Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/68

 does philosophy go on to assume the reality of the immaterial in general, of a Thought and Spirit free from what is material, and still more the reality of God, than it is at once taken to task. The object with which philosophy occupies itself is not, however, of such a character as to be something merely hypothetical, and it is not to be regarded as such. Were it so, philosophy, and especially the Philosophy of Religion, would have in the first place to verify its object for itself. It would have to direct its efforts toward showing it to be necessary that before it exist it prove that it is; it would have before its existence to prove its existence.

These, then, are the preliminary questions which it seems would have to be solved beforehand, as in their solution the very possibility of a Philosophy of Religion would lie. For, if such points of view be valid, then any Philosophy of Religion is absolutely impossible, since in order to prove its possibility these obstacles must in the first place be removed. So it appears at first sight. We nevertheless leave them on one side; and for what reason we do so will, so far as the principal points are concerned, be briefly explained, in order that this difficulty may be met.

The first demand is that reason, the faculty of knowledge, should be examined to begin with, before we advance to knowledge. Knowledge is thus conceived of as if it were to be got at by means of an instrument, with which the truth is to be laid hold of. When looked at more closely, however, the demand that this instrument should first be known is a clumsy one. Criticism of the faculty of knowledge is a position of the Kantian philosophy, and one which is general in the present time, and in the theology of the day. It was believed to be a great discovery, but as so often happens in the world, this belief proved to be self-deception. For it is commonly the case that when people have a notion which they consider to be a very