system of thought, did much to transcend. The deliverance
which he wrought has been compared to the deliverance which Luther in
his time achieved for those who had been in bondage to scholasticism in
the Roman Church. Although Kant has been dead a hundred years, both the
defence of religion and the assertion of the right of reason are still,
with many, on the ancient lines. There is no such strife between
rationality and belief as has been supposed. But the confidence of that
fact is still far from being shared by all Christians at the beginning
of the twentieth century. The course in reinterpretation and
readjustment of Christianity, which that calm conviction would imply, is
still far from being the one taken by all of those who bear the
Christian name. If it is permissible in the writing of a book like this
to have an aim besides that of the most objective delineation, the
author may perhaps be permitted to say that he writes with the earnest
hope that in some measure he may contribute also to the establishment of
an understanding upon which so much both for the Church and the world
depends.

We should say a word at this point as to the general relation of
religion and philosophy. We realise the evil which Kant first in
clearness pointed out. It was the evil of an apprehension which made the
study of religion a department of metaphysics. The tendency of that
apprehension was to do but scant justice to the historical content of
Christianity. Religion is an historical phenomenon. Especially is this
true of Christianity. It is a fact, or rather, a vast complex of facts.
It is a positive religion. It is connected with personalities, above all
with one transcendent personality, that of Jesus. It sprang out of
another religion which had already emerged into the light of
world-history. It has been associated for two thousand years with
portions of the race which have made achievements in culture and left
record of those achievements. It is the function of speculation to
interpret this phenomenon. When speculation is tempted to spin by its
own processes something which it would set beside this historic
magnitude or put in place of it, and still call that Christianity, we
must disallow the claim. It was the licence of its speculative
endeavour, and the identification of these endeavours with Christianity,
which finally discredited Hegelianism with religious men. Nor can it be
denied that theologians themselves have been sinne