OF THE SPIRIT. 



321 



faith of the Christian community, from the revelation 

 of Jesus, as an axiomatic foundation, and does not 

 consider it necessary or fruitful to enter into any 

 philosophical interpretation of this religious faith. Upon 

 it he builds his theological system. He discards all 

 religious philosophy not only the natural religion of 

 the Deists, but especially also such as had been at- 

 tempted by Hegel, and in many forms and variations 

 by the right wing of his followers. In this way he 

 does not even admit as much philosophy of religion as 

 Schleiermacher did; but he sympathetically incorporates 

 the second and third points just mentioned, inasmuch 

 as he attaches great importance to the religious life of 

 the community or Church, and he follows Schleiermacher 

 in emphasising likewise the personal factor. This latter 

 point is brought out most clearly by him in the ex- 

 alted and unique position which he assigns to Jesus 

 Christ. It is He who announced and founded the 

 divine order, the Kingdom of God, as differing from, 

 but to be realised in, human society, or the kingdom 

 of this world. Through the forceful manner in which 



scientific and religious thought, 

 which is that of Lotze, attract- 

 ed Hitachi's attention much later, 

 and he has, unfortunately, not 

 made full use of its possibil- 

 ities, though his later writings 

 testify to the influence of Lotze ; 

 but the latter's religious interests 

 were not extended to theology as 

 a science. In addition to this, 

 Ritschl is one of the foremost 

 representatives of what I have 

 termed the "synoptic view," and 

 this is, so far as his theology is 

 concerned, expressed in his dictum 



VOL. rv. 



that "the scholastic saying, gut 

 bene distinguit, benc docet, brings 

 out only one side of the subject 

 we have in view. In order to be 

 fully correct it must be supple- 

 mented as follows : qui bene dis- 

 tinguit ct bene comprehendit bene 

 docet." . . . "His main strength 

 lay in the comprehensive activity 

 of his mind, which drove him al- 

 ways to look at the whole, and 

 at the particular only as contained 

 in a totality " (Albrecht Hitachi's 

 'Leben,' by Otto Ritschl, 1896, 

 vol. ii. p. 168). 



