Such a way of peace and truth from the side of religion and its scientific treatment is entered upon, when religion sets itself right, not only with all real, but also with all _conceivable_, _possible_ results of the other sciences, not only of the exact, but also of the philosophic sciences. If it finds, in such an investigation, that such conceivable results are reconcilable with the theistic view of the world which is the basis of religion, it has already shown its relationship to the freedom of investigation. But if it finds anywhere a possible result which is in conflict with its theistic view of the world, it is obliged to examine the mutual grounds of dissent, as to the degree of their truth and their power of demonstration; and in case its own position is the stronger, better founded, and more convincing, to prove this fact. If it does this, it again acts according to the principle of free investigation--with the single difference that in such a case it not only makes this allowance to the opponent, but also uses this principle for itself in its own realm and especially in the border land between itself and its opponent; but at the same time it shows in this case (what, indeed, so many are inclined to deny), that religion also has its science, and that theology itself is this science, and has the same rights as the sciences which are built up in the realm of material things or of abstract reasoning. We therefore assume hypothetically, that the origin {276} of self-consciousness and of moral self-determination is fully explained by consciousness; the origin of consciousness and sensation by that which has no sensation; the origin of the living and organic by the lifeless and inorganic; and that atomism also is scientifically established and proven: how, then, would such a theory of the world and theism stand in respect to each other? By this assumption, we think we should simply stand again at the point, the basis of which we had to discuss in Part I, Book II, Chap. II, Sec. 1, when treating of teleology. We should always see something new, something harmoniously arranged: a process of objects of value, continually rising higher and higher, coming forth out of one another in direct causal connection; and should have a choice of one of two ways of explaining this process. We should either have to be satisfied with this final causal connection, and perceive in this process itself its highest and last cause, in doing which we should be obliged again to deny order and plan in this process, to reject the category of lower and higher and the acknowledgment of a striving towards an end in these developments, and after having climbed to that Faust-height of investigation and knowledge, to throw ourselves in spiritual suicide back into the night and barbarism of chaos, or of a rigid mechanism to which all development, all life, all spiritual and ethical tasks, are but appearance; or we should have to treat the idea