of it into the hands of violent and superstitious men, who were actually exercising, and would continue to exercise with continually increasing vigour, a tyrannical control over the consciences of the weak, especially of women, and of the ignorant in all classes; and that this would eventually produce effects likely to be intensely unwelcome to the cultivated classes. His case, in short, was this:-How foolish you are not only to abstain from but to discourage a scheme, the effect of which is to make religion reasonable, for an irrational religion is an instrument of terrible power, capable of making you in particular singularly uncomfortable. Experience shows that some sort of religion will always exist; and, if you succeed in talking people out of rational religion, you will talk them into superstition. The Times, of course, had its leading article upon the subject. It was fully worthy of the paper and of the occasion. That is to say, it was a nearly perfect illustration of the way in which the largest class of well-to-do English people like to see great subjects treated by their favourite organ, and of the temper of mind which has induced the conductors of what is perhaps the most influential newspaper in the world to sell for present circulation and momentary influence all claim to be considered as the representative of anything like real intellectual power. In a puffy kind of way the Times proposed to recognise and take into account 'the attitude of the German mind' upon religious subjects. It accordingly described the position of affairs in that tone of orthodox omniscience in which it has an undisputed pre-eminence. The following extracts are worth reading in their way as specimens of the sort of composition which that part of the British public which reads the Times cordially

likes:

The general development of this tone of For thought is sufficiently understood. more than half a century the professors and philosophers of the North German Universities have occupied their indomitable industry in attempting to dissect with unattainable minuteness the sacred books and truths of Christianity, and have ention in constructing ideal histories in place gaged their almost superstitious imaginaof the real. It is, probably, the same strange, brooding genius of the German mind which has at one time rendered it the home of the most weird superstitions, and at another of the most impalpable idealities.

After one or two slight remarks upon the historical cause of this state of things, we reach the following surprising passage:

for some time, in a state of revolution, Germany, in a word, is, and has been and, as has generally been seen in history, the revolution has been religious as well as political.

There are several other grounds for regarding the present state of German thought as transitory, and for being confident that the nation will, sooner or later, recur to its former faith. There is, for instance, a conspicuous extravagance about the criticisms and arguments of these writers which says little for the reasonableness of their rationalism.

The expression, 'other grounds,' implies that the writer regards the fact that a nation is in a state of revolution as a reason for thinking that it will shortly return to the status quo ante bellum: as if France had re-established the ancien régime, or as if England, after the restoration, had gone back to the condition of things which preceded 1642, as if, in a word, a revolution was, practically as well as etymologically, a mere turning like the spin of a teetotum, ending by bringing everything back to its original position. This remarkable view is followed by some of the regulation sneers at the contradictions between the constructive efforts of German critics. Like all other such sneers, they proceed upon the assumption that if many people agree in thinking a given story false, while they disagree in the inference as to what

really happened, which they form from avowedly imperfect materials, their opinion is entitled to no weight. If, for instance, twelve jurymen agree to convict a prisoner notwithstanding an alibi set up on his behalf, their verdict is to be entitled to no weight, because some of them think the alibi true, but inconclusive, whilst others think it was founded on a genuine mistake, and others that it involved wilful perjury. A short excursus of this kind is followed by a practical application summing up the whole matter in these words:

A state of feeling cannot last which supports itself on dreamy criticism, and which must forget domestic as well as general history in order to preserve the 'logical sequence' of its ideas. We have firm faith in the ultimate triumph of sound knowledge and natural feeling. It may, indeed, need some severe experience before the Germans return to the recognition of the Meanwhile, we can only advise our own countrymen not to be so ready as they sometimes are, to take German theories on trust. There is not the slightest reason to be either frightened or fascinated by these

essential facts of human nature.

dreams. Nature will sooner or later reassert

its needs, and the days of common sense and common faith will return.

This passage is eminently characteristic. It assumes that the writer knows perfectly well what is the truth in relation to the subjects upon which the poor dreaming Germans have got so terribly bewildered with their conspicuous extravagance,' their almost superstitious imagination,' and their strange brooding genius.' If he would only take the trouble he could give us in a few words the result of the 'ultimate triumph of sound knowledge and natural feeling. Nay, he knows what are the dictates of common sense and common faith,' for their day is to return. The Germans will soon recur to their former faith.' It would be satisfactory indeed to get the writer into the witness-box and cross-examine him as to the meaning of these hints.

What is the

former faith' of the Germans? What is the common faith' to which they are to recur?' Does the writer mean that all the Germans will become Roman Catholics? This would perhaps be common faith, but is it common sense? That would be a strange gospel to preach to the British breakfast table. Moreover, as it is immediately preceded by a eulogy upon Luther, our philosopher can hardly be a Catholic. Is he then a Lutheran, and does he think that Northern Germany is going, after a short interval, to find repose in a common belief in consubstantiation ? This is even queerer version of common sense than the other, and if it is to be common faith we must see Calvinism extinguished. It is, however, useless to break upon the wheel anything so unsubstantial as the philosophico-theological writings which the conditions of its circulation compel the Times to provide. Such articles are more like puff-balls than anything else. At first sight they look white, hard, round, and firm, and they raise hopes of a mushroom at worst, but if you press upon them they break up at once into mere dust or slime.

a

It is rather melancholy that the British public British public should have SO strong a taste for such diet. We propose to try to approach the subject in a somewhat different spirit, and without special reference to Germany-the difference between which and other parts of the world there is, we think, a considerable tendency to exaggerate-to attempt to state, to some extent, the religious problem of these days, to draw something of an outline of its different parts, and to indicate shortly the manner in which, as it seems to us, it must be dealt with.

We must connect together the leading events of several centuries in the world of literature, science, and politics before we can fully appreciate the true nature of that immense change which is passing over