But if such considerations counsel us to be cautious in regard to the negation of religion, they do not justify an adherence to its traditional form. The far-reaching changes of life that we are aware of cannot possibly be explained away or their significance lessened; they must be estimated, and brought into relation with religion. The boundary between the eternal and the temporal, the substance and the outward form in religion, has been made uncertain by these changes; in particular they forbid philosophy to treat the religious problem from the point of view of a dogmatic confession. The antithesis between Catholicism and Protestantism is the offspring of an age that preceded the development of modern culture, with all its deep-reaching revolutions. The main problem of religion at the time when the antithesis made its appearance was differently stated from the way in which we now state it. For then it was a question whether Christianity was to be formed from society or from personality; while to-day Christianity fights for its existence as a whole, and must defend its fundamental truths against a time in which activity is directed into other paths. The present antithesis cannot possibly be regarded as ultimately identical with the former one; and it is for this reason impossible to take up the present conflict concerning religion under the banner of a particular dogmatic confession. Such an ante-dating of the conflict also has the disadvantage that it prevents the great antitheses which are involved to-day both in Catholicism and Protestantism from being clearly displayed. Two different streams have been present in Catholicism from its beginning: to the one, the power of the ecclesiastical system is the main thing; while to the other, on the contrary, the religious disposition is of supreme importance. The influences of modern culture have increased this difference, both directly and indirectly, and, chiefly outside of Germany, there are signs of the beginning of a stronger movement towards a more inward Catholicism. Protestantism carries within it an antithesis of the old ecclesiastical form of religion, which adheres as much as possible to the state of things in the sixteenth century, and a form transformed by the Idealism in modern culture more into the universal, the free, the purely human, but also not infrequently into vagueness and superficial optimism. But so long as the bitterness of sectarian prejudice diverts the attention of men from the chief thing, these antitheses are not clearly expressed and energetically developed. There are serious contradictions involved in these views of religion, and they cannot be developed without giving rise to parties. Philosophy must strive with all its energy to bring it about that these parties shall be formed in relation to the present situation, and not from the point of view of a past age; and that the conflict shall be raised to a higher level, to