Page:Philosophical Review Volume 2.djvu/260

criterion is impossible, our judgment must be suspended. But no decision is essential to our salvation. – The passage from such a conception of natural religion to philosophy is easy. The natural system was supported by theology. It rested on the doctrine of universal notions, innate ideas, which presuppositions made it possible to construct a rational theology, jurisprudence, and theory of the state. We must note the influence of Stoicism on this system. Roman conceptions are revived by Petrarca, Salutato, Aretinus, Aeneas Sylvius, Laurentius Valla, Agricola, and Erasmus. Zwingli's De Providentia betrays the influence of Stoicism. Dilthey examines the different chapters of this work, and compares them with the views of Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and Plinius. A sentence like the following expresses a Stoical thought: Providentia est perpetuum et immutabile rerum universarum regium et administratio. All things spring from one source and this source is God. From this notion of immanence or panentheism Zwingli deduces his determinism. He also sets up a religious universalism. God reveals himself in all religions and in all men. God himself is not subject to law; his nature and ingenium are to him what law is to us.

F. T.