IV. The resolution of the collision

128 The faculties think they have decided the matter when they remove critique from themselves as soon as it deviates from their conception of the essence of Christianity. The government gives them right and executes what the majority of voices has resolved.

[Notes for 128 here]

129 Marheineke, on the other hand, for whom actually no collision exists, declares himself for freedom of teaching — and should he want to fall behind the ministry which has proclaimed it anew? But how does he defend freedom? "Knowledge," he says, "must lead youth itself also through the sea of errors" — he therefore claims for critique, which counts for him as error, at most as error which, like all error, contains a fraction of truth (p. 83), the freedom which he wishes to be granted to error in general. However, if the critic presents error, is it then "knowledge" which leads youth through the sea of errors? If knowledge undertakes this business, it is without danger, since it, as knowledge, will also recognise error as such, present it as such to youth and, by means of this presentation, render it harmless. But the critic? Is he not so obdurate that he cannot separate himself from the conviction that his teaching is truth? Where then remains the possibility that youth be not merely warned against error, but perfectly secured, especially if the theologians continue, as they have hitherto done, to prove that they are not even capable of correctly grasping critique and its results? Must they not fear that youth will perish in the "sea of errors"?

[Notes for 129 here]

130 "He would certainly be a bad theologian," continues Marheineke, "who would only have to do with bare, bright truths." On the contrary! He would be a bad theologian if, in possession of holy scripture, the gift of divine revelation, in possession of church doctrine, if, guided by his ecclesiastical sense and surrounded by the comforting appearances of ecclesiastical life, he should not be of the conviction that he has to do with nothing but bright truths. Truths fall into the lap of the theologian and he has at most only to count them or to arrange them in paragraphs. With error he may have no fellowship, not dwell under the same roof: does Christ also have fellowship with Belial?

[Notes for 130 here]

131 Marheineke relies on the speculative "proposition that it is 'positive truth itself' which posits and invents its negation, if it is not yet invented." But again: then it is "positive truth itself" which proudly sails on this self-created sea of errors, brings the crew safely through all cliffs and even in the most dangerous moments always keeps the wind right, always keeps the ship afloat and already through the ship's pennant makes known that it carries pure, unadulterated and well-assured goods with it. This science always stands above error.

[Notes for 131 here]

132 With the critic, however, it is quite different: the supposed error he does not declare to be a negation of truth, but the negation of error, truth itself: now especially, since he holds the matter for decided, he would vigorously resist if one wanted to "negate" his "error" for the glorification of truth.

[Notes for 132 here]

133 Just as little would he accept the concession that it is necessary for the historical education of youth to initiate them into the errors of the time (p. 84). He will not want to see the truth which he has discovered and secured by proofs reduced to an object of mere curiosity or to a bogeyman which is to frighten youth and perhaps deter them from thoughts which are perhaps still "worse". He himself is not in a position to present truth to youth as a historical proof of what adventurous, foolish or evil thoughts the human understanding can arrive at; he will rather, since he stands in struggle with a thousand-year-old stupefaction, present it with a firmness, confidence in itself and with an indignation against the groundless and self-contradictory essence of theology, such as has mostly remained foreign to the theological chair. Can he now, according to Marheineke's own presuppositions, be left on the chair?

[Notes for 133 here]

134 When proud "speculative truth" posits its negation, it does so only out of grace, to grant "error" an ephemeral existence, but still more in the conviction that its omnipotence and glory will become manifest when it lets justice be done to error and sublates it with a brilliant turn.

[Notes for 134 here]

135 "Speculative truth, which posits its negation", is the conjuror who, to the terror of nervous spectators, stabs himself, shoots himself, has his head cut off, tears out a leg and in an instant! stands again as a whole fellow, fresh and healthy before the frightened public.

[Notes for 135 here]

136 If, on the other hand, the matter becomes more serious and "speculative truth" does not need first to posit error, but finds it in a given principle, it will not be so easy for it to sublate it. Its pride will expose itself, its grace will help it nothing, its forbearance will not last long. Its relation to error will become a purely theological one.

[Notes for 136 here]

137 What truth produces can only be truth, and if the product does not really appear as truth, this rests only in an appearance which is sublated by further development. Real knowledge does not have the task of "shelling out" from error the fraction of truth which it still has in itself, but of dissolving the false appearance which still belongs to a particular phenomenon of truth and of bringing truth to appearance as truth. On this standpoint of real knowledge there can no longer be talk of grace, "forbearance", tolerance, "forgiveness", mercy; truth does not want to be pardoned, spared, tolerated, but to be recognised in its right, examined and known.

[Notes for 137 here]

138 Forbearance, tolerance and forgiveness is only a subjective and sentimental relation to a matter which wants to count objectively, to exist through itself, through its inner worth and to be recognised for its own sake.

[Notes for 138 here]

139 Because this subjective relation to "error" is inwardly and in itself a false one, it cannot carry itself out completely in its sentimentality. In the end (p. 86) I am only an "erring brother", whom one must and can lift up and set upright, without running the risk that anyone will regard this forbearance as "approval of his errors"; an erring brother, whom one best places in another faculty, thus sends over the border and deports, and whose "errors" yet neither "the nature of positive truth", "which posits its own negation", nor the use which "the historical education of youth" can draw from their knowledge, benefits.

[Notes for 139 here]

140 But does that mean taking back the prodigal son if one sends him out of the house? Is not the emotion of the public violently disturbed thereby, when all are already ready to clap their hands with delight and the father, while embracing the son and before the curtain falls, gives the order to throw the son out of the house?

[Notes for 140 here]

141 The matter in question, however, does not even lend itself to being worked up into a sentimental piece. Critique wants no forbearance, no mercy, no forgiveness, just as little as it is inclined to spare its opponent. As critique it moves close to him, looks him sharply in the eye, so it also wants to be treated seriously — for the matter is very serious. It does not admit that it errs if one does not prove it to it, i.e., if one does not direct critique itself against it. It even wants the matter finally decided to the extent that it thinks it has hit the truth in principle, in method and in the definite results.

[Notes for 141 here]

142 It is a tragedy which history now stages. Who will fall? He who will not recognise! If, however, it is proper to tragedy that it awakens pity for the one who perishes, we can predict it as certain that this pity will fall not to the opponents of freedom and self-consciousness, but only to mankind in general, which has suffered for millennia under the pressure of its self-deception.

[Notes for 142 here]

143 If Marheineke thought that youth at the universities could stand a good knock, and even found it good if they received a few knocks so that they would know in future, when they have grown older, to beware of dangers, Herr Gruppe is on the contrary of the opinion that the constitution of studying youth is still much too tender to expose them to such a rough treatment.

[Notes for 143 here]

144 "Small is the judgment of this youth, but great the receptivity (p. 8): therefore it cannot be indifferent what one offers them, and the state would act irresponsibly if it wanted to expose them to errors and dangers from which they perhaps only return late." Those who are one day to form the core of the nation" — one would think: must be well hardened; no! — "may not in the decisive period of development" — one would think: be restricted in the freedom of development; no! — may not be left entirely to their fate, to themselves and their youthful helplessness. (p. 9.)

[Notes for 144 here]

145 That is the reasoning of a bad conscience. What? I should be convinced that the principles, demonstrations and results of critique are error, and only for the sake of "helpless" youth demand that critique, or at least this particular critique, be driven from the universities? If for the sake of helpless youth error can be driven from the universities, then it must first — is it not so? — already be established that this expulsion is in general a right? Now, why does Herr Gruppe not say bluntly that I am rightly removed because I presented errors and because the government has a right to drive false teachers from universities?

[Notes for 145 here]

146 Why does he not say it then? For the simple reason that he does not think so far, cannot think so far and may not even think so far, like all who want to become knights against critique, because he, like all these heroes, if he wanted to go further, would arrive at the point where he must ask who is to decide whether a teaching, a system is nothing but error. Who other than science understands science? Who other than critique has to decide about critique? Who has refuted Strauss? The Tübingen faculty? The Zurich town and country folk? The theologians? A Tholuck, a Neander, a Lange? No! critique!

[Notes for 146 here]

147 Not the faculties as corporations, not the police, not the government, not even heaven can refute a system — even if they all agreed in the good will to do so — they cannot intervene at all before it is proved as error, but this proof is always again only furnished by a system, and when it is furnished, an administrative measure is not even needed to defeat the defeated system. Faculties and government cannot and may not even externally remove it from the universities, for on the ground of science both systems, the higher and the lower, still stand facing each other as justified, even if only more or less justified as the more or less completed expression of science, until history pronounces its final judgment.

[Notes for 147 here]

148 The sentimental appeal to the "helplessness" of dear youth therefore helps Herr Gruppe nothing towards the proof that I must be removed from the university. First he would have had to prove that error must be removed from the universities by police, and then he would still have had to furnish the proof that the more recent critique is an error.

[Notes for 148 here]

149 But as it is, he contents himself with the presupposition that my teaching is error and the government is entitled to decide scientific questions by administrative means. Administration may not even, if justice is to be a truth, intervene in juridical investigation, and before justice the possibility for the accused to defend himself must be secured: and into scientific collisions, into the question of true and false theology, into the question of the essence of theology, is the arm of administration to intervene decisively and thereby put an end to the question by arbitrarily taking one party and hurling it from the scene of the dispute?

[Notes for 149 here]

150 The dark power of the matter itself, which is admittedly only obscure for these people, the omnipotence of the collision and an involuntary stirring of conscience forces them to give the lie to their own reasoning again. They do not take back their reasoning: they only make it contradictory through a half recognition of the damned matter. While the faculty at Bonn condemned the freedom of research, it declares the freedom of research necessary, yes wishes it — as a privilege! — to be safeguarded for itself. Herr Gruppe does not want (p. 10) that the conflicting views "be represented in the theological faculty." With that, however, it is not said, he continues p. 11, that the theological faculties are to fall into uniformity and one-sidedness or even into lifelessness. "If theological literature continues its course undisturbed (!), what it brings to light as a result will always exercise its influence on the universities, let it come whence it will." So? Through a theological back door one wants to let slip back in what the faculty has driven out before the eyes of all the world? Splendid morality! Excellent casuistry! The world, which has seen the scandal, is to imagine that the evil spirit is now driven out, and behind one opens a hidden door to the expelled one!

[Notes for 150 here]

151 Does Herr Gruppe, do those in whose interest he appears, not consider what is written? It says: "when the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and findeth none. Then he saith, I will return into my house from whence I came out; and when he is come, he findeth it empty, swept, and garnished. Then goeth he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits more wicked than himself, and they enter in and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first. Even so shall it be also unto this wicked generation."

[Notes for 151 here]

152 Even more terrible will it be for this wicked generation, which does not want to wait until the evil spirit returns, but itself calls him and lets him slip in secretly through a back door.

[Notes for 152 here]

153 And how comfortably one wants to make it with this forbidden enjoyment! How epicureanly one wants to enjoy! The "results" are to be what the theological faculty appropriates. It does not want to work out the results itself, not to ripen the fruit itself, not to plough the ground itself: it only wants to enjoy the forbidden fruit. Indeed, if it does not want to be the seat of science, it cannot gain the results itself: but then let it also see how it will understand them and how they will agree with it.

[Notes for 153 here]

154 Even a state administration which is well advised, thinks Herr Gruppe p. 11, will help here in its time. But how, if now is the time, the last time, or rather the moment when it was time is already past?

[Notes for 154 here]

155 And may the government, according to Herr Gruppe's own presuppositions, help in that way by bringing back into the faculties the evil spirit which it has driven out of them, for assistance? May it do so? May it send back to the faculties the completed work of evil, the completed result of its labour? Administer the poison with premeditation to the helpless, innocent little children?

[Notes for 155 here]

156 And may the government, according to Herr Gruppe's own presuppositions, help in that way by bringing back into the faculties the evil spirit which it has driven out of them, for assistance? May it do so? May it send back to the faculties the completed work of evil, the completed result of its labour? Administer the poison with premeditation to the helpless, innocent little children?

[Notes for 156 here]

157 Another way of solving the collision Herr Gruppe, who knows how to consider everything so well and thoroughly and truly wisely, sees (ibid.) in the expedient that in theological literature an unrestricted discussion of all questions can take place: "here also for me the possibility of a good activity still exists."

[Notes for 157 here]

158 Incomprehensible that a critic, whose activity cannot be paralysed by the most splendid teachers of the theological faculty, who stand so close to him and can administer the antidote to his teaching to the youthful patients day by day, should still have permission to work in a field where refutations are so long in coming and the most important phenomena are usually never noticed by the specialists!

[Notes for 158 here]

159 And here in literature the free researcher speaks not only to youths, whose youthful constitution still has the strength to overcome many a poison, but to the whole people — does Herr Gruppe not think that even more danger is to be feared here? Is everyone in the people in a position to procure a "coat of mail", as a Berliner recently advised his fellow citizens? Is the clothing of many a good man, who cannot procure a coat of mail, not already so worn and threadbare, so thin, that every ray of sunshine penetrates it? And are it not always the helpless "youths" into whose hands godless books can fall? Can, further, a good tree proceed from an evil root?

[Notes for 159 here]

160 The government, which has the right to silence the open and manly speech of the researcher at the university, will also understand how to stifle it in the field of literature, and so it must, according to Herr Gruppe's own presuppositions, stifle it there too.

[Notes for 160 here]

161 On a standpoint where one knows so little what one says, it can also happen that the thought-rich gentlemen once bring forward a couple of phrases which they have heard so often that they can finally bring them forward at the right hour, i.e., very much at the wrong time. So Herr Gruppe also says once, "the various tendencies which characterise our time go at present unresolved alongside and through each other" (p. 35). Well? Is the solution thereby given that one tendency is expelled from the university with a bang? And if the tendencies "still go through each other unresolved," who can resolve the confusion? Who other than science? Who can at all properly unwind the tangled skein and separate the threads? The administration? The faculties, which are themselves drawn into the confusion? No! Always only science, which has already unwound many another skein and will now perform its masterpiece.

[Notes for 161 here]

162 So Herr Gruppe also says once, "the various tendencies which characterise our time go at present unresolved alongside and through each other" (p. 35). Well? Is the solution thereby given that one tendency is expelled from the university with a bang? And if the tendencies "still go through each other unresolved," who can resolve the confusion? Who other than science? Who can at all properly unwind the tangled skein and separate the threads? The administration? The faculties, which are themselves drawn into the confusion? No! Always only science, which has already unwound many another skein and will now perform its masterpiece.

[Notes for 162 here]

163 Or, if Herr Gruppe says (ibid.) "that the Evangelical confession is in a crisis", is the crisis removed when a critic is expelled from the faculty? If the Evangelical confession is in a crisis, the same will not have remained foreign to the theological faculty either, and that truly does not mean to remove a crisis if one cuts off the patient's head! Or does Herr Gruppe still believe that the government needs first secretly to instil the morbid matter into the patient, to let the contagion in through a theological back door, if the crisis has already taken possession of the whole?

[Notes for 163 here]

164 Or, if Herr Gruppe says (ibid.) "that the Evangelical confession is in a crisis", is the crisis removed when a critic is expelled from the faculty? If the Evangelical confession is in a crisis, the same will not have remained foreign to the theological faculty either, and that truly does not mean to remove a crisis if one cuts off the patient's head! Or does Herr Gruppe still believe that the government needs first secretly to instil the morbid matter into the patient, to let the contagion in through a theological back door, if the crisis has already taken possession of the whole?

[Notes for 164 here]

165 So these people know how to solve a collision of which they understand nothing. They are excellent physicians of a time which "is in a crisis"! They are priceless! Happy the party which can count them among its own.

[Notes for 165 here]

166 That we discuss a phenomenon like Gruppe's book, it owes purely and solely to the circumstance, which we heartily acknowledge, that the unclarity, the lack of consistency, the contradictions which a breath overthrows, the ignorance concerning the core of the matter, this phrase-mongering are not merely ornaments which books of this kind owe to their authors alone, but rather belong as privileges to all efforts which are opposed to truth, openness and progress. Only the good and just cause speaks itself out openly and attains a solid result; the false position, on the other hand, which the adversaries of truth and freedom give themselves, also expresses itself in the crooked turns of their reasoning, and must necessarily lead to results at which nothing is to be admired but the naivety with which their contradictory sides quarrel with and mock each other before the eyes of all the world.

[Notes for 166 here]

167 The same circumstance, that its boundless unclarity, its chopped-up nature, the contradictions of its total lack of courage belong not to it alone, but to the standpoint which we recognise in it, also benefits the "theological opinion on the appointment of theologians at the German universities" (Verlag des Berliner Lesekabinets). The author of this writing belongs to that standpoint of knowledge which has fallen out with faith without having come to terms with it and with itself, of knowledge which has not yet really grasped the essence of faith, which betrays its immaturity in its language and does not yet have the strength to grasp a single thought clearly, to see two thoughts in connection and to present two connected sentences. Enough, however: the author has shown us in his opinion how one regards the present vital question in the twilight where faith and knowledge still conduct their boundary disputes.

[Notes for 167 here]

168 All the loose contradictions of this writing — e.g., the contradiction which immediately at the beginning walks towards us, that the author (p. 4) thinks the time has come when even the already spiritless "shell" of ecclesiastical life "is going towards its dissolution", and immediately afterwards (p. 5) calls "the reawakening of a deeper religious sense" a sign of our time, without thinking of bringing both sentences together, without thinking of the question whether in critical times the old, which is going towards its downfall, does not always gather all its forces once more in order to escape its fate if possible — all these contradictions we will not present to the reader: we begin immediately where the author poses the question which, in his view, is the decisive one.

[Notes for 168 here]

169 "That is the question (he says p. 5): may the religious reaction which has set in assert itself at the expense of science?" The solution of the collision. Eh, why not? we would answer, if the question were so simple. Why not? Everything asserts itself as far as its powers reach; but if it has enough power to enrich itself at the expense of another, and can only live at the expense of this other: well then! the matter is decided and your question: "may it?" is at least ridiculous.

[Notes for 169 here]

170 Yet the author immediately poses the question still more precisely: "if it is the pride of our Reformation that it sprang entirely from the depth of the spirit, unclouded by foreign elements, may it then become untrue to this its principle by impairing science in favour of ecclesiastical life?"

[Notes for 170 here]

171 Eh, why not? If it "sprang entirely from the depth of the spirit" and was "in its origin, unclouded by foreign elements": eh, why then not? why should it — let one hear! the Reformation! so these people speak! — why should it not have the right to care for its purity? why should it let itself be impaired by science? Have you then proved that "the Reformation" becomes untrue to its "principle" if it impairs science? Have you spoken a word at all about its principle?

[Notes for 171 here]

172 Is the principle of the Reformation indicated by the tirade: "sprang entirely from the depth of the spirit"? Oh, learn first to speak, think and write before you undertake to give opinions on difficult vital questions!

[Notes for 172 here]

173 "Entirely from the depth of the spirit!" that is too bad, too empty and meaningless for school essays, and with that you want to close the struggle of the new and old time?

[Notes for 173 here]

174 — Catholicism had given to statutory church faith, besides holy scripture, another norm, which was in itself the recognition of the human, of freedom and of the necessity of historical development — tradition. How this recognition of freedom and development, because it was precisely a religious and ecclesiastical one, had to disavow itself and on the contrary become the suppression of freedom and development, does not concern us here — enough, the freedom of development, historical life was nevertheless recognised, was recognised, if only in an ecclesiastical manner, as a creative power for the further formation of doctrine, i.e., religion was not yet completed as such. It was not yet pure limitation and dependence. Protestantism gave it this completion by, in the confession that faith alone saves, subjecting man to a single presupposition, one presupposition, and by the declaration that scripture is the sole norm of doctrine and the source of truth, broke with history, denied history, abolished the possibility and the right of a free historical development and imprisoned the spirit in the prison of the letter.

[Notes for 174 here]

175 Now the question is to be correctly posed: may Protestantism admit that its presupposition be attacked by science? May it tolerate that servitude under that presupposition and dependence on the letter be combated and abolished by the freedom of thought and research? Truly not! if it does not want to give up its glory of being the completion of religious and ecclesiastical life.

[Notes for 175 here]

176 With that, however, the question is not decided; least of all is the decision possible if one, like the author, stops at presupposing the one side, the ecclesiastical principle, as absolutely justified, or lets it depend on whether it wants to admit an impairment of itself, or if one contents oneself with banal phrases with which nothing definite is to be thought.

[Notes for 176 here]

177 Indeed, the principle whose dissolution is in question must also be presented with the question whether it wants to give itself up — this question is the last honour one does to the spiritually dead, it belongs to the formalities of the process — so that the new principle cannot be reproached with having allowed its opponent no means of defence; but it serves only that the old may fill up the measure of its guilt, since it cannot understand the time, cannot grasp the sense and meaning of the question, and the new principle must alone furnish the proof that the old must necessarily dissolve itself and let itself be buried.

[Notes for 177 here]

178 Once — permit us to follow the author step by step, since we have, as said, to do not with him alone, but with the weakness of a whole standpoint — once he really falls into a turn which could have led him to the correct, if he had understood how to hold it fast even for one moment. "Whether theology must dissolve itself or not," he says p. 7, "that can only be decided through itself." Now, then it would have been his duty to seriously present this question to it or, if it did not want to answer, to show it whether and how it must dissolve itself through the development of its own principle; then he would have had to ask and investigate whether Protestantism must dissolve itself, then he would not have needed to leave unanswered in the air the question "whether the religious reaction" — i.e., the completed, the in opposition willed and conscious religiosity — "may impair science," then he would not have needed afterwards, because in fact he had up to then hit and decided nothing, p. 10 to designate the question "whether the church does not have a right to keep a science by which it is threatened in its existence away from the public chair" as that with which he had first come to the right, namely to the sore spot on which the time suffers.

[Notes for 178 here]

179 Eh, thou good and faithful servant, why didst thou not make earnest with the question whether theology must dissolve itself? why didst thou say shortly and badly that "the ecclesiastical interest is only justified against a direction which also in formal respects ceased to be theology"? why didst thou say something whereby no one can think anything definite? Is critique, which dissolves theology through the pure explanation of the letter, in formal respects no longer theology? Does it do anything other than to carry theological works to their conclusion?

[Notes for 179 here]

180 The question was whether theology, when it has reached its essence and become completed theology, still has a right to exist, or whether theology can survive the discovery of its essence and its own completion. The answer we have given in our previous development: when theology has reached its completion, it has become absolutely superfluous, and that direction which still wants to hold itself against completion, thus denies its essence, its consequences, its true meaning, its own presuppositions, deliberately blocks itself against the results of theological development, is no longer worthy to bear the name of theology. It may no longer research, for research would always lead it again to its end, it is therefore a new essence, for which, when it has only first attained to its recognition, the right name will already be found.

[Notes for 180 here]

181 The joy of the author, p. 10, at having found the correct formulation of the question does not last long: he soon enough lets the question drop again and withdraws from the matter very unhappily with a long since worn-out tirade. Yes, he answers at first very boldly: "the church has the right to demand its servants from the state, and if it is endangered or impaired in this right by the fact that an unecclesiastical direction withdraws its servants from it, then it may also step forward against this."

[Notes for 181 here]

182 "But, he continues, immediately — so? really? immediately, before that right of the church is investigated? — the scruple forces itself upon us that the universities are seats of free science." So? Where is the law contained which would give research at the universities unconditionally free? Where is the law which entitled the university teacher to draw and present all consequences even of philosophy? "And if the church should nevertheless have the decision and take science under its wings, then we would rather wish for one Pope than a thousand-headed one, namely the mob." As if one would listen to the wishes of such a gentleman, a gentleman who thinks to decide the matter with his wishes or fears alone! "Thus have, continues the gentleman after this witty expectoration, both sides equally right and wrong" (p. 11.) So? Thus? What sides?

[Notes for 182 here]

183 So? Where is the law contained which would give research at the universities unconditionally free? Where is the law which entitled the university teacher to draw and present all consequences even of philosophy? "And if the church should nevertheless have the decision and take science under its wings, then we would rather wish for one Pope than a thousand-headed one, namely the mob." As if one would listen to the wishes of such a gentleman, a gentleman who thinks to decide the matter with his wishes or fears alone! "Thus have, continues the gentleman after this witty expectoration, both sides equally right and wrong" (p. 11.) So? Thus? What sides? It seems that a "theological opinion" must be written unclearly and unintelligibly. The universities with their freedom and the church with its claims: are these the two which have equally right and wrong? if they are, why then do they both have equally right and wrong? For the unheard-of reason that the voter does not know how to say it. Suppose the theological voter had really investigated the claims of the church, which he has not done, then the matter would still be far from settled, then even if the claims of the church were ever so urgent, it would not even be settled whether they can at all come into collision with the right of the universities.

[Notes for 183 here]

184 He who wants to see the freedom of the universities in collision with the claims of the church must first prove that the universities are free, legally free — a proof which would be very desirable, at least must be very desirable to him who would undertake to present philosophy freed from all religious fetters. I am, however, not only expelled from the association with the theological faculty, but from the university altogether: The ministry asked whether, according to the standpoint which I take towards Christianity according to my writing, according to the determination of the universities, especially of the theological faculties on them, the permission to read could still be granted to me in future. Thus also for the philosophical faculty it is important what standpoint a teacher takes towards Christianity, thus those were somewhat too hasty and all too liberal who thought that the critic who is expelled from the theological faculty still has open access to the philosophical — as if the "helpless" youth did not also hear the philosophical lectures and would here be threatened by the poison which has been removed from the theological faculty for their happiness; thus those alone are right who rather demand that the philosophical faculty also be kept pure. A Christian government cannot, may not and will not admit that an unchristian, unecclesiastical and irreligious philosophy — philosophy is, however, irreligious — thus that philosophy in general be taught in the philosophical faculty.

[Notes for 184 here]

185 It is not true that the universities are "seats of free science". It is now a question not only of the theological faculty, but of the universities in general, not of one corporation, but of the corporation in general. As a corporation and privilege of individual favoured ones, the universities and the chairs of all faculties are theological.

[Notes for 185 here]

186 It is not true that the universities are "seats of free science". It is now a question not only of the theological faculty, but of the universities in general, not of one corporation, but of the corporation in general. As a corporation and privilege of individual favoured ones, the universities and the chairs of all faculties are theological. Theological are all university sciences, because they are dogmatic and determined by presuppositions, and this their theological character, which was always proper to them, only finally reveals itself in our days, because true, free science confronts them. Hegel could still in his lectures on natural law present constitutional monarchy as the form which corresponds to the concept of the state, could thus still deviate from the presuppositions of the government, in whose interest it was to have that state form designated as a very imperfect one — at that time freedom and unfreedom on the universities were not yet separated, both still interpenetrated each other: now, however, the theological, the unfree must alone rule, unfreedom alone dominate, the presupposition alone determine, now, where the crisis has set in, each individual state will prescribe what is to be presented in natural law. Schwarzburg-Sondershausen and Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt will each prescribe a special compendium. The rule of compendia will begin.

[Notes for 186 here]

187 The theological faculty has only therefore made itself heard first, in it the crisis had to come first, because it pre-eminently represents the essence of the universities in general and is only the pure presentation of the theological essence which is proper to all faculties.

[Notes for 187 here]

188 Science has broken with the universities altogether, after it has made the interests — of research — which the universities still restricted in a corporate manner and through privileged presuppositions, into a truth.

[Notes for 188 here]

189 It would be vain to put it under accusation for its attack on the privilege: did the presuppositions which one now holds against it rule alone before the outbreak of the struggle? Did one not rather speak even in the theological faculty of research, of free research, does one not go so far that one even now still carries in one's mouth this catchword of an old condition, after science has made it into a truth, after it has become a lie within the faculty? Science is itself justified by the statements and catchwords of its adversaries, its historical right lies in the condition from which the struggle has spun itself out, and if one holds against it the present opinions, tendencies and presuppositions of the faculties, one appeals to a completely new condition which would first have to prove its right against science.

[Notes for 189 here]

190 Now, when the crisis is decided, the faculties, monopolies, privileges are no longer the same as they were before the outbreak of the struggle, i.e., no longer the inconsequent monopolies, faculties, etc., but new forms: the consequence of the faculty, the absolute monopoly, privilege, the completed grace and arbitrariness — the exclusive corporation, the pure presupposition, which may not even make the attempt to ground itself.

[Notes for 190 here]

191 How then does the author think help is to be given? Through the question: "how one can yet (p. 11), since knowledge and faith have long since parted, since science has long since split into an ecclesiastical and a negative direction, still always regard the theological and philosophical faculties at the same time as ecclesiastical and purely scientific institutes." The interests of the church and of science must rather (p. 12) "as they have inwardly separated, so now also be outwardly separated. 'This important step' is only possible by, on the one hand, leaving the universities their significance of being the seat of free science unimpaired, on the other hand, however, the church receiving its own institutes in which its servants are trained."

[Notes for 191 here]

192 "Still always the conception as if the universities were the seat of free science! In the conduct of the theological faculty there rather reveals itself its entire, theological, unfree essence, and if the primal faculty falls, all other faculties fall with it, in order to transform themselves, just like their model, their ideal, the expression of their true essence, into seminaries and training institutions. They will become and are seminaries, whether they now separate or remain together as sub-divisions of a corporation for as long as it takes until history throws together this remnant of the Middle Ages and leaves it to the church to provide for institutions in which its servants are trained.

[Notes for 192 here]

193 That separation, however, of which the author speaks, makes itself and is already made, when critique and research are expelled from the theological faculty.

[Notes for 193 here]

194 Although he demands the separation, he can in the end not bear it. He seeks to glue the rift, to cover up the boundary lines, as proof that he himself still wants to be a theologian. If he thinks that one could fear "the spectre of Catholicism" with that separation, he replies: "let one trust (p. 14) in the power inherent in Protestantism." Oh, about the power which made that separation of theology from science necessary! About the power, if Protestantism could only get rid of science by fleeing it or thrusting it from itself with force. Protestantism rather completes its ecclesiastical, science-hostile essence when it isolates itself from the world and its interests: the so-called Catholic element it will develop more consequentially than the Catholic Church: it will show what the world has not yet seen to this degree and could not see before it in this completion, what religious servitude is and how fanatical the feeling of dependence, when it really comes to unconditional recognition, can be and must be.

[Notes for 194 here]

195 Further the author consoles (ibid.): "That separation of the ecclesiastical and the scientific, which at first sight appears as a step backwards, is rather the surest sign of the progress that has occurred through time" — indeed the sign that mankind, science, church and theology have progressed; mankind is freed from the torment of "reconciling and mediating" faith and knowledge, religion and reason, science is purified of all religious presuppositions, church and so-called theology become really church and instruction for church service, i.e., the realm of pure, thoughtless presupposition, life in this presupposition and the autology of the same. But is that also a progress for the human spirit in the individuals who devote themselves to the service of this presupposition and have nothing else to do their whole life long, even as teachers, than always to learn and present the same autology?

[Notes for 195 here]

196 A new consolation! "if the modern direction has won the mastery and admittedly carried off the victory, if the church could no longer hold itself against science, then one could think of introducing science immediately! immediately! also into the church" (p. 16, 17). "If the church can no longer hold itself against science!" It confesses that it can no longer hold itself against its natural opponent when it withdraws before him. And "immediately" is science then to be introduced into the church? Through its retreat into its presupposition the church confesses that it wants to know nothing of science, that it does not want science introduced into its midst; the matter is decided with its retreat. Immediately! Immediately could only mean: without struggle and resistance on the part of the church: but only the dead offers no resistance to the penetrating force: does one then want to introduce science into a corpse, into a nothing?

[Notes for 196 here]

197 "Influence of science on the church" is only possible under violent struggles and resistance on the part of the church. These struggles are at an end when the church flees and isolates itself. On the isolated church science can have as little influence as the Christian church on Judaism and paganism. The only possible struggle after the completion of the inner crisis is only the war of conquest, through which freedom gains adherents and confessors, and the only possible influence is that historical one, through which the isolated institute gradually crumbles in the same way as the Roman world empire succumbed to the influences of the Christian faith and in our days, for example, the Porte of Muhammedanism opens itself to the influences of European civilisation.

[Notes for 197 here]

198 As the result of the entertaining dialogue with the theological voter we can therefore communicate to our readers the following solution of the collision.

[Notes for 198 here]

199 The university and the theological faculty in particular confess in fact that their monopoly cannot coexist with the free development of science, they separate themselves from general education and become institutes for limited, purely positive interests: at least so long they remain what they already are, and continue to bring their medieval essence still more to appearance for us, until the state — which, however, can only happen under the presupposition of its rebirth — intervenes and declares that it no longer wants the spirit of the future citizens, who are to serve it in the most important interests, to be degraded and stupefied from the outset in training institutes.

[Notes for 199 here]

200 Until science, after the complete fall of the monopoly, again enters the circle of interests whose free development the state recognises as justified, and until it enjoys the freedom of the press which is indispensably necessary to it if it is to draw all consequences and even only to express what the world has to expect from it: until then it will occupy an exceptional position, since its universality is everywhere threatened by the feudalistic and Christian monopoly and privilege, and it will regard this friction with the practical and limited interests of the declining time as an occasion or rather as a summons to free itself ever more thoroughly from all unjustified presuppositions which were still proper to it from its previous entanglement with the monopoly.

[Notes for 200 here]

201 Through their blockade against science, the church and religiosity have declared that they are what they always were, but what was concealed under another appearance when they were given out as the basis and necessary foundation of the state — a purely private affair. Even then, when they were connected with the state and made it Christian, they were only the proof that the state had not yet developed its general political idea, that it only protected private rights. They were only the highest expression of the fact that the state was a private matter and had to do only with private matters.

[Notes for 201 here]

202 The solution of the collision. When the state finally has the courage and the power to fulfil its general determination and to be free, when it is therefore also in a position to give the particular interests and private affairs their true position — then religion and church will be free, as they have never yet been. As the purest private affair and satisfaction of the purely personal need, they will be left to themselves and each individual, each congregation and church community will be able to care for the salvation of the soul as they wish and as they consider necessary. For the salvation of his soul each will care, so far as it is his personal need, and as pastor of souls accept and pay him who seems to him best to guarantee the satisfaction of his need. Science will finally be left entirely out of the game.

[Notes for 202 here]

203 It is easy to predict this outcome of the process, if we only need to open our eyes to notice how far indifference towards free research has already spread even now, in the moment of the struggle, within the corporations.

[Notes for 203 here]