The names of Edelmann and Bahrdt may be mentioned. The works of
Edelmann, who attacked the inspiration of the Bible, were burned in
various cities, and he was forced to seek Frederick's protection at
Berlin. Bahrdt was more aggressive than any other writer of the time.
Originally a preacher, it was by slow degrees that he moved away from
the orthodox faith. His translation of the New Testament cut short his
ecclesiastical career. His last years were spent as an inn-keeper. His
writings, for instance his popular Letters on the Bible, must have had a
considerable effect, if we may judge by the hatred which he excited
among theologians.

It was not, however, in direct rationalistic propaganda, but in
literature and philosophy, that the German enlightenment of this century
expressed itself. The most illustrious men of letters, Goethe (who was
profoundly influenced by Spinoza) and Schiller, stood outside the
Churches, and the effect of their writings and of the whole literary
movement of the time made for the freest treatment of human experience.

One German thinker shook the world--the philosopher Kant. His Critic of
Pure Reason demonstrated that when we attempt to prove by the fight of
the intellect the existence of

[176] God and the immortality of the Soul, we fall helplessly into
contradictions. His destructive criticism of the argument from design
and all natural theology was more complete than that of Hume; and his
philosophy, different though his system was, issued in the same
practical result as that of Locke, to confine knowledge to experience.
It is true that afterwards, in the interest of ethics, he tried to
smuggle in by a back-door the Deity whom he had turned out by the front
gate, but the attempt was not a success. His philosophy--while it led to
new speculative systems in which the name of God was used to mean
something very different from the Deistic conception--was a significant
step further in the deliverance of reason from the yoke of authority.

[1] For the sake of simplicity I use "deist" in this sense throughout,
though "theist" is now the usual term.

[2] Spinoza's Theological Political Treatise, which deals with the
interpretation of Scripture, was translated into English in 1689.

[3] See Benn, Rationalism in the Nineteenth Century, vol. i, p. 138
seq., for a good exposure of the fallacies and sophistries of Butler.

CHAPTER VII

THE PROGRESS OF RATIONALISM

(NINETEENTH CENTURY)

MOD