868
CHRIST IN MODERN THOUGHT
the extent to which it was likely to affect ideas of Christ.
In essence and at the outset the gospel appeared as a revolutionary idealism, inverting the old standards of excel- lence and the old criteria of truth, yet not outwardly revolu- tionary in its immediate aims. Continuous with this instinct grew up the mediteval mind. It is a mind which sees its ideals with the vividness of reality and in the same instant confesses the no less insistent realitj' of the actual, and the impossibility of transforming it as yet by the ideal. It is a mind therefore of compromises and contrasts. Familiar as a sunmiary of the mediieval spirit at its maturity are these ; (a) the contrast between this world and the other world ; (h) the contrast between faith and reason, philosophy and theology ; (c) the contrast between the secular and the sacred — which three are all aspects of one fundamental antagonism, that, viz., between the natural and the supernatural. The practical consequences of these postulates everywhere penetrated the common life and thought. The 16th cent, awoke to the keenest consciousness of their baleful influence. What characterized that age was its fresh sense of the reality of this life and of nature, and of the interests of both. Baptized anew in mental and spiritual ex- perience, its loftier minds were enabled to initiate those de- partures from the mediieval system which were destined to determine the most powerful currents of the modern spirit and which still rule modern thought. Modern thinkers frankly abandon the idea of irreconcilable difference between nature and the supernatural. They acknowledge no revealed thought that is beyond their judgment, and believe in nothing which is in its nature inexplicable or irrational. They work in a spirit of rational freedom led by the conviction that there are not two worlds but one ; that it is one mind that lives in both ; that not the spiritual and the natural, but the spiritual in the natural, is the formula alone adequate to represent the truth. The modern spirit differentiates itself from the mediaeval by conceiving the distinction between nature and spirit as one not of separation but of unity. To spiritualize the natural by force of insight into its deeper meaning is the ruling motive, the starting-point being experience — the experience in one life of both realms.
(2) Its characteristic impulses. — Only by a slow and gradual logic has clear self-consciousness of aim heen reached. Among the contributory causes four are of special importance : the rise of specu- lative philosophy ; the scientific movement and the application of scientific metliod in historical and critical research ; the growth of socialistic theory ; revived interest in the psychological pro- cesses that enter into the construction of know- ledge.
In speculative thought the new point of view formulates itself in theoretic form under the name of the ' absolute ' stand- point. Absolute here means that the universe is wholly know- able. The term does not exclude relativity ; it only excludes an unknowable relativity divorced from all the phenomena of being and action. It points to two facts that must never be lost sight of, viz. that the Ultimate Reality is not abstract but the highest concrete, and that it can be reached by confidence in the power of Reason. The idealistic systems of Germany, in spite of their excesses, did magnificent service by their im- perishable vindication of both truths. The scienttfic spirit observes patiently that it may define accurately. It is the spirit which takes nothing on trust, and seeks a reason for everything. It ranges knowledge in diverse spheres according as the facts it studies fall within the perceptions of sense, or manifest themselves in history, or are known in personal emotion and insight. Each science rests on its own proper principles, obtained from a study of its own facts, without reference to ideas drawn from other departments. Only thus is it possible to bring into clear relief the specialities and differentiae of the various kinds of knowledge, and so establish the contribution of each to final truth. The scientific spirit has given birth to modern History and Criticism. Social theory embraces innumerable divergences of opinion, all of which have been Influential in directing attention to the social situation and its effects on character. The Socialistic contro- versy has enormously deepened the feeling of human solidarity. Liberty, we are learning, does not depend on the absence of social pressure. Social power is the organ of personal char- acter. The new psychology is the latest conspicuous intel- lectual movement of the time. It is the peculiar product of modern philosophy. Kant's achievement was to reassert against Hume's scepticism the claims of reason ; but also to limit their range ; to show that there are elements in the mind which underlie the very possibility of experience, and therefore cannot be derived from it : which elements are beyond the reach of Reason. In effect Kant showed that life is more than knowledge. That persuasion rules the modern world. The key to all problems lies in man ; and the key to the nature of man lies not solely in his thought, but mainly in his will. The whole man is seen in man active. There is an enhanced idea of personality. That idea carries with it two others whose significance for religious reconstruction we cannot over- estimate. There is (a) the ethical character of man's experi- ence ; his life is the fulfilment of relations with others ; (6) the