OF THE SPIRIT. 



325 



alike the possibility of arriving at any logical or meta- 

 physical certainty regarding the transcendent truths or 

 verities of the Christian religion ; whereas Hegel, whose 

 whole argument ran in the direction of leading the think- 

 ing mind up to the recognition of the highest metaphysical 

 truth, the idea of the absolute, as the beginning and 

 foundation of all philosophical insight, claimed to have 

 really established the highest verities on a firmer 

 basis than they had in popular religious teaching. 

 Again, Schleiermacher stood alone against Kant as well 

 as Hegel in claiming for feeling i.e., for immediate or 

 intuitive knowledge a distinct function and province 

 in the human soul. Schleiermacher also introduced 

 the twofold treatment of the religious problem viz., the 

 philosophical and the specifically theological treatment, 

 and, in so doing, gave the impulse to a large number of 

 philosophical treatises within the confines of Protestant 

 theology, treatises which were as a rule not considered 

 and appreciated as to their purely philosophical value 

 and importance. This remark refers especially to such 

 a work as Eichard Kothe's 1 'Ethik'; in fact, as I 



1 Richard Rothe (1799-1867) is 

 a unique figure in philosophical 

 and theological thought. His 

 influence was to a large extent 

 personal, and his elaborate philo- 

 sophical system (' Theologische 

 Ethik,' 1845-1848 ; 2nd ed., much 

 enlarged and revised, 1867-1871), 

 has probably exerted little or no 

 influence on philosophy proper. 

 We are indebted to the late Prof. 

 Holtzmann for a concise and very 

 readable account of Rothe's specu- 

 lative system ('R. Rothe's Specu- 

 lative System,' 1899), published 

 on the occasion of the anniversary 

 of Rothe's birth. He remarks 



that the correct title of the book 

 would have been ' Speculative 

 Theology,' but that, as the author 

 arrived at the conviction that a 

 moral conception was the dominat- 

 ing principle of any theory of the 

 universe, the whole scheme received 

 its title from the most important 

 section and was termed " theo- 

 logical ethics." Holtzmann closes 

 his Preface by appropriating the 

 telling dictum of Lotze, that in 

 Rothe's speculative system, as in 

 the whole of German idealism, we 

 acquire not a logical understanding 

 but rather an ideal interpretation 

 of the phenomenal world. 



