SCIENCE AND THE WORKING CLASS 



with universal consciousness. Hegel had given 

 a philosophically obscure and historically weak 

 presentation of these three schools of Grecian 

 thought, and the idealist nature of his system had 

 impregnated his statements with a good deal of 

 reactionary sentiment. It was natural that his 

 revolutionary disciples should take particular of- 

 fense at this part of Hegelian philosophy and test 

 its soundness by probing deeper into the problem 

 of Grecian self-consciousness and social con- 

 sciousness. 



The result of their studies was a peculiar con- 

 tribution on the part of each one of these three 

 Young-Hegelians to the problem of conscious- 

 ness. Koeppen illustrated the significance of the 

 three above-named Grecian schools by the con- 

 crete example of Frederick the Great. Bruno 

 Bauer was led from the study of these three 

 Grecian schools to a study of their influence on 

 the development of primitive Christian conscious- 

 ness in the Graeco-Roman world. This research 

 bore fruit in the shape of a destructive criticism 

 of the historical value of the four gospels. Bauer 

 struck orthodox theology to the heart by denying 

 that the gospel accounts were based on historical 

 facts and demonstrating conclusively that Chris- 

 tianity arose in the Roman empire as a product of 



109 



