OF THE SPIRIT. 271 



lines have been to some extent indicated already in the 

 preceding chapters of the second part of this history. I 

 will now enumerate them with special reference to the 

 problem before us. 



The first, and perhaps the most prominent, point of 12. 

 view from which the religious problem or the problem icai point 

 of the spirit has been studied during the nineteenth 

 century may be termed the metaphysical point of view ; 

 it deals with certain truths commonly called spiritual 

 truths ; they have been formulated by dogmatic theology, 

 and are termed spiritual truths to distinguish them from 

 the truths of nature. They are, therefore, also termed 

 supernatural truths. They are three in number God, 

 Freedom, and Immortality ; to these must be added the 

 fact of Eevelation and the problem of Sin and Eedemp- 

 tion. All philosophical speculation on these truths and 

 facts has centred in Germany during the nineteenth 

 century in the teaching of Kant, which other thinkers 

 have either adopted, rejected, or modified. This teaching 

 is based upon the peculiar position which Kant occupies 

 in his critical and metaphysical writings. 



The second point of view may be called the psycholog- is. 



Psycho- 



ical ; it deals with the manner in which the human mind logical point 



of view. 



approaches spiritual truths. It was provoked through 

 opposition to Kant's doctrine, and may be, in its origin, 

 identified with the names of Herder, Jacobi, and Fries, 

 but it really centres, so far as all subsequent thought is 

 concerned, in the teaching of Schleiermacher. It is 

 remarkable that the first great contribution of German 

 thought in the nineteenth century to the province of 

 psychology was the doctrine of the independence of faith 



