and his book must be taken into account by every
student of the subject.
Limiting ourselves to that part of his work now before us, we cannot regard his treatment of the history as satisfactory or adequate. The main reasons for his procedure are set forth in the following paragraph :—
" If we understand Philosophy of Religion in the narrower, and, strictly speaking, the only proper sense, according to which it is the systematic scientific investigation and comprehension of the totality of phenomena which in the life of man compose religion, it must be re- garded as the most recent of all the departments of Philosophy, as, in this sense, it is quite modern, scarcely more than two hundred years old. And this is intelligible enough. For to the scientific comprehension of religion as a whole, two conditions are obviously indispensable. In the first place, Religion must be presented in experience as a fact by itself, clearly distinguished from the other phases of social, and especially of civil, life. Secondly, there must be a real Philosophy,— one, that is, in which investigation is independent of external authorities, rests on its own basis, and is scientific, and in which knowledge is logically consistent. The former of these two condi- tions was wanting throughout antiquity ; hence the Greek philo- sophers, who, indeed, frequently speculated regarding the Divine nature and the gods, never made religion, as a whole, as a special department of the life both of the individual and of society, the subject of their systematic inquiry. With Christianity, religion for the first time appeared as an independent fact, clearly distinguished alike from politics, art, and science ; and thereupon, accordingly, a thorough. going philosophical comprehension of it, became for the first time pos- sible. But to realise this possibility, the second essential requirement, the independence of science, was, in the early and mediaeval periods of Christianity, still lacking. The Fathers and the Schoolmen did indeed make an abundant use of the ideas of Greek philosophy ; neither was there wanting to them a speculation of their own of a specifically Christian character : and their skill in the use of the formal dialectic was developed to marvellous perfection : but with all that, their thinking was never an independent scientific investiga- tion, but was throughout, though in different degrees, dominated by presuppositions furnished in the faith of the Church, whether in the form of a still somewhat undefined general conscious. ness, or of a dogma fixed by ecclesiastical authority. As long, accordingly, as any distinction is made between Dogmatic Theology, and the Philosophy of Religion (and that these ought to be more clearly distinguished than is usually the case, is my firm persuasion, necessarily resulting, as I think, from the conception, origin, and aim of Philosophy on the one hand, Theology and Dogmatics on the other), so long we cannot recognise any Philosophy of Religion in the strict sense either in Patristic or Scholastic times."
Waiving any criticism of the identification of " the scientific investigation of the phenomena of religion" with the philo- sophy of religion, we have to observe that the reason given for the exclusion of Greek philosophy from the "History of the Philosophy of Religion " would equally exclude all or most of the writers whose names occur in this book. Which of them has made "religion, as a whole, as a special department of the life both of the individual and of society, the subject of their systematic inquiry ?" Can we truly say this of Spinoza or Leibniz, or of any of the others ? Why should we exclude Aristotle, Plato, the Stoics and Epicureans, and admit the English Deists and the German Romanticists ? It cannot be affirmed that the latter made any scientific investigation of the life of religion as a whole. Investigation into the nature and power of religion, its sources and its influence, and inquiry into the various facts and phenomena of it, did not begin with Spinoza, nor had the impulse given by him the significance given to it by Pfleiderer. We have no wish to detract from the great historic influence of Spinoza ; but why should we assign to him a position historically untenable ? Why should we in this connection refuse to recognise his in- debtedness to Descartes, and to Jewish influences of a dog- matic kind ? Why not refer to Maimonides, to whom Spinoza was so deeply indebted ? As for the reason why dogmatic theo- logy is put out of court, we submit that if Augustine or Aquinas are to be ignored because of presuppositions, then Spinoza is also to be ignored. For these thinkers and Spinoza have a great deal in common in their mode of treating their subjects.
Theologians ought not to be summarily cast aside as if they had nothing relevant to say on the great theme of religion. If they are dogmatic, if they have presuppositions, it is surely possible to abstract from these, and to weigh with some accuracy the worth of any contributions they have made to the subject of the philosophy of religion. Of what worth would a history of philosophy be which should proceed on the same principle? We submit that the limits set by Pfleiderer to his History are arbitrary.
Within the limits, also, his treatment of his subject appears to us unsatisfactory. His divisions, critical, intuitive, specula- tive, are neither logical nor exhaustive. Why should Schleier- macher be reckoned as speculative, and Goethe as intuitive ? We can find no sufficient reason, when we remember that Goethe described himself as a Spinozist, and that Schleiermacher based religion on feeling. The gravest defect in the History lies in the fact that, with the exception of the English Deists, there is no reference to workers in this department of theology outside of Germany. Why is there no reference to French thinkers ? English Deism had its influence in France, and gave rise to many speculations on the nature of religion which ought not to be ignored in any history of the question. There is here no mention of Voltaire, Diderot, or Rousseau.
We have also to complain that such slight reference is made to English thought. No good reason can be given why space should be devoted to Toland, Tindal, Chubb, and others of that sort, and no mention be made of Samuel Clarke, Wollaston, or Bishop Butler. In any history of the philosophy of religion, Butler ought to have a distinguished place. There is to us nothing more strange than German ignorance of this great thinker. We can find no reference to him in German theology or philosophy. Herzog's Real.-Encyclopadie, which can find space for such a name as Claudius Buchanan, makes no mention of Butler. Nor is there any mention by Pfleiderer of those writers who met the Deists on their own ground, and overcame them.
While we take exception to the limits within which Pfleiderer confines his history, while we think there is a want of pro- portion in the space and treatment he gives to various writers, and while we are of opinion that the relation of the men to the movements of life and thought of their time is inadequately set forth, we still think that much in this volume is of great value. Particularly we would point to the accounts of Leasing, Kant, Fichte, and Schleiermacher as a real contribution to philo- sophical history. We trust that the other volumes will speedily follow, and that the translators will be able to maintain the high level set in this volume.
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