320 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



81. 



Albrecht 

 Ritschl. 



in Germany we may take these three definite points as 

 guiding aspects. Thus we have in Albrecht Eitschl's 

 theology a clear and distinct, almost an extreme, state- 

 ment of the first point. Ritschl 1 starts from the 



1 Albrecht Ritschl (1822-1889) 

 was the founder of a school of 

 theology quite as prominent as 

 the school of classical philology 

 founded by his illustrious cousin, 

 Friedrich Ritschl (see supra, 

 vol. iii. pp. 136 sqq.). They 

 both came, like so many others of 

 the foremost thinkers and scholars 

 in Germany, out of a Protestant 

 pastor's family. Very unlike in 

 their otherwise equally great per- 

 sonal influence they remind us of 

 an earlier age, of the great class- 

 ical scholar of the Renaissance, 

 Jos. Justus Scaliger, with whom 

 Friedrich Ritschl claimed, through 

 Richard Bentley, a continuity of 

 thought. The theologian Ritschl 

 reminds us, in his valiant and force- 

 ful defence of the inherent truth of 

 the Protestant faith, of the great- 

 est figure of the Reformation of 

 Martin Luther himself; whose 

 spirit he similarly claimed to rep- 

 resent in its original purity. It 

 may surprise some of my readers 

 that so much attention should be 

 given to Albrecht Ritschl in the 

 history of philosophic thought, 

 his name hardly occurring in the 

 leading histories of philosophy 

 which have so far been written. 

 The justification of this lies in the 

 following consideration. As stated 

 before (see p. 272 n.), there are two 

 distinct problems involved in the 

 philosophical problem of religion. 

 The first is the psychological prob- 

 lem as to the nature and origin of 

 faith i.e., of religious certainty; 

 the second is the problem of the- 

 ology as a definite science of re- 

 ligion. These two problems are 

 analogous to the two problems 

 dealt with in the theory of know- 



ledge. The latter, following the 

 mode of statement customary since 

 the time of Hume and Kant, are 

 First : How is knowledge or ex- 

 perience possible ? Second : How 

 is scientific, i.e., methodical sys- 

 tematic, knowledge possible ? The 

 two analogous problems referring 

 to religious knowledge or faith 

 were thrown into clearer prominence 

 by Schleiermacher ; they have since 

 his time and through his influence 

 formed the main subject of a 

 philosophy of religion, as distin- 

 guished from religious philosophy 

 or the various endeavours to for- 

 mulate a reasoned (philosophical 

 or scientific) creed. As the latter 

 centre in Hegel, so the two former 

 problems centre in Schleiermacher, 

 who abandons the metaphysical 

 problem and considers the subject 

 of theology as a science to be the 

 systematic development, the co- 

 ordination and harmonising of 

 religious beliefs as contained in 

 historical, more especially in the 

 Christian, religion. Of these two 

 problems, Ritschl as a theologian 

 has devoted his main attention 

 to the second. The first of 

 the two, the psychological one, 

 does not receive adequate treat- 

 ment ; the philosophical interest 

 was, with him, less prominent than 

 with Schleiermacher. The latter 

 lived in a philosophical age and 

 surroundings ; Ritschl, in the ear- 

 lier part of his career, met the 

 Hegelian spirit only in its extreme, 

 and to him repellent, logical for- 

 mulation, in its one-sidedly nega- 

 tive conclusions, its analytic and 

 dissecting tendencies. The modern 

 conception of philosophy as stand- 

 ing in the middle between 



