ness of these men
nor to the deficiency of the present form of our religious life, but to the
repelling effect of that unjust treatment!

Another gain of our discussion, correlated to that just mentioned, consists
in the proof _that religion and morality have their autonomous principle
and realm_ which is not at all obliged to borrow the proof of its truth
from the present condition and degree of our knowledge, but carries it in
itself, although it stands in {404} fruitful reciprocal action with all the
other realms of knowledge and life. Just as decidedly as we had to caution
the advocates of religion against keeping themselves indifferent,
suspicious, or even hostile, regarding the advances into the realm of
secular knowledge, so decidedly do we like to see the workers in the realm
of the knowledge of nature cautioned against confusing points of view, in
thinking that they can through their scientific knowledge purify and reform
the religious and ethical realms. They may purify and reform as much as
they please, but only in their own realm. The only thing they are able to
reform is our knowledge of nature, and in our religious and ethical life
and perception only that which belongs to this natural part; but this is
only the outer part of religious and ethical life: the source of our
religion and morality springs from quite another ground than that which
they cultivate.

A third gain from our discussion is the actual proof of _the harmony
between faith and knowledge, between the religious and the scientific views
of the world_. In our investigation we had no occasion for psychological or
theoretical investigations as to faith and knowledge and their mutual
relation; but if our discussion is not an entire failure, perhaps the
actual exposition of a standpoint on which faith and knowledge may live at
peace with one another, which is not bought by a sacrifice on either side,
and which does not consist in a compromise of the two, but which has its
reason in the deepest and most active interest of the one, in the full and
unconstrained freedom of the other, a stronger proof for the intimate
relationship of these brothers, between whom the present generation wishes
too often to sow discord, than if we {405} had undertaken long
religio-philosophical and theoretical investigations.

Finally, the results of our analysis have given us still another gain: they
have led us beyond Lessing's "Nathan" and his parable of the "Three R