OF THE UNITY OP THOUGHT. 681 



origin of the religious problem as it existed in Germany. 54. 



Different 



The religious problem, so far as philosophical thought is 

 concerned, was there, not the immediate, but the eventu- 

 ally inevitable outcome of the Protestant Eeformation. 

 The latter had made religious belief a concern, a duty, 

 of the individual soul ; and, in doing so, it had brought 

 it into contact with Free Thought. After two hundred 

 years this problem became more clearly defined. The 

 question was, how to harmonise the essential truths of 

 the Christian religion, which the Eeformation had up- 

 held and put in a new light, with the unfettered pro- 

 gress of free inquiry. The philosophical problem at the 

 beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany was 

 thus one that had been recognised long before, and 

 was not created by, the great Kevolution ; it was the 

 inevitable result of the Protestant spirit of free inquiry. 

 Thus we may say that the central philosophical problem 

 in Germany was a remoter result of the Eeformation, 

 that the philosophical problem in France was the proxi- 

 mate result of the Eevolution. 



Taking this for granted, we also see how little 55. 

 either of the two positions coincides with that which England. 

 obtained in this country. The history of this country 

 tells us neither of an abrupt spiritual, nor of an abrupt 

 political revolution, such as respectively characterise 

 fundamentally the progress of life and thought in 

 Germany and France. Both the spiritual and the 

 political changes took place here more gradually, nor 

 did they, to the same extent, stir the whole nation as 

 did the reforming movement in Northern Europe and 

 the revolutionary in France. This explains also why 



