natural scientist who puts the third question, for instance, shows his
unsullied love of truth by the simple fact that he tacitly passes over
the second. And with regard to the subject of the fourth
chapter--marriage, republicanism, and capital punishment--Strauss
himself seems to have been aware that they could only have been
muddled and obscured by being associated with the Darwinian theory
expounded in the third chapter; for he carefully avoids all reference
to this theory when discussing them. But the question, "Are we still
Christians?" destroys the freedom of the philosophical standpoint at
one stroke, by lending it an unpleasant theological colouring.
Moreover, in this matter, he quite forgot that the majority of men
to-day are not Christians at all, but Buddhists. Why should one,
without further ceremony, immediately think of Christianity at the
sound of the words "old faith"? Is this a sign that Strauss has never
ceased to be a Christian theologian, and that he has therefore never
learned to be a philosopher? For we find still greater cause for
surprise in the fact that he quite fails to distinguish between belief
and knowledge, and continually mentions his "new belief" and the still
newer science in one breath. Or is "new belief" merely an ironical
concession to ordinary parlance? This almost seems to be the case; for
here and there he actually allows "new belief" and "newer science" to
be interchangeable terms, as for instance on page II, where he asks on
which side, whether on that of the ancient orthodoxy or of modern
science, "exist more of the obscurities and insufficiencies
unavoidable in human speculation."

Moreover, according to the scheme laid down in the Introduction, his
desire is to disclose those proofs upon which the modern view of life
is based; but he derives all these proofs from science, and in this
respect assumes far more the attitude of a scientist than of a