OF THE SPIRIT. 



395 



of systematic philosophy, is bound to take note of these 

 remarkable articles, though the sensational title, ' Is Life 

 Worth Living?' by which the subject was introduced, and 

 the direct appeal to Revelation, from a distinctly Roman 

 Catholic point of view, as containing the solution of the 

 difficulty, may have prevented philosophers by profession 

 from taking sufficient note of them. There is, however, 

 no doubt that the foundations of scientific reasoning and 

 the nature of scientific certainty are here lucidly dis- 

 cussed and brought in a forcible manner before the 

 thoughtful reader, and this by arguments which have 

 become quite familiar in the course of the last thirty 



years. 



1 The purely philosophical in- 

 terest which attaches to the writ- 

 ings of Schleiermacher and Ritschl 

 in Germany, of Newman and 

 Mallock, of Martineau and Balfour 

 in England, has, in the opinion of 

 many persons, been somewhat 

 obscured by the fact that all 

 these thinkers occupy special theo- 

 logical positions which they desire 

 to defend. Schleiermacher occu- 

 pies the position of the " Evan- 

 gelical " (Protestant) Church, 

 Ritschl that of the Primitive 

 Lutheran, Martineau writes as a 

 Unitarian, Newman as a Roman 

 Catholic, and Mr Balfour repre- 

 sents " that species of Christian 

 theology which is approximately 

 defined by the Anglican tradition 

 of the last two centuries, and (one 

 may guess if not distinctly infer) by 

 that variety which commends itself 

 to the modern school of moderate 

 High Churchmen " (Sir F. Pollock 

 in 'Mind,' 1895, p. 377). Philo- 

 sophical students are apt to turn 

 away from some of these writings, 

 wrongly believing them to be ex 

 pnrte statements. For them Mr 



Balfour's earlier work would appear 

 more purely philosophical, and, 

 accordingly, possibly more im- 

 portant. Yet it must not be 

 forgotten that no discussion of the 

 philosophical foundations of re- 

 ligious beliefs can be profitably 

 carried on by one who has no 

 partiality for any of them. Some 

 fundamental conviction must exist, 

 and this is admitted even by such 

 thinkers as Lotze, who halt with 

 their philosophical arguments at 

 the threshold of a definite religious 

 doctrine, and whose philosophy of 

 religion is not identical with a 

 specific religious philosophy. The 

 uncertainty of the ground on 

 which a philosophy of religion as 

 distinguished from a religious phil- 

 osophy can be built up is shown by 

 the fact that historical surveys of 

 the subject are apt to leave out 

 prominent and important works in 

 which the subject is dealt with. 

 Thus, the well-known work of 0. 

 Pfleiderer takes no note of Cardinal 

 Newman, Mallock, and Balfour in 

 England, of de Lamennais and 

 Guyau in France, and even the 



