In such or some similar way a religious view of universal history, and of the divine order therein, admits of being developed; which, however, can not be truly done with too much of scientific rigor, or by violently introducing into its plans any arbitrary and, consequently, false designs and purposes.
My prescribed limits compel me to confine myself to these few hints, and in these I have wished principally to call attention to their reference to our own age, and to exhibit them in the light in which they appear of universal interest and to possess an eminent and remarkable destination. Comprised, then, in one result, the following are the characteristic signs of the present age: the two greatest heathen nations, which for thousands of years stood by themselves apart from the rest of the world, have lately come into the closest contact with Europe--the Mohammedan empires are every where falling into decay, more rapidly than men had been led to expect their fall--the Hebrew race is beginning to rise from its long degradation--in Christian states and communities there is here and there visible a strong inclination to the old evil of anarchy--and if the great human peace, which has now lasted twelve years, appears in some points insecure, or at least endangered from within, it is only because it is devoid of a firm foundation of the internal sentiment of men. What event, then, could be more happy for our age, what better turn could the present posture of affairs take, than by bringing about such a triple divine peace as we have already sketched, to give a new foundation and a firmer basis to the external peace of society? May not this, in God's good purpose, be the theme which is to occupy the next era of the world?
OF THE TRUE DESTINATION OF PHILOSOPHY, AND OF THE APPARENT SCHISM BUT ESSENTIAL UNITY BETWEEN A RIGHT FAITH AND HIGHEST CERTAINTY, AS THE CENTER OF LIGHT AND LIFE IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS.
The philosophy of life can not be any mere science of reason, and least of all an unconditional one. For such does but lead us into a domain of dead abstractions alien to life, which, by the dialectical spirit of disputation connatural to the reason, is soon converted into a labyrinthine maze of contradictory opinions and notions, out of which the reason, with all its logical means and appliances, can not extricate itself. And life, consequently--the inner spiritual life, that is--is disturbed and destroyed by it. And it is even this disturbing and destroying principle of the dialectical reason that most requires to be got rid of and brought into subjection. In the mere form, however, of abstract thought there is nothing in and by itself opposed to the truth. There is nothing in it that it is absolutely and invariably necessary to avoid, or that never and in no case admits of application. It is, no doubt, most certain that every system of philosophy is on a wrong track which borrows its method exclusively from mathematics, and copies it throughout from beginning to end. Still, in the progressive development of philosophical ideas certain points may occur--there may be certain places in the entire system--where occasionally and by the way such formulas and abstract equations may be profitably employed. Such a case may happen in the present Lecture. But by thus employing them only by way of illustration, and episodically in passing, I hope to establish such a use of them, and to make it evident that the perspicuity of the exposition does not essentially suffer thereby.