synthesis from the intellectual side is to be obtained by passing through the grades of reality explicit in the various Life-systems, and by abstaining from the imposition of barriers which forbid anyone roaming and “ruminating” within these.  If one condition is obeyed, this is the most fruitful way to construct a new religious metaphysic which will supplant traditional theology.  That condition is that the various Life-systems form a kind of scale which extends from Matter up to the Godhead.  The new religious metaphysic will then mean a real philosophy of values.

Does this constitute an impossible task for the Christian Church?  It will remain impossible so long as we look upon the essence of Christianity as something which descends upon us apart from the exertion of our own spiritual potencies.  It is a consolation to know that the highest reality may be experienced without having to undergo a training in the methods and implications of science, history, or metaphysics.  But the experience here cannot possibly mean so much as the experience which passes through and beyond the implications of knowledge to the [p.223] Divine.  Such an experience as the latter must be richer in content.  And even apart from this, it produces something of value on the intellectual side—­something which grants religion a security in the eyes of the world.  When the Church tends in this direction, its faith will come into comradeship with the various branches of human knowledge as these reveal themselves on level above level.  Christianity has nothing to fear, but everything to gain, from the development of all the branches of human knowledge.  Its source being Spiritual and Eternal, why should opposition be presented to any development of the lower realities in science, Biblical criticism, history, and philosophy?  This lesson is not yet learned, and Eucken pleads for its acknowledgment.  “If we consider how much is involved in such a change in the position of the spiritual life, and if we also present before ourselves what transformations civilisation, culture, history, and natural science carry within themselves, we see clearly the critical situation in which religion is placed, because these surface-changes are not of the essence of religion.  Through the mighty expansion and the fissures which these changes bring about, the old immediacy and intimacy of the soul have become lost, and religion has now receded into the distance, and is in danger of vanishing more and more.  The derangement of things which such changes cause occurs [p.224] not only in connection with their own facts and material and against their old forms, but the effect proceeds into the very character and feelings of man and into his religion.  And yet, when we examine the matter more closely, we find that such changes cause not so much a breach with Christianity as with its traditional form, and that they seek to bring about a fundamental renewal of Christianity.  For when we penetrate beyond the motives and dispositions