Schleiermacher has, indeed, sought to lessen and even to destro}'' this distinction oi th^ phcenomena and noumena of Kant and Fichte, i. e. of a theoretical and a practical reason of an object and a subject; and for that purpose has resorted to Schelling's philosophy of identity. This system consists in upholding the unity of nature and spirit, and points to the " will" ever arising from dead nature. Thus in his interesting treatise, Uebei- d. Unter- schied zwischen Natur- und Sittengesetz (in his Sdmmt- liche Werke, III, ii, 397-417), he seeks to equalize them. According to the common view (p. 400), the natural law must contain a general expression of what really occurs in and through nature, and the moral law of what should occur in and through reason in her domain. Yet here we find again the obligation of the moral law based upon the existence of the mind, and of the respect for the law to which its observance relates. On the other hand (p. 409, 413) the natural law is also connected with an obligation, implying that all does not fully and perfectly proceed according to the law. Thus mon- strosities and diseases stand in the same relation to the laws of nature, in whose domain they occur, as immo- ralitj' and disobedience do to the moral law. Among the elementary forces and processes of nature we find vegetation and animalization ; but abortion and disease, in nature, are not the eifects of a new principle; they are only a deficiencj- of thosa of vegetation and animal- ization. So also "in the domain of spiritual life we find deviations corresponding to its nature, which we find in that of vegetation and animalization. We even find others, having their origin not in intelligence itself, but in the fact that the mind in its state of earthly ex- istence must become a centre, and as such must in an oscillating life appear ineflicient sometimes in view of the subordinate functions." Thus by the side of reason and its laws there exists also a deficiency, and the de- viations, in which the mind-force appears inadequate to the work, are in fact nothing but what we caU evil and immorality. The two laws are therefore essentially similar. The difference of obligation is simply this: "It is only through the intervention of the mind-force that the individuality becomes free, and a mental life alone is a complete life. Hence it is merely on this point that the obligation is directed to the will." This theory of Schleiermacher agrees perfectly with his gen- eral view of ethics as a science, with which he opposed in his time the exaggeration of the feeling of duty, con- sidering ethics especially as the chief good. But quite as evident, in the given theory, is the disadvantageous connection under which this definition of the natural and moral law is placed by Schleiermacher. It lies iu the rejection of liberty, and therefore of the positive and essential prevalence of evil. The " intellectual" process is looked upon as similar to the vegetative and animal- izing; the mind appears only as perceptive; evil takes its source only in quantitative oscillations, and in the relative weakness of the moral principles. The spiritual life is placed in the light of a natural process, and thus we find again in Schleiermacher's ethics the same nat- uralism as in dogmatics. Such is the pantheistic side of Schleiermacher's system, the conclusions of which have led many into an atheistical materialism that goes so far as to consider thought itself but " a secretion of the brain." It must be the aim therefore of theology to overcome this pantheistic leaven, and to establish the limits of the power of the laws of nature, so as to prevent natural necessity being supposed to annul (iod's creative power and human liberty. It must show that the Spirit of the Lord is liberty, and not nature, and that God is all in all. — Herzog, Real-Encykl. x, 224 sq. See Law. (J. N. P.)
Nau, Michel, a French missionarj', was born at Paris in 1631, of distinguished, noble parentage. He joined the Jesuits in 1656, and his superiors, after hav- ing intrusted to him the direction of the studies of the two princes De Longueville, apjiointcd him to the mis- sions in the East, He travelled over Mesopotamia,
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SjTia, Persia, and Armenia, where his zeal, and the conversions that he wrout^ht, more than once excited the Mussulmans against him. Exhausted in strength, he jeturned to France in 1082, and died at Paris March 8, 1683. We have of his works. Voyage uouveau de la Terre Sainte, enrichi de plusieurs remargues scrcani a Vintelligence de la Sainte Ecrilure (Paris, 1G79 and 1702, 12mo; a book at the same time curious, edifying, and usefid) : — Ecclesice Romance Grcecaque vera effi;/ies et consenstig, ex varris turn recentibus, turn aniiqiiis mon- umentis. Accessit relii/io Christiana contra Alcoranuni defensa (Paris, 1C80, 4to) -.—L'Elat present de la relifjion Muhomelane (Paris, 1681, 1685, 1687, 2 vols. 12mo), an extended translation of the preceding Latin book. See Ilocfer, Nouv, Biog. Generule, s. v.
Naudaeus, Pinui', a French Protestant theologian, was born at Metz in 1654. In 1687 he was obliged to flee to Berlin in consequence of religious persecutions. He became a member of the Academy of Berlin, and died in 1729. As a theologian he was chiefly distin- guished for his ultra-Calvinistic views. Me steadfastly upheld the doctrine of strictly supralapsarian predesti- nation, and of purely imputative justification, and op- posed all the concessions which the most distinguished theologians of the early part of the 18th century were disposed to make. We therefore find him involved in numberless controversies, not only with Bayle and the mystic Poiret, but also, on account of his defence of the old .'iysteni, with Le Blanc. La I'lacette, Ostcrwald, and even with the theological faculty of Frankfort. In his principal work on this subject. La souveraine perfection de Uieii dans les diiins attributs et la parfaite integrite de V Ecriiure prise au sens des anciens reformes, he says, " God is so absolutely perfect that he acts only for his own self and his own glory ; so that he alone knows what agrees with his perfection and his glory, and we can form no judurmnl wliatcver of it." From this he proceeds to show ili.u Mi|ir.il:i|isarianism is alone logical, and nil other views iiudnsisit nt and unavailing, whether Arniinian, Lutheran, or less strictly Calvinistic. He maintained, however, that the infralapsarian doctrine did but apparently contradict supralapsarianism. His efforts to counteract the tendencies of the times Avere unavailing, and his works did not exert much influence. See Ilering, Beitrdge z. Geschichte d. evang.- reform. Kirche in den Preuss.-Brandenb. Landern, ii, 170; Chauf- fepie, Lidionnaire, s. v.; Schweizer, Gesch. d. Central- dogmen in d. reform. Kirche, ii, 765-820 ; Gass, Dogincn- gesch. iii, 295.