Elsewhere he was himself, a German peasant, vigorous, shrewd, conservative, with little sympathy with or insight into the needs of the new age which he had done so much to call into being. If the heart was right the rest would follow. Had not Christ disclaimed temporal authority? It was for princes, not for private citizens, to bear rule in the State. Partly a reaction against papal and clerical encroachments, partly a defence against the reproach of promoting disorder, this subservience to rulers was one of the greatest blots upon Lutheranism. We in this country have special reason to regret it. Under the shape of passive obedience it passed into the Church of England and provoked Nonconformity; more than any other one cause it hindered the English Church from becoming coextensive with the English race. Again, in dealing with medieval tradition and usage, Protestantism went by rule of thumb rather than by scholarship, which was in its infancy, or by reasoning, of which it took little count. It cut off obvious excrescences and such features of the older system as had given occasion to superstition; but it took the current theology without question-the Trinitarian and Christological dogma, the theory of vicarious satisfaction, of the inerrancy and plenary inspiration of Scripture, and the like.

On neither side, the political or the theological, could the settlement be lasting. Society was outgrowing the existing order. In theological as in other sciences new knowledge was supplementing and correcting the old. Criticism, as yet a tendency rather than a fact, was preparing men's minds for the abandonment of the traditional standpoint; while in each case the inevitable transition was opposed by a combination of vested interests, material force, and fanaticism, genuine and assumed, which embittered feeling, delayed the natural course of events, and made the change when it came revolutionary. Instead of in the still small voice, the Lord was in the whirlwind; he spoke in thunder and in fire. So that man asked, 'Is this indeed his voice?' seeing the smoke and the bloodshed, hearing the noise of battle, the crash of altar and throne. The large map is the key to the position. It is difficult to discern the religious idea in the scoffing philosophy of the eighteenth century, in the anarchy and slaughter of the Terror, in the dry and

men like

chilling rationalism of to-day. To do so we must look at these movements from more than one point of view, recognising the philanthropic passion of Voltaire, the humanitarian idea that underlay the Revolution, the love of truth and jealous fear of falsehood which find expression in secularism. Nor must we forget the colossal injustice and hypocrisy against which these things were a protest-the oppression of the old absolutisms and aristocracies, the corruption and worldliness of the Churches, the smooth and heartless convention that passes for and brings discredit on religious belief. Above all we must remember how the whole has worked out. Will any thoughtful man, comparing the England of to-day with that of the Regency, the France of the third Republic with that of Louis XV, the Italy of the house of Savoy with that of the Pope and the Bourbons, give the preference to the old order, or question that, morally as well as materially, the new is better?

Religion and the Church, we are told, have suffered. Do not let us be duped by words. The Spirit at work in the world and in humanity manifests itself not only in religion and in the Church, but on a wider field. Its action is universal; it meets us in history, in experience, in civilisation, and generally in man. Religion is a part of this manifestation, a part important and indispensable, but still a part only, and, as such, subordinate to the whole. The Church, the world-to how much misconception have these abstractions given occasion! What is the Church but mankind viewed from the religious standpoint? The world, but this same mankind taken in a wider sense and with a larger connotation-the 'quicquid agunt homines' of the poet; human nature with its various and changing sides? To set up an opposition between the two is a sophism. The distinction is nominal; the thing denoted is one and the same in each case. The relation between the Church and the world, using the terms in the sense indicated, has varied. At times, as in the early Middle Ages, the former has been in advance of the latter; at times they have stood much on the same level. There have been periods when, as to-day, the Church lags behind, meeting the advance of the world with stubborn opposition and impotent rebuke. At such periods feeling runs high on both sides. The Vol. 210.-No. 419.

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Church sees in the world a godless Antichrist; the world sees in the Church an obstruction, a barrier standing in the way. Such was the estimate common during the onward movement of the eighteenth and the reaction of the nineteenth century. We can see the how and the why of this. The world was godless, the Church obstructive; yes. But to see no farther than this into either is not to see the wood for the trees. The dualism which opposed the one to the other is 'a compendium of many heresies. Any barrier that hinders their free interchange of benefits is impoverishing to both sides.'

It would be rash to count too much on the better understanding between these two aspects or departments of experience which seems to prevail in our own time. This understanding falls short of an alliance or even a reconciliation; it is an entente rather than an entente cordiale. It is the result of criticism, of the historical method, of the philosophy of relativity; and it is from this side that its development is to be expected; for these weapons are best handled by those trained in their use. The world understands the Church better than the Church the world. On each side the understanding is intellectual rather than moral; hence its failure to bring about more than a precarious modus vivendi. That the philosopher sees how religion came to be what it is does not enable him to recognise and appreciate the idea that underlies it. The churchman may be shrewd enough to reckon with, say, democracy, as a fact, while remaining profoundly hostile to its spirit. In this case he will probably attempt to capture it for party purposes, to direct its waters into a new course. Such efforts, which are predestined to failure, give an impression of disingenuousness; and their result is a natural distrust of the quarter from which they proceed. Hence an antidogmatism as dogmatic as the dogmatism against which it is directed; a sectarianism as narrow and unscrupulous as that which it is pledged to destroy. Yet the advance, not indeed of definite belief, but of religious temper, is unmistakable. The sense of the obligation of public service, of the duties of class to class, of the responsibility of society to its members in general and in particular, is increasing and likely to increase.

One of the greatest of German theologians, Richard

Rothe, looked forward to what he called the passing over (Aufgehen) of the Church into the world. By this he meant, not that the religious element in life should be merged in the secular-nothing was further from his mind-but that society should rise to a fuller sense of its origin, course, and destiny, and so occupy itself with that department of life of which the Church is too apt to claim a monopoly. It would seem as if his anticipation was in a fair way to be realised. We have come to believe that the conscience of the community as a whole is a safer guide than that of any section of the community; that the general is to be trusted before the clerical mind. Indifference to formula and neglect of observance are not on the decrease; hence a certain loss which, we believe, is temporary and will be balanced by gain in other directions, but the effect of which is, and cannot but be, felt. Scepticism claims, and, it is to be feared, will continue to claim, its victims, particularly in the Latin countries, where the Church, instead of representing, as among ourselves, the average religious attitude of the community, has fallen into the hands of an extreme faction bent at all costs on regaining its lost supremacy and on enforcing its impossible creed. Tragic, however, as is the situation for individuals, we need not, we may not despair. The large map, the law of progress, forbid it. The Church, the world, religion, have passed through greater extremities and come out stronger for the ordeal. Individuals, generations, suffer-such is the law of lifebut they count for little in the history of humanity; there is a loftier range, a larger view.' If this be ours we may, as Dr Pfleiderer hopes,

'look forward confidently to the future, certain that in this twentieth century Christianity will make good progress towards the goal to which its whole history has been one long endeavour the realisation of the God-Manhood, the penetration of the whole mind and life of mankind by the Divine Spirit of Freedom, Truth and Love' (ii, 270).

Art. 3.-EVOLUTIONARY ETHICS.

1. The Origin and Development of the Moral Ideas. By Edward Westermarck. Two vols. London: Macmillan, 1906, 1908.

2. Morals in Evolution: a Study in Comparative Ethics. By L. T. Hobhouse. Two vols. London: Chapman

and Hall, 1906.

3. The Theory of Good and Evil: a Treatise on Moral Philosophy. By Hastings Rashdall. Two vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907.

4. An Introduction to Social Psychology. By William McDougall. London: Methuen, 1908.

PERHAPS the strongest testimony to the importance of Darwin's work is to be found not so much in the revolution which he produced in biology as in the influence of his ideas upon other departments of thought. This influence has been conspicuous in all the human sciences -in psychology, sociology, religion, and in every department of historical study. A key seems to have been given for understanding the sequence of events of whatever kind. Origin, change, progress, have their mysteries solved by the magic of evolution. Nor is this the limit of its achievement; almost every subject of thought is so steeped in the time-process that our whole mental attitude has suffered thereby a Darwinian change. Outside mathematics, hardly an important science has escaped the influence. In these last years even Logic has threatened to become 'genetic.' But perhaps, of all sciences, it is upon Ethics that the effect has been most profound, and most questionable. For Ethics stands between the historical and the non-historical sciences, and connects itself with both. On the one hand it is occupied with enquiries which are mental or social in their nature; it deals with human emotions, sentiments, and activities, and with the growth of the customs and institutions in which these have found embodiment. On the other hand it seeks the solution of problems into which time does not enter; it investigates the nature of goodness; and it attempts to determine the ideal by which the time-process itself is to be judged.

Darwin himself made a number of sagacious and