f the new, eternal Gospel, this third age, this "Christianity of
reason." Continue, Eternal Providence, thine imperceptible march; let me
not despair of thee because it is imperceptible, not even when to me thy
steps seem to lead backward. It is not true that the straight line is
always the shortest.

[Footnote 1: _Die Erziehung des Menschengeschlects_.]

With the thought that every individual must traverse the same course as
that by which the race attains its perfection, Lessing connects the idea
of the transmigration of souls. Why may not the individual man have been
present in this world more than once? Is this hypothesis so ridiculous
because it is the oldest?

If Lessing abandoned the ranks of the deists by his recognition of the
fact that the positive religions contain truth in a gradual process of
purification, by his free criticism, on the other hand, he broke with
the orthodox, whose idolatrous reverence for the Bible was to him an
abomination. The letter is not the spirit, the Bible is not religion, nor
yet its foundation, but only its records. Contingent historical truths can
never serve as a proof of the necessary truths of reason. Christianity is
older than the New Testament.

Already, in the case of Lessing, we may doubt, in view of his historical
temper and of certain speculative tendencies, whether he is to be included
among the Illuminati. In the case of Kant a decided protest must be
raised against such a classification. When Hegel numbers him among the
philosophers of the Illumination, on account of his lack of rational
intuition, and some theologians on account of his religious rationalism,
the answer to the former is that Kant did not lack the speculative gift,
but only that it was surpassed by his gift of reflection, and, to the
latter, that in regard to the positive element in religion he judged very
differently from the deists and appreciated the historical element more
justly than they--if not to the same extent as Lessing and Herder. We
do not need to lay great stress on the fact that Kant had a lively
consciousness that he was making a contribution to thought, and that the
Illumination contemplated this new doctrine without comprehending it, in
order to recognize that the difference between his efforts and achievements
and those of the Illumination is far greater than their kinship. For
although Kant is upon common ground with it, in so far as he adheres to its
motto, "Have courage to use t