ocean, the courses of the stars, and pass themselves, the crowning wonder, by1.' If we compare such a passage with the famous Greek chorus in which the wonder of man's nature is described, wholly in terms of his external works, his stemming of the tides, his taming of the horse, his inventions, his contrivances, his arts, it may help us to realize the change which had passed over men's thoughts. But Augustine is no mere rhetorician; and elsewhere he speaks with more philosophical accuracy: 'Go not abroad, retire into thyself, for truth dwells in the inner man.' 'The mind knows best what is nearest to it, and nothing is nearer to the mind than itself 3.' 'We exist, and know that we exist, and love the existence and the knowledge; and on these three points no specious falsehood can deceive us... for without any misleading fallacies or fancies of the imagination, I am absolutely certain that I exist, and that I know and desire my own existence 4.' 'In knowing itself, the mind knows its own substantial existence (substantiam suam novit), and in its certainty of itself, it is certain of its own substantiality (de substantia sua) 5.'

Our present purpose is not critical but historical, and we need not, therefore, pause upon these statements except to point out the distinct development of self-analysis which they imply, and their natural

tendency to bear further fruit, in the congenial soil of those countless kindred minds which were to throng the cloister for the next thousand years, and issue at length in German mysticism and Luther.

The French mystics of the twelfth century and their followers, in reaction from the somewhat thin rationalism of their day, developed an emotional rather than an intellectual type of mysticismwhich, with all its fervour and beauty, was not widely influential on the progress of thought. But with the German mystics, Eckhart, Tauler, Suso, the case was different. To begin with, the time was more fully ripe for their effective appearance. And further, they sprang from the great preaching order, and laboured, under the exigencies of the pulpit, to bring their meaning home to the mass of men; while the fact, that both preachers and hearers were of the subjective Teutonic race, gave that intellectual cast to their teaching which enabled it to influence all subsequent thought. We are only concerned here with their contribution to the development of personality; which consisted in emphasizing the intimacy and immediacy of the

union between the soul and God. This was no more than had been taught in the earlier ages of Christianity, or than was justified in the philosophy of Albert the Great and St. Thomas Aquinas. But practically the tendency of the mediaeval church, with its over-use of sacerdotal and saintly Hence the significance of

mediation, had been to exaggerate the distance between God and man. the mystical movement. But mysticism has always had its attendant danger-the danger of seeking union with God by obliteration of human limitations and human attributes on the one hand, and on the other of underestimating the human sense of guilt, that awful guardian of our personal identity. Hence, though it begins by deepening our sense of individuality, it often ends by drifting, both morally and intellectually, towards a Pantheism in which all individuality is lost. From this danger, with all their merits, the German mystics were not wholly free. And consequently Luther, who was profoundly influenced by them, without falling into their error, became the most effectual exponent of their central thought.

In saying this we are not concerned with his theology in general, but with the central thought which lay at the root of it all; a thought which he expressed in a more intelligible and, perhaps, on the whole a more guarded way than Eckhart, and for which he consequently secured a popularity such as Eckhart could never have attained. That thought was the natural affinity of the human soul, through all its sin, for God; and of God for the human soul; and the consequent possibility of an immediate relation between the two. He turned, as Dorner puts it, from the metaphysical

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to the moral attributes of God and man, culminating as they do in love; and proclaimed that here was the only ground for an intimate and in a measure intelligible union of the two. For it is the nature of a God whose essence is love to communicate Himself, and the nature of a man whose essence is the desire for love to be receptive of that communication (capax deitatis). The famous phrase 'justification by faith' is an attempt to express this thought. 'Faith,' he says in one place, 'is, if I may use the expression, creative of divinity; not, of course, in the substance of God, but in ourselves 1.' 'Faith has, strictly speaking, no object but Christ and it is this faith which lays hold of Christ and is clothed with Him (ornatur) which justifies 2.' 'Christ lives in me, He is my formal cause (is est mea forma) clothing my faith.' 'I am wont, in order to understand this better, to picture myself as having no quality in my heart that can be called faith or love, but in place of this I put Christ Himself, and say, "This is my righteousness."" This intimacy and immediacy of possible union between the soul and God was, of course, no theological novelty; but it had long vanished from the popular religion.

...

Luther re-emphasized it, with a vehemence to which the circumstances of the age contributed yet further emphasis; and, above all, he proclaimed it the basis of spiritual independence; the soul, which is the slave of God, being thereby free from all other slavery, to religious or philosophic authority, and external means of grace. The freedom of the human spirit through union with God became thus a familiar thought, a recognized principle, a controversial commonplace, in the mouths of many who had no inner experience of its truth. But, however paradoxically stated, abused, exaggerated, misapplied, its publication made an epoch in the world. It had previously been an esoteric doctrine. Luther proclaimed it from the housetop; and in so doing dignified and deepened the whole sense of personality in man.

So far, then, the development of the sense of personality was due to religious influence, monastic meditation continuing what the age of the great councils had begun. Man had viewed himself in the light of the Incarnation and all that the Incarnation implied; and as a consequence had come to have deeper conceptions of his own nature and its capacities; his unity, his indestructible identity, his inherent dignity, his wonderful possibilities and consequent worth. But the time came when the dogmatic basis upon which all this rested was cast into the crucible of criticism; for the question which in the middle ages had been seldom asked, and if asked suppressed, forced itself at last