In one direction, Lange does more justice to the religious need than Spencer does. While he sees in religion the metaphorical realization of the needs of the heart, of a "creation of a home of the spirit," he gives to the heart full play to satisfy its need, and to create and arrange for itself a spiritual home entirely according to its need. He especially acknowledges repeatedly the need of the heart for _atonement_, and vigorously defends this need and its satisfaction against Liberal Theologians (Reformtheologen), like Heinrich Lang; he also stands, as we see, in satisfactory contrast to Wilhelm Bleek. Without reserve, he admits into the hymn-book of his religion of the future hymns like that of Gerhard: "O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden" ("O Sacred Head, {198} now wounded"). To be sure, all the concessions he makes to religion sink again to the value of a beautiful illusion, from the fact that for him they are but metaphorical approaches to the cause of all things, which after all still remains inaccessible. But nevertheless, in consequence of that idea of religion, religious life, and especially also religious service, has infinitely more room for rich development in Lange than in Spencer. For, according to the view of the latter, religiousness consists in nothing else but the perception and acknowledgment of this indiscernibleness of the final cause. All other things which may be still connected with religious life and reasoning, are but a misty veil. The acknowledgment of the indiscernibleness of the final cause of all things alone is the quintessence of religion. But such a religiousness, which expressly forbids imagining any quality or any state of the highest being, certainly would be, as Prof. Huxley correctly says in his "Lay Sermons," for the most part of the silent sort.