Two further facts, however, may receive preliminary notice. The
indifference and hostility to the Church which have been cited among the
prominent characteristics of modern philosophy, do not necessarily mean
enmity to the Christian religion, much less to religion in general. In
part, it is merely a change in the object of religious feeling, which
blazes up especially strong and enthusiastic in the philosophy of the
sixteenth century, as it transfers its worship from a transcendent deity to
a universe indued with a soul; in part, the opposition is directed against
the mediaeval, ecclesiastical form of Christianity, with its monastic
abandonment of the world. It was often nothing but a very deep and strong
religious feeling that led thinkers into the conflict with the hierarchy.
Since the elements of permanent worth in the tendencies, doctrines, and
institutions of the Middle Ages are thus culled out from that which is
corrupt and effete, and preserved by incorporation into the new view of the
world and the new science, and as fruitful elements from antiquity enter
with them, the progress of philosophy shows a continuous enrichment in
its ideas, intuitions, and spirit. The old is not simply discarded and
destroyed, but purified, transformed, and assimilated. The same fact
forces itself into notice if we consider the relations of nationality and
philosophy in the three great eras. The Greek philosophy was entirely
national in its origin and its public, it was rooted in the character of
the people and addressed itself to fellow-countrymen; not until toward its
decline, and not until influenced by Christianity, were its cosmopolitan
inclinations aroused. The Middle Ages were indifferent to national
distinctions, as to everything earthly, and naught was of value in
comparison with man's transcendent destiny. Mediaeval philosophy is in its
aims un-national, cosmopolitan, catholic; it uses the Latin of the schools,
it seeks adherents in every land, it finds everywhere productive
spirits whose labors in its service remain unaffected by their national