It is therefore worth
while to examine the matter afresh. With respect to the Rationalists,
they give out Rationalism as a very different matter from Naturalism.
Roehr, the author of the _Letters on Rationalism_, chooses to understand
by Naturalism only Materialism; and Wegscheider, only Pantheism. In this
way those persons who have been usually reckoned the heads of the
Naturalists; namely, Herbert, Tindal, and others; will be entirely
separated from them, for they were far removed from Pantheism or
Materialism. Bretschneider, who has set on foot the best inquiry on this
point, says that the word Rationalism has been confused with the word
Naturalism since the appearance of the Kantian philosophy, and that it
was introduced into theology by Reinhard and Gabler. An accurate
examination respecting these words gives the following results: The word
Naturalism arose first in the sixteenth century, and was spread in the
seventeenth. It was understood to include those who allowed no other
knowledge of religion except the natural, which man could shape out of
his own strength, and consequently excluded all supernatural revelation.
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