“There is no uniform philosophic theory of the world, such as we, at least to a certain extent, used to have,” says _Paulsen_ elsewhere, “the latest ideas are diverging in all directions of the compass.” When one buildeth up, and another pulleth down, what profit have they but the labour? (Ecclus. xxxiv. 28). “We have no metaphysics nowadays,” says _R. Eucken_ in the same strain, “and there are not a few who are proud of it. They only would have the right to be so if our philosophy were in excellent shape, if, even without metaphysics, firm convictions ruled our life and actions, if great aims held us together and lifted us above the smallness of the merely human. The fact is an unlimited discordance, a pitiful insecurity in all matters of principle, a defencelessness against the petty human, and soullessness accompanied by superabounding exterior manifestation of life.” This is the status of modern philosophy and also of liberal, Protestant, theology. Of views of the world, of notions and forms of Christianity, of ideas, essays and contributions to them, there is choice in abundance. Here, materialistic Monism is proclaimed, warranted to solve all riddles. There, spiritualistic Pantheism is retailed in endless varieties. Yonder, Agnosticism is strutting: no longer philosophy, but facts and reality, is its slogan. Then comes the long procession of ethical views of life: “Contemplations of life; theories of human existence surround us and court us in plenty; the coincidence of ample historical learning with active reflection induces manifold combinations, and makes it easy for the individual to draw pictures of this kind according to circumstance and mood; and so we see individual philosophies whirling about promiscuously, winning and losing the favour of the day, and shifting and transmuting themselves in kaleidoscopic change” (_Eucken_). _Hegel_, although he lectured with great assurance on his own system, lamented: “Every philosophy comes forth with the pretension to refute not only the preceding philosophy, but to remedy its defects, to have at last found the right thing.” But past experience shows, that to this philosophy, too, the passage from Holy Writ is applicable: “Behold, the feet that will carry thee away are already at the threshold.” Indeed, often it has come to pass that these philosophers themselves bury their ideas, preparatory to entering another camp. Consider the changes that men like _Kant_, _Fichte_, _Schelling_, _Strauss_, _Nietzsche_, have essayed in the short course of a few decades, and we are justified in assuming that they would again have changed their last ideas had death not interfered.