Ill 



The history of religion in general leads us to the psychology of 

 religion, and here we have a fresh means of understanding the facts 

 of ecclesiastical history. It is only in the last ten years that we have 

 begun to bring religious psychology and the comparative history of 

 religion into connection with each other, and we have thereby ob- 

 tained some very valuable results already. Let me specially mention 

 the labors of William James. They have shown us that to study the 

 history of the Christian religion on its dogmatic side alone is not 

 enough, and that together with and previous to this study we can and 

 must pay attention to the fundamental manifestations of religion 

 themselves. In this way the independent character of the religious 

 life has been more vividly brought to mind, and we have been able 

 to get a better view of the question as to what is morbid and what is 

 healthy in religion, what is eccentric and what is central. 



Still, these investigations are more applicable to the religions before 

 Christianity than to Christianity itself; for, owing to the close con- 

 nection between religion and ethics which Christianity exhibits, all 

 manifestations of religion that are devoid of an ethical meaning lose 

 their force. They seem to us only just tolerable but not characteristic 

 or normal expressions of religion. Then again, the clear and certain 

 character of the Christian idea of God leaves no room for a state of 

 religious emotion based on the feeling that the Deity is a dark and 

 overwhelming force. Christian piety, as the apostle Paul says, is a 

 "reasonable service/' and therefore it stands nearer to the highest 

 qualities and activities of the mind than to the lower. 



To philosophy, too, therefore, and to knowledge generally it stands 

 in close relation. This was noticed even in the earliest ages. The 

 Christian apologists of the second century explained Greek philo- 

 sophy as due to the same spirit of which the full revelation was 

 exhibited in Jesus Christ; and Clement of Alexandria regarded it, 

 equally with the Old Testament, as a preliminary stage of the Christ- 

 ian religion. The development of dogma in the primitive church 

 stood under the influence of Greek philosophy, more especially of 

 Platonism; and in the Middle Ages Aristotle helped to build up the 

 church's intellectual system. In modern times the philosophy of 

 Leibnitz, Kant, Hegel, and Schelling has had its effect on Protestant 

 dogmatics; and in our own day theology has been strongly influ- 

 enced by the modern theory of knowledge and by psychology gener- 

 ally, as well as by the theory of development. 



This is all so evident and so notorious that there is no need to 

 expatiate on the fact that without a knowledge of the history of 

 philosophy we cannot study the history of the church. But Hegel 

 and his followers ask us to take a step further: Christian doctrine and 



