Democracy anfc IReltgton.

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face of a self-glorious capitalism, the temper ofdecline (Untergangsstimmung) such as Spenglerindicates. This German Neo-Calvinism is easilyintelligible as an after effect of the world war andthe disillusionment in which it ended. It rightlyprotests against a cheap pretence of harmony.This doctrine calls to mind the demons as thesinister and relentless masters of the world, whomHegelians as well as Christian Scientists are onlytoo prompt to ignore instead of acknowledgingthem as mighty adversaries.

In contrast to the official reformation Demo-cracy descends from the tradition of Plato , Jesus,St. John, St. Francis, from the Baptists , Mennon-ites and Quakers—with Kant, Goethe and Hegel in the same line of succession. Fundamental tothe democratic movement is a transformation of theidea of God. Professor Carl Schmidt is right whenhe says, " all the conceptions employed in themodern theory of the State are theological con-ceptions that have been secularised." Luther'stranscendent God is the omnipotent director andprovider, and his representative upon earth is themonarch, " by the grace of God," who is not boundby the Law and intervenes at will as God inter-venes by miracle. The equally transcendent God of Calvin is the supreme engineer, working accord-ing to laws, whose work, and in particular theeconomic " machine," runs on of itself withoutinterference. The God of the democrat is theimmanent God of mystical experience, who revealshimself in the individual soul and in the corporatebody and realises himself through man.

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