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 39^ KANT. and by the profession of a common moral conviction : we are all brothers, the children of one father. Ideally there is only one (the universal, invisible) Church, and its founda- tion the pure faith of reason ; but in consequence of a weakness peculiar to human nature the foundation of an actual church required the addition of a statutory historical faith, with claims to a divine origin, from which a multitude of visible churches and the antithesis of orthodox and here- tics have sprung. The history of the Church since the establishment of Christianity represents the conflict be- tween the historical faith and the faith of reason ; its goal is the submission of the former to the latter, as, indeed, we have already begun to perceive that God does not require a special service beyond the practice of virtue. (4) The true service of God consists in a moral disposi- tion and its manifestation : "All that man supposes himself able to do in order to please God, beyond living a good life, z false service." False service is the false subordination of the pure faith of reason to the statutory faith, by which the attainment of the goal of religious development is hindered and the laity are brought into dangerous dependence upon the clergy. Priestcraft, hypocrisy, and fanaticism enter in the train of fetich service. The church-faith is destined little by little to make itself superfluous. It has been necessary as a vehicle, as a means for the introduction and extension of the pure religion of morality, and it still remains useful for a time, until humanity shall become of age ; with man's entrance on the period of youth and man- hood, however, the leading-string of holy traditions, which in its time did good service, becomes unnecessary, nay, finally, a fetter. (This relative appreciation of the positive element in religion, in antithesis to the unthinking rejection of it by the Illumination, resembles the view of Lessing; of. pp. 306-309.) Moreover, since it is a duty to be a co- worker in the transition from the historical to the pure religious faith, the clergy must be free as scientific theolo- gians, as scholars and authors to examine the doctrines of faith and to give expression to dissenting opinions, while, as preachers in the pulpit, speaking under commission, they are bound to the creeds. To decide the articles of belief