618 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



19. 

 Position in 

 Germany 

 at the 

 beginning 

 of the 

 century. 



representatives of German thought and literature during 

 the latter part of the eighteenth century : in Kant and 

 Groethe. Yet before their genius manifested its great- 

 ness and originality through independent critical and 

 poetic creations, the two ways had been prepared, but 

 not clearly separated, by Lessing and Herder, of whom 

 the former was the more critical and accurate, the latter 

 the more original and suggestive. In the persons of 

 Lessing and Herder a theological education secured the 

 religious interest which both maintained throughout 

 their career without attaching themselves to any definite 

 philosophical school or to any narrow denominational 

 confession. Both were actuated by the love of freedom 

 and the spirit of tolerance, in both also there lived the 

 spirit of Leibniz as well as that of Spinoza. They in- 

 herited from the former the historical sense and the 

 idea of development in nature and history ; in the latter 

 they admired the creative spirit as well as the organising 

 and constructive effort. The special work of philosophy 

 was taken up by Kant with the distinct desire to bring 

 about a reconciliation between science and religion, but 

 in a different manner from that which Leibniz had 

 attempted or which had been adopted by the more 

 enlightened among his followers. They had conceived 

 of faith and religion as consisting in a special knowledge 

 of things spiritual, notably of God and His revelation, 

 of human freedom and immortality. These spiritual 

 truths were contrasted and brought together with what 

 were termed the truths of nature, such as Causality, 

 Necessity, the physical pre- determined law and order of 

 things. 



