Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/258

244 defined above, becomes the bearer of the ego-concept, and all further subjectifying arises in relation to this. The opposition between 'within me' and 'without me' has, then, a double significance, participation in a merely subjectified experience being opposed, on the one hand, to the visual-spatial field and, on the other, to dependence on the outer world. And these relations, like those first distinguished, involve no contradiction. The same world of facts belongs, then, alike to psychology and to natural science, the first dealing with experience in its relation to the body, the second with experience in its dependence on the space-world outside the body. But experience itself is neither physical nor psychical, neither objective nor subjective; for the qualities on which these distinctions rest are not immanent within it. The opposition of ego and non-ego is, as Fichte taught, practical rather than theoretical.

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Catholic theology based itself on tradition. In the 16th century the attempt was therefore made to discover the true doctrines of the church. This necessitated an examination of traditions, which in turn led to historical criticism. At the same time arose the science of hermeneutics, a discipline which formed the starting point of modern mental sciences. It is a fruit of Protestantism. Catholicism tried to weaken the foundation of the new religion by revealing the critical uncertainty of Scripture. On Protestantism, therefore, falls the task of interpretation. Flacius represents the new movement in this connection. The Bible is the norm of faith, he asserts. It has, however, been misunderstood, partly on account of our ignorance of languages, partly on account of the false methods pursued in studying it. As auxiliaries to the new science, Flacius uses rhetoric and the exegetical theories existing since the time of Origen. He offers certain remedia and regulae cognoscendi sacras literas. The Bible is a continuous whole. Every passage must be interpreted with reference to this unity. The tendency of a particular writing is examined, which procedure furnishes a clue to the understanding of its entire substance. From such a study it becomes apparent that the individual parts have a common pur-