ht to mind by anything we encounter in the
fields or the streets.

The author of _Ecce Homo_ does no dishonor to the Christian history as
history, however foolishly he expatiates at times upon its incidents and
implications; much less to the simple and perfect integrity of Christ as
a man, but no more than Strauss or Renan does he meet the supreme want
of the popular understanding, which is to know wherein Christianity has
the right it claims to be regarded as a final or complete revelation of
the Divine name upon the earth. We think, moreover, that the reason of
the omission is the same in every case, being the sheer and contented
indifference which each of the writers feels to the question of a
revelation in the abstract or general, regarded as a _sine qua non_ of
any sympathetic or rational intercourse which may be considered as
possible between God and man. We should not be so presumptuous as to
invite our readers' attention to the discussion of so grave a
philosophic topic as the one here referred to, in the limited space at
our command; but surely it may be said, without any danger of
misunderstanding from the most cursory reader, that if creation were the
absolute or unconditioned verity which thoughtless people deem it, there
could be no _ratio_ between Creator and creature, hence no intercourse
or intimacy, inasmuch as the one is being itself, and the other does not
even exist or _seem_ to be but by him. In order that creation should be
a rational product of Divine power, in order that the creature should be
a being of reason, endowed with the responsibility of his own actions,
it is imperative that the Creator disown his essential infinitude and
diminish himself to the creature's dimensions; that he hide or obscure
his own perfection in the creature's imperfection, to the extent even of
rendering it fairly problematic whether or not an infinite being really
exist, so putting man, as it were, upon the spontaneous search and
demand for such a being, and in that measure developing his rational
possibilities. And if this be so,--if creation philosophically involve a
descending movement on the Creator's part proportionate to the ascending
one contemplated on the creature's part,--then it follows that creation
is not a simple, but a complex process, involving equally a Divine
action and a human reaction, or the due adjustment of means and ends;
and that no writer, consequently, can long satisfy the intellect in the