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126 tive minds then began to give up dogma, and to withdraw into a personal piety. The second period was one of pietism, with a diminishing definiteness of Christian doctrines. But pietism, unsustained by the positive objects of faith, could have no duration in itself. It is like the seed which, having no root, withers away. It soon passed into the third period, which was one of Rationalism. Pietism hid its eyes from doctrines which it was tempted to doubt; but Rationalism looked them steadily in the face, and searched beyond them into the reasons, evidences, and authorities on which they rested. The search was soon over. It terminated in a book, and the book rested upon human history. Book after book of the Holy Scriptures was tried by Rationalistic criticism, and rejected until the whole Bible was banished to the realm of myths, and the Lutheran Reformation was ruined at its base. The Rationalists of to-day in Germany are the legitimate sons of the Lutherans of three hundred years ago.

17. What has happened in religion has happened also in philosophy. Three hundred years ago the intellectual system of the world was represented by the philosophy of the Christian schools. Philosophy was the intellectual prelude or avenue to the scholastic theology, and beyond all doubt this philosophy is the most solid and subtil system which the human in-