OF THE SPIRIT. 383 



independent and critical attitude not unlike that which 

 he was now taking up in this country. Accordingly we 

 find that in the writings of some continental thinkers 

 who, at the time, were less known in England, many of 

 the arguments had been anticipated and much of the 

 position occupied which Mr Balfour puts forward in an 

 original manner from his own special point of view. 

 The writings I refer to are notably those of Lotze, 

 and, to a lesser extent, of Schleiermacher. Both these 

 thinkers had been influential in laying the philosophical 

 foundations of Eitschl's theology. 



One of the contentions of Schleiermacher was that 

 religion occupies an independent region in the life of the 

 human soul, that it answers to a special need or demand. 

 This Schleiermacher characteristically defines, in his 

 earlier writings, as the sense of the All, and later on as 

 a feeling of absolute dependence ; Eitschl more than 

 half a century later adopts Schleiermacher's position to 

 this extent, that he shows that the whole body of 

 detailed scientific research leads nowhere to a compre- 

 hensive view of the essence and significance of reality 

 as a whole. Scientific, including also historical research, 

 leads more and more into detail and does not find its 

 way back again to an all-embracing conception. In 

 opposition to such critical detail Eitschl gains a more 

 comprehensive aspect upon which he bases the whole of 

 his theology. This is the existence of an historical 

 religion or system of beliefs which has found its embodi- 

 ment in the religious community, the Christian Church ; 

 it aims at realising a different order of things, the 

 Divine Order, as the consummation of the natural order, 



