IV.III. The Modern Time: The Reformation

The Reformation resulted from the corruption of the Church. That corruption was not an accidental phenomenon; it was not the mere abuse of power and dominion. A corrupt state of things is very frequently represented as an “abuse”; it is taken for granted that the foundation was good — the system, the institution itself faultless — but that the passion, the subjective interest, in short the arbitrary volition of men has made use of that which in itself was good to further its own selfish ends, and that all that is required to be done is to remove these adventitious elements. On this showing the institute in question escapes obloquy, and the evil that disfigures it appears something foreign to it. But when accidental abuse of a good thing really occurs, it is limited to particularity. A great and general corruption affecting a body of such large and comprehensive scope as a Church, is quite another thing. — The corruption of the Church was a native growth; the principle of that corruption is to be looked for in the fact that the specific and definite embodiment of Deity which it recognizes, is sensuous — that the external in a coarse material form, is enshrined in its inmost being. (The refining transformation which Art supplied was not sufficient.) The higher Spirit — that of the World — has already expelled the Spiritual from it; it finds nothing to interest it in the Spiritual or in occupation with it; thus it retains that specific and definite embodiment; — i.e., we have the sensuous immediate subjectivity, not refined by it to Spiritual subjectivity. — Henceforth it occupies a position of inferiority to the World-Spirit; the latter has already transcended it, for it has become capable of recognizing the Sensuous as sensuous, the merely outward as merely outward; it has learned to occupy itself with the Finite in a finite way, and in this very activity to maintain an independent and confident position as a valid and rightful subjectivity.

The element in question which is innate in the Ecclesiastical principle only reveals itself as a corrupting one when the Church has no longer any opposition to contend with — when it has become firmly established. Then its elements are free to display their tendencies without let or hindrance. Thus it is that externality in the Church itself which becomes evil and corruption, and develops itself as a negative principle in its own bosom. — The forms which this corruption assumes are coextensive with the relations which the Church itself sustains, into which consequently this vitiating element enters.

The ecclesiastical piety of the period displays the very essence of superstition — the fettering of the mind to a sensuous object, a mere Thing — in the most various forms: — slavish deference to Authority; for Spirit, having renounced its proper nature in its most essential quality [having sacrificed its characteristic liberty to a mere sensuous object], has lost its Freedom, and is held in adamantine bondage to what is alien to itself; — a credulity of the most absurd and childish character in regard to Miracles, for the Divine is supposed to manifest itself in a perfectly disconnected and limited way, for purely finite and particular purposes; — lastly, lust of power, riotous debauchery, all the forms of barbarous and vulgar corruption, hypocrisy and deception — all this manifests itself in the Church; for in fact the Sensuous in it is not subjugated and trained by the Understanding; it has become free, but only in a rough and barbarous way. — On the other hand the virtue which the Church presents, since it is negative only in opposition to sensual appetite, is but abstractly negative; it does not know how to exercise a moral restraint in the indulgence of the senses; in actual life nothing is left for it but avoidance, renunciation, inactivity.

These contrasts which the Church exhibits — of barbarous vice and lust on the one hand, and an elevation of soul that is ready to renounce all worldly things, on the other hand — became still wider in consequence of the energetic position which man is sensible of occupying in his subjective power over outward and material things in the natural world, in which he feels himself free, and so gains for himself an absolute right. — The Church whose office it is to save souls from perdition, makes this salvation itself a mere external appliance, and is now degraded so far as to perform this office in a merely external fashion. The remission of sins — the highest satisfaction which the soul craves, the certainty of its peace with God, that which concerns man’s deepest and inmost nature — is offered to man in the most grossly superficial and trivial fashion — to be purchased for mere money; while the object of this sale is to procure means for dissolute excess. One of the objects of this sale was indeed the building of St. Peter’s, that magnificent chef-d’oeuvre of Christian fabrics erected in the metropolis of religion. But, as that paragon of works of art, the Athene and her temple-citadel at Athens, was built with the money of the allies and issued in the loss of both allies and power; so the completion of this Church of St. Peter and Michael Angelo’s “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, were the Doomsday and the ruin of this proud spiritual edifice.

The time-honored and cherished sincerity of the German people is destined to effect this revolution out of the honest truth and simplicity of its heart. While the rest of the world are urging their way to India, to America — straining every nerve to gain wealth and to acquire a secular dominion which shall encompass the globe, and on which the sun shall never set — we find a simple Monk looking for that specific embodiment of Deity which Christendom had formerly sought in an earthly sepulchre of stone, rather in the deeper abyss of the Absolute Ideality of all that is sensuous and external — in the Spirit and the Heart — the heart, which, wounded unspeakably by the offer of the most trivial and superficial appliances to satisfy the cravings of that which is inmost and deepest, now detects the perversion of the absolute relation of truth in its minutest features, and pursues it to annihilation. Luther’s simple doctrine is that the specific embodiment of Deity — infinite subjectivity, that is true spirituality, Christ — is in no way present and actual in an outward form, but as essentially spiritual is obtained only in being reconciled to God — in faith and spiritual enjoyment. These two words express everything. That which this doctrine desiderates, is not the recognition of a sensuous object as God, nor even of something merely conceived, and which is not actual and present, but of a Reality that is not sensuous. This abrogation of externality imports the reconstruction of all the doctrines, and the reform of all the superstition into which the Church consistently wandered, and in which its spiritual life was dissipated. This change especially affects the doctrine of works; for works include what may be performed under any mental conditions — not necessarily in faith, in one’s own soul, but as mere external observances prescribed by authority. Faith is by no means a bare assurance respecting mere finite things — an assurance which belongs only to limited mind — as e.g. the belief that such or such a person existed and said this or that; or that the Children of Israel passed dry-shod through the Red Sea — or that the trumpets before the walls of Jericho produced as powerful an impression as our cannons; for although nothing of all this had been related to us, our knowledge of God would not be the less complete. In fact it is not a belief in something that is absent, past and gone, but the subjective assurance of the Eternal, of Absolute Truth, the Truth of God. Concerning this assurance, the Lutheran Church affirms that the Holy Spirit alone produces it — i.e. that it is an assurance which the individual attains, not in virtue of his particular idiosyncrasy, but of his essential being. — The Lutheran doctrine therefore involves the entire substance of Catholicism, with the exception of all that results from the element of externality — as far as the Catholic Church insists upon that externality. Luther therefore could not do otherwise than refuse to yield an iota in regard to that doctrine of the Eucharist in which the whole question is concentrated. Nor could he concede to the Reformed [Calvinistic] Church, that Christ is a mere commemoration, a mere reminiscence: in this respect his view was rather in accordance with that of the Catholic Church, viz, that Christ is an actual presence, though only in faith and in Spirit. He maintained that the Spirit of Christ really fills the human heart — that Christ therefore is not to be regarded as merely a historical person, but that man sustains an immediate relation to him in Spirit.

While, then, the individual knows that he is filled with the Divine Spirit, all the relations that sprung from that vitiating element of externality which we examined above, are ipso facto abrogated: there is no longer a distinction between priests and laymen; we no longer find one class in possession of the substance of the Truth, as of all the spiritual and temporal treasures of the Church; but the heart — the emotional part of man’s Spiritual nature — is recognized as that which can and ought to come into possession of the Truth; and this subjectivity is the common property of all mankind. Each has to accomplish the work of reconciliation in his own soul. — Subjective Spirit has to receive the Spirit of Truth into itself, and give it a dwelling place there. Thus that absolute inwardness of soul which pertains to religion itself, and Freedom in the Church are both secured. Subjectivity therefore makes the objective purport of Christianity, i.e. the doctrine of the Church, its own. In the Lutheran Church the subjective feeling and the conviction of the individual is regarded as equally necessary with the objective side of Truth. Truth with Lutherans is not a finished and completed thing; the subject himself must be imbued with Truth, surrendering his particular being in exchange for the substantial Truth, and making that Truth his own. Thus subjective Spirit gains emancipation in the Truth, abnegates its particularity and comes to itself in realizing the truth of its being. Thus Christian Freedom is actualized. If Subjectivity be placed in feeling only, without that objective side, we have the stand-point of the merely Natural Will.

In the proclamation of these principles is unfurled the new, the latest standard round which the peoples rally — the banner of Free Spirit, independent, though finding its life in the Truth, and enjoying independence only in it. This is the banner under which we serve, and which we bear. Time, since that epoch, has had no other work to do than the formal imbuing of the world with this principle, in bringing the Reconciliation implicit [in Christianity] into objective and explicit realization.

Culture is essentially concerned with Form; the work of Culture is the production of the Form of Universality, which is none other than Thought. Consequently Law, Property, Social Morality, Government, Constitutions, etc., must be conformed to general principles, in order that they may accord with the idea of Free Will and be Rational. Thus only can the Spirit of Truth manifest itself in Subjective Will — in the particular shapes which the activity of the Will assumes. In virtue of that degree of intensity which Subjective Free Spirit has attained, elevating it to the form of Universality, Objective Spirit attains manifestation. This is the sense in which we must understand the State to be based on Religion. States and Laws are nothing else than Religion manifesting itself in the relations of the actual world.

This is the essence of the Reformation: Man is in his very nature destined to be free.

At its commencement, the Reformation concerned itself only with particular aspects of the Catholic Church: Luther wished to act in union with the whole Catholic world, and expressed a desire that Councils should be convened. His theses found supporters in every country. In answer to the charge brought against Luther and the Protestants, of exaggeration — nay, even of calumnious misrepresentation in their descriptions of the corruption of the Church, we may refer to the statements of Catholics themselves, bearing upon this point, and particularly to those contained in the official documents of Ecclesiastical Councils. But Luther’s onslaught, which was at first limited to particular points, was soon extended to the doctrines of the Church; and leaving individuals, he attacked institutions at large — conventual life, the secular lordships of the bishops, etc. His writings now controverted not merely isolated dicta of the Pope and the Councils, but the very principle on which such a mode of deciding points in dispute was based — in fact, the Authority of the Church. Luther repudiated that authority, and set up in its stead the Bible and the testimony of the Human Spirit. And it is a fact of the weightiest import that the Bible has become the basis of the Christian Church: henceforth each individual enjoys the right of deriving instruction for himself from it, and of directing his conscience in accordance with it. We see a vast change in the principle by which man’s religious life is guided: the whole system of Tradition, the whole fabric of the Church becomes problematical, and its authority is subverted. Luther’s translation of the Bible has been of incalculable value to the German people. It has supplied them with a People’s Book, such as no nation in the Catholic world can boast; for though the latter have a vast number of minor productions in the shape of prayer-books, they have no generally recognized and classical book for popular instruction. In spite of this it has been made a question in modern times whether it is judicious to place the Bible in the hands of the People. Yet the few disadvantages thus entailed are far more than counterbalanced by the incalculable benefits thence accruing: narratives, which in their external shape might be repellent to the heart and understanding, can be discriminatingly treated by the religious sense, which, holding fast the substantial truth, easily vanquishes any such difficulties. And even if the books which have pretensions to the character of People’s Books, were not so superficial as they are, they would certainly fail in securing that respect which a book claiming such a title ought to inspire in individuals. But to obviate this difficulty is no easy matter, for even should a book adapted to the purpose in every other respect be produced, every country parson would have some fault to find with it, and think to better it. In France the need of such a book has been very much felt; great premiums have been offered with a view to obtaining one, but, from the reason stated, without success. Moreover, the existence of a People’s Book presupposes as its primary condition an ability to read on the part of the People; an ability which in Catholic countries is not very commonly to be met with.

The denial of the Authority of the Church necessarily led to a separation, (The Council of Trent stereotyped the principles of Catholicism, and made the restoration of concord impossible. Leibnitz at a later time discussed with Bishop Bossuet the question of the union of the Churches; but the Council of Trent remains the insurmountable obstacle. The Churches bee ame hostile parties, for even in respect to secular arrangements a striking difference manifested itself. In the non-Catholic countries the conventual establishments and episcopal foundations were broken up, and the rights of the then proprietors ignored. Educational arrangements were altered; the fasts and holy days were abolished. Thus there was also a secular reform — a change affecting the state of things outside the sphere of ecclesiastical relations: in many places a rebellion was raised against the temporal authorities. In Münster the Anabaptists expelled the Bishop and established a government of their own; and the peasants rose en masse to emancipate themselves from the yoke of serfdom. But the world was not yet ripe for a transformation of its political condition as a consequence of ecclesiastical reformation. — The Catholic Church also was essentially influenced by the Reformation: the reins of discipline were drawn tighter, and the greatest occasions of scandal, the most crying abuses were abated. Much of the intellectual life of the age that lay outside its sphere, but with which it had previously maintained friendly relations, it now repudiated. The Church came to a dead stop — “hitherto and no farther !” It severed itself from advancing Science, from philosophy and humanistic literature; and an occasion was soon offered of declaring its enmity to the scientific pursuits of the period. The celebrated Copernicus had discovered that the earth and the planets revolve round the sun, but the Church declared against this addition to human knowledge. Galileo, who had published a statement in the form of a dialogue of the evidence for and against the Copernican discovery (declaring indeed his own conviction of its truth), was obliged to crave pardon for the offence on his knees. The Greek literature was not made the basis of culture; education was intrusted to the Jesuits. Thus does the Spirit of the Catholic world in general sink behind the Spirit of the Age.

Here an important question solicits investigation: — why the Reformation was limited to certain nations, and why it did not permeate the whole Catholic world. The Reformation originated in Germany, and struck firm root only in the purely German nations; outside of Germany itself it established itself in Scandinavia and England. But the Romanic and Sclavonic nations kept decidedly aloof from it. Even South Germany has only partially adopted the Reformation — a fact which is consistent with the mingling of elements which is the general characteristic of its nationality. In Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhine countries there were many convents and bishoprics, as also many free imperial towns; and the reception or rejection of the Reformation very much depended on the influences which these ecclesiastical and civil bodies respectively exercised; for we have already noticed that the Reformation was a change influencing the political life of the age as well as its religious and intellectual condition. We must further observe, that authority has much greater weight in determining men’s opinions than people are inclined to believe. There are certain fundamental principles which men are in the habit of receiving on the strength of authority; and it was mere authority which in the case of many countries decided for or against the adoption of the Reformation. In Austria, in Bavaria, in Bohemia, the Reformation had already made great progress; and though it is commonly said that when truth has once penetrated men’s souls, it cannot be rooted out again, it was indisputably stifled in the countries in question, by force of arms, by stratagem or persuasion. The Sclavonic nations were agricultural. This condition of life brings with it the relation of lord and serf. In agriculture the agency of nature predominates; human industry and subjective activity are on the whole less brought into play in this department of labor than elsewhere. The Sclavonians therefore did not attain so quickly or readily as other nations the fundamental sense of pure individuality — the consciousness of Universality — that which we designated above as “political power,” and could not share the benefits of dawning freedom. — But the Romanic nations also — Italy, Spain, Portugal, and in part France — were not imbued with the Reformed doctrines. Physical force perhaps did much to repress them; yet this alone would not be sufficient to explain the fact, for when the Spirit of a Nation craves anything no force can prevent its attaining the desired object: nor can it be said that these nations were deficient in culture; on the contrary, they were in advance of the Germans in this respect. It was rather owing to the fundamental character of these nations, that they did not adopt the Reformation. But what is this peculiarity of character which hindered the attainment of Spiritual Freedom? We answer: the pure inwardness of the German nation was the proper soil for the emancipation of Spirit; the Romanic Nations, on the contrary, have maintained in the very depth of their soul — in their Spiritual Consciousness — the principle of Disharmony: they are a product of the fusion of Roman and German blood, and still retain the heterogeneity thence resulting. The German cannot deny that the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, possess more determination of character — that they pursue a settled aim (even though it have a fixed idea for its object) with perfectly clear consciousness and the greatest attention — that they carry out a plan with great circumspection, and exhibit the greatest decision in regard to specific objects. The French call the Germans entiers, “entire” — i.e., stubborn; they are also strangers to the whimsical originality of the English. The Englishman attaches his idea of liberty to the special [as opposed to the general]; he does not trouble himself about the Understanding [logical inference], but on the contrary feels himself so much the more at liberty, the more his course of action or his license to act contravenes the Understanding — i.e., runs counter to [logical inferences or] general principles. On the other hand, among the Romanic peoples we immediately encounter that internal schism, that holding fast by an abstract principle, and as the counterpart of this, an absence of the Totality of Spirit and sentiment which we call “Heart”; there is not that meditative introversion of the soul upon itself; — in their inmost being they may be said to be alienated from themselves [abstract principles carry them away]. With them the inner life is a region whose depth they do not appreciate; for it is given over “bodily” to particular [absorbing] interests, and the infinity that belongs to Spirit is not to be looked for there. Their inmost being is not their own. They leave it as an alien and indifferent matter, and are glad to have its concerns settled for them by another. That other to which they leave it is the Church. They have indeed something to do with it themselves; but since that which they have to do is not self-originated and self-prescribed, not their very own, they are content to leave the affair to be settled in a superficial way. “Eh bien” said Napoleon, “we shall go to mass again, and my good fellows will say: ’ That is the word of command! ’” This is the leading feature in the character of these nations — the separation of the religious from the secular interest, i.e., from the special interest of individuality; and the ground of this separation lies in their inmost soul, which has lost its independent entireness of being, its profoundest unity. Catholicism does not claim the essential direction of the Secular; religion remains an indifferent matter on the one side, while the other side of life is dissociated from it, and occupies a sphere exclusively its own. Cultivated Frenchmen therefore feel an antipathy to Protestantism because it seems to them something pedantic, dull, minutely captious in its morality; since it requires that Spirit and Thought should be directly engaged in religion: in attending mass and other ceremonies, on the contrary, no exertion of thought is required, but an imposing sensuous spectacle is presented to the eye, which does not make such a demand on one’s attention as entirely to exclude a little chat, while yet the duties of the occasion are not neglected.

We spoke above of the relation which the new doctrine sustained to secular life, and now we have only to exhibit that relation in detail. The development and advance of Spirit from the time of the Reformation onwards consist in this, that Spirit, having now gained the consciousness of its Freedom, through that process of mediation which takes place between man and God — that is, in the full recognition of the objective process as the existence [the positive and definite manifestation] of the Divine essence — now takes it up and follows it out in building up the edifice of secular relations. That harmony [of Objective and Subjective Will] which has resulted from the painful struggles of History, involves the recognition of the Secular as capable of being an embodiment of Truth; whereas it had been formerly regarded as evil only, as incapable of Good — the latter being considered essentially ultramundane. It is now perceived that Morality and Justice in the State are also divine and commanded by God, and that in point of substance there is nothing higher or more sacred. One inference is that Marriage is no longer deemed less holy than Celibacy. Luther took a wife to show that he respected marriage, defying the calumnies to which he exposed himself by such a step. It was his duty to do so, as it was also to eat meat on Fridays; to prove that such things are lawful and right, in opposition to the imagined superiority of abstinence. The Family introduces man to community — to the relation of interdependence in society; and this union is a moral one: while on the other hand the monks, separated from the sphere of social morality, formed as it were the standing army of the Pope, as the janizaries formed the basis of the Turkish power. The marriage of the priests entails the disappearance of the outward distinction between laity and clergy. — Moreover the repudiation of work no longer earned the reputation of sanctity; it was acknowledged to be more commendable for men to rise from a state of dependence by activity, intelligence, and industry, and make themselves independent. It is more consonant with justice that he who has money should spend it even in luxuries, than that he should give it away to idlers and beggars; for he bestows it on an equal number of persons by so doing, and these must at any rate have worked diligently for it. Industry, crafts and trades now have their moral validity recognized, and the obstacles to their prosperity which originated with the Church, have vanished. For the Church had pronounced it a sin to lend money on interest: but the necessity of so doing led to the direct violation of her injunctions. The Lombards (a fact which accounts for the use of the term “lombard” in French to denote a loan-office), and particularly the House of Medici, advanced money to princes in every part of Europe. The third point of sanctity in the Catholic Church — blind obedience, was likewise denuded of its false pretensions. Obedience to the laws of the State, as the Rational element in volition and action, was made the principle of human conduct. In this obedience man is free, for all that is demanded is that the Particular should yield to the General. Man himself has a conscience; consequently the subjection required of him is a free allegiance. This involves the possibility of a development of Reason and Freedom, and of their introduction into human relations; and Reason and the Divine commands are now synonymous. The Rational no longer meets with contradiction on the part of the religious conscience; it is permitted to develop itself in its own sphere without disturbance, without being compelled to resort to force in defending itself against an adverse power. But in the Catholic Church, that adverse element is unconditionally sanctioned. Where the Reformed doctrine prevails, princes may still be bad governors, but they are no longer sanctioned and solicited thereto by the promptings of their religious conscience. In the Catholic Church on the contrary, it is nothing singular for the conscience to be found in opposition to the laws of the State. Assassinations of sovereigns, conspiracies against the state, and the like, have often been supported and carried into execution by the priests.

This harmony between the State and the Church has now attained immediate realization. We have, as yet, no reconstruction of the State, of the system of jurisprudence, etc., for thought must first discover the essential principle of Right. The Laws of Freedom had first to be expanded to a system as deduced from an absolute principle of Right. Spirit does not assume this complete form immediately after the Reformation; it limits itself at first to direct and simple changes, as e.g. the doing away with conventual establishments and episcopal jurisdiction, etc. The reconciliation between God and the World was limited in the first instance to an abstract form; it was not yet expanded into a system by which the moral world could be regulated.

In the first instance this reconciliation must take place in the individual soul, must be realized by feeling; the individual must gain the assurance that the Spirit dwells in him — that, in the language of the Church, a brokenness of heart has been experienced, and that Divine grace has entered into the heart thus broken. By Nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a transforming process does he arrive at truth. The general and speculative aspect of the matter is just this — that the human heart is not what it should be. It was then required of the individual that he should know what he is in himself; that is, the teaching of the Church insisted upon man’s becoming conscious that he is evil. But the individual is evil only when the Natural manifests itself in mere sensual desire — when an unrighteous will presents itself in its untamed, untrained, violent shape; and yet it is required that such a person should know that he is depraved, and that the good Spirit dwells in him; in fact he is required to have a direct consciousness of and to “experience” that which was presented to him as a speculative and implicit truth. The Reconciliation having, then, assumed this abstract form, men tormented themselves with a view to force upon their souls the consciousness of their sinfulness and to know themselves as evil. The most simple souls, the most innocent natures were accustomed in painful introspection to observe the most secret workings of the heart, with a view to a rigid examination of them. With this duty was conjoined that of an entirely opposite description; it was required that man should attain the consciousness that the good Spirit dwells in him — that Divine Grace has found an entrance into his soul. In fact the important distinction between the knowledge of abstract truth and the knowledge of what has actual existence was left out of sight. Men became the victims of a tormenting uncertainty as to whether the good Spirit has an abode in them, and it was deemed indispensable that the entire process of spiritual transformation should become perceptible to the individual himself. An echo of this self-tormenting process may still be traced in much of the religious poetry of that time; the Psalms of David which exhibit a similar character were then introduced as hymns into the ritual of Protestant Churches. Protestantism took this turn of minute and painful introspection, possessed with the conviction of the importance of the exercise, and was for a long time characterized by a self-tormenting disposition and an aspect of spiritual wretchedness; which in the present day has induced many persons to enter the Catholic pale, that they might exchange this inward uncertainty for a formal broad certainty based on the imposing totality of the Church. A more refined order of reflection upon the character of human actions was introduced into the Catholic Church also. The Jesuits analyzed the first rudiments of volition (velleitas) with as painful minuteness as was displayed in the pious exercises of Protestantism; but they had a science of casuistry which enabled them to discover a good reason for everything, and so get rid of the burden of guilt which this rigid investigation seemed to aggravate.

With this was connected another remarkable phenomenon, common to the Catholic with the Protestant World. The human mind was driven into the Inward, the Abstract, and the Religious element was regarded as utterly alien to the secular. That lively consciousness of his subjective life and of the inward origin of his volition that had been awakened in man, brought with it the belief in Evil, as a vast power the sphere of whose malign dominion is the Secular. This belief presents a parallelism with the view in which the sale of Indulgences originated: for as eternal salvation could be secured for money, so by paying the price of one’s salvation through a compact made with the Devil, the riches of the world and the unlimited gratification of desires and passions could be secured. Thus arose that famous legend of Faust, who in disgust at the unsatisfactory character of speculative science, is said to have plunged into the world and purchased all its glory at the expense of his salvation, Faust, if we may trust the poet, had the enjoyment of all that the world could give, in exchange for his soul’s weal; but those poor women who were called Witches were reputed to get nothing more by the bargain than the gratification of a petty revenge by making a neighbor’s cow go dry or giving a child the measles. But in awarding punishment it was not the magnitude of the injury in the loss of the milk or the sickness of the child that was considered; it was the abstract power of the Evil One in them that was attacked. The belief in this abstract, special power whose dominion is the world — in the Devil and his devices — occasioned an incalculable number of trials for witchcraft both in Catholic and Protestant countries. It was impossible to prove the guilt of the accused; they were only suspected: it was therefore only a direct knowledge [one not mediated by proofs] on which this fury against the evil principle professed to be based. It was indeed necessary to have recourse to evidence, but the basis of these judicial processes was simply the belief that certain individuals were possessed by the power of the Evil One. This delusion raged among the nations in the sixteenth century with the fury of a pestilence. The main impulse was suspicion. The principle of suspicion assumes a similarly terrible shape during the sway of the Roman Emperors, and under Robespierre’s Reign of Terror; when mere disposition, unaccompanied by any overt act or expression, was made an object of punishment. Among the Catholics, it was the Dominicans to whom (as was the Inquisition in all its branches) the trials for witchcraft were intrusted. Father Spee, a noble Jesuit, wrote a treatise against them (he is also the author of a collection of fine poems bearing the title of “Trutznachtigall,”) giving a full exposure of the terrible character of criminal justice in proceedings of this kind. Torture, which was only to be applied once, was continued until a confession was extorted. If the accused fainted under the torture it was averred that the Devil was giving them sleep: if convulsions supervened, it was said that the Devil was laughing in them; if they held out steadfastly, the Devil was supposed to give them power. These persecutions spread like an epidemic sickness through Italy, France, Spain and Germany. The earnest remonstrances of enlightened men, such as Spee and others, already produced a considerable effect. But it was Thomasius, a Professor of Halle, who first opposed this prevalent superstition with very decided success. The entire phenomenon is in itself most remarkable when we reflect that we have not long been quit of this frightful barbarity (even as late as the year 1780 a witch was publicly burned at Glarus in Switzerland), Among the Catholics persecution was directed against heretics as well as against witches: we might say indeed that they were placed in one category; the unbelief of the heretics was regarded as none other than the indwelling principle of Evil — a possession similar to the other.

Leaving this abstract form of Subjectiveness we have now to consider the secular side — the constitution of the State and the advance of Universality — the recognition of the universal laws of Freedom. This is the second and the essential point.