In the particular case of philosophy, the distinction in tonality lies on the surface. Modern philosophy is tinged with subjectivism, as against the objective attitude of the ancients. The same change is to be seen in religion. In the early history of the Christian Church, the theological interest centred in discussions on the nature of God, the meaning of the Incarnation, and apocalyptic forecasts of the ultimate fate of the world. At the Reformation, the Church was torn asunder by dissension as to the individual experiences of believers in respect to justification. The individual subject of experience had been substituted for the total drama of all reality. Luther asked, ‘How am I justified?’; modern philosophers have asked, ‘How do I have knowledge?’ The emphasis lies upon the subject of experience. This change of standpoint is the work of Christianity in its pastoral aspect of shepherding the company of believers. For century after century it insisted upon the infinite worth of the individual human soul. Accordingly, to the instinctive egotism of physical desires, it has superadded an instinctive feeling of justification for an egotism of intellectual outlook. Every human being is the natural guardian of his own importance. Without a doubt, this modern direction of attention emphasises truths of the highest value. For example, in the field of practical life, it has abolished slavery, and has impressed upon the popular imagination the primary rights of mankind. Descartes, in his _Discourse on Method_, and in his _Meditations_, discloses with great clearness the general conceptions which have since influenced modern philosophy. There is a subject receiving experience: in the _Discourse_ this subject is always mentioned in the first person, that is to say, as being Descartes himself. Descartes starts with himself as being a mentality, which in virtue of its consciousness of its own inherent presentations of sense and of thought, is thereby conscious of its own existence as a unit entity. The subsequent history of philosophy revolves round the Cartesian formulation of the primary datum. The ancient world takes its stand upon the drama of the Universe, the modern world upon the inward drama of the Soul. Descartes, in his _Meditations_, expressly grounds the existence of this inward drama upon the possibility of error. There may be no correspondence with objective fact, and thus there must be a soul with activities whose reality is purely derivative from itself. For example, here is a quotation[12] from _Meditation II_: “But it will be said that these presentations are false, and that I am dreaming. Let it be so. At all events it is certain that I seem to see light, hear a noise, and feel heat; this cannot be false, and this is what in me is properly called perceiving (sentire), which is nothing else than thinking. From this I begin to know what I am with somewhat greater clearness and distinctness than heretofore.” Again