It will be remembered that we brought down the history of it as far as Hume.(620) We paused there, because deism then ends as a literary movement. Politics and new forms of literature absorbed the mind. Free thought continued to exist; but it was less frequently expressed in literature, and was considerably modified by foreign influences. In Gibbon, about 1776, the ancient spirit of deism, the spirit of Bolingbroke, speaks, but the form is changed. Instead of denying Christianity on _a priori_ moral considerations, he feels bound to explain facts. The attack is not so much moral as historic. The inquiry into historical _origines_ as well as logical causes has commenced. The mode of attack too has changed, as well as the point from which it is made. The French influence is visible in the satire and irony prevalent. There is no longer the bitter moral indignation of the early English deists, but the sneer that marks the spirit of contempt. Fear and hatred of Christianity have given way to philosophical contempt. (25)
In Thomas Paine, who wrote in France in the midst of the meeting of the French Convention, we meet a nearer reproduction of the spirit of early English deism, but he has even more than Gibbon caught the spirit of the French movement. Gibbon"s scepticism is that of high life; Paine"s of low.
The one writer sneers, the other hates. The one is a philosopher, the other a politician. Paine represents the infidel movement of England when it had spread itself among the lower orders, and mingled itself with the political dissatisfaction for which unhappily there was supposed to be some ground. Paine"s spirit is that of English deism animated by the political exasperation which had characterised the French. His doctrines come from English deism; his bitterness from Voltaire; his politics from Rousseau.
Within the limits of the present century two other traces are found of the influence of the French school of infidelity, which therefore ought logically to be comprised with it. The one is political, the other literary; viz. the socialist schemes of Owen, which in some respects seem to be derived by direct lineage from Paine, and the expression of unbelief in the poetry of Byron and Sh.e.l.ley.
We must briefly notice these writers in succession. The first in the series is Gibbon.(621) Though he has left an autobiography, he has not fully unveiled the causes which shook his faith, and made him turn deist.
We can however collect that the reaction from the doubts suggested by the perusal of Middleton"s work on the subject of the cessation of miracles, then recently brought into notoriety, (26) turned him to the church of Rome; and that his residence abroad and familiarity with French literature caused him to drift afterwards into the opposite extreme of scepticism. He did not become an atheist, like some of the French writers whom we have been studying: but he seems to have given up the belief in the divine origin of Christianity; and he manifested the spirit of dislike and insinuation common in the unbelief of the time.
He did not write expressly against Christianity; but the subject came across his path in travelling over the vast s.p.a.ce of time which he embraced in his magnificent History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. It is a subject of regret to be compelled to direct hostile remarks against one who has deserved so well of the world. That work, though in the pageantry of its style(622) it in some sense reflects the art and taste of the age in which it was written, yet in its love of solid information and deep research is the n.o.blest work of history in the English tongue. Grand alike in its subject, its composition, and its perspective, it has a right to a place among the highest works of human conception; and sustains the relation to history which the works of Michael Angelo bear to art. In the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of this work, Gibbon had occasion to discuss the origin of Christianity, and a.s.signed five causes for its spread; viz. its internal doctrine, and organization, miracles, Jewish zeal, and excellence of Christian morals.
The chapters were received with denunciations. Yet those(623) who in later times have re-examined Gibbon"s statements candidly admit that they can find hardly any errors of fact or intentional mis-statement of circ.u.mstances.
The great mistake which he commits is obvious, and the cause hardly less so. The mistake is twofold: first, he attributes to the earliest period of Christianity that which was only true of a later; and secondly, he confounds the circ.u.mstances of the spread of Christianity with the cause which gave it force.(624) The powerful influence of the causes which he specifies cannot be doubted;(625) and we may hold it to be not derogatory to our religion that it admits of union with every cla.s.s of efficient causes; and adapts itself so fully to man"s wants, as to accept the support of ordinary sources of influence. But the causes which he alleges operated far less strongly, and some of them not at all, in the primitive age of Christianity. The discussion of this period lay beyond Gibbon"s purpose; and as he dwelt wholly on the aspects of a later age, he has left the impression that the earliest age partook of the same characteristics.
Nor is he correct in regarding the five causes as solely efficient. There is a subtler force at work, of the operation of which they exhibit only the conditions. They reveal the mechanism, but do not explain the principle. Without judging him as a theologian in omitting the theological cause for an alleged supernatural power, he must be censured as a historian in failing to appreciate the spiritual movement at work in Christianity, the deep excitement of the spiritual faculty, the yearning of the mind after truth and holiness. The same fault is observable in his appreciation of religion generally, and not merely of Christianity. With the want of spiritual perception common to his age, he had not the ethical sensibility to appreciate the internal part of a religious system; and hence he regards unworldly phenomena in the tone of the political world of his time.
In pointing out his errors, we have hinted at their causes. The coldness which scepticism and sensational philosophy(626) had induced in his mind, which could kindle into warmth in describing the greatness either of men or of events, but not in depicting the moral excellence of Christianity, was but the reflection of the cold hatred of religious enthusiasm common in his day. Nor would the historic views of primitive Christianity commonly entertained in his time tend to dissipate his error. For it was usual in that age of evidences to regard the early converts as cold and cautious inquirers, accustomed to weigh evidences and suggest doubts. In attempting to discover the doctrines and discipline of the English church in apostolic times, there was a danger of transferring the notions of modern decorum to the marvellous outburst of enthusiastic piety and supernatural mystery which attended the communication of the heaven-sent message; and therefore it is some palliation for Gibbon that he too failed to perceive that those were times of excitement, when new ideas fell on untried minds and yearning hearts. And it is a remarkable proof of the improved general conception which men now entertain of Christianity, that no apprehension of danger is now felt from Gibbon"s views. The youngest student has imbibed a religious spirit so much deeper, that he cannot fail instinctively to perceive their insufficiency as an explanation of the phenomena.(627)
One of our great poets has celebrated the two literary exiles of the Leman lake.(628) But how different are our feelings in respect of them in relation to this subject! Both were deists; but the one dedicated his life to a crusade against Christianity, the other only insinuated a few slight hints: the one derived his faults from himself, the other from his age: the one, the type of subtlety, acted by his pen on the world political; the other, the type of industry, sought to instruct the student. The writings of Voltaire remain as works of power, but not of information: Gibbon"s history will endure as long as the English tongue.
Paine is a character of a very different kind from the freethinker last named.(629) Instead of the polished scholar, the polite man of letters, and the historian, like Gibbon, we see in him an active man of the world, educated by men rather than books, of low tastes and vulgar tone, the apostle alike of political revolution and infidelity. Though a native of England, his earliest life was spent in America at the time of the war of independence. Returning to England with the strong feelings of liberty and freedom which had marked the revolt of the colonies, he wrote at the time of the outbreak of the French revolution a work called the Rights of Man, in reply to Burke"s criticism on that event. Prosecuted for this work, he fled to France, and was distinguished by being the only foreigner save one(630) elected to the French Convention. During its session he composed the infidel work called the Age of Reason, by which his name has gained an unenviable notoriety; and after the alteration of political circ.u.mstances in France, he returned to America, and there dragged out a miserable existence, indebted in his last illness for acts of charity to disciples of the very religion that he had opposed.
The two works, the Rights of Man, and the Age of Reason, being circulated widely in England by the democratic societies of that period, contributed probably more than any other books to stimulate revolutionary feeling in politics and religion.(631) This popularity is owing partly to the character of the language and ideas, partly to the state of public feeling. Manifesting much plebeian simplicity of speech and earnestness of conviction, they gave expression in coa.r.s.e Saxon words to thoughts which were then pa.s.sing through many hearts. They were like the address of a mob-orator in writing, and fell upon ground prepared. Political reforms had been steadily resisted; and accordingly, when the success of foreign revolution had raised men"s spirits to the highest point of impatience, the middle cla.s.ses, which wanted a moderate reform, were unfortunately thrown on the side of the wild and anarchical spirits that wished for utter revolution. The church, by holding with the state, was partly involved in the same obloquy. Paine"s works, resembling Rousseau"s in purpose, though quite opposite in style, were as much adapted to the lower cla.s.ses of England as his to the polished upper cla.s.ses of France.
The Age of Reason, was a pamphlet admitting of quick perusal. It was afterwards followed by a second part, in which a defence was offered against the replies made to the former part. The object of the two is to state reasons for rejecting the Bible,(632) and to explain the nature of the religion of deism,(633) which was proposed as a subst.i.tute. A portion is devoted to an attack on the external evidence of revelation, or, as the author blasphemously calls it,(634) "the three princ.i.p.al means of imposture," prophecy, miracles, and mystery; the latter of which he a.s.serts may exist in the physical, but not by the nature of things in the moral world. A larger portion is devoted to a collection of the various internal difficulties of the books of the Old and New Testament, and of the schemes of religion, Jewish and Christian.(635) The great ma.s.s of these objections are those which had been suggested by English or French deists, but are stated with extreme bitterness. The most novel part of this work is the use which Paine makes of the discoveries of astronomy(636) in revealing the vastness of the universe and a plurality of globes, to discredit the idea of interference on behalf of this insignificant planet,-an argument which he wields especially against the doctrine of incarnation. But no part of his work manifests such bitterness, and at the same time such a specious mode of argument, as his attack on the doctrine of redemption and subst.i.tutional atonement.(637) The work, in its satire and its blasphemous ribaldry, is a fit parallel to those of Voltaire. Every line is fresh from the writer"s mind, and written with an acrimony which accounts for much of its influence. The religion which Paine subst.i.tuted for Christianity was the belief in one G.o.d as revealed by science, in immortality as the continuance of conscious existence, in the natural equality of man, and in the obligation of justice and mercy to one"s neighbour.(638)
The influence of the spirit of Paine lingered in some strata of our population far into the present century: by means of the views of Owen,(639) the founder of English socialism, which essentially reproduce the visionary political reforms which belonged to the philosophy and to the doubt of the last century.
Being desirous to improve the condition of the industrial cla.s.ses, Owen speculated on the causes of evil; and, approaching the subject from the extreme sensational point of view, regarded the power of circ.u.mstances to be so great, that he was led to regard action as the obedience to the strongest motive. He thus introduced the idea of physical causation into the human will; and made the rule of right to be each one"s own pleasures and pains. Founding political inferences on this ethical theory of circ.u.mstantial fatalism, he proposed the system called socialism, which aimed at modifying temptations and removing two great cla.s.ses of temptations, by facilitating divorce, and proposing equality of property.
The system is now obsolete both in idea and in history, yet it has an interest from the circ.u.mstance that until recently it deceived the minds and corrupted the religious faith of many of the manufacturing population.
The history of the influence of French infidelity on the course of English thought closes with names of greater note.(640) If Owen, though belonging to the present century, represents the political tone of the past, we must also refer to the same period, morally though not chronologically, the spirit of unbelief which animated literature in the poetry of Byron and Sh.e.l.ley.
Saddened by blighted hopes, political and personal, Byron affords a type of the unbelief which is marked by despair.(641) If compared with the two exiles of the Leman lake, whom the sympathy of a common scepticism and common exile commended to his meditation, he stands in many respects widely contrasted with them in tone and spirit. Allied rather to Gibbon in seriousness, he nevertheless wholly lacked his moral purpose and resolute spirit of perseverance. More nearly resembling Voltaire in the nature of his unbelief, he nevertheless differed in the features of gloom by which his mind was characterized. His unbelief was a remnant of the philosophic atheism of France; but it received a tinge in pa.s.sing through the wounded mind of the poet.
His brother poet, of a still loftier genius, is more widely contrasted with him in mental qualities, than united by similarity in the character of his unbelief. Both were weary of the world; but the one was drawn down by unbelief to earth, the other soared into the ideal: the one was driven to the gloom of despair, the other was excited by the imagination to the madness of enthusiasm: the one was made sad by disappointment, the other was goaded by it into frenzy.
Sh.e.l.ley merits more than a pa.s.sing notice, both because his poetry is a proof of our main position concerning the influence of certain forms of philosophy in producing unbelief, and because his mental history, as learned by means of his works and memoirs, is a psychological study of the highest value. The infidelity which shows itself in him is an _idolum specus_, as well as an _idolum theatri_.(642)
His life, his natural character, and his philosophy, all contributed to form his scepticism.(643) His life is a tale of sorrow and ruined hopes, of genius without wisdom: one of the sad stories which will ever excite the sympathy of the heart. Early sent to this university, he seems like Gibbon to have lived alone; and in the solitude of that impulsive and recluse spirit which formed his life-long peculiarity, to have nursed a spirit of atheism and wild schemes of reform. Charged by the authorities of his college with the authorship of an atheistical pamphlet,(644) he was expelled the university. An outcast from his family, he went forth to suffer poverty, to gather his livelihood as he could by the wonderful genius which nature had given him. Wronged as he thought by his university and his country, his wounded spirit imputed the supposed unkindness which he received to the religion which his enemies professed. In a foreign land, brooding over his wrongs, he cherished the bitter antipathy to priestcraft and to monarchy which finds such terrific expression in his poems.(645) His end was a fit close of a tragic life. A friendly hand paid the last office of friendship to his remains; and the urn which contains the ashes of his pyre rests in the solemn and beautiful cemetery of the eternal city, which he himself had described so strikingly in his affecting memorial of his friend, the poet Keats.(646)
His natural character contributed to produce his scepticism not less than his life to increase it. He has left us a clear delineation of himself in his writings. If considered on the emotional side, he was a creature of impulses. His predominant pa.s.sion was an enthusiastic desire to reform the world. Filled with the wildest ideas of the French revolution, his impulsiveness hurried him on to give expression to them. His intellectual nature was a.n.a.logous to the moral, and itself received a stimulus from it.
His mental peculiarity was his power of sustained abstraction. His poems are not lyrics of life, but of an ideal world. His tendency was to insulate qualities or feelings, and hold them up to the mental vision as personalities. The words which he has addressed to his own skylark fitly describe his mind as it soared in the solitude of its abstraction:
Higher still and higher From the earth thou springest,
And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
It has been well observed, that this tendency of the mind to personify isolated qualities or impulses, was essentially the mythological tendency(647) which had created the religion and expressed itself in the poetry of the Greeks, and possibly contributed to foster Sh.e.l.ley"s sympathies with heathen religion. His mind was peculiarly Greek, simple not complex, imaginative rather than fanciful, abstract not concrete, intellectual not emotional; wanting the many-sidedness of modern taste, partaking of the unity of science rather than the multiformity of nature, like sculpture rather than painting. This mental peculiarity contributed to scepticism by inclining his mind to the pantheistic philosophy, which can never be held save by those whose minds can give being to an abstraction, and is revolting to those who are deeply touched with the Hebrew consciousness of personality and of duty. His philosophy was at first a form of naturalism, which identified G.o.d with nature, and made body and spirit co-essential. In this stage he oscillated between the belief of half personified self-moved atoms, or a general pervading spirit of nature. From this stage he pa.s.sed into a new one, by contact with the philosophy of Hume; and, while admitting the diversity of matter and spirit, yet denied the substantial reality of both. In this state of mind he studied the philosophy of Plato, which was originally designed for doubters somewhat a.n.a.logous to him; and he readily imbibed the theory that the pa.s.sing phenomena are types of eternal archetypes, embodiments of eternal realities. But it was Plato"s view of the universe that he accepted, not his view of man; his metaphysics, not his ethics. In none of these three theories is the rule of the universe ascribed to a character, but in each to animated abstractions. They are a pantheistic or mythological view of things.(648) Nor was the effect of this philosophy merely theoretical, for the distorted view of the physical and moral cosmos led him to believe that both should be regulated by the same conditions; that men should have the unconstrained liberty which he thought he saw in material things. Like Rousseau, ascribing moral evil to the artificial laws of society, Sh.e.l.ley proposed to subst.i.tute a new order of things, in which man should be emanc.i.p.ated from kings and priests. This philosophy also increased his hatred against the moral order of the world, and especially against Christianity; and led him to regard it as the offshoot of superst.i.tion and the impediment to progress. Yet even here, while echoing the irreverent doctrines of the French revolution, he bore an unconscious witness to the majesty of the Christian virtues, in that he could find no n.o.bler type with which to invest his ideal race of men.
We have dwelt long on Sh.e.l.ley, as a most instructive example for observing the various influences, personal and social, intellectual and moral, philosophical and political, combining to form unbelief. His thoughts are the last echo of the unbelief of the last century. The great movement of Germany has completely changed the scepticism of the present. The instances that we have found of unbelief in England were indications of a tendency rather than a movement. They were however of sufficient importance to call forth the voices of the church in reply or in protest.
It has been remarked, that in the former half of the eighteenth century the attack was chiefly directed against the internal doctrines and narratives of revelation, on the a.s.sumption that they clashed with the judgment of common sense, or of the moral faculty. And therefore the writers on the evidences, adapting their defence to the attack, employed themselves chiefly in establishing the internal evidences, the moral need of a revelation generally, and the suitability of the Christian in particular, before producing the divine testimony which authenticates it.
But about the middle of this century the historic spirit arose, and the point of attack shifted to an a.s.sault on the historic value of the literature which contains the revelation. The question thenceforth became a literary one, whether there was doc.u.mentary proof that a revelation had been given. The defence accordingly ceased to be philosophical, and became historical.(649)
Opinions have changed with regard to the value of evidences in general, and the historic form of them in particular. When Boyle(650) at the end of the seventeenth century, and Bampton and Hulse in the latter half of the eighteenth, established their respective lectures, they looked forward to the probability of the occurrence of new forms of doubt, and to the importance of reasoning as the weapon for meeting them. In more recent times evidences have been undervalued, through the two opposite tendencies of the present age, the churchly and corporate tendency on the one hand, which rests on church authority, and the individualising tendency on the other, which rests on intuitive consciousness.(651) Evidences essentially belong to a theory, which places the test of truth objectively in a revealed book, and subjectively in the reason, as the organ for discovering morality and interpreting the book.(652) While evidences in general have been undervalued for these reasons, the historic branch of them has been regarded as obsolete, because having reference only to an age which doubts the doc.u.ments and charges the authors with being deceivers or deceived, and unavailing, like an old fortification, against a new mode of a.s.sault. This latter statement is in substance correct. It lessens the value of this argument as a practical weapon against the doubts which now a.s.sail us, but does not detract from the literary value of the works in the special branch to which they apply. If the progress of knowledge be the exciting cause of free thought, a similar alteration in the evidences would be expected to occur from causes similar to those which produce an alteration in the attack, independently of the change which occurs from the necessity of adjusting the one to the other.
Abstract questions like this concerning the value of evidences find their solution independently of the human will. The human mind cannot be chained. New knowledge will suggest new doubts; and if so, spirit must be combated by spirit. Defences of Christianity, attempts to readjust it to new discoveries, must therefore continue to the end of time. In reference to the minor question of the value of the historic evidences, it is important to remember that these grand works are not simply refutative; they are indirectly instructive and didactic. Just as miracles are a part of Christianity, as well as evidences for its truth, so apologetic is a lesson in Christianity, as well as a reply to doubt.(653) It happens also that the most modern doubt of Germany has a.s.sumed the historic line, has become critical instead of philosophical; and, though the criticism is primarily of a different kind, it ultimately becomes capable of refutation by the very line of argument used in the eighteenth century.(654) We cherish therefore with devout reverence the memory of those writers who employed the power of the pen to defend the religion that they loved. They joined their intellectual labours to the spiritual earnestness which was the other weapon for opposing unbelief. Providence blessed their work.
They sowed the seed of the intellectual and spiritual harvest which this century is reaping. "And herein is that saying true, One soweth and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal; that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together."(655)
LECTURE VI. FREE THOUGHT IN THE THEOLOGY OF GERMANY FROM 1750-1835.
PHIL. iv. 8.
_Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things._
We are about to study the history of the movement in German theology, which is usually described by the vague name of Rationalism,(656)-a movement which, whether viewed specially in its relation to theology, or to literature generally, must be regarded as one of the most memorable efforts of human thought. It was one aspect of the great outburst of mental activity in Germany, which within the last hundred years has created a literature, which not only vies with the most renowned of those which have added to the stock of human knowledge, but holds a foremost rank among those which are characterised by originality and depth. The permanent contribution made by it to the thought of the world is the creation of a science of criticism,-a method of a.n.a.lysis, in which philosophy and history are jointly employed in the investigation of every branch of knowledge. If however it be viewed apart from the question of utility, the works produced during this period, in poetry, speculation, criticism, and theology, must ever make it memorable for monuments of mental power, even when they shall have become obsolete as sources of information.
The theological aspect of this great period of mental activity, which we are about to sketch, has now probably so far a.s.sumed its final shape, and given indications of the tendencies permanently created by it for good or for evil, that it admits of being viewed as a whole, and its purpose and meaning observed.(657)
We shall deviate slightly from the plan hitherto pursued, of selecting only the sceptical form of free thought, and shall give an outline of German theology generally; partly because the limits that sever orthodoxy from heresy are a matter of dispute, partly in order that the movement may be judged of as a whole. The size of the subject will preclude the possibility of entering so fully into biographical notices of the writers, or into the a.n.a.lysis of their writings, as in former lectures. We must select such typical minds as will enable us to observe the chief tendencies of thought.
As the stages of history are not arbitrarily severed, but grow out of each other, we must briefly notice the mental conditions of the period in Germany which preceded the rise of rationalism; next indicate the new forces, the introduction of which was the means of generating the movement; and then explain the movement itself in its chief phases and present results.
We have previously had occasion to imply, that the Protestant reformation of the sixteenth century contained both an intellectual and a spiritual element.(658) The attempt to reconcile these has been the problem of protestant theology in Germany ever since. The intellectual element, so far as it was literary, soon pa.s.sed into the hands of lay scholars:(659) the spiritual became a life rather than a doctrine, and the polemic or dogmatic aspect of the intellectual movement alone was left. The time from the pa.s.sing of the Formula of Concord and the Synod of Dort(660) to the beginning of the eighteenth century, a period nearly corresponding with the seventeenth century, was in Germany an age of dogmatic theology. It was scholasticism revived, with the difference that the only source for the data of argument was the Scripture, not philosophy. But there was an equal absence of inquiry into first principles, an equal appeal to authority for the grounds of belief, and equal activity within these prescribed limits. It was marked, as among the contemporary puritans in England, by the most extreme view of biblical inspiration.(661) Not only was the distinction of law and gospel overlooked, and the historic and providential development in revelation forgotten; but Scripture was supposed to be in all respects a guide for the present, as well as a record of the past. Infallible inspiration was attributed to the authors of the sacred books, not merely in reference to the religious instruction which formed the appropriate matter of the supernatural revelation, but in reference also to the allusions to collateral subjects, such as natural science, or politics; and not merely to the matter, but to the smallest details of the language of the books.
Contemporary with this scholastic spirit was an outburst of the living spiritual feeling which had formed the other element in the Reformation.
This religious movement is denominated Pietism. (27) Its centre was at Halle; and the best known name among the band of saints, of whom the world was not worthy, was Spener. Soon after the time when the miseries of the thirty years" war were closing, he established schools for orphans, and a system of teaching and of religious living which stirred up religious life in Germany. These two tendencies-the dogmatic and the pietistic-marked the religious life of Germany at the opening of the eighteenth century. The inference has been frequently drawn by the German writers, that they ministered indirectly to the production of scepticism; the dogmatic strictness stimulating a reaction towards lat.i.tude of opinion, and the unchurchlike and isolating character of pietism fostering individuality of belief. This inference is however hardly correct. Dogmatic truth in the corporate church, and piety in the individual members, are ordinarily the safeguard of Christian faith and life. The danger arose in this case from the circ.u.mstance that the dogmas were emptied of life, and so became unreal; and that the piety, being separated from theological science, became insecure.
During the first half of the century, certain new influences were introduced, which in the latter half caused these tendencies to develope into rationalism. They may be cla.s.sed as three;(662)-the spread of the speculative philosophy of Wolff; the introduction of the works of the English deists; and the influence of the colony of French infidels established by Frederick the Great in Prussia. We shall explain these in detail.
The philosophy of Wolff was an offshoot directly from Leibnitz, indirectly from the Cartesian school. It is hardly necessary to reiterate the remark that the revolution in thought wrought by Descartes was nothing less than a protest of the human mind against any external authority for the first principles of its belief. Two great philosophers followed out his method in an independent manner; Spinoza, who attempted to exhibit with the rigour of deduction the necessary development of the idea of substance into the various modes which it a.s.sumes; and Leibnitz,(663) who, with less attempt at formal precision of method, starting with the idea of power, endeavoured, by means of the monadic theory, which it is unnecessary here to explain, to exhibit the nature of the universe in itself, and the connexion of the world of matter and of spirit. Wolff was a disciple of Leibnitz; great as a teacher rather than an inventor, who invested the system of his master slightly modified, with the precision of form which raised it to rivalry with the perfect symmetry of Spinoza"s system.
Adopting his master"s two great canons of truth, the law of contradiction as regulative of thoughts, and the law of the sufficient reason as regulative of things,(664) he attempted in his theoretic philosophy to work out a regular system on each of the great branches of metaphysic,-nature, the mind, and G.o.d; by deducing them from the abstract ideas of the human mind.(665) The true method of conducting this inquiry would be strictly an _a posteriori_ one, an a.n.a.lytical examination of our own consciousness, to ascertain what data the facts of the thinking mind furnish with respect to things thought of. But without any such examination Wolff, a.s.suming in reference to these subjects the abstract ideas of the human mind as his data, proceeded to reason from them with the same confidence as the realists of the middle ages, or as mathematicians when they commence with the real intuitions of magnitude on which their science is founded. Thus his whole philosophy was form without matter; a magnificent idea, but not a fact. Yet though really baseless, it was not necessarily harmful.
This philosophy at first met with much opposition from the pietistic party of Halle.(666) The opposition was not due to any theological incorrectness, for Wolff was an orthodox Christian; but arose from the narrow and unnecessary suspicions which religious men too often have of philosophy, and the sensibility to any attempt to suggest a reconsideration of the grounds of belief, even if the conclusion adopted be the same. But the system soon became universally dominant. Its orderly method possessed the fascination which belongs to any encyclopaedic view of human knowledge. It coincided too with the tone of the age. Really opposed, as Cartesianism had been in France, to the scholasticism which still reigned, its dogmatic form nevertheless bore such external similarity to it, that it fell in with the old literary tastes. The evil effects which it subsequently produced in reference to religion were due only to the point of view which it ultimately induced. Like Locke"s work on the reasonableness of Christianity, it stimulated intellectual speculation concerning revelation. By suggesting attempts to deduce _a priori_ the necessary character of religious truths, it turned men"s attention more than ever away from spiritual religion to theology. The attempt to demonstrate everything caused dogmas to be viewed apart from their practical aspect; and men being compelled to discard the previous method of drawing philosophy out of scripture, an independent philosophy was created, and scripture compared with its discoveries.(667) Philosophy no longer relied on scripture, but scripture rested on philosophy.
Dogmatic theology was made a part of metaphysical philosophy. This was the mode in which Wolff"s philosophy ministered indirectly to the creation of the disposition to make scriptural dogmas submit to reason, which was denominated rationalism. The empire of it was undisputed during the whole of the middle part of the century, until it was expelled towards the close by the partial introduction of Locke"s philosophy,(668) and of the system of Kant, as well as by the growth of cla.s.sical erudition, and of a native literature.
The second cause which ministered to generate rationalism was English deism. The connexion of England with Hanover had caused several of the works of the English deists to be translated in Germany,(669) and the general doctrines of natural religion, expressed by Herbert and Toland, were soon reproduced, together with the difficulties put forth by Tindal.
But the direct effect of this cause has probably been exaggerated by the eagerness of those who, in the wish to identify German rationalism with English deism, have ignorantly overlooked the wide differences in premises, if not in results, which separated them, and the regular internal law of logical development which has presided over the German movement.
A more direct cause was found about the middle of the century in the influence of the French refugees and others, whom Frederick the Great invited to his court. Not only were Voltaire and Diderot visitors, but several writers of worse fame, La Mettrie, D"Argens, Maupertuis,(670) who possessed their faults without their mental power, were constant residents. Their philosophy and unbelief were the miniature of that which we have detailed in France. They created an antichristian atmosphere about the court, and in the upper cla.s.ses of Berlin; and even minds that were attempting to create a native literature, and to improve the critical standard of literary taste, were partially influenced by means of it.(671)