ic religions of the different nations, "resting on a
blind belief in the vague secrets and mythical revelations of a sacerdotal
caste." (Nat. Hist. of Cr., Vol. II, p. 369.) He also repeatedly speaks of
"manifestations of nature," and even of a "divine Spirit which is
everywhere active in nature." In that respect he seems to take in reference
to religion, without regard to the historical form in which it appeared as
Christian religion, a still more friendly and less problematic position
than Strauss. Moreover, he demands for every individual the full right of
forming his own religion; among the more highly developed species of men,
he says, every independent and highly developed individual, every original
person, has his own religion, his own God; and it would certainly,
therefore, not be arrogant if he should also claim the right of forming his
own conception of God, his own religion. But when we try to form a more
complete idea of his position in reference to religion, we really do not
find any essential difference between it and that of Strauss. According to
repeated utterances, he can not imagine the personal Creator without
caprice and arbitrariness; again and again he advocates monism with great
warmth, and also identifies, in express words, God and the universe, God
and nature. {193} "Corresponding to our progressive perception of nature
and our immovable conviction of the truth of the evolution theory, our
religion can be only a _religion of nature_." "In rejecting the dualistic
conception of nature and the herewith connected amphitheistic conception of
God, ... we certainly lose the hypothesis of a personal Creator; but we
gain in its place the undoubtedly more worthy and more perfect conception
of a divine Spirit which penetrates and fills the universe." Furthermore,
the faith in a personal Creator is called a low dualistic conception of
God, which corresponds to a low animal stage of development of the human
organism. The more highly developed man of the present, he says, is capable
of and intended for an infinitely nobler and sublimer monistic idea of God,
to which belongs the future, and through which we attain a more sublime
conception of the unity of God and nature. According to his Anthropogeny,
the belief that the hand of a Creator has arranged all things with wisdom
and intelligence is an ancient story and an empty phrase.

Sec. 3. _Pious Renunciation of the Knowability of God. Wilhelm Bleek, Albert
Lang