©emocracs anb Religion.

73

those who strive and work with God , who " praisehim in deeds" (tatig ihn preisende). He, with hisage, believed in the alliance with the ideas whichultimately govern history. The immanence ofGod in man and mankind was the ground onwhich, with " Saint Spinoza," Goethe foundedhis undaunted optimism which is and always willbe the condition of success in private as well as inpublic life.

Through Germany 's classical philosophy, the" Reform of the Reformation " was broadened outfrom the narrow circles of sectarianism to the allhuman sphere, though both Kant and Goethe hadclose contact with these sects through Pietists andMoravians , both being at the same time thoroughBible scholars.

From these sources, the Christian bedrock, theAnglo-American free churches, the FrenchRevolution and the classical philosophy ofGermany —springs the western ideal of whatcould be called Social Democracy, not as a narrowparty slogan but as a philosophical conceptionbroadly accepted by the spirit of the age. Socialdemocracy is not opposed to the liberal democracywhich stands for the rights of the individual, butit accepts and defends these rights by subordina-ting them to the community. Men become freeand equal in a higher sense by co-operatingvoluntarily and joyfully for the ends of the whole :freedom through membership (Gliedfreiheit). Sucha democracy does not consist in a mere countingof votes, but it produces a collective will, the" volonte generale " of Rousseau which cannot