382 



PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT. 



of this concise statement we meet with a discussion of 

 the problem which, about the same time, had been forced 

 afresh on the attention of German thinkers through 

 the novel and decisive position which Albrecht Kitschl 

 had taken up in his theological system and teaching. 

 Mr Balfour's criticisms apply mainly to the meta- 

 physics of Kant, to what he terms the philosophy of 

 naturalism, and to that special form of idealism which, 

 under the lead of T. H. Green and E. Caird, then 

 dominated a large section of English philosophic 

 thought. He does not refer to other important schools 

 of thought which in Germany had for half a century 

 assumed towards Kantianism, Idealism, and Materialism an 



tinct and very early expression of 

 that tendency of thought which I 

 have termed the Synoptic. Cer- 

 tainty is a matter of immediate 

 apprehension gained by a union of 

 complex experiences grasped in 

 their totality or combined presenta- 

 tion in the mind. Many passages 

 might be quoted from Newman. 

 The religious sense is not a special 

 faculty at all, but an activity in 

 which the whole character is con- 

 cerned. It "passes from point to 

 point gaining one by some indica- 

 tion ; another on a probability ; 

 then availing itself of an associa- 

 tion ; then falling back on some 

 received law ; next seizing on testi- 

 mony ; then committing ourselves 

 to some popular impression, or 

 some inward instinct, or some 

 obscure memory ; and thus it 

 makes progress not unlike a clam- 

 berer on a steep cliff, who, by quick 

 eye, prompt hand, and firm foot, 

 ascends, how he knows not himself, 

 by personal endowments and long 

 practice rather than by rule, leav- 

 ing no track behind him and unable 

 to teach another. It is not too 



much to say that the stepping by 

 which great geniuses scale the 

 mountains of truth is as unsafe 

 and precarious to men in general as 

 the ascent of a skilful mountaineer 

 up a literal crag. It is a way 

 which they alone can take ; and its 

 justification lies in their success." 

 (See the Sermon on ' Implicit and 

 Explicit Reason' preached in Ox- 

 ford 1840, and reprinted together 

 with other Oxford Sermons in the 

 year 1871, with an important Pre- 

 face from which it appears that the 

 ' Grammar of Assent ' was a fuller 

 treatment of the psychology of 

 reason and faith contained in these 

 Sermons.) It is not uninteresting 

 to compare the development in 

 Newman's treatment of the pro- 

 blem of religious belief with that 

 which took place in the mind of 

 Schleiermacher forty years earlier, 

 as contained in the 'Reden' (1799) 

 and in ' der Christliche Glaube ' 

 (1821). The interval in Schleier- 

 macher's case brought about a 

 definite acceptance of the Evan- 

 gelical (Protestant), in Newman of 

 the Roman Catholic, position. 



