, chap.
i.
[22] _Les Soirees de Saint-Petersbourg_, x^{me} entretien.
[23] The allusion is to the traditional story of the coalheaver whom the
devil sought to convince of the irrationality of belief in the Trinity.
The coalheaver took the cloak that he was wearing and folded it in three
folds. "Here are three folds," he said, "and the cloak though threefold
is yet one." And the devil departed baffled.--J.E.C.F.
[24] Joseph Pohle, "Christlich Katolische Dogmatik," in _Systematische
Christliche Religion_, Berlin, 1909. _Die Kultur der Gegenwart_ series.
[25] "Objections to Unitarian Christianity Considered," 1816, in _The
Complete Works of William Ellery Channing, D.D._, London, 1884.
V
THE RATIONALIST DISSOLUTION
The great master of rationalist phenomenalism, David Hume, begins his
essay "On the Immortality of the Soul" with these decisive words: "It
appears difficult by the mere light of reason to prove the immortality
of the soul. The arguments in favour of it are commonly derived from
metaphysical, moral, or physical considerations. But it is really the
Gospel, and only the Gospel, that has brought to light life and
immortality." Which is equivalent to denying the rationality of the
belief that the soul of each one of us is immortal.
Kant, whose criticism found its point of departure in Hume, attempted to
establish the rationality of this longing for immortality and the belief
that it imports; and this is the real origin, the inward origin, of his
_Critique of Practical Reason_, and of his categorical imperative and of
his God.
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