36 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART i 



to propose construing God's realisation of Himself to 

 Himself! The greatest idealists, with Hegel at their 

 head, could not have improved on that programme. 



Dr. Hatch appealed to the history of doctrine ; it is 

 in a different sense that the modern German theologians, 

 to whom he stood nearest, make this appeal " from 

 metaphysics to history." Bltschl and his school have 

 mainly in view one race of mankind, and one epoch of 

 time. They believe that, in the course of human history, 

 truths have emerged and forces revealed themselves 

 which satisfy human longings and lead human thought 

 to its highest attainments. It is not merely history as 

 a general survey of human development which they 

 prize, but that history whose centre is Jesus Christ. 

 Finding in history a revelation of Himself by God, they 

 are able to honour history as the one true light of men. 

 Otherwise unknown, God has here manifested Himself; 

 otherwise unblessed, mankind here attains to happiness 

 and salvation. Of course this sharply cut conception of 

 revelation and its limits gives rise to very grave diffi- 

 culties ; but, amid all these, the appeal to history as 

 urged by Ritschl has a seriousness and a significance 

 which we cannot allow to Dr. Hatch's light -hearted 

 paragraphs. 



So far, there appears no kind of affinity between the 

 Ritschl school and Comtism. Yet there are many symp- 

 toms of relationship, and we find traces of them even 

 in the matter now under discussion, even in relation 

 to the appeal to history. Much of the significance of 

 Ritschl's appeal to history lies in the repudiation of the 

 claim of physical science to rank as an authority in the 

 spiritual life of man. Nature, according to Kaftan, is 

 Ho be interpreted by history, not history by nature. As 

 a progressive spiritual being, reaching his full stature 



