This must remain an article of faith (ib.

592 sqq.).] Schelling influenced, among others, his contemporary Krause, a less familiar name, who worked out a philosophy of history in which this idea is fundamental.

Krause conceived history, which is the expression of the Absolute, as the development of life; society as an organism; and social growth as a process which can be deduced from abstract biological principles.
[Footnote: Krause divided man's earthly career into three Ages--infancy, growth, and maturity.

The second of these falls into three periods characterised by (1) polytheism, (2) monotheism (Middle Ages), (3) scepticism and liberty, and we are now in the third of these periods.
The third Age will witness the union of humanity in a single social organism, and the universal acceptance of "panentheism" (the doctrine of the unity of all in God), which is the principle of Krause's philosophy and religion.

But though this will be the final stage on the earth, Krause contemplates an ulterior career of humanity in other solar systems.
Krause never attracted attention in England, but he exerted some influence in France and Spain, and especially in Belgium, notwithstanding the grotesque jargon in which he obscured his thoughts.
See Flint, Philosophy of History, pp.