l which expressed the speculative
truth of the essential unity of the ideal and the real, of the divine and
the human. Like the ancient Gnosticism, it believed in dogmatic
Christianity, because it descended upon it from an _a priori_ principle,
in which it found the explanation of it. Religion and philosophy were
reconciled, because religion was made a phase of philosophy.

This system was taught by its founder at Berlin from about 1820 to 1830,
contemporary with that of Schleiermacher; and the learned theologian
Marheinecke(806) is the name best known of those who applied it to
theology. It was regarded at that time as an instrument of orthodoxy.(807)
It had the advantage over the old rationalism, in that while using
similarity of method in seeking to explain mysteries, it did not pare them
down, but absorbed them in principles of philosophy; and over the school
of Schleiermacher, in that it was less subjective, less a matter of
feeling, supplying a doctrine and not merely a spirit; and therefore it
satisfied the longing of the mind for dogmatic truth, and at the same time
more readily linked itself, ecclesiastically with churchlike and corporate
tendencies, and politically with conservative and autocratic ones. Yet it
is easy to see that its spirit was really far less Christian than
Schleiermacher's. For it not only confused again philosophy and religion,
which his system had severed, but it proudly claimed to explain doctrines
rationally where his had only sought to appropriate them intuitionally. It
verged towards pantheism. It was in danger of losing the historic fact in
the idea; of encouraging, as it is now sometimes called, the "ideological
tendency;"(808) whereas with Schleiermacher, the historic belief had only
been regarded as less important than the emotional apprehension. Its _a
priori_ spirit created also a depreciation of the investigations which had
been pursued by the critical school. It gave encouragement to the study of
history; but it was to the history of philosophy, not to the
investigations conducted by historical criticism.

Such was the system which, along with those described in the last lecture,
was regarded as contributing to favour orthodox reaction, and was
disputing theological preeminence with that of Schleiermacher, when a work
was published by one of its disciples, which was the means, through the
ferment produced, of altering completely the whole tone and course of
German thought. It w