OF THE SPIRIT. 415 



religions a unique position, especially as it has been 

 shown, with more or less success, that what, for in- 

 stance, were considered at one time to be doctrines 

 and precepts peculiar to Christianity have — perhaps 

 without exception — existed outside and before the 

 era of the Christian dispensation in other Oriental or 

 European religions. It does not come within the 

 province of philosophical thought, which deals only 

 with matters of principle, to settle these purely his- 

 torical problems on which a final opinion does not, and 

 perhaps never will, exist. In this connection it is only 

 important to notice that, if on the one side historical 

 research has made it more difficult to define the unique 

 character of any one religious system, it has, on the 

 other side, especially under the influence of the theory 

 of evolution, also suggested an answer to the problem 

 it has created. According to this view the spiritual 

 element or principle shows an analogy with the 

 phenomena of Life. I have had occasion, in the 

 earlier part of this History,-^ to point out that, 

 although modern thought has not arrived at any 

 satisfactory definition of Life, three distinct features 

 have been established : Life is a unique, a continuous, 

 and a ubiquitous phenomenon. We are now approach- 

 ing an analogous view so far as the spiritual principle 

 is concerned ; we are taught to look upon it as a 

 unique, a continuous, and a ubiquitous historical 

 phenomenon in the development of man and man- 

 kind. 



As little, however, as the various forms of Life ex- 



^ See supra, vol. ii., chap, x., pp. 462 sqq. 



