technical use of the adjective _rational_ seems to have been about the
seventeenth century, to express a school of philosophy. It had probably
passed out of the old sense of _dialectical_ (cfr. Brucker’s _Hist. Phil._
iii. 60.), into the use just named; which we find in Bacon, to express
rational philosophy, as opposed to empirical, (see a quotation from
Bacon’s _Apophthegms_ in Richardson’s _Dictionary_, _sub voc._); or, as in
North’s _Plutarch_, 1657, p. 984, for intellectual philosophy as opposed
to mathematical and moral. The word Rationalist occurs in Clarendon, 1646
(_State Papers_, vol. ii. p. 40), to describe a party of presbyterians who
appealed only to “what their reason dictates them in church and state.”
Hahn (_De Rationalismi Indole_) states that Amos Comenius similarly used
the term in 1661 in a depreciatory sense. The treatise of Locke on the
_Reasonableness of Christianity_ caused Christians and Deists to
appropriate the term, and to restrict it to religion. Thus, by Waterland’s
time, it had got the meaning of false reasoning on religion. (_Works_,
viii. 67.) And, passing into Germany, it appears to have become the common
name to express philosophical views of religion, as opposed to
supernatural. In this sense it occurs as early as 1708 in Sucro, quoted by
Tholuck, _Vermischt. Schriften_, ii. pp. 25, 26, and in Buddeus,
_Isagoge_, 1730, pp. 213 and 1151. It is also used often as equivalent to
naturalism, or adherence to natural religion; with the slight difference
that it rather points to mental than physical truth.
The name has often been appropriated to the Kantian or critical
philosophy, in which rationalism was distinguished from naturalism in the
mode explained under the latter word. (See Kant’s _Religion Innerhalb der
Grenzen der Blossen Vernunft_, pp. 216, 17.) During the period when
Rationalism was predominant as a method in German theology, the meaning
and limits of the term were freely discussed. The period referred to is
that which we have called in Lect. VI. p. 230 the second subdivision of
the first of the three periods, into which the history of German theology
is there divided; viz. from 1790-1810; occupying the interval when the
Wolffian philosophy had given place to the Kantian, and the philosophy of
Fichte and Jacobi had not yet produced the revival under Schleiermacher.
This form of rationalism also continued to exist during the lifetime of
its adherents, contemporaneously with the new influence created by
Schleiermacher. (See Lect. VI.) The discussion was not a verbal one only,
but was intimately connected with facts. The rationalist theologians
wished to define clearly their own position, as opposed on the one hand to
deists and naturalists, and on the other to supernaturalists. The result
of the discussion seemed to show the following parties: (1) two kinds of
Supernaturalists, (α) the Biblical, such as Reinhardt, resembling the
English divines of the eighteenth century;(1065) (β) the Philosophical,
sometimes called Rational Supernaturalists, as the Kantian theologian
Staüdlin: (2) two kinds of Rationalists, (α) the Supernatural
Rationalists, like Bretschneider, who held on the evidence of reason the
necessity of a revelation, but required its accordance with reason, when
communicated; (β) the pure Rationalists, like Wegscheider, Röhr, and
Paulus, who held the sufficiency of reason; and, while admitting
revelation as a fact, regarded it as the republication of the religion of
nature. It is this last kind which answers to the “theological
naturalist,” named above, under the word _Naturalist_. It is also the form
which is called _Rationalismus vulgaris_ (as being opposed to the later
_scientific_), though the term is not admitted by its adherents. This
rationalism stands distinguished from naturalism, i.e. from “philosophical
naturalism” or deism, by having reference to the Christian religion and
church; but it differs from supernaturalism, in that reason, not
scripture, is its formal principle, or test of truth: and virtue, instead
of “faith working by love,” is its material principle, or fundamental
doctrine. A further subdivision might be made of this last into the
dogmatic (Wegscheider), and the critical (Paulus). Cfr. Bretschneider’s
_Dogmatik_, i. 81, and see Lect. VI. Also consult on the above account
Kahnis, p. 168, and Lechler’s _Deismus_, p. 193, note; Hagenbach’s
_Dogmengesch_. § 279, note.
This account of the term being the result of the controversy as to the
meaning of the words, it only remains to name some of the works which
treated of it.
The dispute on the word _Rationalism_ is especially seen at two periods,
(1) about the close of the last century, when the supernaturalists, such
as Reinhardt and Storr, were maintaining their position against
rationalism. One treatise, which may perhaps be considered to belong to
this earlier period, is J. A. H. Tittmann’s _Ueber Supernaturalismus,
Rationalismus, und Atheismus_, 1816; (2) in the disputes against the
school of Schleiermacher, when supernaturalism was no longer thrown on the
defensive. This was marked by several treatises on the subject, such as
Staüdlin’s _Geschichte des Rationalismus und Supernaturalismus_ 1826, (see
the definitions given in it, pp. 3 and 4;) Bretschneider’s remarks in his
_Dogmatik_ (i. pp. 14, 71, 80 ed. 1838); and _Historische Bemerkungen
Ueber den Gebrauch der Ausdrücke Rational. und Supernat._
(_Oppositions-Schrift._ 1829. 7. 1); A. Hahn, _De Rationalismi qui dicitur
Verâ Indole_, 1827, in which he reviews the attempts of Bretschneider and
Staüdlin to give the historic use of the word; Röhr’s _Briefe Ueber
Rationalismus_, pp. 14-16; Paulus’s _Resultate aus den Neuesten Versuch
des Supernat. Gegen den Rationalismus_, 1830; Wegscheider’s _Inst. Theol.
Christianæ Dogmaticæ_ (7th ed. 1833. §§ 11, 12, pp. 49-67), which is full
of references to the literature of the subject. The controversy was
aggravated and in part was due to the translation of Mr. H. J. Rose’s
_Sermons on Rationalism_. He was answered by Bretschneider in a tract, in
which that theologian entered upon the defence of the rationalist
position. Mr. Rose (_Introd._ to 2d ed. 1829, p. 17) enters briefly upon
the history of the name. Krug (_Philos. Lexicon_) also gives many
instances of its use in German theology.
To complete the account it is only necessary to add, that it is made clear
by Lectures VI. and VII. that if subsequent theological thought in Germany
to the schools now described, be called Rationalism for convenience by
English writers, the term is then used in a different sense from that in
which it is applied in speaking of the older forms.
8. SCEPTIC.—This term was first applied specifically to one school of
Greek philosophers, about B.C. 300, followers of Pyrrho of Elis (see
Ritter’s _Hist. of Phil._ E. T. iii. 372-398; Staüdlin’s _Geschichte des
Scepticismus_, vol. i; Tafel’s _Geschichte und Kritik des Skepticismus_,
1836; Donaldson’s _Greek Lit._ ch. xlvii. § 5); and also to a revival of
this school about A.D. 200. (See Ritter. Id. iii. 258-357; Donaldson, ch.
lvi. § 3.) The tenet was a general disbelief of the possibility of knowing
realities as distinct from appearances. The term thus introduced,
gradually became used in the specific sense of theological as distinct
from philosophical scepticism, often with an indirect implication that the
two are united. Walch restricts the name Sceptic to the latter kind.
Writing about those who are called Indifferentists (_Bibl. Theol. Select._
i. 976), he subdivides them into two classes; viz. those who are
indifferent through liberality, and those who are so through unbelief. The
former are the “Latitudinarians,” the latter the Sceptics above named.
Cfr. also Buddeus, _Isagoge_, pp. 1208-10. In more recent times the term
has gained a still more generic sense in theology, to express all kinds of
religious doubt. But its use to express philosophical scepticism as
distinct from religious has not died out. In this sense Montaigne, Bayle
(cfr. Staüdlin’s _Gesch. des Scept._ p. 204), Huet, Berkeley, Hume, and De
Maistre, were Sceptics; i.e. sceptical of the certitude of one or more
branches of the human faculties. Sometimes also it is used to express
systems of philosophy which teach disbelief in the reality of metaphysical
science; e.g. the positive school of Comte; but this is an ambiguous use
of the term. For philosophical scepticism may be of two kinds; viz. the
disbelief in the possibility of the attainment of truth by means of the
natural faculties of man; and the disbelief of the possibility of its
attainment by means of metaphysical, as distinct from physical, methods.
The former is properly called Philosophical Scepticism, the latter not so.
Pyrrho in ancient times, and Hume in modern, represent the former; the
Positivists of modern times, and perhaps the Sophists of the fifth century
B.C., represent the latter. It is hardly necessary to repeat that the
philosophical scepticism proper of Berkeley and Hume must not be
confounded with religious. They may be connected, as in Hume, or
disconnected, as in Berkeley or De Maistre. See on this subject Morell’s
_Hist. of Philos._ i. p. 68, ii. ch. vi.
On the subject of the words explained in this note see, besides the works
referred to, Walch’s _Bibl. Theol. Select._ i. ch. v. sect. 5, 6, 7, 11,
and iii. ch. vii. sect. 10. § 4. 1757: Pfaff’s _Introd. in Hist. Theol._
lib. ii. b. iii. § 2. 1725: Stapfer’s _Inst. Theol. Polem._ ii. ch. vi,
vii, x; iv. ch. xiii. 1744: Reimannus’ _Hist. Univ. Ath._ sectio i. 1725:
J. F. Buddeus’s _De Atheismo_, 1737, ch. i. and ii: J. F. Buddeus’s
_Isagoge_, 1730, pp. 1203-1211: Lechler’s _Gesch. des Deismus_, 1841;
_Schlussbemerkungen_, p. 453 seq.: J. Fabricius, 1704, _Consid. Var.
Controv._ p. 1: Staüdlin’s _Gesch. des Skepticismus vorzüglich in
Rücksicht auf. Moral. und Religion_. 1794: J. F. Tafel’s _Gesch. und
Kritik des Skepticismus und Irrationalismus_, with reference to
Philosophy, 1834.
Note 22. p. 136. Woolston’s Discourses On Miracles.
In addition to the notice of these Discourses given in the text, it may be
well to give a brief account of their contents.
In Discourse I. Woolston aims at showing (α) that healing is not a proper
miracle for a Messiah to perform, and that the fathers of the church
understood the miracles allegorically: (β) that a literal interpretation
of miracles involves incredibility, as shown in the miracle of the
expulsion of the buyers and sellers from the temple, the casting out
devils from the possessed man of the tombs, the transfiguration, the
marriage of Cana, the feeding the multitudes: (γ) the meaning of Jesus
when he appeals to miracles. In Discourse II. he selects for examination
the miracle of the woman with the issue of blood, and also her with the
spirit of infirmity; also the narrative of the Samaritan woman, the
triumphal entry into Jerusalem, the temptation, the appearance of the
spirits of the dead at the resurrection. In Discourse III. he selects the
cursing of the fig-tree, and the miracle of the pool of Bethesda. It may
be allowable to give one illustration of the coarse humour with which he
rationalizes the sacred narrative in his explanation of this last miracle.
He says of the healed man, “The man’s infirmity was more laziness than
lameness; and Jesus only shamed him out of his pretended idleness by
bidding him to take up his stool and walk off, and not lie any longer like
a lubbard and dissemble among the diseased.” It will be perceived, that if
the coarseness be omitted, the system of interpretation is the naturalist
system afterwards adopted by the old rationalism (_rationalismus
vulgaris_). In Discourse IV. he selects the healing with eye-salve of the
blind man, the water made into wine at Cana; where he introduces a Jewish
rabbi to utter blasphemy, after the manner of Celsus; and the healing of
the paralytic who was let down through the roof, which, as being one of
the most characteristic passages of Woolston, Dean Trench has selected for
analysis. (_Notes on Miracles_, Introduction, p. 81.) In Discourse V. he
discusses the three miracles of the raising of the dead; and in Discourse
VI. the miracle of Christ’s own resurrection.
His conclusion (in Disc. I.) is, that “the history of Jesus, as recorded
in the evangelists, is an emblematical representation of his spiritual
life in the soul of man; and his miracles figurative of his mysterious
operations;” that the four Gospels are in no part a literal story, but a
system of mystical philosophy or theology.
Lecture V.
Note 23. p. 178. The Literary Coteries Of Paris In The Eighteenth Century.
An account of these coteries may be seen in Schlosser’s _Hist. of
Eighteenth Century_, (E. T.) vol. i. ch. ii. § 4; the particulars of which
chapter he has gathered largely from the Autobiography of Marmontel, and
from Grimm’s Correspondence. See also Sainte-Beuve’s Papers (_Portraits_,
vol. ii.) on Espinasse and Geoffrin. These coteries were specially four:
viz. (1) that of Madame De Tencin, mother of D’Alembert, which included
Fontenelle, Montesquieu, Mairan, Helvetius, Marivaux, and Astruc; (2) of
Madame Geoffrin, who took the place of De Tencin. It included, besides
some of the above, Poniatowsky, Frederick the Great when in France, the
Swedish Creutz, and Kaunitz, the whole of the Voltaire school, and at
first Rousseau; (3) of Madame Du Deffant, contemporary with Geoffrin. This
was less a coterie of fashion, and more entirely of intellect; and
included Voltaire, D’Alembert, Hénault, and Horace Walpole when in Paris.
Later Mlle. Espinasse took the place of Deffant, and this became the
union-point for all the philosophical reformers, D’Alembert, Diderot,
Turgot, and the Encyclopædists; (4) of D’Holbach, consisting of the most
advanced infidels.
Note 24. p. 198. The Term Ideology.
As the term _Ideology_ has lately been employed in a novel theological
sense, (e.g. _Essays and Reviews_, Ess. iv.), and as it is employed in
these lectures in its ordinary sense, as known in metaphysical science, it
may prevent ambiguity to state briefly the history of the term.
The word _Ideology_, as denoting the term to express metaphysical science,
seems to have arisen in the French school of De Tracy at the close of the
last century. Cfr. Krug’s _Philos. Lexicon_, sub voc.
As early as Plato’s time metaphysics was the science of ἰδέαι, i.e. of
_forms_; but the word ἰδέα implied the objective form in the thing, not
the subjective conception in the mind. It was Descartes who first
appropriated the word Idea in the subjective sense of _notion_. This arose
from the circumstance that in his philosophy he sought for the idea in the
mind, instead of the essence in the thing contemplated, as had been the
case in mediæval philosophy. In the following century Locke’s inquiries,
together with Berkeley’s speculations, caused metaphysics to become _the
science of ideas_. The representative theory of perception which was held,
increased, if it did not cause, the confusion: all knowledge was
restricted to ideas. The subsequent attempts of Condillac and others to
carry forward the analysis of the formation of our ideas still farther,
caused metaphysics to be restricted to them alone. This apparently was the
reason why De Tracy gave the name of Ideology to the science of
metaphysics in the _Elémens d’Idéologie_.(1066)
It was the sceptical notion of the unreality of the objects as distinct
from the ideas, partly the offshoot of a sensational philosophy, like that
of De Tracy, partly of the spiritual philosophy of Germany, which farther
caused the term Ideological to slide into the sense of _ideal_; a meaning
of the term which the employment of it in English in recent theological
controversy seems likely to make common.
Note 25. p. 195. The Works Of Dr. Geddes.
Towards the end of the eighteenth century, free thought began to manifest
itself in England under a rationalistic form, in a Roman catholic, Dr.
Geddes, who lived 1737-1802. (See Life by Mason Good, 1804.) Vol. i. of
his _Translation_ of the Bible appeared in 1792; vol. ii. in 1797; and his
_Critical Remarks_ (vol. i.) in 1800. His free criticism is seen in
discussing the character of Moses (pref. to vol. i. of _Transl._); the
slaughter of the Canaanites (pref. to vol. ii.); Paradise (_Crit. Rem._ p.
35); the remarks on Genesis xlix. (Id. p. 142); on the Egyptian plagues
(p. 182); on the passage of the Red sea (p. 200). As soon as the first
volume was published the Catholic bishops silenced him. Geddes was a
believer in Christianity; but felt so strongly the deist difficulties,
that he sought to defend revelation by explaining away the supernatural
from the Jewish history, and inspiration from the Jewish literature. His
views, so far as they were not original, were probably derived from the
incipient rationalistic speculations of Germany, though he quoted almost
none of the German except Michaelis and Herder. His position in the
history of doubt is with the early rationalists, not with the deists. A
writer of somewhat similar character, Mr. Evanson, a unitarian, wrote a
critical attack on the Gospels, _The Dissonance of the Four generally
received Evangelists_, in 1805.
Note 26. p. 196. The Works Of Conyers Middleton.
Dr. Conyers Middleton lived from 1683 to 1750. In 1749 he published _A
Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers of the Early Church_; “by which it
is shown that we have no sufficient reason to believe, upon the authority
of the primitive fathers, that any such powers were continued to the
church after the days of the apostles.” He was attacked by Dodwell,
Church, and Chapman, who described the work as discrediting miracles. The
object of it was to place the church in the predicament of denying
altogether the authority of the fathers, or else of admitting the truth of
the Romish doctrine of miracles. Gibbon, when young, chose the latter horn
of the dilemma. A list of Middleton’s works in chronological order will be
found in vol. i. of his _Miscellaneous Works_ (1752). The one which
created disputes in theology besides the above was, _An Anonymous Letter
to Waterland_, 1731, in reference to his reply to Tindal’s work; which was
answered by Bishop Pearce. His posthumous work on _The Variations or
Inconsistencies which are found among the Four Evangelists_, (Works, vol.
ii. p. 22); his essay on _The Allegorical Interpretation of the Creation
and Fall_ (ii. 122); and his criticism in 1750 on bishop Sherlock’s
_Discourses on Prophecy_, may cause Middleton to be regarded as a
rationalist. See his Works, ii. 24, 131, and iii. 183.
Lecture VI.
Note 27. p. 213. On Pietism In Germany In The Seventeenth Century.
The person who commenced the religious movement afterwards called Pietism,
was John Arndt (1555-1621), who wrote _The True Christian_, a work as
useful religiously, as Bunyan’s _Pilgrim’s Progress_, or Doddridge’s
_Religion in the Soul_.
Spener followed (1635-1705). The private religious meetings which he
established about 1675, _Collegia Pietatis_, were the origin of the
application of the name Pietism to the movement. One of his pupils was the
saintly A. H. Francke, whose memoir was translated 1837. Paul Gerhardt,
the well known author of the German hymns, also belonged to the same
party. The university of Halle became the home of Pietism; and the
orphan-house established in that town was renowned over Europe. The
opposition of the old Lutheran party of other parts of Germany produced
controversies which continued till about 1720; for an account of which,
see Weismann, _Mem. Eccl. Hist. Sacr._ 1745, p. 1018 seq.
Pietism propagated its influence by means of Bengel in Würtemburg and the
university of Tübingen, and in Moravia through Zinzendorf. Arnold and
Thomasius belonged to this party at the beginning of the eighteenth
century. Œtinger at Tübingen, Crusius at Leipsic, and, to a certain
extent, Buddeus also, partook of the spirit of Pietism. It manifested a
tendency to religious isolation; and in its nature combined the analogous
movements subsequently carried out in England by Wesley and by Simeon
respectively.
A brief account of it is given in Hase’s _Church History_, § 409: and for
a fuller account, see Schröckh, _Chr. Kirchengesch._ vol. viii. pp.
255-91; Pusey on _German Theology_, part i. (67-113); part. ii. ch. x;
Amand Saintes, _Crit. Hist. of Rationalism_, E. T. ch. vii. Spener’s
character and life may be seen in Canstein’s memoir of him; and in
Weismann, pp. 966-72. A philosophical view of Pietism, as a necessary
stage in the development of German religious life, is given by Dorner in
the _Studien und Kritiken_, 1840, part ii. 137, _Ueber den Pietismus_.
Kahnis, who himself quotes it, (_Hist. of Germ. Prot._) E. T. p. 102,
regards Pietism as ministering indirectly to rationalism; much in the same
way as bishop Fitzgerald criticised the similar evangelical movement of
England, _Aids to Faith_, p. 49, &c.
Note 28. p. 224. Classification Of Schools Of Poetry In Germany.
The materials for understanding the awakening of literary tastes in the
last century in Germany, through Lessing’s influence, are furnished by
Schlosser, _History of the Eighteenth Century_. See vol. i. ch. iii. E. T.
for the period from the Pietists to Lessing; and ch. v. in reference to
the Deutsche Bibliothek, and also vol. ii. ch. ii. § 3. See also Vilmar’s
_History of German Literature_ (translated and abridged by Metcalfe).
It may facilitate clearness to name the classification of schools of
German poetry and taste, which is given in the last-named work. They are
divided into five classes: viz. I. that which was antecedent to Lessing,
which is subdivided into (1) the Saxon school of Gottsched; and (2) the
Swiss school of Bodmer, and of Wieland in his early manner; which was
connected with the Gottingen school of Haller, Hagedorn, and Klopstock,
together with the Stolbergs and Voss. II. Lessing, and writers influenced
by him, such as (1) Kleist and the Prussian group; (2) Wieland in his
second manner, and J. Paul Richter; (3) Kotzebue, who was a mixture of
Wieland and Lessing. In these two periods Klopstock, Wieland, and Lessing,
were the intellectual triumvirs. III. The “Sturm und Drang” period; the
Weimar school with its second literary triumvirate, Herder, Goethe,
Schiller. IV. The later schools: (1) the romantic, viz. the two Schlegels,
Novalis, Tieck, Uhland, Fouqué; (2) the patriotic of the liberation wars,
Arndt and Koerner. V. The modern school of disappointment and uneasy
reaction against the absolute government, H. Heine and Grün.
It is an interesting psychological problem to trace the close analogy
between the schools of poetical taste and the corresponding character in
the contemporary criticism of ancient literature, the speculative
philosophy, and the theology.
Note 29. p. 225. The Wolfenbüttel Fragments.
It has been stated in the text that these were Fragments, which Lessing
published in 1774 and the following years, of a larger work which he
professed to have found in the library of Wolfenbüttel, where he was
librarian. They were published in the third of the series of works,
_Beiträge zur Geschichte und Literatur aus den Schätzen der Herzoglichen
Bibliothekzu Wolfenbüttel_, under the title, _Fragmente Eines Ungenannten
Herausgegeben von G. E. Lessing_.
After Lessing’s death, C. A. E. Schmidt published further Fragments, under
the title _Uebrige noch Ungedruckte Werke des Wolfenbüttelschen
Fragmentisten. Ein Nachlass von G. E. Lessing_.
The authorship of the Fragments was suspected at the time by Hamann; but
it remained generally unknown, and became as great a secret as the
authorship of the Letters of Junius, until 1827, when the question was
discussed by Gurlitt in the _Leipziger Literatur-Zeitung_, No. 55, and
proof was offered that the author was Reimarus of Hamburg.