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 but Man, self-consciousness, is the sphere in which it shows itself. The end must, as being a divine end, be universal, inherently and potentially universal; it must contain universality in itself. The end is thus merely human, and as yet naturally the family, which widens out into a nation. A definite nation becomes here the end set before itself by wisdom.

That God should be thus characterised as One seems to us a thought which is familiar, and not striking and important, because we are accustomed to this figurative idea of Him. The idea is formal, too, but of infinite importance, and it is not to be wondered at that the Jewish people put such a high value upon it, for the thought that God is one is the root of subjectivity, of the intellectual world, the way to truth. The essential character of absolute truth is contained in it; still it is not yet truth as truth, for development is a necessary quality of this latter, but it is the beginning of truth and the formal principle of the absolute harmony of the Absolute with itself. The One is pure power, and all that is particular is posited in Him as negative, and not as belonging to Him as such, but as inadequate to express Him, as unworthy of Him. In the religion of Nature we saw the determinateness under the aspect of natural existence, as, for example, light, and the self-consciousness of the Absolute appeared in this manifold manner. In the infinite Power, on the other hand, all this externality is annihilated. There is, therefore, an essence without form or representation which does not exist for the Other in any natural mode, but only for thought, for Spirit. This definition of the One is that formal definition of unity which forms the basis of the conception of God as Spirit, and, so far as self-consciousness is concerned, it is the root of its concrete, true content.

But it is, to begin with, nothing more than the root merely. For the point to be determined is not how many spiritual predicates—as, for example, wisdom,


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 goodness, mercy, are to be ascribed to the One, but what He does and really is. What we are concerned with is, the actual determination and reality. It must, therefore, be determined whether or not the action expresses the mode in which Spirit appears. If the activity is not of the kind which develops the nature of Spirit, then the subject may certainly pass for being Spirit so far as ordinary thought is concerned, but it is not itself true Spirit. The fundamental characteristic of activity here, however, is, to begin with, Power, which does not assume an outward form implying that the reality is its own reality, but rather its attitude to reality is still essentially a negative one.

B.

THE CONCRETE GENERAL IDEA OR POPULAR CONCEPTION.

(a.) The Determination of the Divine Particularisation.

First Determination.—In the divine act of judgment, God is wisdom; God’s self-determination, His differentiation, or, to put it more definitely, His act of Creation, is contained in it. Spirit is simply what mediates self within self, what is active. This activity implies a distinguishing from self, an act of judgment, which, in its original meaning, is separation or division. The world is something posited by Spirit; it is made out of its nothing. The negative element in the world, however, is the affirmative element, the Creator, namely, in whom what is natural exists as the non-existent. The world, therefore, in its nothingness has sprung from the absolute fulness of the power of the Good. It has been created from its own nothingness, which, as being its Other, God is. Wisdom means that an end is present in the world, and determines it. This subjectivity, however, is what comes first, and is accordingly abstract to begin with, and

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 the particularisation of God is not yet posited as being within Himself, but rather His act of judgment or separation means that He posits something, and what is thus posited and gets a definite character exists at first in the form of an immediate Other. The higher conception is certainly that of God’s act of Creation within Himself, by which He is beginning and end in Himself, and thus has the moment of movement, which is here still outside of Him, in Himself, in His inner nature.

When wisdom is not abstract but concrete, and God is thought of as self-determining in such a way that He creates Himself within Himself, and preserves what is created within Himself, so that it is produced and known as permanently contained within Himself as His Son, then God is known as concrete God, truly known as Spirit.

Since, however, wisdom is as yet abstract, the act of separation, what is posited, is something which has Being, the separation or judgment has still the form of immediacy, but it has this only in so far as it is form, for God creates absolutely out of nothing. He alone is Being, what is positive. He is, however, at the same time the positing of His power. The necessity by which God is the positing of His power is the birthplace of all that is created. This necessity is the material out of which God creates; it is God Himself, and He therefore does not create out of anything material, for He is the Self, and not the immediate or material. He is not One as against an Other already existing, but is Himself the Other in the form of determinateness, which, however, because He is only One, exists outside of Him as His negative movement. The positing of Nature necessarily belongs to the notion or conception of spiritual life, of the Self, and is the sinking of intelligence into sleep. Since power is conceived of as absolute negativity, the Essence, i.e., what is identical with itself, is at first in a state of repose, of eternal calm and seclusion. But this very solitude in its


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 own self is merely a moment of Power, and not its totality. Power is in its very nature a negative relation to self, a mediation within self; and since it is negatively related to self, the abolition or annulling of abstract identity is the positing of difference, determinateness, i.e., it is the creation of the world. The element of nothing, out of which the world is created, is the absence of all difference, and it is in connection with this quality that Power, Essence, is first thought of. If, accordingly, it is asked where God got the material, the answer is, just in that simple relation to self. Matter is what is formless, what is identical with itself. This is merely a moment of the Essence, and is thus something different from absolute Power, and is accordingly what we call matter. The creation of the world, therefore, means the negative relation of the Power to itself, in so far as it is to begin with something which is defined as merely identical with self.

The creation by God is something very different from the act of proceeding from God, or from the idea of the world proceeding out of God. All peoples have had theogonies, or, what comes to the same thing, cosmogonies. In these the fundamental category is always procession, not the fact of something being created. It is out of Brahma that the gods proceed, while in the cosmogonies of the Greeks, the highest, the most spiritual gods are those which have finally proceeded from some source, which have been the last so to proceed. This poor category of procession now disappears, for the Good, Absolute Power, is a Subject.

This procession does not express the true character of what is created. What thus proceeds is what exists, what actually is, and in such a way that the Ground or Essence from which it proceeds is thought of as the unessential element which has disappeared in something higher. What proceeds out of God is not thought of as something created, but as something independent, self-subsistent, not as something which has no inherent


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. This, therefore, is the form taken by the Divine self-determination, the mode of particularisation. It cannot blunder, for wisdom is necessary to the very idea of it. It is not, however, any kind of particularisation of God in Himself, otherwise God would be known as Spirit. The particularisation, just because God is One, attaches to the other aspect of existence. This particularisation is, to begin with, the Divine act of characterisation in general, and is thus Creation. This positing of the world is not transitory, but, on the contrary, what proceeds out of God preserves the character of something posited, of the creature, in fact. Thus what is created has upon it the mark of something which has no independence. This is the fundamental characteristic, and one which remains attached to it because God is conceived of as Subject, as infinite Power. Here Power exists only for the One, and thus it follows that what is particular is merely something negative, something posited, as compared with the subject.

Second Determination.—This determination means that God is hypothetically Subject. If He is not, then Creation is a vague popular conception which readily suggests the mechanical and technical methods of production used by man, and this is an idea which we must keep out of our minds. God is the First: His act of creation is an eternal creating, in which He is not a result, but that which originates. When He is conceived of in a higher way, namely, as Spirit, He is the self-creating, and does not proceed out of Himself, being both beginning and result. Here, however, God is not conceived of as Spirit. Human production, technical production, is an external process. The Subject, what is First, becomes active, and connects itself with something other than itself, and thus comes to stand in an external relation to the material which has to be manipulated, which offers resistance and has to be overcome. Both actually exist as objects which have a mutual relation to each


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 other. God, on the other hand, creates absolutely out of nothing, since there is nothing which was before Him.

The mode of production, therefore, in connection with which He is Subject, is intuitive, is infinite activity. In the case of human production, I am consciousness, I have an end, and know what it is, and I have, too, accordingly the material, and know that my relation to it is a relation to an “Other.” Intuitive production, on the contrary, the production of Nature, belongs to the conception of Life. It is an inward act, inner activity, which has no reference to something actually existing. It is life-force, the eternal production of Nature, and Nature, speaking generally, is something posited, something created.

God is in reference to the world the totality of His determinateness, of His negation, and in reference to the totality of immediate Being, He is what is pre-supposed, the subject which remains absolutely first. Here the fundamental characteristic of God is subjectivity, which relates itself to itself, and as inherently existing permanent subjectivity it is what is first.

The derivative character of the Greek gods, who represent the spiritual element, is something which belongs to their finitude. It is this which gives them their conditional character, in accordance with which their own nature is considered as dependent on something previously existing, as is the case with the finite spirit of Nature.

This subjectivity, however, is the absolutely First, the Beginner of things, its conditional character being done away with; but it is only something which begins, and this does not mean that the subjectivity is characterised as result and as concrete Spirit.

If what was created by the absolute Subject were itself, then the difference would in that case be done away with and absorbed in this difference. The first Subject would be the last, something which resulted from itself. But this is a characteristic we have not yet got, and all we


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 can say is that this absolute Subject is something which begins merely—that is first or primary.

The third determination of God in relation to the world.—This is expressed by what we call the attributes of God. These represent His determinate character, i.e., inasmuch as we have seen that there is a particularisation of God, God’s self-determination, and that this self-determination is the creation of the world, it follows that along with this there is posited the fact of a relation on the part of God to the world, or to put it otherwise, the attributes are the determinate element itself, only known in the Notion of God.

The One is something which has got determinate character, which is known as being, as not returning into God, the Other is God’s being made determinate as a determinate quality of God. It is this that we are in the habit of calling by the name of attributes, God’s relations to the world, and to say that we know only this relation of God to the world and do not know God Himself, is to use an unfortunate expression. It is just this which is His own determinate character, and it is this consequently which is represented by His own attributes.

It is only when things are represented in an external way and from the point of view of the senses, that anything can be said to be, and to be for self, in such a way that its relations to other things, its attributes, are distinguished from its existence, for it is just these which constitute its own peculiar nature. The manner in which a man stands related to others is just his nature. The acid is nothing else than the particular character of its relation to the base—that is the nature of the acid itself. If we understand the relation in which an object stands to other things, we understand the nature of the object itself. These distinctions, therefore, are of a very inferior character, since they directly coincide as being the product of an understanding which does not know them, and is not aware what it possesses in these distinctions. This


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 determinateness as something external, immediate, as a determinateness of God Himself, is His absolute power, which is wisdom, the definite moments of which are goodness and righteousness.

Goodness consists in the fact that the world is: Being does not belong to it, as Being is here reduced to the condition of a moment, and is only a Being which has been posited or created. This act of dividing, of differentiation, represents the eternal goodness of God. What is thus distinguished from God has no right to be; it is external to the One, something manifold, and because of this, something limited, finite, whose essential character is not to be, but the goodness of God consists just in the fact that it is. Inasmuch as it is something which has been posited, it also passes away, is only appearance. God only is Being, the truly real; Being which excludes any of its elements, Being outside of God, has no right of existence.

God can be a Creator in the true sense only in so far as He is subjectivity, for as such He is free, and His determinate character, His self-determination, is set free. It is only what is free that can have its determinations standing over against itself as free and can give them freedom. This differentiation, whose totality is represented by the world, this Being, is The Good.

The Being of the world, however, is only the Being of Power, or, to put it otherwise, the positive reality and independence or self-existence of the world is not its own self-existence, but the self-existence of Power. The world accordingly must, in relation to the Power, be thought of as something incomplete in itself. The one side is represented by the manifoldness of the differences, the infinite realm of definite existence, the other side accordingly by the substantiality of the world, though this quality does not attach to the world itself, but is rather the identity of the Essence with itself. The world does not maintain itself independently; on the contrary, its Being-for-self, its real existence, is the


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 Power which maintains itself in the differences, inasmuch as it remains Being-for-self, and thus represents the Being of the world. The world is thus divided within itself; regarded from one side it is dependent, selfless difference, and regarded from the other side it is its own Being.

The manifestation of the nothingness, of the ideality of this finite existence, of the fact that Being is here not true independence—this manifestation in the form of Power, is Righteousness, and in this justice is done to finite things. Goodness and righteousness are not moments of Substance. These characteristics exist in Substance in a state of being, and they also are immediately present in it as not being, as becoming.

Here the One is not thought of as Substance, but as the personal One, as Subject, and here the determination of the end is the determinateness of the Notion itself. The world has to be, and so, too, it has to change, to pass away. Here righteousness is thought of as determination of the Subject in its self-differentiation from these determinations which belong to it, from this world which is its own world.

Creation, preservation, passing away are, in the ordinary conception of them, separated in time, but in the Notion they are essentially moments only of one process, namely, of the process of Power. The identity of Power with itself is thus the Nothing out of which the world has been created, being both the subsistence of the world and the cancelling and absorbing of this subsistence or independent existence. This identity of Power which presents itself in the Being of things, too, is both the Being of things and their Not-Being. In so far as goodness is concerned, the world exists only as having no justification for its existence in itself, as upheld and maintained in a contingent way, and in this fact is, at the same time, contained its negativity, which owes its existence to righteousness.


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 The characteristics indicated are certainly characteristics of the Notion itself, but the subject which possesses them has not its real nature in them. The fundamental characteristics are the One and Power, and the Notion, the inmost nature of the subject, is posited as still existing independently of the attributes. If they really belonged to it, then they would themselves be Totality, for the Notion is the absolute goodness, it shares with itself its own characteristics. In the case of their belonging to the Notion, it would be further implied that they themselves were the whole Notion, and thus it would be for the first time truly real; in which case, however, the Notion would be posited as Idea and the subject as Spirit, in which goodness and righteousness would be totalities.

But although goodness and righteousness contain the element of difference, they are not thought of as being the abiding character of Power. Power, on the contrary, is by its very nature what is without definite character, what is undetermined, i.e., it shows itself essentially powerful as against these very differences; its goodness passes over into righteousness, and vice versd. Each being posited for itself excludes the other, while the very nature of Power consists in this, that it simply does away with or cancels the determinateness.

Righteousness is the moment of negation, i.e., it makes manifest the nothingness of things. Righteousness thus understood is a characteristic, just as origination and passing away are in Siva. It simply expresses the general aspect of the process, the aspect of contingency, the nothingness of which is made plain. It does not express negation as an infinite return into self, which would be the characteristic of Spirit. Negation is here nothing more than righteousness.

(b.) The Form of the World.

The world thus regarded is prosaic; it exists essentially as a collection of things. In the East, and in Greek


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 life particularly, a feeling of delight arises from the friendly and joyous character of the relation in which Man stands to Nature, since Man, in so far as he is related to Nature, is related to the Divine. By taking up this generous attitude he spiritualises what is natural, makes it into something Divine, gives it a soul.

This unity of the Divine and the natural, this identity of the ideal and the real, is an abstract characterisation, and is easily reached. The true identity is that which is found in infinite subjectivity, which is not conceived of as neutralisation, as a kind of mutual blunting of the characteristics of the two elements, but as infinite subjectivity, which determines itself, and sets its determinations free in the form of a world. At this stage these determinations thus set free are, in their character as things, at the same time unsubstantial or dependent, and this is indeed their true nature. They are not gods, but natural objects.

These particular moral Powers, which the higher Greek gods essentially are, possess independence only in form, because their content, owing to its particular character, is unsubstantial. This is a false form; the Being of these unsubstantial things, which are immediate regarded from the present standpoint, is really conceived of as something formal, as something unsubstantial, which comes to have Being not in the shape of absolute divine Being, but Being which is abstract, one-sided, and since it gets the character of abstract Being, it has attached to it the categories of Being, and being finite, the categories of the Understanding.

We are in the presence of prosaic things when the world thus exists for us, in the presence of external things, existing in accordance with the manifold connection of the Understanding as expressed by ground and consequence, quality, quantity, and all such-like categories of the Understanding.

Nature is here undeified, natural things have no


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 or independence in themselves, and the Divine is only in the One. It might well seem to be a matter for regret that Nature should in any religion be undeified, and should get the character of what has no divine element in it. We are wont rather to extol the unity of the ideal and the real, the unity of Nature and God, and where natural things are considered to be freely determined as substantial and divine, it is the custom to call this the identity of ideality and reality. This is certainly the Idea, but such a determination of identity is so far very formal, it is cheaply got, and it is to be found everywhere. The main point is the further determination of this identity, and the true one is to be found only in what is spiritual, in God, who in a real way determines Himself, so that the moments of His Notion are at the same time themselves present as totality. Natural things, so far as their particular existence is concerned, have, as a matter of fact, an implicit existence; looked at through their Notion, their relation to Spirit, to the Notion, is an external one, and so too Spirit as finite, and appearing as this particular form of life, is itself external. Life, it is true, is essentially something inward, but the totality referred to, in so far as it is merely life, is external relatively to the absolute inwardness of Spirit; abstract self-consciousness is equally finite. Natural things, the sphere of finite things, purely abstract Being, represent something which in its nature is external to itself. It is here at this stage that things get the character of externality; they appear in accordance with their Notion in their true nature. If regret be felt that such a position is assigned to Nature, it must at the same time be granted that this beautiful union of Nature and God holds good for fancy only, not for reason. Even those who object so strongly to the undeifying of Nature, and extol that identity, will all the same certainly find it very difficult to believe in a Ganga, a cow, a monkey, a sea, &c., as God. It is here, on the contrary, that a


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 foundation is laid for a more rational way of looking at things and at their connection.

This, however, is not as yet the place at which to give to this form of conscious thought theoretic completeness and make it knowledge. In order to do this, there must exist a concrete interest for things, and the Essence must be conceived of not merely as universal, but also as determinate Notion. The definite theoretic view of things cannot exist alongside of the popular idea of abstract wisdom and of one limited end.

The relation of God to the world in general is thus defined as His immediate manifestation in it in a particular, individual way, for a definite end in a limited sphere, and it is at this point that the definite conception of miracles comes in. In the earlier religions there are no miracles; in the religion of India everything has been in a deranged state from the very start. The idea of miracle comes in first in connection with the thought of opposition to the order of Nature, to the laws of Nature even when these have not as yet been discovered, but when there is only the consciousness of a natural connection between things of a general character. It is here we first meet with the miraculous, and the idea which is formed of it is that God manifests Himself in some individual thing, and does this at the same time in opposition to the essential character of this thing.

The true miracle in Nature is the manifestation of Spirit, and the true manifestation of Spirit is fundamentally the Spirit of Man and his consciousness of the rationality of Nature, his consciousness that in these scattered elements, and in these manifold contingent things, conformity to law and reason are essentially present. In this religion, however, the world appears as a complexity of natural things which affect each other in a natural way, and stand in an intelligible connection with each other, and the necessity for miracles is present so long as that connection is not conceived of as the


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 objective nature of things, i.e., so long as God’s manifestation in them is not thought of as eternal universal laws of Nature, and so long as His activity is not thought of as essentially universal. The rational connection which is first reached at this stage is only objective connection, and what it means is that the individual thing as such exists in its finiteness for itself, and is consequently in an external relation.

Miracle is still conceived of as an accidental manifestation of God; the universal absolute relation of God to the natural world is, on the other hand, sublimity. We cannot call the infinite Subject conceived of in itself and in its relation to itself, sublime, for so thought of, it is in its essential nature absolute and holy. The idea of sublimity first comes in in connection with the manifestation and relation of this Subject to the world, and when the world is thought of as a manifestation of the Subject, though as a manifestation which is not affirmative, or as one which, while it is indeed affirmative, has yet its main characteristic in this, that what is natural, what is of the world, is negated as inadequate to express the Subject, and is known as such.

Sublimity is therefore this particular appearing and manifestation of God in the world, and it may be defined thus. This act of manifestation shows itself at the same time as sublime, as raised above this manifestation in reality. In the Religion of Beauty there is a reconciliation of the signification with the material, of the sensuous mode and Being for an “Other.” The spiritual manifests itself entirely in this external way. This external mode is a symbol of what is inner, and this inner something is completely known in its external form.

The sublimity of the manifestation, on the other hand, directly destroys reality, the matter and material which belong to it. In His manifestation God directly distinguishes Himself from it, so that it is expressly known to be inadequate to manifest Him. The One has not therefore His complete Being and essential existence in the


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 externality of the manifestation as the gods of the Religion of Beauty have, and the inadequacy of the manifestation is not something of which there is no consciousness, but, on the contrary, it is expressly posited along with consciousness as inadequacy.

It is not accordingly enough to constitute sublimity that the content, the Notion, be higher than the outward Form, even if this latter be exaggerated and stretched beyond its natural measure, but what manifests itself must also be the Power which is above the outward form. In the religion of India the representations of the Divine are devoid of measure, and yet they are not sublime but are rather a distortion, or, it may be, they are not distorted, as, for instance, the cow and the ape, which express the entire power of Nature, yet the signification and the outward form are not proportionate to each other; they are not sublime, however, for indeed it is this want of mutual proportion which is the greatest defect. It is accordingly necessary that the Power be at the same time put above the outward form.

Man in a state of natural consciousness can have natural things present before him, but his spirit does not suit with such a content. The mere act of looking around gives nothing sublime, but rather the glance towards heaven which is above and beyond what lies around. This sublimity is in a special sense the character of God in relation to natural things. The Old Testament Scriptures are extolled because of the presence in them of this sublimity. “And God said, Let there be light, and there was light.” Here we have one of the sublimest passages. The Word represents the greatest possible absence of effort, and this breathing is here at the same time light, the world of light, the infinite pouring forth of light; and thus light is degraded to the rank of a word, to something so transitory as a word. God is further represented as using the wind and the lightning as servants and messengers, Nature is so obedient to Him. It


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 is said, “From Thy breath the worlds proceed; before Thy threatenings they flee away; if Thou openest Thine hand, they are filled with good; if Thou hidest Thy face, they are troubled; if Thou boldest in Thy breath, they pass away into dust; if Thou sendest it forth, they spring up again.” Sublimity consists in this, that Nature is represented as thus entirely negated, in subjection, transitory.

C.

THE END GOD WORKS OUT IN THE WORLD.

First Determination.—The determination of the end appears here as the essential one that God is wise, to begin with—wise in Nature generally. Nature is His creature, and He lets His power be known in it, though not His power only, but His wisdom as well. This wisdom reveals itself in what it produces by the presence of arrangement in accordance with an end.

This end has rather the character of something indeterminate, superficial; the conformity to an end is rather of an external kind, “Thou givest to the beast its food.” The true end and the true realisation of the end are not present within Nature as such, but rather they are essentially to be found in consciousness. He manifests Himself in Nature, but His essential appearing is that He appears in consciousness, in His reflection or reappearance, in such a way that in self-consciousness it reappears that His end is just to be known by consciousness, and that He is an end for consciousness.

Sublimity, to begin with, gives only the general idea of power, and not as yet that of an end. The end is not only the One, the truth rather being that only God Himself can be His end, and this means that His Notion becomes objective for Him, and that He possesses Himself in the realisation. This is the universal end in general. If, accordingly, turning our attention to the world, to


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 Nature, we here seek to regard it as the end of God, then we see that it is His power only that is manifested in it, it is only His power that becomes objective to Him in it, and wisdom is as yet quite abstract. When we speak of an end, it must not be thought of as simply power; it must have a really determinate character. Spirit is, in fact, the region in which it can be present, and since God is end in Spirit as consciousness, in Spirit which is posited over against Him, and here, therefore, in the finite spirit as such, His end in the finite spirit is His representation, His recognition. God here has the finite spirit over against Him. Being-other, or otherness, is not as yet posited as having absolutely returned into itself. The finite spirit is essentially consciousness. God must, therefore, be an object of consciousness as being the Essence, i.e., in such a way as to be acknowledged and extolled. It is the glory of God which is, to begin with, His end. God’s reflex presence in self-consciousness, taken generally, is not yet known. God is only recognised, but if He is also to be really known or cognised, then it is necessary that He, as Spirit, should posit differences in Himself. Here He has as yet only the abstract characterisations referred to.

Thus at this stage the thought that religion, as such, is the end, is an essential characteristic, which means that God becomes consciously known in self-consciousness, that He is object in it, and has an affirmative relation to it. He is God as being infinite power and subjectivity in Himself. The second point is that He manifests Himself, and that this should be essentially in another spirit, which, as finite, stands in an objective relation to Him. Thus the characteristic which comes in here is the acknowledgment and exaltation of God, the glory of God, His universal glory, for not only the Jewish nation, but the whole earth, all peoples, all nations are to praise the Lord. This end, namely, that He should be recognised, known, honoured by consciousness, may, to start


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 with, be called the theoretic end. Its more definite form is that of the practical end, the peculiarly real end, which realises itself in the world, but always in the spiritual world.

Second Determination.—This essential end is the moral end, morality, signifying that Man, in what he does, has present to his mind what is in accordance with law, what is right. This element of law of what is right is the Divine element, and in so far as it belongs to the world, and is present in finite consciousness, it is something which has been posited by God.

God is the Universal. The man who guides himself and his will in accordance with this universal is the free man, and thus represents the universal will, and not his own particular morality. The doing of what is right is here the fundamental characteristic, walking before God, freedom from selfish ends, the righteousness which has worth before God.

Man does what is thus declared to be right in reference to God with a view to the glory of God. This right-doing has its seat in the will, in the inner nature of man; and, in contrast to this exercise of will in reference to God, we have the natural state of existence, of Man, and of what acts.

Just as we saw that in Nature there was a broken up or disjointed state of things, that God existed independently while Nature had Being, but was yet something in subjection, so too we see exactly the same distinction in the human spirit; we have right-doing as such, then, again the natural existence of Man. This, however, is equally something determined by means of the spiritual relation of the will, just as Nature in general is something posited by the absolute Spirit.

The natural existence of Man, his outward worldly existence, is placed in direct relation to what is inward. If this will of his is a substantial, essential will, action is right action; and so, too, Man’s external existence


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 ought to be in keeping with this something which is inward and right. It can go well with Man only according to his works, and he must not only conduct himself morally in a general way, respect the laws of his country, and sacrifice himself for his country, happen what may, but there arises a definite demand that it should also go well with whoever does right.

An essential point here is that real existence, definite Being in an external form, be made to correspond with, brought into subjection to, and determined in accordance with, what is inner and right. This essential condition enters here in consequence of, and on the basis of, the fundamental relation of God to the natural finite world.

There is here an end, and one which must be carried out, namely, this difference, which must at the same time come to be in a state of harmony, so as to show that natural existence governs itself, and bears witness to what is essential, to what is spiritual. So far as Man is concerned, he must be determined, governed, by what is truly inward, by right-doing.

In this way the well-being of Man is divinely guaranteed, but it is so guaranteed only in so far as it is in conformity with the Divine, the moral, divine law. This is the band of necessity, which, however, is no longer blind, as we shall see it is in other religions, where it is only the empty indeterminate necessity from which the Notion is absent, so that the Concrete is outside of it. The gods, the moral Powers, are subject to necessity, but the necessity is not characterised by the presence in it of what is moral and right.

Here necessity is concrete, in the sense that what has essential Being, Being in and for itself, gives laws, wills the Right, the Good, and as a consequence of this, this Being has an affirmative definite Being which is adequate to it, an existence which is a state of well-being or welfare. It is this kind of harmony of which Man is conscious in this sphere of thought.


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 It is on this that is founded the belief that it must, nay, that it ought, to go well with him. He is an end for God, and he is this as being a whole. And yet he, as constituting a whole, is himself something differentiated or distinct, since he has the power of willing and an external existence. The conscious subject now knows that God is the bond of this necessity, that He is this unity which brings about a state of well-being proportionate to the well-doing, and that this connection exists, for the divine universal will is at the same time the will which is determined in itself, and has consequently the power to bring about that connection.

The consciousness that these are thus joined together constitutes that faith, that confidence, which is a fundamental and praiseworthy trait of the Jewish people. The Old Testament Scriptures, the Psalms especially, are full of this confidence.

This, too, is the line of thought which is represented in the Book of Job, the only book the connection of which with the standpoint of the Jewish people is not sufficiently recognised. Job extols his innocence, finds his destiny unjust, he is discontented, i.e., there is in him a contradiction—the consciousness of the righteousness which is absolute, and the want of correspondence between his condition and this righteousness. It is recognised as being an end which God has that He makes things go well with the good man.

What the argument points to is that this discontent, this despondency, ought to be brought under the control of pure and absolute confidence. Job asks, “What doth God give me as a reward from on high? Should it not be the unrighteous man who is rejected thus?” His friends answer in the same sense, only they put it in the reverse way, “Because thou art unhappy, therefore we conclude that thou art not righteous.” God does this in order that He may protect man from the sin of pride.

God Himself at last speaks: “Who is this that talks


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 thus without understanding? Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?” Then comes a very beautiful and magnificent description of God’s power, and Job says, “I know it; he is a man without knowledge who thinks he may hide his counsel.” This subjection is what is finally reached; on the one hand, there is the demand that it should go well with the righteous, and on the other, even the feeling of discontent when this is not the case, has to be given up. It is this resignation, this acknowledgment of God’s power, which restores to Job his property and the happiness he had before. It is on this acknowledgment of God’s power that there follows the re-establishment of his happiness. Still, at the same time, this good fortune is not regarded as something which can be demanded by finite man as a right, independent of the power of God.

This confidence in God, this unity, and the consciousness of this harmony of the power, and at the same time of the wisdom and righteousness of God, is based on the thought that God is determined within Himself as end, and has an end.

We have further to consider in this connection this fact, that Spirit becomes inward, the movement of Spirit within itself. Man must do right. That is the one absolute command, and this doing of what is right has its seat in his will. Man is by this means thrown back upon his inner nature, and he must occupy himself in thus considering his inner life, and finding out whether it is righteous, whether or not his will is good.

This examination into and anxiety about what is wrong, the crying of the soul after God, this descent into the depths of the spirit, this yearning of the spirit after what is right, after what is in conformity with the will of God, is something specially characteristic of this form of religion.

This end further appears as being at the same time limited. The end is, that men should know and


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 God, that what they do they should do for the glory of God; that what they will should be in accordance with God’s will, and that their will should be a true will. This end has, at the same time, a limitation attached to it, and we have to consider in how far this limitation belongs to the essential nature of God, to what extent the conception, the ordinary idea of God itself, still contains this limitation.

If the ordinary or popular idea of God is limited, those further realisations of the divine conception in human consciousness are limited also. What is always most essential, but is also most difficult, is to understand the presence of the limitation in One, and to recognise that it is at the same time a limitation of the Idea, and in such a way that this latter does not yet appear as the absolute Idea.

God, as the one who determines Himself in His freedom and according to His freedom in such a way that what is spiritual is free, is wisdom; but this wisdom, this end, is at first merely end and wisdom in general. The wisdom of God, His self-determination, have not yet received their development. This development within the Idea of God is first found in the religion in which the nature of God is entirely revealed.

The defect of this Idea is that though God is the One, He is this in Himself only in the determinateness of His unity, and is not what eternally develops itself within itself. There is not as yet any developed determination. What we call wisdom is so far something abstract—abstract universality.

The real end which we have is the first end. It exists as an end of God in Spirit as actual, and thus it must have universality in itself, it must be a divine and true end in itself, and one which has substantial universality. A substantial end in Spirit means that the spiritual individuals know themselves to be one, and act towards each other as one and are in unity. The end is


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 a moral one, and it finds its sphere in real freedom. It is that part of thought in which what is practical comes into play, an end in actual consciousness. It is, however, a first end, and the morality connected with it is of the immediate natural kind. The end is thus the family and the connection of the family. It is this one particular family exclusive of all others.

The real immediate first end of divine wisdom is thus still quite limited, quite particular, just because it is the first end. God is absolute wisdom, but He is this in the sense of being entirely abstract wisdom, or, to put it otherwise, the end in the divine notion is one which is as yet purely general, and is consequently an end devoid of content. This indeterminate end thus devoid of content, changes in actual existence into immediate particularity, into the most perfect limitation; or, in other words, the state of potentiality in which wisdom still exists is itself immediacy, naturalness.

God’s real end is thus the family, and in fact this particular family, for the idea of many single families already gives proof of the extension of the thought of singleness by means of reflection. We have here a noteworthy, and absolutely rigid contrast—in fact, the most rigid possible contrast. God is, on the one hand, the God of heaven and of earth, absolute wisdom, universal power, and the end aimed at by this God is at the same time so limited that it concerns only one family, only this one people. All peoples, it is true, ought also to acknowledge Him and praise His name, but His actual work and that which has been really accomplished consists of this particular people only, regarded in their general condition and definite existence, in their inner and outer, political and moral actually existing condition. God is thus only the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God who has brought us out of Egypt. Since God is only One, He is present also only in one universal spirit, in one family, in one world. The families as families come


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 first, those which were brought out of Egypt are the nation, and here it is the heads of the family who constitute the definite element of the end. Universality is thus still something natural, and the end is accordingly only human, and is therefore the family. Religion is thus patriarchal, and it is accordingly the family which expands into the people. A nation means a people, because, to begin with, it has its origin in Nature. This is the limited end, and in reference to all others it is exclusively the divine end.

The five Books of Moses start with the creation of the world, and immediately after we come upon the Fall, which has to do with the nature of man as man. This universal element present in the creation of the world, and next that fall of man, and of man in his generic character, are ideas which have had no influence on the form subsequently taken by the Jewish religion. We have merely this prophecy, the universal element in which did not become a truth for the Israelitish people. God is only the God of this people, not the God of men, and this people is God’s people.

It may be further remarked, with the view of making more generally intelligible the connection between the universal wisdom of God in itself and the completely limited nature of the real end, that when man wills the universal good, and has this as his end, he has made his arbitrary will the principle of his resolves and his acts. For this universal good, this universal end, does not contain within itself the Other, the Particular. When, however, it is necessary to act, then this real end demands something determinate, and this determinateness lies outside of the Notion, since the latter has no such determinateness in itself, but is still abstract, and the particular end is for this reason not yet sanctified, because it has not yet been taken up into the universal end of the Good.

In politics, if it is only universal laws which are to hold sway, then the governing element is force, the


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 will of the individual. The law is real only in so far as it is made particular, for it is through its being made particular that the universal first becomes something living.

The other peoples are shut out from this single real end. The People has its own peculiar nationality, and consists of certain families and the members of these. This privilege of belonging to the People, and consequently of standing to God in this relation, rests on birth. This naturally demands a special constitution, special laws, ceremonies, and worship.

The peculiarity connected with the end is further developed so as to include the possession of a special district. This district or soil must be divided amongst the different families, and is inalienable, so that the excluding of other peoples results in gaining this wholly empirical and external Present. This exclusion is, in the first instance, not polemical, but, on the other hand, it is the special possession which is the reality, the individual enjoyment of this individual people, and the relation of the individual people to the almighty, all-wise God. It is not polemical, i.e., the other peoples can also be brought into this relation to adore God in this way. They ought to glorify the Lord, but that they should come to do this is not a real end. The obligation is only ideal and not practical. This real end appears first in Mohammedanism, where the particular end is raised to the rank of a general one, and thus becomes fanatical.

Fanaticism, it is true, is found amongst the Jews as well, but it comes into play only in so far as their possession, their religion, is attacked, and it comes into play then because it is only this one end which is by its very nature exclusive and will tolerate no accommodation to anything different, no fellowship, no intercourse with it.

Third Determination.—Man is exalted above all else in the whole creation. He is something which knows, perceives, thinks. He is thus the image of God in a


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 sense quite other than that in which the same is true of the world. What is experienced in religion is God, He who is thought, and it is only in thought that God is worshipped. In the religion of the Parsis we had dualism, and the idea of contrast implied in this we have in the Jewish religion as well. The contrast or opposition does not, however, occur in God, but is found in the spirit which is His “Other.” God is Spirit, and what He has produced, namely, the world, is also Spirit, and it is in this latter that He is in Himself the “Other” of His essence. What is involved in finitude is, that in it difference appears as division. In the world God is at home with Himself; it is good, for the Nothing or non-existence which belongs to it, and out of which the world has been created, is the Absolute itself. The world, however, as representing this first act of judgment, of separation, on God’s part, does not get the length of being absolute contrast. It is only Spirit which is capable of being this absolute contrast, and it is this which gives it its depth. The contrast or opposition exists within the other spirit, which is consequently the finite spirit. This is the place where the contest between good and evil goes on, and it is the place, too, in which this fight must be fought out. All these characteristics arise out of the nature of the Notion. This opposition is a difficult point, for it constitutes the contradiction, which may be stated thus: the Good is not contradictory in virtue of its own nature, but rather it is by means of evil that contradiction first enters, and it occurs only in evil. But then the question arises: How has evil come into the world? At this stage such a question has both meaning and interest. In the religion of the Parsis this question cannot occasion any difficulty, for there the Evil exists quite as much as the Good. Both have sprung from something which is devoid of all definite character. Here, on the other hand, where God is power and the one Subject, and where everything depends for its existence


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 solely on Him, evil is a contradiction, for God is certainly the absolute Good. An old pictorial representation of this, namely, the Fall, has been preserved in the Bible. This well-known account of how evil came into the world is in the form of a myth, and appears at the same time in the guise of a parable. Of course when a speculative idea, something true, is thus represented in a sensuous figure, in the form of something which has actually happened, it can hardly miss having certain traits about it which don’t fittingly express the truth itself. You find the same thing in Plato when he speaks in pictorial language of the Ideas, for there, too, the inadequacy of the picture to express the truth is apparent. This is how the narrative runs:—After the creation of Adam and Eve in Paradise, God forbade the first human beings to eat of a certain tree. The serpent, however, misleads them, and gets them to eat of it by saying, “You will become like God.” God then imposes a severe penalty on them, but at the same time says, “See, Adam is become as one of us, for he knows what is good and evil.” Looked at from this particular side, man, according to God’s declaration, has become God, but regarded from the other side, this means that God has cut off man’s chance of reaching Him by this path, inasmuch as He drives him out of Paradise. This simple story may, to begin with, be taken as embodying something like the following meaning. God laid down a command, and man, impelled by a boundless feeling of pride which led him to wish to be equal to God (a thought which came to him from the outside), transgresses this command, and for his miserable silly pride it was ordained that he should be severely punished. God laid down that command formally only, with the view of putting him in circumstances in which his obedience might be proved.

According to this explanation, everything takes place in accordance with the ordinary finite laws of cause and effect. God, undoubtedly, forbids evil, but such a


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 is something wholly different from the prohibition to eat of a certain tree. What God wills or does not will must represent His true eternal nature. Such a prohibition is further thought of as having been imposed only on a single individual, and man justly rebels against being punished for guilt that is not his own—he will only answer for what he has done himself.

On the other hand, in the story, regarded as a whole, there is a deep philosophical meaning. It is Adam, or man in general, who appears in this narrative. What is here related concerns the nature of man himself, and it is not a formal childish command which God lays on him, for the tree of which Adam is not to eat is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thus the idea of a tree with an outward definite form disappears. Man eats of it, and he attains to the knowledge of good and evil. The difficulty, however, is that it is said God forbade man to reach this knowledge, for it is just this knowledge which constitutes the character of Spirit. Spirit is Spirit only through consciousness, and it is just in this knowledge that consciousness in its highest form is found. How, then, could this prohibition have been given? Cognition, knowledge, represents this two-sided dangerous gift. Spirit is free, and to this freedom good as well as evil is referred, and it thus contains the power of arbitrary choice to do what is evil. This is the negative side attaching to the affirmative side of freedom referred to. Man, it is said, was in a state of innocence; this is, in fact, the condition of the natural consciousness, but it must be done away with as soon as the consciousness of Spirit actually appears. That represents eternal history, and the nature of man. He is at first natural and innocent, and incapable, consequently, of having moral acts attributed to him. In the child there is no freedom, and yet it belongs to the essential character of man that he should once more reach innocence. What is his final destiny is here represented as his primitive


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 —the harmony between man and the Good. The defect in this pictorial representation is that this unity is described as a condition of immediate Being. It is necessary to pass out of this condition of original naturalness, but the state of separation or disunion which then arises has to pass into a state of reconciliation again. Here this idea of reconciliation is represented by the thought that man ought not to have passed beyond that first condition. In the whole of this pictorial account, what is inward is expressed in terms of what is outward, and what is necessary in terms of what is contingent. The serpent says that Adam will become like God, and God confirms the truth of this, and adds His testimony that it is this knowledge which constitutes likeness to God. This is the profound idea lodged in the narrative.

But further, a punishment is next inflicted on man. He is driven out of Paradise, and God says, “Cursed be the ground for thy sake, in sorrow shalt thou eat what it brings forth to thee; thorns and thistles shall it bear to thee, and thou shalt eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread, and thou shalt return unto the ground, for out of it wast thou taken; for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.”

We have to recognise that here we have the consequences of finitude; but, on the other hand, the greatness of man just consists in the fact that he eats his bread in the sweat of his brow, and that through his own activity, his work, and the exercise of his understanding, he wins sustenance for himself. Animals have the happy lot, if you like to call it so, of being supplied by Nature with what they need. Man, on the other hand, elevates what is necessary to this natural life to the rank of something connected with his freedom. This is just the employment of his freedom, though it is not the highest form in which he employs it, for that consists rather in knowing and willing the Good. The fact that man regarded from the natural side is also free, is involved in his nature, and is


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 not to be considered as in itself punishment. The sorrow of the natural life is essentially connected with the greatness of the character and destiny of man. For him who is not yet acquainted with the loftier nature of Spirit, it is a sad thought that man must die, and this natural sorrow is, as it were, for him what is final. The lofty nature and destiny of Spirit, however, just consists in the fact that it is eternal and immortal; still, this greatness of man, this greatness of consciousness, is not yet contained in this narrative, for it is said: God said, “And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and live for ever” (iii. 22). Then further (v. 19), “Till thou return unto the ground whence thou wast taken.” The consciousness of the immortality of Spirit is not yet present in this religion.

In the entire narrative of the Fall these grand features are present in what has the appearance of being an illogical form, owing to the pictorial style in which the whole is presented to us. The advance out of the merely natural life, and the necessity for the entrance of the consciousness of good and evil, constitute the lofty thought to which God Himself here gives utterance. What is defective in the account is that death is described in such a way as to leave the impression that there is no place for consolation in regard to it. The fundamental note of the account is that man ought not to be natural, and in this is contained the thought expressed in true theology, that man is by nature evil. Evil consists in resting in this natural state; man must advance out of this state by exercising his freedom, his will. The further development of this thought accordingly involves that Spirit should once more attain to absolute unity within itself, to a state of reconciliation, and freedom is just what contains this turning back of Spirit into itself, this reconciliation with itself. Here, however, this conversion or turning back has not yet taken place; the difference has not yet been taken up into God, i.e., has not yet reached


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 a state of reconciliation. The abstraction of evil has not yet disappeared.

It has to be observed further that this story ceased to have a living interest for the Jewish people, and that it did not receive any further development in the Books of the Hebrews. If we except some allusions in the later apocryphal books, it is not mentioned, speaking generally, in the others. For a long time it lay unworked, and it was in Christianity that it was first to attain its true significance. Still it cannot at all be said that man’s conflict within himself is something which did not exist amongst the Jewish people. On the contrary, it constitutes an essential characteristic of the religious spirit amongst the Hebrews, but it was not conceived of in the speculative sense as implying that it arises from the nature of man himself, being represented rather as contingent, as taking place in single individuals. In contrast to the sinner and the man who is in conflict with himself, we get the picture of the righteous man, in whom evil and the conflict with it are represented as not being an essential moment in his life, but rather righteousness is thought of as consisting in the doing of God’s will, and in being steadfast in the service of Jehovah by observing the moral commandments connected alike with the precepts of ritual and the requirements of state law. Still the conflict of man within himself is apparent everywhere, especially in the Psalms of David. Sorrow cries out of the innermost depths of the soul conscious of its sinfulness, and as a consequence we find the most sorrowful prayers for pardon and reconciliation. This deep sorrow is thus undoubtedly present, but it appears rather as belonging to the single individual than as something which is known to be an eternal moment of Spirit.

These are the principal moments of the religion of the One, so far as they concern particularisation and the determination of an end on the part of the One. This latter determination brings us to worship.


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 D.

WORSHIP.

God has essentially a relation to self-consciousness, since it is the finite spirit which constitutes the sphere in which His end appears. We have now to consider the religious sentiment or feeling of religion as seen in this self-consciousness. The mediation which it needs, in so far as it is feeling, is the positing of the identity, which is potentially posited, and is thus the mediating movement. This feeling represents the most inward movement of self-consciousness.

1. Self-consciousness brings itself into relation with the One, and is thus, to begin with, intuition, pure thought of the pure Essence as pure power and absolute Being, alongside of which nothing else of equal value can be put. This pure thought, therefore, as reflection into self, as self-consciousness, is self-consciousness with the character of infinite Being for self, or freedom, but freedom devoid of all concrete content. This self-consciousness is thus as yet distinct from real consciousness, and nothing of all the concrete characteristics of spiritual and natural life, of the fulness of consciousness, of the impulses, inclinations, and of all that belongs to the realm of spiritual relations, nothing of all this has as yet been taken up into the consciousness of freedom. The reality of life has still a place outside of the consciousness of freedom, and this last is not yet rational, it is still abstract, and no full, concrete, divine consciousness is as yet in existence. Since, therefore, self-consciousness exists only as consciousness, while, however, in the way of an object for the simplicity of thought there exists as yet no corresponding object, and since the determinateness of consciousness has not yet been taken up into it, the Ego is an object for itself only in its abstract state of unity with itself only as immediate particularity.


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 is accordingly devoid of expansion and extension, devoid of all concrete specification, and God as infinite power is also without determinate character in Himself, and there is no third thing, no definite form of existence in which they might meet. So far it is a condition of unmediated relation, and the two contrasted elements—the relation to the One in pure thought and intuition, and abstract return into self, Being for self,—are immediately united. Since, then, self-consciousness, as distinguished from its object, which is pure thought and can only be grasped in thought, is empty, formal self-consciousness, naked and devoid of specific character in itself, and since, further, all real concrete specification belongs to power only, in this absolute contrast the pure freedom of self-consciousness is turned into absolute absence of freedom, or, in other words, self-consciousness is the self-consciousness of a servant in relation to a master. The fear of the Lord is the fundamental characteristic of the relation which here exists.

I have a general feeling of fear produced by the idea of a Power above me, which negates my value as a person, whether that value appears in an outward or in an inward way as something belonging to me. I am without fear when, on the one hand, in virtue of possessing an invulnerable independence, I disregard the force above me, and know myself to be power as against it in such a way that it has no influence over me; and, on the other hand, I am without fear too when I disregard those interests which this Power is in a position to destroy, and in this way remain uninjured even when I am injured. Fear has commonly a bad meaning attached to it, as if it implied that the person who experiences fear did not wish to represent himself as power, and was not capable of doing so. But the fear here spoken of is not the fear of what is finite or of finite force. The finite is contingent power, which, apart from any fear felt, can seize and injure me; but, on the other hand, the fear


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 here spoken of is the fear of the Unseen, of the Absolute, the counterpart of my consciousness, the consciousness of the self which is infinite as opposed to me the finite self. Before the consciousness of this Absolute, as being the one single purely negative Power, special forces of any kind disappear, everything which has the mark of the earthly nature upon it simply perishes. This fear, in the form of this absolute negativity of oneself, is the elevation of consciousness to the pure thought of the absolute power of the One. And this fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, which consists in not allowing the particular, the finite by itself, to have a valid existence as something independent. What has a valid existence can have this only as a moment in the organisation of the One, and the One is the abrogation of all that is finite. This wise fear is the one essential moment of freedom, and consists in being freed from all that is particular, in breaking away from all accidental interests, and in general, in the feeling on man’s part of the negativity of all that is particular. It is accordingly not a particular fear of any particular thing, but, on the contrary, it consists in the positing of this particular fear as a thing of nought; it is deliverance from fear. Thus fear is not the feeling of dependence, but rather it is the stripping oneself of dependence of every kind; it is pure surrender of self to the absolute Self, in contrast to which and into which the particular self melts away and disappears.

In this way, however, the subject is only in the infinite One. Absolute negativity, however, is relation to self, affirmation; by means of absolute fear the Self accordingly exists, and exists in its self-surrender, in the absolutely positive. Fear in this way changes inlo absolute confidence, infinite faith. At another stage confidence can take the form of a state in which the individual relies upon himself. This is the stoical freedom in chains. Here, however, freedom does not as yet


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 take on this form of subjectivity, but rather self-consciousness has to sink itself in the One, while this latter, again, represented as the Other, is the principle of repulsion, in which self-consciousness regains its self-certainty. This process can be conceived of under the following form.

The state of servitude is, in fact, self-consciousness, reflection into self and freedom, which, however, is devoid of all general extension and rationality, and finds its determinateness, its content, in the immediate sensuous self-consciousness. It is the “I” as this particular individual, in immediate particularity, which is accordingly end and content. In the relation in which he stands to his Lord the servant finds his absolute, essential self-consciousness, and in view of Him he annihilates everything in himself. It is, however, just because of this that he regains his position as existing absolutely for himself, and his particularity or individuality just because it has been taken up into that intuition of the Absolute and is made to form its concrete side, is, owing to this relation, absolutely justified. The fear in which the servant regards himself as nothing, gains for him the restoration of his justification. But because the servile consciousness rests obstinately on its particularity, and because its particularity has been taken up into the unity immediately, it is exclusive, and God is—

2. The exclusive Lord and God of the Jewish people. It need not surprise us that an Oriental nation should limit religion to itself, and that this religion should appear as absolutely connected with its nationality, for we see this in Eastern countries in general. The Greeks and the Romans were the first to adopt foreign forms of worship, and all kinds of religion were introduced amongst the latter, and did not rank as national. In Oriental countries, however, religion is essentially closely connected with nationality. The Chinese, the Persians, have their State religion, which is for them only. Amongst


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 the Hindus birth determines for every individual even his rank and his relation to Brahma, and accordingly they do not in any way demand that others should adopt their religion; in fact, amongst the Hindus, such a demand has no meaning whatever, since, according to their ideas, all the various peoples of the earth belong to their religion, and foreign nations are reckoned collectively as belonging to a particular caste. Still this exclusiveness is rightly regarded as more striking in the case of the Jewish people, for such strong attachment to nationality is in complete contradiction with the idea that God is to be conceived of only in universal thought, and not in one particular characterisation. Amongst the Persians God is The Good. That is also a universal characteristic; but it is itself still in the condition of immediacy, consequently God is identical with light, and that is a form of particularity. The Jewish God exists only for Thought, and that stands in contrast with the idea of the limitation of God to the nation. It is true that amongst the Jewish people, too, consciousness rises to the thought of universality, and this thought is given expression to in several places. Psalm cxvii. 1: “O praise the Lord, all ye nations, praise him, all ye peoples. For his grace and truth are great toward us to all eternity.” The glory of God is to be made manifest amongst all peoples, and it is in the later prophets particularly that this universality makes its appearance as a higher demand. Isaiah makes God even say, “Of the heathen who shall honour Jehovah will I make priests and Levites;” and a similar idea is expressed also in the words, “In every nation he that feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him.” All this, however, comes later. According to the dominant fundamental idea, the Jewish people are the chosen people, and the universality is thus reduced to particularity. But as we have already seen above in the development of the Divine end how the limitation attached to this is based on the limitation


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 which is still involved in the characterisation of God, so now this limitation is explained for us from the nature of the servile consciousness; and we see too, now, how this particularity arises from the subjective side. This honouring and recognition of Jehovah is something which is peculiar to them, those servants, and they have themselves the consciousness that it is peculiar to them.

This harmonises, too, with the history of the people. The Jewish God is the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God who brought the Jews out of Egypt, and there is not the slightest trace of the thought that God may have done other things as well, and that He has acted in an affirmative way amongst other peoples too. Here, therefore, it is from the subjective side, from the side of worship, that the idea of particularity comes in, and in any case it can be said that God is the God of those who honour Him, for it is God’s nature to be known in the subjective spirit, and to know Himself there. This is a moment which essentially belongs to the idea of God. The act of knowing, of acknowledging, belongs essentially to this characterisation or determination. This often comes out in what is for us a distorted way, when, for instance, God is said to be mightier and stronger than the other gods, exactly as if there were gods besides Him; for the Jews, however, these are false gods.

There is this particular nation which honours Him, and so He is the God of this nation, its Lord, in fact. It is He who is known as the Creator of heaven and earth, He has set bounds and limits for everything and bestowed on everything its peculiar nature, and so too He has given to man his proper place and his rights. This expresses the characterisation according to which He as Lord gives His people laws, laws which have to do with the entire sphere of their actions, both the universal laws, the Ten Commandments—which are the universal, ethical, legal, fundamental, characteristics of lawgiving


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 and morality, and which are not held to be laws given by reason, but rather laws written down by God—and also all the rest of the State laws and regulations. Moses is called the lawgiver of the Jews, but he was not to the Jews what Lycurgus and Solon were to the Greeks, for these two gave as men their own laws. He only made the laws of Jehovah known; it was Jehovah Himself who, according to the story, engraved them on the stone. Attached to the most trifling regulations, the arrangement of the tabernacle, the usages in connection with sacrifices, and everything relating to all other kinds of ceremonial, you find in the Bible the formula “Jehovah saith.” All law is given by the Lord, and is thus entirely positive commandment. There is in it a formal, absolute authority. The particular elements in the political system are not, speaking generally, developed out of the universal end, nor is it left to man to give it its special character, for the Unity does not permit human caprice, human reason, to exist alongside of it, and political change is in every instance called a falling away from God; but, on the other hand, the particular laws, as being something given by God, are regarded as eternally established. And here the eternal laws of what is right, of morality, are placed in the same rank and stated in an equally positive form with the most trifling regulations. Tnis constitutes a strong contrast to the conception which we have of God. Worship is now the service of God; the good man, the righteous man, is he who performs this service, by keeping and observing both the moral commandments and also the ceremonial laws. This is the service of the Lord.

The people of God is accordingly a people adopted by covenant and contract on the conditions of fear and service. That is to say, the self-conscious community is no longer an original and immediate unity in union with the Essence, as is the case in the Religion of Nature. The external form of the Essence in the Religion of Nature is only a pictorial representation of Nature, an


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 outer covering which does not truly separate the two sides of what constitutes the religious relation, and is therefore only an unessential separation of the two, only a superficial distinction. The present standpoint, on the contrary, is based in the first instance on absolute reflection into self as abstract Being-for-self, and it is here accordingly that the mediation of the relation between self-consciousness and its absolute Essence comes in. The self-consciousness does not, however, represent man as man in the sense of universality. The religious relation is something special, which, regarded from the point of view of man, may be called contingent, for all that is finite is external to Absolute Power, and contains in it no positive character. This particularity of the religious relation is not, however, a particularity amongst others, but is rather a separate, infinite preference. Because of the character which thus attaches to the relation, the latter finds expression in the thought that this people has been adopted on the condition of its having the fundamental feeling of its dependence, i.e., of its servitude. This relation between the infinite Power and what has independent Being is accordingly not one which is posited essentially and originally, or has come into existence only through the love of God to man, but rather this unity has been established in an external way through a contract. And, in fact, this adoption of the People is something which has taken place once for all, and occupies the place of what in revealed religion in its completed form is known as redemption and reconciliation.

Closely connected with the representation of God as the Lord is the fact that the Jewish people gave themselves wholly up to His service. It is this which explains, too, that marvellous steadfastness which was not a fanaticism of conversion like Mohammedanism, which is already purified from the idea of nationality and recognises believers only, but a fanaticism of


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. It rests entirely on the abstraction of one Lord; the idea of vacillation comes into the mind only when various interests and points of view exist alongside of each other, and in such a struggle it is possible to take one side or the other, but in this state of concentration of thought on one Lord, the mind is completely held fast to one side. The consequence of this is that in view of the existence of this firm bond there is no freedom. Thought is simply bound on to this unity, which is the absolute authority. Many further consequences follow from this. Amongst the Greeks, too, it is true, certain institutions were held to have divine authority, but they had been established by men; the Jews, on the other hand, made no such distinction between the divine and the human. It was owing, too, to this absence of the idea of freedom that they did not believe in immortality, for even though it is perhaps possible to point to certain traces of belief in it, still those passages in which they occur are always of a very general character, and had not the slightest influence on the religious and moral points of view from which things were regarded. The immortality of the soul is not as yet an admitted truth, and there is accordingly no higher end than the service of Jehovah, and so far as man himself is concerned, his aim is to maintain himself and his family in life as long as possible. Temporal possessions, in fact, are consequent upon service, not something eternal, not eternal blessedness. The conscious perception of the unity of the soul with the Absolute, or of the reception of the soul into the bosom of the Absolute, has not yet arisen. Man has as yet no inner space, no inner extension, no soul of such an extent as to lead it to wish for satisfaction within itself, but rather it is the temporal which gives it fulness and reality. According to the Law, each family receives a property which must not be alienated, and in this way the family is to be provided for. The aim of life consequently was mainly the preservation of this bit of land.


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 This expresses the essential character of the family, together with the land which belongs to it and from which it derives its subsistence. The possession of a country is what self-consciousness of this kind receives from its God. It is consequently that very confidence before referred to which is the absolutely limited constitutive element of the individual family existence. Just because man in the absolutely negative condition of self-surrender exists in what is purely positive, and consequently is once more in a condition of immediacy, confidence, as expressing the surrender of finite interests, turns into the surrender of the surrender, and thus comes to represent in turn the realised finite individual, his happiness and possessions. These possessions and this people are identical, inseparable. God’s people possess Canaan. God has made a covenant with Abraham, the one side of which is constituted by this possession, and it is the affirmative in this sphere of empirical particular interests. Both are inseparable, the special possession and the confidence, the piety. The possession consequently gets an infinitely absolute authorisation, a divine authorisation; and yet at the same time the title to the possession does not take the form of a juridical right, of a property; this latter, as being different from possession, is not applicable here. Property has its source in personality, in this very freedom of the single individual. Man is essentially a holder of property in so far as he is a person, but the possession, as expressing the empirical aspect of property, is entirely free to take any form, this being left to chance. What I possess is a matter of accident, a matter of indifference; when I am recognised as a holder of property, I am a free subjectivity and the possession is a matter of indifference. Here, on the contrary, this definite possession as such is identical with the feeling of confidence, and it is consequently this possession to which an absolute title attaches. The idea of property does not come in here,


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 and so the idea of free-will does not appear either. God, the absolute Idea, and then property, and possession, represent three different stages. Here the uniting middle term, property, drops away, and the possession is taken up into the divine will in an immediate form. It is this empirical individual possession which is to have value as such and as thus authorised, and it is taken out of the reach of the free act of designation on the part of the individual, who cannot sell it but can only pledge it for some time, and always only until the year of Jubilee.

The other side, namely, the negative relation, corresponds to the affirmative side. The recognition of Power as constituting the negative side must also be defined empirically or externally in reference to property. Particular acts of conduct, real ways of acting, must in the same way have their negative side as the acknowledgment of the Lord. There must be a service, not simply fear, but an act of surrender in particular things. This is the other side of the covenant, which, on the one hand, has possession as its effect, but, on the other, demands service also, so that just as this particular country is attached to this particular nation, the nation itself is bound by the obligation of rendering the service required by the Law. These laws, looked at from one side, are family laws, have reference to family conditions, and have a moral content; but looked at from the other side, the main point about them is that what is inherently moral in them is regarded as something which has been laid down in a purely positive way, and so naturally we have joined on to this a large number of external accidental regulations which are simply to be observed. The irrationality of the service corresponds to the irrationality of the possession, and we thus have an abstract obedience which does not require any inwardness in respect of any definite character belonging to it, since its justification for existing is an abstract one. Just because God is absolute


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 power, all actions are of an indeterminate character, and for this reason they get their determinate character in an entirely external and arbitrary way. The keeping of the commandment which demands service, obedience to God, is the condition upon which the nation continues in the state in which it is. This is the other aspect of the covenant. It is possible for individuals, or for the whole nation, to fall away by self-will from the laws, but this is a falling away merely from definite commandments and from ceremonial service, and not a falling away from what is original or fundamental, for this latter is something which has the authority of what ought to be. Accordingly the penalty attached to disobedience is not an absolute penalty, but is merely external misfortune, namely, the loss of the possession, or its diminution and curtailment. The penalties which are threatened are of an external earthly sort, and have reference to the undisturbed possession of the land. Just as the obedience demanded is not of a spiritual and moral sort, but is merely the definite blind obedience of men who are not morally free, so also the penalties have an external character. The laws, the commands, are to be followed and observed merely as if by slaves or servants.

If we consider those penalties which are threatened in the form of frightful curses, the thorough mastery which this nation attained to in the matter of cursing is worthy of notice; and yet these curses have reference only to what is external, and not to what is inward and moral. In the third Book of Moses, in the twenty-sixth chapter, we read:—

“If ye shall despise My statutes, and will not do all My commandments, and break My Covenant, I will visit you with terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes and cause sorrow of heart. Ye shall sow your seed in vain, and your enemies shall eat it; and they that hate you shall reign over you, and ye shall flee when none pursueth you. And if ye will not


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 yet for all this hearken unto Me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins. And I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass; and your toil and labour shall be lost, so that your land shall not yield her increase, and the trees shall not yield their fruits.

“And if ye walk contrary to Me, and will not hearken unto Me, I will bring seven times more plagues upon you, according to your sins. I will also send wild beasts among you, which shall eat your children, and tear your cattle, and make you few in number; and your highways shall be desolate. And if ye will not be reformed by Me by these things, but will walk contrary to Me, then will I punish you yet seven times for your sins. And I will bring a sword upon you that shall avenge the quarrel of My covenant. And though ye are gathered together within your cities, yet will I send the pestilence among you, and will deliver you into the hand of the enemy. Then will I break the staff of your bread, so that ten women shall bake in one oven, and they shall deliver you your bread again by weight; and when ye eat, ye shall not be satisfied.

“And if ye will not for all this hearken unto Me, then I will walk contrary unto you also in fury, and will chastise you yet seven times, so that ye shall eat the flesh of your sons and daughters. And I will destroy your high places, and cut down your images, and cast your carcases upon your idols, and My soul shall abhor you, and I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation; and I will not smell the savour of your sweet odours. And I will bring the land into desolation, so that your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished at it. And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you.”

We have already seen that amongst the Jews the place of evil is in the subjective spirit, and that the Lord is not engaged in a conflict with evil, but that He punishes evil. Evil accordingly appears as an external accident,


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 and this is how it is represented in the story of the Fall, according to which it enters in from the outside, in that man is deceived by the serpent.

God punishes evil as something which ought not to be. It is good only that ought to be, since it is what the Lord has enjoined. There is here as yet no freedom, and there is not even freedom to find out what the divine and eternal law is. The characteristics of the Good, which are undoubtedly the characteristics of reason as well, derive their worth from the fact that they are rules laid down by the Lord, and the Lord punishes any transgression of these; this is the wrath of God. The relation in which the Lord here stands to the Good expresses merely the idea of something that ought to be. What He ordains is what ought to be, is law. To the Lord belongs the exercise of penal righteousness; the conflict between good and evil occurs within the subject as being finite. An element of contradiction is thus present in finite consciousness, and consequently there enters in a feeling of contrition, of sorrow, caused by the fact that the Good is only something which ought to be.

3. The third aspect of worship or cultus is reconciliation. It has reference essentially only to the particular faults of separate individuals, and is brought about by means of sacrifice.

Here sacrifice is not intended simply to signify that the offerer is symbolically renouncing his finitude, and preserving his unity with God, but it signifies more definitely the act of acknowledgment of the Lord, a testifying that He is feared; and it has the still further signification of being an act whereby what of the finite remains has been redeemed and ransomed. Man cannot look on Nature as something which he can use according to his own arbitrary desires; he cannot lay hold of it directly, but he must get whatever he wishes to have through the mediation of something foreign to himself. Everything is the Lord’s, and must be bought back from


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 Him; and thus it is that the tithe is ordained, and that the first-born has to be redeemed.

The expiation for sins accordingly takes place in a peculiar way, namely, by bringing in the idea that the punishment which has been merited, the merited manifestation of the nullity of him who has lifted himself up in sinfulness, can be transferred to what is offered in sacrifice. This is sacrifice. The individual makes it plain that his standing before God has no worth. It is thus that the idea arises that the due manifestation of the sinner’s nothingness is transferred to what is offered, since God acknowledges the sacrifice, and in this way gives the self a positive standing, or, in other words, a standing in itself.

The externality which thus attaches to the sacrifice arises from the fact that the expiation is thought of as being punishment, and not as purification as such; rather it is looked on as being an injury done to the evil will in this sense that the will is supposed to suffer damage. Closely connected with this idea is the fact that it is the blood specially which is offered up by being sprinkled on the altar. For if it is life which is to be yielded up as representing the highest of all earthly possessions, it follows that something must be surrendered to God which is really living, and the blood, in which the life of the animal is supposed to be, is given back to the Lord. We saw that amongst the Hindus the whole animal world was held in honour. Here again it is deprived of this honour, but the blood is still regarded as something inviolable and divine; it is held in respect, and must not be eaten by men. Man does not yet possess the feeling of his concrete freedom which leads him to regard life simply as life, as something inferior and subordinate to what is higher.


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 The Transition to the Stage which follows.

Speaking generally, we, as a matter of fact, find that here we are in the region of free subjectivity, but still the essential characteristic which belongs to free subjectivity has not yet been fully carried right through the totality of the religious consciousness in the Religion of Sublimity. God was characterised for Thought as substantial Power, and as the Creator, but in this character He is, to begin with, merely the Lord of His creatures. Power is thus the cause which differentiates itself, but it is something which merely puts forth its authority over, exercises its lordship over, that in which it thus differentiates itself.

A further stage of progress accordingly is reached, when it is seen that this “Other” is something free—free from external restraint, and God becomes the God of free men, who, even while rendering Him obedience, are actually free in their relation to Him. This standpoint, if we look at it in an abstract way, contains within it the following moments: God is a free, absolute Spirit, and manifests Himself by setting His “Other” over against Himself. What is thus posited by Him is His image, for the subject creates only itself, and that which it becomes by self-determination is again nothing else than itself. But in order that it may be really determined, or get a specific nature as Spirit, it must negate this “Other,” and return to itself, for then only when it knows itself in the “Other” is it free. But if God knows Himself in the “Other,” it follows that the “Other” has an actual independent existence, is for itself, and knows itself to be free.

This represents the release of the “Other” as being now something free and independent. Thus freedom is found first of all in the subject, and God is still characterised as Power, which is for itself, has real existence, and releases the subject. The differentiation or further


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 characterisation which is thus reached seems, in accordance with what has been stated, to consist simply in this, that the creatures are no longer merely in a state of service, but rather find their freedom in the very act of rendering service. This moment of the freedom of subjects or persons for whom God is, and which is wanting in the standpoint of the Religion of Sublimity which we have been considering, we have already seen in a lower stage of thought, in the sphere of the Religion of Nature, in the Syrian religion, namely.

In the higher stage, to which we now pass, what in the lower was represented in a natural immediate way is transferred to the pure region of Spirit, and is ascribed to its inner mediation. In the religion of sorrow or pain we saw that God loses Himself, that He dies, and exists only by means of the negation of Himself. This act of mediation is the moment which is again to be taken up here. God dies, and from this death He rises again. That is the negation of Himself which we, on the one hand, conceive of as the “Other” of Himself, as the world; and He Himself dies, which means that in this death He comes to Himself. In this way, however, the “Other” is represented as freely existing for itself, and accordingly the mediation and rising again belong to the other side, the side of what has been created.

Considered thus, it seems as if the conception of God Himself underwent no change, but that the change is only in the aspect in which the “Other” is regarded. That it is just here where freedom comes in, and that it is this side, namely, that of the “Other,” which is free, is to be explained from the fact that in the finite, this otherness of God dies away, and so the Divine appears again in the finite in an actual way, or for itself. Thus what is of the world is known as something which has the Divine in it, and the Being-other or otherness which at first is characterised only as negation, is again negated, and is the negation of negation within itself.