favour of a higher being; nor of attributing to the medicines which he, as doctor to the regiment, prescribed, the power of raising the dead; nor of using the circumstance that even to the present day there is still a mystery connected with the poet's burial, to favour the supposition that he was raised to the heavenly regions in a living body. In his Leben Jesu, für das deutsche Volk, 1864, he describes the modern view of the world, advocated by himself, as that which leaves a man to himself (p. 9); and afterwards adds, p. 19, emphasizing the words by italics, 'He who would rid the Church of popes, must first rid religion of miracles.' The poetic confession of Prutz (Deutsches Museum, 1862, p. 687), Kreuz und Rosen,' of which the following translation may give some idea, accords with the expressions of this philosophico-theological representative of the modern view of the world: '

But the most uncompromising expression of these opinions as far as relates to their application to political life-appears in J. B. v. Schweizer's Zeitgeist und Christenthum (Leipsic: Otto Wigand, 1861). The multiform and practical activity of this author, who is at the head of a numerous party, together with his present undertaking of editing the "Socialdemokraten" upon

the principles of Lassall, renders his work doubly important; and the reckless consistency with which the principles he advocates are applied makes it the actual programme of the movement. Its fundamental idea is the irreconcilability of Christianity, as well as every positive religion, with the triumphant progress of the spirit of the age. The manner in which this idea is carried out so far, that is, as the contents of his book touch upon our subject-is as follows:-How did this religion originate? and how is it maintained? Through a threefold need (p. 15): a metaphysical one, which betakes itself to an admission of a supernatural cause for an explanation of the inexplicable; a moral one, which demands an equalizing and retributive justice for the solution of the enigma of moral evil; and a need of help, which, in the feeling of its impotence, would willingly lean upon a strength beyond its own. But, in this threefold respect, religion is the product of weakness-the weakness both of the reason and the will. Hence it is chiefly found among the weaker sex (pp. 313, etc.); for strength both of reason and will is wanting in woman; and all women, from the queen to the maid-servant, are given to superstition (p. 323). Religious faith is as much a superstition as fortunetelling, etc. (pp. 316, etc.) Christianity is at present in a process of irresistible dissolution. Science and culture are ever more and more replacing Christianity and all revealed religion (pp. 76, 84). Moreover, the spirit of the age cannot be reconciled with Christianity. What is the principle of the spirit of the age? Cosmopolitan democracy (p. 99). The antagonistic principle thereto is conservatism. Now, religion, Christianity, the Church, are eminently conservative powers. Hence Christianity and the spirit of the age confront each other, not as two opposite opinions or views, but as two opposing principles (p. 105). These antagonisms are irreconcilable; no composition can avail. When our business is to seize the favourable opportunity of crushing the power by which the good cause is systematically

depressed, to make room for the incorporation of the political principles of the age in its external regulations, every obstacle must be levelled with unsparing severity; and its champions must advance with an iron consistency, whether their way lies through the gay fields of spring, or over ruins and corpses.' When, then, the State is such as modern culture would have it, what is to replace Christianity therein? A new religion is impossible. The same development of culture which has begun to extinguish Christianity, as being a revealed religion, makes all revealed religion impossible (p. 190). The State of the future will do without religion' (p. 196). Consequently penal statutes, and not religion, appear as the true and real palladium of public security and civil order (p. 225). Then will dawn an era of humanity and toleration (p. 226). And one special advantage will be, that there will then be no theology and no theologians, and that the intellectual powers thus placed at our disposal will then be applied in an economico-national and productive manner (p. 267). How much wealth, too, will be saved, when there are no more churches and clergymen, etc., to pay for! Whoever shall still desire to have a religion, will be obliged to have it at his own expense (p. 270). Such is the programme of the spirit of the age. Thus utterly antagonistic are the opposing principles, though their antagonism is not always so clearly perceived or expressed.

NOTES TO LECTURE II.

(1) Strauss, Glaubenslehre, 1851.

(2) Blaise Pascal, the acute mathematician, the able opponent of the Jesuits, and a brilliant author of the golden age of French literature, has left in his Pensées fragmentary materials for an apology for Christianity, which he regarded as the work of his life. declared that ten healthy years were needed for such

He

a work, while God granted him only four sickly ones. He died 1662, at the age of 39. Amidst the anguish of various acute disorders, which left him little rest either by night or day, he not only solved the most difficult mathematical problems (on the cycloid), which none other was able to solve, but also left behind him the materials which he had collected for this great work. His death entailed upon posterity the duty of taking up and continuing the work commenced by him. On Pascal, Compare Tholuck, Vermischte Schriften, 1839, Part i., pp. 244, etc.; Reuchlin, Pascal's Leben und der Geist seiner Schriften, 1840; Neander, Wissenschaftl. Abhandlungen, published by Jacobi, 1851; Weingarten, Pascal als Apologet des Christenthums, 1863-Modern editions of his Pensées, Paris, Didot, 1861; with the Pensées of Nicole; and that of Prospere Faugère, 2 vols, Paris 1844. I quote from Faugère's edition, but insert also the pages of Didot's in brackets. The passage cited is from vol. ii. 84 (49). Compare generally the whole section, Grandeur et misère de l'homme, ii. 79, etc. (44, etc.), from which most of the following quotations from the Pensées are taken.

(3) Goethe, Gespräche mit Eckermann, ii., 132, Heyder, (Ueber das Verhältniss Goethe's zu Spinoza. Ztschr. für die luth. Theol. u Kirche 1366, ii., p. 266) says: "Goethe was all his life persuaded that all search after an ultimate cause will at last arrive at an insoluble problem." The Greek father Gregory of Nazianzen touchingly expresses his conviction that man is an enigma to himself (Carm. de Hum. Nat. 1, 3, 14). 'I was sitting yesterday under the shade of a hedge. My soul was inwardly consumed, I was plunged in grief. The questions: What have I been? What am I now? What will become of me? agitated me. I do not know. Even a wiser than I am does not know. I wander about surrounded with obscurity. What I was has vanished from me. What shall I be to-morrow if I still

exist?' Compare also Rousseau, Emile, i. iv. vol. ii. (Euvres, Paris, 1820, vol. ix.) p. 17: Nous n'avons point la mésure, de cette machine immense, nous n'en pouvons calculer les rapports; nous n'en connaissons ni les premières lois, ni la cause finale, nous nous ignorons nous-mêmes; nous ne connaissons ni notre nature, ni notre principe actif.'

(4) Naville, La vie eternelle.

(5) Goethe. Faust:

So tauml' ich von Begierde zum Genuss,

Und im Genuss verschmacht ich nach Begierde.

Compare also Dalton, Nathanael Vorträge über das Christenthum, 2d Edit., Petersburg, 1864, p. 34. Byron calculated that he had passed in his whole life eleven happy days. And Nelson envied him alone, whose undisturbable possession lies six feet below the earth.' Ziethe, Die Wahrheit und Herrlichkeit des Christenthums, Seven Lectures, Berlin, 1863, p. 43.

(6) Pascal, Pensées, ii. 90 (149), ii. 147 (178).

(7) Pascal, Pensées ii. 118 (191): pour cela instead of pour l'éternité.

(8) Pascal, Pensées, ii. 88 (149); compare also p. 104, (80): Nous avons une idée de bonheur et ne pouvons y arriver; nous sentons une image de la verité et ne possédons que le mensonge: incapables d'ignorer absolument et de savoir certainement, tant il est manifeste que nous avons été dans un degré de perfection dont nous sommes malheureusement déchus!

(9) Pasc. Pens. ii. 82 (48).

(10) It is the feeling of this contradiction which begets aspiration, as Schiller expresses it in his poems. 'Sehnsucht,' and 'Der Pilgrim :