Thus, then, passed seven centuries more, making, with the eight already described, fifteen altogether that have elapsed from that great center of the world’s history, when the spiritual sun reached its meridian altitude in this earthly life. These, added to the fifteen which had previously passed from the first shining of the light of revelation, make no less than three millenneums. And to these, again, three centuries more are to be added. Such is the extremely slow course of the divine guidance of the world, as regulated by the inexhaustible patience and long-suffering of God in the education of his human creatures. In this last period, however, the spirit of discord has become still more general, and has broken out in all its violence, gradually attacking and drawing into the dispute every institution of society and every department of life. In the wonderful coincidence of many and great discoveries, simultaneously made in widely-distinct and independent branches of science, the spirit of man read the proclamation of his majority. Conscious of this intellectual ripeness, in the first use of its new powers it assumed toward the faith an attitude of estrangement and controversy, instead of calmly advancing along the assigned path toward perfection. Even at the very commencement of this period, the hostile relation between the new science and the ancient faith is perceptible enough. But it soon showed itself more distinctly, as the rupture became wider and more general, till at last the discord extended to the very faith itself, which was henceforth broken up into bitter and opposing parties. Still later, a newer and deeper animosity divided the faith in general from the whole civil and political life, from which in many places its religious foundation was altogether removed. And now that life was thus deprived of its higher and spiritual significance, the strife became universal and complete. Involving science and life into the discord, it set them also in deadly array against each other--for life thus unspiritualized could no longer reconcile itself to the dreamy ideal of a science which at most was but partially true, while life itself could not satisfy the requisitions of science. And fearful was the outbreak in which this last antagonism of principle openly displayed its animosity. This fourfold schism, then--first, between science and faith; secondly, in the faith itself; thirdly, between life and faith; and lastly, between the new science (which usurped the place of the faith it had discarded) and life itself--this fourfold schism, with its several branches and ramifications, extending to every department of human existence, lies now before us, in the present age, as the still-unsolved problem of life.