OF THE GOOD. 135 



forget that in the many larger ami smaller German 

 States much was done by enlightened Eulers, as well as 

 Ministers of State, to improve the economic and social 

 condition of the people, not so much by sweeping 

 reforms such as were carried later on by men like Stein 

 in Prussia, as by faithful attention to detail in more 

 restricted areas.^ 



So far as ethical thought is concerned, the spirit of ~- 



^ ^ Free inquiry 



free inquiry — variously termed Eationalism, Aufklarung, phys^^f*' 

 or Enlightenment — went down to the metaphysical of'^moraiuy! 

 foundations and presuppositions of morality, mostly in a 

 way that was friendly to the traditional religious doc- 

 trines, desiring to throw upon them the light of Eeason 

 and to conceive of Revelation as a process not confined 

 to a single historical fact, but as a necessary force in the 

 progress and education of humanity. To this must be 

 added the belief in an underlying harmony that was 

 inherited from the philosophy of Leibniz ^ and the spirit 

 of compromise and mutual concession among various 

 forms of religious faith which sprang from it. The 



^ Interesting information on this p. 116. 

 point will be found in CI. Th. - In this direction the influence 



Perthes' ' Politische Zustiinde und ; of Shaftesbury on German thinkers 



Personen in Deutschland, zur Zeit ; was probably quite as important as 



der Franzosischen Herrschaft,' ; that of Leibniz, as is clearly shown 



1862. This volume refers to the | in the writings of Herder, who 



South and West of Germany. A ' attached a translation of Shaftes- 



second volume referring to Austria i bury's ' Hymn ' to one of his 



was published posthumously in 

 1869. Especially as to popular 

 education consult the third and 

 fourth volumes of Karl Schmidt's 

 ' Geschichte der Piidagogik ' (3rd 



theological writings, and planned a 

 treatise which should exhibit the 

 three thinkers, Spinoza, Shaftes- 

 bury, and Leibniz in parallel, con- 

 sidering that Shaftesbury's rhap- 



and 4th ed. by W. Lange, 1876 | sody " contains the Spinozistic- 



and 1883) ; and for higher educa- j Leibnizian philosophy in the most 



tion, F. Paulsen's well-known work beautiful and select extract." See 



referred to supra, vol. iii., note, | R. Haym, ' Herder,' vol. ii. p. 269. 



