tself
indeed, poor, but rich in the knowledge of Him, and who regard this
knowledge of God as the only valuable possession. That development of
the thinking spirit, which has resulted from the revelation of the
Divine Being as its original basis, must ultimately advance to the
intellectual comprehension of what was presented, in the first instance,
to feeling and imagination. The time must eventually come for
understanding that rich product of active Reason which the history of
the world offers to us. It was for a while the fashion to profess
admiration for the wisdom of God, as displayed in animals, plants, and
isolated occurrences. But if it be allowed that Providence manifests
itself in such objects and forms of existence, why not also in universal
history? This is deemed too great a matter to be thus regarded. But
divine wisdom, i. e., Reason, is one and the same in the great as in the
little; and we must not imagine God to be too weak to exercise his
wisdom on the grand scale. Our intellectual striving aims at realizing
the conviction that what was intended by eternal wisdom is actually
accomplished in the domain of existent, active Spirit, as well as in
that of mere Nature. Our mode of treating the subject is, in this
aspect, a Theodicaea--a justification of the ways of God--which Leibnitz
attempted metaphysically in his method, i. e., in indefinite abstract
categories--so that the ill that is found in the world may be
comprehended, and the thinking Spirit reconciled with the fact of the
existence of evil. Indeed, nowhere is such a harmonizing view more
pressingly demanded than in universal history; and it can be attained
only by recognizing the positive existence, in which that negative
element is a subordinate and vanquished nullity. On the one hand, the
ultimate design of the world must be perceived, and, on the other, the
fact that this design has been actually realized in it, and that evil
has not been able permanently to establish a rival position. But this
conviction involves much more than the mere belief in a superintending
[GREEK: nous] or in "Providence." "Reason," whose sovereignty over the
world has been maintained, is as indefinite a term as "Providence,"
supposing the term to be used by those who are unable to characterize it
distinctly, to show wherein it consists, so as to enable us to decide
whether a thing is rational or irrational. An adequate definition of
Reason is the first desideratum; and w