Page:The Limits of Evolution (1904).djvu/216

Rh essentials, however, he affiliates with Stuart Mill, while he derides Carey; whereby he fell into many an acrimonious dispute with Dühring, for the vitriol of whose sarcasm, too, he had but little relish.

On the religious question, Lange aims at a purely ethical position: one religion is to him as good as another, provided it does the work of consecrating the ideal and giving it practical influence with men. As for “rationalising” religion, let it be done, if it must be done in the interest of culture and taste, but beware of dreaming that in this way you are getting at truth! The Christian religion, for instance, we may retain in spirit, but in letter, no. Its entire ecclesiastical Symbol, in fact, whether cultus or creed, may freely stand as long as it can, provided it be understood to mean nothing but a mode, strictly symbolic, of enshrining the ideal as such.

It is impossible not to recognise the higher tone, both intellectual and moral, of Lange's general view as contrasted with that of either Hartmann or Dühring. The substitution of fortitude for despair on the one hand, and for mere enjoyment on the other, betokens a sounder moral feeling, while the standpoint of critical agnosticism is at least in so far more intellectual as it gives clear vision of the difficulties that must be radically removed before any doctrinal procedure can be validly begun. The