An Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant
Kant · en
In those aspects of our subject with which we have thus far dealt,
leadership has been largely with the Germans. Effort was indeed made in
the chapter on the sciences to illustrate the progress of thought by
reference to British writers. In this department the original and
creative contribution of British authors was great. There were, however,
also in the earlier portion of the nineteenth century movements of
religious thought in Great Britain and America related to some of those
which we have previously considered. Moreover, one of the most
influential movements of English religious thought, the so-called Oxford
Movement, with the Anglo-Catholic revival which it introduced, was of a
reactionary tendency. It has seemed, therefore, feasible to append to
this chapter that which we must briefly say concerning the general
movement of reaction which marked the century. This reactionary movement
has indeed everywhere run parallel to the one which we have endeavoured
to record. It has often with vigour run counter to our movement. It has
revealed the working of earnest and sometimes anxious minds in
directions opposed to those which we have been studying. No one can fail
to be aware that there has been a great Catholic revival in the
nineteenth century. That revival has had place in the Roman Catholic
countries of the Continent as well. It was in order to include the
privilege of reference to these aspects of our subject that this chapter
was given a double title. Yet in no country has the nineteenth century
so favourably altered the position of the Roman Catholic Church as in
England. In no country has a Church which has been esteemed to be
Protestant been so much influenced by Catholic ideas. This again is a
reason for including our reference to the reaction here.
According to Pfleiderer, a new movement in philosophy may be said to
have begun in Great Britain in the year 1825, with the publication of
Coleridge's _Aids to Reflection_. In Coleridge's _Confessions of an
Enquiring Spirit_, published six years after his death in 1834, we have
a suggestion of the biblical-critical movement which was beginning to
shape itself in Germany. In the same years we have evidence in the works
of Erskine and the early writings of Campbell, that in Scotland
theologians were thinking on Schleiermacher's lines. In those same years
books of more or less marked rationalistic tendency were put forth by
the Oriel School. Finally, with Pusey's _Assize Sermon_, in 1833, Newman
felt that the movement later to be called Tractarian had begun. We shall
not be wrong, therefore, in saying that the decade following 1825 saw
the beginnings in Britain of more formal reflexion upon all the aspects
of the theme with which we are concerned.