human individual as the Divine Ruler of the universe and the Savior of every human soul that cleaves to him with unquestioning faith. Its supreme law is the law of love— love to God in Christ and love to the neighbor for his sake. Its supreme authority is the word of God in Christ, as the revealed and absolute norm of truth. Philosophy is the most complete illustration of impersonalism, as the basis of a system of thought. Its supreme authority is reason, and its supreme law is the law of truth. The profound and irreconcilable antagonism between the two is created by the demand of Christianity that every human mind shall accept the revelation of God in the words of Christ as absolute truth, without criticism or correction or abatement, in the spirit of unquestioning faith. This is a demand to which philosophy cannot yield without committing suicide. Hence the irrepressible conflict between the two. It is the conflict between head and heart, caused (I think most unwisely) by the heart's usurpation of the head's natural prerogative of deciding what is truth. The intellect alone is the faculty by which truth is determined; it cannot abdicate in favor of sentiment without deep and damning disloyalty to the very nature of things. Whatever can be stated in the form of a proposition, with subject and predicate, is and must be a question of truth as such, to be affirmed or denied by the intellect, the sole judge of evidence; and it is immoral in the last degree to affirm or deny it on the warrant of mere feeling. Philosophy is compelled to confront Christianity with rejection of her supreme demand, not flippantly or wilfully, but with solemn consciousness that she must defend the rights of thought and the cause of intellectual rectitude against unwarranted aggression. The heart makes a woful mistake in assuming to do the work of the head; it should follow, not lead, and the consequences are most disastrous if it undertakes to lead. The function of the head is to think, not to feel; the function of the heart is to feel, not to think. Reverence for the integrity of human nature and solicitude for the highest interests of the human soul command philosophy to be steadfast in refusing the unnatural demand of Chris tianity to accept revelation as a substitute for proof. It is a demand she cannot grant without deep dishonor to reason and deep disaster to the cause of truth. No- the cause of philosophy is the cause of the human mind itself. In the long run, the heart always adapts itself to the conclusions of the head. Consciously or unconsciously, it has always done so; and it always will. The time has now arrived to do it with full consciousness. The clinging sentiments of the human soul, once Pagan, adapted themselves gradually to the Christian system of thought, as Orthodoxy was gradually developed by reason out of the assumed revelation of the gospel; and the so-called "Christian consciousness" was the result of this adaptation. Now the educated reason of mankind, or philosophy, gravely asserts its right to discard revelation altogether, and to build up a new, scientific system of thought on the basis of experience; and the clinging sentiments of the human soul will again adapt themselves to the change. The "Christian consciousness" will slowly and gradually, but surely and irrevocably, transform itself into a rational consciousness; it is already doing so, and the process must go on. Philosophy, long the slave of Christianity, and afterwards a power independent of and unrelated to it, now begins to claim dominion over it; and the claim will prove to be irresistible. All the uneasy attempts of Orthodoxy to adjust itself to the discoveries of science are so many confessions of the fact. Orthodoxy is melting away like an iceberg in southern seas; and NeoChristianity is the form it takes just before it disappears from sight. Henceforth the empire of philosophy is to grow like the Roman Empire, swallowing up province after province of belief until all human thought obeys in all its departments the one imperial law of reason. in the modern world for revelation. will still remain the same, with all its sweet affections and lofty aspirations and poetic, religious sentiments. All these will yet adapt themselves, completely and happily, to whatever reason shall show to be the discovered truth of things. The universe is still here, in all its mystery and majesty; There is no room left the human soul is still here, in all its beauty and its tenderness. Reason alone can ever re-establish harmony between the two. Christianity in its day created a truly universal or catholic unity of human thought on the basis of revelation, and named its rationalized system of the universe Orthodoxy. Reason is to-day creating a new catholic unity of human thought on the basis of science or experience; and the name of this new rationalized system of the universe is Philosophy. Nothing that was true, useful, or good in the one will be lost, when the other shall have taken its place. Let us fear no more the rising sun of reason! Gentlemen, I have spoken with great plainness of speech, but, I trust, with no spirit or purpose incongruous with the spirit and purpose of your generous invitation. My endeavor has been to be faithful both to truth and to you. If I have failed in either duty, I crave forgiveness. That Christianity is a great deal more than a mere system of thought,- that it has ministered, and still ministers, to the moral and spiritual wants of countless souls,- that it has done, and is still doing, incalculable service to man in many ways,- I have not forgotten and rejoice to admit. But, for all that, it remains a system of thought still, and must remain so; and it concerned my subject to treat it in no other light. Do me the justice, I beg you, to acquit me of insensibility to the tenderer aspects of Christianity, though unable to touch upon them here. High and imperative obligations rest upon him who would tell the truth in the spirit of love; and obligations no less high and imperative rest upon all who would listen in the spirit of candor and love of truth. That I have been faithful to mine, I hope that you will be faithful to yours, I know. I thank you for this opportunity, after an interval of thirteen years since our paths divided for conscience' sake at Syracuse, of meeting you once more with mutual confidence and respect; and I cannot but believe that, however widely divergent these paths have been with regard to intellectual convictions, we are all still working side by side for the religion of truth, of righteousness, and of love. MONOTHEISM AND THE JEWS. BY DR. GUSTAV GOTTHEIL, RABBI, TEMPLE EMANU-EL, NEW YORK. I HAVE not been unmindful of the difficulties that surround the task I have undertaken. The first arises from the large number of questions that have to be brought under discussion. This I have tried to meet, by limiting myself to the simplest statements, remembering the rule of my teachers, the Talmudic doctors: "For the wise, a hint suffices." Again, my relation to the subject with which I have to deal has imposed upon me the strictest watchfulness and a constant self-control. As a lineal descendant, not according to the flesh only, but to the spirit also, of that race with whose destinies and mission we shall concern ourselves, my natural sympathy might carry me to conclusions not fully warranted by the facts on which they are based; for the Masters have warned me that love, not less than hatred, is liable to transgress the line of justice. And to this danger a Jew is always exposed, when he looks back upon the history of his people. If their steadfastness excites the admiration, their sufferings, the pity of every unprejudiced and feeling heart,— what must be the effect upon one who is linked to their memory by the ties of blood and kinship and the community of faith and hope? I have, however, honestly tried to preserve that calmness of judgment on which a successful search after truth depends. Should I, nevertheless, now and then betray the warmth of my feelings, you will not, therefore, deny me an impartial hearing. I think you would rather have me come to you such as I am, and perhaps not be disinclined to accept these involuntary expressions of feelings as proofs that Judaism is, as yet, far from being that fossil state which is so often ascribed to it. Then I shall have to touch upon ground where contradiction is most distasteful, and liable to assume the nature of a personal injury. The religious faith of an honest soul is to me something so sacred and so vital to its well-being, that I shrink from disturbing the peace of the sanctuary, where a heart worships its God after its own needs. But here, again, I sustain myself by the recollection that I shall speak to men who are resolved to look truth straight in the face, and who give practical evidence of their belief in the words which the Evangelist puts into the mouth of his ideal Master: "And the truth shall make you free." I have designated my subject "Monotheism and the Jews." I ought rather to have said, "and Judaism"; for it is my purpose to set these two into their proper historic relation. I have not, however, thought it necessary to enter upon a discussion of the origin of monotheism, a question that has of late excited much attention. Renan was one of the first to set the inquiry on foot.* He traces it to an instinct of the Semitic race, fostered by natural surroundings; but his theory, which was not received with favor by such scholars as Max Müller, Chvolson, Tiele, may now be said to have been abandoned. In spite of his apodictic; On n'invente pas le monothéisme, it has been declared to be the child of political necessity in the struggle for the unification of the tribes. Other writers take the mythological view, and think of a gradual condensation of the nebulous heathen deities into men of flesh and blood. The latest exponent of this theory is Julius Popper in his Ursprung des Monotheismus.† I shall simply state what appears to me the historic relation between Monotheism and Judaism; and to that end it *In his Histoire générale des Langues Semitiques, 1858, p. 3; further elaborated in Journal Asiatique, 1859, pp. 214-282, 417-459, † Berlin, 1879. |