Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/168

 turn is taken, in that personal conviction is subjugated to general authority, and in relation to it is silenced. The consolation lies only in the supposition that the manner in which millions have regarded the matter must probably be right, and the possibility remains that, on being looked at once more, it may turn out to be otherwise.

All these aspects of thought may be put into the form of evidences of the truth of religion, and they have had this form given to them by apologists. But this only introduces mere arguing and reflection, a form of reasoning which does not take to do with the content of truth in its essential nature, which only brings forward credibilities or probabilities, and instead of contemplating the truth in its essential nature is only able to conceive of it in connection with other circumstances, occurrences, and conditions. And besides, although Apologetics, with its mere arguings, passes over into the region of thought and the drawing of conclusions, and seeks to bring forward grounds or reasons which are supposed to be different from authority, yet its principal ground is again a mere authority, namely, the divine one that God has revealed to man what he has to represent to himself in the form of an idea. Without this authority apologetics cannot stir for a single moment, and this perpetual mixing up and confusion of thought, or syllogistic reasoning and authority, is essential to the standpoint. But since from this point of view it is inevitable that the arguing process should go on ad infinitum, that supreme divine authority is in turn seen to be one which itself stands in need of proof and rests upon an authority. For we were not present, and did not see God when He gave the revelation. It is always others only who tell us of it, and assure us of the fact, and the very witness of these others, who lived through the history, or who at first learned it from eyewitnesses, is, according to those apologists, to be the means of uniting our conviction with a content which is separated from us as to time and space. Yet even this