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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924092308117 
 
THE EVOLUTION OF EELIGION. 
 
PUBLISHED BV 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS, GLASGOW, 
 ^ttblxBhexs to the ®mto«;sitB. 
 
 MACMILLAN^ AND CO., LTD., LONDON AND NEW YORK. 
 London^ • Simpkin^ Hamilton and Co» 
 Cambridge, Macntillan and Bowes. 
 
 Edinburgh^ Douglas and Foulis, 
 
 MDCCCXCIX. 
 
THE 
 
 EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 
 
 THE GIFFORD LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDREWS IN SESSIONS 
 
 1890-91 AND 1891-92 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD CAIRD 
 
 MASTER OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD ; LATE PROFESSOR OP 
 MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF GLASaOW 
 
 THIRD EDITION 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
 GLASGOW 
 
 JAMES MACLEHOSE AND SONS 
 
 ^ttblisbtrs to the lanttetaitj; 
 
 1899 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
\. 
 
 
 
 GLASGOW: PRINTED AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE AND CO. 
 
CONTENTS OF THE SECOND VOLUME. 
 
 LECTURE FIRST. 
 
 The Contrast of Objective and Subjective Religion, 1 
 
 LECTURE SECOND. 
 
 The Idea of the Relation of Goodness to Happiness, 
 
 AND ITS Development in the Old Testament, , 27 
 
 LECTURE THIRD. 
 The Relation of Judaism to Christianity, . . 53 
 
 LECTURE FOURTH. 
 
 The Problem of the Later Judaism and the Answer 
 
 OF Jesus, 85 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PASB 
 
 LECTUEE FIFTH. 
 
 The Distinctive Characteristics of Cheistianitt as 
 
 Contrasted with Judaism, 115 
 
 LECTUEE SIXTH. 
 The Eeligion of Jesus, 142 
 
 LECTUEE SEVENTH. 
 The Lesson of Death and of the Death of Jesus, . 172 
 
 LECTUEE EIGHTH. 
 The Teaching of St. Paul, . . . , . 196 
 
 LECTUEE NINTH. 
 
 The Gospel of St. John and the Idea of a Divine 
 
 Humanity, 217 
 
 LECTUEE TENTH. 
 
 General Characteristics of the Evolution of Chris- 
 tianity IN Post-Apostolic Times, .... 244 
 
CONTENTS. vil 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LEOTUEE ELEVENTH. 
 
 The Development of Christianity before the 
 
 Eeformation, 268 
 
 LECTUEE TWELFTH. 
 
 The Development op Christianity after the 
 
 Eeformation, 295 
 
 Index, 326 
 
LECTUEE FIEST. 
 
 THE CONTRAST OF OBJECTIVE AND SUBJECTIVE RELIGION. 
 
 The two Types of Religion and their Union in Christianity — 
 Ooethe's View of the Opposition — Matthew Arnx>ld!s Contrast 
 of Hellenism and Hebraism — Re-appea/rance of the Opposition 
 in Modem Life — Pop^s Earpression of Pantheism, and the 
 Objections brought against it — Pure Monotheism and the 
 Objections brought against it. 
 
 In my lectures during last session, I endeavoured 
 to set before you a view of religion as one of the 
 three great factors or elements in our conscious 
 life, which, therefore, like all the other elements or 
 factors, is subjected to a continuous process of de- 
 velopment, and only in that process gradually comes 
 to manifest its real meaning and purport. I tried to, 
 show that, just as a consciousness of the object 
 and the subject, of the world without and the self 
 within, must be supposed to exist in all rational 
 beings, so in all rational beings there is at least 
 a dawning consciousness of the unity presuppposed 
 in this difference, of the universal which originates 
 
 and transcends this elementary distinction of our life. 
 VOL. II. A 
 
2 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 As truly as it is part of our nature to look vat- 
 wards and fill our life with objective interests, as 
 truly as it is part of our nature to look inwards — 
 to return upon ourselves and to become conscious 
 of an inner life of our own in which we are 
 separated from all others — so it is part of our 
 nature, an immanent necessity of our rational being, 
 to look upwards, and to regard our whole life, inner 
 and outer, as based upon and circumscribed by a 
 Power, in whom we and all things live and move and 
 have our being. Hence the consciousness of God is 
 as near to us, as necessary to us, as the conscious- 
 ness of the world or of the self; nay, in a sense, 
 it has a higher necessity than either, and we are 
 nearer to God than to ourselves : for the conscious- 
 ness of self rests upon the idea of God, as at once 
 its first presupposition and its last end and goal. 
 All our life is a progress through the world and 
 through ourselves to the God from whom we come, 
 in whom we are, to whom we tend. 
 
 Yet, equally true is it from another point of 
 view, that the religious consciousness, the distinct 
 consciousness of this divine unity, is what is farthest 
 from us, what we attain last of all, and what it 
 is most difficult for us fully to realise. We look 
 outward before we look inward, and we look inward 
 before we look upward. We are at home with the 
 world before we attend to the self within, and we 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 3 
 
 are at home with ourselves, before we learn that 
 we cannot be true to ourselves except by rising 
 above ourselves. Thus the process is long and cir- 
 cuitous, though the end is implied in the beginning. 
 It is the paradox of development that what is first ( 
 in nature is last in genesis, and that nothing is 
 so hard for the intelligence to grasp as that which 
 is the very principle of its own life. This, indeed, j 
 must not be interpreted as meaning that, at any 
 stage of our experience, one of the elements of our 
 spiritual life can be presented to us altogether apart 
 from the others. What it means is only that, 
 according to a law of development which I have 
 already tried to illustrate, all the elements of man's 
 consciousness are at first presented in the lowest 
 form of that consciousness. Thus the idea of God 
 cannot remain absent from any human intelligence. 
 An inchoate feeling, an anticipatory idea, must 
 trouble the simplicity of sense with the hint of 
 an existence which sense cannot measure, and 
 confuse the directness of appetite with the dream 
 of some higher kind of satisfaction. But such 
 existence and such satisfaction cannot as yet be 
 represented in any form except that of sensuous 
 externality. And it needs a long process of culture 
 ere that form can be so idealised by imagination 
 and generalised by the growing power of reflexion, 
 as to produce even the higher forms of Polytheism. 
 
4 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 A still longer process is needed to prepare for that 
 recoil upon self by which man rends himself from 
 nature and learns to detect in himself, in his own 
 inward life, that 'light which never was on land 
 or sea ' ; to discover in self-consciousness and in 
 conscience the God whom the heaven of heavens 
 cannot contain. With this subjective movement the 
 moral becomes for the first time separated from the 
 natural, the spiritual bond of man to man from the 
 tie of kinship. God ceases to be the natural father 
 of a race, and becomes the spiritual source of a law 
 which is one and the same for all spiritual beings. 
 
 This recoil upon the inner life, with the conse- 
 quent substitution of a subjective for an objective 
 religion, is a process which we see taking place in 
 different nations of the ancient world, indeed, in 
 all nations which have survived so long as to enter 
 upon a certain stage of civilisation. It showed itself 
 in India in the rise of Buddhism, which was the 
 subjective counterpart of the religion of the Vedas, 
 or rather of the Pantheism in which that religion 
 ended. It showed itself again in Greece in the 
 subjective philosophies which arose in the decay of 
 the religion of beauty ; and from the Greeks it was 
 communicated to the Komans and to all the other 
 nations which took part in the civilisation of the 
 Eoman empire. In all these cases, however, it was 
 in a sense a phenomenon of decay ; it accompanied 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. o 
 
 the breaking up of a whole system of life which 
 had been based upon objective religion. It came 
 to nations which were already loaded with the 
 weight of a great inheritance from the past, with 
 a burden of traditionary beliefs and institutions 
 which no longer satisfied them, but from which 
 they could not wholly free themselves. To one 
 people only did it come at a comparatively early 
 stage of its national culture, as the vitalising 
 principle which bound them together as a nation 
 and separated them from all other nations. Thus 
 the Hebrews became a ' peculiar people,' whose pecu- 
 liarity consisted just in this, that they worshipped 
 a universal and spiritual God. It was the early 
 growth of subjective religion on Jewish soil, and its 
 identification with the consciousness of nationality, 
 that gave to the Jews their special place in the 
 religious history of the world. The violence with 
 which at a comparatively early date they, so to 
 speak, tore up the natural roots of human life, in 
 order to plant in their place the idea of an ab- 
 solute law of divine justice and to make this idea 
 the sole bond of social unity, turned them into the 
 permanent representatives of the subjective principle 
 of religion and morality ; whereas in Greece and Eome 
 that principle showed itself as a purifying power 
 only in the private life of individuals, who were Uke 
 voices crying in the wilderness to the decaying 
 
6 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 society around them. The Hebrew literature has 
 thus become what we may call the classical litera- 
 ture of ' ethical monotheism,' — its unique and perfect 
 expression, not for philosophers or men of letters, 
 but for the general conscience and consciousness of 
 men. The troubled utterance of sorrow and remorse, 
 in which the soul seeks to be delivered from the 
 world and from itself, the indignant protest of the 
 conscience against the wrongs of nature and fortune, 
 the bitter cry of humanity for justice and mercy, 
 and the yearning voice of aspiration towards the 
 infinite, of longing for goodness and for God, have 
 never spoken in such persuasive or commanding 
 tones as in the Prophets and Psalmists of Israel. 
 And it is just because of this that the Jewish 
 religion became the immediate preparation for the 
 religion of unity and reconciliation, in which God 
 is worshipped, not as a power which reveals itself 
 only to perception in the outward world, nor as a 
 power which manifests itself solely to thought in 
 the inward silence of the heart, but as ahom both 
 and in both alike. 
 
 It is my intention in the following lectures to trace 
 the process by which the Jewish religion of subjec- 
 tivity gradually worked itself out, and prepared the 
 way for the higher synthesis of objective and sub- 
 jective religion in Christianity. But it may clear our 
 way, if, in the first place, I go back for a moment on 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 7 
 
 the path which we have already followed. In this 
 lecture, therefore, I shall endeavour to illustrate in a 
 slightly different aspect, the great contrast of objective 
 and subjective religion, >of which I have spoken as the 
 two main stages in the development of the highest 
 religion. 
 
 In a series of epigrams by Goethe on the wide 
 subject, "God and the World," we find him ex- 
 pressing two views of the nature of religion ; or, 
 perhaps, we might rather say that he gives us mottoes 
 for the two great types of the religious sentiment. 
 The first type is characterised in the often quoted 
 words : " What were a God who only gave the world 
 a push from without, or let it spin round His finger ? 
 I look for a God, who moves the world from within, 
 who fosters nature in Himself, Himself in nature ; so 
 that naught of all that lives and moves and has its 
 being in Him, ever forgets His force or His spirit."^ In 
 these words we find expressed that which is usually 
 called the pantheistic view of religion ; and also that 
 dislike, which naturally goes with pantheism, of the 
 idea of an extraneous world-creator and governor, who 
 arranges arbitrarily the course of nature and the life 
 
 ' Was war" ein Gott, der niir von aussen stiesse, 
 Im Kreis das All am Finger lauf en liesse ! 
 Ihm ziemt's, die "Welt im Innern zu bewegen, 
 Natur in Sich, Sich in Natur zu hegen, 
 So dass, was in Ihm lebt und webt und ist, 
 Nie Seine Kraft, nie Seinen Geist vermisst. 
 
8 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of man, but does not realise himself in either as a 
 living, organising, self-manifesting power. This kind of 
 religious sentiment is one which is often expressed by 
 Goethe, and it may even be said to be the animating 
 principle of his best poetry. It is the source of a 
 certain antagonism to Christianity, and especially to 
 the Jewish element in it, which is traceable in many 
 of his works. Thus in writing to Jacobi, who in his 
 essay on Spinoza had maintained — as some writers 
 still maintain — that a God immanent in the world 
 is no God at all, Goethe declares that to him such a 
 doctrine appears to be flat blasphemy, and that while 
 others call Spinoza half an atheist, Ae feels bound 
 to praise him as " the most theistic and the most 
 Christian of writers." In another letter to Jacobi, 
 Goethe expresses the same idea in a humorous 
 analogy, which is not without an element of serious- 
 ness. " The truth is that I am one of the goldsmiths 
 of Ephesus who has spent his whole life in contem- 
 plating, admiring, and worshipping the wonderful 
 temple of the goddess ; and who cannot but feel it 
 painful when any apostle seeks to impose on his 
 fellow-citizens another and, indeed, a formless God." 
 Thus to Goethe, the modern Greek, as to the ancient 
 Greeks of whom St. Paul spoke, the cross seemed, at 
 times at least, to be foolishness. Yet, in an epigram 
 which immediately follows the one which I have just 
 quoted, Goethe gives expression to that side of 
 
THE TWO TYPES OE RELIGION. 9 
 
 religion, or that kind of religious sentiment, which 
 he seemed thus to reject. " In our inner life also," 
 he declares, "there is a universe. Hence the laudable 
 custom of mankind that every one calls the Best that 
 he knows by the name of God. To this God he 
 makes over heaven and earth ; Him he worships and 
 serves, and Him, if it be possible, he loves." ^ What 
 we are here told is that the ideal, and especially the 
 moral ideal, is, by a ' laudable custom of mankind ' 
 taken as the revelation of the Divine Being to whom 
 all power on heaven and earth is to be attributed. 
 And this is regarded by Goethe as a 'laudable custom,' 
 in spite of the fact that it must to some extent make 
 us sever God from nature and history, and look upon 
 Him as manifested rather in the 'inner universe,' i.e. 
 in that ideal which our desires, hopes, and aspira- 
 tions oppose to the world as it is, or, at least, 
 as it at first seems to be. These ■ desires, hopes, and 
 aspirations, he appears to admit, are to be regarded 
 as a manifestation, and, indeed, as a higher mani- 
 festation of the divine principle than can be found in 
 the world of outward experience. Thdr prophecies 
 may be truer than history, because they contain 
 
 1 Im Innern ist ein Universum auch 
 Daher der Volker loblicher Gebrauch, 
 Dass jeglicher das Beste was er kennt, 
 Er Gott, ja Seinen Gott henennt, 
 Ihm Himmel uiid Erden ubergiebt, 
 Ihn flirchtet und, Wo moglich, liebt. 
 
10 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 something more of the divine than history has 
 expressed as yet, or, perhaps, than it ever can fully 
 express. 
 
 It would appear then that Goethe recognises tveb 
 different types of religion : on the one hand, a religion 
 which rests in God as revealed in nature and man, — 
 revealed, not, indeed, to one who abides by superficial 
 phenomena, but to one who regards these phenomena 
 as symbols of an absolute and infinite Being. To 
 this contemplative religion the divine is everywhere 
 immediately present. " As far as the ear, as far as the 
 eye can reach, thou findest nothing strange, nothing 
 but the likenesses of Him; and the highest fire -flight 
 of thy spirit never lacks image or symbol to body 
 Him forth. It draws thee on, farther and farther 
 it carries thee, and all the path thou dost travel puts 
 on a garment of beauty. No more dost thou number, 
 no more dost thou measure, for every step is in 
 the infinite." So Goethe sings the divine beauty 
 of the world, as it reveals itself to the contem- 
 plative imagination of the poet, whose sacred func- 
 tion it is, as it were, to re-echo the judgment of the 
 Creator upon His work — that 'it is very good.' 
 But Goethe had discovered that there is another 
 religion — a religion not of rest and joyful contempla- 
 tion, but of struggle, and hope, and aspiration; a 
 religion which sets man in antagonism to the actual 
 world, and commits him to an endless effort to make 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 11 
 
 it conform to the demands of his own spirit ; a religion 
 which cannot be reconciled with the world, except by- 
 regarding the world as a means to realise something 
 better than itself. For this religion, the highest is not 
 without but within; the authentic voice of God is not 
 in the beauty and brightness of the external kingdom 
 of nature. Eather, if it sought God without at all, it 
 would seek Him in the darkness and tumult of the 
 elemental powers, in " fire and hail, snow and vapour, 
 stormy wind fulfilling His word."^ But, like Elijah, 
 it rejects all these to find that voice in the inward 
 demand for justice and truth, in the indignant recoil 
 of the conscience against that which is foul and cruel, 
 in the unconquerable longing of the soul for a world 
 regenerated by mercy and love. If it is to believe in 
 a God, it must believe that these feelings are pro- 
 phetic, and that everything which seems to oppose and 
 thwart them is but an appearance that is destined to 
 pass away. It must believe that wickedness is weak- 
 ness, and that right is might; that, as it has been 
 expressed epigrammatically, "one with God is a 
 majority," that ' the stars in their courses fight against ' 
 the wicked, and that he who is for the good cause 
 can never be really defeated. Its creed is the creed 
 of Carlyle : " Await the issue : in all battles, if you 
 await the issue, each fighter is prospered according to 
 his right. His right and his might, at the close of 
 1 Psalms cxlviii. 8. 
 
12 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the account, are one and the same. He has fought 
 with all his might, and in exact proportion to his 
 right he has prevailed. His very death is no victory 
 over him : he dies indeed, but his work lives. The 
 cause thou fightest for, in so far as it is true, so far 
 and no farther, but precisely so far, is sure of victory." 
 Now it is obvious that we have here a fundamental 
 antinomy of the religious consciousness, which is as 
 wide as the moral antinomy between what is and what 
 ought to he; and which shows itself not only in the 
 fluctuations of the religious feeling of individuals, but 
 also, on the great scale of history, in the opposition 
 of the two great classes of pre-Christian religions, and 
 even in the conflict and alternate predominance of two 
 opposite tendencies in the Christian religion itself In 
 this point of view we may regard all objective religions 
 as, in a sense, pantheistic ; for it is their predominant 
 tendency to rest in that which is. For, as we saw in a 
 former lecture, the ultimate form — the euthayiasia or 
 expiring voice of such religion — is an all-levelling 
 pantheism, which, in reaching after the infinite, goes 
 beyond all special finite objects, even the most com- 
 prehensive, and merges them all in the one substance, 
 or force, or spirit, and which has no command for the 
 individual except to forget himself, and contemplate 
 God, and be at peace. On the other hand, we 
 may regard all subjective religion as finding its 
 typical expression in that ' ethical monotheism,' 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 13 
 
 which hears God's voice only, or mainly, in the ; 
 categorical imperative of a law of righteousness, 
 and which commits man to an endless war with 
 nature and circumstance, and an endless effort to 
 realise the kingdom of God upon earth. No greater 
 antithesis could be conceived than that which exists 
 between these two religious attitudes : between the 
 attitude of the contemplative Hindoo saint, and 
 that of the Israelite trusting in the " sword of the 
 Lord and of Gideon " ; or even between that chastened 
 joy in the riches and freedom of finite existence which 
 we find in Pindar, and that divine discontent with the 
 present, and that inspired hope of the future which 
 breathe through the prophecies of Isaiah. There 
 seems at first no way of binding together such funda- 
 mental oppositions of thought. For, on the one side, 
 we find the religious mind laying all its emphasis on 
 the idea that God is immanent in the world ; that, 
 indeed, the world is nothing but the garment of deity; 
 and that, therefore, its apparent imperfection and evil 
 exists only for us, — in so far as we fail to see the 
 unity, which underlies all its difference and change 
 and which is continually bringing them back to itself. 
 And, on the other side, we find the religious mind 
 dwelling on the idea of God as a transcendent Being, 
 who separates Himself from all the creatures He has 
 made — from nature as its Creator, and from man as 
 his stern and righteous Judge ; and we find it regard- 
 
14 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 ing the whole process of human life in the light of an 
 ideal which condemns it as imperfect and evil. 
 
 We may illustrate this contrast in another way. 
 An eminent writer has said that the two great factors 
 in modern life are Hebraism and Hellenism. But to 
 make such an assertion correct, we must at once 
 generalise and narrow it. We must regard Hellenism 
 as the representative of all objective religions, in so 
 far as they have a common pantheistic basis ; while we 
 must regard Hebraism as the general representative of 
 subjective religion, the religion of moral obligation and 
 moral aspiration. And, moreover, we must remember 
 that we have not now the direct collision of these 
 opposites ; but that, in modern life, the reconciling 
 principle of Christianity is ever mediating between the 
 two, and reducing their antagonism to the relative 
 opposition of different elements or organs in one life. 
 With these modifications, however, we may admit that 
 Matthew Arnold's saying represents a truth ; and by 
 considering the contrasted defects and merits of the 
 two types of religion, and even the different accusa- 
 tions which their adherents are wont to bring against 
 each other, we may help ourselves to discern more 
 clearly the meaning of the different tendencies which 
 compete and co-operate in our own lives. For this 
 purpose it will not be necessary to take more than a 
 very general view of the religions in question. 
 
 Eeligions of the Hellenic type dwelt in the world. 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 15 
 
 They were at one with the social life and politics of 
 the nations among whom they prevailed. As religions 
 of the poetic sense, they welcomed the aid of art. 
 They were tolerant of interests and pursuits other 
 than their own, rarely intolerant even of the science 
 and philosophy which destroyed them. They conse- 
 crated the bonds of national life and made patriotism 
 one with piety. But, as they mingled together the 
 natural and the spiritual, they were defective in puri- 
 fying moral influence. They did not awake a clear 
 consciousness of the distinction between the lower 
 and the higher nature of man ; or, if they did, they 
 'healed the hurt' of his spirit 'slightly.' Their highest 
 devotion was a worship of the Eternal, the Unchanging, 
 the Aesthetic Ideal ; not of a 'just God and a Saviour.' 
 When their influence was at its highest point, they led 
 men to seek for that which is true, for that which is, 
 and to rest in resignation to its absolute necessity. 
 Hebraism, on the other hand, took its stand on the 
 spirituality of God, as lifted in His holiness above all 
 His creatures. As a consequence, it emphasised the 
 contrast between that which is and that which ought 
 to 'be, and called forth a desire for purity and holiness, 
 such as was unknown to any other race. Its stern 
 commands awoke in its adherents a consuming zeal 
 for righteousness which refused to make any terms 
 with evil, and saved them as by fire from the pollut- 
 ing compromises of heathenism. On the other hand, 
 
16 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 it was narrow, unspeculative, often fanatical. In 
 its exclusive regard for divine holiness it tended to 
 intolerance and jealous hatred of almost every civil- 
 ising influence. The monotonous intensity of its 
 piety was unfavourable to any exercise of the intelli- 
 gence or of the imagination, which could not be made 
 directly subservient to religious purposes. It allowed 
 only one channel in which the higher life of man 
 might flow. It often put so wide a division between 
 God and His creatures that all interest in earthly 
 things became profane in its eyes ; and it could not 
 allow either Art or Science to have any independent 
 activity of its own. Hence, when Art and Science 
 did make their way into a monotheistic nation, they 
 generally came in as enemies, bringing religious 
 corruption and moral laxity in their train. There 
 seemed to be no middle state for monotheistic piety: 
 when it did not rise to the highest, it sank to the 
 lowest. If its adherents were not saints, they became 
 sensualists. Thus, during the time when the Jewish 
 religion was showing its highest purity and power 
 in the prophets, it had to struggle for existence 
 against a sensual and immoral idolatry ; and when 
 that time was past, it sank into the formal correctness 
 and legalism of the Pharisee, who lived for the saving 
 of his soul and to whom every other interest was 
 sinful. Pure Hebraism has always shown itself full 
 of energy, both in its beginning and in its repeated 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 17 
 
 revivals ; for it seems to spring up again and again 
 with renewed strength from every soil in which it has 
 once taken root ; and at every such revival, it has, 
 for a time, given a great stimulus to the moral life 
 of man. But, whenever simple religious feeling has 
 ceased to be self-sufficient, it has not been able to 
 endure the contact of other influences, whether 
 political or scientific, literary or artistic ; and it has 
 signally failed to penetrate them with its spirit, and 
 absorb them as elements into its own life. 
 
 If this general contrast hold good, we need not 
 wonder that two such opposed types of religion and of 
 civilisation should show themselves to be mutually 
 repellent. They must repel each other, because each 
 of them in its own way aims at universality, though 
 their methods of attaining it are very different. The 
 Hellenic type of religion naturally proceeds by the 
 method of all-inclusive toleranux. Polytheism can 
 easily find room for a new god in its Pantheon ; 
 and pantheism can as easily remerge another indi- 
 viduality in its all-embracing, all-absorbing substance. 
 Such a religion also readily finds room within its 
 spacious bosom for all varieties of finite life, for all 
 species of human interests. Art is welcome to it, 
 as the revelation of the one in the many ; Science 
 and Philosophy as the reduction of the many to 
 the one. On the other hand, the Hebraic type of 
 
 religion as naturally proceeds, we might almost say, 
 VOL. II. B 
 
IS THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 by the method of intolerance. The God of mono- 
 theism is an exclusive Ego who admits no other 
 God beside Himself ; and its adherents have always 
 refused to accept any position for their religion but 
 that of absolute supremacy. The easy tolerance of 
 Eome found in the Jews a nation which could not 
 be absorbed except by being extinguished, and which, 
 indeed, was not extinguished till, in a higher sense 
 than even Greece, it had made spiritual conquest 
 of its conquerors. Thus, in striving after universality, 
 the two principles are necessarily forced into a war, 
 which it is difficult to regard as other than inter- 
 necine. Even in modern times when, as I have 
 already said, they have become subdued into harmony, 
 or at least into reciprocal toleration, by the long 
 influence of the reconciling principle of Christianity, 
 we find the antagonism bursting out afresh with a 
 suddenness and explosive force which looks like the 
 rebound of an ineradicable instinct of nature. How 
 often, in our own day, do we thus see renewed the 
 old quarrel of the saint, the religious man, the moral 
 teacher, against the philosopher, the scientific man, 
 the artist. The former finds the latter too worldly 
 and indifferent, too willing to treat evil with toleration 
 and to make compromises with it, too much inclined 
 to regard the ' one thing needful ' as only one of 
 the various interests of mankind, and not as the 
 supreme interest to which everything should be 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 19 
 
 sacrificed. The latter finds the former too narrow 
 and intolerant, too anxious for instant moral gains, 
 too eager to proselytise and convert, too careful for 
 safety, and too careless about truth. Thus the two 
 great classes of the servants of humanity get ranged 
 into opposite camps, and the individual finds it hard 
 to avoid being enlisted in one or other, except at 
 the expense of being treated as a traitor by both. If 
 this is so even in our own day, we need not wonder 
 that in the past, — when there were few or none of 
 those mediating or universalising influences which now 
 modify the strife of opposing principles, and when 
 each nation and society lived more exclusively under 
 the dominance of its own idea, — Jew and GentUe 
 should have misunderstood and offended each other, 
 just because they were inspired by apparently con- 
 tradictory, though really complementary, truths. Of 
 no struggle that has divided human beings would it 
 be more true to say, in the language of St. Paul, that 
 it has been a conflict not of individuals against 
 individuals, nor even of nations against nations, but 
 of ' principalities and powers,' — of those great spiritual 
 forces in humanity to which individuals and nations 
 are but the organs and instruments. 
 
 We may help ourselves still more vividly to realise 
 the reality and vitality of this great conflict, if we 
 think of the objections which are commonly brought 
 against any theories that approximate to one or other 
 
20 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of the two extremes. Thus the pantheism, in which 
 objective religion terminates, is represented to us 
 in its simplest and crudest form in Pope's Essay on 
 Man, as a theory which gathers up all the various 
 objects in the world to an absolute unity, justifies 
 all the parts in view of the whole, and, from the same 
 point of view, denies the reality of any standard of 
 excellence by which any one part could claim a superi- 
 ority over the rest. 
 
 " All are but parts of oue stupendous whole, 
 Whose body nature is, and God the soul ; 
 That, changed through all and yet in all the same, 
 Great in the earth as in the aethereal frame, 
 Warms in the sun, refreshes in the breeze. 
 Glows in the stars, and blossoms in the trees ; 
 Lives through all life, extends through all extent, 
 Spreads undivided, operates unspent, 
 Breathes in our soul, informs our mortal part, 
 As full, as perfect, in a hair as heart ; 
 As full, as perfect, in vile man that mourns, 
 As the rapt seraph that adores and burns ; 
 To Him no high, no low, no great, no small. 
 He fills. He bounds, connects and equals all." 
 
 From this point of view all difference, even the differ- 
 ence of good and evil, vanish away in a universal 
 optimism, and the poet can declare 
 
 "All discord, harmony not understood, 
 All partial evil universal good ; 
 And, spite of pride, in erring reason's spite, 
 One truth is clear, whatever is, is right." 
 
 The whole is good, because it is the whole, and, as 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 21 
 
 such, is eternally one with itself: and, indeed, nothing 
 
 really exists but the whole ; for the part, if it was seen 
 
 truly, would be merged in the whole. Any standard, 
 
 therefore, which would lift one thing above another, 
 
 would be an abstract and partial standard. If things 
 
 are referred to the whole, it justifies them all alike as 
 
 parts ; and it condemns them all alike, if they pretend 
 
 to be more. 
 
 Prom this point of view the moral standard can as 
 
 little be admitted as any other ; for the same power 
 
 that " heaves old ocean," and " wings the storm," must 
 
 be conceived also to 
 
 " Pour fierce ambition in a Caesar's mind, 
 And turn young Ammon loose to scourge mankind." 
 
 The facile flow of Pope's verse, and the easy way in 
 which he escapes from moral distinctions and from all 
 other distinctions, by regarding them as the products 
 of our limited and imperfect view of things, exposes in 
 the most open way the weak side of this pantheistic 
 optimism. But the objections to which it is liable are 
 the same that are commonly brought against every 
 form of pantheism, from that of Spinoza downwards. 
 Thus it is objected to such pantheism, in the first 
 place, that, if all distinctions of being are lost in the 
 absolute unity, the very assertion that ' all is for the 
 best,' that ' whatever is, is right,' loses all its meaning. 
 A theory, in which all ground for the division of good 
 and evil is swept away, might as rationally be called 
 
22 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 a pessimism as an optimism. If, as being ourselves 
 finite parts of a finite world, we have no right to 
 condemn anything ; if our condemnation merely shows 
 the imperfection of our standard, how is it that we 
 can rise to the idea of the whole, and in view of it 
 justify everything ? Again, it is objected that, if all 
 standards of preference, and especially all moral 
 standards, are to be rejected as illusions of finitude, 
 this really means, not only that our whole moral 
 consciousness, our consciousness of freedom and re- 
 sponsibility, has to be regarded as such an illusion, 
 but also that the same thing must be said of our very 
 consciousness of self. All differences disappear in the 
 unity of substance ; and the unity itself, the white 
 light of truth, becomes unknowable, except through 
 the rainbow illusion of finite existence to which it is 
 opposed. For, if man himself is nothing but a part of 
 the great whole — a wave of the ocean, that somehow 
 for a moment seems to itself and to other finite beings 
 to have a substantial reality of its own — how should 
 this passing mode be able, not only to think itself as 
 such a substance, but also to rise to an apprehension 
 of the infinite and the eternal, and so to transcend 
 and refute the illusion of its own existence ? That a 
 dream or a shadow should know itself is an im- 
 possibility ; and still more — if there are grades in 
 impossibility — that it should know itself to be a dream 
 and a shadow, and that it should recognise the reality 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 23 
 
 from which it is divorced. The pantheism which 
 begins by annulling the moral responsibility of the 
 individual is, when logically carried out, equally fatal 
 to the consciousness of self and of God, and thus to 
 the possibility of pantheism itself. It is, however, the 
 former objection rather than the latter, which we most 
 often hear; for the practical moral consciousness — 
 apart from all metaphysical reflexion and in spite of 
 it — cries out against any theory that would treat its 
 standards and distinctions as illusive projections of 
 the finite intelligence. Eather, it asserts them to be 
 the surest of all truths, bound up with our inmost life 
 and being, and based upon an inner experience which 
 is more evident and self-evidencing to us than any 
 other consciousness can ever be. 
 
 On the other hand, if we take monotheism in 
 an equally hard and abstract form, as expressed in 
 the conception of an all-wise Creator and Governor 
 of the world, who stands apart from it and from 
 us, as we finite individuals stand apart from each 
 other, who has laid down for us an absolute law 
 of right, and gifted us with freedom to obey or 
 to disobey it, and who rewards and punishes us 
 according as we do the one or the other, this, no doubt, 
 is a religion which, up to a certain point, satisfies 
 the moral consciousness and maintains the justice of 
 God and the responsibility of man. But it does so 
 at the cost of breaking so completely with all the facts 
 
 L*-- 
 
24 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of experience, that its greatest modern supporter was 
 forced to maintain that the outward and phenomenal 
 view of man, and the inward or noumenal view of 
 him, are essentially irreconcilable. Such a re ligio n 
 isolates the individual man from the world and from 
 other men, in order to gift him with an absolute and 
 unlimited responsibility for all that he is and does. 
 Thus it is inconsistent with the admission of any 
 inborn tendency in him either to evil or to good ; 
 or it can be made consistent therewith only by the 
 transcendental hypothesis of a prenatal act of free- 
 dom, which determines our earthly condition. And it 
 practically denies the social nature of man, and 
 reduces society to the external intercourse of beings, 
 each of whom is 'master of himself and his fate,' 
 in a sense which excludes any real spiritual influ- 
 ence of one upon another either for good or for 
 evil. Nay, in its effort to vindicate God from the 
 charge of being the cause of evil and sin, it tends in 
 another way to come into collision with the element- 
 ary sentiment of all religion, the feeling of depend- 
 ence upon Grod ; while, at the same time, it destroys 
 that earliest form of religious morality, in which 
 the sense of intimate community between men was 
 based on their common relation to the divine. It 
 offends science by the assertion of a kind of free- 
 dom in individuals which seems to be the negation 
 of all laws of causation ; and it offends philosophy. 
 
THE TWO TYPES OF RELIGION. 25 
 
 by the denial that there is any point of view from 
 which the differences of things can be brought back 
 to a rational unity. For it seems to involve not 
 only that the distinction of good and evil is real, 
 but that there is an absolute evil which never can 
 be made the means to a greater good. In short, to 
 sum up all in a word, the logical development of 
 this religious view would place each individual in 
 such an isolation of personality as to make impos- 
 sible the unity of the whole system of things, and, 
 more especially, the real spiritual relation of men 
 to each other and to God. 
 
 It is easy to see that in all this we are face to 
 face with no mere contest about words, but with an 
 antagonism of spiritual interests, both of which are 
 equally vital to humanity; with a conflict of opposite 
 phases of the truth, which it seems impossible to 
 reconcile, while yet it is equally impossible to sacri- 
 fice one of them to the other. If, as Hegel said, 
 a true tragedy must be based, not on the conflict 
 of right with wrong but on the conflict of right 
 with right, it may fairly be asserted th* this is the 
 deepest of all those oppositions of truth to truth 
 which give rise to the great tragic conflicts of his- 
 tory. In such a struggle no complete victory is 
 possible; because there is no possible victory of idea 
 over idea, except by their common absorption in 
 one which is higher and more comprehensive than: 
 
26 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 either. Here, indeed, the contrast is so deep and 
 far-reaching that the opposite forms of thought 
 are continually finding new organs of expression 
 for themselves ; and the conflict that seemed to be 
 ended in one generation breaks out afresh in the 
 next. For Christian nations, indeed, it may perhaps 
 be said that the reconciling principle is already 
 present, keeping the conflict within bounds, and 
 always in the long run bringing it to an issue 
 in a definite direction; but that principle is so hard 
 to grasp and express in a conclusive form, and so 
 difficult to follow out into a new application, that 
 the old struggle always begins again in a new 
 form. Indeed, it may almost be said to be a 
 struggle which, in one form or another, is essential 
 to human development, and which, therefore, must 
 continue as long as that development itself. 
 
LECTUEE SECOND. 
 
 THE IDEA OF THE RELATION OE GOODNESS TO HAPPINESS, 
 AND ITS DEVELOPMENT IN THE OLD TESTAMENT. 
 
 The Moral Influence of Jewish Monotheism as contrasted with that 
 of other Religions — Old Testament View of Man's Relation to God 
 — Similar Vein of Thought in Pascal — Why this Religion is a 
 Religion of Prophecy — The Idea of a Present Division between 
 Ooodness and Happiness, and a Future Reconciliation — Gradual 
 Increase of the Difficulty owing to Higher Ideas both of Goodness 
 and Happiness — Corresponding Changes in the Idea of their 
 Reconciliation — The Rise of Messianic Hopes — The Resurrection 
 of the Just. 
 
 In the previous lecture I have contrasted the two 
 forms of objective and subjective religion, as having 
 respectively a predominantly contemplative or a pre- 
 dominantly practical tendency. I have spoken of 
 the former as leading to the restful, contemplative 
 worship of a God, who is realised and manifested 
 in the actual movement of nature and of human 
 life ; while the latter sets man in antagonism with 
 nature, with fortune, and with himself — makes him 
 
28 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 measure his own life and the life of the society 
 to which he belongs by an ideal standard, and con- 
 demn both as inadequate to his desires and his 
 aspirations. The former is, therefore, a religion 
 which reconciles the individual to his world, his 
 natural and ethical environment, or, at the worst, 
 in its most abstract pantheistic form, — inspires him 
 with resignation and submission to it as an in- 
 evitable fate ; while the latter is a religion that pro- 
 claims ' woe ' to those that are ' at ease in Zion,' 
 stings man into activity by the contrast between 
 that which is and that which oi(,ght to he, and fills 
 him with an inextinguishable longing and aspiration 
 after a perfection which he finds nowhere realised 
 on earth. This must not, indeed, be understood to 
 mean that religions of the objective type are alto- 
 gether without ethical influence. On the contrary, 
 even in a very primitive form of such religion, the 
 gods are regarded as the forefathers of the race of 
 their worshippers ; and their worship is therefore 
 bound up with the natural piety which unites the 
 individual to his kinsmen. So also in Greece and 
 Eome civic patriotism was consecrated by a religion 
 which combined the worship of the gods with the 
 service of the State. And it may fairly be said that, 
 throughout all the ancient world, the principle of 
 nationality and the worship of a national god were 
 essentially bound up together. Even the Indian 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 29 
 
 pantheism turned religion into a support of social 
 morality, in so far as it consecrated the order of 
 the caste system, and inculcated resignation to its 
 inequalities, by tracing them back to a divin« principle 
 which was beyond this and all other differences. But 
 in all these cases the ethical spirit of objective re- 
 ligion had one defect. The moral division of man's 
 life had not yet become distinctly conscious of itself, 
 and therefore it could not be healed in other than 
 an imperfect and unspiritual manner. The natural 
 and the moral, the real and the ideal, that which 
 is and that which ought to be, were not yet dis- 
 tinguished ; or, at least, the depth and meaning of 
 the distinction was not yet fathomed ; and therefore 
 a complete and adequate reconciliation of them could 
 not be achieved. For, until the extent of a difference 
 is measured, until the source and origin of an oppo- 
 sition is discerned, every combination of the con- 
 flicting elements must be merely a compromise. It 
 is only when the antagonism has been fully worked 
 out and sharpened to its utmost intensity, that we 
 can look through and beyond it, and discern whether 
 after all there is not a principle of unity, which 
 is presupposed in the division, and therefore is cap- 
 able of overcoming it. Now, the ethics of objective 
 religion has never sufficiently broken away from its 
 physical starting point ; the social obligations which 
 it acknowledges are still based on natural distinc- 
 
30 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 tions and relations, and the virtues which it culti- 
 vates are still the development of special natural 
 gifts. As poetry reveals spiritual truth under a sen- 
 suous form which is inadequate to it, so, for objective 
 religion, the spiritual origin of the social relations 
 of man is still hidden under the disguise of natural 
 ties of blood. And if, even as so hidden, it could 
 elevate and idealise the natural bonds of union, 
 yet it could neither break away from them alto- 
 gether, nor avoid paying a certain penalty for their 
 imperfection. But it is just here that subjective 
 religion shows its superiority. In rending away the 
 conscious self from all mere objects, it imposes its 
 own form upon the Absolute, i.e. upon the unity 
 which is presupposed in the consciousness of the 
 self as truly as in the consciousness of objects, and 
 from which therefore the self cannot be separated. 
 In this way, the idea of the spirituality of God 
 and the idea of His absolute moral demands upon 
 man, spring up together. Man is lifted out of 
 the rank of other objects by his consciousness of 
 himself as a subject ; and, by the same movement 
 of reiiexion, he is brought into relation with an ab- 
 solutely holy will, and made aware of an ideal law 
 which, as a spiritual being, he is bound to fulfil, 
 but which, because he is also a natural being, he 
 is far from fulfilling. Thus the exalting sense of 
 dignity, the consciousness that he is "made but 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 31 
 
 a little lower than God,"i and that "all things 
 are put under his feet," passes immediately into 
 the humbling feeling of weakness and finitude. 
 "What is man that Thou art mindful of him, or 
 the son of man that Thou visitest him ? " His con- 
 sciousness of being made in the image of God at j 
 once lifts him up and casts him down ; lifts him 
 up with the idea of his nearness to the divine, 
 and of a "glory and honour" in which no other 
 creature partakes, but casts him down with the 
 sense of his finitude. The closeness of the relation, 
 and at the same time the disproportion of the re- 
 lation, between God and man, oppress the soul with 
 an awe from which it cannot liberate itself How, 
 as Job asks, shall a man plead his right with God 
 " as a man with his neighbour " ? The conscious- 
 ness of an infinite Being, the source of all that 
 calls itself wisdom and goodness, whenever it is 
 fully realised, makes the soul that has entertained 
 it shrink into itself with horror. "I had heard of 
 Thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine 
 eye seeth Thee. Therefore I abhor myself, and 
 repent in dust and ashes." ^ This recoil of the 
 mind against the idea of questioning God may take 
 various forms. It may present itself simply as the 
 
 ' Psalm Yiii. 5. The above is the correct translation. The 
 word is 'Elohim.' 
 2 Job xlii. 6. 
 
32 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 absurdity of finitude turning upon the infinite Being, 
 and challenging His will, as if it could detach itself 
 from Him or find an independent standing ground of 
 its own. " Shall the clay say to him who fashioneth 
 it : What makest thou ? or thy work : He hath .no 
 hands''?^ In a higher mood it appears as a conscious- 
 ness of the impossibility of separating the thought of 
 righteousness from the source of all right, and of 
 uniting it with the frailty of man. " Shall not 
 the judge of all the earth do right ? " ^ " What 
 is man that he should be clean, or he that is 
 born of a woman that he should be righteous ? 
 Behold he putteth no trust in His holy ones, yea, 
 the heavens are not clean in His sight." ^ But even 
 this prostration has in it a principle that elevates 
 man far above the level of that finitude in which 
 he is confused with all the other creatures; for 
 the consciousness of finitude cannot exist in one 
 who is altogether finite. 
 
 Among modern writers Pascal has most vividly 
 expressed, and at the same time analysed, this funda- 
 mentally Jewish conception of the grandeur et misdre 
 de I'homme, — his wretchedness, because he is conscious 
 of the infinite in contrast with his own finitude; and 
 his greatness, because he is conscious of it. Beginning 
 with the external infinitude of space and power, Pascal 
 says : " Space comprehends and swallows me up like a 
 ' Isa. xlv. 9. ^ Gen. xviii. 25. ^ Job xv. 14, 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 33 
 
 point ; but by thought I comprehend it." " Man is 
 but a reed, the weakest thing in nature ; but he is a 
 thinking reed. It is not needful that the universe 
 should arm itself to crush him. A breath of vapour, 
 a drop of water, is enough to kill him. But even 
 if the universe were to crush him, man would be 
 more noble than that which slays him, because he 
 knows that he dies." Again the same consciousness 
 of limit, as against the unlimited, turns into the 
 demand for satisfaction which man makes against the A' 
 world, and which the world cannot answer. "Why 
 does man weary of everything, and seek to delude 
 himself by a multitude of occupations ? Is it not 
 because he has the idea of a happiness which he 
 has lost, and which, finding it not in himself, he 
 seeks vainly in external things, without ever being 
 able to content himself; for it is to be found neither 
 within nor without us, but in God alone ? " Yet " he 
 who finds it miserable not to be a king must be a 
 king dethroned," and the very consciousness of misery 
 from which man cannot escape is the seal of his 
 greatness. " It is dangerous to let man see too clearly 
 how he is on a level with the animals, without show- 
 ing him his greatness. It is dangerous to let him see 
 too clearly his greatness, without his meanness. If he 
 boasts himself, I abase him ; if he abases himself, I 
 exalt him. I contradict him continually, till he com- 
 prehends what an incomprehensible monster he is." 
 VOL. II. 
 
34 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Pascal proceeds to explain the inconsistencies of such 
 a nature by the idea of the fall of man from an 
 original state, in which he was in harmony with God 
 and with himself. " If man had never been corrupted, 
 in his innocence he would confidently enjoy truth and 
 felicity. If he had never been anything but corrupt, 
 he would have no idea of truth or happiness. But, 
 wretched that we are, we have an idea of happiness 
 and cannot attain it : we perceive an image of truth, 
 and we possess a lie. Alike incapable of absolute 
 ignorance and of certain knowledge, the one thing 
 that we know is, that we were once in a grade of 
 perfection from which we have miserably fallen." 
 
 In these words we have a reflective reproduction 
 of the same attitude of mind which characterises the 
 religion of the Old Testament — a religion in which 
 man is elevated above all other things, and even above 
 his own natural self, by being brought near to God ; 
 but in which this elevation at once turns into such an 
 overpowering awe, and such a trembling sense of weak- 
 ness and unworthiness, that any thought of pride or 
 self-confidence is entirely excluded. It is this that 
 gives its higher moral meaning to such expressions as 
 those of Isaiah : " Who among us can dwell with the 
 devouring fire ? " ^ i.e. in the immediate presence of 
 an absolute righteousness. For the answer : " He that 
 walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly," shows 
 Isa. xxxiii. 14. 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 35 
 
 that Isaiah is not speaking of a mere worship of 
 terror, but of the awe of infinite perfection. The 
 intense searching of heart produced by conscious near- 
 ness to the divine light has never been expressed with 
 such startling force as in some of the Psalms and in 
 passages of the prophetic books. It is this which 
 puts a wide gulf between them and the religious books 
 of all other nations, in which the division of man's 
 nature, — the opposition between his consciousness of 
 himself in his immediate individuality and his con- 
 sciousness of God as the universal power and principle 
 of his life, — is yet latent or imperfectly expressed ; 
 and in which, therefore, neither the sense of sin nor i 
 the thirst for a higher than earthly satisfaction could ' 
 possibly take such definite form. 
 
 One great consequence of this is that Judaism 
 is a religion of pro;phecy, a religion which, unlike the 
 religions of classical antiquity, lives not in the present 
 but in the future. For, as we have seen, it is a 
 religion which puts man at war with his circum- 
 stances and with himself in the present ; but which 
 views the defects of the present in relation to a past 
 good which he has lost, and to a future good which he 
 seeks to regain. Wherever we open his pages, we 
 find the Hebrew prophet or psalmist looking hack, 
 out of the evil and suffering of his own time, to 
 an original blessedness, an incorrupt state of human 
 nature which has become depraved, a covenant with 
 
36 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 God which has been broken : and we find him looking 
 forward to a better future in which the broken unity 
 of man with God and with himself shall be restored. 
 He is waiting for a happiness that is to come, and 
 which he supposes his people to have enjoyed in the 
 past ; and his explanation of the absence of such 
 happiness from the present is always the moral failure 
 of his own generation. The covenant made with the 
 God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob has been forgotten, 
 and therefore the promise which was attached to it 
 cannot be immediately fulfilled. But, through all, 
 there is a faithful remnant, who cling to the divine 
 law and its Author and bear in their breast the 
 promise of the better and happier time to come. 
 
 Into this ' Cadre ' of an original unity, a present 
 division, and an ultimate reconciliation and restoration, 
 — the great writers of Israel introduce all the facts of 
 life ; and by means of it they supply for these facts 
 a moral interpretation. Hence, as I have said, their 
 religion is a religion of prophecy, in which reference 
 to the future takes the place which, in religions of 
 what I have called the objective type, is taken by 
 reference to the present. Subjective religion, as it 
 arises out of an opposition between the self and the 
 not-self, between the inward ideal of the heart and 
 the immediate facts of the outward life, worships a 
 God who is defined in terms of his subjective ideal. 
 Hence it must believe that the antagonism between 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 37 
 
 the ideal and the immediate or apparent reality is 
 only superficial and temporary ; and it must look 
 forward to a final reconciliation, in which the ideal 
 will be shown to be real and right to be might. 
 Indeed, the history of Jewish religion may be said 
 to be just the history of the development of this 
 view of man's life from its simplest to its most 
 complex form. 
 
 At first, the contrast or discord between the ideal 
 and the real is confined within very narrow limits ; 
 and all that is felt is, that, if we regard the outward 
 fortunes of men as a distribution of rewards and 
 punishments for goodness and wickedness, the awards 
 do not seem to be such as to satisfy our sense of 
 justice. The just is not prosperous nor the wicked 
 punished. Even this difficulty is at first mitigated 
 by two things : by the idea that goodness is not 
 assured till it is tried by temptation, and by the idea 
 that it is the race rather than the individual that is 
 the subject of reward and punishment. In early 
 times the solidarity of the kinship is such that it 
 does not occur to the individual to regard as unjust 
 a suffering which he endures in behalf of, or along 
 with, his people. And, though the spirit of mono- 
 theistic religion tends more and more to sever the 
 individual from his race and to throw him back upon 
 himself, it is only at a comparatively late period, and 
 when the Jewish nationality is verging to its fall, 
 
38 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 that the individualistic principle is distinctly ex- 
 pressed. It is only then declared that the proverb : 
 "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the chil- 
 dren's teeth are set on edge " shall no more be heard 
 in Israel ; but " the soul that sinneth, it shall die." ' 
 
 When, however, this gospel of individual respon- 
 sibility was once promulgated — and we have seen that 
 it was from the first involved in subjective religion — 
 the problem of human life became much harder to 
 solve ; for, if it be difficult to see the execution of 
 a divine justice in the history of nations, how is it 
 possible to discern it at all in the fortunes of in- 
 dividuals ? The doctrine that the suffering of the 
 righteous and the success of the wicked are temporary, 
 may help for a little to avert the pressure of this 
 dif&culty. " I have seen the wicked great in power, 
 spreading himself like a green bay tree : yet he passed 
 away, and lo ! he was not, and when I sought him, 
 he could not be found. Mark the perfect man, and 
 behold the upright, for the latter end of that man 
 is peace." ^ But how could such a belief hold out 
 against the calamities of the later period of the history 
 of Judah, which seemed to fall most heavily just upon 
 those who, like the prophet Jeremiah, were most 
 faithful to the task laid upon them, and which struck 
 down the pious king Josiah in battle, while they 
 allowed the impious Manasseh to enjoy a long reign ? 
 ' Jer. ixxi. 30 ; Ezek. xviii. 2. ^ Psalms xxxvii. 36. 
 
goojdness and happiness. 39 
 
 Ultimately, the sober worldly wisdom, which was 
 never wanting to the Jews, came to discern that 
 " there be just men to whom it happeneth according 
 to the work of the wicked, and again there be wicked 
 men to whom it happeneth according to the work of 
 the righteous 'V and that the oppressions of the rich 
 and powerful, and the sufferings of the poor and weak, 
 did not frequently end in any retributive reversal 
 of their lot upon earth. The book of Ecclesiastes — 
 which, however, is now supposed to be of very late 
 date^ — shows that there were men among the Jewish 
 nation, who, in this sense, sounded the depth of 
 pessimism. " So I returned, and considered all the 
 oppressions that are done under the sun : and beheld 
 the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had 
 no comforter. Wherefore I praised the dead which 
 are already dead more than the living which are yet 
 alive. Yea, better is he than both they, which hath 
 not yet been, who hath not seen the evil work that 
 is done under the sun."^ The magnificent poetry of 
 Job has no light to throw on the problem, except 
 that God is great, and his ways are past understand- 
 ing ; and Ecclesiastes, if it ends in any moral lesson, 
 
 ^Eoclea. viii. 14. 
 
 ^ In the next lecture, it ■will be shown that the pessimistic strain 
 of thought, -which is here expressed, was characteristic of the 
 latest period of Jewish religion 
 
 'Eccles. iv. 1. 
 
40 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 seems only to bid us enjoy peacefully, with a kind 
 of pious Epicuireanism, what goods fall to our lot. 
 
 But such hopeless submission was never the gen- 
 eral temper of the Hebrew race. Eather, it was their 
 characteristic that the defeat of immediate hopes only 
 produced in them a deepening and widening of their 
 original faith in the ultimate unity of might and right. 
 The highest strains of Jewish prophecy, the tenderest 
 utterances of Jewish piety, were just those occasioned 
 by the defeating and protracting of an unquenchable 
 hope. On the one hand pain and suffering, regarded 
 in the light of a conviction that calamitj' is always 
 the result of sin, led to a deeper view of the kind, 
 of righteousness demanded by a heart-searching God, 
 who could never be satisfied with a mere outward 
 obedience. The reason of outward affliction was thus 
 found in the lurking impurity of a heart which was 
 not yet really at one with the divine law. Nay, the 
 suffering itself began to be regarded as a blessing in 
 disguise, in so far as it contributed to purge and 
 purify the soul. On the other hand, the process 
 which led through trial to happiness was lengthened 
 out beyond the present life of the individual, and the 
 idea of a future state, or at least of a ' resurrection of 
 the just' at the Messianic restitutioi of all things, 
 came to redress the balance. Nay, we may even say, 
 that it came to be expected as a general rule that the 
 life of the saints, in this present evil time, should be a 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 41 
 
 life of humility and suffering, consoled and supported 
 by a glorious hope. And the bliss which was hoped 
 for became so much idealised and spiritualised in their 
 thought of it, that it ceased, at least to the nobler 
 minds, to present itself as a mere fulness of earthly 
 blessing ; and it came to be represented as the happi- 
 ness of goodness itself, — not the conquest of all nations 
 by Israel, but that " through the seed of Israel all na- 
 tions should be blessed." Thus the somewhat crude 
 faith in a divine distribution of rewards and punishments 
 to the servants and enemies of a national God, gradually 
 deepens into a belief that in all the calamities of life 
 the divine Spirit is with "those that are of a humble 
 and contrite heart," and that they who sow in tears of 
 life-long sacrifice for the good of others, will somewhere, 
 somewhen, reap the unselfish joy of seeing all others 
 redeemed from evil and unhappiness by their means. ^ 
 This highest result of Jewish religion is expressed most ; 
 fully in those wonderful prophecies of the later Isaiah, , 
 in which the narrow and legal view of a righteousness 
 that looks for earthly happiness as its immediate 
 reward, gives way to the pathetic image of a servant "v^*. 
 of God, who neither ' strives ' with others for his own 
 interest nor 'cries' out against the wrongs that are done 
 
 ' In Memoriam, 54 — 
 
 " I can but trust tliat good shall fall 
 At last — far off — at last, to all, 
 And every winter change to spring." 
 
42 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 him, but " bears the griefs and carries the sorrows " of 
 others and, through his self-surrender, conquers the 
 power of evil and lays the foundation for a better 
 ; future to all. In this way that trust in the faithful- 
 ness of Grod, which was characteristic of the Jewish 
 nation, rises, as it were, out of the grave of the 
 earthly kingdom of David in the form of a Messianic 
 hope, which, at least in its higher and more spiritual 
 aspect, was only a slightly disguised expression of 
 that faith in the ultimate triumph of goodness, which 
 is bound up with the very existence of morality. 
 
 The changes through which the faith of the Old 
 Testament thus passes are not accidental, not due 
 merely to the historical course of things in a 
 particular nation. Eather, they are the necessary 
 stages through which the moral consciousness of 
 man, and the religion which goes along with that 
 consciousness, are developed and purified from the 
 baser and coarser ingredients which at first mingle 
 with them. The idea that punishment will foUow 
 crime, that happiness will follow goodness, is not 
 to be repudiated as if it were merely the indication 
 of a slavish spirit that needs to be bribed to virtue, 
 and that will not make any sacrifice, without asking : 
 ' What shall we have then ? ' It is, in its simplest 
 and most naive form, the consciousness that 'right 
 is might,' that 'morality is the nature of things,' 
 that the law of the world corresponds to the highest 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 43 
 
 law of our own being. "Fiat justitia, mat caelum" 
 is a good rhetorical contrast ; but that cannot be 
 justice by which the world is destroyed. The 
 righteous man's act, in clinging to his righteousness 
 against the utmost menace of fortune and of evU men, 
 would have no meaning, if he were not appealing to a 
 deeper power in nature and in the hearts of those men 
 themselves. The Carlylean faith, that 'the cause we 
 fight for so far as it is true, is sure of victory,' is the : 
 necessary basis of all effective activity for good. At . 
 the same time, the first simple form in which that 
 faith appears is at variance with obvious facts of life ; 
 and it mingles, almost undistinguishably, the higher 
 motives of action with the selfish greed and ambition 
 of the individual. A religion that speaks in such 
 tones as these : " If ye be willing and obedient, ye 
 shall eat the good of the land : But if ye refuse and 
 rebel, ye shall be devoured with the sword : for the 
 mouth of the Lord hath spoken it " ^ — such a religion 
 contains, indeed, that synthesis of outward and inward 
 which is necessary to all religion ; but it expresses 
 it in a simple and immediate way, which is excusable 
 only because it is addressed to children or to men 
 who are in a childish stage of culture. Every step 
 in the advance of man's moral experience, and in 
 his reflexion upon that experience, is a step towards 
 a deeper understanding of the two terms which are 
 'Isaiah i. 19. 
 
44 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 thus united, and at the same time towards a clearer 
 comprehension of what is meant by their union. 
 Goodness has the promise of happiness: godliness is 
 "profitable for all things, having the promise of this 
 life and of that which is to come." Pes .- but what is 
 goodness, and what ts godliness ? Not the immediate 
 compliance with an outward command regarded as 
 divine, but the conformity of the whole heart and 
 character to the spirit of the law; not only walking 
 uprightly, but "clean hands and a pure heart"; not 
 merely the outward service which does the day's 
 labour looking for the day's wages, but, "Thou shalt 
 love the Lord thy God with all thy soul and with 
 all thy strength, and thy neighbour as thyself." So 
 soon as this deeper consciousness of that which is 
 necessary to bring man into conformity with the 
 divine ideal arises, the process lengthens ; for it is 
 seen that the soul has to contend against an evil 
 which clings to it as part of its very being, yet from 
 which it is its first concern to be delivered. The very 
 thought of reward vanishes from him who is conscious 
 that he needs a thorough spiritual change, ere there 
 can be in him anything to reward ; and who is far too 
 much oppressed by a sense of the inward division of 
 his nature to be thinking of any extraneous good be- 
 yond the bliss of being reconciled to God and to him- 
 self. When the clinging sense of evil is expressed in 
 such words as these: "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 45 
 
 and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold Thou 
 desirest truth in the inward parts"; all other wishes 
 must be postponed to the desire for inward purity. 
 " Create in me a clean heart, and renew a right spirit 
 within me."^ To one who has reached such an 
 intensive consciousness of the infinity of duty, and 
 of the need of an inward transformation of his own 
 nature, the simple ideal of an earlier time, — the 
 picture of a righteous man enjoying the favour of 
 God and man as the natural and necessary reward 
 of his righteousness, of a patriarch living under his 
 own vine and his own fig-tree, with an untroubled 
 conscience and a happy and numerous family around 
 him, — has ceased to present supreme attraction. Such 
 a picture must seem to him like a childish dream, 
 or, at best, like the legend of a remote past, in which 
 the men of an earlier race lived other and more simple 
 lives than is possible for himself If he thinks of 
 it in relation to himself, such conscious righteous- 
 ness as is expressed in some of the Psalms must seem 
 to him deceptive and insecure : deceptive, because such 
 self-confidence can only be possible to one who has 
 not yet detected the secret sources of evil in his 
 own heart ; and insecure, because the reward sup- 
 posed to be attained has come too soon, without the 
 trial and the suffering that could alone prepare for 
 its enjoyment. Nay, even the reward itself must 
 1 Psalms li. 5, 10. 
 
46 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 seem something too limited, too selfish, and too 
 external to be regarded as a final object of desire. 
 The deepening of the religious and moral conscious- 
 ness thus leads to a conception of life as a discipline, 
 which can hardly be too long and severe to subdue 
 and humble the natural man, and to prepare him 
 to be a vessel of divine grace ; and, instead of the 
 proud challenge of the righteous man confident in 
 his own righteousness : " Let me be weighed in a 
 balance so that God may know mine integrity"; we 
 have the humility which is born of the consciousness 
 of an infinite ideal : " Enter not into judgment with 
 Thy servant, Lord; for in Thy sight no man living 
 can be justified." ^ The religious type, if we might 
 use the expression, the pattern of moral excellence 
 and saintliness which is, at this stage, regarded 
 as the highest for man, is that of the 'Ebyon,' 
 who combines outward poverty and suffering with 
 inward humility and self-surrender, and, like Jere- 
 miah, through all persecution and calamity, ' waits 
 patiently for the consolation of Israel.' Sometimes 
 this repressed and humbled religious spirit even 
 rises above the need of any consolation, and finds 
 in its own inward experiences of divine communion, 
 a joy that is sufficient for itself, without the need 
 of any outward evidence to support it. "Whom 
 have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none upon 
 ^ Psalms cxliii. 2. 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 47 
 
 earth that I desire beside Thee. My flesh and my 
 heart faUeth : but God is the strength of my heart, 
 and my portion for ever."^ 
 
 Now it is obvious that, as any approach is made 
 to this deeper view of the nature and conditions of 
 spiritual excellence, the idea of the happiness which 
 is to be the reward of such goodness must also be 
 changed. Two influences may be noticed which partly 
 conflict, partly co-operate, but both of which contribute 
 to alter the religious conception of the blessedness 
 which is to be realised in the future. On the one 
 hand, the postponement of such blessedness beyond 
 the immediate life of the individual takes away the 
 empirical limit within which it had to be confined, 
 when it was supposed to be realised under the ordinary 
 conditions of human existence ; and also deprives it 
 of the definite, sensuous character which was neces- 
 sarily attributed to it as a bliss to be enjoyed here, 
 and now. And, on the other hand, the deepening 
 reflexion which the advance of time brings with it, 
 cannot but change the idea of what constitutes a 
 satisfying good for man. Man has become conscious 
 of a void in himself which cannot be filled by a 
 limited earthly happiness ; and, released from the 
 measure of what is practicable under present condi- 
 tions, the imagination can paint the glories of the 
 better future in whatever colgurs it pleases. This, 
 ' Psalms Ixxiii. 25. 
 
48 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 indeed, would of itself only lead — in those who were 
 unable to rise to a spiritual view of things — to an 
 extravagant hope of the triumph of Israel over all her 
 enemies, and of the re-establishment of the kingdom of 
 David on a grander scale as a sovereignty over the 
 whole earth. But the same movement of thought 
 which emancipated the imagination, and so gave rise 
 to apocalyptic visions of the Messianic kingdom, had 
 also, as we have seen, produced in many of the better 
 spirits a deepened moral consciousness, which could no 
 longer find satisfaction in the realisation of any out- 
 ward ambition on however enlarged a scale. To him 
 for whom the deepest source of joy was the life that is 
 hid with God, and who regarded that life as finding its 
 natural expression in the service of men, and especially 
 in the consolation and support of the poor and the 
 oppressed, a conquering Messiah who should set the 
 feet of the Jews on the necks of their enemies, could 
 no longer be the realisation of his dearest hopes. 
 Eather, he must look upon that as the only true 
 victory of the good cause, in which it shall win to 
 itself the hearts of its enemies ; that in which the tide 
 of life which he feels within himself shall flow forth 
 to overcome all the resistant powers of evil. To such 
 a spirit in the later Isaiah the divine voice already 
 spoke, in words which anticipate the universalism of 
 St. Paul, breaking down the limits of all national re- 
 ligion. " It is too light a thing that thou shouldest 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 49 
 
 be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and 
 restore the preserved of Israel. I will also give thee 
 for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be My 
 salvation unto the end of the earth." ^ And the 
 character of the salvation itself necessarily changes 
 with the universalising of it, ceasing to consist solely, 
 or mainly, in any reward of goodness which can be 
 separated from goodness itself. In place of the old 
 covenant in which an outward reward was attached to 
 an outward service, Jeremiah tells us that Jehovah is 
 about to substitute a new covenant, which, unlike the 
 former, will never be broken, because it abolishes the 
 division between man and the God with whom he 
 covenants. " This shall be the new covenant which 
 I shall make with the house of Israel ; After those 
 days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their in- 
 ward parts, and write it in their hearts, and I will 
 be their God and they shall be My people. And; 
 they shall teach no more every man his neighbour 
 and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord : 
 for they shall all know Me, from the least of them 
 unto the greatest of them."^ 
 
 This slight sketch of the way in which the ideas 
 of goodness and of its reward are gradually deepened 
 and elevated in the later prophets and psalmists, is 
 enough to show that we have here one of the most 
 remarkable cases of what we may call the dialectic \ 
 
 'Isaiah xlix. 6. ^Sei. xxxi. 33. 
 
 VOL. II. D 
 
50 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 , / of the development of religious ideas. The fundamental 
 ' principle of all subjective religion is faith in divine 
 justice, a faith that that justice is ever executing, 
 and will more and more fully execute, itself upon 
 earth. Such a faith sets the inner consciousness of 
 what ought to be against what is, or, at least, what 
 appears to be in the present; and it prophesies a 
 future in which the demands of the inner voice will 
 be outwardly realised. It may at first be mixed with 
 selfish anticipations, and so may give rise to an out- 
 ward goodness which does not ' serve God for nought.' 
 But to a truly religious mind, even in the very 
 simplest stage, the belief in the outward success 
 which is to follow upon rectitude is nourished, not 
 merely by the selfish desire of reward, but also, and 
 far more, by the need of seeing the inward voice of 
 conscience confirmed and manifested as the law of 
 the universe. This is the permanent element of 
 belief which survives through all the changing forms 
 of Jewish religion, and which through all these forms 
 is gradually purifying and enlarging itself, till finally 
 it becomes the faith in a providential law according 
 to which the ' history of the world ' is still the 
 'judgment of the world,' but in no such simple and 
 arbitrary fashion as that obedience immediately has 
 its reward provided by a divine interposition. On 
 the contrary, experience and reflexion have gradually 
 made it manifest that it is only through suffering 
 
GOODNESS AND HAPPINESS. 51 
 
 and sacrifice that the goodness of man gains that 
 overcoming power which nothing can resist ; and also 
 that the success which it then wins lies not in the 
 outward happiness of the sufferer himself, but rather 
 in the higher life which he thus earns for his nation 
 and for humanity. In this sense, the servant of God 
 suffers for the sins, and with a view to the salvation 
 of others. " The chastisement of their peace is laid 
 upon him, and with his stripes they are healed." 
 Hence the triumph of goodness which satisfies the 
 moral consciousness is not of the good man himself, ; 
 but only of his cause, or of him only as he is one ■ 
 with his cause. "The cause thou fightest for, so far 
 as it is true, just so far and no farther, is sure of 
 victory." Or, if the prophet can still hold that the 
 sufferer for humanity will see of the travail of his 
 soul, and will be satisfied, that idea can find its legi- 
 timate development only in a belief in the resurrection 
 of the just, such as gradually gained ground in the 
 later period of the history of Israel. The last voice 
 of Jewish prophecy is, therefore, not : ' Obey God and 
 you will be happy,' but, rather, in words like the 
 following, which express how the spirit rises from its 
 own calamity to the contemplation of the purpose of 
 God through the ages. When the Psalmist, looking 
 at the sorrows and evils of his time, asks the question, 
 ''Is His mercy clean gone for ever, and will He be 
 favourable no more?" he immediately finds for himself 
 
52 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the answer ; " This is my infirmity " — this failing of 
 faith — " but I will remember the years of the right 
 hand of the Most High." ^ Out of such a view the 
 hope of a better future arises, not under the form of an 
 ' anticipation of external reward, but as the natural faith 
 of spiritual life in its own permanence, in the eternal 
 spring of existence which it contains within it. For, 
 unlike the natural, the spiritual life has a fountain of 
 new life in itself, which cannot be exhausted. '' Even 
 the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young 
 men shall utterly fail. But they that wait upon the 
 Lord shall renew their strength : they shall mount up 
 with wings as eagles ; they shall run and not be 
 weary, they shall walk and not faint." ^ And the 
 final vision of happiness is one in which no baser in- 
 gredient of selfish triumph remains. "They that be 
 wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, 
 and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars 
 for ever and ever." ^ 
 
 • Psalms Ixxvii. 8, 10. " Isa. xl. 30. 
 
 ^ Daniel xii. 3. 
 
LECTUEE THIRD. 
 
 THE RELATION OF JUDAISM TO CHRISTIANITY. 
 
 Jemsh Conception of the Relation of the Moral Ideal to the 
 Objective World, in Contrast with the Buddhist and the 
 Christian Conceptions — That in Buddhism Spirit absolutely ex- 
 cludes, and in Judaism dominates Nature — But in Christianity 
 Spirit is the Highest Manifestation of the same Principle 
 revealed in Nature — Union of Monotheistic and Pantheistic 
 Ideas in Christianity — Difficulties arising from this Synthesis — 
 Solution of them by means of the Ideas of Organic Unity and 
 Evolution — The Moral Ideal as Prophetic — How Judaism 
 passes into Christianity. 
 
 In the last lecture I spoke of the Jewish religion as a 
 religion of subjectivity. It is a religion which recoils 
 upon an inward ideal, as opposed to the immediate 
 aspect of the external world and the immediate 
 phenomena of human life ; but which, at the same 
 time, rises to the belief in a God who will ultimately 
 bring the course of things into harmony with that 
 ideal. And I showed how the crude synthesis of 
 goodness and happiness, which was the first expres- 
 sion of this religious idea, was gradually purified 
 
54 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 and expanded by a higher view of both its terms, 
 and also of what is meant by their connexion. 
 Thus the development of goodness was seen to 
 involve an inward struggle with the natural self, 
 and an outward discipline of suffering and sacrifice; 
 and, as this process lengthened, it put to a greater 
 distance the fruition of joy to be earned from the 
 harmony of the soul with itself and God. The 
 consummation, therefore, could not be reached by the 
 individual who had to suffer, but was only to be won 
 by him for future generations of men. Or, if it 
 was to be enjoyed by the individual at all, it could 
 only be in another life beyond this. Or, finally, 
 if it was to be attained by him in this life, it 
 only was in a sense which made it independent 
 of all outward success, as a joy and peace in God 
 which could be felt even in the midst of the 
 utmost outward calamity, the joy and peace of a life 
 that had in itself the consciousness of its own 
 permanence, its own eternal completeness. 
 
 Now, we have already seen that such a sub- 
 jective religious attitude is the expression of a higher 
 principle than that which is involved in what we have 
 called objective religion. The mind, as it turns back 
 upon itself, discovers within it a principle of unity 
 which is presupposed in all objective experience, but 
 which, at the same time, reaches beyond such experi- 
 ence. In its recoil upon its own inner life, it rises to 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 55 
 
 an ideal law and an ideal end, which in the outer life 
 are very imperfectly realised. And not only does it 
 thus originate new principles for the guidance of its 
 own activity, but it learns to regard those principles as 
 a more perfect manifestation of the ultimate law of the 
 universe, and of the nature of its divine source, than 
 can be found in the immediate facts of outward ex- 
 perience. Hence it cannot but believe that the law ' 
 which it feels obliged to obey, and the end after which \ 
 it feels bound to strive, have an objective as well 
 as a subjective validity. In this point of view, the , 
 ideal which the mind sets up for itself is no mere 
 arbitrary fancy, no mere wish that things might be 
 other than they really are. The wants of the subject ' 
 are, or may be, the expression of something deeper, 
 and even, in a sense, more real than the facts to 
 which they seem to be opposed. For, just in so far 
 as man's beliefs and hopes spring purely out of 
 his moral ideal, and contain nothing but the con- 
 ception of that ideal as realised and of the con- 
 ditions necessary to its realisation, they may fairly 
 claim for themselves an authority which is higher 
 than that of experience, and cannot, therefore, be 
 refuted by it. They are what Kant calls ' postu- 
 lates of practical reason,' beliefs and hopes that 
 are bound up with our existence as rational beings, 
 and which, therefore, we cannot disown except by 
 being untrue to ourselves. 
 
56 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 In saying so much, however, we must guard 
 against a possible misunderstanding. The attitude 
 of mind which is characteristic of Judaism is not 
 that which regards the future good as the neces- 
 sary development of the good which is already 
 working in the present. Eather, the Jewish pro- 
 phet is inclined absolutely and directly to oppose 
 the ideal good he prophesies, to the actual state 
 of things which he sees around him; and to look 
 forward to the change which he is sare must come, 
 as one that is to be brought about by the direct 
 agency of the divine power miraculously interfer- 
 ing in the world. He feels God within, and he 
 believes that one day He will reveal Himself with- 
 out. He appeals from the judgment of his contem- 
 poraries to a divine judgment, which he is sure 
 will be the same with the judgment of his own 
 heart and conscience. He expects, therefbre, that 
 God will, in time, bring about the salvation of His 
 people, not by the evolution of principles already 
 at work in the world, but by an immediate inter- 
 vention from above, which shall destroy the evils 
 that oppress them and establish a reign of righteous- 
 ness upon earth. 
 
 In order to illustrate this difference, which is 
 closely related to the difference between Judaism 
 and Christianity, I shall put the matter in another 
 form. When we say that subjective religion is 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 57 
 
 higher than objective religion, or that it gives men 
 a truer and more comprehensive view of their rela- 
 tions to the world and to God, we are using 
 terms that are somewhat ambiguous ; for the words, 
 ' truer,' ' higher,' ' more comprehensive,' are indefinite 
 expressions, which may be understood in different 
 ways. There are, indeed, no less than three possible 
 interpretations of them, all of which have been 
 exemplified in the history of religion. The Indian 
 pantheism ends in setting the subjective above the 
 objective, but so in their way do also Judaism 
 and Christianity ; and it may help to make our sub- 
 ject clearer, if we consider what were the respective 
 characteristics of these three ways of appealing from 
 the outward to the inward. 
 
 In the first place, then, the assertion of the 
 superiority of the subjective may be and has been 
 taken to mean that the inner life is the exclusive 
 sphere of religion, or, in the language of Iphigenia, 
 that it is " only through our hearts that God speaks 
 to us." On this view the natural world is un- 
 divine, unspiritual, external, a body of death which 
 conceals rather than reveals the infinite. Everything 
 outward is shadowy, evanescent, illusive — such ' stuff 
 as dreams are made of ' ; and truth is to be found 
 only in abstracting from it, in severing the ties 
 that bind us to it, in escaping from its deceptions 
 into the silence of the inner life of thought. In 
 
58 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 this extreme we find subjective religion represented 
 by the Upanishads, with their assertion of the 
 illusiveness of all objective existence and their iden- 
 tification of the self with the absolute. But the 
 religion of subjectivity no sooner emerges in this 
 form, than, as we have seen,^ it begins to turn its 
 arms against itself. For the subject that thus 
 seeks to free his soul from all that is not itself, 
 to expel all objective interests as vain and illusive, 
 is really seeking to rid itself of all contents or 
 interests whatsoever. It soon comes to be seen 
 that the inner life of ideas is a repetition of the 
 vain show of the outward world ; and, in order to 
 escape from all illusion, the soul finds it needful 
 to rid itself of the former as well as of the latter. 
 If life, the inner as well as the outer life, is but 
 a mad struggle for shadows, the only way to reality 
 is the path of death. But in this view there is 
 no truer life beyond death ; hence there is no dying 
 to live, but only a "shuffling off this mortal coil," 
 a sleep of Nirvana so profound that no "dream can 
 ever come " to disturb it. 
 
 The subjective religion of the Jews was not of 
 this absolute type. It indeed exalts the subjective 
 above the objective, the ideal of the soul above 
 the facts of the outward life ; but it does not sever 
 them from each other. It subordinates the external 
 1 Vol. I. p. 353 seq. 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 59 
 
 world, or demands that it should subordinate itself, 
 to a law derived from within ; but it does not, like 
 Buddhism, treat the outward universe as an illusive 
 semblance, an unreal and deceiving show. Starting 
 with the conception that the whole system of finite 
 things is the product of God's creative power, which 
 He has called into existence with a word, and which 
 with a word He can destroy, and which meantime 
 rests as a passive instrument in His hands, the 
 Jewish prophet regards it as idolatry to confuse 
 the creature with the Creator, to think of God as 
 immanent in the world, or to regard nature as able 
 to contain God or to reveal Him. For him, there- 
 fore, the authentic voice of God is not in the storm- 
 wind or the earthquake or the fire, though these 
 are the highest natural expressions of Him. It is 
 within, in the imperative of duty and the protest of 
 the heart against the injustice of the world. How- 
 ever widely, therefore, he may separate between God 
 and nature, however high he may raise Him above 
 the life of man, yet he never thinks of imitating 
 the quietism of the Indian devotee, who is content 
 to withdraw into himself and to regard the outward 
 scene as a dream and a shadow from which he is 
 to be delivered simply by treating it as nought. On 
 the contrary, he always thinks of the world and the 
 outward history of man as the true sphere in which 
 God is to show His power and His goodness ; and 
 
60 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 his demand always is, not that the outward world 
 should vanish away, but that it should be harmonised 
 with the will of God as that is known to the hearts 
 of His servants. His hope and aspiration is not for 
 Nirvana, nor yet for the peace of the grave, where 
 the "wicked cease from troubling and the weary 
 are at rest," but for the final victory of right over 
 wrong, for the ultimate manifestation of God in a 
 world brought into conformity with the divine law, 
 which already manifests itself within us. The final 
 relation, therefore, in which God is conceived as 
 standing towards the world, is neither that the world 
 is lost in God, nor that He is immanent in it, but 
 that it, while still remaining separate, is externally 
 subordinated to His wisdom and His justice. The 
 manifestation of divine power may, indeed, be de- 
 layed for the trial of His people; but it is certain 
 to come in the fulness of time, to the dismay of 
 His enemies, and the joy of His saints, who have 
 been ' waiting for the consolation of Israel.' " Com- 
 mit thy way unto the Lord ; trust also in Him ; 
 and He shall bring it to pass. And He shall bring 
 forth thy righteousness as the light, and thy judg- 
 ment as the Jioonday. Eest in the Lord, and wait 
 patiently for Him." ^ The Judaic faith, therefore, 
 is that God externally overrules the course of nature 
 and history, or, at least, that He certainly will one 
 * Psalm xxxvii. 5-7. 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 61 
 
 day overrule it, in order to bring it into harmony 
 with the demands of the spirit. As, in the system 
 of Kant, it is postulated that God will join happi- 
 ness to goodness, although immediately they seem to 
 have no natural or necessary connexion ; so here it 
 is prophesied that He will restore again by an ex- 
 ternal force the unity of the world without and the 
 world within. Hence the realisation of the ideal is 
 conceived not as present but future. The present is 
 a time of division in which the original unity is 
 lost, and the ultimate reconciliation can only be an 
 object of faith and not of vision or fruition. 
 
 It is easy to see that neither of these conceptions 
 of the relation of the inward to the outward, the 
 subjective to the objective, is finally satisfactory. 
 The Buddhist nihilism logically ends in the negation 
 or extinction of that very subjective life which it 
 begins by exalting. And if the religion of Israel ! 
 saves itself from this extreme result of a onesided- 
 ness which refutes itself, if it still tries to bind 
 inward and outward together by a divine necessity, 
 yet this necessity is only that of a deus ex machina. 
 Thus the Jewish tendency to insist on the spirit- 
 uality of God as a Being revealed only in, and 
 to, the spirits of men, makes it impossible to con- 
 ceive His relation to the outward world as any 
 other than one of external dominance. But this 
 implies that the Divine Being is still thought of 
 
62 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 as an abstract subject, and not, in the full sense 
 of the word, as a spiritual principle who is above 
 this and all other differences. For a being who 
 is external to anything, or to whom anything is 
 external, does not agree with the idea of God. In 
 this sense we may admit Goethe's saying that the 
 Jewish religion is " the highest of ethnic religions 
 but still ethnic." For, as has been shown before, 
 that which makes man a religious being, his primary 
 need for a God, arises from the presence in, if not 
 to, his consciousness of a unity which is beyond 
 the division of subject and object ; and, till he realises 
 this primary element in his idea of God, the form 
 and the matter of that idea must be at variance. 
 Even the conception of God as an abstract sub- 
 ject, therefore, does not yet satisfy the fully de- 
 veloped religious sense. And the conception of 
 such a subject as externally overruling the objec- 
 tive world can only imperfectly and temporarily 
 supply this defect, in so far as an external com- 
 bination can be a substitute for a living unity. 
 But so soon as it is seen or felt that there is a 
 vital connexion between the inward and the out- 
 ward life, which cannot be broken without im- 
 poverishing both, so soon the idea of a God who 
 ' gives the world a push from without or lets it 
 spin round His finger,' becomes unsatisfactory; and 
 religion if it would continue to exist, must rise 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 63 
 
 to a more comprehensive idea of God than that 
 which is afforded even by ethical monotheism, and 
 indeed must combine the monotheistic idea with 
 that which it has often regarded as its greatest 
 enemy, the spirit of pantheism.i 
 
 'It will be shown in a subsequent lecture that the later 
 development of Jewish religion led to this result negatively 
 by producing a dualistic view of the world, which scarcely falls 
 short of the world-despair of the Buddhist. For the thought of 
 a God who externally dominates over the course of nature and 
 history is a compromise which cannot permanently be main- 
 tained. In the long run, a religion based on such a conception 
 must advance to the idea of a spiritual principle which is im- 
 manent in the object as it is in the subject, or else it must carry 
 the opposition of the subject to the object to the point at which 
 the latter is contemplated as purely evil or negative. That which ^ 
 is outside of God is necessarily that which is opposed to Him, ' 
 and that which is opposed to the divine must be evil, so far as it 
 can be regarded as having any positive existence at aU. We 
 may illustrate this process of thought by the development of 
 the Kantian philosophy, as it is shown, on the one side, in the 
 pessimism of Schopenhauer, and, on the other side, in the 
 optimism of Schelling and Hegel. The former is the necessary 
 result, if Kant's first tendency to oppose reason to sense, and 
 consequently the subject to the object, be insisted on, and 
 carried out to its consequences. This opposition forces Kant 
 himself to conceive the realisation of the moral ideal as a 
 progressus ad infinitum : but even infinite time is not enough for 
 the impossible task of uniting the moral with the natural, the 
 sensuous desires with the law of reason. Hence it was open for 
 Schopenhauer to argue that they could not be united at all. On 
 the other hand, if we admit the postulate of Kant, that the 
 moral ideal must be realised, and if we go on with him to recog- 
 nise, as he recognises in the Critique of Judgment and the Essay 
 on the Idea of Universal History, that in a sense it is realised 
 
64 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Now, it is at once obvious that a religion which 
 should attempt this, which should seek to do justice 
 at once to the unity, and to the opposition of spirit 
 and nature, would have a much more difficult 
 problem before it than was ever encountered either 
 by subjective or by objective religion. Such a 
 religion must see God at once without and within 
 us, yet it must be able to discriminate the higher 
 sense in which He is within and not without. It 
 must see God in nature, without losing Him in 
 nature's manifoldness ; and in history, without making 
 outward success the criterion of His favour. It must 
 find a still higher revelation of Him in the protest 
 of the conscience against the fact of successful in- 
 justice, and the demand of the heart for a more 
 perfect state than has ever been empirically realised 
 on earth ; yet it must not set that which ought to 
 he absolutely against that which is, or suppose that 
 the judgment of God is a future judgment, which 
 is not executing itself now and here. 
 
 Now, the distinctive character of Christianity 
 arises from the fact that necessarily, by the circum- 
 
 already, or is progressively realising itself in nature and history, 
 then we must advance beyond Kant in a different direction. 
 We must reduce the opposition between sense and reason, or 
 between consciousness and self-consciousness to a relative op- 
 position, which exists in order that it may be transcended. In 
 other words, we must adopt something like the evolutionary 
 optimism of HegeL 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 65 
 
 stances of its origin, it had to try to solve this 
 problem. Jewish in its birthplace, Greek in its 
 first written expression or interpretation, it had for 
 its task to combine elements of the spiritual life 
 of man which had never been combined before. 
 It came in the fulness of time, in an age when 
 the world was ready for a universal religion. The 
 expanding thought of Greece had broken the national 
 mould in which it had at first been cast, and had 
 gradually prepared the world for cosmopolitanism. 
 The empires of Alexander and of Eome had cast 
 down the outward walls of division between all the 
 nations which could be said to have a civilisation. 
 Jew and GentUe, Greek and Barbarian, were con- 
 fused together in a common subjection, and assimilated 
 by the gentle but steady and almost irresistible 
 pressure of a universal law, which took no account 
 of their racial, social, or religious differences. The 
 Jews themselves, who alone stubbornly held to their 
 native traditions, had their exclusiveness neutralised 
 by the lessons of their greatest prophets ; and in 
 Alexandria they had even gone so far as to use 
 Platonic philosophy for the interpretation of the 
 Old Testament. In such an era of universalism 
 it was impossible that religion should remain sec- 
 tional, national, or exclusive. The prejudices of race 
 and tradition, the religious and social antipathies of 
 ages could not, indeed, be rooted out in a day, least 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
66 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of all among a nation of such a stubborn tenacity 
 as the Jews ; but the spirit of the time was against 
 them, and if, at last, made desperate by the growing 
 sense of their powerlessness, the Jewish people rose 
 in violent revolt against their oppressors, their fana- 
 tical outbreak could only be destructive to them- 
 selves. When the great tidal wave of human life 
 and thought is setting strongly in one direction, it 
 is only those spiritual forces that are working along 
 with it and contributing to it, that can have real 
 influence. "Wo individual by himself," says Goethe, 
 " can effect anything considerable, but only he who 
 unites with many, at the right time." A religion 
 which is to take hold of the mind of man must 
 supply its deepest want, and act along the lines of 
 its deepest stream of tendency : and this, in the 
 first century of the Christian era, undoubtedly meant 
 that religion must free itself from every limitation, 
 outward or inward, and speak directly to that in 
 man which is most universal and ideal. It must 
 take hold of the highest principle of unity in the 
 human consciousness, and use it as a means of 
 reconciling man to the world and to himself. liTor 
 could it reach this result by the path of a vague 
 pantheism, whose unity was simply the negation of 
 all distinctions. Jewish prophecy had so deepened 
 and intensified the moral consciousness, that it was 
 no longer possible for men to be content with any 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 67 
 
 religion which did not maintain the spirituality of 
 God and the responsibility of man. If it was 
 henceforth impossible that any God should be 
 worshipped who was not a God of the whole earth, 
 any God who was hen and not tliere, who was 
 revealed to the prophets of a nation, and not to the 
 universal consciousness of man, or even revealed in 
 thought and not in perception and imagination, 
 in the soul and not in outward nature ; yet it was 
 equally impossible that those who had known the 
 tenderness and depth of a spiritual worship such 
 as finds expression in the Psalms, should be content 
 to confuse spirit with nature in the all-embracing,: 
 all-dissolving unity of pantheism. If, therefore, in 
 such an epoch, universality and unity was the first 
 condition of thought, and the necessary characteristic 
 of any great religious movement, yet it must be 
 secured, not by the sacrifice of that moral elevation 
 which had been the result of the long religious 
 development of Israel, but rather by a farther de- 
 velopment, which should start from the highest point 
 which Israel had reached. Nothing could meet the 
 want of the time but a religion which should unite the 
 immanence of pantheism with the transcendence of 
 monotheism ; a religion which should rise to a divine 
 principle of all things, and yet be able to conceive 
 that principle as a living God, the inspiring source 
 and eternal realisation of the moral ideal of man. 
 
68 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Is such a demand reasonable ? Does it not 
 contradict itself? And can the religion that satis- 
 fies or tries to satisfy it, be anything more than a 
 chaotic combination of inconsistent elements ? This 
 is a fundamental question of the philosophy of 
 religion, a question the answer to which must 
 determine not only the rationality of Christianity, 
 but also the rationality of all religion. For it is at 
 any rate obvious that only a religion which is able 
 to satisfy these demands can now be anything to us. 
 Moderns cannot accept any but a universal religion. 
 They cannot believe in a God who is the God of 
 this nation and not of that, or who is revealed in 
 this object and not in that. They cannot believe 
 in a Divine Power who is without and not within 
 man, or within man and not without him. Hence 
 there are many motives which drive us to break 
 down the limits between different religious concep- 
 tions of the past and accept the facile toleration of 
 Pope's universal prayer — 
 
 " Father of all in every age, 
 In every clime adored, 
 By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
 Jehovah, Jove, or Lord ! " 
 
 Or in the nobler words of a later writer — 
 
 " Name by what name you will, there is a Power, 
 Amnion, Jehovah, Zeus, or Jupiter, 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 69 
 
 That searches nations, and in kindred hearts, 
 Finding a mirror, fills them with Himself." ' 
 
 But such toleration might, at least, mean levelling 
 down ; and a God who is equally in all things is 
 in nothing truly; a God who equally accepts all 
 worships cannot be ' of purer eyes than to behold 
 iniquity.' The moral distinction, like every other 
 distinction, would vanish in His presence, and the 
 many names we are allowed to give Him would 
 confuse each other. His very universality would ; 
 make Him the unknown and unknowable God, whose \\ 
 worship could have no positive value for thought, | 
 no inspiring influence on the will. Hence the same ; 
 progress of thought which has carried us beyond all 
 partial conceptions of the divine, and compelled us to 
 think of God as God, as the Being who is all in all, 
 has brought us in sight of a gulf of nescience, in which 
 religion is in danger of being submerged. If, there- 
 fore, the eifort of Christianity to maintain — on the 
 level of universality, and at a stage of thought when 
 
 1 Professor Nichol's Rannihal Prologue, So. 4. Cf. the words 
 of Tennyson {Akhar's Dream) : — 
 
 "Xhat Infinite, 
 Within us, as without, that All-in-all, 
 And over all, the never-changing One 
 And ever-changing Many, in praise of Whom 
 The Christian bell, the cry from ofif the mosque, 
 And vaguer voices of Polytheism 
 Make but one music, harmonising ' Pray.' " 
 
70 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 onesided subjective and onesided objective concep- 
 tions have equally become impossible — the idea of God 
 as a living spiritual power, whose influence guides 
 and sustains the moral life of man^if such an 
 effort results, and must necessarily result, in self- 
 contradiction and absurdity, then we shall be obliged 
 to admit that religion has become permanently 
 impossible to men, and that it will necessarily 
 disappear so soon as the consciousness of its futility 
 has been generally diffused. 
 
 We may put this difficulty more clearly by saying 
 that it is possible to reach the idea of a unity 
 which embraces and overcomes all differences only 
 in two ways — either by the way of abstraction, or 
 by a way which involves the idea of evolution or 
 development. Spinoza, and in more recent times, 
 Mr. Spencer, have shown us what comes of the 
 former method. Just as in an earlier time an ob- 
 jective pantheism was reached by the thought of 
 India, which gradually rose above all particular 
 objects, even the highest, and confused them to- 
 gether in the one Being, of whom everything, and 
 therefore nothing, can be said ; so in later times 
 Spinoza, rising above the opposition of thought and 
 extension — themselves the ultimate abstractions of 
 the subjective and the objective, the inner and the 
 outer worlds — sought the divine in an absolute sub- 
 stance which, indifferently, was conceived as either 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 71 
 
 having an infinite number of attributes or none 
 at all. And, in like manner, as I showed in a 
 former lecture, Mr. Spencer finds God only in the 
 unknowable infinite, which is beyond even the 
 difference of subject and object, the last symbols 
 by which we can represent or determine anything 
 for ourselves. In this way it is possible to turn i 
 the idea of God as a universal principle against 
 subjective and objective religion alike, and to return 
 upon a higher level to that pantheism from which 
 subjective religion had furnished the means of escape. 
 Nor is there wanting a certain plausibility in this 
 way of solving the difficulties, into which we are 
 driven by the effort to correct the opposite defects 
 of the two great forms of earlier religion. Forced 
 as we are by the movement of modern thought 
 to conceive God as above every exclusive form, even 
 the form of subjectivity, we seem to be driven by 
 the same movement to deprive Him of every posi- 
 tive predicate. We cannot conceive Him as one 
 merely objective force among other forces ; for we 
 should be immediately obliged to regard that force 
 as absorbing and annihilating all other forces, and 
 even the subject for which it is. Thus he who 
 conceives God as an object is obliged, by the notion 
 of God and the universality which attaches to it, 
 to destroy the very notion of an object. He is 
 driven to repeat the logic whereby polytheism is 
 
72 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 changed into pantheism, and pantheism into the 
 Buddhist nihilism. Again, it is equally impossible 
 for us to recall or to maintain the attitude of mind 
 of the pure monotheists, for whom God was merely 
 one subject among other subjects ; and though lifted 
 high above them, the source of all their life, was yet 
 related to them as an external and independent will. 
 Our idea of God will not let us conceive of Him as 
 external to anything, least of all, to the spirits who 
 are made in His image, and who live and move 
 and have their being in Him. We cannot, there- 
 fore, avoid thinking of God as a principle who is 
 within as He is without us, present in self-conscious- 
 ness as in consciousness, the presupposition, the life, 
 and the end of all. But no sooner is this realised 
 than it seems as if the attempt to say anything 
 definite of Him must involve the contradiction of 
 excluding Him from other things, or other things 
 from Him. Hence Mr. Spencer is led to the con- 
 clusion that the God who is thus universal— and 
 there obviously can be no other God for us — must 
 be unknowable. And Comte, who appreciated the 
 value of the Christian idea of a divine humanity, 
 and in a way of his own tried to preserve it, yet 
 maintains that the Christian attempt to unite mono- 
 theism with pantheism, and positively to define the 
 principle of the universe by the aid of that idea, 
 only ends in heaping together inconsistencies and 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 73 
 
 contradictions. Thus the Divine Being, conceived 
 as the principle of unity in the world, is supposed 
 to be beyond the reach of human thought, just 
 because in thinking it we should be obliged to 
 gather and concentrate in one, all the differences 
 and oppositions which manifest themselves in the 
 world. A God who was one object among others, 
 who took the form of a plant, an animal, a man, 
 or even of the all-embracing heaven, was capable 
 of being apprehended in perception or imagination. 
 A God who was a spiritual subject, even if He 
 refused to take on ' the likeness of anything in the 
 heavens above or in the earth beneath or in the 
 waters under the earth,' — refused in short to be re- 
 presented in any external form of perception or 
 imagination, — could yet be grasped by the same re- 
 flexion whereby we become conscious of the self 
 within us. But what, it is asked, can we make of 
 a Being who is neither to be perceived or imagined 
 as an object, nor to be conceived and determined 
 as a subject, but only as the unity in which all 
 difference begins and ends ? Must we not content 
 ourselves with the bare acknowledgment of such a 
 Being, and bow our heads before the inscrutable ? 
 And when Christianity attempts to present God to 
 us as the absolute Being, and at the same time as 
 a Logos, or self-revealing spirit who manifests Him- 
 self in a special manner in and to man as the 
 
74 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 source of his higher life, shall we not say that it 
 is obeying a necessity which comes with the growth 
 of man's thought in religion, but a necessity which 
 carries with it an impossibility ? 
 
 E"ow in dealing with Mr. Spencer's theory I have, 
 in a former lecture, suggested a partial answer to 
 this despairing view. But it is well that we should 
 recognise the full force of the reasons for it, and 
 how naturally it arises out of the very development 
 of thought which has produced the highest form of 
 religion. It has arisen just because men have more 
 clearly recognised than they ever did before what 
 it is that they mean by speaking of God, and have 
 therefore been led entirely to discard the imperfect 
 ways of determining the idea of God with which 
 they were satisfied in earlier times. By this de- 
 velopment they are debarred from representing God 
 under the purely objective or subjective forms which 
 are their most familiar modes of consciousness, 
 and therefore it seems as if they were debarred 
 from representing Him in any way whatsoever. To 
 the command of monotheism, that they should not 
 make to themselves any graven image of the Divine 
 Being, or in any way envisage Him under the like- 
 ness of an outward object, the advance of reflexion 
 seems to have added the new command that they 
 should not make to themselves any abstract con- 
 ception of Him as a subject : what then remains 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 75 
 
 but to bow before Him as the inscrutable ground 
 of existence, who, just because He is equally in all 
 things, is nowhere apprehensible to the spirit of 
 man ? His very universality, which is the reason 
 why we are willing to worship Him as God, lifts 
 Him out of our reach, out of the reach of any 
 intelligent worship. 
 
 Now, in the following lectures, we shall trace how, 
 in the development of the religion of Christ out 
 of the religion of Israel, a practical solution of this 
 problem was reached. Here I wish rather to point 
 out the general principle which must underlie any 
 such solution. It is to be found, as I have already ; 
 indicated, in the use of the two kindred ideas of 
 organic unity and evolution. The former idea satis- 
 fies our demand for universality, in so far as it 
 enables us to think of the world, as pantheistic 
 religion thought of it, as one great whole or system, 
 whose principle of unity lies in God ; but at the 
 same time to conceive this unity, not as absorbing 
 all the differences of the world into itself, not as 
 fatal to the independent individual existence of any 
 of God's creatures, but as a principle of life mani- 
 fested in each and all of them. In the words of 
 Goethe, it enables us to conceive God as a Being 
 who " fosters nature in Himself, Himself in nature, 
 so that nothing that lives and moves and has its 
 being in Him ever forgets His force or His spirit." 
 
76 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 On the other hand, the idea of evolution enables 
 us to escape from the conception of this unity as 
 a substance, to which all things are eqiudly related, 
 and which, therefore, is not truly revealed in any- 
 thing. For a God who, in the language already 
 quoted from Pope, is 'as full and perfect in a hair 
 as heart,' is one before whom all the differences of 
 finite existence disappear, and of whom, just because 
 we can in a sense attribute everything to Him, we 
 cannot say anything distinctive. But the idea of 
 evolution carries with it the conception that, while 
 all existences manifest their Divine Original, they 
 do not all manifest Him equally ; but that there 
 are grades of existence, rising from the inanimate 
 to the animate, and from the' animal to man, and in 
 man's history from the stage in which he is nearest 
 to the animal to a more and more full realisation 
 of that which distinguishes him as man. It bids 
 us regard the highest point to which creation reaches 
 as the clearest revelation of what it all means. It 
 bids us, in short, to find the key to the beginning 
 in the end, and not the key to the end in the 
 beginning. Hence, also, it justifies monotheism in 
 treating the wishes and hopes of the best of men, 
 not as mere wishes but also as prophecies ; and 
 that, not because they take us away from reality or 
 protest against it, but because they enable us to see 
 through superficial appearances to a principle of good, 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 77 
 
 working in the world and turning evil into its 
 instrument. 
 
 For man, on this view, is not regarded simply 
 as one being in the world among others, an object 
 standing on the same level with them, and to be 
 treated in the same way ; but rather as, in a 
 sense, including in himself the life of all the 
 others, and reaching beyond it. He is a micro- 
 cosm, for the whole process of nature is summed 
 up in him ; but he is more, because it culminates 
 in him. In him the natural world comes to self- 
 consciousness, and a new spiritual process of life 
 begins, which through all his history is working 
 toward a higher expression of itself.' Hence we 
 are not to take as unreal and subjective anything 
 in him which reaches beyond what is already 
 realised in the world. It is true that, as he has 
 subjective fancies which have no reference to any- 
 thing that exists, so he has subjective impulses 
 which point to nothing that ever will, or can, exist. 
 But, as it would be a mistake to say that every 
 thought in us that goes beyond immediate experi- 
 ence is illusive, so it would equally be a mistake 
 
 ' Cf. the end of Browning's Paracelsus for a powerful expres- 
 sion of this idea : 
 
 " All tended to mankind, 
 And, man produced, all has its end thus far ; 
 But in completed man begins anew 
 A tendency to God." 
 
78 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 to think of every desire as futile that cannot find 
 any object ready for its satisfaction. Self-conscious- 
 ness, by the very nature of it, reaches beyond con- 
 sciousness ; and, as we return upon ourselves from 
 the world, we rise above it. But we do not rise into 
 empty air ; we rise to the consciousness of some- 
 thing in us and in the world, which has not yet 
 been realised, and for which all that has been 
 realised may be regarded as a preparation. For if 
 the process of the world is an evolution, the pro- 
 gressive manifestation of a principle that reveals 
 itself more and more fully as the process advances, 
 then the right way of looking at such desires — 
 desires that are bound up with the highest moral 
 consciousness of man, — is to treat them as the first 
 step towards their own realisation. As the wise 
 man looks through the surface phenomena of life, 
 and sees in apparent prosperity the seeds of decay 
 and revolution, or in the small beginnings of an 
 enterprise which attracts no outward attention, the 
 promise of a great movement which will transform 
 and elevate the lives of men ; so the visions, long- 
 ings, and aspirations of the good, of those who 
 seek not themselves but the weal of mankind, are 
 not only prophetic, but they are the beginning of 
 the fulfilment of prophecy. They are themselves 
 the germs or firstfruits of a future which has 
 become visible to them, not because they have 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 79 
 
 yielded more than other men to subjective dreams 
 and idle wishes for the impossible, but because, 
 more than other men, they have got beyond such 
 dreams; because their faithfulness has raised them 
 to a point where the future good, which to all 
 others is, so to speak, below the horizon, is already 
 made visible. Their desire is thus not the mere 
 wish of an individual, but the "spirit of the years 
 to come yearning to mix itself with life." " Surely," 
 says the prophet Amos, " the Lord God will do 
 nothing, but He revealeth the secret to His servants 
 the prophets."^ Such an expression might be taken 
 in the sense that the prophet is a soothsayer, 
 miraculously gifted with the power of foretelling 
 particular events to come ; but its higher meaning 
 is that which was indicated in the words of Christ, 
 that the souls of men, who are not ' hypocrites ' 
 but true to themselves, can be trusted 'to discern the 
 signs of the times,' and to see beneath their imper- 
 fection the promise of a better future.^ Nay, even 
 apart from seeing the promise of good without them, 
 such men have it within them. For their own revolt 
 against the evil of their day, their own aspiration 
 after a better state of things, is itself the greatest 
 of all 'the signs of the times,' as it is the first 
 revelation of the power that will destroy the evil 
 and bring about the good they desire. 
 
 > Amos iii. 7. ^ St. Matthew xvi. 3. 
 
80 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Now, it is by these principles that we can 
 explain how the Jews came to be the great pro- 
 phetic nation of the world. They were prophets 
 of a better time, because their dissatisfaction with 
 the present was not simply the ordinary disappoint- 
 ment with life, which makes so many men into 
 pessimists, who 
 
 " Sit beside the poisoned springs of life, 
 Waiting for the morrow that shall free them from the strife." 
 
 It was not merely the dissatisfaction of those whose 
 selfish hopes are defeated, or to whom their fulfil- 
 ment has not brought the happiness they had 
 expected. Their disappointment was not barren ; 
 because in their recoil upon themselves, they rose 
 to the idea of a 'just God and a Saviour,' who 
 must fulfil the hopes He has awakened in the 
 hearts of His children. Their consciousness of a 
 spiritual law within them passed immediately into 
 the consciousness of a spiritual power above them ; 
 hence they could not regard the discord of the out- 
 ward world with the demands of the spirit as a 
 permanent fact, or as anything but a trial of their 
 patience and their faith. Thus the ruin of all 
 their earthly hopes did not with them produce a 
 selfish despair, such as darkened the declining life 
 of other ancient nations ; it only gave occasion for 
 that last and highest effort of prophecy which is 
 preserved for us in the later chapters of Isaiah, 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 81 
 
 in which, on a background of the darkness of a 
 time of war and disorder, the prophet paints the 
 unselfish ideal of a kingdom of peace and righteous- 
 ness, into which all nations shall be admitted. Of 
 one of the greatest men of the modern time — Oliver 
 Cromwell — ^who was deeply impregnated with the 
 spirit of the Old Testament, we are told by one 
 who knew him that, " in the dark places of the 
 war, in the high places of the field, hope shone 
 in him like a pillar of fire after it had gone out 
 in every one else." So we may say of the nation : 
 of Israel that its undying wrath at evil, its stead- 
 fast refusal to believe that it is a final or ultimate 
 fact, its unquenchable hope for the regeneration of 
 man, and its immovable trust in the divine justice, 
 made it far greater in defeat and disaster than other 
 nations have been in their highest hours of triumph. 
 It, and perhaps it alone, showed the power of turn- 
 ing the decay and destruction of its political exist- 
 ence into the basis for a higher spiritual life. And u- 
 this of itself enables us to understand how it was t 
 only out of Judah that the religion of humanity 
 could arise. 
 
 VOL. IT. 
 
82 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Note A. On the Unity of Pantheism, and Monotheism. 
 
 It is impossible here to discuss all the difficulties connected 
 with this conception ; but it may be useful to show a little 
 more definitely how such an application of the ideas of organic 
 unity and development, as is suggested in the preceding lecture, 
 may assist in solving them. The question, as ordinarily stated, 
 relates to what is termed the Personality of Ood. Apart, how- 
 ever, from the theological use of the term Person in the doctrine 
 of the Trinity, which makes it unsuitable to express the Unity 
 of the Divine Nature, the word Personality seems to me to call 
 up misleading legal associations. When we apply it to man, 
 it almost compels us to regard him in one limited aspect of his 
 being, as a subject of rights ; hence we might say that even 
 man is much more than a person. And when we apply it to 
 God, it suggests that He is to be conceived, as He was conceived 
 by Judaism, as an abstract subject who is not immanent in the 
 world. While, however, the word may be objected to, we 
 cannot blink the question which is connected with it, whether 
 God — the ultimate principle of unity in the universe, is to be 
 regarded as an intelligent or self-conscious Being. It has been 
 maintained by many critics that it is a necessary consequence 
 of modern Idealism to dissolve the individuality of God, and, 
 indeed, also the individuality of man, in a universal impersonal 
 Thought, which is attached to no Thinker ; and that, therefore, 
 such Idealism is in result identical with the Spinozistic philo- 
 sophy, which merges all finite existence in the absolute substance, 
 To this charge I venture to answer that an Idealism which has 
 taken up into itself the principle of evolution can avert, and, so far 
 as I see, it alone can avert such a logical result. This follows 
 from what has been said in the preceding lecture. For it has there 
 been shown that it is only on the basis of such a theory that we 
 can think of God — as He must be thought of — as the principle of 
 unity in all things, and yet conceive Him as a self-conscious, 
 self -determining Being. For, on the one hand, those who, like 
 Spinoza and Mr. Spencer (see Vol. I. p. 104), have realised the 
 idea of God as an absolute and infinite being — the ultimate 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 83 
 
 unity of all existence and of all thought— have generally been 
 led to deny the possibility of regarding Him as revealed to us 
 by any one form of finite existence more than another, and 
 therefore the possibility of knowing Him at all. And a God who j 
 is " as full as perfect in a hair as heart," who is as near to, and ; 
 as far from man, as He is from a tree or a stone, may be said, ! 
 indifferently, either to have every predicate or none at all. i 
 The predicates by which we could determine Him neutralise 
 each other, and leave us with the empty idea of an abstract 
 being or power. On the other hand, those who cling to the 
 idea that there is an absolute principle of individuality in man 
 and in other finite substances, seem necessarily to be led to a 
 denial of all real connexion or relation between such substances. 
 And if, like Leibniz and his greatest modem discijjle, Lotze, \ 
 they still introduce the idea of God, as a principle of unity or 
 relation between finite substances, they are forced in doing so to 
 contradict themselves, and to use the language of that very pan- 
 theistic theory which they began by repudiating. Thus Leibniz, 
 as I have shown elsewhere,' begins by asserting that every monad 
 is "like a separate world," and that it is "as durable, as self- 
 suflicient, and as absolute as the universe itself" ; and he goes on 
 to maintain that the only connexion of monads with the world 
 is that they represent it, i.e. that they have merely ideal and 
 not real relations to the other monads ; but he ends with the 
 pantheistic assertion that "God alone is the primitive unity, 
 or simple originative substance, of which all created or 
 derivative monads are the productions, horn as it were of the 
 continual fulgurations of divinity from moment to moment."'^ And 
 Lotze, in like manner, after coming very close to atomism in 
 his account of individual finite substances, finds that he can 
 account for reciprocal action between such substances only 
 by regarding them " as parts of a single and real being," ' or, as 
 
 ^ Critical Philosophy of Kant, i. 94. 
 
 "Erdmann's Leibniz, p. 708. Monadologie, § 47. 
 
 'Lotze's Metaphysics, i. 165 (Eng, Transl.). Lotze's theory in this and 
 other respects comes very near to the early theory of Kant explained in 
 the Dissertation {De mundi sensibilis et intelligibilis forma et principiis). 
 Cf. Grit. Phil, of Kant, i. 168 seq. 
 
84 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 
 
 he elsewhere puts it, as the acts of the Divine Substance. In 
 particular, I would notice how the Berkeleian doctrine that 
 each individual is immediately conscious only of his own ideas, 
 as states of his own consciousness — a doctrine that naturally 
 goes along with Lotze's Individualism — leads him to deny or to 
 overlook relativity of the self to the not-self, and therefore 
 makes it impossible for him to admit that in any sense we 
 can " see all things in God," or, in other words, that we can be 
 conscious of them as determined by the idea of God. Thus, by 
 a kind of logical nemesis, those who begin with the abstract 
 Individual are forced to end with the abstract Universal. 
 
 But if, in accordance with the principles of Idealism, we 
 regard the infinite not as an abstraction, but as a self -determin- 
 ing principle (cf. Vol. I. Lecture IV.), if we follow out the 
 doctrine of the correlation of inner and outer experience (see 
 Lecture V.), and if we interpret that doctrine in the light of 
 the idea of evolution, and the consequences which have been 
 drawn from it (Lectures VI., VII., and the preceding Lecture), 
 — viz., that nature comes to self-consciousness in man, and 
 that, therefore, the process of man's life is a continuation 
 of the seK-revelation of the Absolute Being which begins in 
 nature — it then becomes possible to think of Ood as the 
 principle of unity in all things, and yet as a living God 
 in whose image man is made. And, on the same view, it 
 becomes possible to think of man as " a partaker in the divine 
 nature," and, therefore, as a self-conscious and self-determining 
 spirit, without gifting him with an absolute individuality, 
 which would cut him off from all union and communion with 
 his fellow creatures and with God. I do not deny that there 
 are many difficulties in this view, difficulties with which I have 
 not attempted to deal. But it seems to me this is the only line 
 of thought which makes it possible to escape the opposite 
 absurdities of an Individualism which dissolves the unity of the 
 universe into atoms, and an abstract Monism which leaves no 
 room for any real individuality either in God or in man : not to 
 speak of the still greater absurdity of holding both of these one- 
 sided views at once. 
 
LEOTUEE EOUETH. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE LATER JUDAISM AND THE 
 ANSWER OF JESUS. 
 
 The Difficulty in which Subjective Religion ends — The Practical 
 Idealism of Jesus — In what Sense Jesus was Original — Anti- 
 thetic Form of His Teaching — How the Belief in a Special 
 Power of Evil arises in Later Judaism — The Doctrine of John 
 the Baptist and its Relation to the Teaching of Jesus — The 
 Kingdom of Heaven on Earth — How Jesus solves the Problem 
 of Evil — His Optimism, on the Basis of Pessimism — Note on 
 the Belief in Evil Spirits. 
 
 In the last lecture I spoke of the double necessity, 
 in a religion which should avoid the defects of sub- 
 jective and of objective religion alike, of doing justice 
 to the opposition between the subject and the object, 
 and yet of rising above it and reconciling it. Such 
 a religion must bring the consciousness of God into 
 its true form as the consciousness of a unity which 
 is beyond all difference, while yet refusing the facile ' 
 resource of a universality which simply lets the 
 differences drop. The temptation to this fallacious 
 path, whether it take the superficial form of an 
 
86 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 agnosticism, which renounces the hope of rising to any- 
 reconciling unity at all, or the deeper form of a 
 pantheism which regards all differences as the shadows 
 of our cave, is continually becoming greater, as the 
 advance of human life and thought makes men aware 
 of the depth of the divisions and oppositions to be 
 overcome. And, therefore, it would be felt most 
 strongly in reference to the opposition of the ideal 
 and the real, between what ought to be and what is, 
 were it not that, to a mind deeply impressed with 
 the moral antagonism, nothing can be so repugnant 
 as the doubt of the reality, or the assertion of the un- 
 reality of these distinctions. At the same time, such 
 a mind must feel in the strongest way the opposite 
 danger of a dualism which makes these distinctions 
 absolute, and thereby deprives them of their moral 
 meaning. The moral consciousness calls for a unity 
 beyond its utmost oppositions and distinctions, yet it 
 refuses to accept it on any terms which do not leave 
 the reality of those oppositions and distinctions un- 
 affected. Thus, on the one hand, it seems to stand 
 out for dualism, for pessimism, for the absolute 
 opposition of what ought to be to what is ; yet, on 
 the other hand, it would be in despair if its protest 
 were accepted as final. It hates any theory that 
 would 'heal its hurt slightly, or cry Peace, when 
 there is no peace ' : yet, it cannot reconcile itself to 
 the idea that there is no healing for its wound, no 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 87 
 
 way to put an end to its spiritual conflict with itself ' 
 and the world. Hence, like Judaism, it cherishes a 
 faith in the realisation of good, which yet it thrusts 
 away into the past or the future ; or, like Stoicism, 
 it combines an optimism in general with a pessimism 
 in particular; or, like Kant, it takes back as pos- 
 tulates of reason, what it surrenders as objects of 
 knowledge. It lives, as it were, in the shadow of 
 death, but it never ceases to believe in light and life, 
 to long for them and to prophesy them. 
 
 The unique character of Christianity lay in this, 
 that it was the response to the demand of such ; 
 a divided moral consciousness. It was reconcilia- 
 tion for spirits that were in the deepest contradic- 
 tion with themselves and with the world. It was 
 an optimism addressed to those who were overpowered 
 and possessed by the consciousness of misery and sin, 
 good news of the kingdom of heaven to those whose 
 souls were penetrated and oppressed with a sense of 
 all the evils done under the sun. And it presented 
 all this, not as realisable in some far off place and 
 time, or in an ideal world of thought, but as realised 
 there and then, — in an immediate consciousness so full 
 and free that for it evil was weakness manifest, and 
 good an outflow of divine life which nothing could 
 resist. When Jesus said, ' If ye have faith as a 
 grain of mustard seed, ye might say to this sycamore 
 tree, be thou plucked up by the roots and be thou 
 
88 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 planted in the sea, and it should obey you,'^ he was 
 not speaking of any mere power of working outward 
 miracles; rather he was expressing, in the face of 
 suffering, sacrifice, and death, the triumphant con- 
 sciousness of spiritual life as a power with which no 
 outward force is commensurable, as indeed the power 
 which makes and remakes the world, and for which all 
 the force of nature is but the instrument. 
 
 "Winds blow and waters roll 
 Strength to the brave and power and deity." 
 
 The secret of Jesus was the unswerving, uncompro- 
 mising, practical idealism with which he faced the 
 evils of life and the darkness of death, and refused 
 to regard them as other than weapons in the hand 
 of an omnipotent goodness which, in spite of them, 
 and through them, is irresistibly realising its divine 
 purpose. 
 
 There has been much controversy about the 
 originality of Christianity, and especially of the 
 teaching of Jesus — a controversy which has led 
 to little profitable result, because it has dealt mainly 
 with the particular details and not with the mean- 
 ing and spirit of the whole. Just as the point of 
 distinction between man and the other animals has 
 been sought in some special bone, or sinew, or con- 
 volution of the brain, so the distinctive excellence 
 and originality of Christianity has been sought in 
 1 Luke xvii. 6. 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 89 
 
 some special ethical precept or principle, to which 
 nothing analogous can be found in any previous 
 religious or philosophical system. There is, how- 
 ever, no originality which we may not fritter away \ 
 on such a method; for, in a sense, all moral truth , 
 is implicitly contained in the first experiences of a i 
 self-conscious being, and, therefore, glimpses of the ; 
 highest to which man can rise may be expected ; 
 even in the earliest stages of human development.; 
 In this region originality consists only in the deepen- 
 ing and widening of generally recognised truths, or 
 in applying with clear consciousness and systematic 
 purpose, ideas which were before apprehended as 
 passing lights of intuition. It is, therefore, little 
 to the purpose to say that Jewish prophets described 
 a suffering ' servant of God,' who " bore the sins 
 and carried the sorrows of others " ; or that Jewish 
 Rabbis long before Christ, or even Chinese moralists 
 before Confucius, formulated the golden rule. As 
 little is it to the purpose to point to Plato's assertion 
 that it is better to suffer than to do injustice, or to 
 his proof that there is a spiritual life in man which 
 death cannot affect. These and many other points of 
 contact between Christian and pre-Christian thought 
 undoubtedly exist; yet, when we look at the ideas 
 and character of Jesus as a whole, we can see 
 that all such scattered elements have there acquired 
 a new meaning, as the elements of a new unity — 
 
90 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 a new organic conception of human life in its relations 
 to nature and to God — which, taken in its entirety, 
 has no previous counterpart, and which, indeed, con- 
 stitutes the greatest step that has ever been gained 
 in the spiritual development of man. 
 
 It is true that the inner self-consistency and 
 completeness of the new religious consciousness is 
 partly concealed from us by the aphoristic character 
 of the words of Jesus, which present only one aspect 
 of things at a time, and generally present it in 
 a form so bold and epigrammatic as to cast all 
 other aspects into the shade. It is concealed from 
 us also by what we may call the dialectical form 
 of those utterances, ■i.e. the way in which comple- 
 mentary but contrasted elements of truth are set 
 side by side, each of them being stated so absolutely 
 as to lead to a verbal contradiction with the others. 
 The religious idea which Jesus had to reveal was 
 so complex that it could not be expressed in lan- 
 guage generally intelligible, except by the method 
 of first emphasising one side and then another, and 
 leaving the mind of the hearer, aided by the im- 
 pression of the living personality of the teacher, to 
 make the necessary synthesis. N"ay, we may say 
 that the essential aim which bound the whole 
 doctrine together — the aim of revealing a reconciling 
 principle which could overcome the deepest antag- 
 onisms of life — necessitated a manner of speech in 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 91 
 
 which the contradiction was brought to the front, 
 and thrown as a spiritual problem into the soul of 
 the learner. Hence we have a multitude of anti- 
 theses, sometimes drawn out into parables, sometimes 
 compressed into axioms of spiritual life, each of 
 which, to a superficial view, seems to contain rather 
 a problem than the solution of it ; for they bring 
 opposite ideas into such close combination, that we 
 are again and again tempted to cast away one half 
 of the lesson in order to save the other. Are we 
 to regard the Gospel as the fulfilment of the Law, 
 or as the destruction of it ? Does Jesus authorise, 
 or finally abolish the Messianic hopes of the Jews ? 
 Is his morality intended to be one of negative self- 
 sacrifice, or of positive self-realisation ? Does he 
 reveal an immanent, or a transcendent God; and 
 are we ultimately to class his religion as a form 
 of monotheism, or as a form of pantheism ? To 
 such questions no simple answer can be given, except 
 by an undue emphasising of one set of utterances 
 and an undue neglect of others. Nay, to give such 
 an answer, we should often need to tear a sentence 
 in two and to reject one half of it. In regard to 
 every one of them we are forced to say, that what 
 the question itself expresses as a choice of alterna- 
 tives is really a vital opposition of thought, which 
 Jesus seems to have acknowledged and even de- 
 veloped to its utmost intensity, but yet which it 
 
92 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 was his aim and purpose to transcend. And when 
 we have got so far, the further question must arise 
 in our minds, whether all these different antitheses 
 are not forms of one great antithesis of the spiritual 
 life, which, if soluble at all, have only one funda- 
 mental solution. If this should turn out to be 
 the case, then we shall have to seek for the 
 originality of Jesus just in the nature of this 
 solution, and nowhere else. 
 
 Now, in speaking of the development of subjective 
 religion, I have already indicated one form of the 
 contradiction with which Jesus had to deal. The 
 whole history of the religion of Israel is a history 
 of the development of the moral consciousness, and 
 consequently of the deepening and widening of the 
 opposition between that which ought to ie and that 
 which is. And in the end, that opposition becomes so 
 strongly expressed as to approximate to a Manichaean 
 dualism. Por the unsophisticated mind of early 
 times, the general problem of evil scarcely existed. 
 The Divine Being was not yet regarded as a 
 universal source of justice, nor was the idea of 
 goodness yet separated from its natural root in the 
 ties of kindred. At this stage, therefore, the God 
 of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was regarded as hostile 
 to foreign nations and . their gods, and also to the 
 degenerate Israelite who worshipped any other god, 
 and thereby — for the two things necessarily went 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 93 
 
 together — broke away from the unity of the national 
 life. The supreme sin was to refuse to bow at 
 the altars of Jehovah, and not to be ready to come 
 'to the help of Jehovah against the mighty.' God 
 was conceived on the analogy of the head of a tribe, 
 who dispensed good to His own people and evil to 
 their enemies, and who, in His relations to the 
 individuals of His own people, rewarded faithful 
 service and punished rebellion as the greatest, and, 
 indeed, as the only crime. In such a time the only 
 difiiculty seemed to be that the triumph of Israel 
 was not complete, or that the rewards and punish- 
 ments were so long delayed. But, as the religion 
 of the prophets soared above national limits, and 
 Jehovah came to be regarded as the God of all men 
 and of all nations — a God who was not bound up 
 with the existence of the Jewish people, but might 
 punish it for its sins even by the crushing of its 
 national life ; or who, if He maintained that life, 
 did so only that through Israel ' all nations might 
 be blessed ' — the conceptions of good and evil became 
 universalised and purified, and it became more diffi- 
 cult to conceive that the same Divine Being, who 
 was the author of good, should also be the creator of 
 evil. Hence, •pari passu with the development of 
 ethical monotheism and the purification of the idea 
 of God's goodness from national partiality, we find a 
 growing tendency among the Jews to admit that evil 
 
94 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 has its source in a subordinate, but relatively inde- 
 pendent, power. The Persian dualism of good and 
 evil spirits thus found entrance into Israel just because 
 of the widening of morality and religion beyond their 
 merely national forms. The beginnings of a belief 
 in an evil power which works against goodness and 
 God, are traceable in some passages in the later 
 books of the Old Testament, as e.g. in the appearance 
 of Satan in the book of Job, where, however, he 
 seems to be still regarded as a minister of God.^ 
 But in the interval, between the close of the pro- 
 phetic writings and the Christian era — as we see 
 from some of the Apocryphal books — the idea of a 
 kingdom of evil, a realm of demons ruled by Satan 
 or Beelzebub, and forming the opposite counterpart 
 to a realm of angels ruled by God, had gained 
 possession of the Jewish mind. And to the influ- 
 ence of such demons it became customary to attribute, 
 not only the suggestions of evil in the human 
 
 ' In Zeohariah iii. 1 Satan appears as the accuser of Joshua 
 the high priest before the angel of the Lord. Isaiah (xlv. 7) 
 seems to protest against the Persian dualism, when he makes 
 Jehovah say : " I form the light and create darkness : I make 
 peace and create evil, I, Jehovah, do these things.'' One of the 
 most significant traces of the incoming of the dualistic mode of 
 thought is to be found in 1 Chronicles xxi. 1, where the state- 
 ment in 2 Samuel xxiv. 1 that Jehovah moved David to 
 number the people is changed into the assertion that "Satan 
 provoked David to number Israel." Cf. Kuenen, Religion of 
 Israel, iii. 40. 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 95 
 
 heart, but also most of the afflictions that flesh 
 is heir to. In particular, as we see from the New 
 Testament, all kinds of mental disturbance, and all 
 diseases which are accompanied by violent convulsions 
 or sudden collapse of energy, were conceived to be 
 the effects of demoniacal possession. So far had 
 this dualistic view of things gone, that, to the popular 
 consciousness, goodness presented itself as a feebly 
 struggling power of resistance, which with continually 
 greater difficulties was maintaining itself against the 
 established authority of evil. The 'prince of this 
 world' was the devil, and the servants of God in this 
 world were in the enemy's country. It is true that 
 with this always went the idea that those who 
 were fighting for the good cause, were in alliance 
 with the ultimate power of the universe ; and that 
 therefore the good cause must ultimately prevail, and 
 the kingdom of heaven be set up on earth. But 
 this faith could not remove the oppression of the 
 immediate sense of the weakness of good and the 
 strength of evil. The good man 'in this present 
 evil world' seemed to be always swimming against 
 the tide, or resisting the natural bent of things; and 
 the hope of deliverance took the shape, not of an 
 anticipation of victory as the result of continued 
 effort, but of a prophetic expectation of some mighty 
 interference from above, that would suddenly change 
 and even invert the whole system of nature. 
 
96 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Now in this consciousness of the time there were 
 undoubtedly many elements of superstition. The 
 pessimistic surrender of the present world to evil, 
 the hope of a sudden catastrophic overturn which 
 should give the victory to good, the belief that this 
 world is a kingdom of Beelzebub which can only be 
 overthrown by the miraculous intervention of a 
 Messiah revealing himself in outward signs and 
 wonders, seem to involve a purely outward and, we 
 might almost say, a scenic view of the movement of 
 history. Yet such popular conceptions were really 
 the indication of a stage in the development of the 
 moral consciousness far more advanced than the 
 superficial optimistic hopes of the early religion of 
 Israel, in which the faithfulness of the nation to 
 its God was regarded as certain at once to bring 
 about its triumph over all its enemies. To this 
 it may be added that the outward movement of 
 the history of Israel was such as to stimulate 
 the development of the religious idea in this 
 direction. If we think of the deep spiritual aspira- 
 tions which had grown up in the later period of 
 the Jewish history, and had found expression in 
 some of the Psalms, and, on the other hand, of the 
 hard struggle with circumstances and with the over- 
 powering material pressure of Persian, Greek, and 
 Eoman despotism, through which Judah had to main- 
 tain its faith in the God of Israel, we can understand 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 97 
 
 how natural it might seem to those who still held 
 to that faith to regard the whole world, all its powers 
 and principalities, spiritual and natural, as banded 
 together against the good cause, and to think that 
 nothing but some miraculous interference of the far- 
 off divine power, could bring about their deliverance. 
 The mournful minor key of the Psalms, — lifting the 
 solitary protest of the heart against triumphant evil 
 and appealing to the God of Justice to break forth 
 from the clouds in which He is hidden, and to reveal 
 Himself as a just God and a Saviour, — becomes the 
 expression of the permanent attitude of the saints 
 in this world. "Give us help from trouble, for vain 
 is the help of man,"-^ was the natural utterance of 
 those who were outwardly weak and oppressed, while 
 at the same time they were conscious of an inward 
 life which lifted them above all their oppressors. 
 And this cry de profundis gained a still deeper pathos 
 from the fact that those who raised it had become 
 aware that they needed to be delivered, not only from 
 outward but from inward evils, not only from foreign 
 oppressors but from themselves, not only from Greek 
 or Eoman tyranny, but from their own iniquities. 
 Thus the hope of a deliverance from above, to those 
 who were helpless against the wrongs of the world 
 and helpless even against the evil of their own hearts, 
 naturally gave birth to the prophecy of a kingdom 
 
 1 Psalms Ix. 11. 
 VOL. II. G 
 
98 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of heaven which was not to arise by any natural 
 process, nor by any human agency, but which, by a 
 direct divine intervention, was to destroy the estab- 
 lished powers of the world, and set itself up in their 
 place. 
 
 In the light of this strained consciousness of evil, 
 for which the power of darkness was so near, and the 
 power of light and life so far off, we can understand 
 the electric effect of the word of John the Baptist, 
 " The kingdom of heaven is at hand." It meant that 
 that which had hitherto seemed so weak, so poor, so 
 destitute of all inward and outward resources, was 
 immediately to manifest itself as the great power of 
 the world; that right was now at length to show itself 
 as might ; that the deliverance from evils within and 
 without, which had been longed for but hardly ex- 
 pected, except in some dim future or in another world, 
 was already at the door. It awakened the hope of a 
 triumph of good in the face of an apparently complete 
 victory of evil, and turned a distant possibility, to 
 which faith had been clinging, into an immediate 
 prospect. The word, "The kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand," was thus the last word of prophecy; and it 
 was the most potent of all its words, because it was 
 delivered at a time when, to the awakened conscience 
 of men, the powers of this world seemed to be almost 
 wholly evil. 
 
 But the oracles of prophecy are always ambiguous. 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 99 
 
 and they may be read in a higher or a lower sense, 
 according to the point of view of the hearer. In the 
 general consciousness of the Jews, vulgar hopes of the 
 triumph of the people of Israel over all its enemies, 
 of an outward reign of the faithful nation over a 
 subject world, were mingled with the expectation of a 
 final manifestation that good was stronger than evil, 
 and of the deliverance of man from its power. Even 
 the idea that help was to come from God alone, 
 and not from man, might be interpreted in the sense 
 that it was to come by an external miracle, which 
 should, without any effort of their own, put them in 
 possession of the good they sought. On the other 
 hand, it might mean a spiritual reinforcement of man's 
 faith, by which he should be enabled to realise the 
 good after which he had been so long striving in 
 vain. The proclamation of the kingdom of heaven 
 was, therefore, the stirring up of the deepest springs 
 of all that was best and all that was worst in the 
 consciousness of the time. It was the provocation i 
 of a struggle between the deepest spiritual forces in 
 man's nature, — a struggle in which more distinct 
 moral issues were involved than in any previous re- 
 ligious conflict or controversy. 
 
 The first step toward the Kpla-is, the distinction 
 and division of these confused moral forces into 
 opposing hosts, was made by John the Baptist in 
 his demand for repentance as the preparation for 
 
100 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the coming kingdom. This word involved the lesson 
 that for each man the great hindrance to the 
 coming of the highest good he could desire, was to 
 be found in himself ; that he was an accomplice 
 in all the iUs from which he suffered. Hence the 
 attitude of one who desired to partake in the 
 blessings of the kingdom, was not to be an inert 
 receptiveness of a good to be poured down from 
 above ; but, so to speak, the enlisting in an army 
 which was only waiting for its leader, and which, 
 in the meantime, had to discipline itself into readi- 
 j ness for his service. The gift had, indeed, to come 
 i from above, but it would come only to those who 
 ( had their loins girt and their lamps burning, who 
 were waiting and prepared to receive it. This is 
 the first blow at the idea of an external kingdom 
 of heaven, which should be established among men 
 by a transcendent act of divine power. 
 
 So far, however, in the teaching of the Baptist, 
 the idea presented to us is only that of a tnoral 
 preparation for a religious deliverance, which has 
 to be externally added to it. On the other hand, 
 ' the distinctive characteristic of the teaching of 
 Jesus is, that in it the endeavour of man and the 
 gift of God are brought together, and morality and 
 ; religion are unified. To the Jew, even at the 
 point of view of the Baptist, the moral life was 
 an ineffectual effort of the finite to raise itself 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 101 
 
 to the infinite, of sinful man to bring himself into 
 harmony with the divine law of perfection. But 
 this effort necessarily fails, and to it, therefore, the 
 Divine Being must externally add a completion 
 which it has not in itself; just as in the Kantian 
 philosophy immortality and God had to be postu- 
 lated to give room for the accomplishment of the 
 endless task of morality, and to secure to the good- 
 ness thus perfected the happiness it deserves. But 
 the gospel of Jesus rapidly passed from the form, 
 " The kingdom of heaven is at hand," to the form, 
 " The kingdom of heaven is already in the midst 
 of you." It is already present in the reconciled 
 consciousness of Jesus himself and of his disciples, 
 who, as they call God their Father, can no longer 
 look upon the world as subjected to the power of 
 evil. Thus the essential change in the Christian 
 mode of thought is, that the divine life ceases to 
 be postponed to a future, either on earth or beyond 
 the grave. It has, indeed, a future, in the sense 
 that the seed has a future in the plant that 
 springs from it ; but the principle of that future is 
 already here. The leaven is already working in 
 the mass, "until the whole be leavened." The reli- 
 gion of prophecy is at an end, and the religion of 
 fulfilment and fruition has come. "All the pro- 
 phets and the law prophesied until John," but, 
 "from henceforth the kingdom of heaven suffereth 
 
102 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 violence, and the violent take it by force." ^ "Blessed 
 are the eyes which see the things that ye see, and 
 hear the things that ye hear : for many prophets 
 and kings have desired to see what ye see, and 
 have not seen them, and to hear what ye hear, 
 and have not heard them." ^ Men need not hence- 
 forth look beyond their immediate life, or listen to 
 those who say, 'Lo! here,' or 'Lo! there.' ^ They 
 need only to become conscious of what they have 
 and are, from the point of view to which Christ 
 has raised them. God is not a transcendent power 
 who rules from a far-away heaven ; He is without 
 as He is within ; and the Christian is not therefore 
 as one who holds an outpost in the land of the 
 enemy, but as one who knows that all things work 
 together for the success of him who seeks to real- 
 ise the good, even those things that seem to offer 
 most resistance to his efforts. To such a conscious- 
 ness sorrow can only be the trial of faith, the 
 discipline of man's soul, whereby he is made cap- 
 able of a higher good. And even sin, as it is 
 possible only through the self-ignorance of a lower 
 stage of development, must be, if not the means 
 to a higher good, yet at least the condition through 
 the negation of which it is attained. 
 
 The great problem of the Old Testament, the 
 
 1 Matt. xi. 12, 13. ^ Luke x. 23, 24 ; Matt. xiii. 16, 17. 
 
 » Matt. xxiv. 23. 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 103 
 
 difficulty that vexes the soul of Job — "Why is 
 the course of the world unjust ? " " Why is the 
 righteous man troubled, and why is the wicked 
 man allowed to succeed ? " — now for the first time 
 meets with a real answer. The righteous man is 
 troubled, because his righteousness is yet in germ, 
 and it cannot be developed except through trouble. 
 Evil is or appears to be triumphant, because its 
 immediate triumph is necessary to its final extinc- 
 tion. The course of the world is just; but it is 
 not justice to a being who is in process of growth 
 to treat the life of to-day as if it were final, and 
 had no reference to the past and the future. In 
 seeking for the law of the world, the whole pro- 
 cess of development of the individual man and of 
 humanity must be taken into account ; and that 
 process has a negative, as well as a positive aspect. 
 The future comes out of ' the present, not by the 
 unfolding of an already completed life which con- 
 tains already preformed in it all that it can ever 
 manifest, but by a change which involves the 
 breaking up and renewal of the whole form of the 
 organism. " Except a corn of wheat faU into the 
 ground and die, it abideth alone." ^ The richer Hfe 
 of the future cannot be attained except by a loss 
 in the immediate life of the present. And, in the 
 case of a conscious and self-conscious being, this 
 ' John xii. 24. 
 
104 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 means that pain, self-denial, self-renunciation, self- 
 sacrifice, is the only way whereby joy and self- 
 realisation — the goodness which is happiness, and the 
 happiness which is goodness — can be reached. 
 
 Jesus, then, solves the problem of life — which 
 had seemed so hard to the saints of the Old 
 Testament, and which had ultimately led to the 
 almost dualistic view of existence which prevailed 
 in the pre-Christian era — by teaching that all the phe- 
 nomena which had given rise to a doubt of the justice 
 of God, and even to a belief that He had abandoned 
 this world to the power of evil, were explicable as 
 necessary for the development of the highest good. 
 Thus calamities are to be regarded as not, or at 
 least not merely, punishments for sin, but rather 
 as tokens of God's goodness that will not allow 
 men to abide in evil. Nay, even those furious out- 
 bursts of persecuting hate, which seem to be the 
 most decisive manifestations of the spirit of evil, 
 are to be taken as the opportunities for the decisive 
 triumph of good over it. Bacon's saying, that 
 "prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament 
 and adversity of the New," is the epigrammatic 
 expression of a truth. The general idea which 
 pervades the Old Testament is that, at least after 
 a short space of trial, faithfulness must be rewarded 
 by outward success ; whereas the New Testament, 
 — looking at calamity, suffering, and conflict with 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 105 
 
 evil as the necessary means of spiritual develop- 
 ment, and regarding the whole course of the life 
 of the individual and of humanity as the oppor- 
 tunity for such development, — is prepared to see a | 
 divine justice and a divine love even in the darkest 
 sorrows and the utmost outbreaks of the powers of 
 evil. The Christian is prepared to build a temple 
 to God on the grave of every earthly hope, and 
 even out of the stones of the sepulchre. "Whoso- 
 ever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever 
 will lose his life for My sake shall find it,"i is a 
 principle which turns even the prison and the cross 
 into the manifestations of divine goodness, and uses 
 the utmost violence of human selfishness and malice 
 as the opportunity for the outflow of an infinite love 
 which, so to speak, absorbs it and swallows it up. 
 
 Our ordinary view of the world wavers between 
 optimism and pessimism; but, as it approaches 
 optimism, it is apt to become shallow and superficial, 
 and, as it approaches pessimism, it is apt to become 
 morbid and distorted. Men who are satisfied with 
 life as it is, are mostly those who live in a healthy 
 surface activity which keeps them from reflexion, 
 and hurries them on from moment to moment, and 
 from object to object, without allowing time for the 
 sense of dissatisfaction to arise. With men of such 
 a type, an optimistic temper may maintain itself 
 ' Matt. xvi. 25 ; Mark viii. 35 ; Luke ix. 24. 
 
106 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 SO long as circumstances are favourable, and no great 
 shock of disappointment or failure comes to throw 
 them back upon themselves. But such optimism is 
 merely the contentment of those who have never 
 fathomed their own hearts, and who, just for that 
 reason, are not aware of the discrepancy between 
 what they want and what they get. It is the 
 optimism of children, who as yet know neither the 
 world nor themselves. But reflexion, as it brings to 
 us the consciousness of our finitude, sets the in- 
 finite over against us, as that which is unattainable, 
 and yet as that which alone can satisfy us. It 
 causes us "to look before and after," and therefore 
 to "pine for what is not." It makes us aware of 
 the division between the real and the ideal both in 
 ourselves and in the world ; and the more this is 
 felt, the deeper is the aching sense of want. 
 World-weariness and self-disgust, the hopelessness of 
 an Hcclesiastes in the contemplation of " all the evils 
 done under the sun," the despair of an Obermann, 
 who finds that the heart of. man is a "gulf in 
 which the void always returns," and that all finite 
 satisfactions, in the expressive phrase of Goethe, are 
 " corrupted ere they are broken from the tree," — 
 these are in a sense diseased and morbid feelings ; 
 but, in another sense, they are only the natural 
 fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 
 And if such reflexion takes a moral direction, it is 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 107 
 
 equally natural that the world should come to be 
 regarded, — as it was regarded by the Jews at the 
 beginning of the Christian era, — as a sphere domi- 
 nated over by an evil power which can be over- 
 thrown only by some stupendous revolution, by 
 some violent interference from above, which shall 
 change the whole present system of things. "No 
 one can enter into the house of the strong man, 
 and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the 
 strong man ; and then he will spoil his house." '• 
 
 Now the wounds of reflexion can only be healed ; 
 by a deeper reflexion. As the paralysis of scepticism ■ 
 can be removed only by the philosophy which detects 
 a principle of truth that is deeper than any possible 
 doubt, so the despair of pessimism can be repelled 
 only by the insight which detects " a soul of good- 
 ness in things evil." The power of the teaching 
 of Christ lies in this : that h/^) starts from the 
 Jewish consciousness which, in its realisation of 
 the hindrances to good, had all but reached the 
 point of dualistic pessimism ; and that he rises to 
 the idea of a goodness, whose triumph nothing can 
 hinder, which is beyond the antagonism, and which 
 uses the antagonism itself as a means for its own 
 manifestation. The strange doctrine of the Church 
 as to the descent of Christ into Hell no doubt 
 has another meaning ; but it might be taken as 
 1 Mark iii. 27. 
 
108 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 a poetic expression of the fact that Christ's belief 
 in a divine love which turns all things into good, 
 was not reached by evading the full meaning of 
 the experience of evil, but by taking it at its worst, 
 and overcoming it. Now the constant charge made 
 against optimistic writers is that they gloss over 
 the difficulties of life, that they make things too 
 easy, hiding from themselves, and sophistically trying 
 to hide from others, the realities of human misery 
 and ruin, and the still more dreadful realities of 
 human guilt and sin — the pollution and cruelty, the 
 selfish indulgence and the equally selfish ambition 
 and greed of man. Their reconciling theories, there- 
 fore, involve a denial, or, at least, an ignoring of 
 the depth of the evils that beset us, and a confusing 
 of the deepest moral distinctions. So when Emerson, 
 one of the purest of modern optimists, declares that 
 " all loss, all pain is particular," that " good is posi- 
 tive and evil merely privative " ; that " while a man 
 seeks good ends, he is strong with the whole strength 
 of nature," or even that "evil is good in the mak- 
 ing " ; and that " the carrion in the sun will convert 
 itself to grass and flowers ; and man, though in 
 brothels, or gaols, or on gibbets, is on his way to 
 all that is good and true," — we are inclined partly 
 to explain such utterances by the lofty and pure, 
 but somewhat ethereal and abstract nature of the 
 man, and to contrast them unfavourably with the 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 109 
 
 sad and almost despairing words of his friend 
 Carlyle, whose apprehension of the evils of the 
 world was so close and vital, and whose belief in 
 divine justice seemed often to reduce itself to a 
 distant hope. So when Browning with cheery 
 optimism sings, " God's in His heaven ; all's right 
 with the world," or Schelling tells us, that all evil 
 vanishes when we view it svh specie, ceternitatis, men 
 who are of less happy temperament than Browning, 
 or who find it harder than Schelling to lose the 
 divisions of life in the unity of abstract thought, 
 are apt to revolt violently against such seemingly 
 easy ways of escape from the clouds into the serene 
 ether of religious mysticism, and to say with Shake- 
 speare, "He jests at scars who never felt a wound." 
 Even Hegel, in spite of his constant insistence on 
 the negative element in existence, and on " the ear- 
 nestness, the pain, the labour, and the patience" 
 involved in that element, does not entirely escape 
 the accusation of ' healing the hurt ' of man too 
 'slightly,' of explaining away the darker aspects of 
 life, and of confusing the opposites whose antagonism 
 he seeks to reconcile. 
 
 It is a significant fact that no one has ever 
 brought such an accusation against the greatest 
 optimist whom the world has ever seen. And the 
 reason seems to be, that in the life and death of 
 Jesus the consciousness of suffering and evil, not 
 
110 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 as a far-off subject of reflexion, but as an immediate 
 and personal experience, is raised to the highest 
 conceivable point of intensity. As Jesus is presented 
 to us in the Gospels, he " bears the sins and sorrows 
 of men," not in any remote theological sense, but 
 in the sense that his deep personal sympathy with 
 others makes their sorrows, and even their sins, 
 his own ; that it is his life-work to destroy both 
 in their deepest roots and sources ; and that in doing 
 so he is forced to share in the bitterest forms of 
 human suffering, and to draw upon himself the 
 utmost malice of human passion. Neither is his 
 endurance of these evils the hard constancy of the 
 Stoic who defies the world, nor the passive resigna- 
 tion of the mystic who withdraws himself from it. 
 From no lips ever came sterner expressions of 
 antagonism to the " evil deeds, evil words, and evil 
 thoughts" which ruin the life of men; or more 
 unmeasured and even fierce condemnation of the 
 hypocrites who put evil for good and wrong for 
 right. But as, while seeking with all his power to 
 soothe and relieve the darkest physical ills of man, 
 he yet constantly maintains that suffering may be 
 only a blessing in disguise ; so, while contending 
 against spiritual evils, he yet uncompromisingly 
 asserts that the power of wicked men is given 
 them from above, and given just in order to the 
 highest manifestation of good. Nay, he asserts that 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. \\\ 
 
 in evil men themselves there is a deeper will for 
 good beneath their will for evil, which might, and 
 perhaps we may even say must, ultimately over- 
 throw it. The prayer, "Father, forgive them, for 
 they know not what they do," is the expression — 
 in the face of the darkest possible manifestation of 
 human malice — of a faith not only in God, but also 
 in man, and in the inextinguishable possibility of 
 good in him. It is this certainty of ultimate triumph, 
 this combination of the despair of pessimism with 
 an optimism that overreaches and overpowers it, 
 nay, even that absorbs it as an element into itself, 
 which constitutes the unique character of the religion 
 of Jesus. 
 
112 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Note B. On the Belief ys an Evil Spirit or Spirits. 
 
 One of the most perplexing phenomena in the history of 
 religion is the growth and decay of the idea of a devil, as a 
 great power of evil who is personified, in opposition to God 
 as the power of goodness. This idea finds its most distinct 
 expression in the Persian dualism, which sets Ormuzd with his 
 angels in opposition to Aiiriinan with his demons on all but 
 equal terms ; though with the reservation that the former 
 must ultimately triumph in the great struggle for existence. 
 Looking at the popular Jewish beliefs which are presupposed 
 in the New Testament, we might be inclined to say that they 
 rose above the Persian dualism only in so far as they made 
 this reservation more distinct and prominent. Jewish mono- 
 theism, indeed, was too absolute to admit that the powers of 
 evil had any strength in them to resist Jehovah. Still, it 
 was allowed that the power of evil had actually become estab- 
 lished upon earth for a time, and even that evil spirits often 
 found lodgment in the souls of men. And the faith still 
 maintained in the almightiness of good took the form of a 
 belief in a miraculous revolution, to be accomplished by a 
 Messiah from heaven. That this was the ordinary framework 
 of Jewish belief into which Christianity came, and which it 
 had to transform, we do not need to look beyond the Synoptic 
 Gospels to see. 
 
 The origin of this way of thinking may probably be ex- 
 plained thus. The first distinct opposition of gods and demons 
 was due to an age in which the social unity did not extend 
 beyond the limits of a tribe or kinship, and in which the god 
 of one kinship was a demon to another (cf. Vol. I. 242). The 
 early Christian belief that the gods of the heathen were devils 
 was thus a survival of a time in which all the gods of foreigners 
 were regarded in that light. In the early religion of Israel 
 there are traces of a mode of conception, which does not alto- 
 gether deny the power of the gods of other nations, but treats 
 
PESSIMISM AND OPTIMISM. 113 
 
 them as unfriendly, or, what at this stage of thought is much 
 the same thing, as evil powers. But as the ethical monotheism 
 of the prophets prevailed, and the gods of the heathen sank 
 into " dumb idols," it might seem that no room was left for the 
 devil. Thus Isaiah protests against dualism, in language that 
 has been already quoted, " I form the light, and create dark- 
 ness : I make peace and create evil : I, the Lord, do all these 
 things.'' At the same time, there were influences brought into 
 play by the very triumph of monotheism which tended to 
 maintain dualistic modes of thought, or to favour their intro- 
 duction from Persian sources. In the first place, as we haves 
 seen, the same movement by which Jehovah was made the God 
 of all men and all nations, tended also to separate the natural 
 from the moral, the rights and duties of the individual from the 
 ties of kinship or nationality. Disconnected from the bond of : 
 blood-relationship, which united men in families and nations, ' 
 the law, to which men as spiritual beings were subjected, was i 
 not yet conceived as binding them all together in one great \ 
 society. It could only, therefore, take the form of a divine ', 
 law revealing itself in the inner life of the individual, and 
 putting him under the weight of an infinite obligation. But, 
 by this recoil upon the subjective, the outward course of the 
 world and of the social life of man were deprived of all 
 moral meaning, and seemed to be abandoned to evil powers, 
 against which the individual had a hard struggle to maintain 
 the purity of his inner life. Thus the very causes which 
 universalised and deepened the moral consciousness, favoured 
 the growth of a pessimistic view of everything outside of the 
 subjective moral consciousness itself. The pious soul seemed 
 to have no hope left to it of overcoming the world by an 
 aggressive goodness, and might be well content if it could de- 
 fend itself against the 'prince of this world,' whose ministers 
 were besieging it on every side. Moral and physical evils were 
 the proof of the power of the devil and his angels over the 
 world and even over the body and soul of man, and the only 
 hope was in a miraculous Messianic deliverance. 
 
 How far Jssus really participated in any such view of things, 
 
 VOL. II. H 
 
114 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 and how far it was reflected back upon Ms life from the concep- 
 tions of those who first recorded its events, it is not easy to say. 
 Here, as elsewhere, we see him through the medium of modes of 
 conception which are vitally opposed to the spirit of his teach- 
 ing. And the tradition that introduced into the life of Jesus 
 such an absurd and portentous story as that of the Gadarene 
 miracle, was sure to attribute many manifestations of power 
 over diabolic agency to one who was regarded as the Mes- 
 siah; and to exaggerate into miracle anything in the facts 
 which could suggest such an idea— e.g'. any power beyond com- 
 mon experience, shown by Jesus to control or soothe the 
 spirits of those mentally diseased. "We must remember, also, 
 that a great prophet or teacher, as he has to breathe the 
 atmosphere and speak in the language of his own time, may 
 often be obliged to leave untouched subsidiary conceptions, 
 which are irreconcilable with the great principle he has to 
 teach. Nay, he may scarcely direct his thought to them at all, 
 or realise how they are inconsistent with his own ideas. Such 
 passages as Mark ix. 29, Luke x. 18, show how the idea of a 
 temporary power of evil might be reconciled with what we have 
 called the optimism of Jesus, on the principle, — afterwards 
 developed by St. Paul, — that evil exists in order to be overcome 
 and in order to develop the power of good by the very process 
 of overcoming it. In any case, it may be said that the idea 
 of an absolute power of evil, which does not exist with a view 
 to a greater good, is essentially opposed to the whole spirit of 
 the teaching of Jesus, and must ultimately be set aside by 
 the development of his thought, even if it was included 
 in traditional conceptions of the time which he was unable 
 to repudiate. 
 
LECTUEE EIFTH. 
 
 THE DISTINCTIVE CHARACTERISTICS OP CHRISTIANITY 
 AS CONTRASTED WITH JUDAISM. 
 
 Christianity as the Realisation of the Idea of Religion — The 
 Negative Character of Judaism and the Positive Character 
 of Christianity as regards ; (I) The Relation of Ood to 
 Nature ; (2) The Relation of Ood to Man, especially as mani- 
 festing itself in the Social life of Man; (3) The Nature of 
 the Service of God by Man — Different Aspects of Christianity 
 as presented in the New Testament — Jesus and St. Paul — 
 General Characteristics of the Life and Words of Jesus. 
 
 In the last lecture I pointed out that the religion of 
 Christ arises in relation to a state of religious thought 
 in which the opposition between the real and the ideal 
 had been stretched almost to the point of dualism ; in 
 which, indeed, heaven and earth were set against each 
 other, and the latter was regarded as, at least for a 
 time, abandoned to the power of evil. Beelzebub 
 was 'the prince of this world,' and the ills of soul 
 and body which afflict humanity were the marks 
 of his hold upon it. Hence the anticipation of 
 the future triumph of good on earth could take 
 
116 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 only what we may call an apocalyptic form. The 
 expected and prophesied deliverance could only be 
 one in which, by a miraculous act of omnipotence, 
 the whole system of things on earth should be 
 changed, and the powers of this world suddenly 
 subdued under the feet of ^ Messiah sent out from 
 God. Jesus had at once to disappoint and to fulfil 
 such prophecies. He had to substitute faith in a 
 present for the hope of a future deliverance, to teach 
 men to see God already working within and without 
 them, and so to take away the need for an external 
 sign in the clouds of heaven, such as the Jews ex- 
 pected and demanded from him. He had to conquer 
 evil, and teach that it was to be conquered, not by 
 might, nor by power, but by the spiritual weapons of 
 love, insight, and self-sacrifice. And, while he recog- 
 nised to the full all the evils which had led to the 
 pessimistic view of life which prevailed in his time, 
 he had yet to discover and reveal a principle of good 
 which was working beneath these evils in order to 
 overcome them. He had, in short, to penetrate to 
 " the soul of goodness in things evil," and so to 
 draw his faith in good from a spring deeper than 
 the lowest sources of despair. He had to receive 
 the full shock of suffering and sin, and to plant 
 the hopes of humanity where they should not be 
 overthrown by either. 
 
 Now, if we ask what is the ultimate basis of this 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 117 
 
 solution of the religious difficulty — of this optimism 
 drawn as it were from the very depths of pessimism — 
 which is characteristic of Christianity, the answer is, 
 that in Christianity religion has risen to its own 
 true form : it, at last, is the consciousness of that 
 spiritual principle which manifests itself in hoth sub- 
 ject and object alike, and which realises its unity 
 with itself through all their difference. God is now 
 conceived not, as in all objective religions, as a merely 
 natural power, or as the unity of all natural powers : 
 nor again is He conceived, as in subjective religion, 
 as a spiritual Being outside of nature and dominat- 
 ing over it. He is conceived as manifesting Himself 
 alike in the whole process of nature and in the 
 process of spirit as it rises above nature. In other 
 words, God is to Christianity a Spirit, as in subjec- 
 tive religion; but He does not exclude nature, nor 
 is He external to it, except in the sense that He 
 is not limited to it. He is immanent in nature, 
 as in objective religion, but He also transcends it, 
 and makes it a means to the higher life of spirit. 
 That this is actually the main purport and tendency 
 of the Christian religion will become clear if we 
 consider (1) how Christianity arises out of the highest 
 subjective religion of the Jews; (2) how this process 
 of development reaches its culmination and its 
 turning point in Jesus ; and (3) how starting from 
 the life and words of Jesus, it makes the beginning 
 
118 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 
 
 of a new development that has been advancing ever 
 since. 
 
 On the first of these points a good deal has 
 been already said. The development of Judaism 
 gradually freed the idea of God from the national 
 limitations which had been attached to it in the 
 early history of Israel. Thus, it tended to banish 
 not only the conception of a natural relationship 
 between the God and His worshippers — a conception 
 common to all objective religions, but which had 
 already disappeared even in our earliest records of 
 Hebrew religion — but also the conception, still present 
 in the Old Testament scriptures, of the mere arbi- 
 trary choice of one nation to a privilege from 
 which the others are excluded. And, ipari passii 
 with this universalising of the idea of God, there 
 went also a growing consciousness of the moral 
 character of the service due to him. The God of 
 the whole earth, who was the universal source of 
 justice among men, could not be propitiated by a 
 cultus of external ceremony, but only by clean 
 hands and a pure heart; and His service could not 
 be separated from the service of man. Thus the 
 prophetic message came to be one in which the 
 universal was throughout opposed to the particular ; 
 the God of the universe to a merely national 
 divinity ; the claim to divine protection based on 
 justice and mercy, to a claim based on membership 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 119 
 
 in a particular nation and observance of its national ' 
 customs; and, finally, the service of the heart to the 
 outward service of ritual and sacrifice. Thus, by a 
 process which was closely analogous to the develop- 
 ment of the Stoical philosophy in Greece, the religion 
 of the prophets tended to become at once universal 
 and individual, free from national limits or pecu- 
 liarities, and centred in the inner life of the subject. 
 But, while this is true, it is to be observed that 
 the emancipation thus won from the national, the 
 particular, and the external, was still expressed 
 negatively, and was, therefore, embarrassed by its re- 
 lation to that which was opposed or denied. Not 
 the nation but mankind, not ritual but morality, not 
 the letter but the spirit, is the universal message 
 of prophecy. But the new principle does not re- 
 veal itself except in opposition ; that is, in relation 
 to that to which it is opposed. And we may even 
 say that the things protested against by the Jewish 
 religion are necessary to it, since it is only in deny- 
 ing and protesting against them that that religion 
 reaches a higher point of view. Hence, the same 
 nation whose sacred books proclaim that it exists 
 ultimately for the blessing of the whole earth, re- 
 mained actually shut up in an exclusive and bitter 
 national pride, which caused it to be suspected of 
 odium humani generis. The same people, from 
 whose prophets had proceeded the fiercest denuncia- 
 
120 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 tions of a mere outward ritual, and the strongest 
 assertions that the God of righteousness despises all 
 priestly rites, and cares for nothing but purity of 
 heart, develops in the later stage of its history a 
 legalism and formalism which entangle all life in 
 a network of meaningless prescriptions. The anti- 
 thesis of the law and the prophets, of the priestly 
 sacrifices of the blood of bulls and goats and the 
 true sacrifice of a broken and contrite spirit, 
 runs through the whole history of the Jewish 
 nationality from beginning to end. And, strange 
 to say, the two opposites seem to be essentially 
 bound together; so that, to use the words of St. 
 Paul in a slightly different sense, it is only ' through 
 the law ' that the Jew ' becomes dead to the law.' 
 The law must exist as his starting point, and it is 
 in opposition to it and yet by means of it, that he 
 rises to a spiritual religion. The Pharisaic legalism 
 keeps the peculiar people of God separate from the 
 world, and serves as a protective husk, within which 
 the treasure of spiritual religion is preserved till 
 the fulness of the times is come. 
 
 It appears, then, that what we have in the 
 history of Israel is a perpetual struggle of the 
 subjective against the objective type of religion. It 
 is a struggle which cannot end in a complete vic- 
 tory, because it is impossible that the subject should 
 be torn away from the object without ceasing to 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRIStlANITV. 121 
 
 exist; yet it is a struggle which must necessarily 
 continue so long as no way has been discovered of 
 exalting the spiritual except at the expense of the 
 natural. Hence, each of the distinctive ideas of 
 Israel — the idea of the spirituality of God, the 
 idea of His universal relation to men, and the 
 idea of His service as consisting in the practice of 
 justice and mercy — is developed by means of a 
 contrast, against the idea of God as a natural 
 power or powers, against the idea of His relation j 
 to man as mediated by a covenant with a special i 
 race, and against the idea of His service as con- 
 sisting in the observance of a special ritual and 
 law. In short, the value of this religion lay in its 
 process, and not in the end to which that process 
 seemed to point ; in the struggle of the principle of 
 subjective with the principle of objective religion, 
 and not in the victory of the former over the 
 latter — a victory which would have been fatal to 
 subjective religion itself. For every one of these 
 principles is only a partial truth. The assertion 
 of the spirituality of God is true, as a protest against 
 nature-worship; or, in other words, against the 
 subordination of the spirit to, or its identification 
 with, nature; but it is false, if taken as a denial 
 of the immanence of God in nature. The assertion 
 of God's universal relation to all men and to all 
 nations is true, as against the conception of Him 
 
1^2 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 as the head, whether by natural relationship or by 
 arbitrary choice, of a particular race ; but it is false 
 if it be taken as involving that He is a God who 
 does not manifest Himself in the concrete social 
 life of humanity, or bind men together as the 
 members of one society. The assertion that the 
 only divine service is the inner worship of, the 
 heart, is true as against the substitution of out- 
 ward ritual and observance for morality ; but it is 
 false, if it be taken as equivalent to a denial that 
 the world and our fellowmen mediate between us 
 and God, or that a spiritual religion needs to 
 express itself in any outward form. 
 
 Now, in all these points, Christianity may be 
 said to fulfil, or carry to its highest realisation, the 
 principle of Judaism, rather than to destroy it; 
 yet, in a sense, in fulfilling it, it necessarily destroys 
 it. For it does away with the absoluteness of 
 that antithesis between the spiritual and the natural, 
 the subjective and the objective, on which the purity 
 and elevation of the religion of Israel was based. 
 Or, rather, we might express it by saying that 
 Christianity carries out the subjective movement of 
 Jewish religion to the extreme point, and over- 
 comes the onesided subjectivity of that religion just 
 by doing so. Thus the spirituality of God is no 
 longer conceived negatively as separating Him from 
 the things He has made, but positively as revealing 
 
yUDAISM AND CtiRISriANITY. 123 
 
 itself in the life of nature, while making it the 
 basis of the higher life of man. God, indeed, is 
 no longer supposed to be specially manifested in 
 any one natural object, nor even in the natural 
 world as a whole, if the natural be severed from 
 the spiritual. But it is essential to the new point 
 of view that the natural should not be severed 
 from the spiritual, but rather that the Divine Spirit 
 should be regarded as revealing itself in the upward 
 process of nature to humanity, as well as in the 
 farther process whereby human life rises toward 
 the attainment of its highest ideal. Jesus, therefore, j 
 " views the external world with free and friendly ; 
 eyes," ^ and in his parables he uses it as a rich ; 
 storehouse from which symbols might be drawn to 
 express the relations of the spiritual life. Nay, ■ 
 he even finds " spiritual law in the natural world." 
 He treats what has been usually regarded as the 
 impartial indifference of nature as the manifestation 
 of the all-embracing love of a God, who " sendeth His 
 rain upon the just and the unjust" alike; and he takes 
 the deabh and revival of the ' corn of wheat ' as the 
 expression of the great moral law of self-realisation 
 through self-sacrifice. We may, therefore, fairly say 
 that Jesus altogether sets aside the old Jewish con- 
 ception of the outward world as an external instru- 
 ment called into existence to fulfil the divine designs, 
 ^Bosanquet, History of Aesthetic, 128. 
 
l24 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOI^. 
 
 and regards the natural as in perfect continuity with 
 the spiritual life. St. Paul merely gives us the 
 rationale of this way of thinking, when he declares 
 that nature is but a stage in the process of the 
 divine self-revelation — a stage which, indeed, is in 
 itself imperfect and finite, but which points forward 
 to the higher life of man as its complement and 
 completion. "The earnest expectation of the crea- 
 tion waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of 
 God," for the fuller revelation of the divine in man. 
 Hence, nature cannot come to its rights, cannot 
 show its highest meaning, until, in the life of man, 
 it becomes the servant of a higher design. "The 
 creation is made subject to transitoriness, not by 
 its own fault, but by reason of him who has sub- 
 jected it," i.e. by reason of the imperfection and 
 the fall of man ; but it also, in the apostle's view, 
 is ultimately to share " in the freedom of the glory 
 of the sons of God." " For we know that the 
 whole creation groaneth and travaileth in sympathy 
 with us until now." Nature waits for the revela- 
 tion of spirit in man, and man also waits and 
 longs for a fuller revelation of the spiritual prin- 
 ciple in himself "And not only the creation, 
 but we also who already possess the first-fruits 
 of the spirit, even we ourselves groan within our- 
 selves, waiting to be put in fuU possession of 
 our rights as sons of God, by the redemption of 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 125 
 
 the body," i.&. waiting and longing for that full 
 manifestation of the new principle, which shall not 
 merely transform the inward disposition of our 
 souls, but also reconstitute our outward physical 
 life in harmony therewith, substituting a spiritual 
 for a natural body. ^ In this way St. Paul is 
 urged by the reconciling principle of Christianity 
 to bring nature and man together. And he re- 
 presents their whole existence as connected in one 
 process, which has revealed in the past, is revealing 
 in the present, and will reveal still more in the 
 future, the one spiritual life which flows out from 
 Grod to the creation, and which flows back to Him 
 again through man — the highest of all the creatures. 
 Thus St. Paul combines the idea of the spirituality 
 of God, which was characteristic of monotheism, 
 with the idea of the immanence of God, which was 
 characteristic of pantheism, uniting both in one con- 
 ception by the aid of the idea of evolution. 
 
 Again, while Jewish prophecy asserted, or, at least, 
 suggested the universality of God's relation to men, 
 it asserted it only, or mainly, in connexion with 
 the idea of a demand of God for an inward self- 
 surrender of the individual to the divine law, and 
 in opposition to the racial privilege of the sons of 
 Abraham. Israel was not to claim salvation as its 
 birth-right, but only in virtue of its obedience to 
 ^ Bom. viii. 19-23 ; 1 Cor. xv. 44 seq. 
 
126 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the divine law of righteousness and charity, and, 
 therefore, only on a spiritual ground which could, 
 and must, be extended to all men. But this truth, 
 whUe it carried those who admitted it beyond the 
 national point of view, was nevertheless always 
 apprehended in relation to it; and, therefore, it 
 never got farther than the prophecy, that through 
 Israel 'all nations of the earth should be blessed.' 
 In this respect it was Christianity that first fairly 
 cut asunder the connexion of the spiritual principle 
 with its natural root, and definitely asserted that, 
 iecause the relation of God to man was spiritual, 
 it was an equal relation to all men. It was the 
 necessary consequence of this that social life should 
 be reconstituted in a higher form on the basis of 
 religion. Christianity, indeed, inherited from Juda- 
 ism that opposition of Church and State, which 
 had been the result of the political overthrow of 
 Judah, and of the subject state of the Jews ever 
 after their return from exile. And the early growth 
 of the Christian Church as a separate society within 
 the Eoman empire, even exaggerated the opposition 
 between the spiritual and the secular powers. But 
 while the later Jewish religion by its exaltation of 
 the subjective as against the objective, distinctly 
 tended to originate and confirm this division, Chris- 
 tianity was in principle hostile to such a practical 
 dualism, and must, in the long run, overcome it. 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 127 
 
 Its last word could not be the denial of the bond 
 of nationality as a sufficient ethical expression of 
 the religious principle. It inevitably had to advance 
 to the positive assertion, that the unity of man 
 with God finds its adequate manifestation only in 
 a unity of all men with each other, — a unity to 
 which both individual and national differences are 
 subordinated. When St. Paul drew the picture of 
 an organic society, in which aU diversities of gifts 
 should be subservient to one spiritual life, he was 
 not showing what the Church might be as apart 
 from the State. Eather he was showing that 
 Christianity is wide enough to overcome all the 
 divisions of the outward life of mankind, whether 
 natural or spiritual, and to bind them together as 
 members of one great community. The idea of an 
 organic unity of humanity, which should be mani- 
 fested not only in an abstract cosmopolitanism, but 
 in the concrete reality of an actual community both 
 of the inward and the outward life — i.e. the idea of a 
 future World-State — was from the first closely bound 
 up with the Christian religion, though in earlier 
 times it took on the aspect of an immediate Messi- 
 anic hope, and in the Middle Ages it was obscured 
 by the increasing dualistic tendencies of the times. 
 But this point must be reserved for fuller discussion 
 in another lecture. 
 
 The last point of difference of the Christian from 
 
128 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the Jewish religion lies in its reconciliation of 
 religion with morality; or, in other words, in its 
 identification of the cultus in which religion ex- 
 presses itself, with the service of man. Such an 
 identification had no doubt been suggested by the 
 prophets, who declared that the true fast was not 
 the outward humiliation of sackcloth and ashes, but 
 "to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the 
 heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free"; 
 and said that the true sacrifice was not the outward 
 offering of bullocks on the altar, but the willing and 
 joyful submission of the soul to the divine law of 
 love. But, as we have seen, this 'not' of the pro- 
 phets translated itself in practice into a "not merely," 
 and it was therefore powerless to create a new order 
 of social life, though it might do something to put 
 a new spirit into the old order. The temple service 
 might be despised, or regarded as insufficient, but 
 it still furnished the basis from which the Jew's 
 aspirations after something higher had to start, and 
 to which they always returned. But Christianity 
 absolutely rejected all mechanical observance of 
 external rules detached from the spirit of life. 
 Eitual ceased to be the service of God, so soon 
 as that service was separated from the idea of 
 obedience to a law externally given, and was con- 
 ceived as the necessary outward expression of a 
 divine principle which united men to each other 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 129 
 
 as members of one divine-human society. In other 
 words, the true service of God lay henceforth in 
 those works of mercy and justice which were need- 
 ful to make human society into a manifestation of 
 divine love. 
 
 To put the same thought in a slightly different 
 way. For the Jew, the only deliverance from the 
 externality of ritual lay in the subjective spirit of 
 piety, which lifted the individual in his inner life 
 above the outward service of the temple. And 
 this, no doubt, led ^o a comparatively higher esti- 
 mate of the moral as contrasted with the cere- 
 monial elements of the law. But these two elements 
 could not be distinctly separated from each other, 
 so long as that which is universal was mingled 
 and confused with that which is national. Short 
 of this, there might be a certain infusion of the 
 new spirit into the old forms of life ; but it was 
 not strong enough to destroy these forms and to 
 construct others more adequate to itself. Eather, 
 it caused the pious soul to draw back upon itself, 
 and to seek satisfaction for its spiritual needs in 
 an inner worship of God which had no outward 
 expression whatever. But, with Christianity came 
 the idea that this inner ideal is outwardly realisable; 
 that the kingdom of heaven is at hand, and cap- 
 able of being set up on earth; nay, that it is 
 already so set up. For, although no particular 
 
 VOL. II. I 
 
130 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 state or its institutions could furnish an. adequate 
 sphere for the expression of the spiritual principle, 
 yet it was not condemned to remain hid within 
 the soul. It could now manifest itself in an 
 ' enthusiasm of humanity,' in an effort after the 
 reconstitution of the social life of mankind on the 
 basis of their essential unity with each other and 
 with God. In this way the recoil of the later 
 religion of the Jews from the State, and even from 
 the Church which they had set in its place, was 
 carried to the point at which it broke off all con- 
 nexion with both, — at least in the limited national 
 form they had hitherto taken. But, at the same 
 time, the connexion of the inner life with the 
 outer, of religion with the social service of man, 
 was re-established on a new basis. Just as the 
 Stoic, isolating himself from all the life of the 
 family and State, found in the isolated self upon 
 which he withdrew the principle of a cosmopolitan 
 society, and thus rose to a new 'positive conception 
 of the relations of men to men, which could take 
 the place of the old relations of kinsmen or fellow- 
 citizens ; so it was here. The subjective tendency, 
 which carried the prophets and psalmists of Israel 
 beyond the morality of national patriotism, and 
 beyond the ecclesiastical legalism which arose after 
 the exile, could attain complete freedom from these 
 limits only when it changed into a consciousness 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 131 
 
 of the solidarity of all men as spiritual beings, 
 who are essentially related to each other through 
 their common relation to one Pather in heaven. 
 
 What has been said may be sufficient to indi- 
 cate the way in which the Jewish spirit of sub- 
 jective piety reached its culmination in Christianity, 
 and, just because it did so, rose altogether above 
 a merely subjective type of religion. We have 
 thus seen that Christianity was at once an end 
 and a new beginning — the end of the religion of 
 subjectivity, the beginning of what 'pwr excellence we 
 may call the religion of spirit. But, so far, we 
 have spoken of Christianity in general, without 
 special reference to its founder, and especially with- 
 out asking how much was directly due to that 
 founder, and how much was developed out of his 
 words and deeds by St. Paul or other of his im- 
 mediate or remote successors. Nor is it within the 
 limits of our subject to enter minutely into such 
 questions, except so far as is required to illustrate 
 the development of religious thought. At the same 
 time, even for this purpose, it is necessary to say 
 a few words of the germinal idea of Christianity 
 as expressed in the life and words of Jesus ; in 
 order to show that the subsequent development is 
 a legitimate one, and that what now appears in it 
 is really to be found in germ there. 
 
 Now, it is not to be concealed that there are 
 
132 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 many differences in the aspects of truth presented 
 to us within the New Testament : e.g. between the 
 apocalyptic anticipations of the Eevelations and the 
 idealistic spiritualism of the Gospel of St. John ; or, 
 again, between the direct aphoristic utterances of 
 Jesus as they are presented to us iu the Synoptic 
 Gospels, and the theorising and generalising spirit 
 of the epistles of St. Paul, who is not content till 
 he has reached a philosophy of history, and set 
 Christianity in its due place in the progress of 
 humanity both in relation to Judaism, and also, in 
 some measure, to other religious systems. In relation 
 to the latter of these differences the doubt has 
 sometimes been expressed, on the one, hand, whether 
 St. Paul did not make more out of the simple 
 moral teaching of the Gospels than was really to 
 be found in it ; and, on the other hand, whether he 
 did not corrupt by theory the pure and practical 
 spirit of Christ's teaching, and confine the fresh 
 current of the new inspiring idea within the narrower 
 channels of a metaphysical system of theology. 
 These opposite views have not seldom been advo- 
 cated in the writings of those who have most freely 
 criticised the " Origins " of Christianity. Thus, 
 Comte in Prance and Von Hartmann in Germany 
 speak of St. Paul as the real founder of Chris- 
 tianity ; while, on the other side, Eenan and many 
 others have maintained that, if St. Paul made 
 
JUDAISM AND, CHRISTIANITY. 133 
 
 Christianity more powerful for a time by turning 
 it into a dogmatic system, he at the same time 
 sophisticated and even perverted the simplicity of 
 its primary principles, and obscured their essential 
 truth by entangling them in the forms of a philosophy 
 which only represented a passing phase of human 
 thought. In such a controversy, men will be 
 disposed to take sides according to their native 
 tendency to theorise life, or to dislike theorising 
 it ; and plausible grounds cannot be wanting to 
 support either view. For, in one sense, theory is | 
 always less than life, while in another it is more 1 
 than life. By generalising, we liberate the truth from '( 
 the accidents of its temporary embodiment ; we 
 universalise what at first was particular, and thus we 
 make it capable of entering into new combinations 
 and influencing those whom in its first expression it 
 could not have reached at all. On the other hand, 
 while theory thus universalises and liberates the 
 truth, it is also liable in some degree to deprive 
 it of that vivid local colour, that close relation to 
 life, that fresh actuality and fertility of suggestion, 
 which belongs to the intuitive utterances of immediate 
 experience. Abstractions have their narrowness as \ 
 well as perceptions ; and, in their hard antitheses, . 
 they are apt at once to simplify and to impoverish : 
 the complex relations of life. Hence, if there is a 
 danger that great principles should remain hidden 
 
134 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 and ineffective, or that, after having emerged for 
 a time as the concrete lessons of life, they should 
 again pass out of sight and be lost, unless they are 
 fixed once for all in the clearness and definiteness 
 of abstract thought ; there is undoubtedly also a 
 danger that by being torn from the soil in which 
 they first sprung up, they may lose their living and 
 life-giving power. In this way, a dead and barren 
 system of doctrine may take the place of the 
 religious life it would explain ; a creed grasped 
 by the understanding may substitute itself for that 
 inspiring faith, which is the identification of the 
 very self of him who holds a truth with the truth 
 he holds. The truest theory is apt to become a 
 mere word, an empty abstraction, to him who does 
 not see it in its connexion with, its emergence out 
 of, the facts it interprets ; who does not take it, so 
 to speak, as a stage in the way from a narrower 
 to a wider life. Yet, on the other hand, a fact or 
 even an intuition, that is not idealised by imagina- 
 tion and generalised by reflexion, must remain, or 
 soon become, barren and unfruitful. 
 
 Looking at it in this way, we can see beyond 
 the prejudices of individuals for or against specula- 
 tive reflexion ; we can recognise the important posi- 
 tion of such reflexion as a factor in the process 
 of development, without attributing to it a creative 
 function that does not belong to it. Thus it is 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 135 
 
 easy to see that the clearness with which St. Paul 
 realised the central lesson of the cross, the force 
 and we might even say the violence of abstraction 
 with which he tore it away from its Jewish setting, 
 and expressed it in its universal meaning, were 
 necessary to prevent Christianity from sinking into a 
 Jewish sect, such as it actually became for a time 
 in the Church of Jerusalem. But, on the other 
 hand, what would have become of the healing virtue 
 of Christianity, what of its power upon the general 
 heart of man, without the subtle personal charm of 
 the forgiveness of Jesus and his invasive charity for 
 all the ills that afflict the flesh or the spirit of man; 
 without the direct appeal of his words of comfort 
 to the fallen, his denunciation of the oppressor, his 
 proclamation of peace out of the depths of human 
 sorrow, and his prophecy of good in the face of 
 the most violent outburst of evil? What would 
 have been the result if, in place of all this, we had 
 only St. Paul's inspiring but abstract description of 
 the conflict of law and grace ; or his idealisation of 
 Jesus, as the Christ who capae from God to endure 
 the sufferings of death and to conquer death for man? 
 When we ask this question we are forced to recognise 
 that such an abstract theory of Christianity, without 
 the living image of Jesus, would soon have lost all 
 its force and meaning. It is in fact just as the first 
 theoretical or reflective explanation of the life of Jesus 
 
136 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 that the Pauline doctrine has its value for us ; and, 
 important as it is, it must be recognised that the 
 explanation has its weak side, and that it is far 
 from finally exhausting the meaning of the facts 
 which it seeks to explain. Those who maintain 
 that St. Paul in some degree obscured the lesson 
 of the Gospel — even while he universalised it, 
 and so carried it beyond the limitations of its 
 earliest form — have undoubtedly much to say for 
 themselves, if only they are ready to admit that 
 such a partial obscuration of the completeness of 
 the original truth was necessary to its development. 
 The germ is in a sense more complete, contains 
 implicitly a fuller life than any of the dividing 
 shoots and branches that spring from it, or indeed 
 than all of them put together; but the differentiation 
 shown in them is a necessary stage of growth, 
 through which the seed must pass if it is ever to 
 return to itself in the multiplied life of the fruit. 
 If we might venture to paraphrase the passage in 
 the Gospel, in which Jesus compares himself to John 
 the Baptist, we should express it thus : Jesus Christ 
 came uttering the pregnant words of wisdom in the 
 closest union of thought and life, and they say, he 
 is merely a pious Jew of more than usual purity and 
 depth of character : Paul came idealising and general- 
 ising the facts of Christ's life and death, and they 
 say, he is only a philosopher who reduces life to 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 137 
 
 I 
 
 a theory, if not a sophist who disguises it in high 
 sounding abstractions. But " wisdom is justified of 
 her children." Action and thought, intuition and 
 reflexion, are not enemies, though they are often 
 opposed. They are both the necessary stages in the 
 development of one spiritual life ; and that life needs 
 them both for its advance to a fuller consciousness 
 of itself and of the divine unity which is at once its 
 source and its goal. 
 
 Now, if for the moment we confine ourselves 
 entirely to the Synoptic Gospels, and if, neglecting 
 all minor differences of spirit between them, we try 
 to catch the general lineaments of the personality 
 they depict, what is the distinctive peculiarity, the 
 main note of individuality, the characteristic attitude 
 of thought and will that is there set before us? 
 Setting aside for the time all special theological 
 ideas, all conceptions that would lift the founder 
 of Christianity above the ordinary conditions of 
 human life, we may fairly ask : What is the general 
 impression he makes upon us, as seen through the 
 varied lights and shadows of these three narratives? 
 what is the general spirit and purport of the teach- 
 ing they ascribe to him ? I have already indi- 
 cated that it seems to me to be a confidence in God 
 -—as manifested in nature and in man — which is so 
 firm and powerful that it faces the utmost manifesta- 
 tion of evil with a certitude of victory. Nor is this 
 
138 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 certitude the result of anything like what we usually 
 call religious enthusiasm. To no one could we more 
 truly apply the text that the "spirits of the prophets 
 are subject to the prophets " ; that, in other words, 
 the divine utterance comes forth without disturbing 
 the balance of the humanity through which it comes. 
 In this respect there is a marked difference between 
 Jesus and St. Paul. In the writings of St. Paul, as 
 in those of the old prophets of Israel, the stream of 
 inspiration pours itself forth with a convulsive energy 
 of speech, which shows that he is possessed by his 
 thought rather than possesses it ; and he seems almost 
 to lose sight of the ordinary struggle of man with 
 the conditions of mortality, in his vision of a world- 
 conflict between the powers of good and the powers 
 of evil, the ' principalities and powers ' of the spiritual 
 world. With this we have to contrast that simple 
 realisation of the facts of life and death, of the 
 sorrow and the sin of man, which is as characteristic 
 of the Jesus of the Gospels as the steadfast certainty 
 that looks beyond both to an all-encompassing power 
 of good. If we can trace any progress in the teach- 
 ing of Jesus as it is recorded in the Synoptic Gospels, 
 it is only that, with the increasing pressure of the 
 conflict, and the growing consciousness of the evil with 
 which he has to contend, there comes a deepening 
 sense of the necessity of such conflict with evil, and 
 of all the suffering it brings with it, to the highest 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 139 
 
 triumph of good. This is nowhere more clearly 
 expressed than in the passage in which, as we gather 
 from the context, Jesus first admitted to his disciples 
 that he was — though not in the sense they supposed 
 — the Messiah, the Prophet who was to end prophecy 
 and fulfil the prophricic hopes of Israel. For he 
 has no sooner made this admission than he im- 
 mediately begins to teach them that it is not 
 through outward triumph, but through suffering and 
 death, that the true Christ and his followers can 
 work out deliverance for mankind ; and that he 
 who would save his life and the life of others 
 must begin by losing it.' We may, therefore, 
 say that the basis of the thought of Jesus is the 
 consciousness that good is omnipotent : that what 
 the soul of man recognises as the highest ideal is 
 at the same time the deepest reality of the world ; 
 and that man is not merely the creature but the 
 son of God. This Sonship Jesus, as the Messiah, 
 claims for himself that he may claim it for man. 
 And on this basis he immediately proceeds to correct 
 the Jewish idea of Messiahship, by purging it of 
 the ingredient of outward conquest and sovereignty, 
 by denying that the true evidences of it are mirac- 
 ulous signs from heaven ; and also to point out the 
 true conditions of the triumph of good in the world, 
 
 ' Matt. xvi. 17, 21, 25 ; Mark viii. 29, 31, 34 ; Luke ix. 20, 
 22, 23. 
 
140 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 as a power whose first outward manifestation is 
 not in strength but in weakness, not in success 
 but in sacrifice and death. It is because of these 
 two things: his unshaken faith in the omnipotence of 
 good, and his clear comprehension of the conditions 
 through which it shows its power in this world — 
 not overpowering evil, so to speak, by main force, 
 but disarming it by enduring its utmost hostility — 
 that the life and words of Jesus have had such 
 power over the spiritual life of man. Hence, how- 
 ever otherwise we may conceive it, this life must re- 
 main to us the typical expression of religious feeling ; 
 for it brings the consciousness of finitude into a per- 
 fect unity with the consciousness of the infinite, 
 and reconciles the monotheistic ideas of the evil 
 that is in the world and of the transcendence of God, 
 with the pantheistic idea of the immanence of God 
 both in man and in nature. Jesus Christ, we may 
 say, first discovered man's true relation to God and 
 lived in it. From no other life, even in the imper- 
 fect records of it that have come to us, do we get 
 the same impression of reconciliation with self and 
 God, of conscious union with a divine Spirit, manifest- 
 ing itself immediately in self-conquest and devotion to 
 the service of humanity. No other religious teacher 
 has kept the self-sacrifice he demanded so clear 
 of a false asceticism. No one living, as he did, 
 ' under the power of the world to come,' has been so 
 
JUDAISM AND CHRISTIANITY. 141 
 
 free from superstition, or has taught the irresistible; 
 and sometimes dangerous current of religious emo- 
 tion to flow so exclusively in the channel of charity 
 and justice. So long as the conscience of man 
 retains its power, it must acknowledge, — though it 
 may be with greatly changed forms of doctrinal 
 interpretation, — that the divine and the human were 
 brought together in one, whose consciousness of unity 
 with God so directly passed into a consciousness 
 of unitv with man. 
 
LECTUEE SIXTH. 
 
 THE RELIGION" OF JESUS. 
 
 The Beconoiliation of Man with God — Difference of the Christian 
 from the Pantheistic Reconciliation — " Die to Live " — Negative 
 and Positive Aspect of this Idea — How far it was a New Idea — 
 Anticipations of it — Theoretical and Practical Coiueqaenx^es of 
 it — How it contrasts with the Despairing Subjective Views of 
 later Judaism — The Purification of the Jewish Messianic Ideas 
 by Jesus — TTte Tragic Crisis which was its coTiseguence — The 
 Idea of Development in the Teaching of Jesus. 
 
 In the last lecture I endeavoured to show that 
 Christianity at once realised and transcended, ful- 
 filled and abolished the religion of Israel. For it 
 carried the subjective tendency of that religion to 
 the point where the subject frees itself from all 
 relation to an objectivity which is external to itself, 
 and thereby becomes capable of recognising an objec- 
 tivity which is not external. Withdrawing from 
 the natural as opposed to the spiritual, the subject 
 comes for the first time to understand that the 
 natural in its ultimate reality is itself spiritual. 
 Eecoiling from the life of the state as worldly and 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 143 
 
 evil, man awakes to the idea of a kingdom of heaven, 
 which is to be set up, nay, which is already set 
 up, on earth. At the same time, all the national 
 limitations under which the universal meaning of 
 religion was hidden are abolished ; all the outward 
 forms under which the spiritual was half concealed 
 and half revealed, are cast aside. God becomes the 
 God of all men and nations, the God who is 
 revealed in nature and history alike; and the whole 
 process of finite existence is viewed as one con- 
 nected evolution, in which God manifests Himself in 
 and to His creatures, that ' in the fulness of time 
 He may reconcile all things to Himself.' The 
 spiritual idea of God which, in the Jewish mono- 
 theism, had been reached by the harsh breach of 
 His connexion with nature and with man, is retained; 
 but in place of the purely negative elevation of 
 the Divine Subject above all objects in the finite 
 world, we have the positive idea of God as a 
 spiritual principle manifested in the organic unity of 
 that world with all its differences and antagonisms, 
 and in the process of evolution whereby all these 
 differences and antagonisms are reconciled and over- 
 come. 
 
 That such ideas lay directly in the line of the 
 development of Christianity, and that they began to 
 show their power very early in its history, we do 
 not need to look farther than the New Testament 
 
144 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 to see. It is, however, not at once easy to show in 
 the teaching and life of Jesus the germinal principle 
 out of which they arise, or to discover the line of 
 filiation between it and later developments. The 
 Christian idea is so complex and fertile that it 
 admits into its movement the most diverse elements; 
 and it cannot, therefore, be developed except by 
 antagonism and controversy. For no complete re- 
 conciliation between opposing aspects of truth can 
 ever be made, unless each of them is drawn out 
 to its utmost consequences, and set in clear anti- 
 thesis to the others. Hence the history of Chris- 
 tianity renews within itself all the conflicts of 
 earlier religions ; and it seems at first almost as 
 difficult to detect any dominant unity in it as in 
 the general history of religion itself Even in the 
 iSTew Testament, as I pointed out in the last lecture, 
 we are met by the great contrast between that 
 generalised and idealised view of the relations of 
 God and man — that philosophy of religion, as we 
 may almost call it — which is expounded in the 
 Epistles of St. Paul, and the direct aphoristic and 
 parabolic lessons embodied in the words of Jesus, 
 and bound up in close connexion with the inci- 
 dents of his human life and death. In some 
 degree, indeed, this contrast is softened for us by 
 the fact that these records were not written for 
 a considerable time after the events they narrate ; 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 145 
 
 and that, therefore, they have been considerably 
 modified by the refracting influence of the ideas 
 of a later period. Those who wrote the account of 
 the actions and words of Jesus were looking back 
 upon the beginning of his ministry in the light of' 
 its end; and they could hardly, even if they 
 belonged to his earlier disciples, recall the memory 
 of a period when they had not known him as 
 the Messiah, or even as one greater than the Jew- 
 ish Messiah. Still, when we pass, say, from thai 
 Sermon on the Mount to the Epistle to the Eomans 
 we are undoubtedly sensible that we have come into 
 a different intellectual atmosphere ; and we do not 
 find it altogether easy to draw any lines of con- 
 nexion between things that seem to lie so far apart. 
 Now, it is not, of course, my intention to examine 
 the details of this contrast, which has been eluci- 
 dated by many able writers ; but it is necessary in 
 following out the idea of religious evolution, which 
 it has 4aeen the purpose of these lectures to illus- 
 trate, that I should endeavour to explain a little 
 more fully what I have called the germinal idea 
 of Christianity, and show how it is related to those 
 later forms of thought and life which have arisen 
 out of it. 
 
 In the first place, then, the teaching of Jesus 
 contrasts with that of the greatest Jewish prophets, 
 and even with that of his immediate predecessor, 
 
 VOL. II. K 
 
146 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 John the Baptist, in so far as it is a preaching of 
 reconciliation with God, and that, not in the future, 
 but immediately in the present ; and not as something 
 to be added from without to human life, but on the 
 basis of an original unity. God is represented, not 
 in a passing figure, but in the title which is supposed 
 to express His essential nature as the "Father" of 
 men; and it is declared that the time has come for 
 Him to be known as their Father. The declaration 
 made in the beginning of the ministry of Jesus that 
 "The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven 
 is at hand," passes with scarce a break into the 
 announcement that " The kingdom of God is among 
 you " ; and the importance of this announcement is 
 asserted to be such that it makes, so to speak, a 
 difference in kind between the greatest saints and 
 prophets who lived under the previous reign of 
 division, and the "least in the kingdom of heaven." 
 The highest ideal is brought close to men and 
 declared to be within their reach : they are called 
 on to be " perfect as their Father in heaven is 
 perfect." The sense of alienation and distance from 
 God, which had grown upon the pious in Israel 
 just in proportion as they had learned to look upon 
 Him as no mere national divinity, but as a God of 
 justice who would punish Israel for its sin as 
 certainly as Edom or Moab, is declared to be no 
 longer in place; and the typical form of Christian 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 147 
 
 prayer points to the abolition of the contrast 
 between this world and the next which through 
 all the history of the Jews had continually been 
 growing wider : " As in heaven, so on earth." The 
 sense of the division of man from God, as a finite 
 being from the infinite, as weak and sinful from the 
 omnipotent goodness, is not indeed lost; but it can 
 no longer overpower the consciousness of oneness. 
 The terms 'Son' and 'Father' at once state the 
 opposition and mark its limit. They show that it is 
 not an absolute opposition, but one which presupposes 
 an indestructible principle of unity, that can and must 
 become a principle of reconciliation. Jesus, as the 
 ' Son of Man,' — to use the characteristic title which he 
 gives to himself, — is conscious that man is capable of 
 being at one with God ; nay, that this is the sole atti- 
 tude of consciousness in which man can be at one with 
 himself. And what Jesus felt in himself, he could 
 call upon all men to share, not as one who summoned 
 them to a task alien to their natures, or laid upon 
 them a yoke, a foreign yoke, like the legal service 
 of the Pharisees, but as one who invited them to be ' 
 what they really are. For he who is at war with 
 God and goodness is regarded as at war with him- 
 self and alienated from himself; and for man to be 
 reconciled to God is to come to himself, and to give 
 up the endless and fruitless struggle with the very 
 principle of his own life. " Come unto me, ye that 
 
148 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you 
 rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me ; 
 for I am meek and lowly in heart : and ye shall 
 find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and 
 my burden is light." ^ 
 
 Such an idea of union with the divine and rest 
 in the divine, as the real ground of all our finite 
 life, was not a new thing in the world; but it was 
 new in the form which was now given to it. It 
 was not new ; for it had been the very essence of 
 the Indian pantheism. The pantheist also could 
 say, " Acquaint yourself with God, and be at peace.'' 
 Rise above your own finitude and the finitude of 
 things around you. Seek not the objects which 
 perish with the using. Eegard them, and 'even your 
 own finite existence, as the unrealities which they 
 are when seen svh specie aeternitatis, and turn your 
 eyes and your wishes from their illusions. Abstract 
 from that which exists only in the dream of finitude, 
 and lose your shadowy joys and sorrows in the 
 contemplation of the Infinite Being. Learn the 
 lesson of Spinoza, that " all happiness and un- 
 happiness depends upon the nature of the object 
 on which we fix our affections. For, except on 
 account of that which is the object of love, no con- 
 tentions can arise; no sorrow, if it perishes; no envy, 
 if it is possessed by another ; no fear, no hatred, 
 ' Matthew xi. 28, 30. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 149 
 
 and, in short, no disturbance of mind — all which 
 feelings are continually stirred up within us by 
 the love of those things which perish, such as wealth, 
 honour, and pleasure. But love to that which is 
 eternal and infinite feeds the soul ivith unmingled 
 joy, a joy untainted with any sorrow. This, there- 
 fore, we ought to desire and seek after with all our 
 powers." ^ 
 
 This kind of pantheism, however, reaches the 
 unity of the finite with the infinite solely by deny- 
 ing the reality of the former. It reconciles man 
 with God simply by the negation of all that makes 
 him man. But such a negative deliverance is, as 
 we have already seen, no real emancipation. If it 
 brings rest to the weary, it is but the rest of the 
 grave. Nay, as the Buddhist recognised, with the 
 absolute negation of the finite, the infinite also, which 
 is known only in relation to it, is deprived of all 
 meaning. Its God ceases to be a living God, just 
 because He has absorbed all life into Himself. 
 
 It is not such a God, or such a union with God, 
 which Jesus proclaims as the refuge of man from 
 his own finitude and sin. God is to him a living 
 God, who, for that very reason, is the ' God not of 
 the dead but of the living.' If he bids men abstract 
 
 ^ De Intdlectus Emendatione, i. 10. " Sed amor erga rem aeter- 
 nam et infinitam sola laetitia pascit animum, ipsaque omnis 
 tristitiae est expers." 
 
150 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 from the finite, it is not that they may lose them- 
 selves in the infinite, but that by losing they may 
 truly find themselves. If he bids them to give up 
 everything to God, if he calls upon them to renounce 
 house and lands, father and mother, vpife and child 
 for himself, it is not in the ascetic spirit that denies 
 any value to the gifts of fortune and the ties of 
 natural affection, but only in the sense of the say- 
 ing : " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness, and all these things shall be added 
 to you." 1 And in the words, which more than 
 any others seem to sum up his theory of life, he 
 declares that the renunciation of self, and of every 
 finite good which is attached to the life of the self, 
 is demanded, not in order to lift man above the 
 loss and decay of all that is finite, by renouncing it 
 once for all as hollow and illusive, but in order that 
 by the sacrifice of his immediate life a fuller life 
 may be attained. If "he that saveth his life shall 
 lose it," it is also declared that "he that loseth his 
 life shall save it." The death to self which he 
 requires is thus only the death of the seed — the 
 loss of the immediate form of its finitude — that 
 the principle of its life may have opportunity 
 to manifest itself in a form that is more adequate. 
 " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
 and die, it abideth alone ; but, if it die, it bringeth 
 'Matthew vi. 33. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 151 
 
 forth much fruit." ^ It is this idea that gives ucity 
 and consistency to the words of Christ through all 
 the antithesis, and even apparent contradiction which 
 is to be found in them. Without it, we cannot 
 apprehend that teaching as a whole, or see its 
 true originality ; for that originality lies not in 
 any single unprecedented word or thought, but 
 just in the fact that all special aspects of man's life 
 are brought under this one principle, and that the 
 principle itself is carried out with a resolute consist- 
 ency which faces all difficulties, and even turns them 
 into new illustrations of its truth. I hesitate here to 
 introduce the names of philosophic schools, for they 
 are apt to bring with them confusing associations : 
 otherwise I should be inclined to say that Jesus was 
 the most consistent of all idealists, — one who worked 
 out his idealism not in abstract theory, but by the 
 unflinching application of a spiritual measure alike to 
 the simplest and to the most mysterious facts of our 
 existence. No one ever lived and died in more 
 constant defiance of the fainthearted maxim, that 
 "that which is true in theory is false in practice," 
 or that there are things which are 'too good to 
 be true.' Even Plato tells us that it is "in the 
 nature of things that practice should fall short of 
 theory," and flinches from recommending the realisa- 
 tion of his ideal state. But Jesus not only treats 
 1 John xii. 24. 
 
152 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the ideal or universal as the divine, and so as the 
 highest reality ; he maintains that it can and must 
 be realised by and in man in this life; and further, 
 that it must be realised, not by the agency of an 
 external miraculous force compelling man against his 
 will, but by the penetrative attraction of a love that 
 draws forth the hidden energies of his nature, and 
 so brings him back from his wanderings to the divine 
 principle of his own life. 
 
 This will become clearer, if we follow out a little 
 farther the meaning of the Christian antithesis, "Die 
 to live." The first point involved in it is the absolute 
 surrender of self — and with it of every finite good, 
 every outward advantage and even every narrower 
 relation of human affection — to G-od, the God who 
 is revealed by Jesus as the Father of spirits. No 
 pantheist, no ascetic ever expressed the demand for 
 the sacrifice of the finite life in broader or more 
 uncompromising terms. " If any man come to me, 
 and hate not his father and mother and wife and 
 children and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own 
 life also, he cannot be my disciple." ^ " Follow me, 
 and let the dead bury their dead."^ Nothing but 
 what we might even call a reckless abandonment 
 of self, which never counts the cost or keeps any- 
 thing back, is regarded as sufficient, if the first 
 step is to be made in the new life. And, what is 
 1 Luke xiv. 26. ^ Matt. viii. 22. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 153 
 
 further to be noted, this surrender of self is not a 
 mere. Stoical or Jewish submission to God, which 
 buys for the servant of God a complete inde- 
 pendence toward men. On the contrary, as God 
 is conceived as the Father of spirits, and, therefore, 
 as a principle of spiritual life in all men. He, with 
 His infinite claims, is directly present to us in our 
 fellowmen, whenever and wherever we meet with 
 them. The beginning of man's higher life is the 
 recognition of a universal, in reference to which 
 all the distinctions of particulars disappear, and as 
 springing from which they are all one ; hence, in 
 this region the very idea of right as the claim of 
 one against another, must be set aside. Duty 
 absorbs right, and itself becomes illimitable. In the 
 parable of the good Samaritan, the question, "Who 
 is my neighbour ? " Who has a claim upon me ? is 
 answered by the counter-question, "Who was neigh- 
 bour to him who fell among thieves ? " " Who most 
 fully accepted and recognised the limitless claim made 
 upon himself by the sufferings of others ? " The 
 Christian is thus defined as one who not only with 
 Plato counts it better to suffer than to do unjustice, 
 but as one who, in the battle of life, begins by throw- 
 ing away sword and shield; who refuses to use any 
 of the natural weapons wherewith he is armed for the 
 struggle for existence ; who resists not evil, but " to 
 him that smiteth on the right cheek turns the other 
 
154 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 also." He is one who renounces antagonism and hate, 
 and who meets evil, not with counter-evil, but with 
 good. 
 
 In all this we see the negative side of religion — 
 the negation of the finite in relation to the infinite, 
 carried out as unflinchingly and consistently as it 
 ever was carried out by any Buddhist ascetic. But 
 there is an essential difference. With the Buddhist, 
 the universal swallows up the particulars, and, as it 
 is simply their negative, it disappears with them. 
 With Jesus, whatever claim of right on the part of 
 the finite being, as against his fellowmen or against 
 God, is given up, is to be restored in another 
 and higher sense. " There is no man that hath left 
 house or brethren or sisters or father or mother or 
 children or lands for My sake and the gospel's, but 
 he shall receive a hundredfold now in this time, 
 " houses and brethren and sisters and mothers and 
 children and lands with persecutions; and in tlie 
 world to come eternal life."^ In other words, the 
 charities of social life, which are renounced, shall 
 come back multiplied in the tenderer and purer ties 
 of Christian brotherhood; and even the outward goods 
 of this life, though their possession may be rendered 
 precarious by the hostility of the world, will be 
 enjoyed in a higher way by those who have learned 
 their deeper spiritual meaning, and to whom, as to 
 1 Mark x. 29, 30. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESVS. 155 
 
 Jesus, the natural life has become a parable of the 
 spiritual. The Christian surrender of life and of 
 all its immediate interests to God is not, therefore, 
 the emptying, but the filling of it with deeper and 
 wider interests. In breaking through the narrow 
 walls of his individual, his domestic, his national 
 existence, in giving away everything which he has 
 for himself as against another, in surrendering every 
 exclusive good, he is widening, not narrowing, his 
 life. In ceasing to contend for his rights against 
 others, he has made all their rights his own. The 
 sacrifice of selfishness is the birth of the true self. 
 The universal, which seemed to swallow up the 
 individual life, for the first time gives it possession 
 of the good for which it exists. 
 
 Now, in a sense, this lesson is as old as morality. 
 For all morality is a losing of our exclusive self- 
 hood to find it again in the wider life of a self 
 which is not exclusive. The morality of the family 
 consists just in this, that in ceasing to compete as 
 individuals, in becoming instruments of the family 
 life, these very individuals make that life their own, 
 and so take the first step to enlarge their own 
 existence. What they surrender comes back to them 
 multiplied a hundredfold in the wider interests in 
 which they are made to partake. Just because 
 they seek not themselves, but are the instruments 
 of an existence more comprehensive than their own, 
 
156 THE EVOL UTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 their individual lives become extended to the com- 
 pass of that which they serve. For, as a self- 
 conscious being, man can never become a mere in- 
 strument of what is foreign to him ; but in giving 
 himself up to any end, he identifies himself with 
 it and it with himself. Thus he becomes not an 
 instrument but an organ of that which he serves ; 
 i.e. it becomes Ms, as he becomes its. And the same 
 may be said of every form of man's social life. 
 In it he always gets back multiplied what he gives 
 away — no doubt, " with persecutions" for he cannot 
 have the joys of a wider life without suffering its 
 sorrows. But such loss is incidental to every higher 
 gain, and he who did not suffer it would be con- 
 fined to his own bare physical existence. In seeking 
 his own interests as against others, he would empty 
 his life of all interests whatsoever. He who cares 
 for nothing but his own pleasure is soon bankrupt 
 even of that. 
 
 But, while this is so, and while every step in 
 the enlarging and elevating of man's life is in this 
 sense a self-realisation which is purchased by self- 
 sacrifice, this does not interfere with the essential 
 originality of the Christian idea. For, in the first 
 place, the mere fact is one thing and the recog- 
 nition of its principle is another. That the nature 
 of man's moral life was such, did not imply that 
 before Christ it was recognised as such. Even if 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 157 
 
 it be admitted that there was any recognition of 
 the principle at all, yet such recognition was par- 
 tial, and counteracted by the equal recognition of 
 another and opposite principle. Before Christianity, 
 the morality of the family and the nation was not 
 put on a universal basis, but partly, or even 
 mainly, on the basis of the physical fact of blood- 
 relationship ; and it was limited, therefore, by such 
 relationship. The individual grew up in a natural 
 society, from which he never learnt to think of 
 himself as separated ; and when he came to his 
 maturity, his own interests and rights were so 
 closely bound up with those of the society that he 
 could hardly, even in thought, disjoin them. Thus 
 the process whereby his personal interests were 
 widened and identified with those of the community 
 was all but unconscious, while, on the other hand, 
 he was constantly made vividly conscious of the 
 antagonism of his own to other similar communities. 
 His devotion to kindred and country was to 
 him like a wider egoism, which he was constantly 
 called upon to assert against the egoism of others. 
 The narrow sphere of peace within which he learnt 
 to ' die that he might live,' was for him surrounded 
 by a wide world in which the primitive law of 
 self-seeking prevailed. If in his eyes citizen was 
 the natural friend of citizen, yet man was the 
 natural enemy of man ; and his life was alternately 
 
158 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 swayed by two distinct principles of morality, by 
 a social and an unsocial principle.^ In such a 
 state of things, it was impossible that the natural 
 law of the struggle for existence should be definitely 
 subordinated to the spiritual law of love, or that 
 the consequences of such subordination should be 
 recognised. Hence the Greek philosophers, Plato 
 and Aristotle, who first expressed the organic idea 
 of the State, were hindered by their national pre- 
 judices from applying it to mankind in general ; 
 and even their application of it to Greek politics 
 was hesitating and imperfect. Their ideal State 
 was one in which only Greeks could be citizens ; 
 and even in its inner structure it was not com- 
 pletely organic, for it made the slaves and even 
 the lower classes the instruments of a life in 
 which they did not partake. On the other hand, 
 if the later philosophic moralists of Greece, and 
 especially the Stoics, rose to the idea of a universal 
 principle of ethics, yet in their application of it 
 they allowed it to remain too abstract and indi- 
 vidualistic. If they gave to the individual a high 
 sense of his worth and dignity as a spiritual being, 
 and emancipated him from the limits of a merely 
 national morality, yet they did not make the tie 
 
 ' Of. Mr. Herbert Spencer's view of the dual morality -which 
 necessarily prevailed in the militant as contrasted with the 
 industrial stage of social life. Data of Ethics, § 93. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 159 
 
 of humanity, which they put in its place, an effec- 
 tive social bond. At a still earlier time, the Jewish 
 prophets had, as we have seen, freed their religion, 
 and therefore their morality, from national limita- 
 tions ; but up to the time of Christ their ideas 
 remained in the main negative, and therefore 
 sterile. For the same movement of thought, by 
 which God ceased to be to them merely the God 
 of Israel, removed Him almost to an infinite distance 
 from the life of man. And the Law, which was 
 brought in to mediate, as it were, between God 
 in His remote holiness and man in his finite exist- 
 ence, could not, either by its moral or its ceremonial 
 prescriptions, supply the place of a binding social 
 force. The Law, indeed, had relation almost entirely 
 to the life of the individuals, and it held them 
 together, so far as it held them together at all, 
 merely for the purpose of a common religious wor- 
 ship. With Jesus, however, the principle breaks 
 away from these limits, and shows its positive value. 
 God is again brought near to man as the Father 
 of all, the universal principle of social unity. All 
 absolute exclusions of individual by individual, or 
 of nation by nation, are abolished, and the 
 morality of war and self-assertion is in principle 
 rejected. There ceases to be any man or nation 
 towards whom we are authorised to be selfish, in 
 order to secure the social sphere within which we 
 
160 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 shall be unselfish. Morality is now, so to speak, 
 made of one piece, instead of being divided between 
 conflicting laws. For, though God has ceased to be 
 regarded as a respecter of persons or of nations, 
 yet He is no longer lifted high above man as an 
 object of fear; rather, He is brought near to him 
 as an object of love, as a God who reveals Himself 
 in and to all men, and binds them all as brethren 
 to each other. At this point, therefore, it becomes 
 possible to teach the pure lesson of self-realisation 
 through self-abnegation in all its depth and width. 
 i, For it is now based not on the natural fact of 
 ;;;! kiushlp, but on the nature of man as a spiritual or 
 self-conscious being, a being whose nature is rooted 
 in God, as the universal principle of spiritual life, 
 and who, therefore, is at war with himself so long 
 as he is at war with any of his fellowmen. 
 
 What has been said may be already sufficient 
 to show the agreement of Christianity even in its 
 earliest germ, with the third and highest type of 
 religion, which we have characterised as religion in 
 its own proper form. For we saw that in this 
 highest type of religion God must be represented 
 not merely as an object or as a subject, but as, 
 what in idea He is, the spiritual principle of unity 
 which is above the distinction of subject and object, 
 as it is above all other distinctions, and which 
 is at once the presupposition and the goal, the 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 161 
 
 beginning and the end, of our finite lives. Now, ; 
 if this be the true idea of God as the object of 
 worship, and if it is in the Christian religion that 
 it first became explicit, then we can understand 
 the antithesis, which is peculiar to that religion, , 
 — its negation of the finite in one point of view, 
 and its reassertion of the finite in another. The 
 error or illusion of our ordinary consciousness is 
 that it takes the finite as if it were the infinite, and 
 therefore looks at the world as a collection of 
 independent existences, without realising the unity 
 presupposed in them all — the unity of all finite 
 objects with each other and with the mind that 
 knows them. And the corresponding moral defect 
 lies in this, that finite ends and objects are sought 
 directly as ends in themselves ; or, in other words, 
 that the realisation of the self is sought in them 
 as particular ends. Now the first principle of 
 Christian thought, in which it agrees with pantheism, 
 is to refer the finite to the infinite, and to regard the 
 former as nothing in itself as apart from the latter. 
 And the first principle of Christian ethics is to 
 condemn the love of the world, to set aside absolutely 
 all desire for the ' treasures that moth and rust 
 doth corrupt,' and all care and anxiety about " what 
 we shall eat and what we shall drink, and where- 
 withal we shall be clothed." It thus begins by 
 bidding us die to self and to all personal aims, 
 
 VOL. II. L 
 
162 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 that we may live to God. All this is a natural 
 consequence flowing from the very idea of religion. 
 For, if the consciousness of God is the presupposition 
 of all our consciousness both of the object and 
 of the subject, then to treat the latter as inde- 
 pendent of the former is to deal with abstractions 
 as if they were realities, and to give an Ulusive 
 semblance of infinity to the finite. We begin, 
 indeed, with a consciousness of the finite, of finite 
 objects as such, and of the self as a finite subject, 
 as if these were res completae — things rounded and 
 complete in themselves ; but we come to ourselves, 
 that is, we discover what objects truly are and 
 what we ourselves are, only when we become 
 conscious that they live and move and have their 
 being in God. 
 
 But, again, the same view of religion shows us 
 how to explain the positive turn of thought which 
 belongs to Christianity both on its practical and on 
 its theoretical side. For, if the consciousness of 
 objects and also the consciousness of the subject are 
 illusive, in so far as they are separated from the 
 consciousness of God, yet they are the necessary 
 expressions of that consciousness. The unity reveals 
 itself in the diversity, and cannot be divorced from 
 it. Hence, in the theoretical sphere, we are obliged 
 to reinstate the finite as the manifestation of the 
 infinite ; and, An the practical sphere, we have to 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 163 
 
 recognise finite ends as elements in the infinite good, 
 or forms in which it has to be realised. It is 
 thus only that we can understand how the same 
 teacher, who seems to bid us avert our eyes alto- 
 gether from earth and look only to heaven, was he 
 who turned all nature into a parable of the kingdom 
 of God, and taught his disciples to call God Himself 
 by a name derived from the simplest and most 
 fundamental of natural relations. It is as if he 
 was constantly saying, " Separate nature and man 
 from God, and they become less than nothing, worse 
 than non-existent : refer them both to the divine, 
 regard nature as the garment of deity, and man 
 as the son of God, and they become as real as God 
 Himself." Again, the same teacher, who calls upon 
 us to hate father and mother and our own life also, 
 yet bids us regard every act of service done to 
 a human being as done to himself and to God. 
 " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
 least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
 me." All this casting down of the finite, this utter 
 divine recklessness and disregard of the ends of 
 ordinary ambition, and even of the very existence 
 of man, and, on the other hand, this raising of 
 nature and humanity into the place of types and 
 manifestations of divinity, become intelligible, when 
 we consider them as the necessary consequences of 
 the highest idea of religion ; for, in accordance with 
 
164 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 that idea, religion must humiliate maa in himself that 
 it may lift him to a consciousness of what he is 
 in God. It must treat nature in itself as an illusive 
 semblance, in order to lead us to recognise what it 
 is as a divine revelation. 
 
 A farther light is cast upon the way in which 
 Christianity negates the finite in itself and re- 
 asserts it in relation to God, when we consider 
 its connexion with Jewish monotheism. The teach- 
 ing of Jesus continues and even intensifies that 
 deep subjective spirit of piety which was the ulti- 
 mate result of Jewish religion, while it rejects that 
 individualistic isolation which had accompanied it. 
 In some of the Psalms religion tends to become a 
 solitary dialogue between God and the soul of the 
 individual, a dialogue from which all the world 
 beside is excluded ; and the external worship of the 
 temple and the synagogue, if it kept alive the idea 
 that religion had a national aspect, yet did little to 
 make it an effective social bond. We might even 
 say that it showed that religion had ceased to be 
 effective as a national bond, while it had not yet 
 become effective as a universal bond of charity. At 
 best it united the devout worshippers only by the 
 consciousness of a common inner experience, and it 
 did not make this sympathy the source of any new 
 order of their outward lives. Rather, it made pious 
 souls draw back from the contagion of the world, 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 165 
 
 in order to protect the purity of their inner lives in 
 the service of what V7e may call the church. And 
 with this withdrawal upon the inner life, the Jew- 
 ish belief in a God of justice became darkened, till, 
 as we have seen, it remained only as the hope of a 
 Messiah who, by a violent revolution, should over- 
 turn the present reign of evil, and bring about the 
 'restitution of all things.' Now Jesus at once did 
 justice to this dualism, and set it aside, at once 
 fulfilled and destroyed it, by the doctrine that the 
 very trials and sufferings, which had seemed a proof 
 of the triumph of evil, were the necessary means to i 
 the development of the principle of good. Thus 
 even the powers that opposed and persecuted the 
 good were secretly its instruments, and even the 
 malice and hatred of men were no real hindrances, 
 but rather the opportunities required for its mani- 
 festation. For as, in warring against the good cause, 
 men were warring against themselves, against that 
 which was deepest in their own nature, they could 
 use in the contest only half their strength ; and 
 their weak and divided efforts could offer no per- 
 manent resistance to the united and self-consistent 
 force of goodness. Beelzebub was divided against 
 himself, and therefore his kingdom must fall 
 before the power of the kingdom of heaven, 
 whose servants were at one with themselves, 
 with the inmost tendency of the universe, and 
 
166 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 with God. It is this simple confidence in the 
 omnipotence of good and the impotence of evil, 
 which breathes in such words of Jesus as these, 
 " I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Be- 
 hold, I have given you power to tread on serpents 
 and scorpions, and over every power of the enemy, 
 and nothing shall by any means hurt you." This 
 exultant faith at once changed the spirit of the 
 self-concentrated piety of the Old Testament saints, 
 and turned their reserve and fear of casting their 
 pearls before swine, into an invasive charity which 
 rejoiced in communicating itself, and believed that 
 there was no heart so stubborn as to resist its 
 self-communicating power. Under this new inspir- 
 ation the good no longer withdrew as into a cloister, 
 from fear of the contamination of the world; but, 
 conscious of union with a prevailing power which 
 ruled even the hearts of their enemies, conscious of 
 a spring of life and love in their own souls which 
 no sorrow could kill and no hate resist, they 
 advanced to a conflict with all the gigantic evils of 
 the time, and all its mightiest social and political 
 powers, in the spirit of conquerors for whom the 
 battle was already won. "In the world ye shall 
 have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have over- 
 come the world." '^ 
 
 It is necessary that we should realise to our- 
 ijohn xvi. 33. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 167 
 
 selves this absolute assurance of Jesus and of his 
 immediate followers, in the first spring-tide of their 
 faith, before Christianity became what it has in some 
 measure remained ever since, a religion of the other 
 world. As it came from the lips of its founder, 
 Christianity was nothing less than an absolute 
 practical idealism, which weighed all the greatness 
 of the world in the balances of the spirit; and 
 which, therefore, rejecting all the judgments of 
 sense and immediate experience, all the fears and 
 calculations of worldly prudence, regarded moral 
 forces as practically omnipotent. To the vision of 
 Jesus the powers of truth and love, purity and 
 goodness, were not only immeasurably superior to 
 all that could set itself against them — to all the 
 deceit and malice, all the foulness and selfishness 
 of the world — but they were capable of turning even 
 these into the means of their own triumph. With 
 this, faith there was no doubt mingled even in 
 the best of the early disciples, some of the old 
 Jewish leaven, some of the Jewish hope of the 
 external interference of a conquering Messiah ; and 
 this hope, when immediately disappointed by the 
 crucifixion, attached itself to the idea of a shortly 
 expected second coming of Christ in glory. The 
 Messianic faith was the outward symbol, lying ready 
 in the consciousness of the time ; it was the prophetic 
 form and image under which its highest aspirations 
 
168 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 clothed themselves ; it was to it, therefore, that Jesus 
 had to appeal, and to it that he had to attach the 
 new idea of the kingdom of God on earth which 
 he was seeking to introduce. For "ideas," as it 
 has been said, " must be given through something," 
 and the figures and forms through which they are 
 to be given are in great measure determined in 
 every age by the consciousness of the past out of 
 which it is developing. The whole teaching of Jesus 
 might be described as one continuous effort to extract 
 the kernel from the husk in which it had to grow ; 
 to detach the deeper spiritual truth he sought to 
 convey from the form in which he was obliged to 
 convey it ; to raise the Messianic idea above the 
 accidents of its prophetic vesture and the cruder 
 sensuous interpretation, which the popular mind had 
 attached to it. Whatever view we may take of the 
 miracles of the Gospel, we can at least clearly see 
 that Jesus was constantly struggling against the 
 crude supernaturalism of his day ; that he sought 
 persistently to silence the report of wonder working 
 that attended him (and which, we may say, could 
 not fail to attend anyone who profoundly stirred 
 the spirits of men in such an age), and that he 
 refused with indignation and scorn the demand for 
 a sign from heaven, regarding this demand as an 
 indication of the corruption and perversity of those 
 who made it. "An evU and adulterous generation 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 169 
 
 seeketh after a sign, and there shall no sign be 
 given to it but the sign of the prophet Jonah," 
 Le. as Luke interprets it, the sign involved in the 
 preaching and life of Jesus himself These were 
 the natural signs in which a pure mind might be 
 expected to read the truth, as clearly as a practised 
 eye could detect in the sky the promise of fair 
 or stormy weather. "Ye hypocrites, ye can discern 
 the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the 
 signs of the times ? " ^ 
 
 The tragic crisis of the life and death of Jesus 
 lay just in this, that while he satisfied the deepest 
 spiritual want of his time, he absolutely contradicted 
 and, we might almost say trampled upon, all its 
 vulgar ambitions. Hence the same penetrating 
 magnetism of spirit which drew to him those whose 
 hearts were set upon a moral deliverance, repelled 
 with the utmost force of antipathy all those whose 
 hearts were set upon a supernatural gratification of 
 worldly passions. For the essence of the teaching 
 of Jesus was that, here and now, in the ordinary 
 course of the world, and without any supernatural 
 interference, the only real power is the power of 
 
 ' Luke xi. 29. Matthew's interpretation of this saying (Matt. 
 xii. 39) is a curious instance of the tendency to turn even the 
 words that denounce the miracle-seeking spirit into nutriment 
 for that spirit. 
 
 2 Matt. xvi. 3. 
 
170 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 goodness and of God ; and that if goodness is 
 resisted, it is only because it is not yet mature, 
 and needs resistance to mature it. It is because the 
 death is not yet fully accomplished, through which 
 alone spiritual life can be developed, that that life 
 seems still to be feeble and oppressed by hostile 
 powers. And, however we are to explain the pro- 
 phecy, that ' this generation shall not pass away 
 till all these things be fulfilled,' the words of 
 Jesus show that the Jewish apocalyptic form in 
 which he had to express the idea of the ultimate 
 triumph of good, did not hide from him the truth 
 that it is only by a gradual process of evolution, 
 and not by one sudden manifestation of divine 
 omnipotence, that such a spiritual victory is to be 
 gained. Take, for instance, that remarkable parable 
 contained in what is now believed to be the earliest 
 of the Gospels, the Gospel of St. Mark, but 
 which is omitted in the other evangelists, — perhaps 
 because its full significance was not seen by them : ^ 
 " So is the kingdom of heaven, as if a man should 
 cast seed into the ground, and should sleep and 
 rise day and night, and the seed should spring and 
 grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth 
 bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then 
 the ear, then the full corn in the ear. But when 
 the fruit is ripe, immediately he putteth in the 
 ^ Mark iv. 26. 
 
THE RELIGION OF JESUS. 171 
 
 sickle, for the harvest is come." Could any symbol 
 more definitely express the slow natural process of 
 growth by which a new spiritual faith must ripen 
 in the hearts of men ? A similar lesson is contained 
 in the parable of the mustard-seed, and in that of 
 the leaven which was " hid in three measures of meal 
 till the whole was leavened." ^ And it appears even 
 more clearly in the apocalyptic discourses of the 
 Gospel of St. Luke, where the warning is given that 
 "the kingdom of God cometh not with observation," 
 and that the disciples of Christ will not need to say, 
 ' Lo, here ! and Lo, there ! ' for the kingdom of God 
 is already in the midst of them,^ already present 
 and growing in their own hearts, so that they do 
 not require to look beyond themselves for the evi- 
 dences of it. Its evidence lies simply in its exist- 
 ence as a power that lives and develops in the 
 spirit of man. 
 
 ^Matt. xiii. 33. 
 
 'Luke xvii. 21; cf. Matt. xxiv. 23. 
 
LECTUEE SEVENTH. 
 
 THE LESSON OF DEATH AND OF THE DEATH OF JESUS. 
 
 The Idea of a Suffering and Dying Messiah — The Lesson of Death 
 as interpreted by the Pantheists — The Lesson of Death as 
 interpreted by Plato — Amhiguities in Plato's View — The Lesson 
 of Death as interpreted hy Jesus— The Death of the Cross — Its 
 Import and St. Paul's View of it. 
 
 In the last lecture I attempted to indicate the 
 main ideas which are contained in the teaching of 
 Jesus according to the Synoptic Gospels. I at- 
 tempted to show that there is a certain antithesis 
 which runs through the life of Jesus, and which 
 reaches its culmination and completion in his death — 
 the antithesis, viz., between the kingdom of God 
 as he conceived it, and that Messianic kingdom 
 which was expected by the Jews. If a really tragic 
 situation is one which contains conflicting elements, 
 that cannot be brought to unity except by a collision 
 which must be fatal to the representative of either 
 or both of the interests involved, then there never 
 was a more definitely tragic situation than that 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 173 
 
 which is presented to us in the Gospels. For 
 Jesus, whatever view we may otherwise take of his 
 personality, was one who, by faithfulness to the best 
 that was in Judaism, had been carried beyond 
 Judaism. He had penetrated through the figura- 
 tive language in which the Old Testament described 
 the triumph of the true Israel over all its enemies, 
 to the idea of a purely spiritual victory not over, 
 but for, all men ; a victory to be won not by the 
 ' striving and crying ' of selfish ambition, or by a 
 sudden miraculous display of physical power, but 
 by a method which was the very reverse of all 
 this. It was to be won by shunning all assertion, 
 whether of individual or of national egoism ; by 
 casting aside as useless all the weapons of earthly 
 warfare with which men are armed against each 
 other ; by meeting hate with love, self-assertion 
 with self-sacrifice, the claims of right with the 
 abnegation of all right that is not an expression 
 of duty. On this view there could be no glory 
 of superiority of one over another, except that of 
 being his servant ; no revenge of one upon another 
 but that of heaping coals of fire upon his head by 
 rendering good for evil ; no joy of individual posses- 
 sion which did not begin with the consciousness 
 that the individual derives everything that he has 
 and is from God, and that he can possess it only 
 as he gives it away. 
 
174 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Now it is easy to see that to ask the Jews to 
 accept this as the essence of the Messianic king- 
 dom — as the final triumph of the Jewish nationality 
 over the world, and the last result of its long- 
 struggle against its enemies — was to bid that nation- 
 ality ' die to live.' It was to tell it that it could 
 be anything only if it lost itself in humanity, and 
 made itself an organ of the universal life. It was 
 to ask it to give up every exclusive claim or hope 
 that it had cherished through the long years of 
 exile and oppression. Yet Jesus, filled with the 
 new spirit of religion, could not but make the 
 claim that tM& should be accepted as the realisa- 
 tion of the Messianic kingdom, and himself, its first 
 preacher, as the true Messiah ; or, as he expressed 
 it — choosing the one Messianic name that suited 
 him — as the Son of Man, who, in realising the ideal 
 of the Jew, found that he was realising the idea 
 of man, i.e. of a weak finite being whose life is 
 nevertheless rooted in the infinite. Thus the acts 
 and words of Jesus were a challenge to all that 
 was sensuous in the ideas, and all that was selfish 
 in the aspirations, of his time and nation. The 
 saying which the Gospel of John puts into his 
 mouth, "For judgment am I come into this world, 
 that they which see not might see ; and that they 
 which see might be made blind," ^ may be the 
 "John ix. 39. 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 175 
 
 expression of later reflexion, but it exhibits the 
 inmost nature of the crisis. The person and words 
 of Jesus were a touchstone by which the baser and 
 the nobler elements of Judaism were distinguished ; 
 by which the ' wise and prudent,' who were guided 
 by expediency and not by truth, and who hid an 
 inordinate worldly ambition under the disguise of a 
 zeal for the cause of God, were divided from the 
 ' babes,' whose minds were disinterestedly open to the 
 new light. Hence the history, so far as we can trace 
 it in the Gospels, is one of irritation and indignation 
 on the part of the leaders of the Jewish nation, 
 which continually increases with every new mani- 
 festation of the nature of the principles which 
 Jesus represents and teaches; and which comes to 
 a head when, on the basis of these principles, he 
 makes the distinct assertion of his Messianic claims 
 at Jerusalem; in other words, when he makes his 
 iinal demand that te spiritual, because universal, 
 kingdom of God should be substituted for the out- 
 ward kingdom for which the Jews had been hoping. 
 The accusation that Jesus said, "I will destroy this 
 temple made with hands, and within three days I 
 will build another made without hands," ^ whether 
 it was literally true or not, indicates the point at 
 which the offence became intolerable, i.e. just when 
 Jesus began to make it clear that the whole Judaic 
 ' Mark xiv. 58. 
 
176 '^HE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 system, with its outward ritual and ceremony, and 
 all the beliefs and hopes connected therewith, must 
 be swept away to make room for a system based 
 upon a new spiritual foundation. Yet, on the other 
 hand, we may observe that just this course of conduct, 
 which excited against Jesus an immediate antagonism 
 that could not be satisfied with anything but his 
 destruction, was the very means necessary to make 
 manifest the nature of his new principle and to 
 enable it to triumph. The idyllic charm of the 
 early Galilean preaching of Jesus to simple minds, 
 who at a word were often ready to forsake all and 
 follow the new Teacher, was necessary as the initia- 
 tory stage of the new religion. But the gospel 
 of peace could not show its power till it had 
 awakened the sword against it. The faith in a 
 Father in heaven who is manifested in the life of 
 man on earth, could not reveal its real meaning 
 till, in the power of it, the Son of Man had shown 
 himself able to meet all the sorrows that flesh is 
 heir to, and all those which men can inflict upon each 
 other. The lesson that by dying to himself man 
 can live, and, indeed, that this is for him the only 
 way to spiritual life, could not be taught except 
 by one who made the last sacrifice of the natural life 
 itself, and who, in making it, faced the utmost 
 manifestation of evil passion in others. The death 
 of Jesus was necessary to sum up and complete 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. Vl*l 
 
 his life, as it was the final and conclusive exhibi- 
 tion of the principle of which he was the repre- 
 sentative. 
 
 The idea that the true meaning of life is revealed 
 only in death, is one that has haunted the mind 
 of man in all ages ; but the Christian interpretation 
 of it has peculiarities which may usefully be illus- 
 trated by a comparison with some of the other 
 forms in which it has presented itself. Some- 1 
 times it has taken the funtheistic form of the 
 consciousness that the finite shows what it is as 
 finite, only in passing away. In other words, the life 
 of the finite, even from the beginning, has the principle 
 of death in it ; and all that it can do is just by passing 
 away to betray its own secret. But in thus betraying 
 the secret of its illusiveness, it carries us beyond 
 itself; for the transitory cannot be conceived except 
 in relation to the enduring. The consciousness that 
 grasps the illusiveness of life must have risen above 
 death : it, in a sense, conquers death by making it an 
 object of thought; for in order to contemplate the 
 transitory by itself as an object, it must take its stand 
 on the eternal. Hence, the pantheist, meditating on the 
 finite and transitory nature of all things, often rises 
 to a kind of passionless heroism, which escapes the 
 fear of death just by recognising its universality. 
 Discovering that the natural life is a process of 
 
 dying, which is concealed from the ordinary con- 
 yoL. n. M 
 
178 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 sciousness by various disguises, he seeks to withdraw 
 from all such life as an illusion, that he may find 
 rest in that which alone is, because it is eternal. 
 All that death touches — and it touches everything 
 finite — he can abstract from; he can let it drop 
 as worthless, and so dying to the transitory and finite, 
 he can live to the infinite and eternal. 
 
 The defect of this attitude of thought, in a religious 
 point of view, is that the eternal to which it rises is 
 empty and abstract : at best, it is simply the general 
 law which manifests itself in the endless change of 
 finite things, the necessity which reveals itself in their 
 contingency. And the heroism which such a faith 
 produces, is a fearless, but also a hopeless fatalism, 
 which sets aside all feelings connected with that 
 which perishes as empty and illusive, and accepts 
 the necessity which it cannot escape. "All that fate 
 takes away from me, I can dispense with ; because 
 I know that it is only to pass away ; and to fix 
 the mind of the affections on it, as if it were an 
 enduring reality, were to deceive myself." Thus 
 the spirit of the pantheist may rise above finitude 
 and look down upon it ; but it does not understand 
 what it has done, does not yet recognise that the 
 being which is conscious of its finitude, must itself 
 be more than merely finite ; that it cannot really 
 be bound to the passing existence from which it 
 can thus ideally separate itself. And, on the other 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 179 
 
 hand, the universal principle with which a self- 
 conscious being can thus identify himself, cannot 
 be a mere fate to which he, like other finite things 
 is subjected, but must have a spiritual existence 
 kindred with his own. 
 
 This second mode of reflexion, which tends, on 
 the one hand, to link the thinking spirit of man 
 with the universal and infinite, to which it raises 
 itself; and, on the other hand, tends to substitute 
 for the bare idea of a fate or general law to which 
 all things and beings are subjected, the idea of 
 a spiritual principle which through all the change 
 and contingency of the passing finite world is realising 
 an absolute good, we find for the first time clearly 
 expressed in the Platonic philosophy. Plato, in 
 other words, gives us a new reading of the maxim, 
 "Die to live," a reading in which the negative 
 element stUl predominates, though not in the same 
 exclusive sense as in the Indian Pantheism or 
 Buddhism. ¥or the universal, in which the particular 
 is to be lost, is no longer conceived as an abstract 
 substance or law of necessity, but rather as a final 
 cause or rational design which, as such, is not alien 
 to the intelligence that recognises it. To give 
 up the particular to the universal, to die to self, 
 that we may live to God, is no longer a fatalistic 
 acceptance of the extinction of the finite self in 
 the gulf of necessity, but the surrender of our 
 
180 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 unreal natural existence, in order that the spiritual 
 element in us may rise to a higher life. This is 
 the lesson which Plato, taking his text from the 
 death of Socrates, seeks to teach in the Phaedo. 
 Philosophy is there represented as a 'practice for 
 death,' because through death alone can true life 
 be reached. And this practice Plato — so far agreeing 
 with the Indian pantheists — conceives as consisting 
 in a continued effort, by asceticisni and abstraction, 
 to liberate the intelligence from the bonds of flesh 
 in which it is bound. The natural life is the 
 spirit's death, and it is declared, with a fanciful play 
 of etymology, that the body (a-wfAo) is its tomb 
 (crtj/j.a)} The true life is the death of death. Would 
 it not then be folly for Socrates, who all his life has 
 been practising for death, and, so far as might be, 
 seeking to extinguish the natural life in himself, 
 to wish to escape that which he has all along been 
 pursuing? Eather he will welcome the hemlock as 
 destroying the last thread that still binds the soul, 
 and hinders its escape from the prison house. He 
 has already, so far as in him lies, died to the 
 illusory life of sense, which prevents the real life 
 of thought from manifesting itself, and his acceptance 
 of the cup of death is but the final act of courage 
 necessary to set the immortal spirit free from the 
 toils of mortality. 
 
 1 This derivation is given in the Crati/lns, 400 C. 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 181 
 
 There has been much controversy as to what Plato 
 really meant in the Phaedo, and especially whether 
 he teaches the doctrine of an individual immortality. 
 On the one hand, the process by which Plato repre- 
 sents the soul as rising to the universal life is rather 
 a negative than a posibive one : it is too like a mere 
 ' shuffling off the mortal coil,' and it teUs us what 
 the life sought is not, rather than what it is. Farther, 
 according to the usual interpretation of the Platonic 
 doctrine of ideas, it points to a reality of the universal 
 in which the particulars are lost, and not to one into 
 which they are taken up as elements. On the other 
 hand, it is quite clear that Plato regards the soul of 
 man as standing in an exceptional position among 
 other things and beings. It is for him a particular 
 being which yet is in possession of a universal life, and 
 which, therefore, can survive the loss of all it has in 
 common with other finite things and beings, and all 
 that binds it to them as finite.^ Hence death is not 
 death to it, as it is to them ; but, in some sense, it 
 is destined still to live in that universal life, to which 
 it sacrifices or devotes itself. What positively this 
 means to Plato, it is not quite easy to determine, 
 so much is his last word on these subjects veiled 
 in mythic forms. But this much we can see that, 
 in Plato's view, man's life is rooted in the universal 
 
 'This seems to be the force of the last argument in the 
 Phaedo, 105 seg. Cf. Republic, 609 seq. 
 
 I I I 
 
182 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 and the divine; that the. eternal and the infinite is, 
 so to speak, the presupposition of all his conscious 
 existence; and that to awaken him to the ' reminis- 
 cence ' of this primal fact, or, in other words, to 
 bring it into clear consciousness as the first principle 
 of all his thought and being, is the great aim of 
 all intellectual culture. The highest object which 
 man can propose to himself in this world is, 
 therefore, to find his way back to the original 
 spiritual unity from which he -springs ; and death 
 itself, accepted as Socrates accepted it, may be re- 
 garded not merely as a natural event which puts 
 an end to a natural existence, but as the culminating 
 point in the life of a spiritual being, whose return 
 upon himself is also a return to God. This, Plato 
 not only teaches as an abstract doctrine, but he 
 makes us realise it as a fact in the picture of 
 Socrates, which he brings before us ; in the lofty 
 serenity of the philosopher, who regards death as 
 the gate of life, and at the last moment, with a fine 
 combination of humour and pathos, bids his friend 
 offer for him the usual sacrifice to Asclepius for 
 recovery from an illness, because he has at last 
 found freedom from the ' long disease ' of human 
 existence. 
 
 Even here, however, we may recognise an essential 
 imperfection in the Platonic view of death as the 
 culmination of life. Por, as he represents it in the 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 183 
 
 Phaedo, the process seems to have no necessary 
 relation to the end or result. The soul of man 
 finds itself in this life banished from its native 
 region, shut into a prison of clay, buried in the 
 body as in a tomb. Its awaking consciousness of 
 the ideal and the divine is mythically represented 
 as a recollection of its prenatal glories ; and it is 
 called upon to make it the supreme aim of life to 
 free itself from the load of clay that hinders it from 
 knovsring its true nature — 
 
 " Such harmony is in immortal souls, 
 But while this muddy vesture of decay 
 Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it." 
 
 The soul struggles in the darkness and confusion of 
 sense to reawaken the consciousness of the divine 
 which it has lost; it seeks by a discipline of abstrac- 
 tion and ascetic self-restraint to remove the scales 
 from its eyes; and it accepts death as a final liberation 
 from the illusion of life. But, as there seems to be no 
 reason why the soul should have been thus obstructed 
 or obscured by the finite conditions into which it is 
 brought, so the effort to escape these conditions is, 
 at least as represented in the Phaedo, merely negative, 
 merely the putting away of an external hindrance: 
 It is not made manifest that the obstruction is 
 itself necessary to the life it obstructs, or is in any 
 way a condition of its development. Still less is 
 there any attempt to prove that the natural existence 
 
184 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 which appears at first as an obstruction, a hindrance 
 to be overcome by the spirit, itself furnishes the 
 material for the new spiritual life ; so that, if in 
 one sense it has to be destroyed or consumed, in 
 another sense it has to be restored and recon- 
 structed in that life. If, therefore, according to the 
 philosophy of the Pha&do, the death of nature is 
 conceived as making way for the life of spirit, and 
 if in this sense death may be the very crown 
 and culmination of life, when it is accepted as the 
 final step in the purifying and liberating process ; yet 
 it cannot be said either (1) that death subserves 
 positively the life it makes room for, or (2) that 
 there is any survival or restoration of that which dies 
 in the new existence reached through its death. If 
 Socrates dies that he may live, yet it is not made 
 clear to us that his death positively manifests the 
 new life, or directly affords us any clue to its 
 characteristics. And as little can we say that that 
 in him which dies, dies to live again. 
 
 Now, in both these points of view a new con- 
 ception of life, and of death as its culmination, 
 seems to arise in connection with the life and 
 death of Jesus as represented in the Gospels. For, 
 in the first place, Jesus does not appear at any 
 time to admit that conception of the absolute oppo- 
 sition between the universal and the particular, the 
 Bpiritual and the natural, which Plato maintains in 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 185 
 
 the Phaedo, and from which he never quite freed 
 himself Starting with the idea of a Divine Father, 
 who has revealed Himself in the natural world and 
 in the natural existence of man, Jesus could not 
 think of the spiritual development of man as consist- 
 ing simply in his freeing himself from the bonds of 
 nature. The defect of man's condition did not for 
 him lie in the mere presence of the natural life in 
 a being essentially spiritual ; but only in this, that 
 the natural life does not acknov/ledge a spiritual 
 as its presupposition and its limit. It is not that 
 man is a subject, who as finite stands in relation 
 to finite objects, and finds in them the ends of his 
 activity: it is that the consciousness of self and 
 the consciousness of the objective world are not 
 brought into definite relation with the idea of God 
 which underlies them, and hence, that the satis- 
 faction of the self in these finite ends is not sub- 
 ordinated to, or made the expression of, the divine 
 end and idea. And because it is not thus sub- 
 ordinated, two results follow. In the first place, 
 the satisfaction of man is contingent and transitory, 
 dependent on his relation to objects in an external 
 world which he cannot, except partially, subject to 
 his purposes, and which, even so far as he does 
 so subject them, are exposed to the law whereby 
 all finite things decay and pass away. His realisa- 
 tion of himself, in this point of view, is the realisa- 
 
186 THE EVOLUTION OF RELl^IOM. 
 
 tion of a being who is doomed to die in things 
 which perish with the using. In the second place, 
 the ends in which he seeks the realisation of him- 
 self, as they are not determined by the universal 
 principle in relation to which all individuals are at 
 one, are ends for him which are not ends for others. 
 Hence he can carry them out only in conflict with 
 others, only in a struggle for existence in which 
 he must suffer and inflict the utmost evils, and in 
 which, even if temporarily victorious, he must ulti- 
 mately be defeated. Por the self that has not sur- 
 rendered itself to God, or, in other words, has not 
 recognised itself as the organ of a universal prin- 
 ciple, has an egoism that is capable of infinite ex- 
 tension ; and the necessary collision of such infinite 
 claims is the cause of a war without truce and without 
 end, in which everyone, as in his natural being he 
 is still finite, must finally be beaten. That suffering 
 and that evil prevail in the world is the necessary 
 result of these two things. For suffering is just 
 
 ' the result of the limitation of finite existences by 
 the law to which they are subjected, as parts of a 
 greater whole. And evil lies mainly in the collision 
 
 ; of natural beings, who, as also spiritual, are rival 
 selves, each with an infinite claim to satisfaction 
 as against the others. 
 
 According to this view, then, man is at war with 
 the world which does not satisfy his craving for 
 
THE DEATH OF jESUS. 187 
 
 happiness, and with his fellowmen who are his rivals 
 in the pursuit of it, not because he is a natural 
 being, but because he is a spiritual being in a 
 natural form. For it is a consequence of this that 
 the universality of the principle of his life at first 
 shows itself mainly in the exaggeration of his 
 natural claims, — in a self-seeking which rebels against 
 the limits of nature, and breaks out into murderous 
 hate against other men. And, so long as this in- 
 version of the true relation of the infinite to the 
 finite remains, even the religious instinct is apt to 
 take the perverse form of the belief in a God 
 whose function is mainly to fulfil the demands of 
 selfish desire and ambition, to overcome the anta- 
 gonism of nature, and put the feet of his favourites 
 on the necks of their enemies. Now, the teaching 
 of Jesus as represented in the Gospels simply in- 
 verts all the ways of natural self-seeking. It puts 
 the universal before the particular, the spiritual 
 before the natural, God before self ; and in doing 
 so, Jesus claims, like Plato, to be simply restoring 
 the primitive order of man's life, or carrying back 
 human life to that which is its presupposition. But 
 he does not dualistically oppose this principle to the ' 
 principle of the natural life, or assert that salvation 
 and happiness are only to be found in getting rid 
 of that life. On the contrary, he holds to the 
 idea that the postponement of natural to spiritual 
 
188 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 good is the way, and the only way, whereby the 
 natural good itself can be secured ; or, in other 
 words, that the natural good is lost, when it is put 
 i first. " Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His 
 righteousness ; and all these things shall be added 
 unto you."^ Thus the restoration of the natural 
 ends of life through their negation is not only 
 possible, but it is the only possible way whereby 
 they can be realised at all. In a similar spirit, 
 Jesus calls upon his disciples not to seek good 
 for themselves as against their fellowmen, but 
 rather than that, to surrender all that is claimed 
 by them, even the most obvious rights of person 
 and property. " If any man will sue thee at the 
 law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy 
 cloke also." ^ But this refusal to claim anything 
 for themselves as individuals, he does not advocate " 
 on the ground that his disciples as such have no 
 rights, or that their individual existence is simply 
 to be lost in the universal. On the contrary, he 
 teaches that each individual has the highest personal 
 worth as a ' son of God,' and that he has, or rather 
 has conferred upon him, a title not only to the 
 kingdom of heaven, but also to the inheritance of 
 the earth. " Blessed are the poor in spirit : for 
 theirs is the, kingdom of heaven. Blessed are the 
 meek : for they shall inherit the earth." Yet this 
 • Matt. vi. 33. " Matt. v. 40. 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 189 
 
 title man cannot immediately realise as a natural 
 being, but only through the development of the 
 spiritual Hfe in him; in other words, it is not his, 
 as one who stands up for his individual interest 
 and honour as against others, but as one who has 
 made himself the instrument of the universal life 
 which he has in common with them. Hence the 
 immediate renunciation of his rights, the immediate 
 refusal to stand against his fellows in the selfish 
 struggle, is not merely one possible way of taking 
 their lives into his own, and making them the instru- 
 ments of his own highest life; but it is the only 
 way in which they can cease to be his enemies 
 or rivals, and become his helpers and associates in 
 the pursuit of a good which is common to all. 
 
 Now it is easy to see that here also, as in the 
 case of the Platonic Socrates, the path of death is 
 the path of life ; and that here also, in order to 
 point the lesson, it is necessary that the path should 
 be pursued to the end, to the extreme point of 
 natural death, undergone in maintaining the spiritual 
 principle. But the Platonic idea of a mere escape 
 from the natural and the finite is altogether set 
 aside. What is now sought is not escape but con- 
 quest; not a riddance from the illusive power of 
 the finite, but a recognition that it is a good, only as 
 the manifestation of a still greater good. "Heartily 
 know," says Emerson, " when the half-gods go, the 
 
190 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 gods arrive.'' It is in a like spirit that Jesus declares 
 that he who gives up anything for the service of 
 God and the good of man will receive an hundred- 
 fold. His own life also, cutting himself loose, as he 
 did, from all the immediate good of life and even from 
 the ties of kindred and home, in order to find every- 
 thing in the new bond of brotherhood which he 
 had founded,^ was a practical demonstration of this 
 principle. And his death, coming as it did, as 
 the natural result of his renunciation, not merely of 
 all individual ambition for himself, but ialso of 
 the national life and the national hopes of the 
 Jews, was the final manifestation of his faith, that 
 the renunciation of every natural good for that 
 which is spiritual, contains in itself the promise, 
 not only of the spiritual good that is sought, but 
 also of every natural good as flowing from it. 
 
 Again, if we look at the principle of Jesus in 
 the other aspect, and consider his absolute rejection 
 of all antagonistic self-seeking, whether it be the self- 
 seeking of the individual for himself, or of the nation 
 for itself, we come to the same result. The growing 
 hostility to Jesus of all those whose life was bound 
 up with any of these forms of self-seeking, was just 
 the natural result of his renunciation of them all both 
 in his actions and his words, and it was the appro- 
 
 i""Wlio are my mother and my biethren?" Matt. xii. 48; 
 Mark iii. 31, cf. 21 ; Luke viii. 19. 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 191 
 
 priate test of its genuineness. Only as against hate 
 could the conquering power of love be manifested; 
 and the utmost expression of hate was just the means 
 of such manifestation. The faith that broke down 
 all the divisions between men's lives, and taught 
 them to regard themselves as the children of one 
 Father, necessarily awakened against it every interest 
 that was attached to such divisions ; and it was a 
 moral necessity that the individual who had chal- 
 lenged these forces in virtue of such a faith, should 
 conquer them only by showing that it could sustain 
 him against them even to the death. In this sense 
 it may be admitted that his death has become the life 
 of the world ; for it was the culminating expression 
 of the principle out of which its true life springs. 
 
 We learn thus to look upon the death of Jesus 
 not merely as the accidental fate of goodness in 
 conflict with evil, as the natural fruit of Jewish 
 bigotry and Eoman indifference ; nor, again, as an 
 external interference of divine benevolence with the 
 ordinary course of human existence; but as the highest 
 revelation of the divine life in man in conflict with the 
 evil of the world. In this sense the Cross may be 
 regarded as the necessary tragic solution of a conflict 
 of principles, the necessary issue which the new faith 
 required to manifest itself and conquer the forces 
 that opposed it. The saying, that the "blood of 
 the martyrs is. the seed of the church," has here a 
 
192 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 special application. In all ages the act of sealing 
 the truth with the blood of the preacher has had 
 an effect on the nainds of men that seems dispro- 
 portionate to its importance as an event. He who 
 turns that, which most men receive passively as 
 a fate inflicted on them by nature, into a supreme 
 act of will, and surrenders his life as a sacrifice to 
 some cause or idea, gives a kind of universal value 
 to the individual life he thus sacrifices. He binds 
 his personality to the idea for which he has died 
 by a bond that is not easily unloosed, and, at the 
 same time, he gives to the idea itself a personal 
 attractiveness which it wanted so long as it was 
 not thus embodied. The life of Socrates, devoted 
 as it was to the purpose of placing ethics on a 
 universal foundation, could scarcely have had the 
 world-wide influence it has had, if his death had 
 not shown how entirely he had detached his moral 
 being from the semi-naturalistic basis of national 
 custom on which morality had hitherto rested, and 
 how firmly he had based it anew on the rational 
 self-consciousness of the individual. But, in a still 
 more direct way, the death of Jesus was the summing 
 up and culminating expression of the principle of 
 his life, both in its negative and its positive aspects. 
 In its negative aspect, it was the death of one who 
 was the first representative of the universal principle 
 of religion ; and it was a death directly brought upon 
 
THE DEATH OF JESUS. 193 
 
 him by his opposition to those who identified that 
 principle with the exclusive claim of a particular 
 nation. The completion of the sacrifice of the indi- 
 vidual was just the act by which the supremacy 
 of the universal principle could be shown ; and, 
 therefore, the act which could alone give it its 
 conquering power, its power to stir the hearts of 
 men and draw them out of their selfish prejudices 
 and national or social limitations. Hence, on the 
 positive side, it was the first conclusive manifestation 
 of a charity which made no reservation, and which, 
 just because it recognised no possible hindrances or 
 limitations to its outflow in the antagonism of others, 
 was powerful enough to break down aU such anta- 
 gonism, and to originate a new life of brotherhood 
 for all men. The death of Jesus was thus, it might 
 be said, the first clear demonstration that the idea 
 of a Universal God which underlies all religion is 
 not merely the abstract idea of an infinite Being in 
 which everything finite is merged and lost, but that 
 it is a productive principle which can restore out 
 of itself all, and more than all, it seems to take 
 away. 
 
 I have gone thus far to show the way in which 
 the ethical meaning of Christ's Hfe and teaching 
 culminates in his death, because it partly explains 
 the exclusive prominence given by St. Paul to that 
 
 death and all that is associated with it, and thus 
 VOL, II. N 
 
194 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 enables us to bridge over the gulf between the simple 
 humanity of the Synoptic narrative and the theo- 
 logical idealism, as we may call it, which we find 
 in his epistles. St. Paul, we must remember, stood 
 at some distance from the facts of the life of Jesus, 
 and for that very reason, perhaps, he was in a better 
 position to estimate their general meaning, than those 
 whose minds were occupied with details. In fact, we 
 may say that for St. Paul these facts were lost in the 
 one fact of Christ's death, and that he apprehended 
 that fact not in itself, but entirely as the mani- 
 festation of a spiritual principle. And the nature 
 of that principle is just what we have already ex- 
 plained. Instead of a conquering Messiah, who should 
 realise the kingdom of God on earth by force, by 
 giving to his chosen people the rule over all nations, 
 St. Paul sees Jesus as, indeed, the Messiah, the great 
 deliverer who had fulfilled the hopes of Israel ; but 
 as a Messiah who had realised these hopes in 
 just the opposite way to that which the Jews had 
 expected — not by self-exaltation but by self-humili- 
 ation, not by using his power to crush antagonism, 
 but by divesting himself of all outward power so that 
 he might conquer by the weapons of the spirit and by 
 them alone. He was, in a word, one who sought to 
 overcome all opposition only by bearing its utmost 
 expression ; who deprived others of the power of 
 standing against him by refusing to stand against 
 
THE DEA TH OF JESUS. \ 95 
 
 them ; and who acted on the principle that when 
 man lays down his arms, God himself fights for 
 him; or, in other words, that he who has no 
 interest but the universal, has omnipotence on his 
 side.^ On this view, he who has ceased to have 
 enemies, deprives those who call themselves his 
 enemies of all their power ; nay, he irresistibly 
 wins them over to himself. They may spend all 
 their fury upon him, but they cannot resist the 
 voice of heaven that speaks to them from the grave 
 of their victim. This is the one thought which 
 runs through the epistles of St. Paul in which the 
 lesson of Jesus, ' Die to live ' — the lesson which 
 in the life of Jesus had been expressed in the simple 
 characters of human action and human suffering, 
 human love contending with human hate, and 
 overcoming it by its deeper strength and self- 
 consistency — is, as it were, lifted into the region of 
 universal thought, and expressed in the large letters 
 of a comprehensive theory of God's dealings with 
 the world and with man. 
 
 1 Cf. Browuing's Installs Tyrannus, 
 
LECTURE EIGHTH. 
 
 THE TEACHINa OF ST. PAUL. 
 
 In what sense St. Paid gave Universality to the Gospel — Why the 
 Gross is the Central Point in his Doctrine — His sudden Con- 
 version from the Idea of a Conquering, to that of a Suffering 
 Messiah — Sis Mission to the Gentiles, as a Consequence of this — 
 The Antithesis of the Law and the Gospel — The Separation of 
 Christ from Humanity — Difference between St. Paul and the 
 Jerusalem Church — What Christianity owes to each. 
 
 I HAVE now endeavoured to sum up the general 
 purport of the teaching of Jesus, and to show how 
 the events of his life and death were the most vivid 
 and palpable demonstration of the lesson he had to 
 teach. At the same time, I indicated that St. Paul 
 was the first who went beyond the special words and 
 actions of the Master and grasped that lesson in all' 
 the extent of its application. St. Paul thus eman- 
 cipated Christianity from the limitations of Judaism, 
 and from all the special conditions of its first ex- 
 pression. It is true that the teaching of Christ, by 
 its purely ideal or spiritual character, already involved 
 the negation of all national, as of all legal or saeer- 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 197 
 
 dotal restrictions. But it only involved this ; for, as 
 practically Christ did not carry his ministry beyond 
 the- limits of his own country, he had not to deal 
 directly with the question of the admission of the 
 Gentiles, or of the conditions under which they should 
 be combined with the Jews in the Christian Church. 
 We may fairly say that the ideal or spiritual character 
 of the gospel of Jesus implied its universality; but the 
 opposition he had actually to encounter was one 
 excited, not by the extent, but by the nature of the 
 kingdom of heaven which he was founding. For us 
 it may be clear enough that the principle which 
 caused his confliict with the Pharisees, really implies 
 the expansion of his church beyond the limits of 
 the Jewish nationality, as well as the removal of 
 all specially Jewish customs from the conditions of 
 admission into it ; yet this consequence was not 
 immediately present even to the most enlightened of 
 his disciples. And Christ's own assertions, that the 
 new law was the fulfilment of the old, might easily 
 lead them to overlook his equally strong declaration 
 that the new could not permanently retain the form of 
 the old, that the ' new wine 'must burst the' old bottles.' 
 But St. Paul, from the very moment of his con- 
 version, conceived of Christianity as a religion for the 
 world. He was not one of the original disciples, and 
 he therefore wanted that minute knowledge of the 
 ways and words of Jesus which the original disciples 
 
198 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 possessed ; but, partly perhaps for that very reason, he 
 was more ready to seize upon the great general 
 features, the master-meaning and tendency of his 
 whole work. The German proverb that speaks of 
 those who ' cannot see the wood for the trees/ has 
 often been verified, but never probably in so marked 
 a way as here. Without the original disciples, we 
 could not have had that close initiation into the life 
 of the Master, that detailed picture of the humanity 
 of Jesus with its unwavering faith and all-embracing 
 charity, which is the permanent charm of Christianity. 
 But those who stood close to the individual life in all 
 the fulness of its particulars, could not grasp the gene- 
 ral idea of it, the new view of the relation of the human 
 and the divine it involved, so readily as a more distant 
 observer. For St. Paul, what we may in a narrower 
 sense call the personal element of the gospel history 
 disappeared altogether ; and Jesus was simply the 
 Christ, the living embodiment of the Messianic idea, 
 who at once disappointed the old Messianic expecta- 
 tions of. the Jews, and gave them a higher fulfilment. 
 It is another way of expressing the same idea to say 
 that, for St. Paul, the whole meaning of the life of 
 Jesus was gathered up in his death. He was deter- 
 mined not to ' know anything ' in religion ' save Jesus 
 Christ and him crucified.' ^ " His only love " was thus 
 
 1 1 Cor. ii. 2. Of. Eom. vi. 3, " Know ye not, that so many 
 of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his 
 death.'' 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 199 
 
 " sprung from his only hate " ; for it was the preaching 
 of a crucified man as the Messiah, which first raised in 
 him. all the antagonism of the Pharisee, and made him 
 a persecutor: and, after the vision on the road to 
 Damascus, which convinced him that Jesus had risen 
 from the dead, it was just the idea of such a Messiah 
 that was the central principle of his own preaching, 
 from which all his other ethical and religious con- 
 ceptions were derived. His theology might be said 
 to be one long development of the consequences 
 involved in the fact that Jesus, as the Messiah, 
 had come not to reign but to suffer, not to be 
 ministered unto but to minister, iiot to exalt himself 
 as the triumphant deliverer of his nation, but to 
 ' humble himself and become obedient unto death, even 
 the death of the cross.' ^ The triumph, indeed, was to 
 come, but it was to come not by being sought for, but 
 by being abandoned. It was- to come not by the 
 effort of man but by the power of God ; and this was 
 St. Paul's way of saying, that it was to come not 
 by directly striving for it, but by a divine order of the 
 world which made its attainment the necessary result 
 of the spirit that renounces it and refuses to seek it at 
 all. In the death of Christ, therefore, as seen in the 
 light of his resurrection, St. Paul found a kind of 
 illustrated epitome, a condensed picture, which showed 
 as by a flash of lightning the principle and meaning 
 ' Phil. ii. 8. 
 
200 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of the whole divinely appointed order of the world. 
 The simple intuition of Jesus, that "he who would 
 save his life must lose it," was, in the first place, 
 projected into the form of an outward event, as the 
 history of a Messiah who died to rise again ; and then, 
 in the second place, it was reinterpreted, as the great 
 moral law of the life of man. It is true there was 
 some loss in this process, which iirst externalised the 
 law of life as a great divine tragedy, from which the 
 same law in its deeper spiritual sense was afterward 
 gathered as an inference. The idea that the spiritual 
 life directly involves death to self, and that, therefore, 
 for man, in whom the natural depends upon the 
 spiritual, this death is the basis even of the natural 
 life, and the only way to the true realisation even of the 
 natural good of man, — this idea, which was the ' opeb 
 secret of Jesus,' is somewhat obscured in St. Paul ; 
 for to him the result appears to come, not by a 
 process of development like that in which the death 
 of the seed leads to the life of the plant, but by 
 an external providential arrangement. But this im- 
 pression is partly counteracted by St. Paul's clear 
 insight into the way in which humility, faith, and 
 love open the soul of man to the access of a higher 
 spirit. And, even apart from this, it has the great 
 advantage of universalising and objectifying the moral 
 principle by translating it into terms of theology, and 
 so, as it were, writing it in large letters on the clouds 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 201 
 
 of heaven. If to recognise that " morality is the 
 nature of things" is to turn it into religion, and so 
 give it an infinite access of strength ; then St. Paul's 
 bold proclamation of the doctrine that it was through 
 death only that Christ the Son of God could open up 
 the gates of life, was the most important step ever V 
 taken in the development of Christian thought ; for 
 it made the ethical principle of self-abnegation into j'\, 
 a revelation of the divine order in the government ! 
 of the world. Thus the law of the moral life of man, , .' 
 in the Christian interpretation of it, becomes the '' 
 counterpart, as it is the highest revelation, of the 
 love of God. 
 
 Viewing it in this way, we can see how it is j 
 that St. Paul at once connects the natural death 
 and resurrection of Christ, with a moral death to ,;- ' 
 sin and a rising again to newness of life in his 
 followers. It has, indeed, been said that St. Paul ; 
 " turns the transcendent eschatological idea into an 
 immanent ethical one,"' i.e. that he begins with 
 an external view of Christ's death and resurrection 
 as the manifestation of a power which will also 
 raise his people from the dead, and that then he 
 spiritualises this doctrine by translating it into the 
 idea that the ethical principle of self-abnegation, 
 which we receive by sympathy with Christ's supreme 
 sacrifice, will be in us, as it was in him, the 
 ' Pfleiderer's Paulinism, i. 20 (English translation). 
 
202 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 source of a new life, which is far higher than that 
 which we surrender. But this is not the whole 
 truth : for we have to remember that, for St. Paul, 
 a dying Messiah meant a Messiah who gave 
 himself up to death at the hands of his enemies, 
 instead of using his supernatural powers to crush 
 them; and that this representation of the Messiah 
 could have the power over him which it had, only 
 because he saw in it the supreme illustration and 
 type of the principle of self-sacrificing love. When, 
 therefore, the vision on the road to Damascus 
 convinced him that Jesus, whom he was perse- 
 cuting, had risen again, this resurrection came to 
 him as the divine stamp of approval upon the 
 morality of self-sacrifice, the symbol of the conquer- 
 ing power of the principle of love. Hence, in this 
 point of view, it would be truer to say that the 
 ethical principle in St. Paul begat the theological, 
 than that the theological begat the ethical. It was 
 no doubt the weakness of St. Paul, as contrasted 
 with his Master, that he needed to see the spiritual 
 law of life outwardly illustrated in a supernatural 
 vision, ere he could believe in it as a truth of 
 inward experience. And, in this point of view, 
 those are ' more blessed ' who have not needed to 
 see such visions in order to believe. But, ultimately, 
 it was the dawning moral discernment, the awaking 
 consciousness that a Messiah who conquered by 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 203 
 
 outward force could never deliver the soul from its 
 slavery to itself, or enable it to overcome the world, 
 that gave such meaning and power to the vision, 
 and made it with such apparent suddenness to 
 revolutionise the whole life of St. Paul. This being 
 the case, it was by an immediate necessity that he 
 at once interpreted the vision — which had itself pro- 
 bably arisen out of a conflict between his moral 
 intuitions and his religious beliefs, as a warrant to 
 him to reorganise the latter in the spirit of the 
 former; or, in other words, as an authorisation to 
 yield himself completely to the new principle of 
 life, which the very thought of such a Messiah 
 had already awakened within him. 
 
 It is a confirmation of this view that St. Paul 
 immediately connects with the idea of a crucified 
 Messiah the idea of a universal Messiah, and 
 that this latter idea at once awakens in him 
 a conviction of his own mission to preach the 
 gospel to the Gentiles. At the very moment when 
 he renounced the belief in a conquering king, who 
 should set his own feet and the feet of his nation 
 on the necks of their enemies, and substituted for 
 it the idea of a Christ who should overcome only 
 by suffering and self-sacrifice, it became obvious to 
 him that the same law must be applied to the in- 
 terpretation of the promised rule of Israel over the 
 nations. The followers of Christ, like their Master, 
 
204 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 could only conquer the world by becoming its ser- 
 vants; and the privilege of the Jew could, therefore, 
 only mean that he was to be the greatest bene- 
 factor of mankind, or the medium through which 
 the divine love should flow out to them. The 
 chosen people also must die to live, must renounce 
 its special national claims in order to vindicate 
 them ; and if, contrariwise, they attempted to assert 
 them, the only effect would be that they should 
 lose that which they seemed to have. The question, 
 " What advantage then hath the Jew ? " is met 
 only by the answer, "Unto them were committed the 
 oracles of God." "^ " Theirs are the fathers, and of 
 them as concerning the flesh Christ came." ^ In 
 other words, they are the greatest of the servants 
 of humanity, and they can maintain their position 
 only by continuing to be so. In any other sense, 
 their privileges are gone for ever, and if the attempt 
 is made to retain them, they are smitten with barren- 
 ness. To St. Paul, the ' son of a Pharisee,' whose 
 whole mind had been occupied with meditation 
 upon the religious privileges of the Jews, the idea 
 of a crucified Messiah thus became at once the idea 
 of a Messiah for all mankind. And with it im- 
 mediately arose the thought that he himself — the 
 first to whom the Messiah had been revealed in 
 such a light — must show his faithfulness to the re- 
 iRom. iii. 1, 2. "Eom. ix. 5. 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 205 
 
 velation by undertaking the mission to the Gentiles. 
 According to the narrative of the Acts, his first 
 word, even when he was trembling under the awe 
 of the supernatural vision, was: "Lord, what wilt 
 Thou have me to AoV"^ And for St. Paul the 
 answer was not far to seek. To the fervid soul of 
 the converted persecutor the step from the new 
 premises to the practical conclusion was direct and 
 inevitable. " It pleased God to reveal His Son in 
 me, in order that I might preach him among the 
 heathen." 2 And "without conferring with flesh and 
 blood," St. Paul at once begins the great mission 
 which carried Christianity beyond the walls of the 
 synagogue within which it had hitherto been con- 
 fined, and made it the religion of the world. 
 
 At the same time, while carrying out this de- 
 nationalising process, St. Paul never ceased to be 
 a 'Hebrew of the Hebrews,' whose whole habits of 
 thought and expression were moulded by Jewish 
 theology. Even in contending with Judaism, therefore, 
 he takes his stand upon its principles, and uses the 
 dialectical weapons of its Eabbinical schools. And, 
 while he illustrates the principle of Christianity by 
 contrast with that of Judaism, he always maintains 
 that that contrast is not absolute, but that Christi- 
 anity is the necessary goal and culmination of the 
 Jewish religion, and finds its evidence in the sacred 
 lAotsix. 6. 2(jal. i. 15,16. 
 
206 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 books of that religion itself. For him, the Law is 
 a transitionary stage, which looks back to a principle 
 of faith that existed before it and remains after it — 
 a principle to the fuller realisation of which the 
 Law was an instrument, and for which it therefore 
 necessarily makes way. If, therefore, in comparison 
 with the Gospel, the precepts of the Law may be 
 regarded as ' weak and beggarly elements,' ■*■ yet, in 
 another point of view, they are the necessary pre- 
 paration for it. The Law was a irai^wywyo's to bring 
 men to Christ. If it brought no deliverance to man 
 from the slavery to his lower self, if rather it only 
 awakened in him a consciousness of the power of 
 evil that had subjected him, and weakened his 
 resistance by the feeling of the hopelessness of his 
 struggle with an enemy which had so deep a hold 
 on his nature; yet this intense consciousness of an 
 evil of which, as it seemed, man could never rid 
 himself without ceasing to be himself, was necessary 
 to make him renounce self-seeking, even in the last 
 subtle form of the effort to be his own saviour, or 
 to work out a claim for himself as against the divine 
 justice. It was thus necessary to prepare him for 
 the surrender of his whole soul to a power which, 
 in one sense, was not himself, yet through which 
 only he could be himself, or realise the good for 
 which he existed. Hence, while for St. Paul the 
 > Gal. iv. 9. 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 207 
 
 law is "holy, and just, and good," yet it slays man 
 and does not revive him; it fills him with a sense 
 of weakness and a " fearful looking for of judgment.'' 
 But this very despair of self is just what is needed 
 for the reception of the infinite hope ; and he who 
 ceases to struggle for his own life, finds the divine 
 life streaming into him and making him its organ. 
 He for whom the consciousness of self has thus 
 lost all that divides it from the consciousness of 
 God, has in one sense ceased to Se, but in another 
 he has for the first time begun truly to exist. 
 " Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth 
 in me." ^ 
 
 In this way St. Paul at once sets Law and I 
 Gospel in direct antagonism, and yet brings them 
 together as stages in the education of the religious 
 consciousness of man ; or, to state the matter more 
 exactly, he makes the Gospel embrace the Law 
 a,s the necessary negative condition of its own reali- 
 sation. Nay, even sin itself, as its utmost power 
 is shown only under the Law — which produces a 
 distinct consciousness of sin, and so prepares the 
 way for the negation of it and for the reception 
 of a new principle of life — even sin itself, from '^, 
 this point of view, is shown to form part of the 
 divine order. For God "hath concluded all under 
 sin,"^ that they might be prepared to receive ' 
 'Gal. ii. 20. ^ Gal. iii. 22 : cf. Rom. xi. 32. 
 
208 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 righteousness by the new way of faith. On the 
 one hand, the intensification of sin, due to the 
 consciousness of it awakened by the Law, goes 
 along with an intensified feeling of weakness in 
 self and of slavery to the power of evil ; and, on 
 the other hand, it is a necessary condition or 
 transition stage to that liberation from sins, which 
 is possible only to those who have lost themselves 
 to find themselves again in God. Sin is not sin 
 in the deepest sense till it is conscious, the sin of 
 one who knows the divine law he breaks ; yet 
 just this very consciousness, while in one way it 
 deepens the sin, in another way prepares for its 
 extinction. The rude outbreak of passion in a 
 nature which has not yet awakened to its own 
 possibilities is evil, but it is evil in an undeveloped 
 form, because not yet directly set against good. 
 If it is half devil, it is also half brute. " We 
 cannot " liaU " the highest till we know it." On 
 the other hand when we know it, we cannot alto- 
 gether hate it. 'The law of our mind' will then 
 necessarily, as St. Paul puts it, be striving against 
 ' the law of our members,' and making us feel sin 
 as a slavery, though it cannot give us the strength 
 to emancipate ourselves. 'Nay, the very effort to do 
 so can only intensify our feeling of inability ; and, 
 indeed, so far as it is an effort to establish our 
 own righteousness, it may itself be regarded as a 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 209 
 
 continuation of the very evil from which it seeks 
 to escape. In other words, in so far as it is an 
 effort after virtue in which self is not renounced 
 or surrendered, it is a self-contradictory endeavour 
 to combine self-seeking with self-devotion. 
 
 In this way we can understand how St. Paul 
 should regard the divine law as in itself nothing 
 but a provocation to sin, a means of ripening it 
 to its highest conscious development; and yet should 
 conceive it to be divinely ordered in the history 
 of the individual and the race, in order to prepare 
 man for the reception of that higher life which 
 comes to him through Christ. But why is it that 
 he conceives this new spirit of life to come into 
 man through Christ alone ? It is because, as I 
 have already said, he identifies the person of Christ 
 with the principle which Christ had first fully 
 expressed in life and death, the principle that only 
 in losing his life can man save it. Christ is to 
 him the being who revealed and realised — for he 
 does not distinguish between these two things — 
 who revealed and realised the true law of man's 
 spiritual life. He is the 'second man from heaven,' 
 who set the principle of self-negation in the place 
 of the principle of self-seeking which appeared in 
 the 'first man,' Adam, and which has ruled mankind 
 ever since. Christ thus makes a new beginning, 
 and through him a new spirit enters into humanity. 
 
 VOL. II. 
 
210 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Faith in Christ and especially in his Cross is, so 
 to speak, the objective counterpart of the working 
 of that spirit ; and identification with Jiim is the 
 same thing as yielding to it. St. Paul cannot 
 conceive that anything like this existed in the world 
 before Christ, or that anything like it should exist 
 in humanity afterwards, except by communication 
 from him. He is the outward revelation of the 
 divine love stooping to men, through whom alone 
 man can rise to God. Until he came, such re- 
 velation of God as there was, could only tantalise 
 man by the vision of an infinite ideal which stood 
 inaccessible above and apart from him, but was not 
 an immanent power within and without him that 
 could enable him to overcome the world and 
 himself. But now this ideal had shown itself as 
 real without, in the death and resurrection of Christ ; 
 and it was showing itself as real within, for every- 
 one in whom the same spirit was sympathetically 
 awakened. 
 
 What shall we say of this creed of St. Paul ? 
 I think we must recognise, in the first place, that 
 it has in it a deep psychological truth, which is due 
 to the fact that it is a theory of religion and of the 
 religious development of man directly borrowed from 
 St. Paul's own experience. No one ever painted 
 with more vivid colours than St. Paul the division 
 of man's nature against itself, and, on the other 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 211 
 
 hand, the process by which it becomes reconciled 
 with itself in God. The seventh chapter of the 
 Epistle to the Eomans gives, in a few expressive 
 words, a picture of the war of man with himself, 
 of the higher with the lower self, such as is to 
 be found in no other religious or philosophical writer 
 before him. And the eighth chapter presents to us 
 St. Paul's great idea, the idea of a divine principle, 
 which all creation has been groaning and travailing 
 to realise, which in all the history of man has been 
 striving towards self-consciousness, which first clearly 
 manifested itself in the death and resurrection of 
 Christ, and which now lives and works in all his 
 followers, but which even in them is still groaning 
 and travailing after a fuller manifestation, wherein 
 the natural body shall be changed into a spiritual 
 body, and the order of nature shall be made in 
 all points comformable to the new life of spirit. 
 This chapter indeed is perhaps the noblest expression 
 that has ever been given to the idea that man's 
 salvation must result from his giving himself up 
 to a Power which is revealing itself in all that is 
 within and without him, apart from which he is 
 nothing, but as the organ of which he is reconciled 
 with himself and has therefore all outward good 
 things added to him. 
 
 At the same time St. Paul's expression of this 
 essential truth is partly marred by two things, which 
 
212 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 are closely connected with each other : in the first 
 place, by the all but absolute antithesis made be- 
 tween the Law, which intensifies the consciousness 
 of sin and so stimulates its development, and the 
 spirit of life in Christ which, as appropriated by 
 faith, delivers us at once from sin and from the 
 law that condemns it. St. Paul transfers an abstract 
 opposition of ideas directly to life, and so divides 
 the history of man into two halves : in one of them 
 the law of self-seeking is continually rooting itself 
 more deeply in his soul, even by means of his 
 very efforts to throw it off; while, in the other, the 
 sudden outflow of good from above through the 
 self-sacrifice of Christ, at once terminates the rule 
 of evil and initiates a new life for man. Yet we 
 cannot but feel that, even on St. Paul's own 
 showing, the intensification of the consciousness of 
 sin by the law is not merely a negative process 
 which deepens sin ; but that it is at the same time 
 the growing manifestation of the spirit and the 
 power of good within him. St. Paul seems to take 
 the increasing sensitiveness to evil, which makes a 
 man feel that he is worst just when he is on 
 the point of breaking with evil, as if it were literally 
 a deepening of the evil itself; whereas it is an 
 evidence of the rise of that hunger of the soul for 
 righteousness, which is certain to be satisfied, because 
 it is already the beginning of its own satisfaction. 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 213 
 
 And, therefore, in spite of what he says of our 
 "delighting in the law of God''^ after the in- 
 ward man, he conceives the dawn of the new 
 life as a sudden conversion from evil to good, pro- / 
 duced by a foreign influence which suddenly de- ; 
 scends upon man from above, and which acts upon j 
 him independently of any active effort of his own. i 
 Thus he prepares the way for those Augustinian and 
 Calvinistic doctrines, which practically involve the 
 idea that man is the inert victim of external influence, 
 and that, since the Fall at least, he has become the 
 plaything of an evil power which can only be driven 
 out of him by the equally external influence of the 
 Divine Spirit — doctrines which set religion in direct '; 
 antagonism to morality and the grace of God to the ' 
 activity of man. Such a view is not St. Paul's, O 
 but it might be logically derived from certain of 
 his utterances as to the opposition of grace and 
 works, if we left out of account the idea so vividly 
 expressed in the Epistle to the Eomans — the idea of 
 a Divine Spirit immanent in nature and man, a 
 spirit that from the beginning to the end is groaning 
 and travailing for the complete ' revelation of the 
 sons of God,' i.e.. for the complete realisation of the 
 divine sonship of humanity. 
 
 In the second place, and connected with this, 
 is the fact that in St. Paul's teaching there begins 
 1 Eom. vii. 22. 
 
214 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 \ a kind of separation of Christ from humanity and 
 a kind of identification of him with God, which 
 is practically a return to the Jewish opposition 
 of God and man, and a denial of the distinctive 
 title which Christ gave himself as the Son of 
 Man. St. Paul, indeed, as we have seen, speaks 
 of Christ as the "second man from heaven," and 
 he insists upon his having come 'in the likeness 
 of sinful flesh ' ; ^ but he regards Christ's life in 
 the flesh as an episode between a life in glory 
 before his birth and a life in glory after his death, 
 and thus takes him out of all the ordinary con- 
 1 ditions of humanity. In this way he seems to deny 
 I that union between the human and the divine which 
 was the essential lesson of the gospel of Jesus ; and 
 he gives occasion to all those theological puzzles 
 about the unity of two natures in one person, in 
 which the later theology of the church involved 
 itself. For, as we have attempted to show, the 
 essential basis of Christianity in human nature, the 
 anima naturaliter Christiana, lies in this, that the 
 consciousness of God is logically prior to, and pre- 
 supposed in the consciousness of self and of the 
 world ; and that therefore man cannot be true to 
 himself, cannot know what he really is, or realise 
 the good he is capable of attaining, except in so 
 far as he "sees himself in God," and regards himself 
 1 Eom. viii. 3. 
 
THE TEACHING OF ST. PAUL. 215 
 
 as the servant and organ of a divine purpose. But 
 this idea is partly lost, whenever simple humanity is 
 divorced from the divine, or regarded as capable 
 only of indirect union therewith. In St. Paul this 
 consequence is not apparent, partly because he lived 
 in the first fervour of Christian life, in which dis- 
 tinctions of abstract thought could not produce their 
 fuU dividing effect ; but still more because Christ is 
 for him so completely identified with the principle 
 manifested in and by Christ. Thus, refusing to know 
 ' Christ after the flesh,' ^ St. Paul saves himself from 
 the difficulty of conceiving him as one man among 
 others ; or he thinks of him as having left behind 
 in the grave all such limitations, and so become 
 identified with a Divine Spirit which is also the 
 spirit of humanity. And we may fairly say that the 
 gain of this view, in the emancipation of Christianity 
 from its Jewish limitations, for the time more than 
 counterbalanced the loss of the immediate realisation 
 of Christ's humanity, which accompanied it. Without 
 such a generalising and idealising process, the great 
 mission to the heathen would not have been possible. 
 Yet it was well that there were others, the original 
 disciples, who could not, like St. Paul, forget ' Christ 
 after the flesh'; though their Jewish prejudices no 
 doubt kept them from being the instruments of the 
 great expansion of the Church beyond the limits of 
 ^2 Cor. V. 16. 
 
216 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the chosen people, and they were therefore thrown 
 into the background by that expansion. In a few 
 generations those who thus clung to the tradition 
 of the first disciples seemed to the rest of the 
 church a heretical sect. But, while we must recog- 
 nise that this was inevitable, we have always to 
 remember that we are under a debt to this narrow 
 Jewish church, which is greater even than our debt 
 to St. Paul. For it did not pass away till it had 
 gathered together those records of the earthly hfe 
 of Jesus ' according to the flesh,' in the absence 
 of which even the teaching of St. Paul would have 
 become little better than an abstract dogma, with- 
 out power to purify the souls of men by pity and 
 terror, or to draw them out of themselves in a 
 passion of self-sacrificing love. 
 
LECTUEE NINTH. 
 
 THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN AND THE IDEA OE A DIVINE 
 HUMANITY. 
 
 Relation of St. Paul's Theology to the Representation of the 
 Life of Jesus in the Gospel of St. John — The Idealising 
 Process that follows Death — That it is not necessarily a 
 fictitious Process of Imagination — The Orovnng Powers of Man 
 as best revealed in their Results beyond the Life of the Individual 
 — That Christianity gives the Highest Example and Explains 
 the Rationale of this Process — Sense in which Jesus was Unique 
 — His Separation from Humanity due to Jewish Ideas — How 
 far this appears in the Neio Testament — The Desire for a 
 Miraculous Break in the Connexion of Experience in order to 
 prove that the Ultimate Reality of Things is Spiritual — That 
 Jesus did not rely on such an Argument. 
 
 In the last lecture, we considered the way in which 
 St. Paul at once generalised and idealised the faith 
 of Christ, liberating it from the Judaic conditions 
 of its origin, and at the same time lifting it into 
 the region of theology. For him the whole life of 
 Christ became summed up in his death; and the 
 story of his humanity was changed into the history 
 of a divinely commissioned Messiah, who had re- 
 
218 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 nounced the glories of his prenatal existence with 
 God that he might endure all the pains and 
 sorrows of man, and, by bearing the utmost force of 
 evil which man can suffer or inflict, might emanci- 
 pate man from it. For the resurrection of Christ, as 
 St. Paul believed, had shown that the way of self- 
 abnegation, and not the way of self-assertion, was 
 the divinely-appointed way to glory and immortality. 
 It had been made manifest in this transcendent 
 example that he who empties himself of all selfish 
 ambition, becomes filled with the power of a divine 
 life; that he who gives up all, finds all again in 
 God. Thus, as St. Paul maintained, through Christ's 
 death a new principle has been introduced into 
 humanity, — a principle which, in every one who 
 has faith in Christ, will produce the same fruits 
 as in him. We, indeed, cannot, like Christ, re- 
 nounce heaven for earth, that we may save man- 
 kind ; but none the less is it possible for us, 
 through the new spiritual force that has come into 
 man's life, to make the ' grand renunciation ' of 
 ourselves, and so to "fill up that which is behind 
 in the afflictions of Christ " ^ to complete the salva- 
 tion of men. And, when we do so, we feel within 
 us the " earnest of the spirit," the sustaining and 
 inspiring power of the same principle of life, which 
 in him vanquished all the hate of man and rose 
 'Col. i. 24. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 219 
 
 victorious over death itself; and we cannot but 
 believe that in us it will produce the same effects 
 in life and in death. 
 
 In this way we see that St. Paul combined two 
 things which at first might seem irreconcilable. 
 On the one hand, he generalised the lesson of the 
 life and death of Jesus. He extracted from it a uni- 
 versal principle which was not confined to Jesus 
 Christ, but might find new organs in every human 
 soul. Or, to put it in another way, he recognised 
 that in Christ was revealed the essential law of 
 man's moral life, as drawing all its strength out 
 of surrender to the divine Spirit, which is present 
 in all men, in so far as in them the consciousness 
 of self is bound up with the consciousness of God. 
 Yet, at the same time, by his identification of 
 Jesus as an individual with this principle, he pre- 
 vented it from shrinking into an abstract dogma, 
 and gave to it the living power of an image of 
 perception or imagination. 
 
 And what St. Paul thus initiated, was still more 
 fully worked out in the Gospel of St. John, in 
 which the highest view of Jesus, as not only the 
 Messiah but the 'Logos of God,' is brought into 
 direct combination with the story of his earthly life ; 
 and, in which, on the other hand, the details of 
 that life are consistently presented as the mani- 
 festation of the divine meaning of his personality. 
 
220 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 St. John, or the writer of the Gospel attributed 
 to St. John, thus completed that synthesis of the 
 universal and the individual, to which Christianity- 
 owes so much of its power over the hearts of 
 men. And when the same writer'- speaks of that 
 which "was from the beginning, which we have 
 seen with our eyes, and our hands have handled, 
 of the Word of life," he is uniting, with a clear 
 consciousness of their startling contrast and antagon- 
 ism, the utmost universality of the Christian idea — 
 as a principle which embraces all the existence of 
 man and of the universe — with the immediate per- 
 sonality of an individual, who is represented as 
 living and acting under the ordinary conditions of 
 human life. He was thus bringing together the 
 two poles between which the spirit of man moves, 
 as it is conscious of itself in its finitude in relation 
 to the divine, and, therefore, conscious at the same 
 time that the divine can be revealed in it. 
 
 What has now been said may be otherwise ex- 
 pressed thus : It is a law of human history that 
 principles and tendencies which are really universal, 
 should at first make their appearance in an indi- 
 vidual form, as if bound up with the passing exist- 
 ence of a particular nation or even of a single man. 
 
 ' If it is the same -writer -who -wrote the Mrst Epistle of 
 St. John. In any case there can be no doubt that the Gospel 
 and the Epistle are -written in the same spirit. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 221 
 
 The general idea needs, so to speak, to be em- 
 bodied or incarnated, to be ' made flesh and to 
 dwell among men' in all the fulness of realisation 
 in a finite individuality, before it can be known 
 and appreciated in its universal meaning. And it 
 is only after such individual presentation has pro- 
 duced its effect that reflexion is able to detach the 
 idea from accidents of time and place and circum- 
 stance, and present it as a general principle. Even 
 in the case of philosophy itself — which, as it belongs 
 to the reflective stage of consciousness, might seem 
 independent of the personality of its teachers — the 
 same law still partially holds good ; for the greatest 
 of all philosophical movements is associated with 
 the life and death of Socrates, the first representa- 
 tive of the subjective principle of thought. Now, 
 in this movement from the individual to the uni- 
 versal the great danger is that the idea should 
 lose in intensity what it gains in generality; that, 
 as it frees itself from local and temporal condi- 
 tions, it should at the same time be deprived of 
 that direct force of appeal to the souls of men 
 which springs from its identification with an indi- 
 vidual who is its organ and living embodiment. 
 It is, therefore, of the highest importance that, in 
 spite of the generalising process which necessarily 
 begins so soon as the individual is removed and 
 reflexion is at work upon his memory, the living 
 
222 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 impression of the person should as much as possible 
 be retained, and kept in union with the principle 
 he has represented. Hence 
 
 " Wisdom dealt with mortal powers, 
 Where truth in closest words shall fail, 
 When truth embodied in a tale. 
 Shall enter in at lowly doors." ^ 
 
 Thus, while the individual influence is very limited 
 in its operation, and the bare universal is like a 
 disembodied soul that has lost the power of action 
 in the finite world, the individual who is regarded 
 as the organ of a universal principle, the universal 
 principle which has incarnated itself for perception 
 or imagination in an individual life, take hold upon 
 man by both sides of his nature, and work with 
 irresistible transforming force upon all his thought 
 and life. Now, it may fairly be said that St. Paul's 
 Epistles and St. John's Gospel have together discharged 
 this office for Christendom in relation to the life 
 of Jesus Christ : the former freeing the idea of the 
 crucified Messiah from the limitations of the Jewish 
 environment in which it is presented by the Synoptic 
 narrative, and the latter reinstating the ideal image 
 of Christ thus reached, not indeed in all the special 
 Jewish relations of its first expression, but at least 
 in the general conditions of an actual human life. 
 With St. Paul, Jesus has become ideal without ceas- 
 1 In Memoriam, xxxvi. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 223 
 
 ing to be real, because, just in the same measure 
 as he is lost as an image without, as a ' Christ 
 after the flesh,' he is restored as a 'quickening 
 spirit ' in the hearts of his followers. With St. 
 John, the outward image of Christ after the flesh, 
 is revived again, though only as ' Word made flesh,' 
 the individualised manifestation of God in a humanity 
 which is perfectly conformed to that which it has 
 to express.^ 
 
 Now this process of idealising the real, and 
 again of realising the ideal, which we have thus just 
 described, is not isolated, or unexampled in other 
 spheres of human thought and life. If the spirit 
 of Christ could not come to men till Christ after 
 the flesh had departed, the same may be said in 
 a measure of every human embodiment of excellence. 
 The same psychological law renews its action in every 
 great experience of loss or bereavement. 
 
 " 'Tis only as they spring to heaven that angels 
 Reveal themselves to you : they sit all day 
 Beside you, and lie down at night by you, 
 Who care not for their presence — muse or sleep — 
 And all at once they leave you, and you know them." ^ 
 
 In this sense it may be said that men never have 
 full spiritual or ideal possession except of that 
 
 ' Cf. Green's Worhs, vol. iii. p. 168 seq., where this idea is 
 developed with great force and clearness. 
 2 Browning's Paracelsus, Part Fifth. 
 
224 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 which has ceased to be empirically present to their 
 senses. They cannot discern the ' word of life ' 
 in that which 'their eyes see and their hands are' 
 actually 'handling.' They need the real to be 
 removed to some distance, ere they can fully appre- 
 hend the ideal that is behind it. This does not 
 mean, however, that they do not really discern but 
 only imagine it. It is not that regretful memory 
 exaggerates the virtues of the friend, who no longer 
 is there to refute our idealism with the limitations 
 of mortality. It is that the conditions of life half- 
 conceal from us that which they half-reveal, and 
 that the immediate perception of all the details of 
 the moment obscures the meaning of the whole. And 
 thus it is often death which first gives the right 
 focus, from which alone each part can be seen 
 in its proper proportion and relation to the others. 
 
 " When he shall hear she died upon his words, 
 The idea of her life shall sweetly creep 
 Into his study of imagination, 
 And every lovely organ of her life 
 Shall come apparelled in more precious habit. 
 More moving-delicate and full of life, 
 Into the eye and prospect of his soul 
 Than when she lived indeed." 
 
 It is only a grander illustration of the same law 
 which we have in the great poem of the Middle 
 Ages, the Divina Commedia, with its all but deifica- 
 tion of the object of Dante's youthful love. By 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 225 
 
 the long brooding gaze of the poet's imagination 
 the purity and simplicity of maidenhood, with its 
 single-minded instinct for what is lovely and pure 
 — all that Dante had loved in Beatrice — were 
 gradually transformed into a symbol, and even an 
 embodiment of the divine light that guides man 
 through the confusions of life; and all the faults 
 and weakness of mortality were lost in the vision 
 of the " eternal womanly " which is ever " drawing 
 us upward."^ And this example suggests another 
 thought, viz., that the qualities which we revere 
 in men are growing powers, which have their 
 value in their promise, and can only be fully 
 understood by one who sees in them the future 
 to which they point. They are undeveloped germs 
 in which a finite form hides an infinite poten- 
 tiality. And though, as life goes on, such hints may 
 acquire more definiteness, yet the veil of human 
 individuality is generally too dark to let us discover 
 in what ways and in what measure the individual 
 has become and is becoming one with his ideal. The 
 imperfections of growth, and the limits of finite 
 personality keep, so to speak, the human separated 
 from the divine, till the idealising touch of death 
 removes the division between them, and enables us 
 to see in the man, our fellow, a new organ of the 
 
 1 Box ewig Wdbliche 
 Zieht uns hina/n. 
 VOL. II. P 
 
226 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 universal spirit of goodness. This revelation of the 
 divine in the human is perhaps the highest use of 
 sorrow, as it is the one thing which has plucked from 
 many human hearts its bitterest sting. Hence it is 
 no irreverence, still less is it any mere poetic ex- 
 aggeration, copying the irrationality of human passion, 
 which leads Tennyson to find his final consolation for 
 the loss of his friend in all but dissolving his in- 
 dividuality in the divine. Though ' mixed with God 
 and nature,' he declares, ' I seem to love thee more 
 and more.' 
 
 " Strange friend, past, present, and to be ; 
 Loved deeplier, darklier understood ; 
 Behold, I dream a dream of good, 
 And mingle all the world with thee." '^ 
 
 Still more definitely is this felt in the case of a 
 great original individuality who does not, so to 
 speak, give us merely a casual glimpse of the 
 divine through a life generally lived on the ordin- 
 ary levels of mortality; but who, by the devotion 
 of his whole existence to the realisation of the one 
 idea that possesses him, initiates a new type of 
 human character, and creates a new ideal of human 
 excellence. Such men as Buddha, Socrates, and 
 Luther, whose manhood and age are the fulfilment 
 of an idea conceived in youth, and who treat their 
 whole life, and even it may be their death, as the 
 ' In Memoriam, cxxix. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 227 
 
 clay in which the moral work of art is realised, 
 can be seen truly only when faithfulness unto death 
 has given as it were the last touch to their work. 
 In such a consistent course of life what strikes us 
 most is not this or that ray of excellence, nor even 
 the completed course of progress, but rather the 
 path of life which is traversed is to us as the path 
 of a star to the astronomer, which enables him 
 to prophesy its future course. Such men seem still to 
 grow beyond the end which hides them from our eyes. 
 The idea which, while they lived, was painfully seen 
 through the personality it animated, now seems after 
 their death to be freed from all obstacles and to go on 
 developing, carrying their personality with it. Thus 
 the great man in his lifetime stands before his con- 
 temporaries as an external image of excellence, which 
 may, indeed, awaken a new spirit in those who are 
 able even partially to appreciate it; but, when the 
 outward presence is removed, the awakened spirit 
 reproduces the inmost reality of the fact in an 
 idealised vision which is truer than anything seen 
 with the eyes of sense. For then, all the results 
 that have sprung out of the living energy of the 
 man, furnish us with new traits which enable us to 
 realise more clearly what he was ; and this new 
 idealised image in turn reacts in further develop- 
 ments of the same spiritual energy which originally 
 produced it. 
 
228 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 It is only the greatest of all instances of this law 
 of development which we see in the early history of 
 Christianity. And it is this which explains at once 
 the intensity of the religious life which Christ called 
 forth, and the rapid expansion of the Christian com- 
 munity, so long as the strength of its first impulse 
 was maintained. In the narrative which is at the 
 basis of the Synoptic Gospels, in the idealising 
 movement of St. Paul's Epistles, and, finally, in the 
 effort of St. John to bring back the highest result 
 of this process into connexion with the remembered 
 facts of Christ's life, we see the expanding power 
 of the idea of Christ: we see it as it flows out 
 of his personality, and again as it reacts on the 
 memory of the life from which it proceeds, at once 
 deepening and widening the interpretation of it, and 
 thus, so far as may be, raising the human in it into 
 closer union with the divine. And if in this process 
 the accurate lineaments of fact are in some degree lost 
 or changed, yet in the main and with one important 
 reservation, it is to be recognised that the change is 
 only a sacrifice of the letter to the spirit. Por the 
 result is a more perfect combination of the real and 
 the ideal, or, if the words are preferred, of the human 
 and the divine, than ever has been reached in any 
 other writings. The two terms are, indeed, stretched 
 to the utmost point of their antagonism, and are 
 shown in their utmost tension against each other ; but 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 229 
 
 the religious imagination, the intuition of faith, is still 
 able to hold them together, and, by doing so, it gains 
 a kind of power which is possible only in such a 
 union of opposite poles of the consciousness of 
 humanity. 
 
 Thus the way in which, in the thought of the 
 disciples, the ordinary limitations of finitude and 
 humanity — of that in the finite world and in man 
 which separates them from God — gradually drop away 
 from the image of Christ, has in it something which, 
 though unexampled in degree, yet agrees in kind with 
 the ordinary process by which the ideal reveals itself 
 in and through the real ; or, to put it more accurately, 
 with the process by which the ideal reveals itself cls 
 the, reality which is hid beneath the immediate appear- 
 ance of things. It may even be said that Christianity 
 is distinguished from all other religions by the fact 
 that it supplies the rationale and the justification of 
 this process. For its fundamental lesson that man 
 must ' die to live,' involves as a consequence that it is 
 just through the last sacrifice of life itself that the 
 divine principle of life in humanity reveals itself most 
 clearly. In such complete devotion of himself, man 
 becomes, what it is his innate vocation to be, 
 the organ and manifestation of God. From this 
 principle it necessarily follows that the idealising 
 process which death sets on foot, and by which 
 the individual is lifted out of the limitations of 
 
230 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 mortality, is no mere visionary or poetic exaggera- 
 tion, but only a recognition of the inmost truth 
 of things. If life and death are the process whereby 
 the image of God is realised ia man, then there is 
 no illusion in the correlative process by which, 
 in the thought of those that come after, the his- 
 tory of a man is regarded as a stage in the 
 manifestation of God. And, if it was the founder 
 of Christianity who first realised in its full mean- 
 ing the truth which we philosophically express by 
 saying that the consciousness of God is presupposed 
 and implied in the consciousness of the world, and 
 even more directly in the consciousness of self — and 
 that therefore a self-conscious being cannot know what 
 he really is, or realise his good except in utter self- 
 surrender to God — then there is a supreme reason why 
 all generations of men should call Am divine, not, 
 indeed, as isolated from others, but as the "first-bom 
 of many brethren." By him, as by no other individual 
 before, the pure idea of a divine humanity was appre- 
 hended and made into the great principle of life; and, 
 consequently, in so far as that idea can be regarded as 
 realised in an individual — and it was a necessity of 
 feeling and imagination that it should be regarded as 
 so realised — in no other could it find so pure an 
 embodiment. N"ay, we may add that, so long as it 
 was regarded as embodied in him only in the same 
 sense in which it flowed out from him to others, so 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 231 
 
 long the primacy attributed to Christ could not 
 obscure the truth. It only furnished it with a 
 typical expression, whereby the movement of the 
 feelings and the imagination were kept in harmony 
 with that of the intelligence. 
 
 Wow this seems to be the ruling idea of the 
 1 7th chapter of St. John's Gospel, in which the ' 
 principle of Christian mysticism receives its highest 
 expression. The same divine life which manifests 
 itself in Christ, it is there declared, is also com- 
 municated by him to all his followers. "Holy 
 Father, keep through Thine own name those that 
 Thou hast given me, that they may be one as we 
 are. . . . Neither pray I for these alone, but 
 for them also that shall believe through their word, 
 that they may all be one, as Thou Father art in 
 me and I in Thee, that they also may be one in 
 us." Christ is thus proclaimed to be the unique 
 revelation of God, but only as the first-born of 
 many brethren, the greatest of all the servants of 
 humanity, the most perfect organ of that divine 
 life for which man was made, in as much as he was 
 made in the image of God. In fact, it was through 
 Jesus Christ that that capacity of men to become 
 sons of God, which was in humanity from the first, 
 was actualised or clearly revealed ; and that, not 
 merely in some casual voice of exalted religious 
 feeling, or in the abstract conceptions of philosophy. 
 
232 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 but as the ruling principle of a life lived under 
 ordinary human conditions, and, above all, in the 
 death which was its culmination, the death of the 
 cross to which Jesus was "lifted up that he might 
 draw all men to him." i For the cross, combining as 
 it did the loftiest and the lowest things of human 
 existence, the deepest outward shame and the mani- 
 festation of the highest energy of spiritual life to 
 which the soul of man can rise, was the appropriate, 
 and, we might even say, the necessary symbol of a 
 religion which, in breaking down all the walls of 
 division between man and man, class and class, 
 nation and nation, at the same time awoke man, in 
 all the weakness of his finitude, to a consciousness 
 of unity with God. 
 
 Such an interpretation of the doctrine of the 
 divine humanity of Jesus Christ may seem to many 
 to take away that which is the necessary support 
 of their faith. But I believe that, when fully con- 
 sidered and understood, it wUl be found to contain 
 all the elements of vital Christianity, all the elements 
 in it that have really given support to the religious 
 life of man in the past. For the power of Chris- 
 tianity has always lain in its bringing Christ, at 
 once, and in virtue of the same moral and spiritual 
 characteristics, into unity with God and with man ; 
 and the theological doctrine of two natures in Christ 
 ijohnxii. 32. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 233 
 
 which are the source of separate and even opposed 
 attributes, hcs never found an echo in the voice of 
 immediate religious experience. Eead all the books 
 of Christian devotion from the earliest to the latest, 
 and you will find that what they dwell upon, when 
 they are not merely repeating the words of the 
 creeds but speaking in the language of religious 
 experience, is that Christ is divine just becaiise he 
 is the most human of men, the man in whom the 
 universal spirit of humanity has found its fullest 
 expression ; and that, on the other hand, he is the / 
 ideal or typical man, the Son of Man who reveals 
 what is in humanity, just because he is the purest 
 revelation of God in man. The divisions of theo- 
 logical logic, the dogmatic decrees of councils as 
 to the nature of Christ, which set the human and 
 the divine in him in opposition to each other, or 
 only externally unite them, have never quite corre- 
 sponded with the devotional language of the saints, 
 i.e. with the language in which there is the purest 
 utterance of the religious life. And even the history 
 of dogma itself shows a continual reaction of that 
 life against the distinctions of theology, and an 
 ever-renewed effort to overcome them by new re- 
 finements and distinctions. In truth, the attempts 
 of theology to raise Christ above the conditions of 
 human life, and to give him a metaphysical or 
 physical greatness of another kind, really end in 
 
234 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 lowering him and depriving him of his true position 
 in the religious life of man. For they obscure the 
 one point in which he really is unique, as being 
 the first to break through the Jewish division be- 
 tween the divine and the human, yet without falling 
 into the gulf of an abstract pantheism, or losing 
 any of that moral idealism in which the purifying 
 power of monotheism lay. 
 
 Now Christianity, as it arose out of Judaism, had, 
 so to speak, to pay tribute to Judaism. It had 
 to express itself in the forms of the religion of 
 Israel, and it could not avoid being to some extent 
 influenced by those forms. Judaism, however, was 
 specially distinguished by the way in which it sepa- 
 rated God from the world and from all the creatures 
 He has made, even from man ; and, as a consequence 
 of this, by the catastrophic or apocalyptic view 
 which it took of the divine dealings with humanity. 
 And this view was, as we saw, specially predominant 
 at the time of Christ. In such a time the mind 
 of the Jew could scarcely receive the idea of a 
 moral regeneration of man's life, except as the 
 accompaniment, or even the effect, of a sudden 
 divine interference with the course of nature, by a 
 Messiah who was exempted from all its laws. Now, 
 I have already spoken of the way in which Jesus 
 ran counter to the ordinary Messianic idea in almost 
 all its characteristics, and I have pointed out that 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 235 
 
 his fate was the natural result of his doing so. 
 But there is one point which has specially to be 
 recalled here,i viz. that, while Jesus altogether rejects 
 the demand of the Jews for an outward Messianic 
 miracle, and maintains that the true victory of good 
 must be that in which the natural is the effect and 
 not the cause of the spiritual triumph, he also, as 
 a necessary consequence of this, speaks of the process 
 whereby such victory is to be .attained as one not 
 of catastrophic change, but of continuous growth. 
 Hence it is not too much to say that in some of 
 his words the idea that true progress is possible 
 only by development, is more clearly expressed 
 than it ever was by any one down to the present 
 century, when it has become the key-note of all j- 
 speculation. But in this, as in all his views of 
 his own Messiahship, Christ was working against 
 the whole prepossessions of his age and nation. 
 His image is therefore seen by us through an 
 atmosphere made obscure by ideas just the reverse 
 of his own. And, just as he who refused to the 
 Pharisees a sign from heaven was in a short time 
 surrounded by an atmosphere of signs and wonders ; 
 so he who compared the development of the king- 
 dom of heaven to the slow growth of the seed by 
 a silent unnoticeable process, "first the blade, then 
 the ear, then the full corn in the ear," was soon 
 *See above, p. 168 seq. 
 
236 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 represented as 'having prophesied an immediate 
 ' restitution of all things,' a miraculous revolution 
 which, without any process of growth whatever, 
 should, in a few years at the most, make Christianity 
 triumphant over the earth. Even St. Paul, who 
 of all the immediate followers of Christ entered 
 most fully into the spiritual meaning of Christianity, 
 did not dissociate it from such a belief. He sought, 
 indeed, to free his creed from the external scaffold- 
 ing of miracle which belonged to his original Jewish 
 conceptions of Messianic agency ; yet he admitted 
 one transcendent miracle as the basis of his faith, 
 and he expected another transcendent miracle to cut 
 short the process — which must be slow and gradual, if 
 it was to be really a spiritual process of develop- 
 ment — and to bring in the final harvest of good 
 within the space of a few years, and even within 
 his own lifetime. And, while he taught in the 
 most powerful way the lesson of Jesus, the lesson 
 that self-sacrifice is the only way to self-realisation, 
 he yet partly weakened its effect, as the simple 
 exposition of the moral nature of man and the mode 
 of his development, by making the sacrifice of Jesus 
 essentially different from that which is the ordinary 
 trial of humanity. 
 
 The truth seems to be that that transformation 
 of religion which Jesus had in view, and by which 
 the spiritual was put above and before the natural 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 237 
 
 and recognised as its source and principle, was only 
 imperfectly carried out even in the mind of his 
 noblest disciples. The old confusion that substi- : 
 tuted for the spiritual a supernatural world — which 
 was merely another natural world with external 
 and sensible characteristics of the same kind though! 
 higher in degree — was by no means entirely dissipated. 
 At least, if this confusion could no longer be directly 
 made, still the spiritual was made to rest on, and 
 derive its evidence from the supernatural. Thus 
 miracles, signs and wonders, were mingled with the 
 proof of a Gospel whose highest virtue lay just in 
 this, that it turned men's eyes away from such 
 outward breaches of nature's laws to the thought 
 that in the ordinary course of things there is a 
 divine principle realising itself, for him who looks 
 deeper than the surface. And, on the other hand, i 
 the idealising process by which the deeper meaning : 
 of the life of Jesus as the manifestation of that 
 principle was discovered, was neutralised ia some 
 measure by the tendency to make an absolute : 
 division between him and other men — a tendency 
 much favoured by the lingering influence of the 
 Jewish conception of the opposition between God and 
 all the creatures He has made. No doubt, in the 
 earliest years of Christianity, this Jewish monotheistic 
 spirit was counteracted in its eifects by the living 
 consciousness of union with Christ, and through 
 
238 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 him with God, as not only Mb Father but the Father 
 of all men. But, in the following age, it gained 
 continually greater predominance ; and the conflict 
 between it and the idea of the union of divine 
 and human — an idea which could not but make its 
 way wherever the record of the deeds and words of 
 Christ was carried — led to ever-renewed controversy, 
 which was rather silenced than satisfied by the 
 dogmatic decisions of the councils of the church. 
 For these decisions were nothing but continually 
 renewed compromises between opposite elements of 
 the orthodox faith, which could neither be neglected 
 nor reconciled. 
 
 We may put it thus. It is the nature of the 
 imagination to represent the spiritual as an en- 
 larged natural world, a natural world with some 
 of its limitations taken away. This is inevitable 
 and necessary ; for in no other way can imagina- 
 tion realise ideas than by giving to them the forms 
 of the sensible, while yet emancipating them from 
 some of the consequences which these forms carry 
 with them. Nor does this necessity disappear when, 
 as in the Jewish religion, the spiritual or divine 
 is abruptly opposed to the natural : only, in this 
 case, the natural symbol will be still farther 
 emancipated from the conditions of nature, and its 
 contrast with the objects subjected to these con- 
 ditions will be still more strongly emphasised. 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 239 
 
 Miracle as such, as the triumph over nature, will 
 thus become the sign of spiritual power, and faith 
 will rise to the latter only on stepping-stones of 
 the former. This was the attitude of the Jews 
 who demanded of Christ signs and wonders, that 
 they might believe in him. For them the higher 
 revelation of love and forgiveness could be received, 
 only if it was mediated by the exhibition of super- 
 human powers. Now, the early Church had so 
 far risen above this that it regarded the wonder 
 merely as a sign, and had learned to count that 
 the highest kind of belief that did not need any 
 sign. " Blessed are they that have not seen, and 
 yet have believed." And yet the early Christians, 
 like many in a later time, felt that bare faith in 
 the spiritual was too much for them, a thing un- 
 certain and subjective. The spiritual truth seemed 
 a thing which they could hardly trust without 
 some external warrant, some objective support or 
 verification. Their faith called for some visible 
 guarantee, some breaking of the divine through the 
 clouds of heaven, some reversal, were it but for 
 once^ and in one individual case, of the common order 
 
 1 Cf. Browning's Parleyings with Certain People — Bernard de 
 Mandeville, p. 119. 
 
 " ' No sign ' — groaned he — 
 'No stirring of God's finger to denote 
 He wills that right should have supremacy 
 On earth, not wrong 1 How helpful could we quote 
 
240 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of nature, which should deliver them from the idea 
 that that order is the ultimate reality of life, and 
 that there is nothing beneath or beyond it. A 
 sign from heaven seemed to them necessary, ere they 
 could be convinced that the inmost meaning of the 
 natural course of things is spiritual, or that God 
 is actually present in His world. Above all, the 
 apostles must be able to declare that they had 
 seen with their eyes the vision of the risen Jesus, 
 ere it could be believed that the spirit which was 
 in him was stronger than death and the grave. 
 
 Even for St. Paul himself who, as I have said, 
 had more than any other penetrated to the spiritual 
 meaning of Christianity, the evidence of the Chris- 
 tian law of life through death, and the possibility 
 of obeying it, rested on the believed fact of the 
 resurrection of Christ, and especially on the vision 
 of the living Christ which had been given to him- 
 self But I do not think that for us it need rest 
 on that basis. Whatever was the truth of these 
 visions — and it is impossible for us to apply to 
 
 But one poor instance when He interposed 
 Promptly and surely and beyond mistake 
 Between oppression and its victim, closed 
 Accounts with sin for once, and bade us wake 
 From our long dream that justice bears no sword, 
 Or else forgets whereto its sharpness serves.' " 
 
 In a similar spirit Carlyle is said to have complained that ' God 
 does nothing.' 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 24-1 
 
 them any of the tests of fact — it is not on such a 
 foundation that we can base our faith in the 
 Christian law of life and the Christian hope in 
 death. In this respect we can appeal from St. 
 Paul to Christ himself, who declares that those 
 who do not believe when they "have Moses and 
 the Prophets"; in other words, those who do not 
 believe when they have the immediate evidence 
 of the ethical and religious life of humanity, 
 would not even "be persuaded though one rose from 
 the dead."^ The spiritual life is, or ought to be, 
 its own evidence; and every secondary support 
 that can be given to it, even if it were the 
 visions of a St. Peter or a St. Paul, must prove 
 treacherous. When Christ refutes the Sadducees, 
 who refused to believe in a resurrection or a future 
 life for man, it is not by an appeal to the 
 miraculous, but by the declaration that the belief 
 in a future life for man is involved in our con- 
 sciousness of the existence of God. " As touching 
 the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read 
 what was spoken to you by God, saying: I am 
 the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and 
 the God of Jacob ? God is not the God of the 
 dead but of the living " ; " for," as Luke adds, " all 
 live unto Him."^ This is the only properly re- 
 
 ^Luke xvi. 31. 
 
 2 Matt. xxii. 31, 32; Mark xii. 26, 27; Luke xx. 36-38. 
 VOL. II. • Q 
 
242 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 ligious proof of immortality. All of us indeed, 
 have at times a desire to be directly convinced 
 of the reality of another life, and of a world in 
 which those who are gone prolong their existence. 
 And we naturally think that if 'one rose from the 
 dead,' or if, in any other way, we could establish 
 communication with that world or bring it into 
 empirical connexion with this, we should iind it 
 easier to believe in the existence of a divine 
 power which orders our lives with a view to the 
 realisation of the highest good. The best answer 
 to such a demand, however, is that such a belief 
 would not be a religious belief, would not properly 
 speaking be a belief in God at all. The religious 
 man believes in a future life for himself and 
 mankind, because he believes in God; he does 
 not believe in God, because he believes in a 
 future life or another world. The only religious 
 proof of a future life is, in short, that " God is 
 not the God of the dead but of the living''; i.e. as I 
 understand it, the evidence for any destiny of man 
 higher than that of other beings is that which 
 springs out of the divine principle already mani- 
 fested in his life here, and, we might even say, out 
 of the fact that he possesses a consciousness of 
 God. For in these words, as has been well said, 
 " Christ does not proclaim resurrection ; he denies 
 death, and asserts the indestruetibleness of all life 
 
THE DIVINE AND THE HUMAN. 243 
 
 that remains in communion with God."^ In this 
 point of view, an over-anxious desire to prove the 
 immortality of the soul is not by any means an 
 evidence of a religious temper of mind. Indeed, 
 the belief in immortality may easily become an 
 unhealthy occupation with a future salvation, which 
 prevents us from seeking for salvation for man- 
 kind here — unless it be that natural spring of con- 
 fidence in its own supreme reality, that unbelief 
 in death, which seems to be the necessary char- 
 acteristic or concomitant of true spiritual life. If 
 it be a consequence of the intellectual conditions 
 under which we live in the present day, that the 
 empirical evidences of a future life that seemed 
 most sure and certain to our fathers, have for 
 some of us lost their convincing power, this, in a 
 religious point of view, may not be altogether a 
 loss. It is possible even that the spiritual may 
 gain all that the supernatural has lost. 
 
 ' Eeuss, I think ; but I have mislaid the reference. 
 
LECTUEE TENTH. 
 
 GENEEAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE EVOLUTION OF 
 CHRISTIANITY IN POST-APOSTOLIC TIMES. 
 
 That the New Testament contains all the Oerminal Ideas of 
 Christianity — Limitations of this Statement — Do Id^eas neces- 
 sarily lose their Purity in being Realised? — Why they seem 
 to do so — How far Christianity is opposed to the Religion 
 and Culture that existed before it — How far its Development 
 is a Conquest, how far an Assimilation, of Foreign Elements — 
 Its Struggle with Jewish and Oreeh Influences — In what sense 
 Christianity is Original and Unique. 
 
 We have now dealt with the earliest development of 
 Christianity as it is exhibited in the New Testament ; 
 and, therefore, with the formative process in which 
 Christianity first showed its distinctive characteristics, 
 and defined itself as a system against other systems 
 of thought and life. For, though the development of 
 Christian ideas and institutions did not cease with the 
 completion of the New Testament writings, yet these, 
 in a peculiar sense, determined the future direction of 
 that development, and supplied for all after-times the 
 criterion by which what is Christian was separated 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 245 
 
 from what is not Christian. On the other hand, 
 almost all the elements which are found in the New 
 Testament have shown themselves to be essential to 
 the Christian life ; and it is by their conflict and 
 reconciliation that that life has been continually en- 
 riched and widened. Great as have been the changes 
 through which the growing organism has passed, in 
 contact with the ever-changing conditions of its en- 
 vironment, they have never carried it beyond the 
 sphere of the original Christian idea, as it is expressed 
 in the writings of its earliest apostles. Or, to put it 
 perhaps more accurately, the idea so expressed has 
 always been able to maintain itself against the in- 
 fluences that threatened it, and to turn them into 
 the means of its farther development. 
 
 At the same time, this statement must not be taken 
 in any narrow dogmatic sense. We cannot limit the 
 man by the characteristics of the chUd, though we may 
 recognise in the child an original energy, an assimila- 
 tive force, which is able to react upon the environment, 
 and to subdue it into a means for the development of 
 its own life to the full stature and power of manhood. 
 In like manner, we may recognise in the ethical and 
 religious ideas of the New Testament, in the general 
 view of the relations of men to each other and to God 
 which is there given, the productive principle of the 
 whole subsequent development of Christianity. But 
 we cannot do so, if we insist on any literal and exact 
 
246 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 correspond t nee with the first forms of Christian 
 thought and life ; nor if we refuse to leave room 
 even for the complete decay of those forms and the 
 rise of others in their place. If we look for such 
 outward marks of that which is to be recognised as 
 Christian, we shall soon lose the thread of continuity. 
 For, as I pointed out in a former lecture,^ develop- 
 ment is not a superficial change, in a being 
 which otherwise remains unchanged. What it pre- 
 supposes is an identical principle of life, which is 
 capable of maintaining itself through the transfor- 
 mation of every part of the organism it animates. 
 The facts of development, therefore, are a continual 
 perplexity to those who look for some external sign 
 or manifestation of unity, which is unaltered and 
 unalterable. Theologians have often interpreted the 
 dictum of Vincent of Lerius, Quod semper, quod ubique, 
 quod ah omnibus, in the sense that there was some 
 ' form of sound words,' or some fundamental institution, 
 to which the existence of Christianity was permanently 
 attached. But every such criterion would inevitably 
 break down in the face of the free action and reaction 
 of historical development, and would exclude important 
 forms of life which yet have manifestly sprung from 
 the same living principle. 
 
 To give even the barest sketch of a process of this 
 kind, involving so many and great ebbs and flows of 
 1 Vol. I. p. 171 seq. 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 247 
 
 change, is obviously impossible within the space still 
 left to me. All that I can hope to do is, in this 
 lecture, to indicate the general nature of the develop- 
 ment in question ; and, in the two following lectures, to 
 describe the leading features of the two main periods 
 into which it may be divided. 
 
 We may begin by deaHng with a plausible objec- 
 tion. Some writers, like Eenan, are fond of the 
 thesis that ideals necessarily become degraded when 
 they are realised, like . light passing through a cloudy 
 medium. The pure vision of a prophet or saint arises 
 in his soul only as he turns his back upon the 
 miserable reality of life; and when he returns to 
 the world again, and seeks to realise under the 
 ordinary conditions of experience what he has seen in 
 the moment of inspiration, he cannot prevent his idea 
 from being subdued to the element in which it has 
 to work. The injunction, " See that thou make all 
 things according to the pattern showed thee in the 
 mount," cannot be obeyed ; for no earthly stone and 
 lime can be built up into the perfect image of the 
 " house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." 
 Hence the fate of great ideas is always that, in 
 becoming efficient, they enter into impure combination 
 with facts and become vulgarised ; or that they get 
 fixed and fossilised in dogmas, and lose their in- 
 spiring power ; or, finally, that they become sub- 
 ordinated to the institutions which were at first meant 
 
248 THE EVOLUTION OF RELldlON. 
 
 for their support. The idea creates the institution, 
 and the institution crushes the idea. Thus, after a 
 few generations, the steady vis inertiae of the world — 
 the constant tendency of the natural understanding to 
 misinterpret spiritual truth, and of the unregenerate 
 wUl to substitute sensuous and selfish hopes for the 
 desire of spiritual good — gradually drags down the 
 idea to the level of the instruments it has to use, 
 and the minds it has to inspire ; until, at last, it may 
 even become a matter of doubt whether mankind 
 has gained anything from the new spiritual impulse 
 it has received. 
 
 Now such a pessimistic view of things may be 
 morbid and distorted, but there is a certain element 
 of truth in it ; as is proved by the history of 
 Christianity and of every great movement that has 
 affected the spiritual life of man. As in the natural 
 world the seed has a fulness of life in it, which 
 is found again only in the fruit ; and as the first step 
 toward development always involves a certain loss 
 or dispersion of energy — a certain surrender to the 
 modifying power of the environment, which cannot 
 be overcome except by, in the first instance, yield- 
 ing to it — so it is here. When a new principle 
 begins to transform the life of humanity, it finds 
 everything apparently alien and adverse to it. The 
 whole order of social existence, the whole system 
 of thought, seem to have been constructed upon 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 249 
 
 another basis. Custom, tradition, the prevailing ten- 
 dencies of speculation, the main interests of action, 
 all seem to be moving from a different starting- 
 point, and towards a different goal. In such circum- 
 stances tw^o results are bound, by an all but inevit- 
 able necessity, to follow. On the one side, the 
 new principle becomes narrowed by antagonism, 
 which forces it to show its negative and destruc- 
 tive rather than its positive and constructive side ; 
 and, on the other hand, in order to act effectively, 
 the principle has in some degree to be brought down 
 to the level of that which it seeks to change. It thus 
 tends at once to exaggerate its opposition to the 
 other tendencies of the time, and, in its contact with 
 them, to lose some of the purity of its first expression. 
 In fact, these two things, though apparently opposed, 
 are closely connected with each other. For contro- 
 versy is apt to narrow a principle, and to deprive 
 it of the full riches of its meaning, just because it 
 tends to reduce it to the mere negative of that 
 to which it is opposed. In conflict with each 
 other, men exaggerate their differences, and thereby 
 make their own views more abstract and one- 
 sided. Hence the high hopes of those who were 
 the first preachers of a new truth become gradu- 
 ally extinguished in their successors, who, at the 
 same time, lose the liberal and comprehensive spirit 
 of the earlier time. 
 
250 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOl^. 
 
 Such degradation of an expansive faith into a 
 narrow dogmatism, of the spiritual enthusiasm ex- 
 cited by the infinite possibilities of a new prin- 
 ciple into a bitter party spirit for a defined 
 and rigid creed, is a process that has been so 
 frequently exemplified in the history of the world, 
 that it may be regarded as part of the normal 
 course of things. And, in this point of view, it 
 may be admitted that the progress of man is a 
 continual disappointment. The ideal that seemed, 
 to those who first apprehended it, certain to revolu- 
 tionise the moral world, and transform the whole 
 spiritual life of man into its own image, is found 
 continually, as it were, to lose and disperse itself 
 in the struggle with something in the nature of 
 things that hinders, and that cannot be 'taken out 
 of the way.'^ And, what is worse, the ideal itself 
 seems to shrink up in the hands of those who 
 apply it, till it is little better than the reality it 
 would transform. Hence, even if it conquers, its 
 victory is not what its first advocates expected. 
 What would Luther have said to the divided and 
 dogma-ridden Protestantism of the seventeenth cen- 
 tury ? Or what would the early Christians have 
 thought of the church of the Middle Ages ? Would 
 they have recognised in such a result the end for 
 
 ' 2 Thess. ii. 7, " He who now letteth will let, until he be 
 taken out of the way." 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 251 
 
 which they had hoped and laboured ? Would they 
 have owned it at all as that which they had been 
 seeking 1 What they expected was both a completer 
 and a speedier triumph. They expected that in a 
 few short years the church would have overcome 
 and transformed the world, and that the Messianic 
 kingdom — the kingdom of heaven on earth — would 
 have been set up. But, after twelve centuries, they 
 would have found the opposition between the church 
 and the world emphasised and hardened into an 
 abstract antagonism ; and the conquest of the latter 
 by the former so far removed from the expectations 
 of Christian men, that it had even become a fixed 
 article of belief that the Christian ideal of their 
 union could only be realised in heaven. The gospel 
 word, 'The kingdom of God is amongst you, there- 
 fore realise it Aer«,' becomes changed into what is 
 almost its opposite, ' The kingdom of God is in 
 heaven, therefore seek it there' 
 
 If, however, it be said that the meaning of all 
 this is simply that ideals never can be realised, 
 or that what is anticipated by men in their hours 
 of prophetic insight is 'too good to be true,' I 
 think that an answer to such a view may be found 
 in the idea of development, as that idea must be 
 interpreted in relation to the history of man. Here 
 there are especially two things which have to be 
 taken into account. One is that no spiritual prin- 
 
252 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 ciple is ever so new, and therefore so alien to its 
 environment, as at first it appears to be. A new 
 idea can only reveal itself in the fulness of time, 
 as the result of a process of history which has 
 been preparing the minds of men for its reception. 
 Hence the character of the civilisation amid which 
 it presents itself, can never be altogether unfavour- 
 able to it. It could not succeed at all, unless 
 there was something in the spirit of the time 
 which affected even its opponents and weakened 
 their resistance. While, therefore, it is natural that 
 the antagonism of the new principle to the ideas 
 that rule the world into which it enters, should 
 be at first exaggerated, both by its supporters and 
 its opponents, into an absolute opposition, the op- 
 position can never be really absolute ; for, if it 
 were absolute, the principle could not have pre- 
 sented itself to the mind of man at all; or if, per 
 impossibile, it had presented itself to the mind of 
 one man, he could have had no success in com- 
 municating it to others. Thus even Christianity, 
 new as in a sense it was, was no idea suddenly 
 launched into the world from heaven without any 
 connexion with the previous process of human de- 
 velopment. It was, and it presented itself as, a 
 'fulfilling' of the law, as an answer to the pro- 
 phetic hopes of Israel, arising partly out of 
 these very hopes themselves. It came to the Jews 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 253 
 
 only when their thoughts had been universalised, 
 first, by the teaching of the prophets, and then by 
 contact with the Persian and the Greek civilisa- 
 tions; and when finally, by the all-levelling power 
 of Eome, they had been made to admit practically, 
 if not theoretically, that no nation can be isolated 
 from humanity. Christianity was simply the uni- 
 versal principle of religion, coming to self-conscious- 
 ness in the nation which was ripest for the appre- 
 hension of it. Hence in its confiict with the 
 exclusive patriotism and the still more exclusive 
 religious prejudices of the Jews, it had the deepest 
 spirit of the nation on its side. It was the just 
 claim of Jesus Christ that, in order to accept his 
 teaching, all that was necessary was to " discern the 
 signs of the times " ; as it was his reproach to the 
 leaders of the Jewish nation that they, the wise 
 and learned, did not discern them. Yet this blind- 
 ness did not absolutely exclude all consciousness 
 whatever. The very bitterness and exasperation 
 with which the Scribes and Pharisees opposed and 
 sought to crush the new doctrine was partly a 
 result of that sense of weakness, which is inevit- 
 ably felt by those who are fighting against the 
 spirit of the time, and therefore, one may even say, 
 against themselves. 
 
 In like manner, when Christianity went beyond 
 the bounds of Judaea, it found, no doubt, in the 
 
 ^ 
 
254 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 thought and life of Greece and Rome, many elements 
 that repelled it and conflicted with it. But these 
 elements were, as a rule, the remains of a worn- 
 out civilisation, or, if not, they were elements not 
 essentially hostile to Christianity. Classical antiquity 
 had broken its idols before Christianity told it to 
 throw them away. The whole tendency of thought 
 for ages had been to throw down the physical 
 and intellectual barriers between European nations, 
 and even, finally, the still greater barrier between 
 the imaginative intuition of the East and the logical 
 reason of the West. Hence the alternate struggle 
 and compromise between Christianity and the Jewish 
 and Greek systems of thought, which was the first 
 consequence of their contact, was not the indi- 
 cations of any hopeless incompatibility between 
 them, but only the fermenting of the ' lump ' 
 under the action of the leaven that was to 
 transform it. Fierce as was the conflict, it was 
 one in which each of the adversaries might be 
 said to be contending with itself as well as 
 with its opponent ; and in which, therefore, recon- 
 ciliation was in the long run inevitable, so soon as 
 the due relation of the interests on each side had 
 been discovered. 
 
 And this leads me to say, in the second place, that 
 in no such case, and especially not in this case, are 
 we to regard the conflict of principles as one in which 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 255 
 
 all the truth is on one side ; even though it be the case 
 that on one side we have the principle of the future, 
 and on the other, the principle of the past. Christianity, 
 indeed, had in it the universal principle of religion, 
 a principle which included all others, and to which 
 no other could, strictly speaking, be opposed as a 
 rival. And in the words of Jesus this principle seems 
 to have found a simple and comprehensive expression 
 in which room might be found for almost every modi- 
 fying truth. Farther, we have seen that the whole 
 movement of the life of Jesus, up to its culmination 
 in his death, was such as to make it the most vivid 
 of all possible symbols of the truth he taught. But, 
 even admitting all this, it has to be observed that in 
 the life and words of Jesus the truth was presented 
 only in its principle, or, what is the same thing, in its 
 moral and religious essence. Perhaps — if the word 
 principle be taken in the sense of a universal law — we 
 should rather say that it was not yet presented even in 
 its principle, but rather as involved in an individual 
 life, and identified therewith. Now, there is a long 
 way between the intuitive perception of the truth as 
 realised in and expressed by an individual, and the 
 reflective appreciation of it as an idea which is related 
 to other ideas. And there is a still longer way from 
 such appreciation to the application or development 
 of it as an organising principle, which transforms or 
 new-moulds the whole order of human life. The 
 
256 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 religious consciousness grasps the idea of God, so to 
 speak, in its unevolved totality, and thinks that in that 
 it has everything. It has a feeling or antieipative 
 consciousness of the whole, i.e.. not only of the principle 
 but of all that can come out of it ; and often this con- 
 sciousness seems so rich in itself, that every step to 
 definite thought or action, every step towards analysing 
 the truth or drawing particular practical consequences 
 from it, appears like a degradation of it. And, in a 
 sense, it must he a degradation ; for every such step 
 takes men down from the first fulness of immediate 
 vision and feeling into the region of conflict and con- 
 troversy : nor is it possible for them by one single 
 decisive effort to traverse the whole distance that 
 separates the implicit fulness of the beginning from 
 the explicit fulness of the end. But, on the other 
 hand, though the beginning contains everything — in the 
 sense that it is the germ of everything — and though for 
 this reason Hegel could say that the immediate con- 
 sciousness of the religious man has in its simplicity 
 an infinite worth, because an infinite content, yet it 
 has this in it only as an undeveloped potentiality. 
 In this point of view we must regard the apparent 
 degradation of which I have spoken as a real step in 
 progress ; we must recognise this temporary falling away 
 from the completeness of the truth as necessary to the 
 realisation of it; and we must even look upon the 
 narrowing of a principle to a dogma, as part of the 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 257 
 
 process through which it has to show its power as a 
 principle. For it is impossible that without this 
 descent into the region of conflict and controversy, 
 the principle can make its way into the life of the 
 world and transform it. To be applied, it must be 
 generalised ; though, in being generalised, it is in 
 danger of becoming abstract and lifeless. When 
 generalised, it must be set against other prin- 
 ciples ; though in being so set, it necessarily becomes 
 narrowed, because it presents itself as an alternative 
 to that which it really includes and transcends. It 
 must for a time put itself on the level of that against 
 which it is contending ; though this necessarily causes 
 too great emphasis to be thrown on its negative 
 aspect as against other principles, and too little on 
 its positive relation to them. In all these ways, the 
 development of a new religious idea seems to involve 
 the gradual loss of it in the medium which it seeks 
 to penetrate ; and it is only when we look to the end 
 that we can see that such loss is instrumental to a 
 higher gain. Thus, as we have already seen, St. Paul, 
 in trying to break the shell of Judaism within which 
 Christianity at first concealed its universality, was led 
 to stretch the antithesis between faith and works, 
 between grace and the law, to a point at which he 
 obscured the continuous development of the former 
 out of the latter. And in doing so, he partially en- 
 tangled himself in the web of rabbinical scholasticism, 
 
 VOL. II. E 
 
258 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 and substituted a drama of abrupt contrast and 
 startling catastrophe for the serene wisdom of the 
 parables of the kingdom of heaven — the parables of 
 the leaven, the mustard seed, and the tares and the 
 wheat. But Christianity, if it was to absorb what 
 was good in the Jewish system, must find in the 
 armoury of Judaism itself the weapons with which 
 to confute it. 
 
 Again, no sooner did Christianity break away from 
 the Jewish form in which it was first expressed, than 
 it was exposed to a new danger from the culture 
 and philosophy of Greece. And some writers are 
 inclined to maintain that here also, as in relation 
 to Eome, the Greek genius ultimately vindicated 
 its superiority and brought its victor into subjection 
 to itself. In other words, it is maintained that the 
 doctrinal forms of the theology of the early church 
 owe more to the metaphysical systems of Plato and 
 Aristotle, of the Stoics and the Neoplatonists, than 
 to Jesus or St. Paul. And it must be acknowledged 
 that there is a partial truth in such assertions. 
 As Philo platonised Moses, so Origen and others 
 may be said to have platonised, or neoplatonised 
 the Gospel. The dualism, the asceticism, the 
 transcendentalism if we may so call it, in which 
 the later Greek philosophy sought refuge from a 
 religion that deified nature, became confused with 
 the Christian idea of self-sacrifice and the Christian 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 259 
 
 doctrine that it is through such sacrifice that God 
 reveals Himself in man. Hence Christianity seemed 
 for a time to lose hold of the positive relation of 
 nature to spirit, and to identify itself — as against 
 the impurities of heathenism and its direct recog- 
 nition of human impulses as divine — with a philosophy 
 which lost God in the absolute, and bade man 
 cease to be human that he might become one with 
 the divine. In other words, it seemed on Greek 
 ground to adapt itself to a form prepared by Greek 
 philosophy, and, in some degree, to become con- 
 fused or « identified with one of the two great 
 tendencies between which Greek life was divided. 
 And the infiuence of this neoplatonised Christianity 
 was not a temporary phenomenon, but maintained 
 itself through many ages. Indeed, in some respects 
 we may say that its reign is not yet quite at an end. 
 At the same time, we have to remember two 
 things : first, that it was impossible that Christianity j 
 should thoroughly overcome the dualism of Greek : 
 thought, until it had fully entered into it, and 
 even masked itself in the appearance of one of the 
 principles that combated within it. And secondly, 
 that throughout the struggle, the idea of the 
 ultimate unity of the human and the divine, of 
 nature and spirit, was never wholly lost; though 
 it was working, as it were, underground, and showed 
 its influence rather as a check upon the extreme 
 
260 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 developments of dualism and asceticism than as a 
 positive principle on which the theory and practice 
 of human life could be based. Of this I shall 
 speak more fully hereafter : for the present I need 
 only say, that the process whereby the antagonism 
 which Christianity had to reconcile, was deepened 
 till it became an all but absolute division, was 
 not a needless one. On the contrary, it was 
 essential, in order that that solution might be 
 adequate and explicit, and that it might be brought 
 into complete relation with the difficulty it had 
 to meet. For Christianity, if it is the only religion 
 that corresponds to the idea of religion, is just 
 for that reason the most complex of all religions ; 
 and it therefore needs for its explication the longest 
 and most painful process of development — a 
 development which, in a way, reproduces all the 
 struggles of previous religions with themselves and 
 with each other. But this does not mean that in 
 such struggles it wastes itself away, or becomes 
 broken into fragments. It means, indeed, that in 
 the course of its development its meaning as a 
 whole, or the principle that underlies it, often seems 
 for a time to be obscured and all but lost. But, as 
 it is a religious idea which is bound up with the very 
 constitution of the human mind — as indeed it is 
 simply the idea of God which underlies all our 
 consciousness of the objective world and of self — so 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 261 
 
 it never can be completely hidden from men, after 
 it has once dawned upon them. As Emerson says : 
 
 " One accent of the Holy Ghost 
 The heedless world hath never lost." 
 
 Such an idea once uttered, as it was uttered by 
 the founder of Christianity, cannot die out of the 
 human mind : it remains in it as a persistent 
 stimulating and modifying power, a brooding con- ; 
 sciousness, which will not let men rest in any partial ', ~! 
 truth, but urges them constantly with a silent, \ 
 unhasting but irresistible force, to the correction of 
 their errors and the supplementing of their defective 
 thoughts. It is only thus that the religious con- 
 sciousness in all its complex content can be developed; 
 only thus that it can break away from the imper- 
 fections of its germinal form and, by the conquest 
 of all the different elements contained in it, can 
 restore its original unity with itself, enriched by all 
 the conflicts through which it has passed. 
 
 We may express this thought more briefly by 
 saying that there are two periods in the history 
 of an idea: one in which it shows itself as a 
 tyrannical force that seeks to crush all rivals, 
 and to substitute itself in their place; and another 
 in which, secure of victory, it begins to make room 
 for its former opponents within the domain it has 
 conquered. And it may be added, that the really 
 beneficent power of a great idea is not shown tOl 
 
262 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION 
 
 it has reached this second stage. If modern life has 
 built and is building itself up on the basis of the 
 Christian principle, yet that principle is no longer 
 what it once was — an invasive force that offers to 
 every other spiritual power the alternative of sub- 
 mission or extinction. During the long develop- 
 ment of its doctrine, it was already making efforts 
 to reconcile itself with Greek philosophy ; and, both 
 before and after the Kenaissance it learned to accept 
 the aids of art and humane letters. It admitted at 
 the Eeformation that its sway must be exercised 
 through the freedom, and not through the slavery, 
 of the intelligence of man ; and, as a necessary 
 consequence, it has ever since been gradually learn- 
 ing, in politics and literature, in science and philo- 
 sophy, to allow free play to many forces which, 
 throughout the Middle Ages, were kept in leading 
 strings. Its universality has been shown in the 
 past, and must be shown still more in the future, 
 by its being able to reproduce, as grafts on the 
 new stem, all the forms of human development that 
 were fostered by the civilisation of the ancient world, 
 and to bring them to a higher perfection than 
 they reached in their independent state. But, no 
 doubt, in order to achieve this end, it has had 
 to emancipate itself, and will have still further to 
 emancipate itself, from every element that is not 
 essential to it; and especially to get rid of the 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 263 
 
 narrowness and the dogmatism into which it was 
 driven at the time when it was struggling for its 
 existence with the imperial despotism of Eome, 
 with the invasive culture of Greece, and with the 
 anarchy of barbarism. 
 
 The general result of the preceding remarks is 
 that the broken, wayward, and often apparently 
 reactionary course of the history of the Christian 
 church, is not inconsistent with its being a real 
 movement of progress. Christianity, as intuitively 
 presented in the life and words of Jesus, and as 
 elevated to the form of reflexion by St. Paul, con- 
 tains in itself a religious idea whose compass and 
 meaning is no less than infinite. It is indeed the 
 principle underlying all religion which in it comes to 
 self-consciousness. Yet, on the other hand, it has to 
 be admitted that this principle was as yet only stated 
 in the most general way, and not worked out to its 
 consequences. In spite of the force and fulness of 
 expression which the Christian idea had attained in 
 the New Testament, it still, in the apostolic age, 
 remained to a great extent undeveloped. It could 
 not yet be seen what changes would come of its 
 application to all the various interests of the intel- 
 lectual and moral life of man. It was only a germ 
 thrown into an alien world, which it had to conquer 
 and transform. Or, to express the same thing in 
 other words, it was still merely a religion, and not 
 
264 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 yet an ethics and a politics, an art and a philo- 
 sophy. And the process by which it was to take 
 possession of all departments of man's life, must 
 necessarily be a very gradual and difficult one. 
 Por the application of a great principle to human 
 life is never a simple analytic movement of thought 
 from premises to conclusion ; but always a very 
 complex process of growth, involving a constant 
 struggle with the environment, and an assimilation 
 of fresh materials from it. And this, of course, 
 must lead to the progressive discovery of new 
 meanings in the principle itself, meanings which 
 could not have been understood by those who first 
 received it. 
 
 Hence, while in one point of view we may call 
 Christianity the absolute religion, in another point of 
 view, the absolute religion was only prefigured in 
 it, at least in the form in which it appears in the 
 New Testament. The first century only brought 
 mankind in sight of a goal, which it required and 
 requires all the long process of history to reach. 
 At first, for the immediate disciple of Jesus, the 
 Christian religion was simply the growing conscious- 
 ness of a new form of spiritual life typically pre- 
 sented in his master, — a consciousness which became 
 clear and definite only when the type was completed 
 by the death of the individual in whom it was 
 embodied. By St. Paul the new idea was partially 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 265 
 
 liberated from its first form, as loyalty to an in- 
 dividual human teacher ; it became devotion to 
 a risen Christ, who was lifted above all the 
 limits of mortality. But the universalising and 
 idealising effort of St. Paul and St. John, which 
 first showed that Christianity contained a universal 
 gospel for Jew and Gentile alike, was but the 
 beginning of a long process of development, in the 
 course of which Christianity was brought into con- 
 tact and conflict with all the elements of the 
 earlier civilisations of the world. And it was only 
 by mastering and penetrating all these elements, and 
 finally by absorbing them all into itself, that it 
 could approve its claims to supremacy to be just. 
 Or, looking at it from the other side, we may say 
 that it was only by reconciling itself with these 
 extraneous infiuenees that it could pass beyond the 
 inevitable one-sidedness of its beginning, and become 
 truly a universal religion. For a principle cannot 
 show itself to be universal, so long as it stands in 
 opposition to any other principle, and does not find 
 room for that other in its own domain. Thus the 
 progress which, from one point of view, was the 
 triumph of Christianity over other systems, may, 
 in another point of view, be regarded as their 
 triumph over the imperfect form in which it first 
 realised or expressed itself. It is only in so far 
 as we can recognise that, out of aU these conflicts, 
 
266 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Christianity has returned upon itself, and reproduced 
 in its ripened form the simplicity, the naturalness, 
 and the comprehensiveness of the spirit of Jesus, 
 that we can truly speak of it as the universal 
 religion. And this might also be described as the 
 merging of the special stream of Christian develop- 
 ment in the great current of human progress. If, 
 therefore, the history of Christianity is the proof of 
 its divine authority, it is so only in the sense that 
 • nothing human is alien to it ' ; and that, therefore, 
 it is able to rise again to a wider life by means 
 of the very development of human thought which 
 has been fatal to its special dogmatic claims. 
 
 And this leads me to say, finally, that the abso- 
 luteness or uniqueness of the Christian religion can 
 lie in nothing but just this, that its appearance 
 constitutes the most important and decisive crisis in 
 the history of the religious consciousness of man, 
 the culmination of ancient and the beginning of what 
 we call modern history. For the great division we 
 usually make between these two periods rests entirely 
 on the supposition that the advent of Christ is a 
 critical turning-point in history, beside which no other 
 can be placed. And it was such a critical turning- 
 point, just because in it man rose to an idea of 
 himself and of his world toward which all the 
 movement of the ancient world had been converg- 
 ing, and from which all the modern world has 
 
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY. 267 
 
 started. Yet this ' uniqueness ' of Christianity can 
 only be, if we may use the expression, a relative, 
 iiniqueness. For not only is it the case that to 
 every age its own crisis necessarily seems the deci- 
 sive one, but in a sense every such crisis is unique, 
 unlike every other in the whole course of history. 
 The development of man is one continuous process, 
 by which he is brought to a consciousness of the 
 world, of himself, and of God, and every step in that 
 process is equally essential to the ultimate result. 
 Thus the idea of development explains the prepon- 
 derating claim of Christianity as the principal factor 
 in man's religious life ; but, at the same time, it 
 makes us understand what is meant by St. Paul's 
 admission that there is a limit to it as to all the 
 other claims, and that even Christ must " deliver 
 up the kingdom to God, even the Father," that 
 "God may be all in all."^ 
 
 1 1 Cor. XV. 24, 28. 
 
LEOTUEE ELEVENTH. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHKISTIANITY BEFORE THE 
 EEFOEMATION. 
 
 Contract of the periods before and after the Reformation — Their 
 Respective Relations to the Christianity of the New Testament — 
 The Revival of the Tendencies of Objective Religion — Tend- 
 ency to Abstraction in Theory and Asceticism in Practice in 
 the Early Church — Influences of Jewish and Greek Thought upon 
 it — How far the Chwrch resisted them — Effect of the Invasion of 
 the Empire by the Barbarians — Modification of the System of 
 Implicit Faith by Scholastic Philosophy — Reactive Power of the 
 Christian Idea of Reconciliation — Mysticism as an Escape from 
 Rationalistic Dogmatism. 
 
 In the preceding lecture I have indicated in what 
 way the Christian principle develops, and it re- 
 mains very shortly to illustrate what I have said, 
 by a general sketch of that development. Even to 
 the most superficial view the history of Christianity 
 breaks into two great periods: the period before, 
 and the period after the Eeformation, which are 
 distinguished by characteristics so markedly opposed 
 to each other, that it is difficult at first to re- 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 269 
 
 cognise them as stages in one development. The 
 Pre-Eeformation period is one of concentration, while 
 the Post-Eeformation period seems to be rather one 
 of dispersion. In the former, the Church builds 
 itself up into a monarchy on the type of the im- 
 perial power of Eome, with a strict organisation 
 which extends to almost every sphere of human 
 life and thought. In the latter, this organisation is 
 shattered ; nor do the small organisations which rise 
 out of its ruins ever gain the same power and 
 authority over the individual which was possessed 
 by the old system. In the earlier period, the 
 principle of faith successfully resists the shock of 
 Greek philosophy, and reduces it to an ancilla 
 fidei, an instrument for the definition or systematis- 
 ing of Christian doctrine. In the later period, 
 philosophy, science, and even religion, break away 
 from the leading-strings of the Church ; the in- 
 telligence claims the right of criticising every 
 dogma and tradition of Christianity, and of refusing 
 it any credit except on the ground of its ration- 
 ality. In the former, Christianity manifests its 
 power by the creation of an ascetic discipline, 
 whose aim seems to be to crush every secular 
 ambition and desire, to repudiate every claim of 
 individual right, and to bring all the thought and 
 action of man into subjection to a divine law im- 
 posed upon him from without. In the latter, the 
 
270 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 current flows with equal steadiness in the direction 
 of liberty ; and Christianity is invoked as supporting 
 the claims of the nation, the family, and the individual, 
 and sanctioning the development of every natural tend- 
 ency and sentiment. In short, the earlier time is 
 one of repression, in which nature is mortified in the 
 interest of spirit ; whereas the later time is one of 
 expansion, in which spirit is reconciled with nature, 
 and is even regarded as finding in the natural life 
 its only healthy manifestation. So great, indeed, is 
 the contrast, that many have had difficulty in con- 
 ceiving them as stages in the evolution of one 
 principle ; rather, they have been disposed to regard 
 the earlier period as that which alone could be 
 characterised as distinctively Christian, and to treat 
 the later period as one in which the Christian 
 Church was passing through the various stages of 
 its inevitable dissolution. 
 
 Such a view, however, may be shown to be 
 erroneous, by a comparison of the ideas of the 
 New Testament, and especially of the Gospels and 
 the Epistles of St. Paul, with the prevailing tend- 
 encies of the mediaeval and the modern periods 
 respectively. For such a comparison makes it 
 obvious that there are elements in the original 
 records of Christianity, which were obscured or 
 thrown into the background in the course of the 
 development of the Greek and Latin churches, and 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 271 
 
 which only regain their original place in modern 
 life and thought. The freedom and fulness of the 
 religion of Christ, its proclamation of the kingdom 
 of heaven as that which is to be immediately 
 realised, nay, which is already realising itself on 
 earth, contrasts vividly with the mediaeval concen- 
 tration of thought upon another world and its all 
 but despairing tone in regard to this world. And 
 St. Paul's appeal to conscience and intelligence, and 
 his effort to theorise the whole movement of 
 history, as the progressive self-revelation of God 
 to and in man, contrast both in method and in 
 matter with the teaching of the scholastic doctors, 
 who demanded implicit faith and obedience as the 
 first condition of the Christian life, and who viewed 
 the earthly existence of man simply as an exile in 
 a foreign land, and the history of the Church as 
 little more than the account of his rescue from it. 
 
 Looking at these and other related points, it may 
 fairly be said that modern thought and modern life 
 have shown themselves capable of taking up and 
 developing elements of early Christianity which were 
 almost lost sight of in the Middle Ages. Hence 
 it was not altogether without justification that the 
 Eeformers asserted that they were really restorers 
 of the Gospel of St. Paul and the Apostles. And 
 WR should not be without warrant in saying that 
 men are only now, in the present age, returning 
 
272 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 from the many mazes of an ecclesiastical religion 
 and a scholastic theology to the simplicity of the 
 original teaching of Jesus. At least, it can scarcely 
 be denied that we are now learning to connect 
 the worship of God and the service of man in a 
 more direct way than religion has ever connected 
 them, since the time when Christ first preached the 
 ' Galilean Gospel ' of the kingdom of heaven upon 
 earth. And I may add, perhaps, that modern 
 philosophy has brought us in sight of a theoretical 
 development of the practical idealism of Jesus, and 
 has shown us, in a way that was not possible in 
 any previous time, the rationality of an ideal or 
 optimistic system of thought, not built on the neglect 
 of experience and science, but on a deeper reflective 
 analysis of them both. 
 
 Now the only rational explanation of such a 
 return of the end upon the beginning is that which 
 is derived from the idea of development. We may 
 rightly enough speak of the simplicity of the gospel, 
 in so far as there is a transparent unity and self- 
 consistency in the words and deeds of Jesus, and 
 even in the Pauline theology developed out of them. 
 But this simplicity is not that of a single indivisible 
 element or a single abstract idea ; but rather that of 
 a fertile and comprehensive principle, in which an 
 immense and complex world of relations is gathered 
 to one centre, and so made luminous and transparent. 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 273 
 
 For, if there is any truth in the view given in the 
 previous lectures, Christianity is the product of a 
 cTvvTekeia tSiv aldvuiv, — the gathered and summed up 
 result of the whole previous process of religious de- 
 velopment; and, in particular, it is a new religion 
 which combines and transcends the objective and the 
 subjective types of religion, because it rises to a point 
 of view from which their different forms can be at 
 once appreciated and seen to be inadequate to the idea 
 of religion. But if this be the case, then the unity so 
 reached must be the complex unity of a seed which, 
 being in itself the result of a long process of 
 evolution, contains within it a great potentiality of 
 differences, and which can be developed farther only 
 as these differences are brought to light and over- 
 come. Hence, while in the Christian Church the 
 reconciling principle is never wholly lost sight of, 
 yet its history appears to be a reproduction of all 
 those conflicts of objective and subjective religion 
 which prepared the way for the advent of Christ- 
 ianity. These tendencies, indeed, can no longer 
 appear in the bare and exclusive forms, under 
 which they presented themselves in previous reli- 
 gions; but they often strain against the limit which 
 Christianity has imposed upon them. Thus the period 
 before the Eeformation may be described as predo- 
 minantly objective, and the period after it as pre- 
 dominantly subjective. In other words, the former 
 VOL. II. s 
 
274 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 tended to develop those elements in Christianity which 
 are kindred with polytheism, and the latter those 
 that are kindred with the Judaic monotheism. Or, 
 again, taking our stand upon the ethical maxim of 
 Christianity, "Die to live," we might say that, 
 though no part of the lesson was ever entirely lost 
 sight of, yet in all the earlier period the emphasis was 
 laid upon the word, 'Die,' and in the later period 
 upon the word, ' Live.' And we might connect 
 these different ways of characterising the two periods 
 by pointing out, that the predominantly objective 
 conceptions of the earlier period naturally led to a 
 religion and an ethics which carried to the furthest 
 point that is possible — without altogether abandon- 
 ing the principle of Christianity — the suppression 
 of the human and the natural ; while, just in 
 so far as men began to realise that the process 
 of the divine life was not merely an objective 
 process revealed to them, but a subjective process 
 realised in them, the ethics of modern life has become 
 a positive ethics, and its religion a religion of freedom. 
 In what remains of this lecture I must content 
 myself with a very general description of the first 
 of the two stages, as exhibiting one of the two 
 great elements or tendencies which are brought to 
 a unity in Christianity. 
 
 If the ' points of light ' in the world's history are 
 those in which the ideal and the real, as it were, join 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 275 
 
 hands over the gulf of their utmost antagonism, the 
 dawn of Christianity is undoubtedly the most import- 
 ant of these points. The calm faith in good as the 
 beginning and the end of all, and in a Father in 
 heaven realising His kingdom on earth, with which 
 Jesus Christ faced the world, is the high-water mark 
 of religious intuition. In his words we have the 
 most powerful, because the most tranquil assertion 
 of the ts beneath the ought to le — an assertion 
 made by one who certainly did not blink the evils 
 of the world, but saw into their inmost nature and 
 source. But such intuitive force of vision, which 
 sees the evil yet sees the good through it, and which 
 thus combines sanity with the highest idealism, is 
 hard to maintain. Even with the immediate disciples 
 of Jesus the ' is ' soon shrinks into a ' will be.' 
 Jesus Christ has gone, and his second advent, though 
 anticipated in the immediate future, is delayed. And 
 soon men, unable to see the signs of his presence in 
 the world, begin to say, 'Where is the promise of his 
 coming?''- The natural common-sense dualism of 
 heaven and earth begins to re-establish itself, and 
 faith becomes more and more a power of giving ' sub- 
 stance to things hoped for,' and less and less a 
 present realisation of God in the world. We may 
 compare this gradual lowering of the tone of faith, 
 as it wastes, or seems to waste, its energy against the 
 '2Peter iii. 3. 
 
276 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 resistance of men and things, to "Wordsworth's picture 
 in the Ode on Immortality, of the way in which man 
 gradually loses hold of the recollections of the 'heaven' 
 that ' lies about him in his infancy ' — 
 
 " Shades of the prison-house begin to close 
 Upon the growing boy .... 
 The Youth, who daily farther from the east 
 Must travel, still is Nature's priest, 
 An d by the vision splendid 
 Is on his way attended ; 
 At length the Man perceives it die away, 
 And fade into the light of common day." 
 
 The intense ardours of the early Church, which had 
 just lost its Lord, and instantly expected him to 
 return, pass into a longing aspiration for which the 
 end seems ever to become farther removed; till, finally, 
 the Church returns to the old lament of Jewish exile, 
 and comes to regard the world as a foreign country, 
 a place of weary travel and sorrow, where the soul 
 can never expect to find a home. " We are strangers 
 and sojourners as all our fathers were, and the patria, 
 the native land of the Christian, is beyond the grave:" 
 — this is the constant voice of the piety of the Middle 
 Ages. In an outward sense, the Church, during this 
 period of its history, is gaining continual victories over 
 the world. With Constantine, it wins the State as its 
 ally ; and though, in the period after Constantine, the 
 Eoman empire soon begins to crumble into ruins 
 before the attacks of the barbarians, yet the Church 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 277 
 
 seems only to be lifted up to more secure dominion by 
 the collapse of its only powerful rival for universal 
 dominion. Still, all this outward success never 
 seems to give it greater confidence in itself, or to 
 raise within it the hope of making the world its 
 own, and establishing the kingdom of heaven on 
 earth. On the contrary, every step towards outward 
 victory seems to make it more hopeless of any real 
 union of the spirit of Christianity with the secular 
 life and the worldly interests of man. And, if the 
 belief in the possibility of a reconciliation of the 
 natural and the spiritual cannot altogether be lost — 
 since such a belief is of the very essence of Christ- 
 ianity — yet any attempt to reconcile the two on 
 this side of the grave is regarded as involving an 
 unworthy compromise. Practically and immediately) 
 the Church's view of the world is pessimistic, though' 
 it holds in reserve an optimism which deprives sorrow 
 of almost all its bitterness. 
 
 That in this way the greatest effort that practical 
 idealism has ever made to blend together the higher 
 and the lower elements in human existence, should 
 result in a dualism which touches the border of 
 Manichaeism ; that Christianity, whose fundamental 
 thought is the union of the divine and the human, 
 should lead to disunion and antagonism in every 
 sphere of man's life, theoretical and practical, — should 
 set faith against reason, theology against science and 
 
278 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 philosophy, the Church against the world, the secular 
 against the religious life, — seems at first to involve an 
 almost insoluble problem. But we find it not difficult 
 to solve, when we consider, on the one hand, the 
 influences to which the Christian Church in its history 
 was subjected, and, on the other hand, the nature of 
 the principle of Christianity itself and the necessary 
 order of the development of the different elements 
 involved in it. 
 
 Looking at it in the former of these aspects, we can 
 see that there were two great influences, both of which 
 were continually acting upon the Christian faith in 
 the early stages of its development, and both of which 
 worked in the direction of dualism. These were the 
 Judaic view of the division between God and His 
 creatures, and the Platonic or Neoplatonic conception 
 of the opposition of the ideal to the material world. 
 Already, at the very beginning of the Christian era, 
 these two influences had been fused together by the 
 Alexandrian school of Philo, who read Platonism into 
 the Old Testament, and, on the other hand, reinforced 
 the Platonic antithesis of the intelligible to the sen- 
 sible, by the Jewish conception of the opposition of the 
 Creator to all the things He has made. Christianity 
 had brought the idea of reconciliation into the atmo- 
 sphere of a dualistic theosophy, in whose language it 
 had to express and develop its doctrines; and it was 
 impossible that the expression should not react on the 
 
CREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 279 
 
 ideas expressed. Even in St. Paul's antithetic method 
 of exhibiting his thought, by setting flesh and spirit, the 
 natural and the spiritual, the Law and the Gospel, in 
 contrast with each other, we are sensible of a certain 
 conflict between the matter and the form in which it 
 is presented. The lines of division seem to be so 
 firmly drawn, that the unity of the terms is not 
 wholly recovered; though St. Paul does attempt to 
 recover it by means of the idea of a providential 
 process of history, in which the higher is viewed as 
 being developed out of the lower. Thus the natural 
 is declared to be the seed out of which the spiritual 
 springs; and the Law is exhibited not as a rival but 
 as a necessary preparation for the Gospel. In the 
 subsequent development of doctrine, however, this 
 reconciling thought is all but lost. The Christian 
 Gnostics adopted and even exaggerated the Platonic 
 idea of the impurity of matter ; and, as a necessary 
 consequence, they were obliged to construe the 
 Christian reconciliation of man with God, not as a 
 transformation of the natural by the spiritual, but 
 as the rescue of the spiritual part, or the spiritual 
 class, of men out of the darkness and slavery of the 
 natural world. In their view, therefore, Christ, the 
 deliverer, was a purely spiritual being, who made a 
 descent into the region of matter, and took on him 
 the semblance of humanity, that he might annul 
 the power of sense and matter over all those who 
 
280 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 had in them anything kindred with the divine. 
 This Gnostic theory, indeed, was, after a severe 
 struggle, rejected and condemned as heretical. The 
 Church succeeded in repelling the Docetic heresy, and 
 in asserting against it the reality of Christ's humanity. 
 But while it did so, it yet became infected with the 
 spirit of the doctrine it rejected, so as still farther to 
 divide Christ from all other men, and to recall the 
 Jewish idea of the transcendence of God. Christ 
 was raised into even closer union with the divine, 
 but not in such a way as to ' draw all men after him.' 
 Theology, as it developed, became changed into a 
 transcendent theory of the inner nature of God, and 
 ceased to be one with philosophy. For philosophy, in 
 its endeavour to reach a first principle, is not seeking 
 to realise the idea of a Being who is removed from 
 all experience, but simply to determine the nature of 
 that principle of unity which is presupposed in all our 
 consciousness of the world without and of the self 
 within us. But the theology of the fourth and fifth 
 centuries did not seek such an ultimate explanation 
 of the experience of man ; rather, like N"eoplatonism, 
 it devoted itself to the definition of God as a Being 
 who is beyond the reach alike of sense and of intel- 
 ligence, and who is revealed, if He can be said to be 
 revealed to us at all, entirely as a fact presented db 
 extra. Hence also the acceptance of such a revelation 
 must be purely a matter of faith — under which word 
 
GREEK AND LA TIN CHRISTIANITY. 281 
 
 is ambiguously indicated a process which is either 
 Taelow or above, reason — below it, in so far as it is the 
 reception of an external tradition ^rom the hands of 
 the Church ; above it, in so far as this external 
 reception is supposed to lead to an immediate spiritual 
 appropriation of the truth, of which no rational ex- 
 planation can be given. The theology of the Church 
 thus carries the content of Christianity out of the 
 region of reason and experience, and exhibits the con- 
 nexion of its elements as if it were a relation of 
 Platonic, or rather Neoplatonic ideas, in a region 
 altogether separated from the natural world — a region 
 into which man can rise only by the renunciation of 
 all the light of experience and even of thought. The 
 effect of this attitude of spirit might be put other- 
 wise by saying that, in formulating its theology, the 
 Church, indeed, expressed in the abstract the Christian 
 view of the union of the spiritual with the natural, 
 of the divine with the human ; but that it separated 
 the abstract idea so determined, from any immediate 
 application to human life and to the world in which 
 man actually lives. For to give a theory of the 
 differences in the nature of the Divine Being ab 
 intra, which is not at the same time recognised as 
 a theory of his relations to the world, is as if one 
 should try to explain a principle without any refer- 
 ence to that of which it is the principle. In this way, 
 the very doctrine of unity and reconciliation becomes 
 
282 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 itself the parent of a new dualism ; and the revela- 
 tion of God, as reconciling the world to Himself, is made 
 into a mystery, which, as it cannot itself be rationally 
 explained, cannot cast light upon anything else. 
 
 This tendency to make the Gospel into a mystery, 
 which has to be received on authority by an implicit 
 or uncritical faith, was greatly exaggerated by the 
 fall of the Eoman Empire under the attacks of the 
 uncivilised races who invaded it. These races were 
 easily converted ; for the vague superstitions, in which 
 they had previously believed, could offer no serious 
 resistance to the systematic spiritualism and organised 
 ritual of the Church. But to the barbarians con- 
 version meant an absolute intellectual surrender, in 
 which they "burnt what they had adored, and adored 
 what they had burnt." It had not been so with the 
 earliest recipients of the Christian faith. The Greeks 
 and the Eomans, when they were converted, were not 
 overpowered and enslaved by the new religion. For, 
 although Christianity might transform their lives, they 
 were not previously altogether strangers to the things 
 of the spiritual world; nor could they receive the 
 teaching of the Church without bringing it into 
 relation with the elements of their previous cul- 
 ture. It, therefore, necessarily awakened in their 
 minds many questions, which they tried to answer 
 by means of the philosophical ideas which they 
 brought with them. It was, indeed, just this 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 283 
 
 effort of theirs to bring the new matter under 
 the old forms of thought, which gave rise to the 
 development of Christian doctrine in the first five 
 centuries. After this period, however, all such de- 
 velopment ceases. The barbarous tribes, who had 
 invaded and in great measure conquered the empire, 
 brought with them no system of ideas which they 
 could compare with the new light presented to them 
 by the Church. They had to receive what was set 
 before them in implicit faith, if they received it at all. 
 Their rude spirits could obey or rebel, but they could 
 not criticise. Hence their reactive influence upon the \ 
 doctrine, in the first instance at least, was entirely in , 
 the direction of externalising it, and depriving it still 
 farther of any relation to the life and experience of 
 man. In fact, for them the speculative side of 
 Christian doctrine could scarcely be said to exist: 
 it was thought of, rather, as a special secret of the 
 clergy with which the laity had little or nothing to do. 
 And even the clergy themselves learned more and 
 more to treat it, not as a key to the difficulties of 
 life, but simply as news of another world which was 
 altogether separated from this, and which nothing in 
 this world could help them to understand. So much 1 
 was this the case, that when at last, in the rise of; 
 Scholastic Philosophy, awakening intelligence began 
 to react on the data of faith, it treated these data 
 wholly as externally given facts, which thought might 
 
284 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 be allowed to arrange and systematise, but which it 
 could in nowise criticise or explain. The premises were 
 supposed to be entirely derived from an external 
 tradition, and all that was left for the intelligence 
 was to accept them, and deduce conclusions from them. 
 It was natural that this tendency to make theology 
 a mystery should go along with a development of 
 morality in a negative or ascetic direction. For, just 
 in proportion as the divine is separated from the 
 human, and the Christian conception of their unity 
 loses its direct relation to life, salvation gets to be 
 conceived as a deliverance of man from the world, 
 and not as a deliverance of the world from itself, 
 or as the realisation of the divine spirit in it. 
 The idea that the natural is essentially impure, and 
 that the ideal life is, so far as possible, to escape from 
 it, is the necessary result of a religious doctrine that 
 breaks the bond between God and His creatures. 
 And another inevitable result is the creation of a 
 double morality, for the world and the Church re- 
 spectively — a lower morality for those who are not 
 able to break away from the impure ties of earthly 
 affection, and a higher morality for those who are 
 capable of such a sacrifice. Thus the different 
 classes in the social body, and even the different 
 elements in the nature of the individual man, 
 were set in opposition to each other, and that 
 in the name of the very doctrine of reconciliation. 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 285 
 
 The religion that first proclaimed the essential 
 equality of men, as all alike capable of becoming 
 kings and priests unto God, was turned into the 
 support of a powerful ecclesiastical aristocracy, which 
 held in its own hands the keys of the kingdom of 
 heaven, and kept for itself the sole right to scrutinise 
 its mysteries, and to enjoy its highest spiritual con- 
 solations. The Gospel ceased to be preached as the 
 opening up of truth which everyone could appreciate 
 and test by his own inner experience, and became 
 like news of a far country given to those who 
 could not visit it and verify the statements made to 
 them. Divine service ceased to be the expression 
 of the religious life of the people, and became an 
 (ypus operatum performed by the priest for the laity. 
 And even for the clergy themselves, whose life was 
 supposed to become more pure, only because they had 
 more thoroughly mortified nature in themselves, the 
 superiority thus gained was robbed of its value ; for 
 they were enslaved in will and intelligence in virtue 
 of the same principle which gave them the right 
 to enslave others. Their life in this world was 
 regarded as higher than that of others, only because 
 they were more completely given up to the task 
 of preparing for another world ; only because they 
 had, so to speak, made once for all the 'grand 
 renunciation,' and did not wait to be forced to 
 surrender their life bit by bit. Thus they, like 
 
286 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 others, had to live in preparation not in realisa- 
 tion ; in hope and aspiration not in fruition. It 
 is not, perhaps, too much to say with Hegel that 
 throughout the Middle Ages the world of the living 
 was a mere forecourt or anteroom to the greater world 
 of the dead, and that the worth of all human things, 
 both in the knowledge and the use of them, was 
 estimated entirely by their reference to that other 
 world. Dante's Divine Comedy, in which the life of 
 man is represented only under the figure of a pilgrim- 
 age through Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, was the 
 natural expression of the spirit of an age which could 
 see the great interests of life in their true proportion, 
 only when it viewed them as refracted back, in an 
 idealised and magnified image, from another world. 
 In Goethe's allegorical Tale we are told that the 
 giant shadow, who represents superstition, or a 
 religion with which much superstition is mingled, 
 had power in the hour of twilight to lift material 
 objects with his spectral hands. The Middle Age 
 was, as it were, the twilight hour of the world's 
 history, in which the vision of another world was 
 more powerful to move the spirit of man than all 
 the immediate interests of his life on earth. 
 
 Yet, while all this is true, we must remember 
 that there is a limit to its truth. Dualism and 
 asceticism, a worship of outward ceremony, and a 
 creed which took the form of a mystery accepted 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 2%*7 
 
 in implicit faith, — all these things might establish 
 themselves under the shadow of Christianity, but 
 under that shadow they could not but have their 
 results modified and controlled by a higher principle. 
 It was possible to give a dualistic form to a religion 
 whose central idea was reconciliation, but it was 
 inevitable that the matter should always be reacting 
 against the form, and should ultimately prevail 
 over it. The idea of a divine humanity may be 
 turned into a mystery, but it is really and in its 
 essence a revelation that puts an end to all 
 mystery ; for it involves that man has within him 
 the divine principle, in relation to which all things 
 must ultimately be explained.-^ Hence the inner 
 significance of the Christian doctrine was in con- 
 flict with the mode of its reception in implicit 
 faith. As it contained in itself the very principle of 
 freedom, it must ere long awake those who accepted 
 it to scrutinise its own claims, and to cast off 
 the authority of its teachers. To the " I believe " of 
 Christian antiquity, the Scholastic Philosophy was 
 obliged to add, "in order that I may understand"; and 
 understanding, when once awakened, could not confine 
 
 1 " The acknowledgment of God in Christ, 
 Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee 
 All questions in the earth and out of it, 
 And has so far advanced thee to be wise." 
 
 Browning's Death in the Desert. 
 
288 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 itself to a process of reasoning from given premises, 
 without any examination of the premises themselves. 
 
 Again, however far the Church went in the separa- 
 tion of the natural and the spiritual, the idea that the 
 division could, and, indeed, must be healed, was always 
 kept in reserve; and the negative process of abstrac- 
 tion and asceticism was always regarded as leading to 
 a higher positive. Thus, even in the period when the 
 Church was yielding most to the tendency to sepa- 
 rate Christ from all other men, it recoiled against 
 the Docetism that reduced his human life to a 
 semblance ; and St. Augustine, who of all the 
 Fathers of the Church went farthest in the direc- 
 tion of pessimism and asceticism, yet utterly re- 
 jected the doctrine that matter, or any other sub- 
 stantial existence, is essentially evil, and maintained 
 that evil is to be regarded only as a defect or 
 negative accident which cannot subsist by itself. 
 In other words, however deep and dark in his eyes 
 were the antagonisms of life — and few have gone 
 so far to fathom them as St. Augustine — he could 
 not, as a Christian, admit that they are incapable 
 of reconciliation. He could not believe in the sub- 
 stantiality of evil, but must hold that there is a 
 point of view from which it disappears, or appears 
 only as an instrument, or transitionary stage to 
 higher good. And this doctrine, when fully de- 
 veloped, must carry with it the consequence that 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 289 
 
 there is no element in nature — no material principle 
 in the outward world, and no power of sense or 
 passion within man — which has to be crushed or 
 expelled, and none even which cannot be converted 
 into an organ of good. E^ature and spirit are not 
 absolute foes but predestined friends, whose existence 
 must remain incomplete until atonement has been 
 made between them. The utmost dualistic tendency, 
 which is possible within Christian limits, can only 
 delay the moment of reconciliation. But, however 
 the process of purification, through which sense and 
 passion must go, may be intensified and lengthened, 
 the end must be that natural affection should be- 
 come worthy to be the organ and expression of 
 spiritual life. The very superstitions of the Church, 
 its Mariolatry and Saint-worship, point in this direc- 
 tion. For they came in only to bridge over the gulf 
 between the human and the .divine, which was no 
 longer filled by the idealised Christ of theology. 
 
 It is this persistent faith in a unity beyond the 
 difference, even when the difference is stretched to 
 the utmost, that gives to the ascetic piety of 
 mediaeval Catholicism that peculiar tone of tender- 
 ness and gentleness, that penetrating charm and 
 attraction, whereby sorrow itself is made beautiful, 
 and the fountain of tears is turned into a mirror 
 of the divine image. Asceticism based on dualism 
 is of necessity harsh and unlovely, and it is apt 
 VOL. II. T 
 
290 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 to become as merciless to others as it is to itself. 
 But the asceticism that renounces nature in order 
 to purify it, that gives up father and mother and 
 wife and child, and mortifies all the natural affec- 
 tions of which they are the objects, in order that 
 it may refine away their dross, and win them all 
 back again on a higher level — such asceticism has 
 a spirit of love pervading it which softens its stern- 
 ness, removes everything repellent and ungracious, 
 and so produces what we might call the purest 
 quintessence of human feeling. Thus, in the Be 
 Imitatione Christi we find the utmost renunciation 
 of self, the deepest prostration of humility, the most 
 complete abandonment of every earthly aim and 
 ambition, without any of the crudity and bitterness 
 of Stoicism. And the secret of the difference is that 
 the saint, while he is deeply conscious of suffering 
 and evil in himself and in the world, yet always 
 sees beyond both, and despairs of nothing which 
 he renounces. He has no internecine feud with 
 nature : he believes that she can and will be puri- 
 fied and reconciled. But he is hard to convince 
 that anywhere on earth she has been purified 
 enough to make reconciliation possible ; and he 
 always listens to her voice with doubt and fear, 
 lest she should turn out to be an enemy in dis- 
 guise. If, however, he could only be once assured 
 that nature has been refined in the furnace, and that 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 291 
 
 all the dross of her selfishness has been purged 
 away, he would accept her voice as the voice of 
 God Himself. 
 
 One other remark in the same direction may be 
 added. What is called mysticism is the great means 
 whereby a religious principle supplements the defects 
 of its own imperfect development, or anticipates 
 the results of a more advanced stage than it 
 has yet attained. It is the form under which 
 feeling discounts the future gains of thought. It is 
 the natural corrective of a rationalistic or dogmatic 
 system, which draws hard lines of division between 
 God and man, between spirit and nature, between 
 finite and infinite. Hence we often find that 
 writers who, in their professed theology, are most 
 zealous to maintain rigidly such defining lines of 
 doctrine, forget them altogether in their devotional 
 utterances. Under the pressure of religious emotion, 
 they disregard all the limitations of their theories, 
 and rise to a region in which the division between 
 God and man becomes, as it were, transparent. 
 Now, this tendency could not fail to show itself 
 with special force under a religion like Christianity,! 
 whose first and last word is the unity or reconcilia- 
 tion of the human and the divine. However far, 
 under such a religion, the opposition of the terms 
 may be stretched, pious feeling is always able to 
 overreach it, and to anticipate a solution of the 
 
292 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 difficulty which the logic of the time cannot yet 
 admit. In this way in all ages of its history, 
 but particularly in the age in which the dualistic 
 tendency prevailed most completely, the Christian 
 Church was able to escape from its own definitions 
 into a region of inner experience, in which love 
 became its own law. Theology could not restrict 
 the religious life, or hinder the secret movement of 
 the heart from breaking down barriers it had so 
 carefully reared. N"ay, we may even say that 
 religious feeling, in this sphere, secured for itself a 
 kind of chartered liberty to rise above all such 
 restraints, however carefully they were otherwise 
 maintained. Dante, who in this respect follows the 
 best teaching of the Church, very often indicates 
 that there is a point at which finite limits fall away; 
 and the soul, rising beyond all the definite thought 
 of the understanding, becomes so identified with its 
 object that no intervening shadow is left. His last 
 words in the Paradiso tell us how he prayed to 
 see the inmost truth of the union of the human 
 and the divine. And a vision was granted to him, 
 of three coequal circles of light, which reflected each 
 other, and within one of which there was a figure as 
 of a man ; but when he tried to discern how these 
 forms constituted so perfect a unity, his imagina- 
 tion exhausted itself in vain : — 
 
 " No wings were mine to compass such a flight ; 
 
GREEK AND LATIN CHRISTIANITY. 293 
 
 Till, in a lightning stroke from God, on me 
 The consummation of my longing came. 
 Here all the powers of soaring phantasy 
 Fainted within me : only this I knew 
 That, like a wheel that neither hastes nor rests, 
 My will revolved under the sway of Love, 
 The Love that moves the sun and every star." 
 
 Thus devout feeling, embracing its object and losing 
 itself therein, develops an infinite fulness of life 
 which it is totally unable to measure or to express. 
 After all that has been said it is only going 
 a step farther to recognise that the dualistic form 
 of doctrine and morality, which, in one point of 
 view, seems to be imposed on Christianity from with- 
 out, may, in another point of view, be regarded as 
 a necessary stage in the development of the Christian 
 idea. Por, if we take that idea in its simplest 
 moral meaning, as expressed in the maxim, "die to 
 live," it involves that the higher positive form of 
 spiritual life is reached only through the lower 
 negative form of it ; or, in other words, that the 
 lesson of self-renunciation must be fully learnt ere 
 the lesson of self-realisation can be understood in 
 its proper sense. Christianity casts man down in 
 order to raise him up; it seeks to reduce him 
 to that utter surrender of self to God which is 
 necessary ere the divine can manifest itself in 
 him. It was the hard task of the early Christian 
 centuries to set the infinite above and before the 
 
294 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 finite, to lay the universal basis of modern civilisa- 
 tion, and to secure it by the most persistent and, 
 we might even say, merciless application of the idea 
 of renunciation to every department of thought and 
 life. To build up a new order on the basis thus 
 secured, and to realise, both in knowledge and in 
 action, the fuller life which in the Middle Ages 
 was postponed to another world, is the task of the 
 modem time. But success could not attend it in 
 this task — not even the imperfect measure of success 
 which it has as yet attained — but for the long 
 discipline of Greek and Latin Christianity. 
 
LECTURE TWELFTH. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTIANITY AFTER THE 
 REFORMATION. 
 
 Protestantism as a Subjective Religious Movement — Luther and 
 St. Paul — The Protestant Oospel of Freedom — Its One-sidedness 
 — The Extreme of Subjectivity in Rousseaw—The Reformation 
 a Compromise between two Principles — Protestant Tendency 
 to get rid of the Objective Element — The Conflict with the Oppo- 
 site Principle in Roman Catholicism — That the Movement of 
 Recent Times is toward a Reconciliation of the two Great Tend- 
 encies of Religion — Hindrances and Aids to Faith in the Present 
 Day. 
 
 In the last lecture I pointed out some of the 
 reasons why Christianity in its earlier development 
 was drawn away, as it were, from its centre to 
 the one-sided expression of one of the elements 
 involved in it apart from the other. This was 
 an inevitable consequence of the riches and com- 
 plexity of its principle. For, as we have seen, 
 Christianity first expressed the religious idea in its 
 own form, as the consciousness of a unity which 
 transcends that opposition of object and subject, of 
 
296 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 real and ideal, which had prevailed in the earlier 
 history of religion. It revealed God as God, i.e. 
 not as an absolute substance which underlies all 
 objective existence, nor as a subject who stands 
 above and apart from all His creatures, but as 
 a Divine Spirit, who, through the whole process 
 of nature and the history of man, is reconciling 
 the world to Himself. Christianity thus took up 
 into itself all the religious life of humanity that 
 existed before, brought it to a higher unity, and 
 started it on a new course of development. But, 
 just because of the depth and comprehensiveness of 
 this thought, which was embodied in the words and 
 life of Jesus, it could only unfold its meaning 
 gradually, in the long struggle of the Church with 
 Ihe world and with itself. For a religious principle 
 is not something which can once for all be stated 
 in a proposition, and seen in all its consequences. 
 It is a seed which works secretly in the minds of 
 those who receive it, and gradually transforms their 
 life and thought, till ultimately, in the long course 
 of years, it produces results which were present to 
 none of those who first accepted it. 
 
 Now in this development, as I have indicated, 
 there is a certain alternation which brings into 
 prominence first one, and then the other, of the 
 elements combined in Christianity. For, just be- 
 cause Christianity has in it all the elements of 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 297 
 
 earlier religions, its development repeats in a new ,. 
 way the whole previous movement of religious his- 
 tory. It passes through a phase in which it be- 
 comes — so far as it can do so without ceasing to 
 be a spiritual religion — the worship of an external 
 divine power, revealed in a creed and a law received 
 on authority. And then, by a recoil which reproduces 
 the movement that gave birth to subjective religion, 
 it revolts against the order' of life and thought it 
 had itself created, and the external authority it had 
 itself set up ; and it appeals to the inward voice of 
 the reason and conscience of the individual, as the 
 sole authority to which he owes unconditional sub- 
 mission. It revives in an intensified form the 
 tendency of later Judaism to oppose the ideal to 
 the real, and to turn away from a world lying 
 under the power of evil, that it may reserve a 
 place for freedom and for God within the soul. 
 Yet, in all this swaying from side to side, to the 
 extreme of objectivity and the extreme of subjec- 
 tivity, it never quite ceases to be under the control 
 of the Christian idea of reconciliation ; and the last 
 result of the process — a result which is manifested in 
 the life and thought of the present day — is to bring 
 this idea once more to the front, and to express and 
 realise it in a more decisive and comprehensive 
 way than it has ever been expressed and realised 
 before. The best literature of the present time — its 
 
298 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 highest poetry and philosophy — is thus a reflective 
 reproduction of the diilerent elements of the idea 
 which, in an intuitive and individualised form, 
 was first expressed in the words and works of the 
 founder of Christianity. 
 
 This will be more clearly seen if we consider the 
 main phases in the movement of modern thought since 
 the Eeformation. The Eeformation claimed to be, 
 and in one respect it may be admitted to have been, 
 nothing less than a republication of Christianity. 
 It was a return from the transcendental theology, 
 the dualistic morality, the despotic organisation, and 
 the externally determined faith of the Middle Ages, 
 to the simplicity and directness of the first Chris- 
 tian appeal to the spirit of man — an appeal made 
 in the name of a doctrine which liberated both his 
 intelligence and his will. It once more brought 
 near to man that great goal of Christian hope — the 
 realisation of a kingdom of heaven upon earth — a 
 goal which had been all but lost sight of in the 
 " other-worldliness " of mediaeval religion. It broke 
 through the hard walls of division between the 
 secular and the sacred, the world and the Church, 
 which mediaeval thought had built up ; and, against 
 the exclusive claims of the clergy, it maintained 
 the universal priesthood of all Christians. In oppo- 
 sition to the doctrine that spiritual religion is the 
 special privilege of ascetics, it asserted that men could 
 
AFTER THE REFORM A TION. 299 
 
 live the highest life without breaking away from any 
 of the secular relations, and without removing them- 
 selves from any of the ordinary conditions of secular 
 existence. It even asserted that the duties of the 
 family and the State are the necessary forms in 
 which that life must express itself. St. Paul, whose 
 deepest teaching had become lost or obscured during 
 the long centuries in which the successors of the 
 rival apostle, St. Peter, had turned Christianity into 
 an external discipline of life and thought, became 
 again the great prophet of religion. And, indeed, 
 there is no little analogy between the relation of 
 the Pauline Gospel to the Jewish Law, and the 
 relation of Protestantism to Latin Catholicism. St. 
 Paul regarded Judaism as a system of religious tute- 
 lage, which had its main value in disturbing the 
 security of the natural man ; in awaking him to 
 a sense of the demands of the divine law, and of his 
 own incapacity to fulfil them ; and so in preparing 
 him to welcome a gospel that should free him from 
 the weight of conscious guilt, and restore the broken 
 unity of his life. In like manner, the long discipline 
 of Latin Christianity might have been regarded by 
 Luther, as working out in the experience of Christ- 
 endom that systematic negation of nature which 
 was necessary as a preparation for its new birth 
 out of spirit. Luther, indeed, wanted the philo- 
 sophic spirit which enabled St. Paul to recognise 
 
300 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 that the imperfect system of the past was itself 
 necessary to prepare the way for the higher 
 gospel of the present. But he saw the general 
 analogy between his own position and that of his 
 great predecessor, who, by a decisive stroke, had 
 freed Christianity from the trammels of Judaism, 
 and made it a universal religion. And he felt it 
 to be his own mission to republish the Pauline 
 gospel — that God was revealed in the man Christ 
 Jesus, and that it is the great du,ty of men still 
 further to reveal Him in all their relations with 
 each other ; or, in St. Paul's own language,'^ to " fill 
 up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" for 
 the salvation of mankind. Luther, therefore, regarded 
 the reign of Latin Catholicism as a long postpone- 
 ment of the realisation of Christianity, as a useless 
 revival of the Law which had been superseded by 
 Christ ; and he proclaimed the second advent of the 
 religion of freedom and spirit, as the end of man's 
 long bondage to the letter of external observance. 
 Thus the history of modern Eixrope, and especially 
 of Protestant nations, begins on what we may call 
 a basis of spiritual universality, with a conscious- 
 ness of the essential equality of men in their equal 
 nearness to God; with a faith that there is nothing 
 
 1 If the Epistle to the Colossians is St. Paul's. At any rate 
 the idea is found also in Phil. iii. 10, "The fellowship of his 
 sufferings." Cf. 2 Cor. i. 5. 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 301 
 
 common or unclean in the life of man or the life of 
 nature ; and with a vivid impulse by the free activity 
 of thought and will to discover and to realise the 
 divine idea in the world. A weight was thus lifted 
 from the soul, which all through the Middle Ages 
 had oppressed and hampered it. The universe had 
 again become to man his Father's house ; and " what 
 many prophets and righteous men " had sought to 
 know and to realise, seemed once more to be brought 
 within the reach of alL The kingdom of heaven 
 was at hand, nay, it was actually present, and 
 men did not need to wait for another life to be 
 reconciled to themselves and to God. 
 
 The age of the Eeformation was thus an age of 
 Benaissance. It was an age of renewed faith in 
 God and man, which showed itself not only in 
 religion, but also in science and in political life. 
 Luther's confidence in the results of bringing the 
 soul of the individual into direct contact with the 
 Bible, and Bacon's mighty anticipations of the future 
 of science when man should come face to face 
 with nature, ultimately spring from the same source ; 
 and to it we have also to attribute the fresh out- 
 burst of political life in the leading peoples of 
 Europe, and the first appearance among them of 
 distinctly national literatures. 
 
 While, however, the Eeformation was a new pro- 
 clamation of the gospel of freedom, there is another 
 
302 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 aspect of the movement in which it appears less 
 satisfactory. There is a natural illusion by which 
 every great crisis in ^ the development of man seems, 
 to those who experience it, to bring the ultimate 
 goal of human endeavour close to them and even to 
 put it within their grasp. In such times there is a 
 lifting of the spirit which anticipates the slow move- 
 ment of the years, and turns all men into idealists 
 and optimists, for whom hindrances have almost 
 ceased to exist. These visions of man's better 
 moments are not mere illusions ; they may even be 
 said, in the language of Wordsworth, to be " the 
 light of all his seeing " ; but they lift man as it 
 were out of the slow time-process of his existence, 
 and make him, by anticipation, grasp at that 
 which can become his only as the fruit of centuries 
 of development. When, however, the crisis has 
 gone by — when man relapses into his ordinary 
 consciousness of the struggle of life, and comes 
 under the pressure of the wants and exigencies 
 of the day and the hour — they are apt to seem to 
 be nothing but dreams that have turned out to be 
 ' too good to be true.' The fact is that, though 
 such visions do, indeed, contain the fruitful germs 
 of the future, their generality at first hides their 
 imperfection, and it is only when they come to be 
 worked out that this defect becomes visible. The 
 ideal, whenever it begins to be realised, has to 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 303 
 
 encounter obstructions that seem to show its un- 
 reality ; but what its failure to overcome these bin-/ 
 drances really shows is, that it is not yet 'good; 
 enough to be true.' 
 
 The Eeformation was defective, both in itself and 
 as a development of the principle of Christianity, 
 because it over-emphasised the subjective aspect of 
 that principle. The name Protestantism indicates 
 at once the strength and the weakness of the 
 movement. If the defect of the mediaeval Church 
 was that it repeated — in so far as was possible with- 
 out breaking altogether with the fundamental idea of 
 Christianity — the characteristics of objective religion, 
 its dogmatism and superstition, its externality of wor- 
 ship, and its enslavement of the intellect and the will 
 of man ; in Protestantism we have a repetition of 
 the same movement of revolt against such a system, 
 the same recoil upon the subject, and the same 
 protest against immediate reality in the interest of an 
 ideal of the soul, which found their highest expres- 
 sion in the later religion of the Jews. Protestantism 
 shows in its best days the same spiritual elevation, 
 the same hostility to rites and ceremonies, and the 
 same tendency to set aside every law or authority 
 that puts itself between the soul of the individual 
 and God, which are characteristic of the great pro- 
 phets of Israel. In Luther and Calvin and Knox, 
 in Cromwell and William the Silent, it awakens 
 
304 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the same sternness of moral indignation, and the 
 same inflexible faith in a God of Justice — who is 
 not yet revealed, but who will soon reveal Himself — ■ 
 which we find in Isaiah and Jeremiah. Almost all 
 the great deeds of Protestant nations in the two 
 centuries following the Keformation — the early 
 struggles of the German Protestants, the revolt of the 
 Netherlands, the parliamentary and military contests 
 of the Commonwealth in England, the resistance of 
 the Covenanters in Scotland, and the founding of the 
 New England colonies — are due to the same spirit 
 of indignation against every form of oppression and 
 injustice, especially when they touch the religious life 
 of the individual, which shows itself in the later 
 history of Israel. And it is a significant fact that 
 the main agents in these struggles showed a 
 tendency to recur to the teaching of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and even to exalt it at the expense of the 
 New. In short, just as the Christianity of the 
 mediaeval Church was a paganised Christianity, a 
 Christianity which had many of the characteristic 
 merits and defects of Polytheism, so it may also be 
 fairly said that the Christianity of the early Pro- 
 testants was a Judaised Christianity, which had many 
 of the characteristic merits and defects of the Mono- 
 theism of Israel. 
 
 It may be added that as, in its farther de- 
 velopment, Judaism passes from the militant faith 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 305 
 
 in Jehovah which inspires its earlier history, to 
 the doubts of Job and the despair of Ecelesiastes, 
 and from these to the pessimistic belief that the 
 world is given over to an evil power, which could 
 only be overthrown by a Messianic miracle; so it 
 was also in the development of Protestantism. The 
 tendency to set the inward against the outward, 
 which manifested itself at the Eeformation, could not 
 stop short till it had reached the point at which 
 the subjective life of the individual altogether isolates 
 itself from objective interests, and thus empties itself 
 of all content. The soul that has rebelled against 
 all external limitations, soon begins to turn its 
 weapons against itself. The Judaistic Christianity 
 of Calvin is the parent of the sentimental Deism of 
 another great citizen of Geneva, Eousseau, who 
 carried the subjectivity of Protestantism farther 
 perhaps than any other writer. Eousseau fathomed 
 the agonies of a diseased self-consciousness, and 
 discovered that 'he whose eye is ever on himself, 
 doth look on one ' who is, if not ' the least,' yet 
 the most miserable of God's creatures. N'o one 
 ever, painted with more force than he the torture 
 of a mind which exhausts all its energies in 
 preying upon itself, conscious at once of an infinite 
 hunger and of entire spiritual emptiness, while yet 
 it is unable to take one step to release itself 
 from the prison-house it has built up around itself 
 
 VOL. II. u 
 
306 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 Yet the same disease of subjectivity, with its dis- 
 illusionment and its longing for illusion, its world- 
 weariness, and its alternate self-exaltation and self- 
 contempt, has been a frequent theme of modern poetry 
 and fiction.^ In fact, this disease of introspection 
 and self-contemplation, which puts the exaggerated 
 image of self between the individual and the world, 
 between the individual and his fellowmen, and even 
 between the individual and God, is the great plague 
 of our spiritual life, from which the modern world is 
 only gradually recovering. Our fathers have eaten 
 these sour grapes, and our teeth are still set on 
 edge. And it may safely be said that there is 
 no considerable writer, literary or philosophical, who 
 has not spent much of his work in painting or 
 analysing it: some being themselves its victims, like 
 Byron and Eousseau, like S^nancour or Tourgenieff; 
 others like Kant and Hegel, like Goethe and Words- 
 worth and Garlyle, pointing with more or less clear- 
 ness and deiiniteness to the cure. For in spiritual 
 diseases, at least, it is true that none can find the 
 cure who has not himself suffered, and that the 
 physician must begin by healing himself. 
 
 'And even Eousseau was partly anticipated by tliat great 
 Christian pessimist, Pascal, who first entered upon that fatal 
 and deceptive path followed by many since his day, of seeking 
 to prove the truth of Christianity by the aid of the extreme 
 result of scepticism, and so to base faith in God upon distrust 
 of humanity. 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 307 
 
 Now, what was the defect of Protestantism which 
 thus made it the parent of a self-destructive indi- 
 vidualism ? It was obviously that it tended not 
 only to exalt the inner at the expense of the outer 
 life, but even to sever the former from the latter. 
 Its tendency was to assert that the kingdom of 
 heaven is within us, in the sense that it is not 
 without us ; and thus to isolate the individual from 
 the world at the same time that it brought him near 
 to God. This tendency, indeed, at first did not 
 show its full effects ; for the leading reformers were 
 deeply penetrated with the spirit and traditions of 
 the Latin Church, and they only challenged its 
 doctrine and ritual so far as was necessary in order 
 to find space for the assertion of the immediate rela- 
 tion of the individual soul to God. In spite of 
 their opposition to Latin Catholicism, therefore, the 
 Protestants took over, as if by inheritance, most of 
 the doctrines and a large part of the practical order 
 of life and worship, which had been elaborated by 
 the Greek and Latin churches. Without any con- 
 sciousness of inconsistency, they solved the difficulties 
 of the new course on which they were entering by 
 a compromise ; and they were content, when they had 
 once asserted the principle of liberty, to accept 
 almost without question the main lines of a dog- 
 matic tradition which rested on the authority of 
 the Church, hiding from themselves what they were 
 
308 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 doing by maintaining that all they thus accepted 
 could be derived from the Scriptures. In this, 
 however, they were doubly inconsistent. For, in the 
 first place, the Scriptures contained, at best, only the 
 germs of the doctrines which the Church had de- 
 veloped by a long historical process ; and those who 
 entirely repudiated the Church's authority were 
 bound to repeat that whole process for themselves. 
 And, in the second place, to put the authority of 
 the Bible above or alongside of the inner witness of 
 the spirit, was to abandon the essential principle of 
 Protestantism ; or, it was to assert two first principles 
 at once. 
 
 There is, however, a reason for this apparent 
 unreason, a justification for this illogical combination 
 of the objective and the subjective in religion. It 
 is that both elements are essential to truth and to 
 Christianity, and that an illogical combination of 
 them is, therefore, better than none at all. A 
 spiritual religion undoubtedly involves the assertion 
 of the rights of the individual conscience and con- 
 sciousness. It is not truly received, so long as it 
 is received on authority — so long as it does not 
 commend itself to the heart and also to the reason 
 of the individual ; so long, in short, as it has not 
 become identified with the self-consciousness of him 
 who accepts it. Until in this way the conscious- 
 ness of God and the consciousness of self have 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 309 
 
 become one, religion remains an external thing ; and 
 the individual's surrender of himself to it is a slav- 
 ish submission of the will and the intelligence to a 
 foreign yoke. On the other hand, it is equally ; 
 important to remember that the truth is not at 
 once given in the im/mediate consciousness of the 
 natural man. It is attained only as the result of 
 a process in v^hich he surrenders himself to the 
 objective truth of things; and this truth must, in 
 the first instance, seem to be foreign and strange 
 to the mind which apprehends it. The intellectual 
 grasp of truth as self-evident — because inseparably 
 bound up with the consciousness of self — can only 
 be won by a long discipline of self-abnegation, in 
 which the individual gives up his own opinions, 
 his own prejudices and desires, that he may make 
 himself a pure organ of reason. A fortiori religious 
 truth, as it appeals to the whole self of man, and 
 as it must therefore be apprehended by all the 
 combined energies of his nature, is no possession 
 that can be attained without effort, without a pain- 
 ful sacrifice of the immediate self, without an irksome 
 discipline of mind and will. "The spiritual man 
 judgeth all things " ; but it is only by a new birth 
 and a long process of education, that the spiritual 
 can be developed out of the natural man. Now 
 the Eeformers, though they may be taken as the 
 apostles of subjective religion, never entirely lost 
 
310 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 hold of this counterbalancing truth. Hence, what 
 Luther and his immediate followers preached was 
 not, as has sometimes been alleged, the right, but 
 rather the duty, of private judgment : i.e. the duty 
 of apprehending spiritual things spiritually, and of 
 undergoing all the discipline of heart and soul and 
 mind which are needed to enable us to do so. And 
 if, on the one hand, Luther declared that no one 
 can be a Christian who does not believe in Christ 
 on the evidence of his own spirit ; on the other 
 hand, he equally maintained that no one is naturally 
 and immediately open to this evidence, but that 
 he needs to yield himself to that which is higher 
 than himself ere he can receive it. Luther thus 
 held at once that truth is not truth for me, till I 
 know it for myself on the evidence of my own 
 consciousness ; and that my consciousness is no 
 evidence for anything, till it has been changed and 
 transformed by the power of the objective truth. 
 He asserted equally the rights of the object and 
 those of the subject; and it was his misfortune 
 rather than his fault that he could not reconcile 
 them except by a compromise, in which an implicit 
 acceptance of the externally given authority of the 
 Bible as interpreted by the early Church, was com- 
 bined with the assertion of the right and duty of 
 every individual to interpret it according to his 
 own reason and conscience. He assumed that such 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 311 
 
 interpretation, if it were fair and honest, would 
 fall in with the results at which the early 
 Church had arrived. He thus supplied loih the 
 spiritual needs of man, though unfortunately in a 
 way that left them in antagonism to each other. 
 Or, as we may rather express it, not being able to 
 reconcile the rights of the object with those of the 
 subject, he set them lq a kind of balance against 
 each other. 
 
 Such a balance, however, was sure to be disturbed. 
 It was impossible that two such principles, the prin- 
 ciple of subjective independence and the principle of 
 objective authority, principles which were essentially 
 opposed, or for which, at least, no method of recon- 
 ciliation had been discovered — should remain per- 
 manently in equipoise, without any inclination of 
 the scale on one side or the other. And it was 
 natural that Protestantism, as opposition to the prin- 
 ciple of authority had been the very reason of its 
 existence, should lean more and more to the sub- 
 jective side. 
 
 The many controversies which soon sprang up 
 among Protestants threw doubt upon the self- 
 evidencing nature of the traditional doctrine ; and a 
 tendency manifested itself, especially among the sects 
 that arose in the seventeenth century, to lighten the 
 burden that faith had to carry, and to empty the 
 doctrinal system of those elements that seemed most 
 
312 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 offensive to the natural understanding.^ And even 
 among those who nominally clung to orthodoxy, the 
 objective doctrines of Christianity — the doctrines of 
 the Trinity and the Incarnation — were allowed to 
 fall into the background ; and the main interest of 
 theology was concentrated upon the subjective aspect 
 of religion, upon questions as to the process of 
 conversion and the nature of saving faith. The 
 inner drama of the soul attracted so exclusive 
 an attention that none seemed to be left for that 
 which had formed the main substance of the 
 earlier theology, — the Christian view of the objective 
 nature of God. Outside of the Churches, the revolu- 
 tionary assertion of the inward against the outward 
 was carried a step farther. God ceased to be con- 
 ceived as a self-manifesting Spirit, and became a 
 mere Supreme Being, an absolute Being who was 
 so abstractly conceived that He seemed to be un- 
 knowable, since He stood in no definite relation 
 to the concrete life of man. Man, therefore, was 
 no longer called upon to die to himself that he 
 might live to God, or to lose his life that he might 
 find it again in God. On the contrary, Kousseau 
 and others asserted that the natural man had no 
 need to go beyond himself for light or guidance ; 
 but that he might find in his own native incorrupt 
 
 1 Cf. my Essays on Literature and Philosophy, Eousseau, vol. i. 
 p. 137 seq. 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 313 
 
 instincts a perfect rule of life and a guide to all 
 the moral and religious truth which he required. 
 Such a gospel of mere subjectivity could only lead 
 to one end, the end which we have already described. 
 Eeducing himself to himself, and repelling all out- 
 ward authority or influence as slavery, the individual 
 has no sooner asserted his absolute independence 
 and his sovereignty over himself than he becomes 
 oppressed with the sense of his own emptiness and 
 impotence. And the misery of spiritual loneliness, 
 the tortures of a soul that has nothing to feed on 
 but itself, are the inevitable result. 
 
 One consequence of this one-sidedness of Protes- 
 tantism is, that it has never been able finally to 
 overcome the opposite principle as expressed in 
 Eoman Catholicism. The imperfection of the sub- 
 jective religion of the prophets and psalmists of 
 Israel was shown by its inability to overcome and 
 abolish the legal and ceremonial system of worship 
 to which it was opposed. It needed as its counter- 
 part that externality of observance against which it 
 was ever protesting. In like manner. Protestantism, 
 in spite of its more spiritual idea of religion, has 
 never been able decisively to conquer the less spiritual 
 system of Eome ; and it has failed just because of 
 its negative and antagonistic character. It lives in 
 its protest, and so is unable to dispense with that 
 against which it protests. It loses its energy, or 
 
 A' 
 
314 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 begins to war against itself, whenever it ceases to 
 be in presence of its enemy. It has to thank the 
 principle of authority, against which it protests, 
 for all the positive elements of doctrine that still 
 remain to it ; and when it has no longer to con- 
 tend with the Catholic Church, it reproduces within 
 itself the same conflict of a party of authority and 
 a party of freedom. On the other hand, the 
 Eoman Catholic Church by its continuous opposition 
 to Protestantism has been severing itself more and 
 more from the advancing movement of civilisa- 
 tion. It has been forced to live more and more 
 on its past; and almost none of the fresh voices of 
 literature, none of the new inspirations of poetry 
 or of the new teachings of philosophy, have 
 originated within the range of its influence, or except 
 in opposition to it. But it has preserved that rich 
 tradition of Christian antiquity which the subjective 
 spirit of Protestantism has tended to cast aside. It 
 may estrange the soul from itself, but at least it 
 does not make it die of inanition, or live upon mere 
 aspiration after the unattainable. Although, there- 
 fore, the intelligence of Europe has been more and 
 more divorced from it, it has remained, and still 
 remains, as the necessary counterpart and complement 
 of Protestantism, opposing the one-sidedness of matter 
 without form to the opposite one-sidedness of form 
 without matter. Thus the life of modern Christendom 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 315 
 
 has suffered, and is still suffering from an antagonism, 
 like that of the Law and the Prophets — an antagonism 
 which must continue till the advent of a higher mani- 
 festation of the Christian principle, by which the two 
 opposing tendencies shall be reconciled and united. 
 
 It is our lot to live in a time in which the 
 highest problem of religion, the problem of the re- 
 conciliation of the consciousness of self with the 
 consciousness of the world through the consciousness 
 of God, has again come up for solution, as it came 
 up for solution once before at the dawn of Chris- 
 tianity. But it has now to be solved under very 
 different conditions. Then it had only to meet the 
 wants of a religious consciousness which grasped the 
 truth intuitively in its unity, without seeking to 
 analyse it or to give any definite account of the 
 logical relation of its elements, and which required no 
 such intellectual process to satisfy it of the reality of 
 its object. Now we have other needs, but we have 
 also other means of satisfying them. By the long 
 process of the development of human thought, we 
 are now put in such a position that we can bring to 
 the light of critical reflexion the principle, which 
 has been working latently in all the imperfect forms 
 of the religion of the past, and which finds its cul- 
 minating expression in Christianity. The evolution 
 of Christianity itself has made it possible for us to 
 understand, and therefore to repeat in a conscious 
 
316 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 way — with a clear apprehension of the meaning of 
 what we are doing — the' process by which Christianity 
 at once fulfilled and destroyed the other forms of 
 religion with which it was brought into contact. As 
 in its first dawn, Christianity again is beginning to 
 show itself, not in its negative but in its positive 
 aspect ; not as a subjective principle which sets the 
 spiritual against the natural, the inner religion of 
 the heart against the outer religion of the letter, 
 the witness of the spirit against the voice of 
 authority ; but as a principle, at once subjective and 
 objective, which reveals itself not only within but also 
 without us, which is immanent in nature and in man, 
 and which is working in him to still higher issues. 
 But this lesson, wrapped up at the dawn of Chris- 
 tianity in types and symbols borrowed from an 
 earlier faith, and apprehended only by feeling, or at 
 best by an imaginative intuition which had no means 
 of explaining itself, is now becoming a reasoned con- 
 viction which can understand and criticise its own 
 nature and evidence. The principle of Christianity 
 has come to self-consciousness, and it is therefore 
 i capable of being held without that mixture of illu- 
 sion which was inevitable in an earlier age. In 
 the process of its own history, it has been working 
 itself free of the alien elements which were mingled 
 with it at first ; and now, as I believe, it exists in 
 many minds as a simple faith in God and man. 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 317 
 
 in God's revelation of Himself in man, and man's 
 
 capacity to become the further manifestation of God 
 
 and to work His work — a faith which does not need 
 
 any extraneous support from vision or miracle. To , 
 
 those who regret the implicit faith of an earlier j 
 
 i 
 day, which is gradually leaving us, it may be sug- ' 
 
 gested that, useful as such extraneous supports have ; 
 been in the past, they never were really the essence 
 of the matter ; and, though it might be necessary, . 
 in the slow education of man's spirit, for him to 
 lean upon them, yet there is always a heavy price to 
 be paid for i^he strength which is gained partly by 
 illusion. The religious wars and persecutions of , 
 Christendom, the perverse attempts of those who had 
 mislearnt the Christian doctrine of self-sacrifice to re- 
 duce morality to a useless asceticism, the superstitious 
 fears and hopes, which withdrew Christians from 
 the service of man or distorted their conception 
 of the nature of that service, were the necessary 
 results of the imperfection of ' the earthly vessels ' 
 in which the truth of Christianity was first pre- 
 sented to the world. And, if it has now become 
 possible in some measure to detach such wood and 
 hay and stubble from the gold and silver and 
 precious stones of the temple built upon the founda- 
 tion of Christ; if it has become possible to recog- 
 nise that the principle of Christ's gospel — the moral 
 and spiritual truths it contains — require nothing ex- 
 
318 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 traneous to bhemselves, nothing but their coherence 
 with the reason and conscience of man, to com- 
 mend them to us — and that indeed they can have 
 no valid evidence but this coherence — we need not 
 fear that this, in the long run, will weaken the hold 
 of religion or even of Christianity upon the human 
 soul. The process of transition from a faith which 
 is based upon external evidence, to one which is 
 based on the rational interpretation of man's ex- 
 perience, must no doubt be a hard and difficult 
 one, and in many cases it may bring with it no 
 little danger to the moral life ; but it is the 
 necessary path to a religion which is pure of super- 
 stition, and undefiled by fanaticism ; which can face 
 without illusion the simple but wonderful facts of 
 human life and the mysterious shadow of death. 
 It is the path and the only path to a religion 
 which can interpret to man the strange precarious 
 destiny which it is given to him to fulfil in this 
 world, as a finite being whose consciousness of 
 himself is yet bound up with the consciousness of 
 the infinite — a being who, from one point of view, 
 seems hardly to have escaped from the bonds of 
 animal life, while yet from another he is seen to 
 draw his life immediately from the divine, and, in 
 a sense that cannot apply to any other creature, 
 to ' live and move and have his being ' in God. 
 In these lectures it has been my endeavour to 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 319 
 
 explain and illustrate a view of man's life which 
 I believe to be in accordance with the essential 
 principle of religion and of Christianity, and at the 
 same time the necessary result of the best lights of 
 philosophy which have been given to our time. This 
 view may be summarised in a few words. It starts 
 with the principle, first clearly expressed by Kant, 
 that the objective world can be understood only ! 
 in relation to the unity of the self within us, and ' 
 it goes on to infer that in self-consciousness we find \ 
 at once the culmination and the explanation of that 
 world. It argues that, on this principle, the his- 
 torical movement, in which man transforms nature 
 and makes it the basis for the spiritual process of 
 his own life, is to be regarded only as a farther step 
 in the manifestation and evolution of the principle 
 that conditions and underlies nature ; and further, 
 that the moral ideal which arises out of this historical 
 movement, and seems to condemn as imperfect even 
 the highest result attained by it, is not to be merely 
 contrasted with it as that which ' ought to be ' with 
 that which ' is,' but rather as the clearest expression 
 of the same power that produced the present state of 
 things out of a still more imperfect past. It, therefore, 
 concludes that our highest moral and social ideal — 
 reached, as it has been, as the result of all the thought 
 and labour and pain of humanity in the past — is not 
 visionary or illusive, but may be taken as our best 
 
\ 
 
 320 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 key to the nature of the universe of which we are 
 a part, and to the nature of the Divine Being who 
 is its source and its end. And it derives from this a 
 deeper consciousness of the nearness of God to man, 
 a confirmation of the Christian faith that the king- 
 dom of heaven is in the midst of us, and that 
 the service of humanity is the true and the 
 only service of God. If, therefore, we can discern 
 in modern literature and in life any deepening of 
 the consciousness that man is his brother's keeper, 
 and that the life of man is of infinite worth 
 because it is indeed the highest expression of 
 the infinite, we need not fear that the many 
 doubts and uncertainties of the present time, or the 
 seeming negation of many of the articles of the old 
 creed of Christendom, indicate a revolt of mankind 
 against that which is vital in Christianity. For this 
 belief, in the revelation of God in man, in itself 
 constitutes the articndiis stantis vel cadentis ecdesiae. 
 It is the rock upon which the Christian Church is 
 really founded, and from which it could be built up 
 again if every ecclesiastical organisation that exists 
 were destroyed. The infinite pitifulness of Jesus 
 to the sorrows and evils of humanity, his absolute 
 confidence in the possibility and even the necessity 
 of their being remedied, and the way in which he 
 bases his confidence on the love of God to man, 
 and on his own unity as man with God— these, 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 321 
 
 taken together, make up a faith beyond which 
 religion cannot go, except in two ways, namely, in 
 the way of understanding them more adequately, and 
 of realising them more fully. And in both these 
 ways, the present age, in spite of all the evils that 
 afflict it, has gone beyond any previous age. Tor,/ 
 on the one hand, the whole development of the 
 organic and evolutionary idea of the world aS 
 interpreted by idealistic philosophy, and applied byi 
 criticism to the history of Christianity and of other 
 religious systems, has for the first time furnished us 
 with something like a rational proof of a creed | 
 which previously rested almost entirely upon the! 
 intuition of faith, and which, therefore, was 
 generally mixed up with many elements of unreason. 
 And, on the other hand, the humanitarian impulse 
 of the present day — in so far as it has ceased to be 
 a mere abstract cosmopolitan charity or a religious 
 zeal that ends with the spread of religion ; in so far 
 as it is guided by a deeper conviction that men 
 must find salvation here, as well as hereafter, and 
 by a fuller understanding of all the physical and 
 economical, all the intellectual and moral conditions 
 of its attainment, — reproduces in a higher form 
 the passionate impulse to seek and save the lost 
 which Christianity brought into the world. For 
 it means by saving, not merely consolation in this 
 life and hope for another, but the discovery of 
 
 VOL. II, X 
 
322 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 the way by which all men, even the lowest and 
 most wretched, may be made sharers in the great 
 heritage of humanity ; by which even those who have 
 hitherto been hewers of wood and drawers of water 
 for a civilisation of which they did not partake, 
 may become integral members in an organic human 
 society. The great aims that are dawning upon us 
 are, therefore, on the one hand, to discover more and 
 more fully the ideal meaning of the world, not merely 
 through imaginative symbols that are opposed or 
 indifferent to science, but with the fullest satisfaction 
 of the requirements of scientific criticism ; and, on the 
 other hand, to realise, the whole good of man's complex 
 nature, by the association of men with each other in 
 those better forms of co-operation and communion 
 with each other, which alone can turn the growing 
 necessities of our lives into a higher manifestation of 
 freedom. Such a union of intelligence and charity 
 may well be called a new Christianity. At any rate it 
 is the only religion that will fully realise the idea of 
 religion, and so meet the wants of the new time. 
 
 ISTo sooner, however, do we sketch out such an ideal, 
 than our minds are at once overshadowed by a sense 
 of the slowness of our progress towards the goal which 
 it anticipates. "We may perhaps persuade ourselves 
 that it is the result to which the whole movement 
 of the time is pointing ; but to us, to whom ' one 
 day is ' not ' as a thousand years ' it seems to come 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 323 
 
 so slowly that we are tempted to doubt whether 
 it comes at all, whether it is not altogether an 
 illusion. We may be advancing towards a higher 
 comprehension of the ideal meaning of the world 
 and of human life. But how crude, it will be said, 
 how crude and discordant are the voices of most of 
 those who claim to speak for modern science and 
 philosophy ; and how abstract and vague is the 
 utterance even of the best religious and ethical 
 thought of our time, as it expresses itself in our 
 greatest poets and thinkers. Where is there any- 
 thing like the passionate and triumphant spiritualism 
 of St. Paul, or the simple penetrating intuition of 
 Jesus, that saw good through evil, and a divine pur- 
 pose realising itself in all the confusions of human 
 life ? Where is the poet who rises high enough 
 in his song to unite the feelings and desires and 
 hopes of our time with the divine, as the Hebrew 
 psalmist was able to unite them for his time; or 
 the philosopher who can combine a thorough grasp 
 of the facts of experience, as they have been 
 analysed by modern science, with the idealism 
 that "sees all things in God"? And, on the other 
 hand, when we turn to the practical life, where 1 
 is the religious zeal whose heat is not hostile i 
 to light, or the enlightenment whose intelligence 
 has not paralysed its wiU ? Where is the practical 
 Christianity, which can go beyond the beaten round 
 
324 THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGION. 
 
 of the religious life of the past to cope with all the 
 unsolved problems of the present, without losing itself 
 in anarchy, revolt, and nihilism ; or in vague socialistic 
 schemes which, even if they could succeed, would 
 satisfy only the hunger of the body ? And, indeed, no 
 one can say that the ideal of such a theoretical and 
 such a practical life has yet been realised, even in 
 the sense and to the degree in which the ideals 
 of the past have been realised. All that we can 
 say is, that men are beginning to awake to the 
 need for its realisation, and that there have been 
 already anticipations of it in a few lives here and 
 there. We must, however, remember that it is 
 just because the ideal which is now set before us 
 is the highest and most comprehensive that ever 
 was presented to mankind, that it requires a longer 
 and more difficult process to attain it. We, upon 
 whom 'the ends of the world are come' in a deeper 
 sense than even upon the early Christians, must 
 necessarily have to encounter the hardest problems 
 of thought and life. And we can console ourselves 
 by reflecting that the reason of the slowness of our 
 progress towards their solution lies most of all in 
 the fact, that every step toward such a good must 
 be won by the effort of man's whole being, by the 
 whole energy of his intelligence and will ; and that, 
 indeed, no real gain is possible for man which is 
 not so won. Farther, though the movement of pro- 
 
AFTER THE REFORMATION. 325 
 
 gress may be imperceptible, if we look merely to 
 our own time — for now as ever the kingdom of 
 God Cometh not with observation — yet distinct signs 
 of it may be discerned, if not from year to year, 
 at least from century to century, on the great scale 
 of the secular movement of history. And a study 
 of that history in the light of the idea of evolu- 
 tion, if it leaves many things dark and obscure, 
 may yet enable us, with the certitude of a faith 
 which is already on the way to knowledge, to say 
 with Galileo, E pur si muove. In particular, the 
 study of the history of religion, from the lowest 
 form, in which it begins to furnish at least some 
 crude idea of the nature of the world and the 
 PowCT that rules over it, and some elementary bond 
 of social union, up to the highest form of the 
 Christian belief in a spiritual principle which mani- 
 fests itself in nature and in the growing life of 
 humanity, is a real and living support to our 
 religious faith. This long, unhasting, unresting process 
 of the evolution of religion is itself the best evidence 
 we can have that there is a divine meaning in the 
 world, and that mankind have not laid the sacrifice 
 of their efforts and their thoughts, their prayers and 
 their tears, upon the altar of an unknown or un- 
 knowable God. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Aoosmism, I. 263, 354. 
 Aeschylus, I. 281, 282, 284. 
 Ahriman, II. 112. 
 Amos, I. 392. 
 Anaxagoras, I. 368. 
 Ancestor- worship, I. 239, 261 seq., 
 378. See also Objective Religion. 
 Animism, I. 214. 
 Anthropomorphism, I. 33, 239 seq., 
 
 264, 367, 378. See also Objective 
 Religion. 
 
 Aristotle, I. 21, 159, 176, 255, 267, 
 
 268, 302, 368 seq., 379; II. 158, 
 
 258. 
 Aristophanes, I. 298, 299. 
 Arnold, Sir E., I. 359. 
 Arnold, Matthew, 1. 129, 369 ; II. 14. 
 Art, Eelation of, to religion, I. 234, 
 
 287 seq., 379 seq.; II. 17. See 
 
 also Oreek Art. 
 Aryans, I. 256, 257, 261, 262, 263, 
 
 265. See also Vedic Hymns. 
 Asceticism, of Buddhism, I. 361 
 
 «cg.,381; II. 154. 
 
 — Jesus and, II. 140, 150. 
 
 — Early Christian, II. 259, 288 
 se.q. 
 
 See also Nature. 
 Aufklarung, I. 299, 303, 313, 316. 
 See also Positivism. 
 
 Bacon, II. 104, 301. 
 
 Beelzebub, II. 94, 96, 115. See 
 
 also Satan. 
 Berkeley, I. 127. 
 
 Book of the Great Decease, I. 357. 
 Brahman, I. 363, 372. 
 
 Brahmanism, I. 42, 372. 
 
 — Polytheism of, I. 254, 261 seq., 
 276, 367. 
 
 — Pantheism of, I. 263, 354; II. 4, 
 29 
 
 — Ethics of, I. 263 ; II. 29. See 
 also Religions, Indian; Vedic 
 Hymns. 
 
 Browning, II. 77, 109, 195, 223, 239, 
 287. 
 
 Buckle, I. 203. 
 
 Buddha, II. 226, 357. 
 
 Buddhism, Eelation of, to Brah- 
 manism, I. 42, 354, 362. 
 
 — a subjective religion, I. 53, 346, 
 353 seq. 
 
 — Eelation of, to world, I. 355 
 seq. 
 
 to absolute self, I. 356 seq. 
 
 — Negative morality of, I. 361 seq., 
 381; 11.154. 
 
 — Dualism of, I. 366; II. 57, 61. 
 
 — Stoicism and, I. 372 seq. 
 
 — Death and, II. 179. 
 Burke, Edmund, I. 295. 
 Byron, II. 306. 
 
 Calvin, II. 303, 305. 
 
 Carlyle, I. 78, 319, 320, 351; II. 
 
 11, 109, 306. 
 Christ. See Jesus and Messiah. 
 Christianity, Characteristics of 
 
 early, I. 15 seq.; II. 269. See 
 
 also Jesus. 
 medifeval, I. 17, 23; II. 127, 
 
 262, 269 seq., 273 seq. 
 post-Eeformation, I. 17 ; II. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 327 
 
 262, 269, 271, 273, 298 siq. See 
 also St. Paid. 
 Christianity, Belation of, to Juda- 
 ism, II. 64 seg'., 117seg'.,127 seg., 
 145 seg., 164 seg., 196, 205 stq., 
 215, 234, 262 scg., 278 seq., 303 
 seg. 
 
 — — to Greek thought, II. 65, 254, 
 258, 278 seg., 282. 
 
 to monotheism, II. 67 f.eq. , 
 
 126, 140, 164, 234, 274, 304. 
 
 to pantheism, II. 67 mq., 
 
 126, 140, 148, 161, 234. 
 
 to polytheism, 11. 274, 304. 
 
 of man to God in, I. 196 ; II. 
 
 77, 126 seg., 146 seg., 149 stq., 
 160, 275. See also Jesus. 
 
 to morality, II. 100, 128, 156 
 
 seq., 201. 
 
 modern to early, II. 271, 315 
 
 seq. 
 
 — a uniyersal religion, II. 6, 14, 
 68 seq., 75 seq., 87 seq., 101, 117 
 seq., 146 seq., 255, 260 seq., 273 
 seq. , 291 seq. 
 
 — Optimism of, II. 101, 109, 117 
 seq., 275, See also Jesus. 
 
 — Dualism in, II. 126, 237, 275 
 seq., 284. 
 
 — Negation and assertion of finite 
 in, II. 161 seq. 
 
 — Death and, II. 184, 189. See 
 also Jesv^. 
 
 — rationale of its idealisation, II. 
 229. 
 
 — Mysticism and, II. 231, 282 seg., 
 291 seq. 
 
 — Miraculous and, II. 239 seq., 
 317. See also Jesus and Messiah. 
 
 — Asceticism in, II. 258, 288 seq. 
 See also Jesus. 
 
 — Stages in developrient of, II. 
 244 seq., 262, 268 seq., 272, 282 
 seq., 296 seq. 
 
 — Pessimism in, II. 288, 306. 
 
 See also Objective and Subjective 
 
 Religion. 
 Church and State, 1. 15, 17, 21, 23; 
 
 II. 126, 130, 276 seq., 282, 299. 
 Comte, I. 24, 197 ; n. 72, 132. 
 
 Consciousness, Secular and reli- 
 gious, I. 85, 112, 141, 176 seq., 
 195, 206, 220 seq., 287 ; II. 2. 
 
 — Three elements in, I. 64 seq., 77, 
 154 ; their order in time, 177 
 seq., 205. 
 
 — Subjective and objective, I. 176 
 seq., 295, 301, 327, 337. 
 
 — Sensuous, I. 207 seq., 321. 
 Science and, 305 seq., 321 
 
 seq. 
 
 — Moral, Kant's view of, I. 342 
 seq. • 
 
 Constantino, II. 276. 
 Cromwell, Oliver, II. 81, 303. 
 
 Dante, I. 23, 333 ; II. 286, 292. 
 
 Darwin, I. 24. 
 
 Death, Significance of, II. 177. 
 
 — Pantheistic view of, II. 177 seq. 
 
 — Platonic view of, II. 179 seq., 
 189. 
 
 — Christian view of, 11. 184, 189 
 seq. 
 
 — Idealisation after, II. 223 seq. 
 See also Jesus. 
 
 De Imilatione Christi, II. 290. 
 Deism, I. 312. 
 Demon-worship, I. 242 seq. 
 Descartes, I. 103, 118. 
 Development, Idea of, I. 24, 45 
 
 seq., 171 seq., 182, 199, 370 ; II. 
 
 236, 246, 261 seq., 267. 
 
 — of man, I. 21 seq., 63, TO seq., 
 141, 188 seq., 205 seq. ; U. 225, 
 267. See also Consciousness. 
 
 — of Christianity, I. 22 ; II. 244 
 seq., 262, 268 seq., 11% 282, 296 
 seq. 
 
 — of religion, I. 40 seq., 55, 61 seq., 
 137, 171 seq., 250 seq. 
 
 — Method of, I. 228 seq. ; II. 248 
 seq. 
 
 Devil, Belief in, II. 112 seg. See 
 
 also Beehebiib, Satan. 
 Dhammapada, I. 363, 364. 
 Dooetism, II. 288. 
 Don Quixote, I. 836. 
 Dualism, of Herbert Spencer, 1. 118 
 
 seq.; II. 158. 
 
328 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Dualism, of Descartes, I. 118. 
 
 — of Spinoza, I. 118. 
 
 — of Greeks, I. 170 ; II. 254, 259. 
 
 — of subjective religions, II. 56 
 seg., 86. 
 
 — of Judaism, II. 56 seg., 61, 63, 
 92, 94 Siq. 107, 112 se?., 126, 
 165, 237 se?. 
 
 — Persian, II. 94, 112. 
 
 — between inner and outer experi- 
 ence, I. 119 seq. 
 
 — of Christianity, II. 126, 237, 275 
 stq., 284. 
 
 — of St. Paul, II. 212 seq., 257, 
 278 seg. 
 
 Ecclesiastes, II. 39. 
 Eleatios, The, I. 147, 255. 
 Emerson, II., 108, 189, 261. 
 Erdmann, J. E., I. 107. 
 Euhemerism, I. 240. 
 Euripides, I. 283, 284, 285. 
 Evolution. See Development. 
 Ezekiel, I. 392, 393. 
 
 Faith, Doctrine of, II. 280 seq. 
 Family, place in early religions, I. 
 
 241, 247 seq., 391 ; II. 176. 
 Fetisohism, I. 216, 225, 245. See 
 
 also Objective Religion. 
 Fichte, I. 177, 351. 
 
 Gnosticism, II. 279. 
 
 God, Idea of, as unity of conscious- 
 ness, I. 64 seq., 85, 136, 166 seq., 
 185 seq., 195, 205, 328 ; II. 62, 
 214, 232. 
 
 as particular, I. 226 seq., 241 
 
 seq., 254, 265 seq., 378 seq. 
 
 — Christian, II. 146 seq., 149 seq., 
 160, 275, 320. 
 
 Gods, Phytomorphio, I. 270. 
 
 — Zoomorphic, I. 270. 
 
 Goethe, I. 24, 46, 179, 180, 224, 
 275, 291, 330, 332, 334, 382, 387 ; 
 II. 7, 8, 9, 10, 62, 106, 286, 306. 
 
 Goodness, See Happiness. 
 
 Greek Art, I. 271 seq., 379. 
 
 — Philosophy, I. 368 seq. See 
 also Neoplatonism, Stoicism. 
 
 Greek Poetry, I. 271, 280 seq., 287 
 seq., 293, 298 seq. See also 
 PoHry. 
 
 — Eeligion, Anthropomorphism of, 
 I. 83, 239, 264 seq., 367. 
 
 Attitude of, towards nature, 
 
 I. 214, 264, 276. 
 an objective religion, I. 264 
 
 seq. 
 Eelation of, to morality, I. 
 
 250, 269, 371, 373 ; II. 28, 158. 
 to Vedic religion, I. 264, 
 
 273. 
 — • to art and poetry, I. 271 
 
 seq. 
 to subjective religion, I. 
 
 271seg'.,367seg'. ; II. 4. 
 Pantheistic and monothe- 
 istic tendency in, I. 278 seq., 
 
 368. 
 Idea of fate in, I. 278 seq. 
 
 368. 
 Christianity and, II. 65, 264, 
 
 268 seq., 278 seq., 282. 
 Green, T. H., Works of, II. 223. 
 
 Happiness, Idea of, II. 33. 
 
 — Jewish view of its relation to 
 goodness, II. 36, 40 seq. 
 
 Hartmann, Von, I. 24, 132. 
 
 Heavens, Worship of. See Reli- 
 gion Objective, Polytheism. 
 
 Hebraism, II. 14 seq. 
 
 Hegel, I. 4, 24, 82, 104, 173, 207, 
 281, 282, 386 ; II. 25, 63, 64, 
 109, 256, 286, 306. 
 
 Hellenism, II. 14 seq., 17. 
 
 Henotheism, I. 253, 262, 276. See 
 also Objective Religion. 
 
 Heraolites, I. 279, 368. 
 
 Herder, I. 24. 
 
 Herodotus, I. 279. 
 
 Hildebrand, I. 17. 
 
 Hobbes, I. 78, 245. 
 
 Homer, I. 243, 267, 269, 277, 280, 
 288 seq., 311. 
 
 Hooter, I. 189. 
 
 Humanity, Idea of divine, II. 230 
 seq., 259 seq. 
 
 Huxley, I. 298. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 329 
 
 Idealism, Spencer's view of, 1. 128. 
 
 — Berkeley's view of, I. 132. 
 
 — and the Miraculous, I. 319 seq. 
 
 — of Jesus, II. 88, 111, 139 snq., 
 151 seg., 167, 272. 
 
 — of St. Paul, II. 135 seg., 228, 
 271. 
 
 Imagination. See Objective Re- 
 ligion. 
 
 Immortality, Judaism and, I. 32 ; 
 11. 40, 47, 51, 54. 
 
 — Kant on, I. 32, 330, 339 seq. 
 
 — Vedic Hymns on, I. 355. 
 
 — Buddhism and, I. 360. 
 
 — Plato and, II., 181. 
 
 — Christ and, II. 241 seq. 
 Individualism, II. 84. 
 
 Infinite, Idea of, Max MuUer's, I. 
 
 89 se?., 114. 
 • Herbert Spencer's, I. 92 seq., 
 
 116, 133, 145 seq., 152, 312; II. 
 
 70«eg'., 84. 
 
 Descartes', I. 103. 
 
 Spinoza's, I. 103-105, 117. 
 
 Mystics', I. 148. 
 
 — Definition of, I. 97 seq., 110, 
 153. 
 
 Isaiah, II. 34, 35, 41, 48, 304. 
 Islamism, I. 382. 
 
 Jaeobi, II. 8. 
 
 Jeremiah, I. 392, 393 ; II. 46, 49, 
 
 304. 
 Jesus, Idea of development in 
 
 teaching of, I. 22; II. 170, 235. 
 
 — Originality of, II. 88 seq.. Ill, 
 137 seg., 151, 234. 
 
 — Optimism of, II. 88, 103 seq., 
 109, 114, 116, 117 seq., 139 seq., 
 151 seq., 166 seq., 272 seq. See 
 also Idealism. 
 
 — Antithetic teaching of, II. 90 seq. 
 
 — Morality and religion united by, 
 II. 100 seg., 128, X5i seq. 
 
 — Miracles and, II. 114, 139, 152, 
 168, 237, 241. 
 
 — Attitude of, towards nature, II. 
 123 163 
 
 '— man, II. 137, 163, 185, 
 
 188. 
 
 Jesus, Eelation of St. Paul to, II. 
 134 seq., 193 seq., 197 seq., 209 
 seq., 213 seq., 222. 
 
 — Asceticism and, II. 140, 150 
 seq. See also Asceticism. 
 
 — Messianic ideas and, II. 139, 
 167 seq., 174 seq., 235 seq. See 
 also Messiah. 
 
 — Eelation of, to Judaism, II. 170, 
 235. See also Ohristianity. 
 
 — Death of, II. 176 seq., 184 seq., 
 190 seq., 232. See also St. Paid. 
 
 — Idea of divine humanity and, 
 II. 230 seg., 259 560-. 
 
 — Doctrine of two natures in, II. 
 232 ^eg., 279 scg., 288. 
 
 — Idea of immortality and, II. 
 241 seq. 
 
 Job, II. 39. 
 
 John the Baptist, II. 98, 99, 100, 
 
 146. 
 Judaism, I. 23, 192. 
 
 — Idea of immortality and, I. 32 ; 
 II. 40, 47, 51, 54. 
 
 — Belation of, to nature, I. 33, 
 384 seq. 
 
 — a subjective religion, I. 193, 
 346, 377, 395 ; II. 5 seq. 
 
 — Eelation of, to idea of tribe or 
 nation, I. 250, 389, 394; II. S. 
 See also Objective Religion. 
 
 — Its transition from nature to 
 spirit, 1. 387 seq. ; II. 30, 59 seq. , 
 118 seq. 
 
 — Ethical value of, I. 389 seq. ; II. 
 6, 92 seq., 100, 113, 127 seq., 
 159. 
 
 — Its conception of God, I. 389 
 seq.; II. 5, 31 seq., 60 seq., 92 
 seq., 118 seq., 126 seq., 165, 234. 
 
 — Development of, I. 397 seq.; II. 
 37, 42 86?., ^2 seq. 
 
 — a religion of prophecy, 11. 35 
 seq., 80, 87. 
 
 — Ideas of goodness and happi- 
 ness and, II. 37 seq., 54, 93. 
 See also Happiness. 
 
 — Pessimism of, II. 39, 102, 107, 
 113, 116, 165, 234, 305. 
 
 — Else of Messianic hopes in, II 
 
330 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 42, 48, 97 seg-., 112 seq., 116, 
 165, 234, 305. See also Mts- 
 siah. 
 Judaism, Dualism of, II. 56 seq., 
 61, 63, 92, 94 seq., 107, 112 seq., 
 126, 165, 237 seq. 
 
 — Relation of, to Christianity, II. 
 64 seq., 116 seq., 127 seq., 145 
 seq., 159, 164 seq., 205 seq., 234 
 seq., 252 seq., 278 seg'., 303 seq. 
 See also Jesns. 
 
 — belief in Satan, II. 93 seq., 107, 
 112 scg. 
 
 — Formalism of, II. 120, 128 seq. 
 
 — St. Paul and, II. 205 seq., 299 
 seq. 
 
 See also Monotheism and Svbjec- 
 tive ~ " ■ 
 
 Kant, I. 9, 24, 310 ; II. 63, 83, 306. 
 
 — on idea of immortality, I. 32, 
 330, 339 seq. 
 
 — on knowledge, I. 59, 127, 154 
 seq., 304; II. 87. 
 
 — Eelation of, to subjective re- 
 ligion, I. 193, 337 seq.\ II. 319. 
 
 — on imperative of duty, I. 330 
 seq. , 342 seq. 
 
 — Postulates of Eeason, I. 339 
 seq.; 11. 55, 61, 87. 
 
 — Dualism of, II. 63 n., 64 n. 
 Kingdom of Heaven, as an earthly 
 
 kingdom, II. 48, 98, 100. 
 
 — as spiritual, II. 98 seq. , 129, 
 146, 169, 307. 
 
 — ■ as belonging to time, II. 146 
 seg., 169 565., 298. 
 
 — as belonging to eternity, II. 251, 
 275. 
 
 Knowledge, Theories of — 
 
 Herbert Spencer's, 1. 119 seq. 
 
 145. 
 
 Kant's, I. 164, 346. ' 
 
 Sceptics', I. 158. 
 
 • Aristotle's, I. 159. 
 
 — Basis of, I. 145, 152 seq. 
 
 — Process of, I. 10, 154 seq., 164, 
 170, 183 seq. 
 
 Knox, John, 11. 303. 
 
 Kuenen, Seligion of Israel, II. 94. 
 
 Lamarck, I. 24. 
 
 Lange, I. 313. 
 
 Latin Christianity. See Christi- 
 anity, Mediaeval. 
 
 Leibniz, II. 83. 
 
 Lessing, I. 24. 
 
 Livy, I. 21. 
 
 Locke, I. 210. 
 
 Lotze, II. 83, 84. 
 
 Luther, II. 226, 229 seq. , 301, 303, 
 310. 
 
 Lyall, Sir A., Asiatic Studies, I. 
 252. 
 
 Man, Development of, I. 21 seq., 
 63, 70 seq., 141, 188 seq., 205 
 seq. ; II. 225, 267. 
 
 — Unity of, I. 15 seq., 28, 46, 70. 
 Manael, I. 93, 139. 
 Mariolatry, II. 289. 
 Materialism, I. 127, 326, 327. 
 
 — in early religions, I. 218. 
 Meditations, I. 103. 
 
 Messiah, Else of belief in, II. 42, 
 
 48, 127. 
 Eelation of, to pessimism, 
 
 II. 96, 112 seq., 116, 165, 234, 
 
 305. 
 
 — Jesus as, II. 139, 167 seq., 174 
 seq., 235 seq. 
 
 — St. Paul and, II. 194, 198 seq., 
 202 seq., 219, 222. 
 
 Miraculous, The, Else of, I. 310. 
 Modern attitude towards, I. 
 
 311; n. 317. 
 
 Positivism and, I. 318 seq. 
 
 Idealism and, I. 319 seq. 
 
 Jesus and, II. 114, 139, 152, 
 
 168, 237, 241. 
 
 Early Church and, II. 239. 
 
 St. Paul and, II. 240 seq. 
 
 Monism, II. 84. 
 
 Monotheism, a phase of belief, I. 
 
 41, 196 ; II. 6. 
 
 — Eelation of, to objective re- 
 ligion, I. 252 seq. 
 
 -to pantheism, I. 279 ; II. 63 
 
 seq., 82 seq. 
 
 — the subjective form of religion, 
 I. 381. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 331 
 
 Monotheism, Dualism in, I. 383 ; 
 II. 23. 
 
 — Eelation of, to Art and Science, 
 II. 16. 
 
 to Christianity, II. 67 se?., 
 
 125, 140, 164, 234, 274, 304. 
 
 See also Judaism, Svhjective 
 
 Religion. 
 Morality, Eelation of, to religion, 
 
 I. 235 seq. 
 to objective religion, I. 237 
 
 seq. ; II. 157. 
 to Greek religion, I. 250, 269, 
 
 371, 373 ; II. 28, 158. 
 to subjective religion, I. 342 
 
 seq., 352, 373, 379 seq. ; II. 11, 
 
 30 seq., 50, 55 seq. 
 to Judaism, I. 389 seq. ; II. 6, 
 
 92 seq., 100, 113, 127 seq., 169. 
 to Christianity, II. 100, 128, 
 
 156 seq., 201. See also Jesus. 
 Muller, Max, I. 253, 262. 
 -on Idea of Infinite, I. 89 seq., 
 
 114. 
 
 — — criticism of his views, I. 91 
 seq., 96, 98 seq., 115. 
 
 Mysticism, its error, I. 148 seq. 
 
 — Christian, II. 231, 282 seq., 291 
 seq. 
 
 Mythology. Greek, I. 214, 230, 
 265 seq., 280. 
 
 — Beginnings of, I. 229. 
 
 — Solar theory of, I. 254. 
 
 — Place of, in religion, I. 298, 299. 
 
 — its explanation of nature, I. 306 
 seq. 
 
 Nature, Judaism and, I. 32, 384 
 seq. 
 
 — Pantheism and, I. 33 seq., 258, 
 262, 354 i II. 57, 140. 
 
 — Polytheism and, I. 32, 254 seq., 
 267, 276. 
 
 — Greek thought and, I. 214, 264 
 seq., 276 seq. 
 
 — Science and, I. 304 seq. 
 
 — Jesus and, II. 123 seq., 163. 
 
 — Mediseval theology and, II. 279 
 seq. 
 
 — Asceticism and, II. 290. 
 
 Nature, Protestanism and, II. 301. 
 
 See also Objective Religion. 
 Neoplatonists, II. 258, 278, 280 
 
 seq. 
 Niohol, J., Hannibal, II. 69. 
 
 Obermaun, II. 106. 
 
 Object and Subject, I. 64 seq., 127 
 
 seq., 324 seq. 
 Objective BeCgion, the first stage 
 
 in religion, I. 176 seq., 189 seq., 
 
 207 seq., 233. 
 
 — Forms of. Fetisohism, I. 216, 
 225, 245. 
 
 — ■ — Ancestor-worship, 1. 239 seq., 
 
 260 seq. , 378. 
 
 Totemism, I. 239, 255, 378. 
 
 Anthropomorphism, 1. 239 
 
 seq., 264, 367, 378. 
 
 Particularism, I. 241. 
 
 Polytheism, 1. 241 seq., 251, 
 
 seq., 261 seq. 
 
 Henotheism, I. 253, 262, 276. 
 
 Worship of heavens, I. 254 
 
 seq., 261 seq., 378. 
 
 — Imagination and, I. 228 seq. 
 245, 287 seq., 309, 317 , II. 8. 
 
 — Social bond in, I. 239 seq., 244 
 seq., 377 seq., 391 ; n. 28 seq., 
 157. 
 
 — Eelation of, to nature, 1.244 seq., 
 264 seq., 268, 854, 878 seq. 
 
 to monotheism, I. 252 seq. 
 
 to pantheism, I. 259, 262, 
 
 354 ; II. 12. 
 to art and poetry, I. 271, 
 
 287 seq., 379 seq. ; II. 17. 
 to subjective religion, I. 271, 
 
 seq., 328, 350 seq., 368 seq., 377 
 
 seq. ; II. 7 seq. 
 to Christianity, II. 273, 308. 
 
 See also Brahmanism, Oreeh 
 
 Religion, Hellenism. 
 Omar Khayyam, I. 100. 
 Optimism, Christian, 11. 101, 109, 
 
 117 seq., 275. 
 
 — of Jesus, II. 108, 109, 114, 117, 
 139, 151, 166, 272. 
 
 — of Emerson, II. 108. 
 
 — of Browning, II. 109. 
 
332 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Origen, II. 285. 
 Ormuzd, II. 112. 
 
 Pantheism, I. 118, 387. 
 
 — Relation of, to polytheism, I. 
 41, 196, 258, 262 ; II. 17. 
 
 to objective religion, I. 259, 
 
 262, 354 seg. ; II. 20. 
 to subjective religion, I. 278; 
 
 II. 71. 
 to monotheism, I. 279 ; II. 
 
 63, 82 seg. 
 to Christianity, II. 67, 125, 
 
 140, 148, 161, 234. 
 
 — of Vedio religion, I. 258, 354 
 seg., 886 ; II. 4. 
 
 — of Buddhism, II. 57. 
 
 — Attitude of, towards God, II. 7, 
 148. 
 
 — Optimism of, II. 20. 
 
 — Self-contradiction of, II. 22, 149. 
 
 — Dualism of, II. 67. 
 See also Nature. 
 
 Pascal, I. 334 ; II. 32 seq., 306. 
 Paulsen, Eirdeitung in die PMlo- 
 
 sophie, I. 143. 
 Pentateuch, I. 398. 
 Personality, II. 82 seq. 
 Pessimism, in Judaism, II. 39, 102, 
 
 107, 113, 116, 165, 234, 305. 
 
 — in Stoicism, II. 87. 
 
 — in Christianity, II. 288, 306. 
 Pfleiderer, Pavlinism, II. 201. 
 Philo, II. 258, 278. 
 
 Plato, I. 27, 161, 168, 293, 296 
 299 seq., 369, 379; II. 151, 153 
 158, 179, 180, 181 seq., 258. 
 
 Poetry, Relation of, to religion, I 
 234, 271, 287 seg., 379 seq.; II. 17 
 
 — Metaphor and, I. 291. 
 
 — Relation of, to positivism, I 
 298 seq. See also Greek Poetry 
 
 Polytheism, Relation of, to pan 
 theism, I. 41, 196, 258, 262 seg. 
 11. 4 seq., 17 seq. 
 
 to particularism, I. 241. 
 
 to monotheism, I. 251 seq. 
 
 to worship of heavens, I. 
 
 254, 261 seq. 
 
 to Greek religion, I. 367 seq. 
 
 Polytheism, Relation of, to Chris- 
 tianity, II. 274, 304. See also 
 Objective Religion. 
 
 Pope, Essay on Man, II. 20. 
 
 Positivism, I. 298 seq., 348. 
 
 — its strength and weakness, I. 
 303 seg., 316 seg., 324 seg. 
 
 — Relation of, to religion, I. 312 
 seg. 
 
 to the miraculous, I. 318 seq. 
 
 — an objective form of thought, I. 
 321. 
 
 Rationalism, I. 298 seq. See also 
 
 Poetry. 
 Reformation, II. 262. 
 
 — and Dualism, I. 17; II. 298, 
 303 seq. 
 
 — St. Paul and, 299 seq. 
 Religion, Definition of, where to be 
 
 found, I. 40 seq., 60. 
 
 first general, I. 53 seq., 61. 
 
 as consciousness of an ulti- 
 mate unity, I. 76 seq., 136 seg., 
 163 seq., 196, 201, 328 ; II. 62, 
 146, 214, 232. 
 
 Mr. Spencer's, I. 220 seq. 
 
 — Development of, I. 40, 55, 61 
 seq., 137, 171 seq., 260 seq. 
 
 — Basis of, in our intelligence, I. 
 64 seq., 76 seg., 152 seq., 177 seq., 
 201, 205. 
 
 — Relation of art and poetry to, I. 
 234, 28T seq., 299 seq., 379 seq ; 
 II. 17. 
 
 — Relation of, to morality, I. 235 
 seq., 342 seq., 352 ; II. 6, 92 seq., 
 100, 113, 127 seq., 159. See also 
 Christianity, Oreek Religion, and 
 Judaism. 
 
 — Relation of nature to. See 
 Nature. 
 
 — Transition stage in, character- 
 istics of, I. 360 seq.; II. 318. 
 See also Objective and Subjective 
 Religion. 
 
 Religions, Anthropomorphic, 239 
 seq. 
 
 — Egyptian, I. 32, 229, 254, 261, 
 271. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 333 
 
 Religions, Indian, Early, 1. 32, 254 
 se?., 261 s&q., 267, 271, 276, 354, 
 367 ; II. 4, 29. 
 
 — Savage, I. 73, 76, 178 seg., 200, 
 214 .seg., 228, 245. 
 
 — Assyrian, I. 229, 
 
 — Mexican, I. 254. 
 
 — Peruvian, I. 254, 261. 
 
 — Chinese, I. 254, 261. 
 
 — Persian, I. 255. 
 
 See also Ghrisiianity, Judaism, 
 Buddhism, Brahmanism, and 
 Greek Religion. 
 Eeligion, Science of, Belation of, 
 to general science, I. 7 seq., 30, 
 137, 157. 
 
 — — Modern interest in, I. 12 
 seq., 38 ; II. 315. 
 
 Difficulties presented by, I. 
 
 31, 40, 141. 
 
 Necessity of, I. 35, 59. 
 
 Eenaissance, 11. 262, 301. 
 Eenan, Ernest, I. 384; 11. 132, 247. 
 Republic, The, 1. 299, 370; 11.181. 
 Reverence, Place of, in history of 
 
 religion, I. 179 seg., 201, 224. 
 Robertson Smith, Lectures on the 
 
 Religion of the Semites, I. 244. 
 Rousseau, J. J., II. 305, 306, 310. 
 
 Protestantism, and Latin Chris- 
 tianity, II. 299, 303, 307. 
 
 — and nature, II. 301. 
 
 — and Bible, II. 308. 
 
 — and private judgment, II. 308, 
 310. 
 
 — Negative character of, II. 313 
 seq. 
 
 Puritanism, a subjective religion, I. 
 193, 382. 
 
 Sacred Books of the East, I. 354, 
 
 356, 358, 359, 363. 
 Satan, II. 94, 107, 112 seq. See 
 
 also Bedzehuh and Judaism. 
 Sceptics, The, I. 159. 
 Schelling, I. 24 ; II. 63, 109. 
 Schiller, I. 387. 
 Science, general. Relation of special 
 
 sciences to, I. 3. 
 
 Science, general. Progress of, de- 
 mands specific principles, I. 5 
 seq., 322. 
 
 and objective consciousness, 
 
 I. 305 seq., 321 seq. 
 
 — Attitude of, towards religion, I. 
 304 seq. 
 
 Scholasticism, II. 283, 287. 
 Schopenhauer, I. 354 ; II. 63. 
 Self-sacrifice, JBuddhist idea of, I. 
 361 seq.; II. 154. 
 
 — Christian idea of, II. 258. 
 Semitic race, I. 384. 
 Sfeanoour, II. 306. 
 Shakespeare, II. 109. 
 
 Socrates, I. 109, 163, 368 seq. ; II. 
 
 180, 182, 184, 192, 221, 226. 
 Sophists, I. 298. 
 Sophocles, I. 281, 282, 284. 
 Spencer, Herbert, I. 121, 122, 143, 
 
 240 ; II. 168. 
 
 — on idea of development, I. 
 24, 172. 
 
 — »' — on idea of the infinite, I. 92 
 
 seq., 116, 122, 133, 143 seq., 221, 
 
 312 ; II. 70 seq., 84. 
 criticism of his view, I. 96, 
 
 102 seq., 134 seq. 
 
 on knowledge, 1. 119-123, 145. 
 
 criticism of his view, I. 124, 
 
 133, 146. 
 on earliest form of religion, 
 
 I. 239 seq. 
 on the dual morality of the 
 
 militant stage, II. 158. 
 Spinoza, 1. 103, 104, 105, 117, 118, 
 
 133, 147 ; II. 8, 21, 70, 82, 148. 
 
 See also Infinite, Dualism. 
 State. See Church. 
 St. Augustine, I. 22, 23, 106, 141, 
 
 168 ; II. 288. 
 St. John, Gospel of, II. 219, 222 
 
 seq., 228, 231. 
 St. Paul, Relation of, to universal 
 
 rehgion, II. 48, 127, 196 seq., 
 
 203, 215, 219, 222. 
 
 to nature, II. 124 seq. 
 
 -to Jesus, II. 134 seq., 193 
 
 seq., 197 seq., 209 seq., 213 
 
 seq., 222. 
 
334 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 St. Paul, Relation of, to Cross of 
 
 Christ, II. 193 saq., 198 seq., 
 
 203, 219 se?., 236. 
 to idea of Messiah, II. 194, 
 
 198 stq., 202 s&q., 219, 222. 
 to resurrection of Christ, II. 
 
 201 se.q., 218. 
 to Judaism, II. 205 se,q., 299 
 
 se,q. 
 
 — and development of Christianity, 
 I. 22 ; II. 131 szq., 257, 263, 264. 
 
 — Dualism of, II. 212 seq., 257, 
 278 mq. 
 
 — Idealism of, II. 135 stq., 228, 
 271. 
 
 — and the miraculous, II. 240 stq. 
 St. Peter, II. 299. 
 
 — and Beformation, II. 299. 
 Stoicism, a subjective philosophy, 
 
 I. 372 stq., 382 ; II. 4. 
 
 — Gelation of, to Buddhism, 1. 372. 
 
 — Morality of, I. 373 seg-. ; II. 158. 
 
 — Optimism of, II. 87. 
 
 — Relation of, to Christianity, II. 
 119. 
 
 Subjective religion, a stage in de- 
 velopment of religion, 1. 191 se,q., 
 328, 379 ; II. 4. 
 
 — Relation of, to Greek religion, 
 I. 271 s&q., 367 seg. 
 
 to objective religion, I. 271 
 
 mq., 328 seg., 350 s&q., 367 seg., 
 379 seq. ; II. 7 seg. 
 
 . to Christianity, II. 273, 303. 
 
 to Protestantism, II. 307 se,q. 
 
 — Definition of, I. 329; II. 50. 
 
 — Basis of, in our intelligence, I. 
 331 .seg., 337 stq. 
 
 — argument from desire, I. 332 acq. 
 
 — Dualism of, I. 380 aeq. ; II. 11, 
 57 seq. 
 
 — Moral ideal and, I. 342 sf.q., 352, 
 373, 379 seg. ; II. 11, 30 seq., 
 50, 55 seq. 
 
 See also Buddhism, Heiraisni, 
 
 Jvdaism, Monotheism, and Stoi- 
 cism. 
 
 Tennyson, I. 329 ; II. 69, 222, 226. 
 Thomas Aquinas, I. 334. 
 Totemism, I. 239, 256, 378. 
 Tribe, place of in early religions, I. 
 
 241, 247 seq. 
 in Judaism, I. 250, 389, 394 ; 
 
 II. 5. 
 Trinity, Doctrine of, II. 82. 
 Tourgenieff, II. 306. 
 Turgot, I. 212. 
 
 Unity of man, I. 15 seq., 28, 46, 70. 
 Universal religion, necessity of, I. 
 195 ; II. 66 seq. 
 
 — Difficulties in, II. 64 seq., 85 seq. 
 
 — Characteristics of, II. 69, 85, 
 160 seq. 
 
 — St. Paul and, II. 48, 127, 196 
 seq., 203, 215, 219, 222. 
 
 — St. John and, II. 220. 
 
 See also Christianity and 
 Religion. 
 Upaniskads, The, I. 263, 264, 354; 
 II. 58. 
 
 Vedic Hymns, I. 32, 256, 257, 261 
 seq. ; II. 354. See also Religions, 
 Indian. 
 
 Vico, I. 23. 
 
 Vincent of Lerius, II. 246. 
 
 Waitz, Anihropologie der Natur- 
 
 volker, I. 218. 
 William the Silent, II. 303. 
 Wizenmann, I. 340. 
 Word of God, I. 386; II. 219, 223. 
 Wordsworth, I. 62, 75, 197, 387 : 
 
 II. 276, 302, 306. 
 Wundt, I. 24. 
 
 Xenophon, I. 369. 
 Xenophanes, I. 255. 
 
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