ill help in the separation of the temporal from the eternal
elements. In so doing it does an immense service, for it frees religion
from fixation to one special point of time, and enables us to regard it
as ever developing and progressing to greater depths.

Eucken emphasises that the _historical basis_ of Christianity is not
Christianity itself, is not essentially religious; and he quotes
Lessing, Kant, and Fichte to support him in his contention that a belief
in such a historical basis is not necessary to religion, and may even
prove harmful to it. The historical basis is, of course, useful as
bringing out into clear relief the personality of Jesus, and the other
great spiritual personalities associated in His work, and Eucken lays
stress upon the use that history can be to Christianity in giving
records of the experiences of great spiritual personalities in all ages,
but it is important that the history is here a means to an end, and not
an end in itself, and that the importance lies in the spiritual
experience and not in the historical facts.

When one considers how little Eucken has to say concerning worship, and
how little emphasis he places upon historical and doctrinal forms in
religion, one wonders how it is he attaches so much importance to the
functions of the _Church_. He points out that a Church is necessary to
religion, that it seems to be the only way of making religion real and
effective for man. "The Church seems indispensable in order to introduce
and to hold at hand the new world and the new life to man in the midst
of his ordinary existence; it is indispensable in order to fortify the
conviction and to strengthen the energy in the midst of all the opposite
collisions; it is indispensable in order to uphold an eternal truth and
a universal problem in the midst of the fleetingness of the moment." In
the past, however, much harm has been done to religion by the Church.
This has arisen from several reasons. To begin with, it tends to narrow
religion, which is concerned with life, to the realm of ideas, and to
tie down religion by connecting it with a thought-system of a particular
age. Further, the necessary mechanical routine, and the appointment of
special persons to carry out this routine, tends to elevate the routine
and these special persons to a far higher place than they should occupy.
Again, spiritual things have been dragged into the service of personal
ambition, and bound up with human interest