Continuing from Schlegel's writings, the Christian faith has the living God and His revelation for its object, and is itself that revelation; hence every doctrine taken from this source is something real and positive, while, in science, the absolute is the idol of vain and empty systems, of dead and abstract reason. In the absolute spirit of our age, and in the absolute character of its factions, there is a deep-rooted intellectual pride, which is not so much personal or individual as social, for it refers to the historical destiny of mankind and of this age in particular. Actuated by this pride, a spirit exalted by moral energy, or invested with external power, fancies it can give a real existence to that which can only be the work of God; as from Him alone proceed all those mighty and real regenerations of the world, among which Christianity--a revolution in the high and divine sense of the word--occupies the first place. For the last three hundred years this human pride has been at work; a pride that wishes to originate events, instead of humbly awaiting them and of resting contented with the place assigned to it among those events.... It was indeed but a very small portion of this illuminism of the eighteenth century that was really derived from the truths of Christianity and the pure light of Revelation. The rest was the mere work of man, consequently vain and empty; or at least defective, corrupt in parts, and on the whole destitute of a solid foundation;--therefore devoid of all permanent strength and duration. But when once, after the complete victory of truth, the divine Reformation shall appear, that human Reformation which till now has existed will sink to the ground and disappear from the world. Then, by the universal triumph of Christianity, and the thorough religious regeneration of the age, of the world, and of governments themselves, will dawn the era of a true Christian Illuminism. This period is not perhaps so remote from our own as the natural indolence of the human mind would be disposed to believe, says Schlegel.