But all this is purely an hypothesis, or a kind of belief in reason, "der Glaube an die Vernunft!" Hegel himself in conclusion was forced to admit that philosophy must closely observe the method of nature. (See Encycl. III, 22.) The editor of Hegel's Philosophy of History (Gans, page XV) says, "Hegel did not wish to personate the deity that creates or evolves history, but to be a man who contemplates created rational history"; and Hegel himself says (page 13), "we must take history as it is; we have to proceed according to an historical, empirical method. ... Only from the study of history itself are we allowed to infer that historical events are really rational events." And in Hegel's "Naturphilosophie," (page 24,) and elsewhere there are to be found perfectly analogous passages.
It cannot be denied, that the author of this work on Hegel's philosophy of religion has made a deep study of all the vast details of the Hegelian system; but his one-sided theological criticism exclusively aims at representing Hegel himself as a theologian. This American pseudo-Hegelianism may probably have had the effect of stimulating American thinkers, but in other respects it has only retained the phantom and empty shadow of Hegelianism, playing fast and loose with the old system under the captious name of the "Hegelian method," and making a free use of its obscure, obsolete phraseology. The cry "back to Kant" by English Neo-Kantianism, is declared to mean a speedy return to Hegel's method, and to be only the first step of the protest "against temporary, materialistic, and psychological thought."
The last chapter, in the form of an appendix, is devoted to the discussion of "Christian Unity." The author deplores the current abstract conceptions of the church, and regards them as the main obstacle to its visible organic unity. The Hegelian ideas on religion and the state are believed to suggest a more concrete, historical view, and to destroy the abstract conception.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF NECESSITY; OR, LAW IN MIND AS IN MATTER. By _Charles Bray_. Third edition, revised and abridged. London and New York: Longmans, Green, & Co.
This work was originally published in 1841, and comprised an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Philosophy of Necessity, or the Law of Consequences, first, in its relation to Mental Science, secondly, in its relation to Ethics, and thirdly, an application of its principles to the social questions of the day. The third part has been omitted from the present edition, as being out of date, but many of its statistics and observations are given as an Appendix. In a prefatory note it is stated as a reason for preserving in an accessible form the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Bray, that he "worked out for himself a theory as to the purpose of existence that satisfied his own mind, and became to him a cheerful philosophy which intensified his enjoyment of all things good and pleasant, helped him to bear the troubles of life, and to meet the end in a spirit as bright as it was resigned"—a statement which those who knew him personally will heartily endorse.