Genre:

Review

Publications reviewed:

Biedermann 1869

Subjects:

Christianity, Rationalism, Analytical Chemistry, Analogy

    Compares the 'religious life', which is 'independent in itself of the process of thought which analyses its forms', with the work of a 'chemist who analyses water and air into their elements' but 'drinks and breathes them in the same form as the ignorant multitude'. Furthermore, 'as the chemist's power of analysis enables him to discover and eliminate noxious elements, where they exist, in water and air, so the forms of religious intuition are criticized and progressively spiritualized by the action of reason'. (518)