Now, Dr. Laemmer was student successively at Koenigsberg, Leipsic, and Berlin universities, that is to say, at the very universities which at the present time are the chief seats of Protestant thought, both in philosophy and in theology. The leading Protestant schools in Germany are at present three in number, called respectively the neo-Lutheran, the Mediation, and the Tübingen, or historico-critical school; of these[9] the neo-Lutheran, or Lutheran reaction school, has specially existed in Berlin and Leipsic; the so called Mediation theology at Berlin; and the Tübingen school (now almost extinct in its native home, and renewed by Hilgenfeld at Jena) has made its influence felt throughout. Besides, at Koenigsberg, he came, as we shall see, under the influence of one of the ablest defenders of Hegelianism. We should exceed our limits, were we to enter upon a statement of the principles of these schools. Be it enough to say, that the first-named school, by defending the authority and credibility of the Scriptures, aims at re-constructing the historical basis of Christianity, and insists on a return to the Lutheran Confessions of the sixteenth century. Since the political troubles of 1848, an ultra-conservative party, called the Hyper-Lutheran, has arisen within this school, which goes back beyond the Reformation, and insists on the principle of a visible authoritative church, a rigid sacramental theory, and the doctrine of consubstantiation. Stahl, and Leo of Halle, to whom Dr. Laemmer makes an important allusion, to be hereafter quoted, belong to the most advanced of this party. Among the representatives of this school with whom Dr. Laemmer was brought into direct contact, were Hengstenberg and Kahnis.[10]