Author Description

These lectures may be considered as the last organization of the author's views. They may also be said to mark a new development in his mind. The Baron von Hugel in his Introduction describes this change as a movement away from the "reality, helpfulness, indeed necessity of at least some tradition." That is to say, Troeltsch was becoming more individualistic and less willing to "recognize church and sacraments as legitimate continuations or developments of our Lord's mind." The three lectures constituting this volume do not constitute exactly a unity, and can best be regarded as more or less converging approaches to a common position. History, he holds, cannot be regarded as a process in which a universal and everywhere similar principle is confined and obscured. It is rather an imperishable and incomparable confusion of the always-new, unique, and hence individual tendencies. -- From JSTOR http://www.jstor.org (Dec.3 10, 2012).