334 PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



other term of the relation into the idea of Unity, of the 

 One and All. Nevertheless, in the sequel of his ethical 

 speculations, the idea of individuality or of finite person- 

 ality leads him at least so far as to recognise in the 

 Person of Christ the perfect realisation of the moral 

 ideal beyond which no advance is conceivable or possible. 1 

 With this concession, which may not suffice to carry him 

 to the full conception of a Personal Deity nor of 

 a Revelation in the orthodox sense of the word, he never- 

 theless introduces an idea foreign to the Hegelian system. 

 It is that of Discontinuity, of an interruption in the con- 

 tinuous flow and change which the idea of development 

 has introduced into modern thought. In this way 

 Schleiermacher finds, as it were, a resting - place, a 

 central point, towards which all psychological and meta- 

 physical as well as all ethical and historical speculation 

 converges, and by doing so he re-introduces into philo- 

 sophy an idea which is foreign to the idealistic as well 

 as to the naturalistic systems of nineteenth century 

 thought. This is the idea of the Miraculous. 

 38. With this idea of the miraculous or supernatural we 



acuious." come upon the second important attribute which attaches 

 to the essence of spirituality; in fact, it is quite im- 

 possible to form in any way an adequate idea of the 

 Spiritual if we confine ourselves to that conception of 

 Order, be this mechanical or logical, with which we 

 operate and are forced to operate in all detailed 

 research, whether this be carried on in the region of 

 purely physical or in that of mental or of historical 

 phenomena. Accordingly we find that all trains of 



1 See the quotation given in the last chapter, p. 178 n. 



