414 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



dogma be done away with and the dogmatic spirit 

 destroyed, this will ultimately and necessarily be fol- 

 lowed by a negation, not only of religious dogmas, 

 but likewise of the sense of duty, and finally of 

 moral distinctions themselves. Here it is difficult not 

 to ask the question whether there is not a still more 

 fundamental assumption, postulate, or axiom — whatever 

 we call it — which will follow in the wake of this 

 general collapse, viz.. Truth. As a matter of fact, this 

 question has been asked and discussed in the recent 

 literature and controversies of Pragmatism. With this 

 we shall have to deal on a later occasion, as it has, so 

 far, not directly treated the religious problem or the 

 problem of the Spirit. 

 84. The theological view which seeks the foundation of 



Transforma- 

 tion of the ethics in the belief in a higher, transcendental, or 



theological " 



view. spiritual order of things (the " civitas Dei ") which it 



confronts with the purely anthropological order (the 

 " civitas humana ") — though it admits that the two 

 existing orders are, from our point of view, interwoven 

 like the warp and woof in the texture of a garment — 

 has, in the course of the nineteenth century, as we 

 have seen, been enlarged and strengthened by adding 

 to the purely psychological view, taken by Kant, 

 the historical study of religion. But the undoubted 

 gain which has resulted from these studies, through 

 giving breadth of view and wealth of detail, has not 

 been secured without corresponding difficulties. The 

 opposite or naturalistic view has not been slow to 

 detect these. The modern " study of religions " has 

 made it difficult to assign to any one of the historical 



