The eighteenth century is thoroughly unhistoric. In what is good as in what is bad it cuts itself loose from whatever was or is, and is confident of being able to put in its place something that is more valuable, because more ethical or more in accordance with reason. In this conviction the age feels itself so creative that it has no understanding for creations of original genius. Gothic buildings, early painting, J. S. Bach’s music, and the poetry of earlier ages, are felt by these generations as art which was produced at a time when taste had not yet been purified. Activity which follows rules in accordance with right reason will, they think, introduce a new art which will be superior in every respect to any that has preceded it. Full of this self-confidence, a mediocre musician like Zelter in Berlin works over the scores of Bach’s Cantatas. Full of this self-confidence, honourable poetasters re-write the texts of the wonderful old German chorales and replace the originals in the hymn books with their own wretched productions. That they so naïvely push forward right into the sphere [pg 092] of art the boundaries of the creative faculties with which nature endowed them is a mistake made by these men for which they have often been laughed at. But mockery cannot do them much harm. In those departments of life in which the important matter is the shaping of things according to ideals given by reason—and work done upon such things means for the establishment of civilization very much more than any work spent in the promotion of art—they are as creative as any generation ever has been, and as scarcely any will be in the future. They are frightened by nothing which has to be undertaken in this sphere, and in every department they make the most astonishing advance. They venture also to deal with religion. That religion should be split up into various antagonistic confessional bodies is to them an offence against reasonable reflexion. Only a relative, not any absolute authority, they maintain, can be allowed to the belief which is handed down in historical formulas. Finding expression in so many and such varied forms it can, of course, be nothing but a more or less imperfect embodiment of the ethical religion taught by reason, which must be equally intelligible to all men. The right thing is, therefore, to strive after the religion of reason, and to accept as true only such parts of the various confessions as are in harmony with it.