their advantage. Notwithstanding all his zeal for Illuminism, Nicolai always attended to his advantage as a bookseller. In the hands of Basedow, Bahrdt, Salis, the philanthropina became money speculations. And from practical life this utilitarian view found its way into the theory. Nothing in nature was so much admired as its adaptation to its purpose. With emotion, the wisdom of God was acknowledged, which gave to the poor Northlander the useful rein-deer, and to the lazy inhabitants of the South Sea, the productive bread-fruit tree. In the circumstance that the whole of nature is so thoroughly adapted to its purpose, the strongest proof for a divine reason was found; a whole literature gathered round the proof from design. (See Fortlage, Darstellung u. Kritik der Beweise für das Dasein Gottes [Exhibition and criticism of the proofs for the existence of God] S. 215.) In the territory of the Church, the utilitarian view had already been introduced by Pietism laying, as it did, an exclusive emphasis on practical Christianity. Frederick William I., in whom a military spirit, Dutch economical sense, and practical Christianity were so strangely blended, gave, in his last days, to the court chaplain Sack, the instruction, "I will tell you what is the main point in religion: to fear God, to love Jesus, and to do good; all the rest is"- ; the king here made use of one of his cynical expressions. The theology of Illuminism reduced practical Christianity to intellectual and moral improvement. In this sense, Spalding has written two volumes on the Usefulness of the Ministerial office in the country. The main duty of the honest minister is to make his whole congregation wiser, more intelligent, and more pious, so that God may have His delight in them. It is not as a model farmer, not as a collector of stones, not as a rearer of bees, not as a literatus,

that the minister benefits his congregation for eternity; he must be its teacher, and attend to the cure of souls (Th. I., S. 38 ff). But soon enough voices were raised, asserting that with less theology, and more medical and juridical experience, a country minister would be more useful. In the "Noth-und Hilfsbüchlein,” a clergyman, who, by a fortunate accident, is the son of a brewer in town, procures better beer to his village. Frederick II. found the clergyman useful for getting up tables of population, for enforcing royal edicts, such as for the extirpation of locusts, the stopping of post-boys on by-roads, the exportation of wool, etc. Forty-five such edicts were, even in 1802, read from the pulpit—(see Mühler, Geschichte der Kirchenverfassung der Mark Brandenburg, S. 245).

To a higher form of Humanism the classical studies led. The whole of the middle ages had been feeding upon the literary fragments of the classical world; but the German nations became ripe for understanding the ancient life only when, after the Crusades, they gave themselves up to the cultivation of the purely human relations. In this surrender to that which is human, there was implied a silent protest against Rome, to which the classical education speedily lent expression. It has contributed to the accomplishment of the Reformation; and thankfully, therefore, did Protestantism foster these studies in their schools and universities. They assumed a different form in different countries. Practical England drew practical wisdom from the ancients. The industrious Dutchman collected from the immense range of his reading treasures of learned remarks, which, it may be, he brought into circulation by a classical form. In Germany, it was only since the middle of last century that philological studies assumed a higher character. The philanthropic standing

point has a certain right to exist as a reaction against the spiritless mode in which the ancients were studied in the higher schools. If they wished to maintain themselves, they were obliged to prove that they had life; and that proof they led when the Germans approached the classical world, with adequate strength and congenial sense. From the remains of antique plastic art, Winkelmann and Lessing opened up and deduced the understanding of the rules according to which ancient art produced its works. Klopstock's zealous Germanism awakened a taste for the genius of ancient languages. In Voss's hands, Homer spoke German. In Johannes von Müller, the spirit of ancient historiography was resuscitated. Wieland's novels made his contemporaries to feel at home in the ancient world, how modern soever its appearance was. Goethe opened up to his contemporaries, an understanding of the ancients, not only by fruitful discoveries, not only by single creations in the spirit of the ancients, but especially by being a personal representation of the unity of the Greek and German spirit. In the face of this regeneration of the ancient spirit, Wolff gave to classical study the form of an archæological science, in the first instance in the historical sense, but with the conviction that in the ancient world the purely human appeared in its purest form, and with the claim of being an important power in modern life.-(See Bernhardy, Grundlinien zur Encyclopaedie der Philologie, S. 17 ff).

The victory of this classical Humanism over the philanthropic Humanism, was a progress; the latter degraded the single individual into a simple portion in the fair of life, while the former taught the lesson: Devote yourself to all purely human relations, to the family, to society in the higher sense, to fatherland, to art, science,

etc., in the conviction that it is only within these spheres that true life arises for man. This demand, however, was in opposition to the requirements of the Church. While Humanism is based on the belief in the excellence of human nature, the Church teaches its utter helplessness for salvation. While Humanism declares the purely human life to be the true life, Christ teaches to flee from the world in order to find life in Him. While Humanism is pleased and contented with a bright present, Christianity teaches a pilgrimage to the heavenly Church. This opposition has been perceived and felt by the deeper humanists; such confessions lie at the foundation of Goethe's Bride of Corinth, and of Schiller's Gods of Greece. Meanwhile, an elastic theology had attempted to build a bridge over the chasm. The learned quotations from the ancients were, in the theological text-books, taken more and more from the margin into the text. In ethics, too, even the stricter theology took a testimony from the ancients; and in doctrinal theology, also, they were fond of proving, by quotations from the ancients, the doctrines of general religiousness, which were regarded more and more as the essentials. In the exposition of Scripture, Wetstein offered rich materials to those who maintained the similarity of New Testament words to the sayings of the ancients. And with regard to pulpit eloquence, Demosthenes and Cicero were looked upon as good models. The theologian in whom this mixture of theology and classical Humanism is most characteristically exhibited, is Herder.

Humanism found, neither in the Church nor in the State, a sphere suitable to it. The State was too material for it; the Church was too spiritual, too superhuman, too much occupied with a future life. In both of them it found authorities which it did not like to recognise, forms

which it considered to be obsolete. It felt the want of a communion in which the purely human should have its right acknowledged more than it was in the State, and in which Illuminism should be permitted to speak more freely than it was in the Church. This want and craving found its gratification in Freemasonry. Out of the middle ages, England, the country adhering closely to traditions, had preserved its building-lodges. It had been an old habit to ascribe to the forms of those lodges a deeper meaning; and Humanism seized them, in order to transform them into a secret world for its thoughts. From England, Freemasonry spread to the north of Europe, to Germany, and France. The first lodge in Germany arose in 1733, at Hamburg; and soon lodges sprung up in all the larger towns. Princes-as Frederick II.; notabilities of every kind,—even men such as Lavater, Stilling, and others, were members. Although, in the lodges, the fundamental forms and thoughts were fixed, yet a wide scope was given to reformatory tendencies, which, after all, lay in the spirit of the times. Adventurers, such as Johnson and Baron von Hund; ambitious and covetous Illuminators, such as Knigge and Bahrdt, changed with noble-minded and serious representations of the masonic thought, such as Duke Ferdinand of Brunswick, Schröder, Fessler, etc. Thus the most diversified forms of Freemasonry arose; and there exists the most thorough difference between the lodge and the order. As the fundamental thought, which floats above these differences, this appears: "To unite in love and harmony all ranks and confessions which, in ordinary life, appear separated, and to make the purely human the object of culture; to elevate and promote the moral element; to disseminate a rational and liberal view of human nature and destiny; to consider all men as children equal before God,