“When you enter a grove peopled with ancient trees, higher than the ordinary, and whose boughs are so closely interwoven that the sky cannot be seen, the stately shadows of the wood, the privacy of the place, and the awful gloom cannot but strike you, as with the presence of a deity, or when we see some cave at the foot of a mountain penetrating the rocks, not made by human hands, but hollowed out to great depths by nature; it fills the mind with a religious fear; we venerate the fountain-heads of great rivers; the sudden eruption of a vast body of water from the secret places of the earth, obtains an altar: we adore likewise the springs of warm baths, and either the opaque quality or immense depths, hath made some lakes sacred.” All this disappeared in the transitory world of the Christian, only to break forth much later when the thought of mankind had achieved that _independence of the idea_ which could resist the æsthetic impression, so that thought was no longer fettered by the emotional effects of the impression, but could rise to reflective observation. Thus man entered into a new and independent relation to nature whereby the foundation was laid for natural science and technique. With that, however, there entered in for the first time a displacement of the weight of interest; there arose again real-transference which has reached its greatest development in our time. Materialistic interest has everywhere become paramount. Therefore, the realms of the spirit, where earlier the greatest conflicts and developments took place, lie deserted and fallow; the world has not only lost its God as the sentimentalists of the nineteenth century bewail, but also to some extent has lost its soul as well. One, therefore, cannot wonder that the discoveries and doctrines of the Freudian school, with their wholly psychologic views, meet with an almost universal disapproval. Through the change of the centre of interest from the inner to the outer world, the knowledge of nature has increased enormously in comparison with that of earlier times. By this the anthropomorphic conception of the religious dogmas has been definitely thrown open to question; therefore, the present-day religions can only with the greatest difficulty close their eyes to this fact; for not only has the intense interest been diverted from the Christian religion, but criticism and the necessary correction have increased correspondingly. The Christian religion seems to have fulfilled its great biological purpose, in so far as we are able to judge. It has led human thought to independence, and has lost its significance, therefore, to a yet undetermined extent; in any case its dogmatic contents have become related to Mithracism. In consideration of the fact that this religion has rendered, nevertheless, inconceivable service to education, one cannot reject it “eo ipso” to-day. It seems to me that we might