  The tendency of the modern intellect to independence in its own peculiar sphere of thinking and knowing, cannot fail to work itself out energetically. In this sphere it leads naturally to that view of human reasoning called subjectivism: the thinking or reasoning subject is its own law, the autonomous creator and guide of its thought. Herein lies the essential presumption, the very core, of the liberal freedom of science. Wherever we turn we meet subjectivism with its autonomous rejection of all authority, its arbitrary separation of knowledge from faith, its agnosticism, its relativity to truth as the moving factor of, and the ostensible warrant for, this freedom, especially in the sphere which it considers peculiarly its own, philosophy and religion. Only when we look closer into its philosophical premises will it be possible to form a judgment of the “scientific method” it employs in this, its peculiar sphere, and of the justice of its claim to be the sole administrator of man's ideal possessions, and to be altogether “independent of every view not conforming to this scientific method.” Before considering subjectivism let us by way of preface set down a few considerations on the nature of human, intellectual perception. Objectivism and Subjectivism.It always has been, and still is, the firm conviction of unbiassed men,—a conviction which irresistibly forces itself upon us,—that in our intellectual perception and thought we grasp an objective, exterior order of things, an existence distinct from our thought; of this objective reality we reproduce an image in our minds, and thus grasp it intellectually. Cognitio est similitudo rei, says the old school; that is, Knowledge is [pg 034] When the thinking mind has arrived at the mathematical truth that the circumference of a circle is the product of the diameter multiplied by Ludolph's number, it knows—unless indeed it has lost its natural candour—that it has not of itself produced this result of reasoning, but that it has recognized in it an objective reality of truth, distinct from its own thought, and has reproduced that truth in itself. And because this reproduction corresponds to the reality, it is called true cognition. Similarly, when the intellect expresses the general law of causality, namely, everything that happens has a cause, the intellect is again convinced that it has not of itself produced this result of reasoning, but has only reproduced it by assimilating to itself an objective truth which is necessarily so and cannot be otherwise, and which the mind must assimilate if it wants to think aright. This is true not only when the mind is dealing with concrete things, but also when it would give expression to general principles, as in the present instance; these, too, are not subjective projections, but are independent of the thinking subject, and are eternal laws. This view of the nature of human cognition and thought has gradually undergone an essential change, not indeed with those outside the influence of philosophical speculation, but with the representatives of modern philosophy, and those subject to its influence. Objectivism has been superseded by subjectivism. Its principle is this: cognition, imagination, and thought are not the intellectual apprehension of an objective world existing independent of us, of which we reproduce in ourselves a counterpart. No, the mind creates its own results of reason and cognition; the objects before us are the creatures of the imagining subject. At the utmost, we can but say that our reasoning is the manner in which a hidden exterior world appears to us. This manner must necessarily conform to the peculiarity of the subject, to his faculties and stage of development; but the exterior [pg 035] “The world,” Schopenhauer is convinced, “is the projection of my idea.... No truth is more certain, more independent of all others, less in need of proof, than this, that all there is to be known, hence the whole world, is an object only in relation to a subject, a vision of the beholder; in a word, the projection of my own idea. Hence the subject is the bearer of the world” (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, I, §§ 1-2). “It is evidently true that knowledge cannot go beyond our consciousness, and hence the existence of things outside of our sphere of consciousness must, to say the least, remain problematical”(Der Gegenstand der Erkenntniss, 1892, p. 2). In like manner O. Liebmann says: “We can never go beyond our individual sphere of ideas (projection of our ideas), even though we apprehend what is independent of us, still the absolute reality of it is known to us only as our own idea” (Zur Analysis der Wirklichkeit, 1900, p. 28). Therefore “the contrast between ‘I’ and the world,”says E. Mach, “between feeling or apprehension and the reality, falls away” (Die Analysis der Empfindungen, 2d ed., 1900, p. 9). And a disciple of Mach says: “It is important to hold fast to the idea that a self-existent, divine Truth, independent of the subject, objectively binding, enthroned, so to say, above men and gods, is meaningless.... Such a Truth is nonsense” (H. Kleinpeter, Kantstudien, VIII, 1903, p. 314). None of these representatives of worldly wisdom are able to fulfil the first duty of the wise man: “Live according to what you teach.” Even the sceptic Hume has to admit that in the common affairs of life he feels himself compelled of necessity to talk and act like other people. Subjectivism is really nothing but scepticism, for it eliminates the knowableness of objective truth. But it is a masked—if you will, a reformed—scepticism. Cognition is given another purpose; its task is not at all, so it is said, to reproduce or assimilate a world distinct from itself, but to create its own contents. The very nature of cognition is reversed. The Autonomy of Reason.It was Kant, the herald of a new era in philosophy, who gave to this gradually maturing subjectivism its scientific form and basis. At the same time he gave prominence to that element of subjectivism which seems to give justification to freedom of thought, to wit, autonomism, the creative power of the intellect which makes its own laws. Independence of reason and free thought have become catchwords since Kant's time. They are a precious ingredient of the autonomy of modern man. When the flaming blaze of the French Revolution was reddening the skies of Europe, and inaugurating the restoration of the rights of man, Kant was sitting in his study at KÖnigsberg, his heart beating strongly in sympathy with the Revolution, for he saw in it a hopeful turn of the times. An old man of nearly seventy, he followed the events with most passionate interest. Varnhagen records in his Memoirs, based on the stories of Staegemann, that, when the proclamation of the Republic was announced in the newspapers, Kant, with tears in his eyes, said to some friends: “Now can I say with Simeon, ‘Now dost Thou, O Lord, dismiss Thy servant in peace, because mine eyes have seen Thy Salvation’ ” (H. Hettner, Literaturgeschichte des 18. Jahrh. III, 4th ed., 3, 2, 1894, p. 38). While on the other side of the Rhine the Jacobins were doing their bloody work of political liberation, the German philosopher, the herald of a new era and an ardent admirer of Rousseau, sat in his study labouring for man's intellectual liberation. To give man the right of autonomous self-determination in action and thought was the work of his life. Autonomy was indeed to him “ ‘the source’ of all dignity of man and of every rational nature” (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, II). And hence it was that his ardent followers beheld in him “the first perfect model of a really free German, one who had purged himself from every trace of Roman absolutism, dogmatism, and anti-individualism” (H. St. Chamberlain, Die Grundlagen des 19. Jahrh., 8th ed., 1907, II, 1127). In his “Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten” (The Foundation of the Metaphysics of Ethics) and “Kritik der praktischen [pg 037] Autonomy of thought is the result of the “Critique of Pure Reason,” and in spite of its inconsistency of expression, its involved sentences, its extremely tiresome style, it is and will long continue to be the text-book of modern philosophy. According to Kant our cognition consists in our fashioning the substance of our perceptions and reasoning after innate, purely subjective, views and conceptions. Time and place, and especially the abstract notions of existence and non-existence, necessity, causality, substance, have no truth independent of our thought; they are but forms and patterns according to which we are forced to picture the world. Their first matter is supplied by sense experience, such as sound, colour, feeling; but these, too, according to Kant, are not objective. Nothing then remains to our cognition that is not purely subjective, having existence in ourselves alone. Our cognition is no longer [pg 038] This is, indeed, nothing but a complete falsification of human cognition. It is evident to an unbiassed mind that there must be a reason for everything, not because I so think, but I think so because such is the fact; that the multiplication table is right, not because I think so, but I must multiply according to it simply because it is right. My thought is subject to objective truth. But Kant's autonomy means emancipation from objective truth, and hence, though Kant himself held fast to the unchangeable laws of thinking and acting, he energetically opened the way for subjectivism with all its consequences. This was Kant's doing, and history credits him with it. It was one of those events which have made men famous: the giving to the ideas and sentiments of a period their scientific formula, and thereby also their apparent justification. Schiller wrote in 1805 to W. von Humboldt: “The profound fundamental ideas of ideal philosophy remain an enduring treasure, and for this reason alone one should think himself fortunate for having lived at the present time.... Finally, we are both idealists, and should be ashamed to have it said of us that things made us and not we the things.” Fr. Paulsen gives expression to the opinion of many when he says: “Kant gives to the intellect the self-determination that is essential to it, and the position in the world which it deserves. He has raised the intellect's creative power to a position of honour: the essence of the intellect is freedom” (Immanuel Kant, 1898, p. 386). “The autonomy of reason ... we cannot give up” (Kant, Der Philosoph des Protestantismus, in Philosophia militans, 2d ed., 1901, p. 51). “It is indeed the offspring of Protestantism.” “To me it is beyond doubt,” Paulsen continues, “that the fundamental tendency of primitive Protestantism has here been carried out in all clearness” (Ibid. 43). Luther, too, found in the heart of the individual the unfailing source of truth. For that reason Kant has been called the philosopher of Protestantism. Hence the well-known historian, J. Scherr, may not be wrong when he calls the philosophy of Kant “the foundation of granite whereon is built the freedom of the German intellect.” Now, indeed, we easily understand the demand for freedom of thought. It is unintelligible how an external authority, a divine revelation or infallible Church, could have ever approached man, assured him of the truth of its teaching, and laid upon him in consequence of this testimony the obligation of accepting it as true. “An external authority,” we are assured, “be it ever so great, will never succeed in arousing in us a sense of obligation; its laws, be they ever so lofty and earnest, will be deemed arbitrary, simply because they come from without” (Sabatier, La Religion et la Culture moderne, apud Fonsegrive, Die Stellung der Katholiken gegenueber der Wissenschaft, Deutsch von Schieser (1903), 10). Man accepts only what he himself has produced, what is congenial to his individuality, what is in harmony with his personal intellectual life. In the place of truth steps “personal conviction,” the shaping of one's views and ideals; in the place of unselfish submission to the truth steps the “development of one's intellectual individuality,” the “evolution of one's intellectual personality”; in a word, free-thought. Exterior authority can no longer impose an obligation. “Is there on earth,” asks Paulsen, “an instance where authority can decide for us in matters of belief and thought?” And he answers: “There is none; there cannot be on this earth an infallible teaching authority.” And why not? “Philosophy and science must refuse to recognize such an authority.... If I could believe all that the Church or the Pope teaches, this one thing I could never believe, that they are infallible; it would include a resolution, once for all, to renounce my own judgment regarding whatever they declare true or false, good or bad; it would be the utter renunciation of the use of my reason and conscience.” (Ibid. 51-53. We shall often cite the testimony of Paulsen for the purpose of illustrating modern thought, partly because he is no longer living, partly because he is quite an outspoken representative of the modern view of the world, though generally regarded as moderate. Moreover, he is without doubt one of the most widely read of the modern German philosophers.) The demonstration of all this is quite unique. Here it is in brief: Were there an infallible authority, one which necessarily [pg 040] “In advanced progress,” Paulsen continues, “the individual is also separating himself from the intellectual mass of the people in order to enjoy a separate mental existence.... The individual is beginning to have his own ideas about things; he is no longer satisfied with the common opinions and notions about the world and life which have been dealt out to him by religion and mythology: all philosophy begins with freeing the individual from common notions.” “If the individual ideals of a personality, gifted with extraordinary power of mind and will, happen to come in conflict with the objective morality of the time, then there results one of those struggles which cause the dramatic crises of history. They who thus struggled were the real heroes of mankind. They rose against the conventional and indifferent ideals which had grown obsolete, against untrue appearances, against the salt that had lost its savour; they preached a new truth, pointed out new aspirations and ideals which breathed a new strength into life and raised it to a higher plane” (System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, I, 372 f.). Truly encouraging words for the modern agitator and reformer. To summon the courage to rise above the level of the masses, to feel within himself the centre of gravity, and to fashion his thoughts regardless of the whole world, this is nothing less than the beginning of philosophy and wisdom. And should he feel himself strong-minded he may simply change all moral and religious values which do not square with his individual judgments. “To remain faithful to one's own self,” we are told again, “that is the essence of this ideal bravery. No one can possess this virtue who does not feel within himself the centre [pg 041] In fact, inclination and will, not objective truth, are the measure and norm of free-thought. This Paulsen again expresses with astonishing candour. According to him, intelligence is after all nothing else than a transformation of the will, this doctrine is rooted in the more modern voluntaristic monism, and is akin to subjectivism. If our cognition itself forms its object, then the real concept of cognition has been lost to us, and in its place we have the will determining the action even of the intellect. Paulsen says emphatically, “Intelligence is an instrument of the will in the service of preservation of life.... Perhaps it can be said that even the elementary formations of thought, the logical and metaphysical forms of reality, are already codetermined by the will. If the forms of abstract thought are at all the result of biological evolution, then this must be accepted: they are formations and conceptions of reality, which have proved effective and life-preserving, and have therefore attained their object. The principle of identity is in reality not a mere statement, not an indicative, but an imperative: A is A; that is, what I have put down as A shall be A and remain A.... If this be so, if thought and cognition be determined fundamentally by the will, then it is altogether unintelligible how it might finally turn against the will, and force upon it a view against its will” (Kant's Verhaeltniss zur Metaphysik, 1900, p. 31 f.). We have to do here with a confusion of ideas possible only when correct reasoning has sunk to a surprisingly low level. To think with the will, to draw conclusions with intention, is degenerate thinking. But now we understand better what is meant by autonomy of thought. It gives man license to disregard by shallow reasoning everything that clashes with his own will. “What I have put down as A shall be A and remain A!” It is now clear that subjectivism and autonomism in thinking are rooted in the positive disregard of objective truth, in the refusal of an unconditional subjection to it; they mean emancipation from the truth. Here we have the most striking and deepest difference between modern subjectivistic and Christian objective thought. The latter adheres to the old conviction that our thoughts do not make the truth, but are subject [pg 042] But subjectivism, with its freedom, leads inevitably to the loss of the truth; it is scepticism in principle, in fact, if my thoughts are not a counterpart of an objective world, but only a subjectively produced image; not knowledge of an external reality, but only a figment of the imagination, a projection, then I can have no assurance that they are more than an empty dream. The Modern Separation of Knowledge and Faith.Of course it would be too much to expect that subjectivism in modern thought and scientific work should go to the very limit, viz., to disregard all reasoning, to advance at will any theory whatever, to silence disagreeable critics by merely referring to one's autonomy in thinking, and denying that any one can attain to absolute truth. Errors in empirical speculation never prosper as others do; the power of natural evidence asserts itself at every step, and tears down the artificial cobwebs of apparently scientific scepticism. It asserts itself less strongly where the opposing power of natural evidence is weaker, than is the case in matters of actual sense-experience. Here indeed one sees the objective reality before him, which he cannot fashion according to his caprice. The astronomer has no thought of creating his own starry sky, nor does the archÆologist wish to create out of his own mind the history of ancient nations. They both desire to know and to reveal the reality. But in the suprasensible sphere, in dealing with questions of the whence and whither of human life, where there is question of religion and morals, there autonomy and scepticism assert themselves as though they were [pg 043] Here at the same time the natural product of subjectivism, sceptic agnosticism, has full sway. In such matters, we are told, there is no certain truth; nothing can be proved, nothing refuted: they are all matters of faith—not faith, of course, in the Catholic sense. The latter is the acceptance by reason of recognized divine testimony, hence an act of the intellect. The modern so-called faith, on the contrary, is not an act of the intellect, but is supposed to be a vague feeling, a want, a longing and striving after the divine in one's innermost soul, which divine is then to be grasped by the soul in some mysterious way as something immediately present in it. This feeling is said to emerge from the subconsciousness of the soul, and to raise in the mind those images and symbols which we encounter in the doctrines of the various religions, varying according to times and men. They are only the symbols for that unutterable experience of the divine, which can be as little expressed by definitions and tenets as sounds can by colour. It is a conviction of the ideal and divine, but different from the conviction of reason; it is an inner, actual experience. Hence there can no longer be absolute religious truth, no unchangeable dogmas, which would have to be adhered to forever. In religion, in views of the world and life, the free feeling of the human subject holds sway, a feeling that experiences and weaves together those thoughts and ideals that are in accord with his individuality. This is the modern doctrine. The dark mysticism of the ancient East and the agnosticism of modern times here join hands. This modern method of separating knowledge and faith is, as we all know, a prominent feature of modern thought. Knowledge, that is, cognition by reason, is said to exist only in the domain of the natural sciences and history. Of what may be beyond these we can have no true knowledge. Here, too, Kant has led the way; for the important result of his criticism is his incessant injunction: we can have true knowledge only of empiric objects, never of things lying beyond the experience of the senses; our ideas are [pg 044] Others have followed the lead of Kant. For philosophers, Protestant theologians, and modernists, he has become the pilot in whom they trust. “Kant's critical philosophy,” says Paulsen, “gives to knowledge what belongs to it—the entire world of phenomena, for the freest investigation; on the other hand, it gives to faith its eternal right, viz., the interpretation of life and the world according to their value”(Immanuel Kant, 1898, 6). “Faith does not simply rest upon proofs, but upon practical necessity”; “it does not come from the intellect, but from the heart and will” (Einleitung in die Philosophie, 10th ed., [pg 045] You may look up any books or magazines of modern philosophy or Protestant theology, and you will find in all of them “that faith is a kind of conviction for which there is no need of proof” (H. Luedemann, Prot. Monatshefte IX, 1903, 367). This emotional faith has been introduced into Protestant theology especially by Schleiermacher. It is also this view of the more recent philosophy that the modernists have adopted. They themselves confess: “The modernists in accord with modern psychology distinguish clearly between knowledge and faith. The intellectual processes which lead to them appear to the modernists altogether foreign to and independent of one another. This is one of our fundamental principles” (Programma dei Modernisti (1908), 121). Religious instruction for children will then have to become altogether different. The demand is already made for “a recast of thought from the sphere of the intellect into the sphere of affection.” Away, so they clamour, away with the dogmas of creation, of Christ as the Son of God, of His miracles, as taught in the old schools! For all these are religious ideas. Pupils of the higher grades should be told “the plain truth about the degree of historicity in elementary religious principles.... The fundamental idea of religion can neither be created nor destroyed by teaching, it has its seat in sentiment, like—excuse the term—an insane idea” (Fr. Niebergall, Christliche Welt, 1909, p. 43). This dualism of “faith” and knowledge is as untenable as it is common. It is a psychological impossibility as well as a sad degradation of religion. How can I seriously believe, and seriously hold for true, a view of the world of which I do not know whether it be really true, when the intellect unceasingly whispers in my ear: it is all imagination! As long as faith is a conviction so long must it be an activity of the intellect. With my feeling and will I may indeed [pg 046] Kant himself, the father of modern agnostic mysticism, has made it quite clear that his postulates of faith concerning the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, have never taken in him the place of earnest conviction. Thus in the first place Kant holds that there are no duties towards God, since He is merely a creature of our mind. “Since this idea proceeds entirely from ourselves, and is a product of ours, we have here before us a postulated being towards whom we cannot have an obligation; for its reality would have to be proved first by experience (or revealed)”; but “to have religion is a duty man owes to himself.” Again, he dislikes an oath, he asks whether an oath be possible and binding, since we swear only on condition that there is a God (without, however, stipulating it, as did Protagoras). And he thinks that “in fact all oaths taken honestly and discreetly have been taken in no other sense” (Metaphysik der Sitten, II, § 18, Beschluss). Prayer he dislikes still more. “Prayer,” he says, “as an internal form of cult, and therefore considered as a means of grace, is a superstitious delusion (feticism).... A hearty wish to please God in all our actions, that is, a disposition present in all our actions to perform them as if in the service of God, is a spirit of prayer that can and ought to be our perpetual guide.” “By this desire, the spirit of prayer, man seeks to influence only himself; by prayer, since man expresses himself in words, hence outwardly, he seeks to influence God. In the former sense a prayer can be made with all sincerity, though man does not pretend to assert the existence of God fully established; in the latter form, as an address, he assumes this highest Being as personally present, or at least pretends that he is convinced of its presence, in the belief that even if it should not be so it can do him no harm, on [pg 047] Nor does it seem that Kant is serious about his postulate of the immortality of the soul. Asked by Lacharpe what he thought of the soul, he did not answer at first, but remarked, when the question was repeated: “We must not make too much boast of it” (H. Hettner, Literat. Gesch. des 18. Jahrh., III, 4. ed., 3, p. 26. From Varnhausen'sDenkwuerdigkeiten). Thousands have with Kant destroyed their religious conviction by a boastful scepticism, and, like him, finally given it up to replace its lack by artificial autosuggestions. And is not the religious life of man thereby made completely valueless? The highest truths on which the mind of man lives, and which from the first stage of his existence not only interested but deeply stirred him, become fiction, pictures of the fancy, suggestions of an effeminate mind, that cannot make a lasting impression on stronger minds. And how can the products of autosuggestion give comfort and strength in hours of need and trial? It is true they do not impose any obligations. Every one is free to form his own notions of life; they are not to be taken seriously anyway, whether they be this or that; they are all equally true and equally false. Buddhism is just as true as Christianity, Materialism as true as Spiritualism, Mohammedanism as true as Quakerism, the wisdom of the Saints as true as the philosophy of the worldly. “The most beautiful flower is growing on the same soil (that of the emotions) with the rankest weed” (Hegel). The decision rests with sentiments which admit of no arguing. Thus all is made over to scepticism, to that constant doubting which degrades [pg 048] The distinguishing mark between man and the lower animals has ever been held to be that the former could knowingly step beyond the sphere of the senses, into that world of which his intellect is a part. The conviction has always prevailed that man by means of his own valid laws of thought, for instance, the principle of causality, could safely ascend from the visible world to an invisible one. Thus also the physician concludes the interior cause of the disease from the exterior symptoms, the physicist thus comes to the knowledge of the existence of atoms and ions which he has never seen, and the astronomer calculates with Leverrier the existence and location of stars which no eye has yet detected. One thing has certainly been established: a free sentiment can now assert itself with sovereignty in the most important spheres of intellectual life, without any barriers of stationary truths and immovable Christian dogmas; one is now free to fashion his religion and ideals to suit the individuum ineffabile. The latter asks no longer what religion demands of him, but rather how religion can serve his purposes. “For the gods,” it is said, “which we now acknowledge, are those we need, which we can use, whose demands confirm and strengthen our own personal demands and those of our fellow-men.... We apply thereby only the principle of elimination of everything unsuitable to man, and of the survival of the fittest, to our own religious convictions”; “we turn to that religion which best suits our own individuality” (W. James). Arrogant doubt can now undermine all fundamental truths of Christian faith until they crumble to pieces; beside it rises the free genius of the new religion, on whose emblem the name of God is no longer emblazoned, but the glittering seal of an independent humanity. Relative Truth.Freedom of thought appears still more justified when we take a further step which brings us to the consequence of subjectivism; i.e., when we advance so far as to assert that there are no unchangeable and in this sense no absolute truths, but only temporary, changeable, relative truths. And modern thought does profess this: there is no absolute truth, no religio et philosophia perennis; different principles and views are justified and even necessary for different times and even classes. This removes another barrier to freedom of thought, viz., allegiance to generally accepted truths and to the convictions of bygone ages. The logicalness of this further step can hardly be denied. If the human intellect, independent of the laws of objective truth, fashions its own object and truth, especially in things above the senses, why can it not form for itself, at different periods and in different stages of life, a different religion and another view of the world? Cannot the human subject pass through different phases? He indeed changes his costume and style of architecture; why not also his thoughts? Every product of thought would then be the right one for the time, but would be untenable for a further stage of his intellectual genesis and growth, and would have to be replaced by a new one. The nature of subjectivistic thought is no longer an obstacle to this. Besides, we have the modern idea of evolution, already predominant in all fields: the world, the species of plants and animals, man himself with his whole life, his language, right, family, all of them the products of a perpetual evolution, everything constantly changing. Why not also his religion, morality, and view of the world? They are only reflexes of a temporary state of civilization. Hence also here motion and change, evolution into new shapes! Therefore, so it is said, we have now broken definitely with the “dogmatic method of reasoning” of the belief in revelation, and of scholastic philosophy which adhered to absolute truth. They are replaced by the historical-genetical reasoning of the saeculum historicum which “has discarded absolute truth: there are only relative, no eternal truths” (Paulsen, Immanuel [pg 050] We meet this relative truth, and all the indefinable hazy notions identified with it, in all spheres. The modern history of philosophy and religion concedes to every system and religion the right to their historic position: they are necessary phases of evolution. The notion of immutable problems and truths by which any system of thought would have to be measured has been lost. “The appearance and rejection of a system,” says J. E. Erdmann, “is a necessity of world-history. The former was demanded by the character of the time which the system reflected, the latter again is demanded by the fact that the time has changed” (Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie, 3rd, I, 1878, 4). And Professor Euckensays: “Despite all its advantages, such a view and construction of life is not a definite truth, it remains an attempt, a problem that always causes new discord among minds” (Grundlinien einer neuen Lebensanschauung, 1907, 2). “Thus, if according to Hegel the coming into being constitutes the truth of being, the ideals and aims also must share in the mobility, and truth becomes a child of the times (veritas temporis filia). That apparently subjects life to a full-blown relativism, but such a relativism has lost all its terror by the deterioration of the older method of reasoning. For agreement with existing truth is no longer its chief object.” (Geistige Stroemungen der Gegenwart, 1904, p. 197). The new theory of knowledge assures us quite generally: “It is a vain attempt to single out certain lasting primitive forms of consciousness, acknowledged constant elements of the mind, to retain them. Every ‘a-priori’ principle which is thus maintained as an unalienable dowry of thought, as a necessary result of its psychological and physiological ‘disposition,’ will prove an obstacle of which the progress of science will steer clear sooner or later” (E. Cassirer, Das Erkenntnissproblem in der Philosophie und Wissenschaft der neueren Zeit, 1906, 6). That this relativism is also laying hand, more and more firmly, upon modern ethics is well known. One often gets the conviction that, as E. Westermark teaches, “there is no absolute standard of morality,”that “there are no general truths,” “that all moral values,” as Prof. R. Broda writes, “are relative and varying with every people, every civilization, every society, every free person” (Dokumente des Fortschritts, 1908, 362). Thus modern subjectivism has lost all sense for definite rules of thought; in its frantic rush for freedom and in its confused excitement it seeks to upset all barriers. Now, of course, we may disregard convictions thousands of years old, by simply observing that they suited former ages but not the present; that they perhaps suit the uneducated but not the educated. Henceforth one may also reject the dogmas of Christianity by merely pointing out that they were at one time of importance, but are not suited to the modern man. That is an idea readily grasped, one which has already become quite general with those who are mentally tired of Christianity. What is demanded is a further evolution also of the Christian religion, a continuous cultivation of freer, higher forms, an undogmatic Christianity without duty to believe, without a Church: nothing else, in the end, but a veiled humanitarian religion. “It will be difficult for coming generations to understand,” says Paulsen, in the same sense, “how our time could cling in religious instruction with such peace of mind to a system which, having originated several centuries ago under entirely different conditions of intellectual life, stands in striking contrast to facts and ideas accepted by our time everywhere outside the schools.” Hence a revision of the fundamental truths of Christianity is needed. Away with everything supernatural and miraculous, obedience to faith, original sin, redemption: all this sounds strange to the modern man. “So there remains but one way: to adapt the doctrine of the Church to the theories and views of our times” (System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, II, pp. 247, 250). And Eucken says similarly: “We can adopt the doctrinal system of the Church only by retiring from the present back to the past” (Zeitschr. fuer Philosophie u. Phil. Kritik 112, 1898, 165). Therefore we demand evolution of the Christian religion! “Let us not blindly follow antiquated doctrines disposed of by science,” we are exhorted. “Let there be no fear lest our belief in God and true piety suffer by it! Let us remember that everything earthly is in continual motion, carried along by the rushing river of life.” Onward, therefore, to advancement! ... cheerfully avowing the watchword: “evolution of religion”(Fr. Delitzsch, Zweiter Vortrag ueber Babel u. Bibel, 45. thousand, 1904, 42). Modern Protestant theology has achieved a great deal in this direction; its evolution has progressed to a complete disintegration of Christianity, by adapting it to modern ideas so thoroughly that there is not a single thought left which this Christianity, reduced to meaningless words, might not accept. This is the relativism of the present subjectivistic reasoning and its consequences. [pg 052]Now, it is true that there is room for a certain relativity and evolution in the field of thought and truth. There is a relative truth in the sense that our knowledge of it is never exhaustive. Even the eternal truths of the Christian religion we always know only imperfectly, and we ought to perfect our knowledge continually; established facts of history can also be known, if studied, in greater detail. Thus there is progress and evolution. But from this we may not conclude that there can be no fixed truths at all. In the astronomy of to-day one can surely have the conviction that the fundamental truths of Copernicus's System of the Universe must remain an unchangeable truth, and that the time will never come when we shall go back to the obsolete doctrines of old Ptolemy, who made the sun revolve around the earth. Is astronomy therefore excluded from progress and evolution? It is moreover true that the individual as well as the community pass through an intellectual evolution in the sense that they gradually increase their knowledge and correct their errors, that literature and the schools gradually enhance the energy and wealth of our ideas and thoughts. But a progressive change of the laws of thought, to the effect that we must now hold to a proposition which at another time we should naturally reject as untenable, can be maintained only upon the supposition that the thought of evolution has driven all others out of the intellect. It would be absurd to hold that the same view could be true at one time and false at another, that the same views about the world and life could be right to-day and wrong to-morrow, to be accepted to-day and rejected to-morrow. A view is either true or false. If true, it is always true and warranted. Or was old Thales right when he declared the world to consist of water; were Plato and Aristotle right in maintaining that it consisted of ideas, or forms, with real existences; was Fichte and his time right with his Ego, and are finally Schopenhauer, Wundt, and Paulsen right in claiming the world to be the work of the will? Were our heroic ancestors right, as the theories of evolution claim, in holding that trees are inhabited by ghosts; were then the Greeks right with their idea of a host of gods dwelling in the Olympus; and later [pg 053] Or shall we give it up, as entirely impossible, to judge of the truth or falseness of doctrines and views? Are we to value them only so far as they are adapted to a period, and as moulding and benefiting that period? This opinion indeed is held. “The values of science and philosophy,” says Paulsen, “of our arts and poetry, consist in what they give us; whether a distant future will still use them is very questionable. Scholastic philosophy has passed away; we use it no longer; that is, however, no proof against its value; if it has made the generations living in the latter half of the Middle Ages more intelligent and wise ... then it has done all that could rightfully be expected of it: having served its purpose, it may be laid with the dead: there is no philosophy of enduring value.” “Whatever new ideas a people produces from its own inner nature will be beneficial to it. Nature may be confidently expected to produce here and everywhere at the right time what is proper and necessary” (System der Ethik, 8th ed., 1906, I, 339, seq., II, 241). We have here a very deplorable misconception of the real value of truth, degrading it to suit passing interests and to promote them. This also is in conformity with subjectivism. But what could be answered to the straight question: suppose the opinions which some prefer to call “false” are more useful and valuable than “truth”? None but Nietzsche had the courage to say that “the falsity of a judgment is not yet a sufficient prejudice against it; here our new speech will perhaps sound strangest. The question is: How far is that judgment life-promoting, life-sustaining, preservative, even creative of species, and we are inclined, on principle, to say that the falsest judgments are to us the most indispensable” (Jenseits [pg 054] What others thought out only half way, Nietzsche reasons out to the end. To what lengths this contempt of objective truth may lead a man of such an honest character as Paulsen, is learned from his advice to the modern Protestant preacher who can no longer believe what he has to preach to his orthodox congregation: he may speak just as suits his congregation, orthodox as well as unorthodox, according to the principles of relative truth. “Let us assume,” he says, “that his congregation is of a remote country village, where not the slightest report of the happenings in theology and literature has penetrated, where the names of Strauss and Renan are as little heard as those of Kant and Schleiermacher. Here the Bible is still taken to be the literal Word of God, transmitted to us by holy men commissioned to do it. In this case the preacher may speak without scruple of that book in the same way as his present hearers are used to. Would he thus be saying what is wrong? What is meant by saying the Bible is the Word of God? The same preacher, if transferred to other surroundings where he has to address readers of Strauss and Kant, may change his manner of speaking without changing his view or without violating the truth one way or the other. He would be speaking to them from their own point of view.... Again, should the same preacher publish his philosophical scientific research, he could speak of Holy Scripture in an entirely different way....” And he adds: “Some have taken exception to this opinion.” Surely not without reason! A justification of this counsel was attempted in these words: “Just as the electric incandescent light and the tallow-candle may exist side by side, and as each of them may serve its purpose in its proper place, so there exist also side by side various physical and metaphysical ideas and fundamental notions: the scientist and the philosopher and the old grandmother in her cottage on the remote mountain-side, cannot think of the world in the same way” (Ethik II, 240-244). But the argument, if it should prove anything, must be formulated thus: “As the incandescent light can at the same time be a tallow-candle, just so can two different and opposite views about one and the same thing be at the same time both right.” Thus, thanks to the science of modern subjectivism, every fixed and unchangeable truth, especially in the sphere of philosophy and religion, is removed, and with it also every barrier to freedom of thought in science as well as elsewhere. The human [pg 055] Above we have sketched the deeper-lying thoughts on which the liberal freedom of science is based; it is the humanitarian view of the world with its emancipation of man, and autonomous scepticism in thought, joined to that sceptical disregard of truth which once the representative of expiring pagan antiquity comprised in the words: Quid est veritas? Now we also understand better the liberal science which often claims the privilege of being “the” science, and which only too often likes to put down as unwarranted and inferior every other science that does not pursue its investigations in the same way. We understand its methods of thought in philosophy and religion, for which it claims an exclusive privilege; we can also form a judgment of its claim to be the leader of humanity in place of faith. No doubt there are many who are flirting with this freedom without accepting its principles entirely. They do not reason out the thing to the end, they argue against the invasion of the Church into the field of science, and point to Galileo; they denounce Index and Syllabus, and then believe they have therewith exhausted the meaning of freedom of science. That the real matter in question is a view of the world diametrically opposed to the Christian view, that a changed theory of cognition is underlying it, is by many but insufficiently realized. This freedom is not acceptable to one who professes the Christian view of the world. He will not offer any feeble apology to the eulogist of this freedom, as, for instance: Indeed you are quite right about your freedom, but please remember that I, too, as a faithful Christian am entitled to profess freedom. No; the answer can only be: Freedom, yes; but this freedom, no. A wholly different view of the world separates me from it. I see in it not freedom but rebellion, not the [pg 056] The principle of liberalism has in the field of social economy already done enough to wreck man's welfare. It has here proved its incompetence as a factor of civilization. That in science also, where it is active in the field of philosophy and religion, liberalism is the principle of overthrowing true science, without any appreciation for truth and human nature, that it is a principle of intellectual pauperism and decay, that it despoils man of his greatest treasures, inherited from better centuries—this we shall prove conclusively. It is difficult to say how long the high tide of liberalism will sweep over the fields of modern intellectual life before it subsides. One thing, however, is certain, that just so long it will remain a danger to Christian civilization, and to the intellectual life of mankind. |
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