GROWTH AND DIFFUSION OF CRITICAL SPIRIT. 173 



of dissolution of faith through thought, of religion 

 through philosophy, is manifested historically in the 

 dissolution of the various dogmas. "The real critique 

 of the dogma is its history. It is first of all to be found 

 in a naive and indefinite form in the Scriptures ; in the 

 analysis and closer definition of it the Church splits 

 into factions, which may develop into heretical extremes ; 

 then comes the fixing of it in the symbols, and these 

 are elaborated into theological dogmas ; but gradually 

 criticism awakens, the mind distinguishes itself from 

 the reality which it has assumed in the doctrine of the 

 Church. The subject retires from the substance of its 

 beliefs and negatives them as truth. This is only done 

 because the mind has discovered another truth, though 

 in an undeveloped form ; and all now depends on this, 

 whether this new speculative truth is the same as the 

 old dogmatic truth, or whether it is foreign and opposed 

 to it, or lastly, whether a middle way can be found." l 

 A large section of German theologians were for a long 

 time occupied in looking for this middle way. Strauss 

 himself indicated a solution by adopting the Hegelian 

 formula, according to which " the Divine Being is not 

 a personality, but becomes personal through an infinite 

 process of personification." 



With Baur, as well as with Strauss in his earlier 

 writings, criticism was limited to exegetical work on 

 the one side and to the interpretation of existing texts 

 and historical records in the light of some philosophical 

 idea or of some unproved but plausible generalisation on 

 the other. With them criticism had not penetrated to 



1 2 vols., 1840-41. The quotation in the text is to be found vol. i. p. 71. 



