attributes, maintained that God is by his essence a Being who knows, a Mutazilite dialectian expressed it thus: God is a Being who knows, but by means of a knowledge, which He himself is. In the opinion of the Traditionalists the conception of God was in this way being robbed of all its contents. The Mutazilites hardly got beyond negative determinations,—that God is not like the things of this world,—that he is exalted above Space, Time, Movement, and so on; but they held fast to the doctrine that he is the Creator of the world. Although little could be asserted regarding the Being of God, it was thought he could be known from his works. For the Mutazilites as well as for their opponents, the Creation was an absolute act of God, and the existence of the world an existence in time. They energetically combated the doctrine of the eternity of the world,—a doctrine supported by the Aristotelian philosophy, and which had been widely spread throughout the East. 6. We have already found ‘Speech’ or ‘the Word’, given as one of the eternal attributes of God; and, probably by way of conformity with the Christian doctrine of the Logos, there was taught in particular the eternity of the Koran which had been revealed to the Prophet. This belief in an eternal Koran by the side of Allah, was downright idolatry, according to the Mutazilites; and in opposition thereto the Mutazilite Caliphs proclaimed it as a doctrine accepted by the State,—that the Koran had been created: Whoever denied this doctrine was publicly punished. Now although the Mutazilites in maintaining this dogma were more in harmony with the original Islam than their opponents, yet history has justified the latter, for pious needs proved stronger than logical conclusions. Many of the Mutazilites, in the opinion of their brethren in the faith, were far too ready to make light of the Koran, the Word of God. If it did not agree with their theories, it received ever new interpretations. In actual fact reason had more weight with many than the revealed Book. By comparing not only the three revealed religions together, but these also with Persian and Indian religious teaching and with philosophic speculation, they reached a natural religion, which reconciled opposites. This was built up on the basis of an inborn knowledge, universally necessary,—that there is one God, who, as a wise Creator, has produced the world, and also endowed Man with reason that he may know his Creator and distinguish between Good and Evil. Contrasted with this Natural or Rational Religion, acquaintance with the teaching of revelation is then something adventitious,—an acquired knowledge.