THE NEW SCIIAFF-HERZOG
in a positive direction. At the same time he adopted not a few Neoplatonist ideas, and so finally by this eclectic process built up the fabric of belief which is found in his Biographiu liUraria (1816), still more in his Aids to Reflection (1825), and also in his essay On the Constitution of Church and State (1820).
Coleridge recognizes the equality of the claims of belief and knowledge; but as he wishes to hold the entire content of revelation, especially the specifically Christian doctrines, he is anxious to show the reasonable natiu-e of revelation. The Christian faith is a perfect completion of human reason; but the less this truth is generally recognized the more necessary it is to clear away misunderstandings which lead to false conclusions. At the beginning of his intellectual process man must know himself, in order to rise to the knowledge of God, in whose likeness he is created. Now man finds in himself a spiritual element, which is his will. This will, however, is limited on one side by the law of conscience, on the other by the existence of evil. In accordance with this foundation, religion is essentially ethical — its aim a practical one, the moral and intellectual elevation of mankind. Questions of Christian doctrine must thus be decided by the practical reason rather than by the intellect. Speculative thought has no place in religion but the formal and negative one of showing that the Christian doctrines do not contradict human reason. This practical reason, the source of our religious knowledge, is the gift of God, who is himself the highest Reason and in whose light we see light. It is an intuitive power, and the ideas perceived by it are of a true reality. In regard to the relation of this practical reason to Holy Scripture, Coleridge says that the Gospel must be taken at its own valuation — not as a theological system of theoretical propositions designed to enlarge our knowledge, whether ethical or metaphysical, but as a historical narrative recounting or explaining certain facts which, though they are doctrinal truths, are none the less facts. The Bible is inspired only so far as it brings the voice of God to the heart.
Everything must be considered in the light of the significance it has for the moral life of mankind. The ethical character of Coleridge thus comes out especially in his doctrine of sin, regeneration, and justification. Sin has its source in the will, which inclines to evU and thus loses its freedom and power for good; but it can liberate itself once more, by renewed subjection to the light of God in the conscience, to become again a rational will. This is regeneration, by which man recovers the possibility of vital intercourse with the divine spirit. Redemption is thus an ethical act of the subject, and there is no room in this scheme for an objective redemption. Salvation is indeed said to proceed from Christ; but his person as well as his work remains a mystery, since the capacity of suffering is inconsistent with his divine attributes, and a vicarious sacrifice with ethical conceptions. In the attempt to include the whole content of revelation, Coleridge admits the possibility of believing doctrines which transcend hu-
man reason. Some of these, like that of the Trinity, he does not consider objects of the practical reason, although he says that the true idea of God includes such a notion. His understanding of it is based on NeojDlatonism. The Logos, the divine light, is immanent in humanity. He has revealed himself in history, in religion, as well as in philosophy and poetry — most perfectly in Christ and Christianity, but Socrates and Plato have a place beside Paul and John. The Logos leads mankind to ever higher moral and intellectual development, not only in this life but also in the next; and thus the restoration of all things is made possible.
It is not surprising that the attempt to widen Christianity into a religion embracing all that is true, good, and beautiful in the world should have met with strong opposition and equally strong approval. Coleridge's modest earnestness, the pacific tone of his argument, the mystical element in the intuitive reason, the emphasis laid upon the ethical side of Christianity, the reconciliation of faith and knowledge, the recognition of good in any form, and the wide freedom given to individual conceptions were characteristics which appealed to many minds in that period more than any other form of Christian belief. Those who were influenced by this teaching, though they did not go so far as to found a new church, took up some element or elements of it and developed them further along the same lines; and it is not too much to say that Coleridge was the originator of the Broadchurch or liberal movement in the Church of England which was so striking a feature of the nineteenth century.
Bibliography: Materials for a life are found in his own Biographia literaria, ed. with notes by his nephew, H. N. Coleridge, for Bohn's Library, 1866; in the Table Talk and Omniana, ed. for the same series by T. Ashe, ISSS, republished by Bell, 1905; and in his Miscellanies, ed. Ashe, 1888. Various Letters appear in Sir H. Davy's Fragmentary Remains, London, 1858; in C. K. Paul's W. Godwin, ib. 1876; in Fraser's Magazine, July, 1878; Westminster Review, April and July, 1870; and in E. V. Lucas's Charles Lamb and the Lloyds, New York, 1S9S. Coleridge Bibliographies are provided by R. H. Shepherd, London, 1901, and by J. L. Haney, ib. 1904. Lives are by: J. D. Campbell, ib. 1894 (a critical study of the life, not going into the literary work); A. Brandl, Berlin, 1886, Eng. transl., London, 1887; H. Caine, ib. 18S7; ■W. Pater, in Appreciations, ib. 1889; H. D. Traill, in English Men of Letters Series, ib. 1890; cf. L. Stephen, Hours in a Librar;/. ib. 1892; Vf. 'Watson, in Excursions in Criticism, ib. 1893. Consult further the essays by W. G. T. Shedd and J. Marsh in the Complete Works of ColeridtTP, i. 9-64, 67-110, New York, 1856; J. TuUoch, Movement of Religious Thought in Britain, pp. 1-40, ib. 1886.
COLET, JOHN: One of the "reformers before the Reformation"; b., probably in. London, 1466 or 1467; d. there Sept. 16, 1519. He studied at Oxford and on the Continent. In 1497 he began to give lectures on the New Testament at Oxford. Rejecting the allegorical interpretation and the scholastic method, he aimed to get at the sense, and he showed independence by suggesting that the first chapters of Genesis were poetry. At Oxford he met Erasmus and became liis intimate friend. In 1504 he was made dean of St. Paul's and took the degree of D.D.; he introduced expository preaching and a perpetual divinity lecture on three days in each week. In 1505 he inherited a fortune