A Short History of Freethought Ancient and Modern, Volume 2 of 2 by J. M. Robertson

full power of the Prussian State in particular. The pious Frederick William IV, already furious against Swiss Radicalism in 1847, was moved by the revolutionary outbreaks of 1848 to a fierce repression of everything liberal in theological teaching. "This dismal period of Prussian history was the bloom-period of the Hengsterbergan theology" [1786]--the school of rabid orthodoxy. In 1854, Eduard Zeller, bringing out in book form his work on the Acts of the Apostles (originally produced in the Tübingen Theological Journal, 1848-51), writes that "The exertions of our ecclesiastics, assisted by political reaction, have been so effectual that the majority of our theologians not only look with suspicion or indifference on this or that scientific opinion, but regard scientific knowledge in general with the same feelings"; and he leaves it an open question "whether time will bring a change, or whether German Protestantism will stagnate in the Byzantine conditions towards which it is now hastening with all sail on." [1787] For his own part, Zeller abandoned the field of theology for that of philosophy, producing a history of Greek philosophy, and one of German philosophy since Leibnitz.