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CHAPTER V

PROTESTANTISM AND ECONOMIC ORGANISATION, SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, SCIENCE AND ART

ECONOMIC ORGANISATION

WHEN we turn, however, to the development of economic life and thought, we again become aware of a powerful influence. Here Lavaleye long since pointed to a fundamental significance of Protestantism, and in the referenced frequently made at the present day to the "backwardness of the Catholic populations" the same idea is expressed. But here, too, things are far from being quite simple; and many errors are in circulation. Thus, for example, people are fond of praising Luther's ethic of the secular calling, and seeing in it the Christian justification of industrial life,

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which is supposed to have taken a great leap forward in consequence of this justification. But to do this is to forget that the doctrine of the "calling" as a doctrine of the systematic contribution of every worker to the de lege naturae appointed purpose of Society, had already long been a doctrine of Catholicism, and that the only difference was that for Luther the monastic and ascetic limitations disappeared, and the secularisation of Church property increased the wealth and power of the Territorial sovereigns, and thus facilitated the adoption by the governments of a rational economic policy. And another point which is forgotten is that the Protestant theory of the calling, as held by Lutheranism, was closely bound up with a conservative, Society organised on a class-system, and tended to keep each individual in his own class; it only demanded the securing of the necessaries of existence and the protection of food-supply by the civil authority; apart from this, it requires the patient endurance of the injustices

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of the world. This is the same traditional attitude towards life as was prescribed by Catholicism, and was as far as possible from giving an initial impetus to the mighty upward movement of modern economic life. In complete accordance with this, Luther's economic ideal is conceived wholly from the point of view of agriculture and handicrafts, and he takes for granted the Canon-law prohibition of interest. Indeed, he attacks finance and credit, and in particular wholesale trade, as passionately as any medieval author. This attitude could not, of course, be completely maintained in practice, and the theological ethic of his successors before long softened down his prescriptions. But Lutheran religion never contained an impulse towards a vigorous economic development, and in view of the subsequent decline of, German prosperity, it never had a chance to develop such an impulse. The economic results of Lutheranism were, therefore, confined to the strengthening of the national

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government, and, as an indirect consequence, of "Mercantilism," and to the education of a humble and patient working class, fitted to the needs of the manorial estate, which still at the beginning of the nineteenth century furnished the sweeping advance of industrialism and capitalism with a docile labour supply. The actually existing more advanced economic development of the Protestant portion of the population in Germany must have had, in the first instance, other than religious grounds, and can only have been indirectly supported by the qualities of activity, industry, and frugality inculculated by the Lutheran ethic, or by the growing consciousness of individuality, and the increasing zeal for popular education.

A much greater importance in this respect must be attributed to Calvinism. Here, as

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in politics, it is the power which stands nearer to the modern world. It has, indeed, always been emphasised that Calvin and his successors rejected the Canon-law prohibition of interest, and did away with the burdensome restrictions on investment; that Geneva, with the support of the Venerable Campagnie, l established a bank and introduced industries; that the Calvinistic countries and settlements everywhere show the expansion of industrialism and capitalism. This, however, is not a complete account of the matter. The real significance of Calvinism for the modern economic development which culminates in the all-embracing capitalistic system of the present day lies much deeper. It has lately been pointed out by Max Weber, who, in the course of his investigation of the great main problem of present-day economic history, the problem of the character and origin of capitalism, raised the question regarding the spiritual, ethical, and philosophical pre-suppositions of

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this system. Without a definite mental and spiritual background, a system of this kind cannot become dominant, or as Sornbart, in dealing with a similar problem, has expressed it: In the minds of the mass of its supporters, or at least in those of its founders, apart from the external occasions, inducements, and incentives, there must be a basis of definite economic attitude. From the capitalistic system we have to distinguish the "capitalistic spirit," apart from which the former would never have come to exercise such power over men's minds. For this spirit displays an untiring activity, a boundlessness of grasp, quite contrary to the natural impulse to enjoyment and ease, and contentment with the mere necessaries of existence; it makes work and gain an end in themselves, and makes men the slaves of work for works sake; it brings the whole of life And action within the sphere of an absolutely rationalised and systematic calculation, combines all means to its end, uses every minute to the full, employs

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every kind of force, and in alliance with scientific technology and the calculus which unites all these things together, gives to life a clear calculability and abstract exactness. This spirit, Weber said to himself, cannot have simply arisen of itself as a necessary concomitant of industrial inventions, discoveries, and commercial gains. For it did not arise with the banking business of the late Middle Ages, with the capitalism of the Renaissance, or the Spanish colonisation---here it had to struggle with an opposing spirit, the conscience as educated by Catholicism. and was forced to strike a compromise. Following this line of thought, Weber was led, by way of conjecture from the fact that capitalism flourishes best on Calvinistic soil, to draw the conclusion that the ethico-religious spirit of Calvinism had a special significance for the arising of this capitalistic spirit. By means of a detailed investigation he showed that it was the Calvinistic asceticism which produced on a large scale, not so much capitalism as the capitalistic

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spirit on which it was based, and thus created the psychological conditions in which the vast expansion of a system at bottom so contrary to nature as capitalism, could come into being and establish itself firmly-which does not, of course, hinder the fact that capitalism extends its influence over men to whom Calvinism means nothing. Of course, the operation of other mental and spiritual influences is not excluded. Among these Weber himself especially named Judaism; and Sombart has gone on to assert a close spiritual affinity between the Jewish and the Calvinistic economic attitude, and has explained it by the well-known fact that Calvinism made use of the Jewish ethical teaching. The latter explanation, in my opinion, while not altogether without foundation, does not sufficiently take account of the limited and complex character of the relation. When all is said and done, Calvinism remains the real nursing-father of the civic, industrial capitalism of the middle

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classes. Self-devotion to work and gain, which constitutes the involuntary and unconscious asceticism of the modern man, is the child of a conscious "intra-mundane" asceticism of work and calling inspired by religious motives. The "spirit of the calling," which does not reach out beyond the world but works in the world without "creatureworship," that is, without love of the world, becomes the parent of a tireless systematically disciplined laboriousness, in which work is sought for work's sake, for the sake of the mortification of the flesh, in which the produce of the work serves, not to be consumed in enjoyment, but to the constant reproduction of the capital employed. Since the aggressively active ethic inspired by the doctrine of predestination urges the elect to the full development of his God-given powers, and offers him this as a sign by which he may assure himself of his election, work becomes rational and systematic. In breaking down the motive

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of ease and enjoyment, asceticism lays the foundations of the tyranny of work over men. And from the fact that the produce of this work is in no way an end in itself, but advances the general well-being, and that all return which goes beyond an adequate provision for the needs of life is felt to be merely a stimulus to the further employment and increase of it, there results the principle of the illimitability and infinitude of work. On the basis of this economic attitude there arose the early capitalism of the Huguenots, of Holland, England, and America; and even to the present day in America and Scotland, as well as among the English Nonconformists, the higher capitalism is clearly seen to be closely connected with it. A similar development has taken place among the Pietistic groups, which were to a great extent allied to and influenced by Calvinism in this religious ascetic idea; and also among the Baptist communities, which abandoned Communism in favour of the Protestant "ethic of the calling," for they all, find-

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ing themselves excluded from public life, turned to economic activities, and tabooing the aim of enjoyment, declared production for production's sake to be a commandment of religion.

Weber has, in my opinion, completely proved his case; though perhaps it ought to be more strongly emphasised that the special character of the Reformed asceticism was partly determined by the special conditions of the commercial situation in the western countries, and more especially by the exclusion of Dissent from political life, with its opportunities and responsibilities, just as, on the other hand, the traditional Lutheran view became emphasised during the economic decline of Germany. How far, in detail, the particular developments, as well as the general fact of the capitalistic system, have grown out of the capitalistic spirit of Calvinism, and what other forces have had a share in producing and strengthening it, need not here be made the subject of further inquiry. It is clear enough without this that the contribu-

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tion of Protestantism to modern economic development, which is, in point of fact, one of the most characteristic features of our modern world, is to be ascribed, not to Protestantism as a whole, but primarily to Calvinism, Pietism, and the Sectaries, and that even with them this contribution is only an indirect and consequently an involuntary one. Above all, the imposing but also terrible expansion of modern capitalism, with its calculating coldness and soullessness, its unscrupulous greed and pitilessness, its turning to gain for gain's sake, to fierce and ruthless competition, its agonising lust of victory, its blatant satisfaction in the tyrannical power of the--merchant class, has entirely loosed it from its former ethical foundation; and it has become a power directly opposed to genuine Calvinism and Protestantism. When it no longer practises asceticism for the honour of God, but for the gaining of power, to the honour of man, it has no longer anything in common with Protestantism except its

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strongly individualistic spirit, now no longer held in check by the social and religious spirit of early Calvinism. It is, in fact, the fate of the "intramundane" asceticism that, having once accorded recognition to work and live in the world, while not ascribing to them an inwardly essential ethical value, it can never again get rid of the horde of spirits which swarms out upon it in overwhelming strength from that world which it at once recognises and ignores. In the "intra-mundane" asceticism the world and heaven were at odds; and in the struggle the world has proved the stronger. Consequently, the ethical theories also which to-day support the capitalistic Organisation of life have, to a great extent, become dominated by a religiously indifferent utilarianism. For Protestantism itself, in all its forms, the ethical attitude towards the situation created by capitalism has become a difficult problem, to the solution of which the ethico-economic teachings of the Reformation can contribute

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little. Even within the domain of AngloSaxon Calvinism, the problem begins to be felt, in face of a completely secularised capitalism. It was, indeed, precisely here, where the development had proceeded furthest, that the counter-movement of Christian Socialism first arose.

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SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS

This brings us into contact with another department of civilisation, social life and social stratification. It is, of course, common knowledge that the immense increase of population, modern economic conditions, democratic movements, and the formation of the great military bureaucratic States here quite predominantly determine the character of the modern world. Has Protestantism any considerable significance in connexion with these transformations ? To this, one may simply answer: -Directly, it has none. What it has

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Protestant sex-ethic influenced the increase of population has not, so far as I know, been investigated.

It would signify a very much more important influencing of the social system if it were true that the raising up of a class of educated men out of the general mass of the people-that important characteristic of modern social history is to be brought into connexion with Protestantism. Here, by a common intellectual level, a common school education, and a common educated language, all kinds of differences due to ancient class divisions are bridged over, and by the constitution of a whole social group on the basis of general equality of intellectual capacity, a new social phenomenon has in fact been created; as this, for many reasons, is only possible for a limited circle, it is precisely the cause of the gulf, unknown to the Middle Ages, between the educated and the uneducated. There is, in point of fact, much in favour of connecting this with Protestantism. A religion of

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faith, which has its centre not in a cultus, appealing to the imagination but in clear doctrinal ideas, must make knowledge and education a universal concern of mankind, and by community in this main interest overcome other distinctions. In this sense Protestantism did, in fact, form an alliance with a Humanism which had become associated with the Church, and displayed a noble activity in the founding of schools, and its educational zeal has given to the nations a greater and more individual alertness of mind. But this, for the most part, benefited only the members of the learned professions, which already in any case formed a distinct social class, and education generally had for its aims in the main only religious instruction and formal literacy. Beyond that, it was predominantly Latin and non-popular. So on this side also its influence must not be exaggerated. The transference of the ideal of mankind to the enlightened, capable, well-informed man, the bridging-over of all dis-

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tinctions by community of knowledge, the elevation of the people by means of knowledge to a share in the general benefits of civilisation---all this was, it must be admitted, first effected in the period of Illuminism. Indeed, just this displacement of the purely religious basis of solidarity in favour of the intellectual basis of common means of education and common possession of education, was the characteristic feature of that period. No doubt the fact that this Illuminism took on an educational character and tended to form a new educated class, is, especially in Germany, connected with the scholastic and intellectualistic development of Protestantism, whereas in the Catholic districts enlightenment and culture were left more to free reception through literature and personal communication."

It is a separate question, what significance

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the Protestant sectaries, the Anabaptists, and the later Baptists, Quakerism, Methodism, Pietism, down to the modern sects and fellowship movements, have had for the elevation of the middle and lower classes, for their becoming imbued with democratic ideas and modern economic views, for the development of the multiplicity of unions and associations, the general mobility of society, the upward movement of the masses, and the gathering of influential voluntary associations. With their expansion into great societies, recognised and tolerated by the State, their original radicalism has become toned down into a sober citizenship. That they have played a large part in the creation of the middle classes of the towns in England and America is beyond question. On the Continent, also, down to the present day, Sectarianism has a noteworthy influence in this connexion. But it is as yet quite impossible to define the extent and character of this influence. Here the questions have only just been put,

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and the answers can only follow the most general lines.

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ever existed, it existed, according to Protestantism, only in the state of innocence in Paradise. In the present sinful world, at any rate, there can be no question of it. It is true that, before God, all men are equal, but only as sinners and recipients of mercy; the sense of equality does not extend its influence beyond the fundamental religious sentiment. Apart from this, the inequalities which have arisen in the natural social process are willed by God, and by their call for mutual service, for trust on the one side and help on the other, they form the starting-point of Christian ethics. Similarly, the establishment of authorities and powers, which has come about in the natural course of things, has been willed by God, and these are essentially a provision for the restraint of sinful self-will and self-seeking. The revolutionary spirit is placed under a ban. Only where the honouring of God is at stake is it right to resist falsehood and wickedness. This last principle no doubt served as the starting-point from

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which Calvinism arrived at the right of resistance, the right of revolution, the sovereignty of the people, and, finally, at the general principle of the ordering of the State and Society by the dictates of reason. But for all that, it only in practice declared war on ungodly and immoral authorities, and surrounded whatever authority was established in their stead with the highest guarantees of sanctity. Respect for the law, maintenance of order, subordination to organised authority, axe for it the conditions of liberty. The democracies which have arisen on Calvinistic soil are conservative. Lutheranism, on its part, only recognised the right of resistance in the passive sense, as the duty of patient endurance, and produced the most submissive attitude possible towards authority. Individualism remains everywhere of an essentially religious character, being limited to the inviolableness of personal conviction and certainty by any human authority, and the duty of obeying God rather than men.

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Only among the Anabaptists did there arise, along with the idea of equality, a revolutionary impulse towards a reconstruction of Society in the interests of the individual, and here in so utopian and enthusiastic a form that a decisive significance cannot be ascribed to it. In the radical parties of the English Revolution, however, it took a secular form. On the other hand, Spiritualistic Mysticism introduced an unbounded subjectivism, using history and human relations only as means of self-stimulation. But it remained within the religious sphere, and only here and there, by way of the identification of the Spirit with the Law of Nature as given in reason, did it pass over into an individualistic rationalism. This, too, happened chiefly in the English, Revolution.

Individualistic rationalism, with its theory of the establishment of Society in the interest of the individual, is no creation of Protestantism, even though it has many links of connexion with the latter, or at least with Calvinism and

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Spiritualism. It is a product of Illuminism and the rationalistic spirit which takes as its data the equality of all men in virtue of possessing reason, and the possibility of the systematic construction of Society on the basis of scientific knowledge. In such a Society all can then harmoniously unite in virtue of their scientific understanding of it. This, however, is the form in which the Latin and Catholic peoples, rather than the Teutonic and Protestant, apprehended the idea of Society, and they have worked it out on principles and by methods which need not be further investigated here. In the course of time, no doubt, the two sets of ideas have intermingled, and from their intermixture there have arisen, the modern social theories, in which the one-sidedness of individualism is again subjected to correction. In these the Protestant individualisation of the conscience and the personality no doubt continues to exercise an influence. But religious ideas in general have ceased, to have any dominant

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importance in these theories, since they have become too complicated in character to be determined by purely ideological considerations.

THOUGHT AND LEARNING

This brings us to the question of the relation of Protestantism to science.' In this department, almost more than in any other, it is customary to regard it as the pioneer of the modern world. But everything depends here upon understanding rightly wherein this pioneering consisted. For it cannot be said that Protestantism opened up the way for the modern idea of the freedom of science, of thought, and of the press; nor, again, that while retaining science under its control and censorship, it at least inspired it with new selfconsistent impulses and guided it to new and original discoveries. The most important point is rather that it destroyed previously existing Church-controlled science, and secularised, at least from a legal point of view,

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educational institutions, transferring the censorship of them to government boards, on which theologians were merely represented along with others. In this way it became possible to the State to foster science from the point of view of its own interests, and to proceed on independent lines, when once its estimate and conception of science ceased to coincide with the Church's, as it had done in the Confessional period. Further, Protestantism 'encouraged a certain spirit of historical criticism, which subjected the Catholic ecclesiastical tradition and the current conception of Church history to a severe and suspicious examination. By this it both strengthened the spirit of individual criticism generally, and deprived legend and dogma of a large part of their content of fact, and thus learned to apply to them naturalistic psychological methods. Finally, in its need of tools for this criticism, and of scientific sources of strength for its new anti-Scholastic Biblical theology, it took over humanistic studies, and therewith at least the

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germs of philological criticism and unbiassed interpretation. And, above all, in spite of the emphasis which it laid on the will and on trust, it no doubt did intellectualise religion, and encouraged exact thinking and scholarly study. It thus established the principle of clearness of thought and conscious reflectiveness; and from religion as a centre, that spread to other matters. But that is the whole extent of its direct influence, and a wider indirect influence was at first impeded by the uncompromising, indeed intensified, supernaturalism of its doctrine of authority, as well as by the strictly traditional and formal lines on which its humanistic element was developed. The last-named aspect of the matter must not be overlooked. It was Protestantism which first elevated the Bible above all tradition, and hence above all analogy with natural productions. It first closed the Canon and strictly delimited its frontier as against all human literature; in its doctrine of the Bible it solved the problem of infallibility earlier and more trenchantly than

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Catholicism. It confined humanism to the study of elegance of composition, the laws of style and the laws of poetry, and to formal logic and the laws of thought, and in all matters of material knowledge it demanded as slavish a deference to the profane authorities of antiquity as it did in theology to the sacrosanct authority of the Bible. The great Leyden school of philologists was frequently at odds with it on various issues. The ideas of a Scaliger found in it air enough, no doubt, but no firm foothold. A Hugo Grotius springs from circles imbued with the spirit of Erasmus, inter-Confessional in principle, and a Bacon draws his inspiration wholly from the under current of Renaissance culture, which held on its way. separate from Church influences. The scholarship of Protestantism was a Scholasticism furbished up by Humanism; its historical criticism was a polemic on behalf of absolute truth against devilish deceit; its general information consisted of a farrago of universal knowledge collected from the ancients and all

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kinds of curious sources ; its theory of jurisprudence was a modification of the old Church doctrine of the Lex Naturae and its relations to the Lex Mosis, which, again, was identified with the Lex Christi. It is true that here, also, the Calvinistic Schools showed a higher and broader spirit, but that is due to the character of Western European civilisation and the stronger reaction of the French and Italian Renaissance. In regard to science, in fact, Protestantism is not distinguished in principle from contemporary Catholicism, which, indeed, having the advantage of a stronger Renaissance tradition, in some respects did finer and more influential work in this department. The great scientific discoveries of the age, modern mathematics and physics, proceed from the Renaissance, and a Platonic influence from the same source brought Kepler into conflict with the Church authorities. The foundations of modern anti-Aristotelian philosophy were laid by the Catholic Descartes. The recasting of political

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and social science is connected with the names of Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes, all thinkers who stood aloof from the Confessions.

Now, if Protestantism in its spheres of influence and in its Schools, especially in the (Confessionally mixed) Netherlands and in England, wearied out with religious struggles, gradually acclimatised this new scientific knowledge, and finally, from the time of Locke and Leibnitz, learned to combine and amalgamate it with its most sacred world of ideas, that is certainly a process of the highest significance, which permanently secured to the Protestant peoples a scientific superiority. It also, as one of its results, gave a strong impulse to the critical development of the French spirit. But it is a very far from simple process, which was accomplished amid the most vehement opposition from the strict, older Protestantism, and only became possible through the emergence in Protestantism of new religious elements so far as it was not due to an exactly opposite cause, the enfeeblement of the

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religious spirit and the reaction from the Confessional period. This complicated process, in its present results, causes the identification of the scientific and critical with the Protestant religious spirit to appear to many to be self-evident. In reality it implies, itself, a decisive recasting and transformation of the whole idea of Protestantism, and therefore only comes into question at a later point, when we have to describe the religious development in the stricter sense. The Protestant religious individualism of personal conviction underwent a process of fusion with scientific knowledge and freedom of thought. But that fact also changed Protestantism fundamentally as compared with its first beginnings. The possibility of the change was inherent in Protestantism; but in order that it might come to pass, modern completely self-directing science must first be born. And it was not born out of Protestantism, but only welded into it; and from the first moment of their interconnexion it has involved Protestantism

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in severe conflicts, which even down to the present are far from being finally settled.

Consequently, therein appear, at the present day, in the philosophy which has arisen out of this intermixture, many elements drawn from Protestant religion. In particular, the characteristic difference of the two Confessions can quite well be felt in the difference between the Anglo-Saxon and German scientific and philosophical developments. The AngloSaxons are by nature no more pure Ernpiricists than are other men, and have indeed shown that clearly enough in their Renaissance poetry and their theological Platonism. They have become so through the influence of commerce, politics, and Calvinism, which, again, are closely connected together. Calvinism, with its abolition of the absolute goodness and rationality of the Divine nature, with its disintegration of the Divine activity into mere separate will-acts, connected by no inner necessity and no metaphysical unity of substance, essentially tends to the emphasising

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of the individual and empirical, the renunciation of the conceptions of absolute causality and unity, the practically free and utilitarian individual judgment of all things. The influence of this spirit is quite unmistakably the most important cause of the empirical and positivist tendencies of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, which to-day find themselves in it as compatible with strong religious feeling, ethical discipline, and keen intellectuality as they formerly did in Calvinism itself. On the other hand, in the development of German metaphysics, from Leibnitz and Kant to Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and Fechner, the influence of the Lutheran background is recognisable in the direction of speculation towards the unity and interconnexion of things, towards the inner rationality and logical consistency of the conception of God, towards general principles, ideal points of view, and the intuitive sense of the inward presence of the Divine. Indeed, even in the thought-world of Goethe and Schiller, which takes up into itself the quite

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un-Protestant Neo-Humanism, the influence of this background is clearly recognisable; though here, it must be admitted, it enters into quite peculiarly inconsistent combinations, and the resultant tensions and compromises offer the most difficult problems of the inner life. Schiller, not without cause, held that in his aesthetic ethics he was asserting one of the fundamental ideas of the Lutheran doctrine of justification; and Goethe, in his Religion of the "Three Reverences," tried to find room for the metaphysic of suffering, of the sense of sin, of trust in redemption, and of the God-inspired personality, alongside of the poetry of nature and a rationalistic ethic of humanity-a proof how deeply German metaphysic is rooted in Lutheranism, but also with what difficulty this Lutheranism adapts itself to the modern world.

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ART AND AESTHETICS

After the question regarding Protestantism and science, we come to that regarding its significance for the rise of modern art. Here, no doubt, the attitude of Protestantism seems at first sight wholly one of opposition. Romantics and Classicists have united in condemning Calvinistic iconoclasm, and have felt in Lutheranism also, that it uses art only for recreation, amusement, instruction, and representation, and in the cultus, but scarcely recognises a value in art for its own sake. And certainly the genius of Catholicism is, much more favourable to art, since its asceticism leaves room for the sensible alongside of the supersensible, and its cultus appeals less to the intellect than to the eye and the emotions. Protestant asceticism, on the other hand, always, takes the sensible into the direct service of eternal salvation, and its cultus consists of preaching and instruction. Catholicism is, in fact, more at home with sensuousness, in the

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widest sense of the word, than Protestantism. And, accordingly, Catholicism entered into a much deeper and more vigorous union with Renaissance art than Protestantism did. The latter killed legend and miracle outside of the New Testament, and fostered a spirit of unimaginative practicality. That is especially true of Calvinism, for neither the Dutch wholly un-Puritan painting, nor the poetic elements in Milton's Renaissance poetry, are to be put down to its account-still less so Rembrandt, who had more affinity with mystical, spiritualistic circles. Shakespeare, too, in spite of the undoubtedly strong religious strain in his writing, ought not to be claimed exclusively for Protestant art, as his hatred of the Puritans sufficiently testifies. But the matter has, after all, another side; especially Lutheranism, and the mystic spiritualistic movement, have had, even in this connexion, a real creative importance. Protestantism, by its breach with Church imagery and the Catholic cultus, entirely altered the range of

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subjects from which art draws its material, and set it the task of conquering new domains. It also inspired art with a new spirit, which in the end was to reject the large, emphatic art of the Renaissance with its general appeal, and seek subjects intimately personal and individual, or impressive by their fulness of character. In this way it had a share in the great transformation by which Northern art turned to the realistic expression of life, to the characteristic and the intiniate. And, more than that, from its very centre, from its provision for edification in public worship, there went forth, especially in the case of Lutheranism, an imposing expression of the religion of personal conviction and attitude, though this was confined precisely to the non-sensuous arts, to religious lyric and music. And very significant, especially in Reinbranclt, is the contrast between an art of characterisation and pure light effect, in which there speaks an entirely new inner life, and the art of the Renaissance, whether in its purely secular or in its Catholicising form; so much so,

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that K. Neumann could undertake, in treating of Rembrandt, to trace the principle of a new, specifically modern, art. Similarly, musicians are accustomed to see in Each a fountainhead of modern art; and in his education Protestantism certainly had no small share. Here a religious feeling drawn from history, but at the same time wholly personal, finds its highest expression.

There is just one thing which the original Protestantism, so long as it held strictly to its fundamental idea, did not and could not do and the omission is of the highest significance for the whole understanding of its relation to the modern world: it never elevated artistic feeling into the principle of a philosophy of life, of metaphysics or ethics. It could not do that, because its asceticism and its absolute metaphysical dualism made it impossible. It could not reconcile itself to the admission of art as an end in itself, as a particular way of knowing God and the world, which is necessarily in some way or other bound up with this

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principle, and the not less closely connected transfiguration of the sensuous, and the sense of the world as a harmony. That was why it repelled the Renaissance. That is why, also, modern art everywhere proves the end of Protestant asceticism; it is absolutely opposed to it in principle. Lessing, who for the first time in Germany championed the rights of the artistic view of things and the artistic way of life, had to wage a war of liberation against theology, and Albrecht von Haller painfully divided his life between the two interests. This is also why Classicism and Romanticism, inasmuch as they both have an artistic purpose, are, on the whole, alien to Protestantism and are not able to take up any inner relation to it; why Byron and Shelley were cast out from English life, and why Ruskin and the astheticising of modern England signify the end of Puritanism. The Augustinianism of the Western system of thought, to which the older Protestantism essentially belongs, here yields to a new spiritual power which for ever divides

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the modern world from early Protestantism. It is at this point that the division is clearest. Beyond doubt, in the modern world also, the ideas of need of redemption, of another world, and of the supersensible, will again make their appearance, and neither immanence nor optimism will be its final word. No doubt it will, in its turn, again subject the artistic element to other interpretations. But a trace of the poetic glorification of the world will always remain to it, and it will never go back to the Protestant dogmas. Here, great and wholly new tasks confront the modern world, which, if it really possesses a genuinely distinctive character of its own, ought to show itself capable of giving a new development to the artistic motive, and of breathing into it, moreover, a religious spirit of ample strength and native superiority.