
 Scripture. Yet Theologians, both as Catholics 
 and as reasonable men, will have not to insist 
 upon historians finding more, or different, historical 
 Happenings in documents put forward as historical 
 proofs, than these documents will yield to careful 
 and candid critical analysis. And though this 
 may appear to us now to be far more difficult 
 than were the discriminations so painfully and 
 so slowly effected with respect to "heretical" 
 Astronomy, it may well be that our difficulties do 
 not really appear more difficult to us now, than 
 their difficulties appeared to the astronomers and 
 theologians of 16 16 and 1633, and that some of 
 these historical troubles of ours may last less long 
 than the two centuries required for the full toler- 
 ance of Heliocentrism. 1 
 
 (3) The third conjunction of power and of 
 weakness doubtless affects many who know 
 nothing of Philosophy or of Historical Criticism. 
 
 1 On the general question of the Catholic position as to Holy 
 Scripture {qua historical document) and Biblical Criticism, see Mgr. 
 Mignot, Archbishop of Albi, Lettrcs sur les Etudes Ecclesiastiques, 
 1908, especially pp. 291-324. Also the friendly controversy between 
 Maurice Blondel, " Histoire et Dogme," and F. von Hiigel, " Le 
 Christ Eternel et les Christologies Successives," both in La 
 Quinzaine of Paris, 1904. On the legendary element in Church 
 History, see the excellent monograph of Pere Hippolyte Delehaye, 
 the Bollandist, Les Legendes Hagiographiques, 1905 (English 
 translation, 1910) ; Mgr. Louis Duchesne's Fastes Episcopaux de 
 PAncienne Gaule, 3 vols., 1894-99 ; and Chanoine Ulysse Chevalier, 
 Notre- Dame de Lorette t 1906.
 
 -s 
 
 48 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 The Roman Church here insists, with an, alas ! 
 increasingly rare, yet immensely true and precious, 
 emphasis, upon the supreme importance of Re- 
 ligious Truth and Religious Unity, and upon 
 the profound loss and wrong of religious error. 
 Certainly the careless accommodation, the easy 
 tolerance and indifference, the horror of all 
 persecution on the ground that it deals with 
 " merely " religious opinions, which is all around 
 us now, cannot be the final word or true ideal for 
 man. For man, at his deepest, longs for Eternal 
 Life, for Abiding Reality and Ultimate Truth ; 
 and, if he is seriously religious at all, cannot 
 but regard every further ray of religious light as 
 precious beyond all other gifts. And indifference 
 about religion ever tends either to render such a 
 soul shallow and hard in its other interests and 
 insights ; or else to make it feverish and fanatical 
 in sublunar matters, since it will expect from these 
 more than they can possibly yield. 
 
 And yet here especially the corresponding trouble 
 is very terrible. For has not this fervour found 
 expression, throughout the centuries and through- 
 out entire countries, in awful cruelties ? There is 
 Charlemagne's wholesale enforcement of Baptism 
 upon the heathen Saxons ; the extermination of 
 the Waldensians and Albigensians ; the Spanish 
 Inquisition, with its thousands of executions ; the
 
 Religion and Fervour and Unity 349 
 
 Dragonnades of the Huguenots. And we know 
 how already St. Augustine (who died in a.d. 430) 
 vehemently insisted upon the Church's right and 
 duty to use physical force in matters of religious 
 conviction ; how Pope Gregory ix., the friend of St. 
 Francis of Assisi, organized, in 1230, the General 
 Inquisition ; how numerous Popes, amongst them 
 the grandly incorruptible St. Pius v., helped to 
 render the Spanish Inquisition possible and actual, 
 as a specifically, jealously ecclesiastical tribunal ; 
 and how the Roman Church, as such, has never 
 renounced this attitude, and indeed actively 
 applies it, in so far as the modern State permits 
 such application. Can we wonder, then, if men 
 shrink from forwarding such an authority ? 
 
 Here, however, we can readily trace also 
 another current in the Church's history, which 
 admirably combines the deepest zeal and fervour 
 with a sensitive shrinking from the application of 
 physical force in spiritual things. Thus the 
 Church before Constantine (a.d. 307-37) held, 
 quite generally, that to force consciences to the 
 truth is immoral and unchristian ; and the Church 
 Father Lactantius, well on in that reign, still 
 insists : " Let the Heathen imitate us Christians ; 
 no one is retained amongst us against his will " ; 
 " religion is to be defended, not by killing, but by 
 dying " ; and " if you try to defend religion by
 
 350 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 blood, you violate it ; for nothing is so much a 
 matter of free willing as is religion " (Div. Znstit., 
 bk. v. 19 (12, 22, 23)). 
 
 The first execution for heresy occurs in a.d. 
 385 ; but St. Martin of Tours and St. Ambrose 
 of Milan protest against it. And St. Gregory 
 the Great (d. 604), perhaps the greatest of all 
 the Popes, peremptorily forbids certain Neapolitan 
 zealots to interfere with the Jews' celebrations 
 of their feasts, and sternly reproves various 
 Bishops of Southern Gaul for compelling Jews 
 to submit to Baptism (Epist. xiii. 12, viii. 27, 
 ix. 6). And again Pope Alexander 11., in 
 1068, and Pope Clement vi. (1342-52), with 
 numerous other Popes, similarly protect the 
 Jews. Indeed, up to 1284, and even still in 
 1322, the several millions of Castilian Jews were 
 allowed, by Church and State, a separate organ- 
 ization under their own Rabbis, and the fullest 
 observance of all their civil and religious laws. 
 
 And then as to modern high theological pro- 
 nouncements, Cardinal de Lugo, the great Jesuit 
 theologian (he died in 1660), insists that the 
 members of the various Christian sects, of the 
 Jewish and Mohammedan communions, and of 
 the heathen philosophical schools, who achieve 
 their salvation, do so, ordinarily, simply through 
 the aid afforded by God's grace to their good
 
 Two Currents throughotit Church History 351 
 
 faith in its instinctive concentration upon, and in 
 its practice of, those elements in their respective 
 community's cultus and teaching which are true 
 and good and originally revealed by God (De 
 Fide, Disp. xix. Nos. 7, 10; xx. Nos. 107, 194). 
 And Pope Pius ix., the least " liberal " of Doctors, 
 assures his Cardinals : "It is known to us and to 
 you that those who labour under an invincible 
 ignorance concerning our most holy religion, and 
 who zealously observe the Natural Law written 
 by God in the hearts of all men, can, with the aid 
 of the divine light and grace, attain to Eternal 
 Life" ; and "Who will dare to draw the limits of 
 such ignorance, in view of the existing immense 
 variety of peoples, minds, and so many other 
 circumstances ? " (Reaieil des Allocutions de Pie 
 IX., Paris, 1865, pp. 480, 340). 
 
 Indeed, the Church's grandly bold inclusion of 
 the entire Old Testament in the Christian Canon, 
 against the powerful and protracted hostility of 
 the Gnostics, involves the admission that poly- 
 gamy and the Lex talionis can be practised and 
 proclaimed, at rudimentary stages of Revelation, 
 by God's own Saints and Revealers ; and hence 
 that the various degrees of God's truth and light, 
 and the difference of value between them, are 
 nearly as unspeakable as is that truth itself. 
 
 Again, the Church's excommunications are ad-
 
 352 Eternal Life: Contemporary Stcrvey 
 
 mittedly fallible ; hence exclusions and consequent 
 schisms are not, of necessity, simply the fault of 
 those thus excluded. And certainly, even where 
 such fault seems clear, we very soon find unmis- 
 takable evidences of various degrees of truth and 
 of grace in the souls that grow up in these separate 
 organizations. Cardinal Manning, as is well 
 known, strongly emphasized this fact, in his last 
 years, with regard to Anglicans. 
 
 And finally, the very great variety amongst the 
 types of spirituality represented, well within the 
 Roman Church, by different periods, different 
 religious orders, and different theological schools, 
 also aids towards this, very important, indeed 
 essential, breadth and many-sidedness. 
 
 It appears only necessary that all this larger, 
 gentler, and deeply Christian current shall become 
 universal and instinctive, for Roman Catholicism 
 (thus most fervent without fanaticism and univer- 
 sally just and encouraging without indifference) 
 once again, and more than ever, to become fully 
 lovable and entirely trusted. In any case, not 
 even bigotry and persecution must drive us into 
 indifference or scepticism ; since these latter 
 diseases of the soul, amidst other great evils, 
 furnish ready excuses, or provocatives for those 
 contrary extremes, or, at the least, allow them a 
 quite unchecked career. A deep vigilant love of
 
 The Roman Church and Canon Law 353 
 
 God in man and of man in God, a continuous 
 sense of Eternal Life will, here also, alone be 
 really adequate and constructive. 1 
 
 (4) The next pair is, in parts, hardly dis- 
 tinguishable from the preceding one, and has, 
 indeed, largely produced the peculiarities just 
 considered. This pair concerns the Canon Law. 
 
 The Roman Church most rightly conceives 
 Religion as also concerned with Law, and as 
 having the need and right to some legal organiza- 
 tion, amidst the civil laws and legislations of the 
 world. Certainly the idea that everything legal 
 is essentially evil is but a sorry Gnosticism, or a 
 pathetic excess understandable as occasioned by 
 the contrary excesses. For the spirituality and 
 liberty of the Gospel have ever to develop, 
 and to show, their full force in contact with, 
 and through the transformation of, matter and 
 law. And indeed there are entirely conclu- 
 sive proofs in the very Acts of the Apostles 
 that, e.g., the community of goods amongst the 
 first Christians was never universal, and that it 
 never suspended the sense of the rightfulness, and 
 
 1 For the action of Popes and of Councils, in respect to Con- 
 science and Persecution, before, and in connection with, the 
 Spanish Inquisition, see H. C. Lea's History of the Spanish 
 Inquisition, 4 vols., 1906, 1907, especially vol. i. pp. 71-21 1 ; vol. 
 ii. pp. 470, 471, 548-550; vol. iii. pp. 183-190; and vol. iv. 
 pp. 516-534. A good short account is to be found in the Abbe" 
 Vacandard's L Inquisition, 1906. 
 
 23
 
 354 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 the free retention and use, of private property 
 amongst those Christians. Not, then, the exclu- 
 sion of the very idea of law, or even only of its 
 actual application, but simply the spirit, character, 
 position, and effects of such law, can reasonably be 
 called in question. And indeed, the earlier parts 
 of the Canon Law are often of a kind still strongly 
 to appeal to every Christian conscience. 
 
 It is plain, however, that now, for many a day, 
 the persuasiveness of the Church is in inverse ratio 
 to her coercive character and action. Thus it is 
 most instructive to follow the admissions and 
 varying emotions of such a strongly anti-sacer- 
 dotal, but deeply religious and highly competent, 
 jurist as is the Lutheran Professor Rudolf So Am. 
 He insists that "the essence of Catholicism 
 consists in its not discriminating between the 
 Church in the religious sense (the Church of 
 Christ), and the Church in the legal sense"; and 
 he opposes Rome precisely on this ground. Yet 
 he has to admit that St. Augustine, and indeed 
 numerous other Catholic authorities up to Luther, 
 fully possessed the idea of the Invisible Church, 
 and of its non-identity with the Visible Church ; 
 that a legal organization is already strongly at 
 work in the First Epistle of St. Clement (between 
 93 and 97 a.d.), and is fully asserted by Pope 
 Callixtus' Edict concerning marriage (in about
 
 Only One Catholic Church from First 355 
 
 220 a.d.) ; and that the " Roman Catholic Church, 
 alone amongst extant bodies, possesses the exterior 
 connection with the legal organization which arose 
 out of Primitive Christianity." 
 
 Above all, Sohm shows, with a fine insistence, 
 how Christianity, from the first, owned "the concep- 
 tion of a Christendom — a community which, con- 
 joined by love, forms a unity, a body, the body of 
 Christ." Thus Primitive Christians knew "only the 
 one Church of Christ, which energizes and appears 
 (to the faithful) in countless ' Churches,' assem- 
 blies of Christendom, manifestations of the life of 
 Christ." This Church is the Catholic Church, and 
 not a separate community; "wherever Christ's 
 spirit is, there is Christendom, the Ecclesia, 
 always the same Christendom, the same Ecclesia." 
 And precisely this fact, according to Sohm, is 
 the reason why scholars have been unable to 
 show how and when the primitive communities 
 (supposed by them to have alone existed at first 
 and to have at that time existed independently 
 of each other) came to coalesce, or to be absorbed 
 by one of them, and thus suddenly to appear 
 in history as the full-blown, uniform Catholic 
 Church. According to Sohm there existed, from 
 the first, the Catholic Church, and it alone ; and 
 the only change that occurred was an all-per- 
 vading interior revolution, one of principle and
 
 356 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 disposition, — the transformation of this (ever single 
 and Universal) Church, from an entirely free, 
 purely charismatic body, into a predominantly 
 coercive, legalist organization ( Wesen und Ur- 
 sprung des Katkolizismus, Leipzig, 1909, pp. 13, 
 12, 14, 15, 24 n., 35; 14, 26, 27; 42). 
 
 Here the apprehension of the central quality of 
 Christianity and of the Church, and of the excesses 
 in its juridical development, is doubtless very true 
 and deep. But it is certainly inexact to conceive 
 even present-day Roman Catholicism as teaching 
 (either officially or in the higher or even average 
 belief of its adherents) the simple identity of the 
 Invisible with the Visible Church. Sohm admits 
 that the Primitive Christians saw the Invisible 
 Church in the Visible, and that they did not dis- 
 tinguish between the two (pp. 23, 24). Well, the 
 later Catholic Christians saw and see the Invisible 
 Church in the Visible Church and connected with 
 it, but certainly not as simply identical or co- 
 extensive with it. " There are many souls within 
 the Visible Church that do not belong to the 
 Invisible Church ; and there are many souls not 
 within the Visible Church that belong to the In- 
 visible Church " is still a thoroughly orthodox and 
 common saying. Indeed, Luther's and Sohm's 
 positions, where they become fully polemical, are 
 as distinctly non-primitive, in their exclusion of
 
 Visible and Invisible, not Coextensive 357 
 
 all connection between the Visible and Invisible 
 Churches, as is the extremer and more exclusive 
 Legalism of such Roman Catholic theologians as, 
 say, Cardinal Torquemada and some of the (now 
 dominant) Italian and German Jesuit Canonists. 
 The rich vitality of that primitive Christian con- 
 viction doubtless depended as truly upon those 
 Christians not making the absolute distinction, 
 insisted upon by Luther, as upon their not making 
 the simple identification, almost fully reached by 
 these Canonist theologians. 
 
 Here once more, then, we have to beware ol 
 all superfine Idealism — of "pure" spirituality, 
 and again of "pure," "simple," "easy" counter- 
 theories. For everywhere, and hence particularly 
 here, we have to watch and to maintain the 
 friction, the pain, and the cost of the Spiritual 
 in and around the Material, and of the Eternal 
 in the Temporal and Spatial, within man's quasi- 
 eternal, durational life. 
 
 We must, however, admit that a considerable 
 amount of the Canon Law bears the impress 
 of the strongly theocratic later Middle Ages, 
 from, say, a.d. 1230 to about 1480. Much even 
 amongst these laws can be shown to have been 
 appropriate and useful to those times ; and 
 besides, in those ages, Emperors, Cities, Bishops, 
 Universities were strong and vigorous within the
 
 358 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Church ; and, by their very excesses in a centri- 
 fugal direction, they justified or excused, and, in 
 either case, they mostly checked or balanced, any 
 centralizing excesses in this Canon Law. And the 
 presuppositions of this Law were then all in the air, 
 and deeply ingrained in the mental habits of the 
 populations, trained in such ideas by the Roman 
 Empire and by its Byzantine and early Mediaeval 
 copies, during a millennium and more. 
 
 But since the Protestant Reformation, and much 
 more since the great French Revolution, those 
 powerful checks, and those habits and instincts, 
 have ever increasingly disappeared. And yet it is 
 the strange but undeniable fact that not since the 
 later Middle Ages has the Papacy, or rather the 
 Curia, aimed so persistently, and never with so 
 little interior check or hindrance, at the full 
 development, codification, and detailed enforce- 
 ment of this Canon Law. Such an address as 
 that of the learned jurist, Dr. Fleiner, " On the 
 Development of the Catholic Church Law in the 
 Nineteenth Century " (an address welcomed by 
 German Catholic Canonists as very accurate and 
 penetrating), brings vividly home to us the un- 
 hasting and unresting absorption or elimination of 
 all non-Papal, non-Curialist powers and activities 
 by Rome throughout this time, until the Vatican 
 Council, in 1870, placed all the Church's doctrinal
 
 Complete Predominance of Curialism 359 
 
 and disciplinary powers in the hands of the 
 Monarch Pope. Since the accession of Pius x. 
 in 1903 the energetic execution of this policy 
 appears, with startling plainness, in such acts as 
 the abolition of the irremovableness of Parish 
 Priests, and in the Motu Proprio pronouncements 
 concerning Mixed Marriages and the Immunity 
 of the Clergy from the civil tribunals. Indeed, 
 Rome's action in the matter of the Separation of 
 Church and State in France, and in the number- 
 less condemnations of books, doctrines, and men 
 during these eight years, also illustrates this pure 
 autocracy. 
 
 Here we can find comfort in but three reflexions. 
 
 It was zealous believers, mostly laymen and 
 non-Italians, such as de Maistre and Chateau- 
 briand, Stolberg and Gorres, Veuillot and W. G. 
 Ward, who (keenly suffering under the dreary 
 emptiness and ignorant contempt of Deism and 
 Secularism, or under the insufficiencies of Pro- 
 testantism) pressed this policy upon Rome. And 
 zealous believers, perhaps again mostly laymen 
 and non- Italians, may arise who will successfully 
 aid the return to a wider and richer, a truly 
 Catholic, action. After all, Rome depends upon 
 its subjects as truly as its subjects depend upon 
 Rome ; and Rome will live, and deserve to live, 
 only as the expression of the fullest religious life.
 
 360 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 And again, the Curialist presentation of the 
 situation, as a simple alternative between anarchy 
 or autocracy, revolt or self-stultification, will not 
 for ever terrify into nonentity or goad into 
 scepticism the freely docile children of Jesus 
 Christ and of His Vicar, the Servant of the 
 servants of God. They will, on the contrary, 
 come to feel with Rosmini the holy, and with 
 Newman the far-sighted, and with many a great 
 Saint down to our own acutely saddening times, 
 that revolution and despotism are ever the fruit- 
 ful parents of each other, and that no fellow- 
 mortal, even if he truly represents, to the fullest 
 degree possible amongst frail men, the authority 
 and power of God, can ever come to be beyond 
 learning and receiving from men and through 
 men — those very men to whom he has so much 
 to teach, and so much to give. 
 
 And finally, if we choose to look we shall 
 find, still and already, amidst deplorable revolts 
 and infidelities, corresponding to distressing auto- 
 cratic acts and claims, much sincere and digni- 
 fied Catholic loyalty and submission, and genuine, 
 because humble and creaturely, freedom, operative 
 amongst numberless souls, cleric and lay, persist- 
 ently devoted lovers of the great Roman Church. 1 
 
 1 Professor Fritz Fleiner's address : Ueber die Entwicklu?ig 
 des Katholischen Kirchenrechis im ig. Jahrhundert, 1902. For
 
 The Roman Church and Politics 361 
 
 (5) There remains a last pair of complications. 
 The Roman Church, probably more keenly than 
 any other large Christian body, maintains that 
 Religion cannot remain utterly unconcerned with 
 Politics ; but that Religion can and ought also 
 to permeate and to sanctify political life. And 
 certainly here again, taken in this generality, 
 our complex life proves that Rome is right. For 
 everything in man hangs together ; and Politics, 
 which, adequately conceived, are so profoundly 
 and widely important, cannot stand utterly out- 
 side Religion. Edmund Burke, de Tocqueville, 
 Ranke, did not think that they do. Economics 
 certainly do not ; and can we draw any sharp 
 line between Religion and Ethics, Ethics and 
 Economics, Economics and Politics? Did 
 Lorenzo de' Medici's intrigues against the 
 Florentine Republic, or Marie Antoinette's suc- 
 cessful determination to secure the dismissal of 
 the Ministers Turgot and Malesherbes, really 
 have "nothing to do with religion"? I do not 
 think we can maintain this. 
 
 Yet none of the attempted theocracies, in 
 
 Rosmini and Newman, see the Rev. William Lockhart's Life of 
 Antonio Rosmini, i vols., 1890; and The Life of Cardinal 
 Newman, by Wilfred Ward, 2 vols., 1912. And as to the relations 
 between obedience to God and obedience to His representa- 
 tives, see the Rev. George Tyrrell's " From God or from Men j"' 
 ip his Through Scylla and Chary bdis, 1907.
 
 362 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 modern times and in the West, have been long 
 successful ; and the evils they have provoked 
 have probably outweighed the good which they 
 have produced. And then, any persistent and 
 direct mixing up of politics and religion becomes 
 intolerable in proportion to the limited number, 
 to the unchecked power, and to the secrecy of 
 procedure, of the religious officials thus operating. 
 It is precisely the most earnest and promising of 
 the religious minds of our day that are the most 
 sensitive concerning the very suspicion of the 
 operation of strong sublunar motives in claims of 
 a transcendental kind. 
 
 And yet all the world knows how apparently 
 incapable of dying is the Roman Curia's thirst 
 for the old Temporal Power over the Roman 
 States, and its hunger for external, political 
 recognition and influence amongst the govern- 
 ments of the world. Thus many Italians, in 
 the middle of last century, knew (like Dante) 
 how to combine a devoted Catholicism with an 
 heroic patriotism — witness Rosmini and Manzoni, 
 Pellico and d' Azeglio ; yet their successors still 
 have to live, at best intermittently and but 
 half- acknowledged, and, in the long run, dis- 
 avowed and condemned, by the Roman Curia in 
 these their lives and convictions. Nevertheless, 
 any serious attempt to restore to the Church any
 
 Political Ambitions increasingly Ruinous 363 
 
 direct temporal and political power would destroy, 
 perhaps for ever, such popularity as the Papacy 
 still enjoys in Italy. And similarly, the political 
 system of Papal Nuncios, and even, recently, of 
 semi-secret political agents of small capacity and 
 denunciatory procedure, has more and more 
 crippled the authority of the Bishops in times and 
 countries most in need of such an undisputed, 
 public, essentially spiritual, authority representative 
 of these Churches' special needs and wishes. 
 
 Here we can only do our best, and trust 
 God and the interconnection (ever so real even 
 when most obscure) of all men and classes and 
 forces in this our wondrous existence. Providence 
 may allow that the ruinousness of such a combina- 
 tion for these later ages of the world shall be 
 demonstrated even more fully and at greater cost 
 than heretofore, in one more bitter experience 
 of mankind. Or it may utilize this very power, 
 which now appears as though finally omnipo- 
 tent, to give all the larger scope to some Papa 
 Angelico who will know how to conjoin with 
 the simple, traditional piety and goodness, still 
 o-enuinely amongst us, a sensitive sympathy, 
 as yet lacking or angrily suspected, with all 
 that is true and generous in the very troubles 
 and dim aspirations of our greatly altered world. 
 Such a figure would in some way severely check,
 
 364 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 and perhaps for ever repress all directly politi- 
 cal ambitions, through a great increase, in the 
 Servant-Mistress of all the Churches, of the sense 
 and practice of Eternal Life. 1 
 
 3. Let us now conclude our survey with two diffi- 
 cult endeavours. Let us attempt to show how the 
 experiences, conceptions, and habits concerning 
 Eternal Life, which the Saints in especial teach 
 us, can alone forcibly aid us to avoid, bear, 
 mitigate, abolish, or utilize the evils we have 
 found to be closely intertwined with the benefits 
 of Institutionalism. And let us try to illustrate, 
 by some recent examples, the supreme delicacy, 
 vividness, and operative force of those experiences 
 and convictions, where they have been awakened, 
 deepened, and guarded, in heroic souls, by 
 Institutional Relioion. 
 
 But I would premise that we are dealing here 
 with the Eternal-Life complex, only as this is 
 an antidote to the evils incidental to Insti- 
 tutionalism. Again, the account thus attempted 
 deals, not with the vague and intermittent aspira- 
 
 1 On the above matters, see the delicately balanced, highly 
 competent La Politique de Pie X., 1906-19/0, by Maurice Pernet, 
 1910; the rougher, yet still honest and well-informed La Separa- 
 tion des Eglises et de VEtat, by M. de Narfon, 191 1 ; and the 
 deeply religious study, so frankly adverse to all easy solutions, 
 Die Trennung von Staat tend Kirche, by Professor Troeltsch, 
 1907.
 
 The Sense of Eternal Life : Abidingness 365 
 
 tions which are (more or less) common to all 
 men, but with the hunger and thirst of the 
 human spirit after the Eternal Spirit where this 
 thirst is keenly awakened and clearly articu- 
 lated by Historical, Institutional Religion. And, 
 finally, nothing simply hypothetic, or really new, 
 is advanced here. But we shall only strive to 
 put together, and clearly to show, the experiences 
 and convictions in question, as these have been 
 and are operating (to the writer's very certain 
 knowledge or direct observation) in fully awake 
 and deeply spiritual souls within the greatest of 
 the Christian Institutions. 
 
 (1) The complex, then, of vivid, operative con- 
 victions connected with Eternal Life, as we have 
 gradually come to understand it in this book, is 
 fundamentally fivefold. And each of these con- 
 victions awakens and feeds special habits and 
 capacities, which are so many true and potent 
 antidotes to the evils considered above. 
 
 There is, first, a keen yet double sense of 
 Abidingness — an absolute Abidingness, pure 
 Simultaneity, Eternity, in God ; and a relative 
 abidingness, a quasi-eternity, Duration, in man 
 {qua personality). And the Eternity is always 
 experienced by man only within, together with, 
 and in contrast to, the Duration. And both 
 Eternity and Duration stand out, in man's
 
 66 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 deepest consciousness, with even painful contrast, 
 against all mere Succession, all sheer flux and 
 change. 
 
 Here the special value lies in the double 
 sense that we are indeed actually touched, pene- 
 trated, and supported by the purely Eternal ; and 
 yet that we ourselves shall never, either here or 
 hereafter, be more than quasi-eternal, durational. 
 For only this double sense will save us from 
 the perilous alternatives of an uncreaturely sheer 
 fixity and an animal mere flux and change. We 
 thus gain a perennial source of continuity and 
 calm. 
 
 There is, next, the keen sense of Otherness 
 in Likeness. We are genuinely like, and we are 
 genuinely unlike, God, the Realized Perfection. 
 Hence there is ever a certain tension, a feeling 
 of limitation or of emptiness, a looking for a 
 centre outside of, or other than, our own selves. 
 
 Here again this double sense will be profoundly 
 helpful in our troubles. For thus we are never 
 free to lose reverence for the deepest of what we 
 are, since it is like God, and actually harbours 
 God. And yet we may never lose humility and 
 a thirst for purification, since even the deepest 
 and best of ourselves never is, never will be, God ; 
 and since all that we actually are is full of weak- 
 ness and of manifold sins and faulty habits.
 
 Otherness, and Other- Worldliness 367 
 
 And so we find a continual reason for self- 
 respect, humility, contrition, each aiding and 
 penetrating the other ; and for a faith and certainty, 
 which will never be arrogant, and for a diffidence, 
 which will never be sceptical. 
 
 There is, thirdly, the keen sense of Other- World- 
 liness in contrast with This- Worldliness. There 
 is here a lively conviction that our spiritual person- 
 ality, and its full beatitude, can never be attained 
 in this life, but only in the other life, after death ; 
 and yet that the other life can be begun in this 
 life, indeed that we are, all of us, more or less 
 solicited, here and now, by that other life, and 
 that we cannot consummate it there, unless we 
 begin it here. And, in this case, as everywhere, 
 the greater and ultimate has to awake and to 
 grow within us, in and through, and in contrast 
 with, the lesser and (eventually) secondary. 
 
 This double sense is, again, a deep help in 
 all our trials. For thus we are pricked on to 
 labour energetically at the improvement of man's 
 earthly lot, in all its stages and directions ; but we do 
 so without philistinism, impatience, or fanaticism, 
 since we are fully convinced (even before begin- 
 ning) that these attempts, could they all succeed, 
 would not, could not, ever satisfy man, when once 
 he is fully awake. And this applies, in its degree, 
 even to our spirituality, even to the Church.
 
 368 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 Even these are, in considerable part, preparatory, 
 educative, during this our short schooltime, our 
 years of training, upon earth — a necessary and 
 noble function, and one that is fundamentally 
 rooted in Him Who Abides and in the quasi- 
 eternal within ourselves ; yet one which (taken 
 as it stands here on earth) is not throughout an 
 end, the end, but is a mean, or, at best, the means. 
 We thus find perpetual escape from all pedantry 
 or feverishness, and this through the gain of an 
 unconquerable, because sober, optimism. 
 
 There is, fourthly, the keenest sense of Reality. 
 Our analyses, theories, hypotheses, our very denials 
 and scepticisms, all presuppose realities which 
 environ and influence us, real beings ; realities 
 which, together with us real men, constitute one 
 real world. And throughout, and within, and 
 over against, all these realities is the Reality of 
 realities, the Eternal Spirit, God. Indeed, this 
 Source and Sustenance of the other realities is 
 apprehended by us ever with, and in, and through, 
 and over against, those other, various realities 
 that impinge upon our many-levelled lives. And 
 thus our highest certainties awaken with, and 
 require, our lower and lowest ones. 
 
 This double sense again will greatly aid us. 
 For it will make us profoundly concrete, histori- 
 cal, incarnational, ontological, real ; yet all this
 
 Reality, and the Organism 369 
 
 without a touch of inflation. And it will fill us 
 with dauntless faith, courage, and joy, yet ever 
 also with the creaturely temper — with respect 
 for the body, for things, for matter ; and will keep 
 us ever averse to all abstract and subjectivist 
 schemes. 
 
 And finally, there is the keen sense of Unity in 
 Multiplicity and of Multiplicity in Unity — of the 
 Organism. Everywhere we find in the real world 
 only such organisms — systems, families, complexes ; 
 nowhere sheer, mere unity or units. God Him- 
 self (in the deep rich Christian orthodoxy) is a 
 Trinity of Persons ; Christ is a Duality of Natures ; 
 the Humanity of Christ and of all men is a Trinity 
 of Powers. Our bodies are wondrous organisms, 
 our minds are still more wonderfully organic ; 
 and the two together form an organization of 
 an even more marvellous unity in multiplicity. 
 And yet it is not even such a single man who is 
 the true, fundamental social unit, but the family, 
 in which the father, mother, and child are each 
 sui generis and essential, as non-interchangeable 
 parts of this rich organism. Thus from a lichen 
 or seaweed up to God Himself — the unspeakable 
 Richness (because the incomprehensibly manifold 
 Unity and complete Organization) — we find ever 
 increasingly rich, organized unities. And the 
 
 great social complexes of Society and the State, 
 24
 
 370 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 of Economics, Science, Art, are all similarly 
 possessed of specific laws of organization. They 
 are strong and beneficent only as special wholes 
 possessed of special parts, which wholes again 
 have to grow and fructify in contact, contrast, and 
 conflict with other such complexes without, and 
 the ever more or less disorderly elements within, 
 themselves. 
 
 Here, again, we find an immense help. For 
 thus we are all taught Reverence for each other's 
 spiritual individuality, and for the characteristics 
 of all the great organisms ; since each is neces- 
 sary for all the others. And we gain in 
 Public Spirit ; since we feel keenly that no indi- 
 vidual or organization, however essential and 
 sacred, can live fully and fruitfully except by 
 living also with and for other individuals and 
 organizations. And, perhaps above all, the re- 
 ligious passion can thus, at last, more and more 
 require and seek the scientific, and the other 
 noble, passions of mankind. For here man has 
 to grow with and through other men and other 
 things, never simply within and through himself. 
 And thus his very religion here drives him to 
 find checks and obstacles even to his standards 
 and ideals — sure, as he is, that he requires purifi- 
 cation even in the best of what he is and has, 
 and that God, Who has ordered all things to
 
 Eternal Life, amongst Institutional Believers 371 
 
 co-operate towards the good of those who seek 
 and love Him, will ever help his soul to find His 
 Peace and Eternity in even the severest storms 
 and wreckage of its earthly times. 
 
 (2) With regard to specially precious manifesta- 
 tions of the experience and conviction of Eternal 
 Life, of God with man, within the authoritative 
 Institutions, in these our times, we can again 
 point to the impartial testimony of Sir Charles 
 Booth. In general, " the clergy and ministers " 
 amongst the London poor, he tells us, " have no 
 authority that is recognized, but their professional 
 character remains . . . and their manner is 
 somewhat resented. In the case of the Roman 
 Catholic priesthood alone do we find the desired 
 combination of professionalism and authority, 
 resting not on the individual but on the Church 
 he serves ; and where most nearly approached, 
 it is by the lives of some of the High Church 
 clergy" (op. cit. p. 428). And in English literature 
 generally we find poignant expressions of this 
 Other- Worldliness fostered (in various yet every- 
 where real ways) by Religious Traditions and Insti- 
 tutions. Thus we get Claude Montefiore's movino- 
 pages upon Prayer, in his Liberal J zidaism, 1907 ; 
 Frederick Robertson's great sermon on "The 
 Loneliness of Christ " ; Dean Church's study of 
 the sense of God in the Psalms, as contrasted
 
 $J2 Eternal Life : Contemporary Survey 
 
 with the Vedas ; and many an address in 
 J. H. Newman's Parochial and Plain Sermons 
 and Sermons to Mixed Congregations. Then 
 for the Russian Church, we have the striking 
 extracts from the Diary of Father John (Sergieff) 
 of Cronstadt, published in English as My Life 
 in Christ, in 1897. 
 
 And for deep spirituality and heroism in the 
 Roman Catholic Church, the present writer's 
 mind dwells ever specially upon four examples. 
 
 There is the rough uncultured Belgian, Father 
 Damien, deliberately contracting and dying the 
 loathsome, slow death of a leper, from love of 
 God in men utterly without claims of any other 
 kind upon him, away in an island lost in the 
 ocean at the Antipodes, as Robert Louis 
 Stevenson has unforgettably described the simple, 
 splendid life. 
 
 And there is, again, Jean Baptiste Vianney, 
 the now beatified simple peasant Cure of 
 Ars. How impressive are the accounts by the 
 Abbe" Monnin, an eye-witness of the Curd's 
 utter absorption in God and in souls, each ever 
 inciting the other, and the joyous expansion of 
 his entire nature through this keen sense and love ! 
 (Le Cure' d'Ars, 12th ed., 2 vols., 1874, is before 
 me). And in the "Spirit of the Curd d'Ars," 
 chronicled by the same, we find numberless
 
 The Curd d 1 Ars on Eternal Life 373 
 
 deeply spontaneous sayings, such as the following : 
 " Time never seems long in prayer. I know not 
 whether we can even wish for heaven ! ' Yet 
 " the fish swimming in a little rivulet is well off, 
 because it is in its element ; but it is still better 
 in the sea." " When we pray, we should open 
 our heart to God, like a fish when it sees the 
 wave coming." " Do you see, my children, 
 except God, nothing is solid — nothing, nothing ! 
 If it is life, it passes away ; if it is fortune, it 
 crumbles away ; if it is health, it is destroyed ; if 
 it is reputation, it is attacked. We are scattered 
 like the wind." "You say it is hard to suffer? 
 No, it is easy ; it is happiness. Only we must 
 love while we suffer, and suffer whilst we love. 
 On the way of the cross, you see, my children, 
 only the first step is painful. Our greatest cross 
 is the fear of crosses" (English translation, 
 pp. 28, 40, 114). 
 
 And then there is Eugenie Smet, the daughter 
 of a burgher of Lille (1 825-1 871), who, as Mere 
 Marie de la Providence, founded an Order of 
 devoted women, at work, even before her death, 
 as far as India and China; who insisted upon 
 remaining in Paris throughout the siese and the 
 Commune, 1870-71 ; and who slowly died there, 
 in agonies of cancer, utterly absorbed with joy 
 in God, the Eternal and utterly Real, and with
 
 374 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 tender and unceasing activity towards His poor and 
 sick around her. In the midst of these immense 
 trials she was wont to say : " Let us feel that 
 Eternity is begun ; whatever pain we are going 
 through, let us make joy out of that thought." 
 And : " In all things I can only see God alone ; 
 and, after all, that is the only way to be happy. 
 If once we begin to look at secondary causes, 
 there is an end of peace " (Lady Georgiana Fuller- 
 ton, Life of Mere Marie de la Providence, 4th ed., 
 1904, pp. 241, 237). 
 
 And finally, there is before my mind, with all 
 the vividness resulting from direct personal inter- 
 course and deep spiritual obligations, the figure of 
 the Abbe* Huvelin, who died only in 19 10. A 
 gentleman by birth and breeding, a distinguished 
 Hellenist, a man of exquisitely piercing, humor- 
 ous mind, he could readily have become a great 
 editor or interpreter of Greek philosophical or 
 patristic texts, or a remarkable Church historian. 
 But this deep and heroic personality deliberately 
 preferred " to write in souls," whilst occupying, 
 during thirty-five years, a supernumerary, unpaid 
 post in a large Parisian parish. There, suffer- 
 ing from gout in the eyes and brain, and 
 usually lying prone in a darkened room, he 
 served souls with the supreme authority of self- 
 oblivious love, and brought light and purity and
 
 Abbe" Huvelin on Eternal Life 375 
 
 peace to countless troubled, sorrowing, or sinful 
 souls. His Cure\ of St. Augustin, has spoken 
 well of this great figure ; Adeline, Duchess of 
 Bedford, a devoted Anglican, has published a 
 vivid, and almost entirely accurate, sketch of 
 him ; and now three volumes have been issued 
 containing the careful reports, taken down by 
 certain of his hearers, of familiar addresses which 
 are full (at least for those who knew and loved 
 the saintly speaker) of sudden gleams of the 
 deepest spiritual insight and love. 
 
 Thus, in the "Conferences on some of the 
 Spiritual Guides of the Seventeenth Century," he 
 says, in connection with Saint Francois de Sales : 
 " When once we desire a thing to be true, we are 
 very near to finding it true"; and "a spirituality of 
 the little-by-little is not an enfeebled spirituality." 
 And, in criticism of Jansenism: "There exist 
 families of souls which are determined to find the 
 principle of tranquillity within their own selves ; 
 they want to cast anchor within their own depths. 
 But we have to cast anchor, not below, but above ; 
 it is in God, in His goodness, that we have to 
 found our hope." And finally : " God, who might 
 have created us directly, employs, for this work, 
 our parents, to whom He joins us by the tenderest 
 ties. He could also save us directly, but He 
 saves us, in fact, by means of certain souls, which
 
 376 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 have received the spiritual life before ourselves, 
 and which communicate it to us, because they 
 love us." 
 
 Of Pere de Condren, Abb6 Huvelin says: "He 
 has hardly written any books ; he wrote in souls " ; 
 "he experienced great interior derelictions and 
 strange obscurities — a man is not called to form 
 other souls without having to suffer much " ; and 
 "his call was not to live for himself, but to live 
 utterly for Him who gave him all things." 
 
 In speaking of M. Olier, M. Huvelin ex- 
 claims : " Strip yourself of self, love God, love 
 men ; what are all these other things that seem 
 of such importance to you ? " And he declares : 
 " The world sees, in this or that soul, the passions, 
 the bitter waters which fill it ; but we priests, we 
 seek, beneath these bitter waters, the little spring 
 of sweet waters, Arethusa, that little thread of 
 grace, which, though deeper down and more 
 hidden, is nevertheless most truly there." And 
 again : " The true means to attract a soul, is not 
 to attenuate Christian doctrine, but to present it 
 in its full force, because then we present it in its 
 beauty. For beauty is one of the proofs of truth." 
 
 As to Saint Vincent de Paul, he tells us : 
 " See the reason why, in this life so devoted to 
 his fellow-creatures, you will find something 
 austere, and shut up in God : it is that the Saint
 
 Heroism, the Church, Eternal Life 377 
 
 feels the necessity, for himself and for others, thus 
 to re-immerse, to temper anew his soul in the 
 source of all love." 
 
 And lastly, with respect to the great Trappist 
 Abbe" de Rancd, he observes: "When something 
 very high and inaccessible is put before human 
 nature it feels itself impelled to attain to that 
 height, by something mysterious and divine which 
 God infuses into the soul." And: "There is 
 ever something mysterious in every conversion ; 
 we never succeed in fully understanding even 
 our own"; nevertheless, "the voice of God does 
 not speak in moments of exaltation. Such con- 
 verted souls would say : 'It was in the hour 
 when I was most mistress of myself, most re- 
 collected, least agitated, that I heard the voice of 
 God.'" 1 
 
 Thus souls, who live an heroic spiritual life 
 within great religious traditions and institutions, 
 attain to a rare volume and vividness of religious 
 insight, conviction, and reality. They can, at their 
 best, train other souls, who are not all unworthy of 
 such training, to a depth and tenderness of full and 
 joyous union with God, the Eternal, which utterly 
 surpasses, not only in quantity but in quality, what 
 
 1 "The Abbe Huvelin," by Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, in 
 The English Church Review, London, Jan. 191 1 ; Quelques 
 Directeurs (PAmes au XVII. Siecle (Paris, Gabalda, 191 1), pp. 6, 
 I2 » 37, 38, 50, 64, 76, 101, 102, 113, 121, 201, 230, 234.
 
 j 8 Eternal Life: Contemporary Survey 
 
 we can and do find amongst souls outside all such 
 Institutions, or not directly taught by souls trained 
 within such traditions. And thus we find here, 
 more clearly than in any philosopher as such, that 
 Eternal Life consists in the most real of relations 
 between the most living of realities — the human 
 spirit and the Eternal Spirit, God ; and in the 
 keen sense of His Perfection, Simultaneity and 
 Prevenience, as against our imperfection, succes- 
 siveness and dependence. And we find that this 
 sense is awakened in, and with, the various levels 
 of our nature ; in society as well as in solitude ; by 
 things as well as by persons. In such souls, then, 
 we catch the clearest glimpses of what, for man 
 even here below, can be and is Eternal Life.
 
 PART III 
 
 PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS 
 
 379
 
 PART III 
 
 PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 FINAL DISCRIMINATIONS 
 
 Eternal Life, a religious experience and conception — Not a cause, 
 but an effect : a relation between realities — The three things 
 involved by Eternal Life ; in their fulness they exist only in 
 God, the Eternal— Eternal Life in man, only quasi-eternal, 
 Durational — Man's highest ideals and deepest unrest caused 
 by this his likeness in unlikeness to God — The sense of the 
 Eternal is developed in the Durational — In the Spatial — In 
 the Material — Eternal Life and Eternal Death of the human 
 soul — Eternal Life, in man, requires sense of both weakness 
 and of sin, in our Lord's way of conceiving both — Eternal Life 
 requires a Cultus, and various outgoings into other depart- 
 ments — Three characteristics of deepest Religion at work to 
 prevent its becoming oppressive — Three causes of simplification 
 ever at work in practice of Eternal Life. 
 
 As regards the development of the consciousness 
 of Eternal Life, and a fully fruitful conviction 
 concerning it, we find that the history of Religion, 
 and the deepest experiences and revelations vouch- 
 safed to us, indicate the true lines to be as follows. 
 (We here adopt, not the historical or psychical, but 
 
 the logical order.) 
 
 381
 
 382 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 1. Eternal Life, in its pregnant, concrete, onto- 
 logical sense, — the operative conviction of its 
 reality, — is not, primarily, a matter of Speculation 
 and Philosophy, but reveals itself clearly only in 
 the course of ages, and even then only to riper, 
 deeper souls, as having been all along (in some 
 manner and degree) experienced and postulated in 
 all that men feel, will, do, and are of a character- 
 istically human kind. It is only Religion that, 
 in this matter, has furnished man with a vivid and 
 concrete experience and conviction of permanent 
 ethical and spiritual value. Philosophy, as such, 
 has not been able to do more than analyse and 
 clarify this religious conviction, and find, within 
 its own domain and level, certain intimations and 
 requirements converging towards such a convic- 
 tion. It has not itself been able vividly to 
 experience, or unshakably to affirm, a corre- 
 sponding Reality as actually present and ever 
 operative in the production of these very intima- 
 tions and requirements. 
 
 2. Eternal Life, as thus operative in man's life 
 and discovered for us there by Religion, is not 
 an ultimate cause, a self-subsisting entity, which 
 (accidentally or necessarily) evolves a living subject 
 or subjects ; but it is simply the effect, the action, 
 of a living Reality, or the effect, the interaction,
 
 Sense of Eternal Life, how caused 383 
 
 of several such realities. Hence Eternal Life is 
 no substitute for either God or man ; but it is the 
 activity, the effect, of God, or of man, or of both. 
 
 3. Eternal Life, in the fullest thinkable sense, 
 involves three things — the plenitude of all goods 
 and of all energizings that abide ; the entire self- 
 consciousness of the Being Which constitutes, and 
 Which is expressed by, all these goods and energiz- 
 ings ; and the pure activity, the non-successiveness, 
 the simultaneity, of this Being in all It has, all It 
 is. Eternal Life, in this sense, precludes not only 
 space, not only clock-time — that artificial chain of 
 mutually exclusive, ever equal moments, but even 
 duration, time as actually experienced by man, 
 with its overlapping, interpenetrating successive 
 stages. But Eternal Life precludes space and 
 clock-time because of the very intensity of its life. 
 The Simultaneity is here the fullest expression of 
 the Supreme Richness, the unspeakable Concrete- 
 ness, the overwhelming Aliveness of God ; and is 
 at the opposite pole from all empty unity, all mere 
 being — any or all abstractions whatsoever. 
 
 4. Eternal Life, in a real, though not in the 
 fullest sense, is attributable to man. This lesser 
 eternal life appears to have its range between the 
 pure Simultaneity of God, and mere Clock-Time,
 
 384 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 and to have its true form in Duration — an ever 
 more or less overlapping succession, capable of 
 being concentrated into quasi-simultaneities. And 
 this lesser eternal life, although unending, is never 
 boundless ; nor does it (here below at least) ever 
 become entirely actual. 
 
 5. Now, owing to this our likeness in un- 
 likeness to It, the Eternal Living Spirit (though 
 necessarily incomprehensible by our own) can 
 be, and is, continuously apprehended by us — 
 since that Spirit really penetrates us and all Its 
 creatures. And this our apprehension occurs, not 
 separately, abstractively, clearly, statically ; but 
 ever more or less in, or contrasting with, finite, 
 contingent, changing things ; and it does so 
 obscurely, yet with an immensely far-reaching 
 dynamic operativeness. From hence alone can 
 spring our unquenchable thirst after the Eternal 
 and Abiding, the Objective, the Final ; and our 
 intolerable pain at the very idea of being 
 entirely confined to the merely fleeting, subjec- 
 tive, momentary — a pain which persists even if we 
 extend the validity and permanence of our life's 
 experience to all humanity, taken simply as such. 
 For this thirst and pain could not be so ineradi- 
 cable and so profoundly operative, and could not 
 constitute so decidedly the very flower and test of
 
 Realized Perfection, Givenness, Adoration 385 
 
 our fullest manhood, did it not proceed from a 
 Reality or Realities deeper than any exclusively 
 human projection or analysis whatsoever. 
 
 Nor will it suffice to refer this experience to the 
 operation, within us, of Spirit in the making — to 
 the gradual and painful coming to self-conscious- 
 ness of the one concrete Universe (of which we 
 form an integral part) precisely through our 
 spirits and their growth. For we have no other in- 
 stance of an unrealized perfection producing such 
 pain and joy, such volitions, such endlessly varied 
 and real results ; and all by means of just this 
 vivid and persistent impression that this Becom- 
 ing is an already realized Perfection. Religion 
 would thus deceive us precisely in the conviction 
 and act which are central in all its higher forms 
 and stages — Adoration. And the noblest root and 
 flower of the Jewish-Christian religion and of 
 European civilization, — the sense of Givenness, 
 of grace, of dependence upon a Reality other 
 and higher than ourselves, singly or collectively — 
 would also have to go. For such a habit of mind 
 requires (logically, and in the long run also prac- 
 tically) my belief in a Reality not less but more 
 self-conscious than myself — a Living One Who 
 lives first and lives perfectly, and Who, touching 
 me, the inferior, derivative life, can cause me to 
 
 live by His aid and for His sake. 
 25
 
 386 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 6. Thus such a sense of the Divine Eternity or 
 Simultaneity will be developed by man within, 
 and in contrast to, duration. And it will be 
 strengthened in proportion as man effects, in 
 others and in himself, results spiritually real within 
 this (for him) real duration ; and as he collects his 
 spirit (in alternation to such action) away from 
 all particular strivings, and concentrates it, more 
 exclusively, upon the Divine Living One — the 
 ever-present Background and Support of his little 
 life. Time then, in the sense of duration (with 
 the spiritual intercourse and the growth in spiritual 
 character which we develop and consolidate in 
 such time), is, for us men, not a barrier against 
 Eternal Life, but the very stuff and means in and 
 by which we vitally experience and apprehend 
 that Life. Man's temporal life is thus neither a 
 theory nor even a vision ; nor something that 
 automatically unrolls itself. Nor, on the other 
 hand, is it, even at its deepest, itself the Ultimate 
 experienced by man. But man's life is one long, 
 variously deep and wide, rich and close, tissue of 
 (ever more or less volitional) acts and habits — 
 instinctive, rational, emotive ; of strivings, shrink- 
 ings, friction, conflict, suffering, harmony, and joy ; 
 and of variously corresponding permanent effectua- 
 tions in and by the spirit thus active. And hence 
 man's life is full of cost, tension, and drama. Yet
 
 Function of Time and Space 387 
 
 such an individual life never experiences, indeed 
 never is constituted by, itself alone ; but it is ever 
 endlessly affected by the environment and stimu- 
 lation of other realities, organisms, spirits ; and 
 it ever itself correspondingly affects such other 
 realities. And the whole of this inter-connected 
 realm of spirits is upheld, penetrated, stimulated, 
 and articulated by the one Infinite Spirit, God. 
 Thus a real succession, real efforts, and the con- 
 tinuous sense of limitation and inadequacy are the 
 very means in and through which man apprehends 
 increasingly (if only he thus loves and wills) the con- 
 trasting yet sustaining Simultaneity, Spontaneity, 
 I nfinity, and pure Action of the E ternal Life of God. 
 
 7. But also spatial concepts and imagery play 
 two important roles in the full and normal con- 
 sciousness of Eternal Life. For whether or no 
 the spatial category abides with man in the 
 Beyond, in this earthly life at least he cannot 
 persistently and vividly apprehend even the most 
 spiritual realities, as distinct and different from 
 each other, except by picturing them as disparate 
 in space. Now a vivid consciousness of the 
 deep distinction and difference (within all their 
 real affinity and closeness of intercourse) between 
 God and man, and the continuous, keen sense 
 that all man has, does, and is of good is ever, in
 
 388 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 its very possibility, a free gift of God, constitutes 
 the very core of religion. Hence the spatial 
 imagery, which, by picturing God as outside the 
 soul and Heaven as above the earth, helps to 
 enforce this fundamental truth, is highly valuable 
 — as valuable, indeed, as the imagery (spatial still) 
 which helps to enforce the complementary truth 
 of God's likeness to the soul and His penetration 
 of it, by picturing God as within the soul and 
 Heaven as in this room. 
 
 And again, the principles, ideals, and picturings 
 of Mathematics and Physics (with their insistence 
 upon ruthless law, utter interchangeableness of 
 all individual instances, and flawless determinism^ 
 have a very certain place and function in the full 
 spiritual life of the soul. For they provide that 
 preliminary Pantheism, that transition through 
 fate and utter dehumanization, which will allow 
 the soul to affirm, ultimately and as ultimate, 
 a Libertarianism and Personalism free from all 
 sentimentality or slovenliness, and immune against 
 the attacks of ultimate Pantheism, which can now 
 be vanquished as only the caricature of the 
 poorer half of a far richer whole. Yet for the 
 sufficient operativeness of that Mathematico- 
 physical world and outlook, vivid pictures of 
 space and of quasi-space — clock-time — are abso- 
 lutely necessary.
 
 Necessity of Contact with Things 389 
 
 8. Finally, material things (however dead or 
 seemingly dead) and abstract propositions (how- 
 ever empty if taken alone) can, and do, continually 
 thwart or stimulate human spirits — within this life 
 at least. Because God is Spirit, and because man 
 is spirit and is more and more to constitute him- 
 self a personality, it does not follow that man is to 
 effect this solely by means of spirits and person- 
 alities, divine and human. Nor does man require 
 material things only for the expression and com- 
 munication of a personality already developed 
 independently of such material things. But, as 
 in all mental apprehension and conviction there is 
 always, somewhere, the element of the stimulation 
 of the senses, so also does the spirit awaken to its 
 own life and powers, on occasion of contact and 
 conflict with material things. Hence Eternal 
 Life will (here below at least) not mean for man 
 aloofness from matter and the bodily senses, nor 
 even a restriction of their use to means of spiritual 
 self-expression ; but it will include also a rich and 
 wise contact with, and an awakening by means 
 of, matter and things. 
 
 9. All this costly acceptance and affirmation of 
 Eternal Life will be found to form the sole self- 
 consistent alternative to a (more or less obscure, 
 but none the less real and immensely operative)
 
 390 Eternal Life : Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 refusal of man's true call, and the election of the 
 (always easier) course of evading the soul's deepest 
 longings and requirements. This evasion will 
 strengthen the animal instincts and chaotic 
 impulsions of the man's complex being ; and will 
 weaken those higher claims of human reason and 
 of spiritual organization and transfigurement. And 
 the soul may at last arrive at an abiding dis- 
 integration and self-contradiction, and be alive 
 only in a superficial, distracted degree and way. 
 And this shrinkage and pain of self-contradiction 
 and self-stultification, which the soul itself has (at 
 least indirectly) willed, would be the soul's death. 
 In any case, it seems clear that, with regard to 
 a self-stultifying soul, neither Total Annihilation 
 nor a consciousness equal, though contrary, to 
 that of the soul which practises and experiences 
 Eternal Life, meets the various facts as well as 
 does the doctrine that the effects of such full self- 
 determinations indeed abide both for good and for 
 evil, but that they differ not only in quality, but 
 also in intensity. Thus, though no soul would 
 ever cease completely, and none of its fullest 
 spiritual and moral self-determinations would ever, 
 in their effects upon such a soul itself, be as 
 though they had not been, the contrast between 
 the saved and the lost soul would be between two 
 different quantities, as well as qualities, of life.
 
 Eternalized Spirits, Pkeno?nenalized Souls 391 
 
 And whereas the sense of Time, in the most fully 
 eternalized of human spirits, would be so Durational 
 as almost to lapse into Simultaneity, the sense of 
 Time with phenomenalized human souls would lose 
 almost all Duration and be quite close to Clock- 
 Time — to the mechanical movement of soulless 
 matter. This is certainly the case in this life ; 
 here we are merely assuming that what already 
 is, as the deepest of our experiences, will continue 
 to obtain as long as we last at all. 
 
 10. Eternal Life, conceived as above, will be 
 found to include and to require a deep sense of 
 human Weakness and of man's constant need of 
 the Divine Prevenience, and again of the reality 
 of Sin and of our various inclinations to it ; but 
 also to exclude all conceptions of the total corrup- 
 tion of human nature, of the essential impurity 
 of the human body, or of the utter debilitation of 
 the will. The Pauline, Augustinian, Lutheran, 
 Calvinist, Jansenist trend, impressive though it is, 
 will have to be explained, in part, as a good and 
 necessary (or at least as an excusable, temporary) 
 corrective of some contrary excess ; and, for the 
 rest, it will have to suffer incorporation within a 
 larger whole, which, in appearance more common- 
 place, is yet in reality indefinitely richer — the 
 doctrine and practice of Jesus Christ Himself.
 
 3 
 
 92 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 " In my flesh abideth no good thing," will have 
 somehow to be integrated within " the spirit 
 indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." 
 
 ii. And lastly, Eternal Life will not be simply 
 a Moralism, with just the addition of a theoretical 
 or practical reference to God, as the sanction and 
 source of morality. Such a Religion has, fortu- 
 nately, never existed except in the heads of some 
 Philosophers. In its central consciousness and 
 action, this Life will be indeed religious, hence 
 Adoration, a Cultus — a deep, rich, spiritual Cultus, 
 but a Cultus still. This for the ingoing, 
 recollective movement. And the outgoing move- 
 ment will not only discover God as hidden in 
 the deepest ideals, necessities, and impulsions of 
 Ethics, but also in the fullest strivings of Art and 
 in the widest and most delicate attempts of the 
 speculative and analytical reason. God is no 
 less truly the ultimate Source, Sustainer, and 
 End of perfect Beauty and of utter Truth than 
 of complete Goodness and of the purest Self- 
 Donation. 
 
 12. The sense, then, of Eternal Life requires, 
 for its normal, general, and deepest develop- 
 ment, Duration, history ; Space, institutions ; 
 Material Stimulations, and symbols, something
 
 Religions Antidotes to Fanaticism 393 
 
 sacramental ; and Transcendence, a movement 
 away from all and every culture and civilization, 
 to the Cross, to asceticism, to interior nakedness 
 and the Beyond. Thus our very sense of, and 
 search for, Eternal Life will, apparently, re-enforce 
 or re-instate all the exclusive ecclesiastical claims, 
 the dread oppressions and persecutions of the past. 
 The bitterest of all earthly hatreds would thus 
 seem to be an essential condition of heavenly 
 love. Yet Religion, taken as here supposed, 
 would, in three ways, powerfully counteract these 
 very certain and most grave dangers. 
 
 Religion is here assumed, on the evidence of 
 undeniable history, to exist and to function in 
 various stages and degrees of depth, purity, and 
 articulation, and with variously intense and true 
 revelations from God through prophets inspired 
 by Himself. And men who are in the fuller, 
 truer, purer stages and degrees may increasingly 
 learn to recognize, in the positive and fruitful 
 constituents and effects of other religions, some- 
 thing good and from God — fragments and pre- 
 parations for such fuller truth as they themselves 
 possess. 
 
 Again Religion, even in its totality, is here 
 supposed to be indeed the deepest, yet not the 
 only activity of man's spirit ; and each of these 
 several activities is taken to possess its own
 
 ■5 
 
 94 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 immanental laws, duties, and rights. And 
 Religion has the difficult, yet quite feasible and 
 supremely fruitful, task of ever respecting, whilst 
 ever more and more harmonizing, purifying, and 
 utilizing, each and all of these various realms, 
 under penalty of finding, otherwise, that itself is 
 more and more bereft of necessary material and 
 stimulation, and that all the other activities of 
 man's many-levelled nature escape more and more 
 into a wilderness of rank secularism. 
 
 And finally, in this scheme of life the first cause, 
 and the ultimate unity, of all things is found in 
 God, as the supremely rich, self-revealing, self- 
 giving Eternal Life. This ultimate Living Unity 
 is trusted, and, in the long run, is mysteriously 
 found, to permeate all, and to bring fruitfulness to 
 any one good activity, from the other levels and 
 kinds of goodness, even though apparently most 
 distant or most contrary. And it is just because of 
 this fundamental, ineradicable interconnection, and 
 of the soul's conviction of it, that man's spirit can 
 drive home this or that research or interest, and 
 can remain sure of contributing (in proportion to 
 his selfless attention to the immanent necessities 
 and prophetic hints of its subject-matter) some- 
 thing of abiding value to the other departments and 
 levels of man's energizings, and, ultimately, to his 
 further seeking and finding of Eternal Life.
 
 Eternal Life centres in Adoration 395 
 
 13. The many requirements thus articulated 
 cannot fail to appear intolerably complex both 
 to those who attempt to stand aloof from 
 all Religion, and to those who, with little or 
 no analysis or theory, are directly absorbed in 
 its practice. Like all living realities, living 
 Religion possesses a sovereign spontaneity and 
 rich simplicity which seem to render all attempts 
 at analysis an insult. Indeed, Religion in par- 
 ticular possesses three essentials, which continually 
 bring expansion and simplicity to its tension and 
 complexity. 
 
 Religion is essentially Social horizontally; in 
 the sense that each several soul is therefore 
 unique because intended to realize just this post, 
 function, joy, effect within the total organism of 
 all souls. Hence no soul is expected to be a 
 "jack-of-all-trades," but only to develop fully its 
 own special gifts and atlraits, within and through, 
 and for, that larger organism of the human family, 
 in which other souls are as fully to develop their 
 own differing gifts and atlraits, as so many supple- 
 ments and compensations to the others. The 
 striving of any one soul can thus be peaceful, since 
 limited in its range to what this particular soul, 
 at its best, most really wants and loves. 
 
 And Religion is essentially Social vertically — 
 indeed here is its deepest root. It is unchange-
 
 396 Eternal Life: Prospects and Conclusions 
 
 ably a faith in God, a love of God, an inter- 
 course with God ; and though the soul cannot 
 abidingly abstract itself from its fellows, it can 
 and ought frequently to recollect itself in a simple 
 sense of God's presence. Such moments of direct 
 preoccupation with God alone bring a deep 
 refreshment and simplification to the soul. 
 
 And Religion, in its fullest development, 
 essentially requires, not only this our little span of 
 earthly years, but a life beyond. Neither an 
 Eternal Life that is already fully achieved here 
 below, nor an Eternal Life to be begun and 
 known solely in the beyond, satisfies these require- 
 ments. But only an Eternal Life already begun 
 and truly known in part here, though fully to be 
 achieved and completely to be understood here- 
 after, corresponds to the deepest longings of man's 
 spirit as touched by the prevenient Spirit, God. 
 And hence, again, a peace and simplification. 
 For that doubly Social life I try to lead here 
 (though most real, and though itself already its 
 own exceeding great reward) constitutes, after all, 
 but the preliminary practice, the getting ready, for 
 ampler, more expansive, more utterly blissful 
 energizings in and for man, the essentially dura- 
 tional, quasi-eternal, and God, the utterly Abiding, 
 the pure Eternal Life.
 
 INDEX 
 
 [Subject-matters and Authors discussed in the text at some length are 
 printed in Italics ; ordinary type indicates such Subjects and Authors as 
 appear only in shorter references or remarks — mostly in the notes alone.] 
 
 SUBJECT-MATTERS 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Abidingness, sense of, a twofold degree of . . 365, 366 
 
 Above, all true existence is, in Johannine writings . . 74 
 
 Absolute, the, God as, sporadically affirmed by Fichte . 176 
 
 Knowledge in Eckhart . . . 112, 113 ; 117, 118 
 
 in Hegel . . . -203; 211-213 
 
 Philosophy, the, in Hegel . . . . .215 
 
 Spirit, in Hegel ..... 202, 203 
 
 Abstract character of Parmenides' philosophy . 31, 32 ; 34 
 
 of middle period of Plato . . 36, 37 
 
 of God in Aristotle . . .41 
 
 of one current in Philo . . -53 
 
 of Greek philosophy from Plato onwards 85 
 of much in Plotinus . . .85 
 
 of parts of the Fourth Gospel . . 79, 80 
 
 of form of St. Augustine's great experi- 
 ences . . . . . 89, 90 
 predominant in Proclus . . .96 
 and in Pseudo-Dionysius . 97 
 of one current in St. Thomas . 107, 108 
 predominant in Eckhart . .112; 11 8, 119 
 in Spinoza . . . 134 
 of Kant's fundamental epistemological 
 
 question . . .139,140; 153 
 
 of his Ethics . . . 146, 147 
 
 of Schleiermacher's pure Intuition- 
 Feeling . . . 189-195 
 of Hegel's identification of Thinking with 
 
 Reality . . . 207-211 
 
 and of human with the Absolute 
 
 Reason . . . 211-216 
 
 397
 
 398 
 
 Index 
 
 Abstract character of T. H. Green's "consciousness 
 
 general " 
 of much in Feuerbach 
 Schopenhauer's fight against 
 intensely, of Haeckel's propaganda 
 
 largely, of Bergson's conception of Dura- 
 
 PAGES 
 
 in 
 
 215 
 223 
 
 . 248 
 281-283 
 
 tion and of Space 
 of Life 
 of Liberty 
 Activity, the pure, (Action) of God 
 
 in Aristotle . 
 in Philo 
 
 in Fourth Gospel 
 external, and religion, according to Schleier 
 macher . . . . 189 
 
 Adoration, as centre of religion 
 
 in Isaiah 
 in the Psalms 
 in Our Lord's utterances 
 in Fourth Gospel 
 in St. Augustine 
 in Pseudo-Dionysius. 
 ignored in the critical Kant 
 final affirmation, by author, of 
 Aevum in St. Thomas .... 
 Anthropology amongst worshippers of Dionysus 
 of Orphics 
 Plato . 
 Aristotle 
 Stoics 
 Philo . 
 in Our Lord's teaching 
 of St. Paul 
 
 Fourth Gospel 
 in Spinoza 
 
 the English Hegelians 
 
 Feuerbach 
 
 Darwin 
 
 291, 292 
 . 299 
 . 301 
 
 . 38-40 
 
 73 
 190 ; 192 
 
 17,18 
 
 48 
 63,64 
 
 73 
 
 89,90 
 
 98,99 
 
 58-160 
 
 392 
 
 05, 106 
 
 26 
 
 28 
 
 38 
 
 40,41 
 
 45,46 
 
 52, 54 
 
 65,66 
 
 68 
 
 75 5 79, 80 
 
 132, 133 
 
 220 
 
 233-236 ; 243, 244 
 
 266, 267 ; 270 
 
 Anthropomorphism, excessive reaction against, in Fichte 174, 178 
 
 a critical, urged against Hegel 
 found everywhere by Feuerbach 
 Apathy, the Stoic 
 in Philo 
 Aristotelianism, its unhistorical temper 
 Asceticism in Our Lord's utterances and life 
 in Schopenhauer . 
 favoured by Sorel . 
 its abiding importance 
 its true place and measure 
 
 204-206 
 234, 235 
 
 • 45, 46 
 
 54 
 
 • 34o 
 . 65 
 
 252, 253 
 321, 322 
 
 • 253 
 253-255
 
 Index 399 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Atheism, Fichte accused of . . . 177, 178 
 
 of Feuerbach, profoundly important 234, 235 ; 243, 244 
 of Haeckel ..... 281-283 
 
 Attention, man's limited capacity of, seen in Secularist 
 
 Socialism ....... 307 
 
 Becoming, everything sheer, not Being, in Primitive Buddhism 8-10 
 all Reality without any, in Parmenides . . 31, 32 
 
 a pure, in Bergson . 289-291 ; 293, 294 
 Biology and Epigenesis, Darwin's confessions regarding, in 
 
 relation to religion . 265-268 
 
 consideration and criticism of 268-279 
 three religious gains from recent 280-288 
 Bergson's utilization of, its strength 
 
 and weakness . . 288-302 
 
 freedom of research in, within 
 
 Roman Catholic Church . 341 
 
 Body, the human, perfection sought outside, in Dionysiac Cult 26 
 
 in Orphism . 29 
 
 image of human society found in, by Stoics 47, 48 
 
 and of Church, by St. Paul . . 71, 72 
 
 distinguished from the Flesh by St. Paul 68 
 
 its high importance in Spinoza . 132, 133 
 
 Brahma, his nature and relations to world and single souls, 
 
 in Ramanuja ...... 10-12 
 
 Buddhism : sheer Becoming and Nirvana strictly inter- 
 related ..... 8-10 
 
 Orphic constituents akin to . . 28, 29 
 
 Eckhart's affinity to . . . 113,114 
 
 primitive, a spiritually attuned moralism, not 
 
 yet a religion . . . . 165 n. 
 
 in Schopenhauer . . . 246, 247 ; 256 
 
 Category, the dominant, in Buddhism : Becoming . . 9 
 
 in Zarathustrism : two Coequal Posi- 
 tive Forces of Good and of Evil 
 in Israelitish religion : the Spiritual- 
 Ethical "This-life" Experiences 
 in Aristotle : Energeia 
 with Our Lord : the Kingdom of God 
 in St. Paul : Pneuma, the Spirit 
 in Fourth Gospel : Eternal Life 75 ; yy, 78 
 in Spinoza : Substance . .125 
 
 in Schleiermacher's Reden : Intui- 
 tion-Feeling for Infinite 183, 184 
 in his Glaubenslehre : Feeling of 
 
 Unconditional Dependence 195, 196 
 In M'Taggart: Substance . 224 ; 227 
 in Bergson ; Duration . 288-294 
 
 12, 
 
 13 
 
 21, 
 
 22 
 
 38- 
 
 -41 
 
 56 
 67
 
 I noma; 
 
 
 IOI, 
 
 102 
 
 
 no, 
 
 119 
 
 
 
 • 
 
 261 
 
 
 • 309, 
 
 315, 
 
 320 
 
 
 
 321, 
 
 322 
 
 
 
 326-328 
 
 
 
 354- 
 
 -358 
 
 400 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Categories, Hegel's ordering and estimating of the . , 203 
 
 Change, see Becoming. 
 
 Christocentrism in Schleiermacher . . . 197, 198 
 
 in Wilhelm Hermann . . 331, 332 
 
 Church, the Christian, its preformation in Jesus's personal 
 
 utterances . 62, 63 ; 326, 327 
 
 its conception in St. Paul 70-72 ; 326, 327 
 
 St. Augustine . 93, 94 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 97 
 
 r 
 
 and Eckhart . 
 and Kierkegaard 
 and Socialism 
 in Georges Sorel 
 Troeltsch . 
 Sohm 
 is in part only preparatory, a 
 
 means . . . 367, 368 
 
 Circle, the, through which the Many move from the One back 
 to the One 
 in Stoic teaching . . . . .44 
 
 in Proclus ...... 95, 96 
 
 in Pseudo-Dionysius . . . .98 
 
 in Eckhart. . . . . 117, 11S 
 
 in Spinoza . . . . . .131 
 
 in Hegel ..... 212, 213 
 
 Circle, the, of Necessity, "the wheel of births" 
 
 in Buddhism ..... 8-10 
 
 Orphism . . . . . . 28, 29 
 
 Schopenhauer .... 246, 247, 249 
 
 Clearness, passion for, as test and measure of truth, 
 
 in Descartes ..... 125 
 
 in Spinoza ..... 125 
 
 in Eckhart .... 111-113 
 
 its limited range apprehended by Leibniz and 
 
 Kant ..... 142, 143 
 
 ruinous thirst for, in Haeckel . . 281-283 
 
 its fascination for the half-educated . .310 
 
 contrasted with Richness . . . .134 
 
 Conation, no sense of, in Bergson's philosophy . . 299 
 
 Consciousness, stage of, was introduced by creative act, 
 
 according to A. R. Wallace .... 273 
 
 "Consciousness in general," in T. H. Green . . .221 
 
 Contact between soul and God, in Plotinus . . .83, 84 
 
 St. Augustine . . 90 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius . 97, 98 
 
 Schleiermacher . 184-188 
 
 between soul and material things 
 
 insisted on against Kant . , 163-185
 
 Index 401 
 
 328- 
 
 -330 
 
 • • 
 
 389 
 
 • ■ 
 
 166 
 
 • 
 
 166 
 
 285, 
 
 286 
 
 358, 
 
 359 
 
 us; 117, 
 
 118 
 
 , 272- 
 
 -274 
 
 286, 
 
 278 
 
 • 
 
 72 
 
 222, 
 
 223 
 
 • 
 
 229 
 
 • 
 
 373 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Contact between soul and material things insisted on against 
 
 Fichtean school . . 179, 180 
 
 Feuerbach . . . 236, 237 
 
 apprehended even excessively by Natural- 
 istic Anthropologists . . 277-279 
 persistently demanded by Institutional Re- 
 ligions . 
 required by this book 
 Council of Nicaaa .... 
 Chalcedon .... 
 Trent .... 
 Vatican .... 
 Creation, according to Eckhart 
 
 its operation in Epigenesis, 
 
 according to A. R. Wallace 
 Philip Waggett 
 Creaturely spirit, the, strong in St. Paul 
 
 weak in Hegelians 
 absent from M'Taggart 
 expressed by Cure d'Ars 
 present in experience of Eternal Life 368, 369 
 final insistence upon . 385; 387; 391,392 
 Critical Philo sophy, the, as founded by Kant . . 137-144 
 
 rendered more radical by Fichte 173, 174 
 
 developed by Schopenhauer 245-248 
 
 modified by Bergson . 295, 296 
 
 criticism of, in Kant 139-144 ; 146-149 ; 
 
 153-155; 161-166 
 
 Schleiermacher 186-188 
 
 Feuerbach . 235-243 
 
 Curia/ism : its predominance in Roman Catholic Church 358, 359 ; 
 
 364 n. 
 mediaeval checks upon . . 357, 358 
 
 present-day hopes for its limitation . 359, 360 
 
 Decline, apparent present-day, of Institutional Religion 
 
 in Germany . . 333, 334 
 
 France . . . 334 
 
 Portugal, Spain, Italy . . 334 
 
 United States . . . 334 
 
 England . . -335 
 its causes : not sheer perversity of human 
 
 nature . . . 33c 
 
 social-political . . 307-312 
 
 ecclesiastical . . 337-364 
 
 Deification of human soul, affirmed by Plotinus . . 96 
 
 denied by Proclus . . 96 
 
 affirmed by Pseudo-Dionysius . 100 
 26
 
 402 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Dependence, feeling of unconditional, the soul of religion in 
 
 Schleiermacher's Glaubenslehre . . . 195, 196 
 
 Determinism in Stoicism . . . . .44 
 
 in Spinoza . . . . .129 
 
 need and place of, in spiritual life . 133-135, 388 
 
 Dim and despairing, and clear and confident outlooks, their 
 
 weakness and strength as regards religion 
 Dionysiac Cultus, Rohde's account of. 
 
 author's additional observations on 
 Dissatisfaction with all things finite 
 keen in Our Lord 
 
 St. Augustine 
 weaker in St. Thomas 
 insufficient in Schleiermacher 
 strong in Troeltsch 
 wanting in M'Taggart 
 Feuerbach 
 its operation in Schopenhauer 
 Kierkegaard 
 Nietzsche 
 absent from Secularist Socialism 
 acutely experienced by John S. Mill 
 persistently felt by the Cure d'Ars 
 " Dogmatic'''' subjectivism in Kant 
 
 Schopenhauer . 
 Dualism, intense ethical, of Zarathustrism 
 of body and soul, in Orphism 
 as to good and bad men in Stoicism 
 
 Philo . 
 St. Augustine 
 metaphysical, in Kant 
 
 Schopenhauer 
 Duration, no sense of, in primitive Buddhism 
 gropings after, in St. Thomas 
 not recognized by Spinoza . 
 
 Kant 
 specially discriminated and valued by Bergson 
 
 258, 259 
 
 23-26 
 
 27 
 
 58,59 
 9i 
 103 
 88, 189 
 200 
 230 
 241-243 
 256, 257 
 260-262 
 263, 264 
 
 • 3ii 
 
 • 3ii 
 
 • 373 
 140, 141 
 
 245, 246 
 
 • 12, 13 
 
 29 
 46 
 52 
 
 • 93, 94 
 
 141 
 
 245, 246 
 
 10 
 
 105, 106 
 
 127 
 
 143, 144 
 . 106 ; 
 
 criticism of his positions concerning 
 
 288-291 
 
 297, 298 ; 299- 
 
 301 ; 301, 302 
 
 distinguished from Time and from Eternity 231, 232 
 
 final insistence upon 383, 384 ; 386, 387 ; 390, 391 
 
 Ecstasy, as sense of Non-Succession, Eternity, in Dionysiac 
 
 experience ..... 24-27 
 
 God's love for the creature an, in Johannine writings 73 
 the creature's love for God an, in Pseudo-Dionysius 98 
 Egyptian Religion, the old, articulates little or nothing 
 
 concerning Eternal Life . , , , , 14
 
 Index 403 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Energeia,the Unmoving,'m Aristotle. . . .38-41 
 
 Philo . . . .51 
 
 Efiigenesis, very different from Evolution proper . 268, 269 
 
 confounded by Darwin with latter . 269, 270 
 
 Epistemology, Kant's greatness in . . .136 
 
 motives in his . . . 137, 138 
 
 positions in . . 139-144; 150-153 
 
 criticism of 139,140; 141; 142; 153-155 
 
 Fichte's radically critical . . 173, 174 
 
 Schleiermacher's, its subjectivism . 186-188 
 
 Feuerbach's radical subjectivist . 233, 234 
 
 criticism of . . . . 235—239 
 
 Schopenhauer's, a metaphysical dualism 245-247 
 
 criticism of . . . . . 247 
 
 Darwin's fluctuations in . . 266, 267 
 
 criticism of . . . . 269-272 
 
 Bergson's, tends to a supra-intellectual 
 
 Intuition .... 295, 296 
 
 Eternal Life, a certain indirect sense of, in Buddhism . 10 
 
 apprehension of, in Ramanuja's Brahmanism 12 
 traces of, in Zarathustrism . . .13 
 
 hardly articulated in ancient Egyptian religion 14 
 roots of sane apprehension of, in Israelitish 
 
 religion . . . . .22 
 
 of God, and man's approach to it, in Aristotle 39, 40 
 no logical room for, in Stoicism . . 43-45 
 
 of God, in Philo . . . .51 
 
 57, 64, 65 
 
 ■ 75-78 
 
 . 89, 90 
 
 123, 124 
 
 127 
 
 179, 180 and n. 
 
 .189 
 
 199, 200 
 
 226 
 
 231, 232 
 
 in Jesus's personal sayings 
 
 Fourth Gospel 
 
 St. Augustine 
 love of, in Spinoza 
 no room for, in Spinozism 
 in Eucken 
 
 Schleiermacher 
 
 Troeltsch 
 
 M'Taggart . 
 threefold 
 constituents of the experience found to be five 
 
 couples of intuitions and feelings . . 364 
 
 Abidingness, absolute and relative . 365, 366 
 
 Otherness in Likeness . . 366, 367 
 
 Other-Worldliness contrasting with This- 
 
 Worldliness . . . 367, 368 
 
 Reality of two degrees . . 368, 369 
 
 Organization of all reality within infinitely 
 
 rich Concretion of God . . 369-371 
 
 experienced most fully in Institutional Re- 
 ligion .... 2,77, 378 
 
 present-day examples of such experience 371-378
 
 404 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Eternity in Orphics ...... 25-27 
 
 Parmenides . . . . . 31, 32 
 
 Plato . . . . . • 36, 37 
 
 Philo . . . . . -51 
 
 St. Augustine . . . . . 88, 89 
 
 Boethius ..... 104, 105 
 
 St. Thomas .... 105, 106 
 
 Evil, positive in Zarathustrism . . . . 12, 13 
 
 in Israelitish religion . . . .18 
 
 indications of a positive conception of, in Orphism . 29 
 
 in Plato . 35 
 
 positive in Jesus's preaching . . . .63 
 
 in St. Paul . . . . . 68, 70 
 
 in one current of St. Augustine . . 93, 94 
 
 negative in Pseudo-Dionysius .... 100 
 
 mostly negative in St. Thomas .... 109 
 
 simply negative in Eckhart . . . .115 
 
 Spinoza . . . .129 
 
 positive, even radical, in Kant . . . 144-146 
 
 problem of, increases in difficulty with insistence upon 
 God's immanence within sensible and human 
 worlds .... 
 
 Evolution in strict sense and Epigenesis, different 
 yet confounded by Darwin 
 and Theism (Weissmann) . 
 Creative acts (Wallace) 
 Ethics (Huxley-Seth) . 
 Anthropology (Marrett and others) 
 brings three aids to religion : 
 
 a graduated love of graduated reality 
 suggestions as to origin and nature 
 sex-sins .... 
 
 a deepening of conception of creation 
 Excommunications, ecclesiastical, admittedly fallible 
 Existence, no fixed point for, in primitive Buddhism 
 the Absolute of Ramanuja not mere 
 the Fourth Gospel emphasizes the, of God and 
 of Christ ...... 
 
 of the First keenly realized by Plotinus qua 
 religious soul ..... 
 
 of God, sense of, all-pervasive in St. Augustine . 
 
 Proclus declares the First to be above 
 
 of God, St. Thomas on man's knowledge con- 
 
 287, 288 
 
 268, 269 
 
 269, 270 
 271, 272 
 272-274 
 274-277 
 277-279 
 
 . 280 
 280, 281 
 of 
 
 283-286 
 286-288 
 
 351,352 
 
 . 9, 10 
 
 11 
 
 80 
 
 82-84 
 
 88-92 
 96 
 
 of Substance, in Spinoza, different from existence 
 
 104 
 
 of Modes 
 
 Ontological argument for, of God, Kant's oppo- 
 
 126, 127 
 
 sition to . 
 
 its treble abiding value 
 
 151, 
 
 153, 
 
 152 
 
 154
 
 Index 405 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Existence, Ontological argument for, of God, its imperfec- 
 tions and limits . . 152, 153; 155,156 
 of God as central certitude of religion, insisted 
 
 upon in discussion of Kant . . 160, 161 
 
 irritation against very idea of, where proposed as 
 not somehow the human mind itself or this 
 mind's creation, strong in Fichte . .173 
 
 in Miinsterberg . 174 
 
 traceable in Eucken . 179, 180 
 
 sense for, in Schleiermacher . . 184-186 
 
 religious imperfection of this sense 186-189 
 
 his aloofness from affirmation of, of 
 
 God in the Redeti . . 192, 193 
 
 of God treated by Feuerbach as purely human 
 
 presupposition and of no importance . 234, 235 
 
 Feuerbach's own history shows profound im- 
 portance of the belief . . . 243, 244 
 finally affirmed by Schopenhauer . . 256, 257 
 intense realization of, of God, by Kierkegaard 260-262 
 Darwin's fluctuations as to, of God . 266, 267 
 keen sense for, within Roman Catholic Church 342, 345 
 strong instinct of, as part of experience of Eternal 
 
 Life ...... 368 
 
 final affirmation of . . . 382-387 ; 394-396 
 
 Factual Happenings and fact-like historical pictures, 
 necessity (yet difficulty) of admission of this distinction 
 for Roman Catholic Church . . . 343~347 
 
 Fall, doctrine of the, reinterpreted by F. R. Tennant and 
 
 J. M. Wilson . . 283-286 
 
 enthusiastic adhesion to, by Schopen- 
 hauer . . . 252, 253 
 Feeling, religious, two contradictory estimates of, in 
 
 Schleiermacher's Rcden 183-185; 189,190 
 
 estimate of, in the Glaubenslehre 195, 196 
 
 classical Christian estimate of. 191, 192 
 
 Fideism rejected by Roman Church (see Pietism) . . 344 
 
 Fierceness, religious (see also Persecution) 
 
 in Johannine writings . , .19 
 
 in St. Augustine . . 93, 94 ; 192 
 
 Schleiermacher's obtuseness concerning 189,192 
 Final Discriminations of book : 
 
 Eternal Life, an effect from interaction of Realities 382, 383 
 three things involved in fullest, i.e. in God's 383 
 still real, but no more full, in man . 383, 384 
 
 effect from operation of full, within our 
 
 slighter . . . . 384, 385 
 
 Time, as Duration, no barrier, but necessary 
 
 means to human sense of . 386, 387
 
 406 Index 
 
 t>AGES 
 
 Final Discriminations of book — coittimted 
 
 Eternal Life, Spatial concepts and imagery also required 
 
 for full human consciousness of 387, 388 
 Material things also necessary for develop- 
 ment of this sense . . . 389 
 achieved as alternative to Spiritual Death : 
 probable characteristic of latter, as to 
 Time (Duration) . . 389-391 
 what experience of, requires with respect 
 to consciousness of human weakness, 
 need of God and sense of sin and 
 with regard to conceptions of total 
 corruption of human nature . 391, 392 
 Finalism, Bergson's aversion to all . . . 299-302 
 Formalism in Ethics, in Kant . . . 146, 147 
 Freedom, Bergson removes mechanical obstacles, but fails 
 
 fully to apprehend spiritual requisites of . . 299-302 
 
 Gnosticism, apparent approximation yet vehement antagon- 
 ism to, of Fourth Gospel . . . 74, 75 
 in Schopenhauer as regards marriage . . 255 
 is untrue to life . . . . . 332 
 
 its rejection of O.T. condemned by Catholic 
 
 Church . . . . -351 
 
 its condemnation of Law as essentially evil . 353 
 God in the Psalms ...... 48 
 
 Philo ....... 51-54 
 
 Jesus's personal utterances . . . . 64, 65 
 
 St. Paul . . . . . . 68, 69 
 
 Johannine writings . . . . . 73, 74 
 
 Plotinus . . . . • . 83, 84 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius ..... 97-99 
 
 St. Thomas ..... 107-109 
 
 Eckhart ..... 113-115 
 
 without reality in Spinoza's system . . 125-132 
 
 precarious position of, in Kant's critical system 150-156 ; 
 
 157, 158 
 only sporadically admitted by Fichte . . 174,175,176 
 
 indifference to, in Schleiermacher's Reden . 192, 193 
 
 conceived Spinozistically in his Glaubenslehre 197 
 
 Hegel carries history into . . . 213-215 
 
 M'Taggart and a non-omnipotent, non-creative 224, 225 ; 
 
 229, 230 
 Feuerbach finds, to be man's own nature . 233-235 
 
 Schopenhauer even more opposed to, of Pantheism 
 
 than to God of Theism . . . 249,250 
 
 Kierkegaard's profound sense of Reality and Differ- 
 ence, but not of Likeness, of . . 260-262 
 place of, in doctrine of Selection and Descent . . 272
 
 tndt 
 
 ex 
 
 407 
 
 God, love of, sole sufficient motive for love of man where 
 
 PAGES 
 
 latter most required 
 His absolute Abidingness 
 His Likeness in Unlikeness to us 
 the Reality of realities . 
 the unspeakable Richness of 
 the Cure d'Ars on 
 Abbe Huvelin on 
 
 cause, and sole full possessor, of Eternal Life 
 adoration of, the centre of religion . 160, 161 
 Godhead and God contrasted in Eckhart 
 Grace, sense of, absent from Gautama's teaching 
 present in Ramanuja 
 in Isaiah 
 Ezekiel 
 Orphism . 
 its presence doubtful in Plato 
 absent from Stoicism 
 in the Psalms 
 Philo 
 
 Jesus's teaching 
 St. Paul . 
 Fourth Gospel 
 Plotinus 
 St. Augustine 
 St. Thomas 
 Kant's suspicious attitude towards 
 criticism of 
 
 316, 317 
 
 36S, 366 
 
 . 366 
 
 . 368 
 
 • 369 
 373 
 
 375-377 
 382, 383 
 
 38S, 395 
 
 113-115 
 
 12,29 
 
 11, 12 
 
 18 
 
 20 
 
 28, 29 
 
 34, 36 
 46 
 
 48 
 
 53, 54 
 
 57, 59, 64 
 
 68-70, 72 
 
 • 76-79 
 . 84 
 . 90-92 
 
 108, 109 
 
 156, 157 
 160-162, 167 n. 
 
 obscure in, or absent from, Schleiermacher 196, 197 
 approximation to, in Schopenhauer . 256, 257 
 
 in Kierkegaard 
 
 Sorel's keen . 
 
 noblest root and flower of religion 
 
 Hellenic Experiences, the, their five stages . 
 Hellenistic, Jewish-, Times, 
 
 Christian-, Times. 
 Hexateuch, later documents of the . 344 ; see 
 Hindooism, as represented by Ramanuja 
 Historical element of religion : 
 St. Augustine's sense of 
 insensibility of Kant to . .158 
 
 slightness of sense for, in Fichte 
 strength of sense for, in Eucken 
 
 Schleiermacher 
 keen instinct of Roman Catholic Church for 
 difficulties in 
 
 possible solutions of 
 fundamental necessity of 
 
 261, 262 
 . 321 
 
 . 385 
 
 . 23-42 
 
 • 42-54 
 81-100 
 
 also 16, 19, 20 
 . 10-12 
 
 • 92, 93 
 159 ; 164-168 
 
 • J 77 
 179, 180 n . 
 
 192 
 
 342, 343 344 
 343-345 
 346, 347 
 
 • 342
 
 4o8 
 
 Index 
 
 History found by Hegel in God Himself 
 criticism of this 
 driven out everywhere by Schopenhauer 
 conceived materialistically by Marx . 
 the element of truth present here . 
 Scholasticism without sense of 
 
 PAGES 
 
 211-216 
 216, 217 
 249-251 
 304-307 
 314, 315 
 340 
 
 achieved by Durational man with aid of Eternal God 386, 387 
 
 Identity of thought and being, in Eckhart . . .312 
 
 in Hegel . . 201, 207-211 
 
 of human and Absolute Reason in Hegel . 211-216 
 
 Illusion, religion taken by Feuerbach as all . . 233-235 
 
 criticism of this .... 235-243 
 
 Immortality of the soul, its late apprehension amongst the 
 
 Jews . . . . 21, 22 
 
 its first apprehension as Eternity 
 
 in Greece . . . 23-26 
 
 conceived as accompanied by 
 
 memory, in Orphic Tablets . 29-31 
 in Fichte . . . .176 
 
 in Schleiermacher's Reden . 193, 194 
 
 conceived by M'Taggart as coupled 
 with Pre-existence and pos- 
 sessed of only intermittent 
 memory . . 225, 226 
 
 Schopenhauer's aspirations and shy 
 
 convictions concerning. 256, 257 
 
 conviction of, wholesome where 
 
 based upon faith in God . 21, 22 
 
 Individualism, excessive, in Kant's Ethics . . 147-149 
 
 Individuality, dignity of right, in St. Thomas . .109 
 
 finally affirmed . . 395 
 
 Infinite, the, in Schleiermacher, rather the Spatial Infinite . 188 
 
 in Feuerbach, man's own nature . 233, 234 
 
 Inquisition, the General ..... 349 
 
 the Spanish .... 348, 349 
 
 Institutional Religion, how far here considered . 323-325 
 
 threefold necessity of . . 325—333 
 
 present-day movement away from 333-335 
 five pairs of aids and difficulties 
 brought by : 
 as to Philosophy . . 337~344 
 
 History . . 342-347 
 
 Authority and Freedom 347~353 
 Law and Initiative . 353-3°° 
 
 Politics . . 361-364 
 
 awakens, and yet is checked and 
 supplemented by, Eternal Life, 
 in five ways . . 364-371
 
 Index 409 
 
 TAGES 
 
 Institutional Religion, contemporary examples of before- 
 mentioned operation within 
 Roman Catholic Church 371-378 
 
 Intellectualism, in Aristotle . . . . . 40, 41 
 
 in Eckhart . . . . 112, 113 
 
 in Hegel . . . . .215 
 
 a certain, in English Hegelians . . 222 
 
 how far helpful to religion . . . 258 
 
 Intuition, a sudden, comes to purified soul, in Plato . . 36 
 
 in St. Augustine ..... go 
 of Universe, as essence of religion, in Schleier- 
 
 macher . .... 183-186 
 
 preferred to abstraction by Schopenhauer. . 248 
 
 a supra-intellectual, sought by Bergson . 295, 296 
 
 Israelitish Religion, its range . . . . .15,16 
 
 three stages .... 16-20 
 concentration upon God as ex- 
 perienced in this life . . 21, 22 
 
 Jewish- Hellenistic experiences and conceptions 
 
 in the Psalms ...... 48 
 
 Book of Daniel. . . . . .49 
 
 Ecclesiasticus, Second Book of Maccabees, Apocalypse 
 
 of Baruch, and Psalms of Solomon . . 49, 50 
 
 Wisdom of Solomon ..... 50 
 
 in Philo of Alexandria ..... 50-54 
 
 Judaism attacked by Schopenhauer because of its optimism 252, 253 
 its merits here . . . . .255 
 
 Kingdom of God, the, in Jesus's personal utterances . . 56-63 
 
 its four characteristics in its apoca- 
 lyptic, transcendent presentment 56-59 
 its characteristics in its prophetic, 
 
 immanental presentment . . 59-63 
 
 Troeltsch on this double presentation 199, 200 
 how both these two presentations or 
 
 movements are necessary still 315-317 
 
 Knowledge, the Pneuma of God alone has, of the things of 
 
 God, in St. Paul . . . .68 
 
 taken as intuitive and akin to physical sight in 
 
 Fourth Gospel . . . -75 
 
 is apprehension of like by like in Sextus 
 
 Empiricus . . . . -75 
 
 the One is apprehended through a Presence 
 
 above, in Plotinus . . . .83 
 
 God known to soul because He Himself is 
 
 present within it, in St. Augustine . . 91, 92 
 
 we know clearly that God exists, we know con- 
 fusedly what He is, in St. Thomas . .104
 
 4 10 Index 
 
 Pages 
 
 Knowledge, man blessed because he knows how near God is 
 
 to him, in Eckhart . . . .112 
 
 can be conceived as independent of an object, 
 
 according to Kant . . . 129, 140 
 
 of Noumena impossible, yet we know they are 
 
 utterly heterogeneous to our conceptions of 
 
 them, according to Kant . . 140, 144 
 
 is mind's recognition within object of what 
 
 itself has placed there, according to Kant 141, 142 
 man's, ever only of himself, according to 
 
 Feuerbach .... 233, 234 
 
 criticism of this .... 235-238 
 
 of its own continuous anthropomorphisms 
 
 denied to religion by Feuerbach . 234, 235 
 
 criticism ..... 242, 243 
 
 Darwin's misgivings as to range of man's 
 
 powers of . . . 266, 267 
 
 criticism ..... 268-271 
 
 our, not attained without stimulation of the 
 
 senses ..... 328, 329 
 
 of Eternal Life, final determinations concerning 
 
 our ..... 382-394 
 
 Law, the Mosaic, its growth . . . .16, 19, 20, 50 
 
 the Canon, and the Church . . . 353-360 
 
 very ancient and wise acceptance of Law 
 
 in general by Church . . 353, 354 
 
 rights and excesses of later developments 
 of Canon Law studied in connection 
 with Sohm's contentions . 354—357 
 
 in Middle Ages . . . 357, 358 
 
 as leading to utter centralisation and 
 
 curialism . . . 358, 359 
 
 three reflections upon this . . 359, 360 
 
 Legalism, largely present in Priestly Code . . .20 
 
 Logic, position of, in Stoic system . . . .43 
 
 Hegel's jump from, to Reality, described and 
 
 criticised ..... 207-211 
 
 Logical pyramid, the, taken as representing actual condition 
 
 of Reality in Proclus . . . . .96 
 
 Eckhart . . . . .118 
 
 Haeckel ..... 282 
 
 not always so taken by Pseudo-Dionysius . . 99 
 
 rejected in his personal work by Darwin . 280, 281 
 
 Logos, the Stoic . . . . . .45 
 
 the, in Philo ...... 52 
 
 in Fourth Gospel . . . • 73? 74 ; 76 
 
 Longing after God, as present in man, affirmed 
 
 by Plotinus ...... 84
 
 Index 
 
 411 
 
 Longing after God, affirmed by St. Augustine . . 91 
 
 less vividly apprehended by St. Thomas . . 103 
 
 Loretto, legend as to transference of Holy House of 345, 346 
 
 Magic and Sacraments, weakness of Liberal Protestantism 
 
 concerning. ..... 328, 329 
 
 Man, object as well as ground of religion, in Feuerbach 233, 234 
 
 criticism of this position . . 235-243 
 
 Materialism of Stoics ...... 43-45 
 
 Hume ...... 138 
 
 last stage of Feuerbach . . 243, 244 
 
 Marx and Engels . . . 304, 305 
 
 Haeckel ..... 282 
 
 Material things, position of Locke concerning reality of . 138 
 
 of Berkeley. . . 137,138 
 
 an effectuating function denied to them in 
 
 moral and religious life by Kant . 158 
 
 Troeltsch . 328 
 
 affirmed by Primitive Christianity 329, 330 
 
 Roman Catholic Church 328-330 
 
 final determinations of book concerning . 389 
 
 Mathematical Physics are found a place and function within 
 
 Spiritual Life, by Spinoza 124, 125 
 
 estimate of this scheme 
 Metaphysics in Philo . 
 St. Paul 
 Fourth Gospel 
 St. Augustine . 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 
 St. Thomas . 
 position of Kant towards 
 of Schleiermacher 
 M'Taggart . 
 Darwin unaccustomed to 
 
 and Religion interrelated in Roman Catholic 
 
 Church 
 
 according to final discriminations 
 book 
 " Modernism," Heliocentrism formerly a 
 Modes, the, in Spinoza 
 Monism, a modified, in Ramanuja 
 a pure, in Parmenides 
 in one current of Eckhart 
 a pure materialist, in Haeckel 
 Moravian Brethren, the 
 Movements, the two, in Religion 
 
 in Our Lord's life and teaching 
 insisted upon by Troeltsch . 
 only one of, in Schopenhauer 
 
 133-135 
 
 • 5i, 53 
 71, 72; 191 
 
 73-75 ; 191 
 87; 93 
 
 • 97, 99 
 101, 103, 107 
 
 137, 138 
 
 184-191 
 
 223, 224 
 
 . 266 
 
 of 
 
 337, 338 
 this 
 
 • 392 
 34o, 34i 
 126, 127 
 
 . 11, 12 
 
 ■ 3i, 32 
 111-120 
 281-283 
 180, 181 
 
 . 64-66 
 199, 200 
 253-256
 
 412 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Movements, the two, alone a match for present-day social 
 
 problem .... 315-319 
 
 insisted upon as part of experience of 
 
 Eternal Life . . . . 367 
 
 Multiplicity in Unity and Unity in Multiplicity, sense of, 
 
 in experience of Eternal Life . . . 369-371 
 
 Mysticism of Fourth Gospel 
 
 in Plotinus ...... 
 
 Schopenhauer ..... 
 
 rejected by Wilhelm Hermann . . 330, 
 
 Mythology, where we sink back into, according to Schleier- 
 macher ..... 
 
 the sole alternative to a Critical Anthropo- 
 morphism, as seen in constructions 
 of Hegelians of the Left 
 of Materialism 
 
 73 
 
 83 
 
 257 
 
 33i 
 185 
 
 205 
 
 272 
 
 in Haeckel 
 
 282, 283 
 
 Natural and Revealed Religion first systematically distin- 
 guished in Christian theology by St. Thomas . 102, 103 
 Naturalism in Anthropology .... 277-279 
 Negative Movement, the, in Plato . . 33, 34 ; 37, 38 
 
 absent from Aristotle . . 38 
 
 in Our Lord's teaching 58, 59 ; 65, 66 
 St. Paul . . . .70 
 
 Plotinus . 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 
 Eckhart . . . 115, 
 
 Spinoza . . . 123, 133 
 
 Hegel . . . 213, 216 
 
 Schopenhauer . 251-253; 256,257 
 criticism of . 253-256 ; 257-259 
 absent from secularist Socialism . 311 
 necessary in struggle with present- 
 day social problem . 316, 317 
 part of experience of Eternal Life . 367 
 present in writings of Institutional 
 
 82,86 
 100 
 117 
 
 Religionists . 
 
 371, 372 
 
 in the Cure d'Ars . 
 
 • 373 
 
 Abbe Huvelin . 
 
 376, 377 
 
 Neo-Platonism, anticipations of, in Philo 
 
 53 
 
 its richest exponent, Plotinus 
 
 81, 82; 85 
 
 its systematized, Proclus 
 
 • 95, 96 
 
 in Pseudo-Dionysius . 
 
 • 97, 98 
 
 St. Augustine 
 
 . 87, 88 
 
 Eckhart .... 
 
 • ii5 
 
 Spinoza .... 
 
 122, 131 
 
 Hegel .... 
 
 212, 213 
 
 Schopenhauer 
 
 • 257
 
 Index 4 1 3 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Neo-ScJiolasticism, its strength and its weakness . 337-34° 
 
 Nirvana, the, of Gautama . . . . . 9, 10 
 
 Schopenhauer . . . 256, 257 
 
 Nothing, the, Nothingness, in Eckhart . . .114 
 
 absolute, denied by Schopenhauer . 256 
 
 Nunzios, Papal, the system of . . . . 363 
 
 Obscure Apprehension or Obscure Knowledge 
 
 of the blessed life, in St. Augustine . . 91 
 
 God, in St. Thomas .... 104 
 generally, in Leibniz . . 142, 143, 143 71. 
 
 in Kant .... 142 
 
 its weakness and its strength as regards re- 
 ligion ..... 258, 259 
 Old Testament, the Church's inclusion of, in Christian 
 
 Canon, lesson of . . . . . • 35 1 
 
 Ontological Argument, the, for God's existence, Kant's 
 
 rejection of . . 150-152; 155,156 
 
 its significance and value . . 152-154 
 
 Ontological Sense, the religious, 
 
 strong in Plotinus ..... 83 
 St. Augustine . . . . 88, 91 
 
 halting and weak in Kant . . 154, 155, 160, 161 
 
 restricted in scope in Fichte . . . 173—175 
 
 Eucken . . 179, 180 
 
 its vivid, yet limited and inconsistent, operation in 
 
 Schleiermacher's Reden . . . 184-189 
 
 treated as illusion by Feuerbach . 233-238 ; 241-243 
 supremely strong in Kierkegaard . . 260-262 
 
 strong in Roman Catholic Church . . 342, 343 
 
 final insistence upon fundamental importance 
 
 of . . ... • 385 ; 395, 396 
 
 Optimism, Spinoza possesses too much immediate . 133 
 
 Kant opposed to immediate . . 144-146 
 
 Eucken's opposition to . . .179 
 
 Schleiermacher's, largely immediate . .197 
 
 Troeltsch discovers, to be final, not preliminary, in 
 
 Christianity . . . . 199, 200 
 
 found to be too predominant even in the religious 
 
 English Hegelians . . . 222, 223 
 
 Schopenhauer's rejection of . . 247,251,252 
 
 crude, of secularist Socialism . . 311,320 
 
 Orderer, a non-omnipotent, held to be a reasonable belief 
 
 by M'Taggart ..... 224, 225 
 
 Ordering, a cosmic active, but not an Orderer, accepted by 
 
 Fichte ...... 174, 175 
 
 Organic, apprehension of reality as, in proportion to depth 
 
 of the reality, in experience of Eternal Life . 369-371 
 
 Organic conception of human society by Stoics , . 47, 48
 
 4 1 4 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Organic conception of Kingdom of God, in Jesus's teaching . 62, 63 
 
 future life, in same . . -63) 64 
 
 Church in St. Paul . . . 70-72 
 
 world of Spirits in Johannine 
 
 writings . . . . 78, 79 
 
 human society and Church in St. 
 
 Augustine . . . 93, 94 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius . . -98, 99 
 
 St. Thomas . . . .109 
 
 human society in Spinoza . 132, 133 
 
 M'Taggart . 225, 232 
 
 Organic life, everything in intention of religion to be, 
 
 according to Schleiermacher .... 192 
 Organic, love of the, strong in Darwin . . 280, 281 
 
 eliminated by Haeckel . 281-283 
 
 Origin of Episcopal sees in ancient Gaul, question of . 345 
 
 Sin, according to Tennant and Wilson . 283-285 
 
 reflexions on theory . . . 285, 286 
 
 Orphics, the, their first appearance . . . . 27, 28 
 
 doctrine . . . . . 28, 29 
 
 like and unlike Buddhism . . .29 
 
 the tablets of . . . . 29, 30 
 
 various constituents and probable experimental 
 
 origin of doctrine of . . .30,31 
 
 Otherness, sense of, of God, strong in Israelitish religion . 21, 22 
 
 wanting in M'Taggart . . 230 
 
 unchecked in Kierkegaard 260-262 
 a constituent of experience of 
 
 Eternal Life . 366, 367 
 
 Other- Worldliness and This- Worldliness, 
 
 double sense of, in Troeltsch . . 199, 200 
 
 part of experience of Eternal 
 
 Life . ._ 367, 368 
 
 finally insisted on in this book 396 
 
 Overflow, the, 0/ the One in Plotinus . . . .84 
 
 Proclus . . . .98 
 
 modified in direction of Self-Re- 
 velation by Pseudo-Dionysius 98, 99 
 
 Pantheism of Stoics ...... 43-45 
 
 Spinoza ..... 125-129 
 
 Schleiermacher in his life . . 181, 182 
 
 Reden . . 188 ; 190-193 
 
 Glaubenslehre . .197 
 
 Schopenhauer's affinity with, yet objection to 249-251 
 
 Sorel's opposition to . . . 321, 322 
 
 preliminary, a, advocated . . 134, 135 ; 388, 389 
 
 Papa Angelico, possibility and power of a . . 363,364
 
 Index 
 
 4*5 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Parables of Our Lord, the, two kinds : 
 
 parables of immediate expectancy . 57 
 of slow growth . . 60, 61 
 
 Penetration, power of, possessed by spirits, supremely by God, 
 
 taught by St. Paul . . . .69 
 
 emphasized by Fourth Gospel . . .78 
 
 insisted upon by Roman Catholic Church . 229 
 
 ignored by M'Taggart . . . 227, 229 
 
 final affirmation concerning, in this book 386, 387 
 
 Permanence, as highest element of Personal Life, insisted 
 
 upon by Aristotle 
 indicated by Our Lord . 
 proclaimed by Fourth Gospel 
 St. Augustine 
 taught by St. Thomas . 
 
 Eckhart 
 
 insufficiently apprehended by Bergson 
 Permanence, fully understood by Bosanquet . 
 
 final insistence upon, in this book 
 Persecution and Patient Zeal, two currents in 
 
 . 38-41 
 64 
 
 • 77, 78 
 . 88-91 
 105, 106 
 114, 115 
 298, 301 
 301, 302 
 
 383, 384 
 Roman 
 
 Catholic Church . . . 348, 349 ; 349-353 
 
 Personality, its dignity insisted upon, as diversity of natures, 
 
 by St. Thomas 
 insufficiently guarded by Hegel . 
 is without memory of its own past 
 
 M'Taggart . . 224, 225 ; 227 
 
 inadequately apprehended by Bergson 
 
 Pessimism in Gautama's teaching 
 
 Our Lord's life and preaching 
 St. Paul . 
 St. Augustine 
 absence of a sufficient, in Spinoza 
 
 8-10 
 
 as to man's ethical dispositions and doings, in 
 
 109 
 217, 218 
 in 
 
 230 ; 232 
 
 294-298 
 
 165 n., 392 
 
 59, 60 ; 391 
 
 391, 392 
 
 93, 94 5 39i 
 
 133-135 
 
 Kant 
 insufficient, in Schleiermacher 
 strongly operative in Troeltsch 
 slight, in M'Taggart 
 excessive, of Schopenhauer 
 entirely absent in Haeckel 
 insufficient, in secularist Socialism 
 a preliminary, insisted upon by author 
 
 Philosophy, its relation to Religion 
 in Philo . 
 
 Fourth Gospel 
 St. Augustine . 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 
 St. Thomas 
 takes first place in Eckhart , 
 
 249 
 
 249 
 
 144-146 
 
 • 197 
 
 199, 200 
 
 229 
 
 ; 251,252 
 281-283 
 309-311 
 
 253-255 ; 
 315-319 
 
 • 5°, 51 
 
 • 73, 74 
 . 87, 88 
 
 95 
 101-103, 107 
 112, 113, 119
 
 4i6 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 215 
 
 222, 223 
 
 Philosophy, takes first place in Hegel 
 
 Hegelians 
 its vicissitudes within Roman Catholic Church . 337— 
 
 341..34I »• 
 Pietism, its influence upon Schleiermacher . 
 
 not Catholic .... 
 
 Prayer, vocal, rejected by Kant 
 
 held to affect only man, by Schleiermacher 
 
 Claude Montefiore on . 
 
 the Cure d'Ars upon . 
 
 final insistence upon, as essential to Religion 
 
 Presence of God within human soul in this life 
 
 concentration of Israelitish religion upon . 
 
 insisted upon by St. Paul 
 
 Fourth Gospel 
 
 vividly apprehended by Plotinus, in spite of his 
 
 philosophy .... 
 
 proclaimed by St. Augustine 
 
 sense of, weakened by doctrine of Deification 
 
 human soul in Dionysius 
 
 eliminated by Monism, in Eckhart . 
 
 affirmed as against Kant 
 
 M'Taggart 
 
 Feuerbach 
 
 secularist Socialism 
 
 181, 182 
 
 333, 344 
 
 157, 158 
 
 . 197 
 
 • 37i 
 
 373 
 
 395, 396 
 
 21, 22 
 68 
 78 
 
 83,84 
 90,91 
 
 of 
 
 100 
 ii5 
 
 153, 154 
 229-232 
 
 242, 243 
 3ii 
 
 sense of, a constituent of experience of Eternal Life 366, 367 
 final insistence upon .... 384, 385 
 
 Prevenience of God 
 
 absent from Plato 
 
 operative in Philo 
 
 insisted upon by Our Lord 
 
 proclaimed in Johannine writings 
 
 absent from Plotinus qua philosopher . 
 
 continuously operative in St. Augustine 
 
 sense of, weak in Kant . 
 
 its rudiments strong in Schleiermacher 
 
 vividly realized by Roman Catholic Church 
 
 by Abbe Huvelin 
 insisted upon by author . 368 ; 382, 383 ; 385 ; 387, 
 
 388 ; 391 ; 396 
 Protestantism, Schopenhauer on, in so far as anti-ascetical . 252 
 Purification of the Soul 
 
 in Orphism . . , . . 29, 30 
 
 Plato 
 
 Our Lord's teaching 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 
 Spinoza 
 
 36 
 
 53, 54 
 57,64 
 
 78,79 
 84,85 
 91,92 
 160 
 184-186 
 342-344 
 375, 376 
 
 122, 
 
 • 35, 38 
 
 . 65, 66 
 
 100 
 
 [23; 134, 135 
 
 sense of its need, a constituent of experi- 
 
 ence of Eternal Life 
 
 366, 367
 
 Index 4 1 7 
 
 211 
 228, 229 
 233, 234 
 
 235-243 ; 244 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Realized Perfection 
 
 centre of Our Lord's experience and teaching . 64-66 
 
 insistence upon, by Fourth Gospel . . 80 
 
 sense of, slight in Kant . . 157, 158 ; 160 
 
 admitted in one passage by Fichte . .176 
 
 demanded by Hegel 
 
 not furnished by M'Taggart 
 
 eliminated by Feuerbach 
 
 criticism of this elimination . 
 final insistence upon, as fundamental in religion 385 
 Reality, man's knowledge is knowledge of, as against 
 
 Kant 139, 140 ; 141, 142 ; 149; 150,151; 153-156 
 keen sense of, in Schleiermacher . . 184-186 
 
 but not followed up by him . . 186-189 
 
 degrees of, apprehended by man, as against 
 
 Feuerbach .... 242, 243 
 
 graduated love for graduated, characteristic of 
 
 Darwin . . . . .281, 282 
 
 sense of two depths of, involved in experience of 
 
 Eternal Life .... 368, 369 
 
 Religion, the place of 
 
 in Eckhart penultimate . . . 112,113 
 
 in Kant ..... 150-167 
 
 in Schleiermacher's Reden . . 183-190 
 
 Glanbenslehre . 195, 196 
 
 in Hegel penultimate . . . .215 
 
 in English Hegelians . . . 222, 223 
 
 partial dependence of, upon Social Conditions . 314 
 
 requires intercourse with other complexes of life, as 
 
 against Hermann . . . 330-333 
 
 with Philosophy 
 History 
 Law 
 Politics 
 its two movements according to Our Lord 58, 59 ; 65, 66 
 insisted upon by Troeltsch 199, 200 
 as against Schopenhauer . 253 
 
 required in struggle with the 
 
 present-day social problem 315-318 
 its three characteristics which operate against 
 
 fanaticism .... 392-394 
 
 the two constant causes of simplification at work 
 
 within ..... 394-396 
 
 Richness in Attributes as co-related to degree of elevation in 
 scale of Reality 
 
 exceptionally affirmed, generally denied, by Plato . 34-36 
 denied, as regards God, by Aristotle . . . 39, 40 
 
 admitted also as to God in lesser part of Pseudo- 
 
 Dionysius ...... 99 
 
 27 
 
 337, 33» 
 342-347 
 353-36o 
 361-364
 
 4i8 
 
 Index 
 
 Richness in Attributes as co-related to degree of elevation in 
 scale of Reality 
 
 St. Thomas sometimes ignores . . . 107, 
 
 sometimes proclaims 
 Spinoza generally denies 
 
 yet occasionally affirms 
 Hegel proclaims principle of . 
 
 but then denies this principle in his positions 
 
 PAGES 
 
 108 
 
 108, 109 
 
 126, 129 
 
 130 
 
 202, 203 ; 211 
 
 207, 208 ; 
 
 217, 218 
 
 236, 237 
 
 272, 273 
 
 280, 281 
 
 281-283 
 
 295, 296 
 
 369, 37o 
 
 386, 387 ; 395 
 
 • 45, 46 
 
 146, 147 
 
 176, 177 
 
 as its 
 
 affirmed against Feuerbach 
 insisted upon by Wallace 
 instinctively assumed and applied by Darwin 
 ruthlessly denied by Haeckel . 
 intermittent affirmation of, by Bergson 
 sense of, is part of experience of Eternal Life 
 final affirmation of . 383 ; 
 
 Rigorism, Ethical, in Stoicism 
 
 Kant 
 overcome by Fichte 
 Roman Catholic Church, the, adopts St. Thomas 
 
 dominant exponent . 101, 102 
 
 condemns Eckhart . . 119 
 
 its future according to Georges 
 
 Sorel . . . 32i-3 2 3 
 
 its present-day position . 334/335 
 
 and Original Sin . 285, 286 ; 335 
 
 its attitude towards Philosophy 337-34° 
 
 Natural Science . 340, 341 
 
 History . . 342-347 
 
 Persecution and Tolerance 347~353 
 
 Law . . . 353-36o 
 
 Sohm on antiquity of . . . • 354, 355 
 
 its attitude towards Politics . . . 361-364 
 
 witnesses to Eternal Life within, in recent times 372-377 
 
 Sacraments as productively operative 
 
 no place for, in Kant's Critical Philosophy 
 
 opposed by Liberal Protestantism 
 
 cause of Wycliffe's passion against 
 
 their place and necessity . 
 
 Our Lord and 
 
 St. Paul and 
 
 Fourth Gospel and 
 Scepticism, Kant's general intentions are against 
 
 operation of, in Kant's Epistemology 
 
 Ethics 
 Religion . 
 
 162-164 
 328, 329 
 
 • 329 
 
 328, 329 
 
 329, 330 
 
 • 330 
 33° 
 
 137, 138; 159, 
 
 160 ; 167 
 
 140, 141 
 
 147 
 
 150, 151; 154, 
 
 155, '56-159
 
 Index 4 1 9 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Scepticism, operation of, in Kant's, Religion, criticism 159-167 
 
 in Fichte . . . 177, 178 
 
 Schleiermacher . 185 ; 192-194 
 
 criticism . . 186-188 ; 194, 195 
 
 intense, of Feuerbach's latest stage . 243, 244 
 
 Schopenhauer's .... 245-248 
 
 Sorel's hatred of . . . . 321, 322 
 
 pure, impossible . . . . 154, 155 
 
 religious, the most ruinous of all . . 236-243 
 
 Scholastic Philosophy in the Roman Catholic Church, its 
 
 strength and its weakness . . . 338-340 
 
 Science, Mathematico-Physical, its place in the spiritual 
 
 life . -.-..• • I2 3 5 I33-I3S 
 
 considered in connection with Spinoza . .122 
 
 finally affirmed ..... 388 
 
 Secularism, three causes of . . . 307-312 
 
 movement away from . . . 3 1 9-323 
 
 Selection, Natural, and Struggle for Existence, insufficient 
 
 as explanations of Origin of Species . . . 271 
 
 Self-conscioicsness, loss of, in the Nirvana of Gautama . 9, 10 
 
 regaining of, in the Beyond, according to 
 
 Orphic tablets . . . 29, 31 
 
 denied and attributed to the First by 
 
 Plotinus . . . . 82, 84 
 
 denied and yet implied as highest cate- 
 gory by Spinoza . 127, 128 ; 131 
 treated lightly and yet strictly required 
 
 by Schleiermacher's Reden . 192-195 
 
 implications of human, according to his 
 
 Glaubenslchre . . 195, 198 
 
 of God, Hegel's fundamental principle 202-204 
 insistence upon fruitfulness of this 
 
 principle . . . 204-206 
 
 Hegel's identification of human and 
 
 Divine, ruins his principle . 215-218 
 
 man's awaking to, described as against 
 
 Feuerbach . . . 236-239 
 
 Schopenhauer's unhappy, affects his philo- 
 sophy . 244, 245 ; 247-256 ; 256, 257 
 Darwin's high esteem of . . 268, 280 
 stage of, due to a Divine, creative act, 
 
 according to Wallace . 272, 273 
 
 Haeckel's contempt for . . 281-283 
 
 final affirmation of high worth of . 383, 384 
 
 Self-seeking, in Spinoza . . . . 133 
 
 Simultaneity, no sense of, in Primitive Buddhism . . 10 
 
 sense of, as central in Dionysiac experience . 27 
 
 central in Aristotle's Pure Energeia. 38-40, 41 
 
 of God, in Our Lord's teaching . . 64
 
 420 
 
 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Simultaneity, of God, in Fourth Gospel . . .77,78 
 
 of God, and possibly at last of human soul's 
 
 knowledge, in St. Augustine . . go 
 
 St. Thomas . 105, 106 
 
 denied by Hegel . . . 215-217 
 
 affirmed of all real existence by M'Taggart . 226 
 
 by Schopenhauer 249, 250 
 
 insisted upon by Bosanquet against Bergson 301, 302 
 
 final propositions concerning . . 382-385, 396 
 
 Sin, doctrine and practice of Our Lord as to . . 65, 391, 392 
 
 St. Paul . . . 391, 392 
 
 St. Augustine . . 94 ; 391 
 
 imperfect sense of, in Eckhart . . . .115 
 
 Schleiermacher . . .197 
 
 profound sense of man's impurity in Schopenhauer 252, 253 
 conception of, still retained by Darwin . . 268, 277 
 
 origin of, according to Tennant . . . 283, 284 
 
 reality of, affirmed by Sorel . . . 321, 322 
 
 sense of, affirmed as part of experience of Eternal Life 366, 367 
 
 in 
 
 final insistence upon reality of 
 Social Conditions, their influence upon chances of 
 
 with average men . 
 Social Element in Plato 
 
 Stoic teaching 
 Our Lord's preaching 
 St. Paul 
 Fourth Gospel 
 St. Augustine 
 Pseudo-Dionysius . 
 St. Thomas denies . 
 affirms . 
 in Spinoza 
 
 insufficiently apprehended by Kant 
 fully realized by Schleiermacher 
 
 Glaubenslehre 
 recognized by M'Taggart 
 exaggerated and travestied by Marx 
 as practised by Institutional Religion 
 in Religion, double . 
 Socialism, doctrinaire and secularist, formulated by 
 and Engels .... 
 its three causes .... 
 double general gain to be derived from militant 312, 313 
 element of profound truth parodied by . 314,315 
 
 religion, in its two movements, alone sufficient to 
 
 cure ..... 3*5-3*9 
 
 indications of the abatement of . . 319-323 
 
 Social Problem, the Present-day, in its relation to sense of 
 
 Eternal Life . . . 303-323 
 
 . 39i, 392 
 religion 
 
 314 
 37,38 
 47,48 
 63,66 
 70-72 
 78,79 
 93,94 
 98,99 
 
 107, 108 
 
 108, 109 
 
 132, 133 
 147-149 
 his 
 
 . 198 
 
 22 ? 
 
 304, 306 
 326, 327 
 294-396 
 
 Marx 
 
 304-307 
 306-312
 
 Index 421 
 
 Social Problem, its novelty .... 303, 304 
 
 general beneficial effects . . 312-315 
 
 beneficial effects upon religion . 3 r 5 _ 3 I 9 
 
 Social workers, Christian . . . . 315 
 
 Soul, the sensual, distinguished by St. Paul from the Mind, 
 
 and still more from the Spirit . . .66 
 
 the human, separated, in Plotinus, from other souls, not 
 
 by Space but by Difference . . 83, 84 
 
 and longs after God by necessity of 
 
 its nature . . . .84 
 
 non-spatial in St. Augustine . . 87, 88 
 
 can grasp even here for a little the ever 
 
 abiding Eternity . . -89, 90 
 
 possesses the blessed life and God in a 
 
 real, though obscure manner . 91, 92 
 and necessarily longs after God . . 91 
 
 higher and lower powers of, respectively 
 
 touch Eternity and Time, in Eckhart 1 1 r, 1 12 
 the little spark, the increate light of 112, 114 
 is all things . . . .115 
 
 God generates His Son in . .117 
 
 Space, the soul and God without, in Plotinus . . .83, 84 
 
 St. Augustine . . 87, 88 
 
 Eckhart . . .115 
 
 sense of, allotted no function in spiritual life by Kant 143, 144 
 sense of, keen in Schleiermacher . . .188 
 
 treatment of, by Bergson . . 291-294; 297,298 
 
 insistence upon need of distinguishing between Con- 
 ceptual and Real .... 297, 298 
 
 final affirmation of important role played by concepts 
 
 and imagery of, in consciousness of Eternal Life 387, 388 
 Spirit, the, in St. Paul. ..... 67-72 
 
 Absolute, in Hegel .... 202, 203, 209 
 
 and human spirit . . .212 
 
 and History . . 212-216 
 
 criticism . . 217, 218 
 
 Stages of Revelation, an essential doctrine of Catholic 
 
 Church . . . . . . 351 
 
 State, the World-, of the Stoics . . . . 47, 48 
 
 in St. Augustine ..... 93 
 
 Hegel. ..... 214, 215 
 
 Marx ...... 306, 307 
 
 Stoicism, Oriental origin of earlier chiefs of . . .43 
 
 materialistic Pantheism of . . . . 43-45 
 
 ethical Rigorism of . . . . . 45, 46 
 
 organic conception of human society entertained 
 
 by . . . . . 47, 48 
 
 its renunciation utterly surpassed in delicacy and 
 
 range by Our Lord . . . . 65, 66
 
 422 
 
 Index 
 
 in 
 
 Stoicism^ traces of influence of, in Philo . 
 
 St. Paul . 
 Fourth Gospel 
 Spinoza 
 Kant 
 its self-sufficingness rejected 
 Subject, a self-subsisting, absent from primitive Buddhism 
 no transition possible between, and object i 
 
 Schopenhauer 
 the general form of, and object abolished with re 
 nunciation of Will, according to Schopen 
 hauer 
 Subjectivism of Kant . 
 
 criticism 139, 140 ; 
 of Fichte . 
 
 Eucken's stand against 
 of Schleiermacher 
 Feuerbach 
 criticism 
 Schopenhauer 
 
 PAGES 
 
 • 52, 54 
 
 72 
 
 • 73-75 
 122, 132, 135 
 
 . 161 
 
 161 
 
 385 
 9, 10 
 
 246 
 
 I39-H4 
 141 ; 142 
 
 150, 151 
 153-156 
 173. 174 
 
 256, 257 
 
 157, 158 
 160, 161 
 
 177, 178 
 179, 180 
 186-188 
 233-235 
 235-243 
 245-248 
 
 Temporal Power, the Roman Catholic Church's claim to, over 
 
 Roman States ..... 362, 363 
 
 Theism, primitive Buddhism without, because not yet a 
 
 religion ..... 8-10 ; 165 n. 
 
 Ramanuja approaches . . . .10-12 
 
 Israelitish ...... 16-20 
 
 excludes speculations as to Beyond . . 21-23 
 
 intermittent, imperfect glimpses of, in Plato 33, 34 ; 35-37 
 Aristotle distant from, in all but the conception of 
 
 Pure Energeia . . . . 38-42 
 
 Jewish pre-Christian, in Psalms, Daniel, Ecclesi- 
 
 asticus, Wisdom of Solomon . . . 48-50 
 
 in Philo . . . 51 » 53, 54 
 
 of Our Lord's teaching . . . .64 
 
 St. Paul 68, 72 
 
 Fourth Gospel . . • • 73> 80 
 
 approach to, of Plotinus . . • 82-84 
 
 of St. Augustine ..... 87-92 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius ..... 97~99 
 
 St. Thomas . . . • 103-109 
 
 largely supplanted by Monism in Eckhart . 111-115 
 
 Spinoza the philosopher eliminates . . 124-129 
 
 the great soul implies . . 130-132 
 
 of Kant, its philosophically hypothetic character 150-159 
 
 criticism .... 159-166 
 
 Fichte generally falls short of . 174-176 ; 177, 178 
 
 Schleiermacher indifferent to, in the Reden. 192, 193 
 
 criticism . . , . i94> *95
 
 Index 
 
 423 
 
 220, 
 
 221 
 
 224, 
 
 225 
 
 227- 
 
 -230 
 
 233- 
 
 -235 
 
 235- 
 
 -244 
 
 . 
 
 249 
 
 253, 
 
 254 
 
 256, 
 
 257 
 
 263, 
 
 264 
 
 266, 
 
 267 
 
 268- 
 
 -271 
 
 271, 
 
 272 
 
 272- 
 
 -274 
 
 281- 
 
 -283 
 
 304- 
 
 -306 
 
 3°7- 
 
 -312 
 
 320- 
 
 -323 
 
 368-369 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Theism, Schleiermacher still predominantly Pantheistic in 
 
 the Glaubenslehre .... 197 
 
 of Troeltsch . . . . _ . _ 199 
 
 Hegel is full of, in his fundamental principle 202-206 
 
 contradicts, in his two identifications 206-211 
 
 of deceased English Hegelians 
 
 opposition of M'Taggart to 
 
 criticism . 
 Feuerbach's radical denial of 
 
 criticism . 
 Schopenhauer's antipathy to 
 criticism . 
 
 his shy implication of 
 Nietzsche's groping after 
 Darwin's fluctuations as to 
 
 criticism . 
 Doctrine of Descent and 
 of Wallace 
 
 Haeckel's cheery "refutation" of 
 Marx's elimination of all 
 
 criticism 
 Sorel's trend towards 
 implied in full experience of Eternal Life 
 final affirmation of . . . 382-387 ; 395> 396 
 
 Theocracies, Modern and Western, never long successful 361, 362 
 Things, material, necessity of mind's contact with, imperfectly 
 
 apprehended by Kant . . 163, 164 
 
 Eucken . . 179 
 
 its precise place missed in Schleiermacher's 
 
 Reden .... 194, 195 
 
 ignored by Feuerbach . . 235-239 
 
 affirmed for Religion as against Liberal 
 
 Protestants . . . 328-330 
 
 final insistence upon . . . 389 
 
 Thing-in-itself, the, in Kant, unknown to us yet somehow 
 known to be utterly unlike what it 
 appears to us . . I4°> I4 1 
 
 criticism . . . 141; 153-155 
 
 This principle applied by Kant to Religion — 
 
 Grace, Worship, History . 156-159 
 
 criticism . . . 159-166 
 
 in Fichte .... I73> x 74 
 
 applied to Religion . . 177,178 
 
 in Schleiermacher . . . 184, 185 
 
 criticism . . . 186-188 
 
 in Schopenhauer unknown, yet known as 
 
 the Will . . . 245-247, 248-249 
 
 This-Li/e, This- World religious experiences 
 
 Israelitish concentration upon . . 21, 22
 
 424 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 This-Life, This- World religious experiences 
 
 the Psalms upon . . .48 
 
 Philo . . . . . 53, 54 
 
 insisted upon in one of Our Lord's two 
 
 outlooks . . 59-62 ; 64, 65 
 
 in St. Paul . . . . 68, 70 
 
 Fourth Gospel . . . yy, 78 
 
 Plotinus . . . .84 
 
 St. Augustine . . . . 89, 92 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius . . . 97-99 
 
 St. Thomas .... 104 
 
 Eckhart . . .112, 113; 115 
 
 Spinoza . . . .115 
 
 haltingly affirmed by Kant . 156-159 
 
 criticism . . . 159-167 
 
 in Fichte . . . 174-177 
 
 Schleiermacher . . 183-186 
 
 Troeltsch . . . 199, 200 
 
 Feuerbach, illusions in so far as 
 
 they claim to intimate transub- 
 
 jective realities . . 233-235 
 
 in criticism . . . 235-244 
 
 a touch of, in Schopenhauer's Nirvana- 
 
 aspiration . . . 256, 257 
 
 massive in Kierkegaard. . 261, 262 
 
 Nietzsche and . . . 263, 264 
 
 apparently never strong in Darwin . 265 
 deeply respected by Sorel . 320-323 
 
 required by Roman Catholic Church 342, 343 
 vigorously flourish within . 372-377 
 
 a keen sense of, enters into complex of 
 
 Eternal Life . . . 367, 368 
 
 final affirmation as to need of . . 396 
 
 T/iumos, the, in Plato . . . . . • 37, 3$ 
 
 present in Our Lord's life and teaching . 65, 66 
 
 in St. Paul . . . .72 
 
 largely absent from Fourth Gospel . . 79, 80 
 
 present in Plotinus, the living soul, absent 
 
 from his system .... 82-84 
 abundant in St. Augustine . . . 88-92 
 
 active in temper of Pseudo-Dionysius, excluded 
 
 by his predominant theory . . 97, 99 
 
 absent from one current of St. Thomas 107, 108 
 
 present in other current . . 108, 109 
 
 Eckhart in his Monistic mood limits, to 
 intellectual thirst after utter unity and 
 clearness .... 110-114 
 
 Spinoza introduces, in contradiction to his 
 
 system, at culmination of his course 130-132
 
 Index 
 
 425 
 
 T/iumos, the, Kant eliminates, from Ethics . . 146, 147 
 
 and largely from Religion . . 1 59-161 
 
 reintroduced by Fichte . . . 175, 176 
 
 by Schleiermacher, as specially 
 
 pertaining to Religion 
 
 insufficiency of, in deceased English Hegelians 
 
 222 
 in M'Taggart . 
 Tennant recognizes and requires 
 Time, meaning of its exclusion, in Dionysiac ecstasy 
 completely excluded by Eternity, 
 
 according to Parmenides 
 Plato 
 Philo 
 
 St. Augustine 
 Boethius . 
 St. Thomas 
 and Space, concrete and abstract, in Kant 
 all existence really outside of, according to M 
 utterly unreal, according to Schopenhauer 
 discriminations as to, in Bergson 
 
 criticism of . . 291-294 ; 297 
 
 human experience of, threefold . 
 sense of concrete, Duration, part of experience 
 
 Eternal Life .... 
 
 final discriminations concerning Abstract Time, 
 
 Concrete Time (Duration), and Eternity 382-384 ; 386, 
 
 387 ; 390, 391 
 
 Totum Simul, the, of Eternity 
 
 in Parmenides . . . . 31, 32 
 
 Plato . 
 
 Aristotle 
 
 Philo . 
 
 St. Augustine 
 
 Boethius 
 
 St. Thomas 
 sense of, enters into experience of Eternal 
 
 Life .... 365, 366 
 
 final insistence upon, as directly character 
 
 • * /"■* _ i»_ » • r_ _i 
 
 190 
 
 223 
 
 229 
 
 284, 285 
 
 27 
 
 • 3i, 32 
 . 36, 37 
 
 5i 
 
 . 88, 89 
 
 104 
 
 105, 106 
 
 143, J 44 
 Taggart 226 
 249-251 
 288-291 
 301, 302 
 231, 232 
 of 
 365, 366 
 
 -299 
 
 37 
 
 39, 4o 
 
 5i 
 
 89-91 
 
 105 
 
 105 
 
 izing God's life alone 
 Transcendence of God, the, 
 
 theoretically utter in Plato 
 Philo 
 
 Plotinus . 
 Proclus . 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 
 Kierkegaard 
 of Kingdom of God, as one of two movements 
 in Our Lord's life and teaching 
 
 383 
 
 34, 
 
 36 
 
 53 
 82-84 
 
 95,96 
 
 97,98 
 
 261, 262 
 
 56-59
 
 by 
 
 
 199, 
 
 200 
 
 253- 
 
 -256 
 
 315- 
 
 -319 
 
 . 
 
 295 
 
 . 
 
 96 
 
 . 
 
 98 
 
 212, 
 
 213 
 
 • 1A 
 
 i, 75 
 
 125, 
 
 134 
 
 426 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Transcendence of Kingdom of God, insisted upon 
 
 Troeltsch 
 maintained here thus 
 
 against Schopenhauer . 
 
 secularist Socialism 
 Transformism in Bergson .... 
 Triadic movement of the Many in Proclus 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius 
 Hegel 
 Truth, in the Johannine writings 
 
 tests of, not clearness but richness and fruitfulness 
 religious, its supreme importance realized by Roman 
 
 Catholic Church ..... 348 
 
 Uniqueness as attaching to all History and Personality 
 admitted by St. Thomas in one current 
 
 of his teaching .... 109 
 denied and admitted by Spinoza . 129, 130 
 
 mostly combated by Kant . . 165, 166 
 
 imperfectly recognized by Fichte . .177 
 
 even excessively apprehended by Schleier- 
 
 macher in his Reden . . 189, 192 
 
 Variations, useful, constant presence of, kernel of riddle in 
 
 Selection . . . . . . .172 
 
 Variety of spiritual types within Roman Catholic Church . 352 
 
 Washing of the feet, the, in Fourth Gospel . . .80 
 
 Wheel of Generation, the, in Buddhism . . 8-10; 165 n. 
 
 Orphism . . .28, 29 
 
 Schopenhauer . . .251 
 
 Worship, Religious, not understood by Kant 157, 158 ; 162-164 
 
 men and religions replete with . 325, 326 
 
 law of human soul which necessitates 326, 327 
 
 historical foundation and abiding need 
 
 of . . . . 327, 328 
 
 final insistence upon . . . 392 
 
 Yasht Hymns, the . . . . . .13 
 
 Zarathustrism, its chief documents . . . .12 
 
 doctrines . . . 13 
 
 its merits and its indication of Eternal Life. 13
 
 Index 
 
 427 
 
 II 
 
 PERSONS AND AUTHORS 
 
 Adam, James, on Stoics at their religious best (the Hymn of 
 
 Cleanthes) . . • . . . . 48 n. 
 
 Alexander II., Pope, protects the Jews . . . 350 
 
 Ambrose, St., of Milan, protests against first execution for 
 
 heresy ....... 350 
 
 Amos, the prophet, his deeply ethical Theism . . 17 
 
 Andrews, Lancelot, Anglican Bishop, as religious Insti- 
 
 tutionalist ....... 326 
 
 Archer Hind, R. D., on Plato's Timaus . . • 37 «• 
 
 Aristotle on the Unmoving Energeia. . . . 38-41 
 
 his insight and limitations .... 41, 42 
 
 on man's inevitable anthropomorphisms . .241 
 
 elements derived from, in Pseudo-Dionysius . 99 
 
 St. Thomas . 103, 107 
 
 and the Roman Catholic Church . . 337~34o 
 
 unhistorical temper of mind of . . 340 
 
 Arnim, Johannes von, his edition of Fragments of Stoics . 48 n. 
 
 Augustine, St., of Hippo ..... 87-94 
 
 conditions of his life and times . . .87 
 
 his great indebtedness to Plotinus . . 87, 88 
 
 on God, the soul, and their inter-relations as 
 
 non-spatial ..... 
 
 Eternity of God as excluding Time 
 
 yet as vividly apprehensible 
 by man in Time 
 God's immediate presence in men's souls 
 his sense of Historical Element of Religion 92, 93 ; 326 
 of Organic Character of Society and 
 Church .... 
 
 of Sin ..... 
 
 distinguishes between Visible and Invisible 
 Church . . 
 yet at times insists upon a practical identity 
 between the two .... 
 
 his attitude towards human nature demands 
 mitigation and completion by Our Lord's 
 fully balanced, richer outlook . 391, 
 
 Azeglio, Massimo d', as a zealous Catholic and Italian 
 
 patriot ....... 362 
 
 87, 88 
 
 88, 89 
 
 89, 90 
 90-92 
 
 93,94 
 93,94 
 
 354 
 
 93,94 
 
 392 
 
 Baumker, Clemens, his valuable studies in Mediaeval Philo- 
 sophy ...... 337, 338 
 
 Bedford, Adeline Duchess of, on the Abbe Huvelin . 375, 377 »,
 
 428 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Benedictine edition of St. Augustine, its Index . . 94 n. 
 
 Benedictines, the Maurist, on Origin of French Episcopal 
 
 Sees ....... 345 
 
 Bergson, Henri, on Duree and on Liberty . . 288-302 
 
 distinguishes between Duration and Clock- 
 Time .... 106, 232 n. 
 
 finds Duration alone real . . 288, 289 
 
 excesses and defects in presentation of 
 
 this great doctrine in the Essai 289-294 
 
 in the Evolution Creatrice . 294-297 
 
 at his best demands by implication three 
 modifications of his ordinary contentions : 
 Space to be discriminated into Real and Con- 
 ceptual, in same manner as Time is already 
 discriminated . . . 297, 298 
 
 highest element in Duration to be ever 
 found in Permanence or Quasi-Perman- 
 ence, not in Change . . 298, 299 
 
 a wide, elastic Finalism to be accepted, as 
 alone giving Content, Aim, and Steadi- 
 ness to Libertarianism . . 299-302 
 Berkeley, George, Anglican Bishop 
 
 central motive of his philosophy . 137,138 
 
 as a religious Institutionalist . . . 326 
 
 Bernstein, Eduard, his modified, more idealist Socialism 319, 320 
 Blondel, Maurice, upon Philosophy within Roman Catholic 
 
 Church . . . .341 n. 
 
 relations between History and 
 Dogma .... 347 n. 
 
 Bo'ethius on Eternity as Complete Simultaneity . 104, 105 
 
 in St. Thomas .... 104, 105 
 
 Booth, Sir Charles, on Christian self-sacrifice as sole cure for 
 
 popular Secularism . . 317, 318 
 
 unique value, in face of acute social 
 trouble, of strongly Institutional 
 Religion . . . 371, 372 
 
 Bossuet, Bishop J. B., as a religious Institutionalist . . 326 
 
 Bradley, A. C, his Memoir of R. L. Nettleship . . 219 
 
 Buckle, H. T., Charles Darwin's opinion concerning views of 280 
 his popularity amongst secularist Socialists . 310 
 Burke, Edmund, ever conscious of connection between 
 
 higher Politics and Religion .... 361 
 
 Caird, Edward, on Plotinus . . . . . 87 n. 
 
 Spinoza ..... 135 n. 
 as an English Hegelian . . 218-223 
 
 a religious Institutionalist . 221, 222 ; 326 
 
 Caird, John, as an English Hegelian . . 218-223 
 
 a religious Institutionalist . 221, 222 ; 326
 
 Index 429 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Callixtus, Pope, his Edict concerning Marriage . 354,355 
 
 Calmes, Pere Th., on doctrine of Fourth Gospel . . 81 n. 
 
 Calvin, John, as a religious Institutionalist . . . 326 
 
 his attitude towards human nature found 
 
 excessive . . . . 39 ^ 392 
 
 Cathrein, Victor, S J., on secularist Socialism . . .307 n. 
 
 profound reality and vast range of 
 
 Social Problem . . . 319 /z. 
 
 Charles, Prof. R. H., on Israelitish attitude towards experi- 
 ence of God and belief in a Future Life . . 21, 22, 22 n. 
 
 Chateaubriand, F. A. de, as one of the lay influences towards 
 
 the recent reinforcement of Curialism . . . 359 
 
 Chevalier, Canon Ulysse, on translation of Holy House of 
 
 Loretto ...... 345> 347 n. 
 
 Chrysippus, the Stoic ...... 43 
 
 Church, Dean R. C, as example of deepening of religious 
 
 life through Institutionalism . . . 371? 372 
 
 Cicero, M. Tullius, on the Stoic doctrines . . 43~47 
 
 Cleanthes, the Stoic ...... 43 
 
 Clement, St., of Rome, First Epistle of, already shows legal 
 
 organization strongly at work . . . • 354 
 
 Clement VI., Pope, protects the Jews . 
 
 Clement of Alexandria on Dionysiac worship 
 
 Condren, Charles de, Pere, Abbe Huvelin upon 
 
 Crespi, Dr. Angelo, moves away from secularist Social 
 
 ism ...... 320, 323 n 
 
 35o 
 26 
 
 376 
 
 Damien, Father J., the Missionary to the lepers . . 372 
 
 Daniel, the Book of, on Everlasting Life . . .49 
 
 Dante combines Catholicism and patriotism . . . 362 
 
 Darwin, Charles, on Theism, Immortality, Conscience 265-268 
 
 criticism of these utterances . 268-271 
 
 his graduated love of graduated reality 
 
 contrasted with Haeckel's monistic 
 
 passion for reduction of all things to 
 
 emptiest abstraction . . 280-283 
 
 Delbos, Prof. Victor, on the surreptitious self-contradiction of 
 
 Spinoza's Ethics . . . . . • 135 n. 
 
 Delehaye, Hippolyte, Bollandist, upon the legends of the 
 
 Saints . . . . . • • 347 «• 
 
 Denifle, Father H. S., upon Eckhart . . .111 »., 120 n. 
 
 his studies in mediaeval thought in 
 
 general . . . 337, 338 
 
 Deuteronomy, author of Book of, insists upon man's entirety 
 
 as called to love of God ..... 19 
 Dilthey, Wilhelm, on Stoic constituents of Spinoza's philo- 
 sophy . . . . 135 «. 
 Schlciermacher . . . 198 n. 
 Diogenes Laertius, on the Stoics . . . . 43, 44
 
 
 PAGES 
 
 ■ 
 
 94-100 
 
 ;es 
 against 
 
 • 94,95 
 
 • 95, 96 
 
 • 97, 98 
 Neo- 
 
 . 
 
 • 98, 99 
 
 . 
 
 100 
 
 430 Index 
 
 Dionysius, Pseudo- 
 
 his times and probable circumstances 
 dependence upon Proclus 
 transcendental outlook 
 Christian and Aristotelian, as 
 
 Platonist, constituents of 
 Deification of human soul in 
 absence of historic sense and attribution of purely 
 
 negative character to Evil as defects of . 100 
 
 insistence upon need of purification by soul that 
 would experience and obtain Eternal Life nobly 
 distinguishes .... 100 
 
 Drummond, Dr. James, upon Philo the Jew . . . 54 n. 
 
 Duchesne, Mgr. Louis, on Origin of Episcopal Sees in 
 
 France . . . . . • 345, 34° 
 
 Ecclesiasticus, Book of, upon God and Life . . .49 
 
 Eckhart, Joannes ..... 1 10-120 
 
 his circumstances and tendency . . 110,111 
 
 Psychology, the little spark of reason . 111-113 
 
 sharply contrasts "God" and "Godhead". 113, 114 
 
 his monistic drift . . . . 114, 115 
 
 two currents in his Ethics . . . 116, 117 
 
 the circle and its triadic development . 117, 118 
 
 the three thirsts in Eckhart ; causes of his turning 
 
 away from all history and concreteness . 118,119 
 
 his condemnation by Rome objectively deserved ; 
 experience since his time has still further rendered 
 his abstractiveness unworkable . . 119,120 
 
 especially as concerns Eternal Life 
 Elijah, the prophet, witnesses to One Holy Power . 
 Engels, Friedrich, Marx's collaborator in secularist 
 Socialism ..... 304-307, 
 
 Encken, Prof. Rudolf, on Spinoza .... 
 
 in his own rich doctrine, and the 
 Fichtean influences which some- 
 what limit it . 179,180; 
 on Evolution .... 
 Ezekiel, the prophet, on the Living God 
 
 God the Good Shepherd 
 God as the Healing Waters 
 the " Priestly Code," its kinship 
 
 with . . 20 
 
 Fechner, G. T., the philosopher, as religious Institutionalist 326 
 Fenelon, Archbishop F. de Salignac Lamotte, as religious 
 
 Institutionalist ...... 326 
 
 Feuerbach, Ludivig ..... 233-244 
 
 two stages of his scepticism . . . 233 
 
 120 
 
 16, 
 
 17 
 
 307 
 
 n. 
 
 135 
 
 n. 
 
 180 
 
 n. 
 
 283 
 
 n . 
 
 
 16 
 
 
 20 
 
 
 20
 
 Index 431 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Feuerbach, Ludwig, two stages of his scepticism — 
 
 first stage .... 233-235 
 
 criticism of . . . . 235-243 
 
 last stage, its significance . . 243, 244 
 
 his influence upon Marx and Engels . . 305 
 
 Fleiner, Prof. Fritz, on steady development of Canon Law 
 and centralization within Roman Catholic Church in 
 nineteenth century . . . 358, 359 ; 360 n. 
 
 Francois de Sales, St., Abbe Huvelin upon . . 375, 376 
 
 Frazer, Prof. J. G., naturalistic attitude towards man in 
 
 anthropological works of . . . . .279 
 
 Froude, Richard Hurrell, the Tractarian, his affinity to Kier- 
 kegaard ....... 260 
 
 Funk, F. X., Dr., on the Galileo case. . . . 341 n. 
 
 Galilei, Galileo, his condemnation . . . 341, 341 n. 
 
 Gatha Hymns, the, teaching of, concerning the two Spirits 
 
 and their creations . . . . . 12, 13 
 
 Gautama, tlie Buddha, teaches the Nirvana . . . 8-10 
 
 the concomitant of this doctrine ; significance of 
 the complex — a spiritually attuned moralism, 
 not yet directly a religion . . 10 ; 165 n. 
 
 Gibson, Prof. W. R. Boyce, upon Bergson's Intuitionism . 302 n. 
 
 Goerres, Joseph von, as one of the lay influences towards 
 
 intense centralization of Church .... 359 
 
 Goethe, Wolfgang von, his change from Institutional Christi- 
 anity to Spinozist habits .... 1S1, 182 
 
 Gore, Charles, Anglican Bishop, as Christian social worker . 315 
 
 Green, Thomas Hill, as an English Hegelian . 218-223 
 
 his "consciousness in general" . 221 
 
 Gregory 1., the Great, Pope St., condemns interference with 
 the Jews' practice of their religion, and forbids com- 
 pulsory baptism of Jews ..... 350 
 
 Gregory IX., Pope, founds the General Inquisition . . 349 
 
 Grill, Prof. J., on " Life " in Philo . . . . 54 n. 
 
 Haeckel, Prof. Ernst, vehement Monism of . . 281-283 
 
 criticism of . . . . 283 
 
 his popularity with secularist Socialists 310 
 Harrison, Jane, upon Orphism . 23 ; 29, 29 n. ; 30, 30 n. 
 
 Harvey, William, the Anatomist, the first clearly to conceive 
 
 and name Epigenesis ..... 269 
 
 Hegel, G. IV. F. ..... 201-218 
 
 profound early influence of Schelling's Philo- 
 sophy of Identity upon . . 201, 202 
 this Philosophy deliberately contradicted by 
 
 fundamental principle of . . 202-206 
 
 but admitted in two positions of 207-211 ; 
 
 211-218
 
 432 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Hegel, G. IV. K, like Eckhart puts Religion in penultimate 
 
 place . . . . 215, 216 
 
 his influence in the deceased English 
 
 Hegelians. . . . 218-223 
 
 M'Taggart . 223, 224 ; 228 
 
 Feuerbach . . 233, 235 
 
 opposed by Schopenhauer . 249,250; 251,252 
 
 and Evolution and Epigenesis . 268, 269 
 
 his influence in Marx and Engels . . 305 
 
 Herford, C. H., his translation of Ibsen's Brand . . 262 
 
 Hermann, Prof. Wilhelm, restricts Religion to recognition 
 
 of Categorical Imperative and of the Historical 
 
 Jesus ...... 33 -33 2 
 
 artificiality of this restriction . . . 33 1 -333 
 
 Herodotus on the Dionysiac worship . . . .26 
 
 Hesiod upon Lethe as evil . . . . .30 
 
 Hoeffding, Prof. Harald, upon Kierkegaard . . . 262 
 
 Holtzmann, H. J., on the Kingdom of God in Our Lord's 
 
 teaching . . . . 62 n. 
 
 social character of this kingdom . 62, 63 
 St. Paul's teachings as to the Spirit- 
 Christ . . . . 72 n. 
 
 doctrine of Fourth Gospel . . 80 n. 
 
 decline of Institutional Religion . 335 n. 
 Huegel, F. von, in works other than the present, 
 
 on Plato's Purgatorical teaching . . 35 n. 
 
 Ontological Argument . . . 156 n. 
 
 Religion and Illusion . . . 244 n. 
 
 Wilhelm Hermann's theology . . 333 n. 
 
 Factual and Symbolical constituents of 
 Scripture .... 347 n. 
 
 Huvelin, the Abbe~ ..... 374-377 
 
 his character and influence . . . 374, 375 
 
 sayings concerning Eternal Life 37S~o77i 377 n - 
 
 Ibsen, Hendrik, his Brand suggested by figure of Kierkegaard 262 
 
 Isaiah of Jerusalem, the prophet, the vision at vocation of, 17, 18 
 
 his simile of God and His vineyard . 18 
 
 Jackson, Prof. Henry, upon sequence of Plato's Dialogues . 35 n. 
 Jacobi, Friedrich W., writes against Spinoza . . . 182 
 
 Jahvist, the, writes full of sense of God's living presence . 16 
 Jeremiah, the prophet, upon God as fountain of living waters 19 
 
 the Lord, the Living God . 19 
 
 Jesus Christ, actual earthly life and utterances of . .55-66 
 
 their general occasion and character . 55, 56 
 
 the Kingdom of God — 
 
 its four characteristics in the trans- 
 cendental movement . . 56-59
 
 Index 
 
 433 
 
 PAGES 
 
 391, 392 
 
 67 ; 69 ; 70-72 
 
 73, 74 
 
 Jesus Christ, actual earthly life and utterances of— continued 
 the Kingdom — 
 
 its characteristics in the immanental 
 
 movement .... 59-62 
 in both movements the Kingdom a social 
 organism in this life . . .62, 63 
 
 and in the next life . . 63, 64 
 
 God everywhere here awakens and purifies 
 
 feeling, motive, action, in widest range . 64, 65 
 
 interaction of the two movements within . 65, 66 
 
 institutes a Preaching Band . . 327, 328 
 
 uses and commends efficacious sensible signs 329, 330 
 
 His attitude towards human nature contrasted 
 
 with that of St. Paul 
 in St. Paul 
 
 Fourth Gospel 
 St. Augustine 
 Eckhart 
 Spinoza 
 Kant . 
 Fichte 
 
 Schleiermacher 
 Hegel . 
 Schopenhauer 
 Kierkegaard . 
 Hermann 
 Jodl, Prof. F., upon Feuerbach 
 Johannine Writings, the 
 
 theirgeneral antecedents and character 73, 74 
 " Truth " and " Knowing" in . . 74, 75 
 
 their culminating category and con- 
 viction : Eternal Life . . 75-78 
 their insistence upon interpenetration 
 between God, Christ, the souls of the 
 faithful, and upon God's prevenience 78, 79 
 their limitation of range yet profound 
 sense of the two great concrete 
 Realities, the living God and the 
 historic Jesus . . . . 79, 80 
 great symbolic pictures in . . 344 
 John of the Cross, St., on incomprehensibility of God . 243 
 John, Father, Sergieff of Cronstadt, as example of deepen- 
 ing of religious life by Institutionalism . . . 372 
 Judd, Dr. J. W., on Charles Darwin's character . . 268 n. 
 Juvenal, his Stoic teaching ..... 46 
 
 79,80 
 
 • 92, 93 
 
 • 113 
 130 
 
 165, 166 
 
 • 177 
 . 182 
 . 214 
 
 2 c 2 
 
 262 
 
 332 
 
 244 n. 
 73-80 
 
 261, 
 jj 1 ) 
 
 Kant, Immanuel 
 
 28 
 
 135-168 
 specific greatness, origin, three periods, and 
 dominating motive of . . 135-138
 
 434 Index 
 
 Kant, ImmanueZ, his Epistemology : five positions dis- 
 
 PAGES 
 
 cussed . . . 139-144 
 
 Ethics : their noble sense of moral 
 guilt ; their formalism ; their ex- 
 cessive individualism . 144-149 
 Religious Philosophy as regards 
 Ontological Argument . 150-156 
 Grace, Worship, History . 156-167 
 his Critical Philosophy rendered more uni- 
 formly radical and subjective by 
 Fichte . I73) i 74; I7 6, i 77 
 
 182, 184, 192 
 
 217 
 
 245-248 
 
 295, 296 ; 297, 298 
 
 331, 332 
 
 387, 388 
 
 as operative in Schleiermacher 
 
 Hegel . 
 
 Schopenhauer . 
 
 Bei'gson 
 
 Wilhelm Hermann 
 final positions against the Critical 
 
 389 ; 391, 392 ; 395, 396 
 Kautzsch, Prof. E., on Apocrypha and Pseudo-epigraphic 
 
 Writings of Old Testament . . . . 50 n. 
 
 Ketteler, W. E. von, Bishop, as Christian social worker . 315 
 
 Kierkegaard, Soeren ..... 260-262 
 
 his affinities and special complex of insights . 260 
 
 keen sense of Reality and of Difference of 
 
 God . . . . .261 
 
 insufficient sense of the Likeness . . 262 
 
 the original of Ibsen's Bra?id . . . 262 
 
 Koch, Dr. Hugo, on Pseudo-Dionysius and his dependence 
 
 upon Proclus . . . . . . 120 «. 
 
 Lactantius, the African Father of the Church, forbids applica- 
 tion of force in religion .... 34g ? 350 
 
 Lange, Prof. H. O., upon Ancient Egyptian religion . 14 
 
 Lask, Dr. E., on Fichte's attitude towards History . .180 n. 
 
 Lasson, Prof. A., on Eckhart . . . . . 120 n. 
 
 Lasson, Dr. G., on Hegel's early life . . . .202 n. 
 
 Laud, William, the Anglican Archbishop, as a religious 
 
 Institutionalist ...... -26 
 
 Law, William, the Non-juring Divine, as a religious 
 
 Institutionalist ...... 326 
 
 Lea, H. C, upon Spanish Inquisition . . . 353 n . 
 
 Lehmann, Prof. Edv., upon Buddhist Nirvana . . 8-10 
 
 Ramanuja . . 11, 12 
 
 Zarathustrism . . . 12, 13 
 
 Leibniz, G. W., on obscure apprehensions . 142, 143, 143 n. 
 
 his Monadism compared with that of 
 
 M'Taggart . . . . .227 
 
 his Evolution no Epigenesis . . 268-270 
 
 as a religious Institutionalist . . . 326
 
 Index 435 
 
 Leo xm., Pope, his social teaching . . . 315 
 
 Le Play, Freddric, as sociological thinker . . 315 
 
 Lessing, G. E., the contradiction in main theme of his 
 
 Nathan . . . . . .166, 167 
 
 Locke, John, his denial of secondary qualities of Matter as 
 
 half-way house to Berkeley's Idealism . . .138 
 
 Lockhart, Rev. W., on Antonio Rosmini . . . 361 n. 
 
 Loisy, Prof. Alfred, on Kingdom of God in Our Lord's 
 
 teaching . . . . 62 n. 
 
 doctrine of Fourth Gospel . 81 
 
 his penetrating anthropological 
 
 method . . . 279, 279 n. 
 
 Lugo, John de, Cardinal, S.J., on ordinary process by which 
 souls in good faith are saved outside of visible Catholic 
 Church ...... 350, 351 
 
 Luther, Martin, as a religious Institutionalist . . 326 
 
 his attitude towards human nature requires 
 correction and completion by Our Lord's 
 own teaching . . . 391, 392 
 
 deliberate differentiation from . . 335 
 
 Maccabees, Second Book of, on God as the Lord of Life . 49 
 M l Taggart,Dr.J.E.. .... 223-232 
 
 instructiveness of his combination of 
 doctrines .... 
 
 on Metaphysics, Theism, Immortality and 
 
 Pre-existence, and Time . 224-226 
 
 criticism of . . 226-232 
 
 Maher, Rev. Michael, S.J., as an impressive worker of the 
 
 Neo-Scholastic School .... 337, 338 
 
 Maistre, Count Joseph de, as one of the lay founders of 
 
 recent Curialism . . . . . 359 
 
 Manning, H. E., Cardinal, as a Christian social worker . 315 
 
 upon supernatural life amongst 
 
 Anglicans . . . 352 
 
 Manzoni, Alessandro, as fervent Catholic and ardent Italian 
 
 patriot ....... 362 
 
 Marie Antoinette, Queen, of France, and the inter-related- 
 
 ness of politics and religion .... 361 
 
 Marie de la Providence, Mere (Eugenie Smet), her dis- 
 positions and sayings concerning Eternal Life . 373, 374 
 Marrett, Dr. R. R., strength and weakness of his anthropo- 
 logical method ..... 278, 279 
 
 Martin, St., of Tours, protests against first execution for,heresy 350 
 Marx, Karl ...... 304-307 
 
 derivation of his philosophy . . 304, 305 
 
 his formulation of secularist Socialism . 304-307 
 
 Medici, Lorenzo de', and the inter-relatedness of politics and 
 
 religion ....... 361
 
 436 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Medicus, Dr. Fritz, upon J. G. Fichte. . . . 180 n. 
 
 Mercier, Desire, Cardinal, his important labours in philo- 
 sophy ...... 337, 338 
 
 Micah, the prophet, upon the ethical character of God . 18 
 
 Mignot, E. J., Archbishop, upon the Church and Biblical 
 
 Criticism . ..... 347 n. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, his vivid experience of Eternal Life . 311 
 
 Moellendorff, Prof. Ulrich von Willamovvitz, his anthro- 
 pological method ..... 279, 279 n. 
 
 Montefiore, Claude G, as example of religious life 
 
 strengthened by Institutionalism . . .371 
 
 Muensterberg, Prof. Hugo, his Neo-Fichteanism 178, 179, 180 n. 
 
 Murray, Prof. Gilbert, on Orphic Tablets . . 23, 30 n. 
 
 Narfon, E. de, on policy of Pope Pius x. . . . 364 n. 
 
 Nettleship, R. Louis, as an English Hegelian . 218-223 
 
 Newman, J. H., Cardinal, as combining self-respect 
 
 with loyalty to Church 
 authority . . . 326 
 
 example of deepening of religi- 
 ous life by Institutionalism 
 
 360, 361 n. 
 Nicolas (Kryffs), Cardinal, of Coes, and Evolution . 268, 269 
 
 as a religious Institu- 
 
 tionalist . . 326 
 
 Nietzsche, Friedrich ..... 263, 264 
 
 causes of his great vogue .... 263 
 
 his exquisite sayings and vulgar attacks 263, 264 ; 279 
 
 Oldenberg, Prof. H., upon the Buddhist Nirvana . 9, 10 n. 
 
 Olier, M. Jean Jacques, Abbe Huvelin upon . . . 376 
 
 Olle-Laprune, Leon, upon Philosophy within Roman 
 
 Catholic Church . . . . . . 341 «. 
 
 Origen, as a religious Institutionalist .... 326 
 
 Parmenides, the first clear formulator of the Totum Simul 
 
 of Eternity . . . . . 31, 32 
 
 spatial, abstract, monistic character of his 
 
 outlook . . . . .32 
 
 Pascal, Blaise, as spiritually related to Kierkegaard . . 262 
 
 a religious Institutionalist . . . 326 
 
 •Paul, St. ...... 66-72 
 
 training and exceptional Christian experience of . 66, 67 
 his dominant category, Spirit . . .67 
 
 Pneumatic anthropology of. . . . 67-69 
 
 interaction between experiences and conceptions 
 
 of the Christ and of the Spirit in . .69 
 
 the Kingdom of God partly present, partly 
 
 future in . . . . . .70
 
 Index 437 
 
 Paul, St., the Christ-Spirit in, is medium of universal 
 brotherhood of mankind ; profoundly organic 
 character of this brotherhood . . .70-72 
 
 amazing range of volitional and emotional life in . 72 
 his attitude towards human nature requires in- 
 corporation within, and mitigation by, larger 
 and richer teaching of Our Lord . 391, 392 
 
 Pellico, Silvio, as fervent Catholic and ardent Italian patriot 362 
 Pernet, Maurice, on policy of Pope Pius x. . . . 364 n. 
 
 Pfleiderer, Dr. E., on sequence and three periods of Plato's 
 
 Dialogues . . . . . . . 35 n. 
 
 Pfleiderer, Otto, upon the Pantheistic trend of Schleier- 
 
 macher ....... 198 n. 
 
 Philo,the Jew ....... 50-54 
 
 constituents of his philosophy ; deeply religious, theistic 
 
 motive of his entire teaching . . . .50,51 
 
 God conceived by, in accordance with Aristotle, as 
 
 Pure Energeia . . . . .51 
 
 His Eternity conceived by, in accordance with Plato, 
 
 as exclusive of Time . . . . .51 
 
 God as above Life, and God as Life . . . 51-53 
 
 in his abstractive current largely anticipates Plotinus, 
 
 perhaps even Proclus . . . . 53 
 
 God's prevenient operation in man's soul affirmed 
 
 by • 53, 54 
 
 spontaneity and richness of Jewish religion mostly 
 predominate in, over Stoic apathy and general 
 Hellenistic abstractiveness . . . .54 
 
 ingredients like the teachings 01, in St. Paul . . 66, 67 
 
 Fourth Gospel . 73 
 Pius V., St., Pope, aids consolidation of Spanish Inquisition 349 
 Pius ix., Pope, on reality and wide range of good faith, grace 
 
 and salvation outside Visible Church . . 351 
 
 Pius x., Pope, his Motu Proprio pronouncements . 359, 364 n. 
 Plato, his description of the Dionysiac ecstasy . . 25, 26 
 
 the Orphics . . . . 29, 30 
 
 his own conceptions concerning Eternal Life . . 32-38 
 
 three stages of his mental growth and three corre- 
 sponding groups of his writings . . 32, 33 ; 35 n. 
 Eternal Life in his second stage . . . 33-35 
 in his third stage .... 35-37 
 his doctrine of the soul's purgation . . -35 
 four abidingly great convictions — unique thus 
 within one soul throughout pre-Christian 
 antiquity . . . . . -37)38 
 influence of, upon writer of Fourth Gospel . . 74 
 St. Augustine . . 89, 90, 93 
 Pseudo-Dionysius . . -97 
 Plotinus ....... 81-87
 
 438 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Plotinus, his strength as a religious soul, his weakness as an 
 
 over-abstractive philosopher . . 81, 82 
 
 God here utterly transcendent yet experienced 
 
 by human soul in an immediate contact . 82-84 
 non-spatiality, interpenetration of souls . 83, 84 
 
 the soul longs for God, God longs not for the 
 
 soul ...... 85 
 
 what to retain in . . . .86 
 
 what to abandon in . . . . . 85-87 
 
 in St. Augustine . . . t . . 87, 88 
 
 Pseudo-Dionysius . . . .97 
 
 Prichard, H. A., on Kant's theory of knowledge . . 142 n. 
 
 Priestly Code, the, its kinship with Ezekiel . . 20 (344) 
 
 Pringle Pattison, Andrew Seth, on Fichte . . . 180 n. 
 
 Hegel . 206 n., 209 n., 218 n. 
 M'Taggart . . 232 ». 
 
 Naturalism — two senses 
 
 of the term "Nature" 275-277 
 Proclus, the Neo-Platonist . . . . . 95, 96 
 
 his times and mental character . . -95 
 
 rigorously carries out circular process of all things, 
 as conceived by Plotinus, in its triadic develop- 
 ment . . . . . . 95, 96 
 
 places First even above being . . .96 
 
 but increases number of realities intermediate be- 
 tween man and the One, and number of man's 
 own constituents . . . . .96 
 
 denies that the soul can ever become the very One 96 
 
 in Pseudo-Dionysius . . . 94, 95 ; 97, 98 
 
 Psalms, the, upon (spiritual) Life . . . .48 
 
 Psalms of Solomon, the, upon Life . . . . 49, 50 
 
 Piinjer, Dr. G. Ch. B., his critical edition of Schleiermacher's 
 
 Reden in their successive texts . . . . 183 n. 
 
 Rd, the Egyptian Sun-God, apparently conceived as purely 
 
 successive ....... 14 
 
 Ramanuja . . . . . . .10-12 
 
 his significant modification of Vedantic Monism 10, 1 r 
 as to Brahma, the World, the Soul . . 11, 12 
 
 how far Eternal Life is to be found in . . 12 
 
 Ranee, A. le B. de, the Trappist Abbot, Abbe Huvelin 
 
 upon . . . . . . 377 
 
 Ranke, Leopold von, and inter-relation between Politics 
 
 and Religion . . . . . .361 
 
 Reinach, Solomon, his attitude in anthropology . . 279 
 
 Rensi, G., his religiously tempered Socialism . . 320 
 
 Rickaby, Rev. Joseph, S.J., as a helpful expositor of St. 
 
 Thomas ...... 337, 338 
 
 Rickert, Prof. Heinrich, upon Fichte as accused of Atheism 180 n.
 
 Index 439 
 
 Riehl, Prof. Aloys, upon Nietzsche as indication of reawak- 
 
 ing of religious passion .... 264, 264 n. 
 Robertson, Frederick W., as example of strengthening of 
 
 religious life by Institutionalism . . . 371 
 
 Rohde, Erwin, his Psyche upon Dionysiac Cult . 23-26, 26 n. 
 
 composition of Plato's Re- 
 public . . . 35 11. 
 his attitude in anthropology . . 279, 279 n. 
 Rosmini, Antonio, as a religious Institutionalist . . 326 
 
 combining self-respect and loyalty 
 
 towards Church authority 360, 361 n. 
 
 a saintly Catholic and ardent Italian 
 
 patriot .... 362 
 
 Schelling, F. W. J., his influence upon Hegel . 201-20 
 
 Schiller, Dr. F. C, upon Aristotle's Unmoving Energeia 38-40, 40 ?i. 
 Schleiermacher, Friedrich .... 180-198 
 
 his character/education, two periods : of the 
 
 Reden and of the Glaubenslehre . 180-183 
 
 in his Reden . . . . 183-195 
 
 Religion is Intuition-Feeling of Infinite 183-186 
 criticism . . . 186-189 
 
 Religion is utterly distinct from all Philo- 
 sophy and Ethics . . 189, 190 
 criticism . . . 190-192 
 History is emphasised ; belief in God and 
 Immortality is treated with in- 
 difference . . . 192-194 
 criticism . . . 194, 195 
 in his Glaubenslehre . . . 195-198 
 Religion now Sense of Unconditional 
 
 Dependence . . . 195, 196 
 
 God now everywhere accepted but 
 
 Spinozistically conceived . . 197 
 
 Religion now intensely Christo-centric . 198 
 and religious experience now sought in 
 
 and through Community . . 198 
 
 Professor Troeltsch's very limited succes- 
 sion to, and great superiority over . 199 
 Schopenhauer, Arthur . . . . . 244-259 
 four sets of his convictions to be considered 244, 245 
 nature, circumstances, practically single work of 245 
 turns Kant's Epistemology into an Eastern 
 
 Metaphysic .... 245-248 
 
 finds the Thing-in-itself in a Will bereft of al 
 reason and logic, yet vehemently protests 
 against being designated a Pantheist, and 
 yet again is athirst for Absolute Identity and 
 Rest. .... 248-251
 
 44° Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Schopenhauer insists upon intense Pessimism and quite 
 
 Gnostic Asceticism . . . 251-256 
 
 and culminates, in his Nirvana, in a shy yet 
 deep conviction of an utterly other, ultimate, 
 timeless, mystical Life and Union . 256, 257 
 
 shows weakness and strength for religion of 
 
 dim, despairing outlooks . . 257-259 
 
 his influence upon Richard Wagner and Leo 
 
 Tolstoi ..... 260 
 
 affinity with, of Soren Kierkegaard . . 260 
 
 and of Friedrich Nietzsche 260, 263 
 Schiitz, Dr. Ludwig, on terminology of St. Thomas . . no n. 
 
 Schweitzer, Dr. Albert, on Kingdom of God in personal 
 
 teaching of Our Lord . . 62 n. 
 
 on origin and character of St. 
 
 Paul's conceptions . . 72 n. 
 
 Scott, Prof. E. F., on teaching of Fourth Gospel . . 81 n. 
 
 Seneca, Lucius Annaeus, expresses Stoic belief in inter- 
 dependence and organic structure of human society . 47 
 Seth, Prof. Andrew, see Pringle Pattison. 
 
 Seth, Prof. James, upon Kant's Ethics . . 149, 150 n. 
 
 Sextus Empiricus, his doctrine that like is only apprehended 
 
 by like ....... 75 
 
 Simmel, Dr. George, upon evasion by Kant, qua Critical 
 
 Philosopher, of Religion as known to us in real life . 167 n. 
 Sohm, Prof. Rudolf ..... 354~358 
 
 his positions concerning relations between 
 Visible and Invisible Church, the 
 Catholic Church and the local 
 Churches . 354-356 
 
 criticism .... 356-358 
 
 Sorel, Georges, the Syndicalist, his sympathy with Mystery, 
 
 Theism, Christianity, Asceticism . . 320-323 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, as a follower of Darwin . . . 288 
 
 Spinoza, Baruch . . . . . 121-135 
 
 circumstances of his life and four main con- 
 stituents of his thought . . . 1 21-123 
 end, method, fundamental category of his philo- 
 sophy ..... 123-127 
 
 utter Determinism of his system . . 128,129 
 
 broken through by author's ethical greatness 130-132 
 
 lessons taught by . . . 132-135 
 
 influence of, over Goethe . . . 181, 182 
 
 Lessing . . . 181, 182 
 
 Schleiermacher 181, 182 ; 190, 191 ; 197 
 
 Stevenson, R. L., on Fr. Damien .... 372 
 
 Stewart, Dr. J. M'Kellar, on Bergson's Philosophy . 144 n., 302 n. 
 Stobaeus, Joannes, fragment preserved by, concerning the 
 
 Perfect Sage, according to the Stoic . . .46
 
 Index 44 1 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Stolberg, Friedrich Leopold, Count, as layman who helped 
 
 on intense centralization of Roman Catholic Church . 359 
 Stout, Prof. G. F., upon all specific activity as always 
 
 directed to an end . . . 299 
 
 upon relation between Interest and 
 
 Attention . . . 299 
 
 Tennant, Rev. F. /?., on Evolution and Sin . . 283-285 
 
 criticism . . . 286, 287 
 
 Teresa, St., as expressing classical Christian attitude towards 
 religious feelings and decisive motives of 
 action ..... 191 
 
 a religious Institutionalist . . . 326 
 
 Thibaut, G., his translation of Ramanuja's commentary on 
 
 the Vedanta- Sutras . . . . . 12 n. 
 
 Thomas, St., Aquinas . . . . . 101-110 
 
 circumstances and character of . . 101, 102 
 
 contrasted with St. Augustine . . 102, 103 
 
 admits possession by soul of confused knowledge 
 
 of ?u/iat God is . . . 103,104 
 
 on Eternity, Aevum, Time . . 104-106 
 
 current of a solitary and current of a social char- 
 acter in teaching of . . . 106-109 
 right and dignity of true individuality according 
 
 to social current of . . . 109 
 
 Evil predominantly treated as negative by . 109 
 
 his estimate of human nature . . 109, 1 10 
 
 on anthropomorphism . . . .241 
 
 as a religious Institutionalist . . . 326 
 
 as a Saint who utilized in largest measure 
 
 philosophy in service of religion . . 337 
 
 possibility and advantage of treating especially 
 Ethics and Spirituality of, in sympathetically 
 historical and critical manner . . 340 
 
 Tocqueville, Alexis de, on necessary interconnection between 
 
 higher Politics and Religion . . . .361 
 
 Tolstoi, Count Leo, his affinity with Schopenhauer . . 260 
 
 Toniolo, Professor, Dr., as helpful worker in ancient and 
 
 mediaeval philosophy .... 33-7, 338 
 
 Torquemada, John, Cardinal, his profoundly legalist con- 
 ception of the Church ..... 357 
 Trendelenburg, Adolf, on Hegel's surreptitious transition 
 
 from Logic to Reality 208, 209, 209 ;;. 
 as a religious Institutionalist . 326 
 
 Troeltsch, Proj. Ernst, upon the two interdependent and 
 
 mutually compensatory 
 movements of Christianity 66 n. 
 Ontological Argument for 
 existence of God . . 156 n.
 
 442 Index 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Troeltsch, Prof. Ernst, upon necessity of worship for re- 
 ligion . 167 n.; 326, 327 
 need of History for religion . 167 n. 
 his doctrine of tension and 
 polarity within all deeper 
 religion . . 199, 200 
 fullest works of . . 200 n. 
 upon Feuerbach . . . 244 11. 
 importance of social factor in 
 
 religion . . . 317 n. 
 
 irreplaceableness of Christi- 
 anity in our present social 
 troubles . . . 319 n. 
 
 prospects of secularist Socialism 320 
 readily sees Magic in attribution of 
 any productive efficacy to any 
 sensible Sign or Sacrament 199, 328 
 criticism . . . 328, 329 
 
 upon separation of Church and 
 
 State in France . . 364 n. 
 
 Tyrrell, Rev. George, on conflict between Science and 
 
 Theology . . . 342 n. 
 
 obedience to God and obedience 
 
 to His representatives . 361 n. 
 
 Ueberweg, Friedrich, as edited by Max Heinze 
 
 on St. Thomas Aquinas . . . . . wo n. 
 
 Kant's Ethics . . . . . . 149 n. 
 
 J. G. Fichte ...... 180 n. 
 
 Vacandard, the Abbe, upon the Inquisition . . . 353 n. 
 
 Van der Velde, E., his Socialism is respectful to religion . 320 
 Vianney, J. B., the beatified Cure of Ars, his character and 
 
 sayings ...... 372, 373 
 
 Vincent de Paul, St., Abbe Huvelin upon . . 376, 377 
 
 Volkelt, Prof. Johannes, upon Kant's Theory of Knowledge 142 n. 
 
 Schopenhauer's Epistemology 
 
 248 n. ; 251 n. 
 Pessimism and Nirvana 
 
 256 n. ; 259 n. 
 Dim and clear outlooks in 
 
 their use to religion . 259 «. 
 
 Waggett, Rev. Philip, on continuous Creation . 286, 287 
 
 Wagner, Richard, the musical composer, as enthusiast for 
 
 Schopenhauer ...... 260 
 
 Walker, Rev. Leslie J., S.J., his distinguished work in 
 
 Epistemology ..... 337, 338
 
 Index 
 
 443 
 
 PAGES 
 
 Wallace, Dr. Alfred Russel, on the three stages of life 
 
 where Creative action 
 has to be postulated 272, 273 
 
 proposed addition to, and 
 further guarding of this 
 description . 273, 274 
 
 significance of combination 
 in, of pioneer work in 
 
 Biology and Epigenesis 
 and fervent Theism 
 
 as contrasted with 
 
 274 
 264 ;/. 
 232 tt. 
 
 Wallace, William, upon Nietzsche 
 Ward, Prof. James, on Real Time 
 
 Epigenesis 
 
 Evolution in strict sense . 269 
 
 Ward, Wilfrid, his Life of Cardinal Newman . . 361 n. 
 
 Ward, Dr. W. G., as lay worker for intense centralization of 
 
 Roman Catholic Church ..... 359 
 
 Webb, Clement C. V., upon Ontological Argument for exist- 
 ence of God . .156 n. 
 Kant's attitude towards Grace . 167 n 
 M'Taggart's conception of 
 
 Person . . . 232 n. 
 
 Weissmann, Prof. At/gust, upon the crux in the theory of 
 
 selection . . . 271 
 
 religious significance of this point 272 
 Wendland, Prof. Paul, penetrative character of his anthropo- 
 logical method ..... 279, 279 n. 
 
 Westcott, B. F., Anglican Bishop, on teaching of the 
 
 Johannine writings . . . 81 n. 
 
 as Christian social worker . . 315 
 
 Wellhausen, Prof. Julius, upon character of Elijah's 
 
 teaching . . . . • . 16, 17 ; 17 n. 
 
 White, Dr. Andrew, on Conflict between Science and 
 
 Theology . . . . . . . 342 ». 
 
 Wilson, J. M., Archdeacon, upon Sin as an anachronism . 285 
 Wisdom of Solomon, the Book of upon incorruption and 
 
 immortality ...... 50 
 
 Wycliffe, John, origin of anti-sacramental passion of 
 
 Zarathuslra ...... 
 
 his probable date ; parts of the Avesta which 
 
 may reach back to him 
 main doctrines of these parts . 
 traces of apprehension and conception of 
 Eternal Life in 
 Zeller, Eduard, upon the Stoics 
 
 Proclus .... 
 
 Zeno, the Stoic . .... 
 
 12 
 
 12, 13 
 
 13 
 
 4Sn, 
 
 96 //. 
 43
 
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