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 which is implicit, and what is implicit then becomes a something Particular, a genius also. Just as universal light is personified, so particular lights come to be personified too. Thus the stars are personified as genii; in one aspect they are what appears, and then are personified as well; they are not differentiated, however, into light and into the Good; on the contrary, it is the collective unity which is personified: the stars are spirits of Ormazd, of the universal light, and of the inherently existing Good.

These stars are called the Amshaspands, and Ormazd, who is universal light, is also one of the Amshaspands. The realm of Ormazd is the realm of light, and there are seven Amshaspands in it. These might perhaps suggest the planets, but they are not further characterised in the Zend-Avesta, and in none of the prayers, not even in those directed to them individually, are they more particularly specified. The lights are the companions of Ormazd, and reign with him. The Persian State itself, too, similarly with this realm of light, is described as the kingdom of righteousness and of the Good. The king, too, was surrounded by seven magnates, who formed his council, and were thought of as representatives of the Amshaspands, in the same way as the king was conceived to be the representative of Ormazd. The Amshaspands govern, changing place day by day, in the realm of light with Ormazd; consequently what is posited here is merely a superficial distinction of time.

To the Good or the kingdom of light belongs all that has life; that which in all beings is good is Ormazd; he is the life-giving element through thought, word, and deed. Here we still have Pantheism in so far as the Good, light, substance, is in everything; all happiness, blessing, felicity meet together in it; whatever exists as loving, happy, strong, and the like, that is Ormazd. He bestows the light on all beings, upon trees as upon noble men, upon animals as upon the Amshaspands.


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 The sun and the planets are the first chief spirits or deities, a heavenly people, pure and great, shielding all, beneficent to all, shedding benediction upon all—being rulers by turns over the world of light. The whole world is Ormazd in all its stages and varied existence, and in this kingdom of light all is good. To light belongs everything, all that lives, all essential being, all spiritual existence, the action, the growth of finite things, all is light, is Ormazd. In this is not merely sensuous life, life in general, but strength, spirit, soul, blessedness. In the fact that a man, a tree, an animal lives and rejoices in existence, possesses an affirmative nature, is something noble, in this consists their glory, their light, and this it is which is the sum and essence of the substantial nature of every individual existence.

The manifestation of light is worshipped, and in connection with this the element of locality has a value for the Parsi. Advantage is taken, for example, of the plains upon which naphtha wells abound. Light is burnt upon the altars; it is not a symbol, but is rather the presence of the ineffable, of the Good. All that is good in the world is thus reverenced, loved, worshipped, for it is esteemed as the son, the begotten of Ormazd, in which he loves himself, pleases himself. In like manner hymns of praise are addressed to all pure spirits of mankind. These are called Fravashis, and are either beings still in the body and still existing, or dead beings, and thus Zoroaster’s Fravashi is entreated to watch over them. In the same way animals are worshipped, because they have life, light in them. In worshipping these, the genii, spirits, the affirmative element of living nature, is brought into prominence and reverenced as the ideals of the particular kinds of things, as universal subjective forms, which represent the Divine in a finite way. Animals are, as already stated, objects of worship, but the ideal

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 is the heavenly bull, which, among the Hindus, is the symbol of procreation, and stands beside Siva. Among fires, it is the sun that is specially worshipped; among mountains, too, there is a similar ideal—Alborg, the mountain of mountains. Thus in the Parsi’s view of things there exists an active present world of the Good, ideals which are not beyond this world, but are in existence, are present in actual things.

Everything that is alive is held in reverence as Good, but only the good, the light in it, not its particular form, its finite transitory mode of existence. There is a separation between the substantial element and what belongs to the perishable. A distinction is posited in man too; a something higher is distinguished from the immediate corporeal, natural, temporal, insignificant character of his external Being, of his existence. This is represented by the Genii, Fravashis. Among trees, there is one which is specially marked off—Hôm, the tree from which flow the waters of immortality. Thus the State is the manifestation of the substantial, of the realm of light, the prince being the manifestation of the supreme light, while the officials are the representatives of the Spirits of Ormazd. The above distinction is, however, a surface one; the absolute one is that between Good and Evil.

It may be also mentioned that one among the helpers of Ormazd is Mitra, the μεσίτης, mediator. It is curious that Herodotus, even in his time, makes special mention of this Mitra; yet in the religion of the Parsis, the characteristic of mediation, reconciliation does not seem as yet to have become prominent. It was not until a later period that the worship of Mithras was more generally developed in its complete form, as the human spirit had become more strongly conscious of the need of reconciliation, and as that need had become keener and more definite.

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 was very widely spread, and so late as the Middle Ages we meet with a secret Mithras-worship ostensibly connected with the order of the Knights-Templars. Mithras thrusting the knife into the neck of the ox is a figurative representation belonging essentially to the cult of Mithras, of which examples have been frequently found in Europe.

(c.) Worship.

The worship belonging to this religion results directly from the essential character of the religion. The purpose of it is to glorify Ormazd in his creation, and the adoration of the Good in everything is its beginning and end. The prayers are of a simple and uniform character, without any special shades of meaning. The principal feature of the cultus is that man is to keep himself pure as regards his inner and outer life, and is to maintain and diffuse the same purity everywhere. The entire life of the Parsi is to be this worship; it is not something isolated, as among the Hindus. It is the duty of the Parsi everywhere to promote life, to render it fruitful and keep it gladsome; to practise good in word and deed in all places; to further all that is good among mankind, as well as to benefit men themselves; to excavate canals, plant trees, give shelter to wanderers, build waste places, feed the hungry, irrigate the ground, which, from another point of view, is itself subject and genius.

Such is this one-sidedness of abstraction.

2. The Syrian Religion, or the Religion of Pain.

We have just been considering the ideas of strife and of victory over evil. We have now to consider, as representing the next moment or stage, that strife as Pain. “Strife as pain” seems a superficial expression; it implies, however, that the strife is no longer an external opposition only, but is in a single subject, and within that subject’s own feeling of itself. The strife is,


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, the objectifying of pain. Pain is, however, in general terms the course or process of finitude, and, from a subjective point of view, brokenness of heart. This process or course of finitude, of pain, strife, victory, is a moment or stage in the nature of Spirit, and it cannot be absent in the sphere under consideration, in which power continuously determines itself toward spiritual freedom. The loss of one’s own self, the contradiction between self-contained Being and its “Other,” a contradiction which annuls itself by absorption into infinite unity—for here we can think of true infinitude only—the annulling of the opposition, these are the essential determinations in the Idea of Spirit which now make their appearance. It is true that we are now conscious of the development of the Idea, of its course as well as of its moments or stages, whose totality constitutes Spirit. This totality, however, is not as yet posited, but obtains expression in moments which in this sphere present themselves successively.

The content not being as yet posited in free Spirit, since the moments are not as yet gathered together into subjective unity, it exists in an immediate mode, and is thrown out into the form of Nature; it is represented by means of a natural progressive process, which, however, is essentially conceived of as symbolical, and consequently is not merely a progressive process in external nature, but is an universal progressive process as contrasted with the point of view which we have hitherto occupied, and from which not Spirit but abstract Power is seen to be what rules. The next element in the Idea is the moment or stage of conflict. It is the essential nature of Spirit to come to itself out of its otherness and out of the overcoming of this otherness, by the negation of the negation. Spirit brings itself forth; it passes through the estrangement of itself. But since it is not as yet posited as Spirit, this course of estrangement and return is not as yet posited ideally, and as a moment or stage


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 of Spirit, but immediately, and therefore in the form of what is natural.

This determination, as we have seen it, has acquired a definite form in the religion of the Phoenicians and in the religions of anterior Asia generally. In these religions the Process which has been spoken of is contained, and in the religion of the Phoenicians the succumbing to death, the estrangement of the god from himself, and his resurrection are brought into special prominence. The popular conception regarding the Phœnix is well known: it is a bird which burns itself, and from out of its ashes there comes a young Phœnix in new vigour and strength.

This estrangement, this otherness, defined as a natural negation, is death, but death that is at the same time annulled, since out of it there issues a revival and renewal of life. It is the eternal nature of Spirit to die to self, to render itself finite in Nature, and yet it is by the annulling of its natural existence that it comes to itself. The Phoenix is the well-known symbol of this. What we have here is not the warfare of Good with Evil, but a divine process which pertains to the nature of God Himself, and is the process in one individual. The more precise form in which this progressive process definitely appears is represented by Adonis. This representation has passed over to Egypt and Greece, and is mentioned in the Bible, too, under the name of Thammus (הַּמּוּן), Ezek. viii. 14, “And behold there sat women weeping for Thammus.” One of the principal festivals of Adonis was celebrated in spring; it was a service in honour of the dead, a feast of mourning which lasted several days. For two whole days Adonis was sought for with lamentation; the third day was a joyous festival, when the god had risen again from the dead. The entire festival has the character of a solemn feast of Nature, which expires in winter and awakens again in spring. Thus in one aspect this is a natural process, but looked


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 at in the other aspect it is to be taken symbolically as a moment of God, as descriptive of the Absolute in fact

The myth of Adonis is associated even with Greek mythology. According to the latter, Aphrodite was the mother of Adonis. She kept him as a child of tender years concealed in a little chest, and took this to Ais. Persephone, however, would not give back the child out of the chest when the mother demanded it. Zeus decided the dispute by ordering that each of the goddesses was to keep Adonis for a third part of the year. The last third was to be left to his own choice; he preferred to spend that time also with the universal mother and his own, namely, Aphrodite. As regards its direct interpretation, this myth, it is true, has reference to the seed lying under the ground, and then springing up out of it. The myth of Castor and Pollux, whose abode is alternately in the nether world and upon the earth, has also reference to this. Its true meaning, however, is not merely the alternation of Nature, but the transition generally from life, from affirmative Being, to death, to negation, and then again the rising up out of this negation—the absolute mediation which essentially belongs to the notion or conception of Spirit.

Here therefore this moment of Spirit has become religion.

3. The Religion of Mystery.

The form which is peculiar to the religions of anterior Asia is that of the mediation of Spirit with itself, in which the natural element is still predominant; the form of transition where we start from the Other as representing what Nature in general is, and where the transition does not yet appear as the coming of Spirit to itself. The further stage at which we have now arrived is where this transition shows itself as a coming of Spirit to itself, yet not in such a way that this return is a reconciliation,


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 but rather that the strife, the struggle, is the object, as a moment, however, of the Divinity itself.

This transition to spiritual religion contains, it is true, concrete subjectivity within itself; it is, however, the free, unregulated play of this simple subjectivity; it is the development of it, yet a development which is still, as it were, in a wild and effervescent state, and has not as yet arrived at a state of tranquillity, at the true spirituality which is essentially free.

As in India the parts of this development were seen in an isolated state, so here the determinateness is in its detached state, but in such wise that these elementary powers of the Spiritual and the Natural are essentially related to subjectivity, and so related that it is one single subject which passes through these moments.

In the Indian religions, also, we had origination and passing away, but not subjectivity, return into the One, not One which itself passes through these forms and differences, and in them and from out of them returns into itself. It is this higher Power of subjectivity which, when developed, lets the element of difference go out of itself, but when enclosed within itself holds fast, or rather overpowers the difference.

The one-sidedness of this form consists in the absence of this pure unity of the Good, of the state of return, of self-contained Being. This freedom which we have here merely goes forth, merely impels itself forwards, but is not as yet, so to speak, complete, perfect, is not as yet such a beginning as would bring forth the end, the result. It is, therefore, subjectivity in its reality, not as yet, however, in true, actual freedom, but in a state of fermentation going in and out of this reality.

The dualism of light and darkness begins to come to unity here, and in such a way that this dark, this negative element, which, when intensified, even becomes evil, is included within subjectivity itself. It is the essential nature of subjectivity to unite opposite principles within


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 itself, to be the force or energy which is able to endure this contradiction, and to dissolve it within itself.

Ormazd has always Ahriman confronting him; we also find the idea, it is true, that Ahriman is at last overcome, and Ormazd alone reigns; but that is merely expressed as something in the future, not as anything that belongs to the present. God, Essence, Spirit, the True, must be present, not transported in idea into the past or the future. The Good—and this is the most immediate demand—must also be posited in actual fact as real power in itself, and being conceived of as universal, must thus be conceived of as real subjectivity.

What we have at the present standpoint is this unity of subjectivity, and the fact that by means of these distinguished moments, affirmation passes through negation itself, and ends with return into itself and reconciliation; in such a way, however, that the action of this subjectivity is more the mere effervescence of it than the subjectivity which has actually attained to itself completely, and already reached its consummation.

One single subject constitutes this difference, a something concrete in itself, one development. Thus this subjectivity imports itself into developed powers, and so unites them that they are set free. This subject has a history, is the history of life, of Spirit, of movement within itself, in which it breaks up into the differentiation of these powers, and in differentiation this subject converts itself into what is heterogeneous relatively to itself.

Light does not become extinct, does not set, but here it is one single subject, which alienates itself from itself, is arrested in the negativity of itself, but reinstates itself by its own act in and from out of this estrangement. The result is the conception of free Spirit, not yet, however, as true ideality, but, to begin with, as merely the impulse to bring the ideality into actual existence.

Here we have reached the ultimate determination of


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 natural religion in this sphere, and in fact the stage which constitutes the transition to the religion of free subjectivity. When we examine the stage of Parsiism, we perceive it to be the resumption of the finite into the essentially existent unity in which the Good determines itself. This Good is, however, only implicitly concrete, the determinateness is essentially simple, not as yet determination made manifest; or, in other words, it is still abstract subjectivity, and not as yet real subjectivity. Accordingly, the next moment is, that outside of the realm of the Good, Evil has been given a determinate character. This determinateness is posited as simple, not developed; it is not regarded as determinateness, but merely as universality, and therefore the development, the difference is not as yet present in it as differentiated; what we find rather is that one of the differentiated elements falls outside of the Good. Things are good merely as lighted up on their positive side only, not, however, on the side of their particularity also. We now, in accordance with the Notion, approach more nearly to the realm of real actual subjectivity.

(a.) The characterisation or determination of the Notion of this stage.

Material is not wanting for the determinations; on the contrary, even in this concrete region that material presents itself with a determinate character. The difference lies merely in this, namely, whether the moments of totality exist in a purely superficial, external form, or whether they have their being in the inner and essential element; that is to say, whether they exist merely as superficial form and shape, or are posited, and thus thought of as the determination of the content. It is this that constitutes the enormous difference. In all religions we meet with the mode of self-consciousness, to a greater or less degree, and further with the predicates of God, such as omnipotence, omniscience, &c. Among the Hindus and Chinese we meet with sublime


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 of God, so that higher religions have no superiority over them in this respect: these are so-called pure conceptions of God (such, for example, as those in Friedrich von Schlegel’s “Weisheit der Indier”), and are regarded as survivals of the perfect original religion. In the Religion of Light, too, we have already found that evil in an individual form is everywhere done away with. Subjectivity we have observed everywhere at the same time in the concrete determination of self-consciousness. Even at the stage of magic, the power of self-consciousness was above Nature. What really constitutes the special difficulty in the study of religion is that we have not to do here, as in logic, with pure thought-determinations, nor with existing ones, as in Nature, but with such as are not wanting in the moment of self-consciousness, of finite spirit in fact, since they have already run their course through subjective and objective Spirit. For religion is itself the self-consciousness of Spirit regarding its self, and Spirit makes the different stages of self-consciousness themselves, by which Spirit is developed into the object of consciousness for itself. The content of the object is God, the absolute Totality, and therefore the entire manifoldness of matter is never wanting. It is necessary, however, to seek more precisely for definite categories, which form the differences of the religions. This difference is especially sought for in the mode of working of the Essence; this last is everywhere, and yet is not; it is further made to turn on the question as to whether there is or is not one God. This distinction is just as little to be relied upon, for even in the Indian religion there is to be found One God, and the difference then merely consists in the mode in which the many divine forms bind themselves together into unity. There are several Englishmen who hold that the ancient Indian religion contains the idea of the unity of God as a sun or universal soul. But predicates of the understanding such as these don’t help us here.


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 When such predicates are given to God, we do not by the help of these determinations get a knowledge of Him in His true nature. They are even predicates of finite Nature; for it, too, is powerful, is wise. Taken as representing a knowledge of God, they would be extended over finite matter through the All. In this way, however, the predicates lose their definite meaning and are transient, like the Trimurti in Brahma. What is essential is contained in the One, in what is substantial, immanent; it is essential determination, which is conceived and known as such. These are not the predicates of reflection, not external form, but Idea (Idee).

Thus we have already had the determination of subjectivity, of self-determination, but merely in a superficial form, and not yet as constructing the nature of God. In the Religion of Light, this determination was abstract universal personification, because in the Person the absolute moments are not contained as developed or unfolded. Subjectivity is just abstract identity with self, is Being-within-itself, which differentiates itself, but which is likewise the negativity of this difference, which latter maintains itself in the difference, does not let it escape out of itself, retains its sway over it, is in it, but in it independently, has the difference within it momentarily.

1. If we consider this in relation to the next form, subjectivity is this negativity which relates itself to itself, and the negative is no longer outside of the Good, but rather it must be contained, posited in the affirmative relation to self, and thus is, in fact, no longer the Evil. Therefore the negative, Evil, must now no longer exist outside of the Good. It is just the essential nature of Good to be Evil, whereby of course Evil no longer remains Evil, but as Evil relating itself to itself, annuls its evil character and constitutes itself into Good. Good is that negative relation to itself as its other by which it posits Evil, just as the latter is the movement which


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 posits its negation as negative, that is to say, which annuls it. This double movement is subjectivity. This is no longer that which Brahma is; in Brahma these differences merely vanish, or, in so far as the difference is posited, it is found as an independent god outside of Brahma.

The first and essentially universal form of subjectivity is not the perfectly free, purely spiritual subjectivity, but is still affected by Nature. It is thus, it is true, universal Power, but power which merely exists implicitly, such as we have hitherto met with. As subjectivity it is, on the contrary, posited actual power, and is so conceived of when it is taken as exclusive subjectivity.

The distinction lies between power which is implicit and power so far as it is subjectivity. This last is posited power, is posited as power existent in its own right. We have already had power under every form. As a first fundamental determination it is a crude power over what has a bare existence; then it is the inner element only, and the distinctions or differences appear as self-sustained existences outside of it; existences which have, it is true, proceeded out of it, but which outside of it are independent, and which would have vanished, in so far as they were comprehended in it. Just as distinctions vanish in Brahma, in this abstraction, when self-consciousness says, “I am Brahma,” and from that moment everything that is divine, all that is good, has vanished in him, so the abstraction has no content, and the latter, in so far as it is outside of it, moves unsteadily about in a state of independence. In relation to particular existences, power is the active agent, the basis; but it remains the inner element merely, and acts in a universal way only. That which universal power brings forth, in so far as it is implicit, is also the Universal, the Laws of Nature; these belong to the power which is potentially existent. This power acts; it is implicit power, its working likewise is implicit, it acts


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, and existing things, such as sun, stars, sea, rivers, men, animals, &c., appear as independent existences; their inner element only is determined by the power. Power can only show itself in this sphere as in opposition to the laws of nature, and here, accordingly, would be the place of miracles. But among the Hindus there are no miracles, for they have no rational intelligent Nature. Nature has no intelligent co-relation; everything is miraculous, and therefore there are no miracles. These latter cannot exist until the God is determined as Subject, and as Power which has independent Being, and works in the manner characteristic of subjectivity. Where potentially existent Power is represented as subject, it is of no consequence in what form it appears; accordingly it is represented in human beings, in animals, &c. That vital force acts as immediate power cannot in any case be denied, since as power which is implicitly existent it works invisibly without showing itself.

From this power actual power must be distinguished; the latter is subjectivity, and in it two principal characteristics are to be observed.

The first is that the subject is identical with itself, and at the same time posits definite distinct determinations within itself. There is one subject of these distinctions; they are the moments of one subject. The Good is thus the universal self-determination which is so entirely universal that it has the very same undifferentiated extent as Essence; determination is, in fact, not posited as determination. To subjectivity belongs self-determination, and this means that the determinations present themselves as a plurality of determinations; that they have this reality in relation to the Notion, in contrast to the simple self-involved Being of subjectivity. But at first these determinations are still enclosed within subjectivity, are inner determinations.

The second moment is that the subject is exclusive,


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 is negative relation of itself to itself, as power is, but in relation to an Other. This Other is capable, too, of appearing as independent, but it is involved in this that the independence is only a semblance of independence, or else it is of such a kind that its existence, its embodiment, is merely a negative relatively to the power of subjectivity, so that this last is what is dominant. Absolute power does not hold sway; where there is the exercise of ruling authority, the Other is swallowed up. Here the latter abides, but obeys, serves as a means.

The unfolding of these moments has now to be further considered. This process is of such a kind that it must arrest itself within certain limits, and for this reason especially, that we are as yet only in the transition to subjectivity; the latter does not appear in a free and truthful form; there is still an intermixture here of substantial unity and subjectivity. On the one hand, subjectivity does indeed unite everything; on the other hand, however, since it is as yet immature, it leaves the Other outside, and this intermixture has therefore the defect of that with which it is still entangled, namely, the religion of nature. In reference to the nature of the form in which Spirit has its self-consciousness concerning itself as the object of its consciousness, the stage now before us presents itself as the transition from the earlier forms to the higher stage of religion. Subjectivity does not as yet exist on its own account or for itself, and is consequently not yet free, but it is the middle point between substance and free subjectivity. This stage is therefore full of inconsistencies, and it is the problem of subjectivity to purify itself. This is the stage of Mystery or enigma.

In this fermenting process all the moments present themselves. For this reason the consideration of this standpoint of thought possesses especial interest, because both stages, the preceding one of the religion of nature and the following one of free subjectivity, appear here in


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 their principal moments, the two being not yet severed. Accordingly there is here merely what is mysterious and confused, and by means of the Notion alone can the clue be obtained which indicates to which side such heterogeneous elements tend to come together, and to which of the two sides the principal moments belong.

The God is still the inner nature here, implicit power, and for that reason the form this power may wear is accidental, is an arbitrary one. This merely implicitly existent power may be invested with this or the other human or animal form. The power is unconscious, active intelligence, which is not spiritual. It is mere Idea, not subjective Idea, however, but vitality void of consciousness—in fact, life. This is not subjectivity, is not self, in fact; but if life is to be presented as outward form at all, the form that lies nearest at hand for the purpose is that of some living creature. Within life in general the living, in fact, lies hidden; what particular living creature, what animal, what human being this may be is a matter of indifference. We thus find zoolatry present at this stage, and, indeed, in the greatest variety: in different localities different animals are held in reverence or worshipped.

From the point of view of the Notion it is of more importance that the subject is determined immanently within itself, is in its reflection into itself, and this determination is no longer the universal Good, though it certainly is the Good, and thus has Evil over against it. The next stage, however, is that actual subjectivity posits differences in its determination, that differentiated Good is posited here, an inner content; and this content is of a definite and not of a merely general or universal character. Not until differences can exist for me, not until possibility of choice is present, and only to the extent in which this is the case, is the subject an actual subject, or, in other words, does freedom begin. In this way the subject stands for the first time above particular ends, is


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 free from particularity, when the latter has not the range of subjectivity itself, is no longer universal Good. It is another thing when the Good is at the same time made determinate, and is exalted into infinite wisdom. Here a plurality of Good is determined, and thus subjectivity occupies a position of superiority, and it appears as its choice to desire one thing or the other; the subject is posited as deciding, and it appears as the determining of ends and of actions.

The God as substantial unity does not appear as acting; he annihilates, begets, is the basis of things, but does not act. Brahma, for example, does not act; independent action is either merely imagined, or else pertains to the changing incarnations. Yet it is only a limited end or purpose which can come in here; the subjectivity is merely the primal subjectivity, of which the content cannot as yet be infinite truth.

It is at this point, too, that the outward form is determined as human, and thus there is a transition of the god from the animal to human form. In free subjectivity the form which directly corresponds with such a conception is the human one alone; it is no longer life only, but free determination in accordance with ends, therefore the human character appears as the form, it may be a particular subjectivity, a hero or an ancient king, &c. Here where the particular ends make their appearance as in the first form of subjectivity, the human form is not of the indefinite kind represented by Ormazd. On the contrary, specialised forms make their appearance, which have special ends, and are characterised by an element of locality. The principal moments coincide with this. That is to say, to speak more precisely, developed definite character must show itself in the subject; the definite ends of action are limited, defined, are not determinateness in its totality. Determinate character must, however, show itself in the subject in its totality too; developed subjectivity must be beheld


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xiv leg—Dislocated hip—Answer to coo-ee—Finding of human bones—Lost child—Discovery of relics—Reasons for easily losing one's way in bush—Anecdotes of Irish neighbour and the poor maid-servant—We spend a night out of doors—Silence of bush at night—A perplexing adventure—Horse brought back by Khourabene—A "dropped hip"—We are thrown out of cart and feel injured by horse's indifference to what has happened—Traces repaired with knitting-cotton. …

CHAPTER XII.

CHAPTER XIII.

Names upon shore-line of West Australia in three different languages—Legend of Great Java—Spanish admiral invents name of Australia—Pioneers of West Australia exclusively Dutch—Discovery of Swan River—Finding of inscription on Dirk Hartog's Island—Dampier's shark—M. de Bougainville—Reasons of Admiral D'Entrecasteax's voyage being undertaken—Captain Baudin's ideas about names—Tale invented by colonial John Bull—Naturalists lose their way—Captain Baudin's inhumanity—Pewter plate carried to Paris—Captain Stirling sails to Swan River—His favourable reports of it—Cockburn

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 in it. The moments are not, however, the totality of the form, but present themselves in the first place as a sequence, as a course of life, as different states of the subject. Not until later does the subject as absolute Spirit arrive at the stage at which its moments are potential or implicit totality. Here the subject is still formal, still limited as regards determinate character, although Form in its entirety belongs to it, and thus there is still this limitation, that the moments are developed into form as states only, and not each one for itself as a totality; and it is not eternal history which is beheld in the subject as constituting the subject’s nature, but merely the history of states or conditions. The first is the moment of affirmation, the second is negation, the third is the return of negation into itself.

2. The second moment is the one which is of most importance here. Negation shows itself as a certain state of the subject; it is its alienation, death, in fact. The third is restoration, return to sovereignty. Death is the most immediate way in which negation shows itself in the subject, in so far as the latter has merely natural form generally, and also definitely existing human form. Further, this negation has besides the further characteristic that since what is here is not eternal history, is not the subject in its totality, this death comes to individual existence as it were by means of an Other, and from without, by means of the evil principle.

Here we have God as subjectivity generally, and the most important moment in it is that negation is not found outside, but is already within the subject itself, and the subject is essentially a return into itself, is self-contained existence, Being which is at home with itself. This self-contained condition includes the difference which consists in positing and having an Other of itself—negation—but likewise, in returning into itself, being with self, identical with itself in this return.

There is One subject; the moment of the negative, in


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 so far as it is posited as natural in the character of what belongs to nature, is death. It is therefore the death of the god, and this characteristic presents itself for the first time here.

The negative element, this abstract expression, has very many determinations—it is change, in fact; change also contains partial death. In the natural sphere this negation shows itself as death; thus negation is still in the natural sphere, and not as yet purely in Spirit, in the spiritual subject as such.

If it is in Spirit, this negation shows itself in the human being itself, in Spirit itself as this determination, namely, that its natural will is for it another will; it distinguishes itself in its essence, in its spiritual character from its natural will. This natural will is here negation, and man comes to himself, is free Spirit, in overcoming this natural character, in having the natural particularity, this Other of rationality reconciled with rationality, and so being at home with himself, not outside of himself.

It is only by means of this movement, of this course of thought, that such inner harmony, such reconciliation, comes to exist. If the natural will shows itself as Evil, then negation shows itself as something found. Man, in the act of raising himself to his true nature, finds this natural determination to be something opposed to what is rational.

A higher conception, however, is that negation is that which is posited by Spirit. Thus God is Spirit, in that He begets His Son, the Other, posits the Other of Himself, yet in Him is still with Himself, and beholds Himself, and is eternal love. Here the negation is likewise the transient or vanishing element. This negation in God is therefore that definite essential moment. Here, however, we have only the general idea of subjectivity, subjectivity in the general sense. Thus it comes to pass that the subject itself passes through these different states as its own states, in such a way that this negation


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 is immanent in it. Then this determination, in so far as this negation appears as a natural state, enters as the determination of death, and the god appears here in the character of subjectivity in his eternal history, and shows himself to be the absolute Affirmative, which itself dies—the moment of negation. He becomes alienated from himself, loses himself, but through this loss of himself finds himself again, returns to himself.

In this religion, then, it is one and the same subject which passes through these different determinations. The negative, which we had in the form of the Evil One, Ahriman, implying that negation does not belong to the self of Ormazd, belongs here to the self of the god.

We have already had negation in the form of death too. In Hindu mythology there are many incarnations; Vishnu especially is the history of the world, and is now in the eleventh or twelfth incarnation. The Dalailama in like manner dies; Indra, too, the god of the natural sphere dies, and there are others who die and come back again.

But this dying is different from the negativity which is in question here, namely, death in so far as it pertains to the subject. As regards this difference, all depends on the logical determinations. In all religions analogies may be found, such ideas as those of God becoming man and of incarnations. The name Krishna has even been put side by side with that of Christ. Such comparisons, however, although the objects compared have something in common, some similar characteristic, are utterly superficial. The essential thing on which all depends is the fuller characterisation of the distinction, which last is overlooked.

Thus the thousandfold dying of Indra is of a different kind from that above referred to. The Substance remains one and the same; it forsakes merely the particular individual body of the one Lama, but has directly chosen for itself another. This dying, therefore, this negation,


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 has nothing to do with Substance, it is not posited in the Self, in the subject as such. The negation is not an actual inner moment, an immanent determination of Substance, and the latter has not the pain of death within itself.

Here, for the first time, we have the death of the god as something within himself, implying that the negation is immanent in his essential nature, in his very self, and it is precisely owing to this that this god is essentially characterised as Subject. The nature of a subject is to give itself this otherness within itself, and through negation of itself to return to itself, to produce itself.

This death appears at first as something undignified; we have the idea that it is the lot of the finite to pass away, and in accordance with this idea death, in so far as it is spoken of in connection with God, is only transferred to Him as a determination out of the sphere of that finite which is inadequate to Him. God does not in this way get to be truly known, but rather is debased by the determination of negation. Over against that assertion of the presence of death in the divine stands the demand that God should be conceived of as a supreme Being, only identical with himself, and this conception is reckoned as the highest and most honourable, so that it is only at the end that Spirit reaches it. If God be thus conceived as the Supreme Being, He is without content, and this is the poorest possible idea of Him, and quite an antiquated one. The first step of the objective attitude is the step to this abstraction, to Brahma, in whom no negativity is contained. Good, light, is likewise this abstraction, which has the negative only outside of itself as darkness. From this abstraction an advance is already made here to the concrete idea of God, and in this way the moment of negation enters, at first in this peculiar or special mode as death, inasmuch as God is now beheld in human form. And thus the moment of death is to be ranked high, as an essential


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 moment of God Himself—as immanent in Essence. To self-determination belongs the moment of inner, not outward negativity, as is already implied in the expression “self-determination.” The death which here comes into prominence is not like the death of the Lama, of Buddha, of Indra, and other Indian deities, whose negativity is an external one, and approaches them as a power that is external to them. It is a sign that there has been an advance toward conscious spirituality, to knowledge of freedom, to the knowledge of God. This moment of negation is an absolutely true moment of God. Death, then, is a peculiar special form, in which negation makes its appearance in an outward shape. By reason of the divine totality the moment of immediate form must become recognised in the divine Idea, for to it there must be nothing wanting.

Thus the moment of negation is immanent in the divine Notion, because it essentially belongs to it in its outward manifestation. In the other religions we have seen that the essential nature of God is merely determined as abstract Being-within-itself, absolute substantiality of Himself. There death is not thought of as belonging to substance, but is regarded merely as external form, in which the god shows himself. It is quite otherwise when it is an event which happens to the god himself, and not merely to the individual in whom he presents himself. It is thus the essential nature of God which comes into prominence here in this determination.

3. But now, further, we have in close connection with this the idea that God restores himself, rises from the dead. The immediate god is not God. Spirit is alone what, as being free in itself, exists by its own act, what posits itself. This contains the moment of negation. The negation of the negation is the return into self, and Spirit is the eternal return into self. Here then at this stage we come upon Reconciliation. Evil, death, is represented as vanquished, God is consequently


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 once more reinstated, restored again, and as thus eternally returning into himself is he Spirit.

(b.) The concrete idea belonging to this stage.

In this religion, as it actually exists in the religion of the Egyptians, there occur an infinite variety of forms or figures. But the soul or animating principle of the Whole is what constitutes the chief characteristic, and it is brought into prominence in the principal figure. This is Osiris, who in the first place, it is true, has negation opposed to him as external, as other than himself, as Typhon. This external relation is not, however, permanent in the sense of being only a strife such as that carried on by Ormazd; on the contrary, negation makes its entrance into the subject itself.

The subject is slain, Osiris dies, but he is eternally restored again, and he is thus posited in popular conception as born a second time, this birth not having a natural character, but being posited as something apart from what is natural or sensuous. He is consequently posited, defined as belonging to the realm of general ideas, to the region of the Spiritual, which endures above and beyond the finite, not to the natural sphere as such.

Osiris is the God of popular conception, the God conceived of or mentally represented in accordance with his inner character. Accordingly in the idea that he dies, but is likewise restored, it is expressly declared that he is present in the realm of general ideas as opposed to mere natural being.

But he is not only conceived of in this way; he becomes known too as such. That does not mean the same thing. As represented in the form of idea, Osiris is defined as the ruler in the realm of Amenthes; as he is lord of the living, so also is he lord of what no longer continues in sensuous existence, but of the continuously existing soul, which has severed itself from the body, from what is sensuous, perishable. The kingdom of the dead is the realm where natural being is overcome, the


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 realm of ideas or ordinary thought where what is preserved is precisely that which has not natural existence.

Typhon, Evil, is overcome, and likewise pain, and Osiris is the judge in accordance with law and justice. Evil is overcome, is condemned; and with this the act of judgment makes its first appearance, and does so as what decides; that is to say, Good has the power to assert itself, and to annihilate the non-existent, the evil.

If we say Osiris is a ruler of the dead, the dead are in this case just such as are not held to be in the sensuous natural sphere, but have independent continuous existence in a region beyond what is sensuous and natural. Connected with this is the fact that the individual subject is known as continuous, as something withdrawn from the region of the transitory, as something having a fixed, independent existence, something distinguished from what is sensuous.

That is a thoroughly weighty saying of Herodotus regarding immortality, namely, that the Egyptians were the first to declare that the soul of man is immortal. We find this continued life, this metamorphosis in India and China, but this, like the continued life of the individual, the immortality of the Hindus, is itself merely something subordinate and unessential. What is with them highest is not an affirmative permanent duration, but is Nirvana, continuous existence in the state of annihilation of the Affirmative, or only a semblance of affirmation, the being identical with Brahma.

This identity, this union with Brahma, is at the same time a melting away into this unity, which is, it is true, seemingly affirmative, and yet is in itself utterly devoid of determination and without differentiation. But what we have here as a logical deduction is this: the highest form of consciousness is subjectivity as such; this is totality, and is able to exist independently in itself; it is the idea of true independence or self-existence.

We call that independent or self-sustained which is


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 not in a condition of opposition, which rather overcomes that opposition, does not contain a finite over against itself, but has this opposition within itself, yet at the same time has conquered there. This determination of that subjectivity which is objective, which pertains to the objective, namely, to God, is also the determination of the subjective consciousness. This consciousness knows itself as subject, as totality, true independent existence, and consequently as immortal. With this knowledge the higher destiny of man dawned upon consciousness.

This negation of the negation, namely, that death is slain, that the evil principle is vanquished, is thus a determination of supreme moment. Among the Parsis that principle is not overcome, but the Good, Ormazd, stands opposed to the Evil, Ahriman, and has not yet arrived at this reflection. It is here in the Egyptian religion that the vanquishing of the evil principle is for the first time posited.

Herewith, accordingly, that determination comes in which was mentioned above, and which we have already recognised, namely, that this one who is born again, is represented directly afterwards as having departed; he is ruler in the kingdom of Amenthes; as he is Lord of the living, so also is he Judge of the dead in accordance with right and justice. Here for the first time right and morality come in, in the determination of subjective freedom; both, on the contrary, are wanting in the God of substantiality. So then there is a penalty or punishment here, and the individual worth of man, which determines itself in accordance with morality and right, comes into prominence.

Around this Universal play an infinite number of popular conceptions of deities. Osiris is only one of these conceptions, and according to Herodotus is even one of the latest; but it is principally in the realm of Amenthes as ruler of the dead, as Serapis, that he has risen above all other gods as an object of supreme interest.


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 Herodotus, following the statements of the priests, gives a series of Egyptian gods, and Osiris is to be found here among the later ones. But the further development of the religious consciousness takes place also within a religion itself, and we have already seen in the Indian religion that the worship of Vishnu and Siva is of later date. In the sacred books of the Parsis Mithras is put among the other Amshadspans, and stands on the same level with them; but Herodotus already gives prominence to Mithras, and at the time of the Romans, when all religions were brought to Rome, the worship of Mithras was one of the principal religions, while the service of Ormazd had not anything like the same importance.

Among the Egyptians, too, in the same manner Osiris is said to be a deity of later date. It is well known that in the time of the Romans, Serapis, a special form of Osiris, was the principal deity of the Egyptians, and yet, although it was in later times that the idea of him dawned upon the human mind, he is none the less the deity in whom the totality of consciousness disclosed itself.

The antithesis contained in the Egyptian view accordingly next loses its profound meaning and becomes a superficial one. Typhon is physical evil and Osiris the vitalising principle; to the former belongs the barren desert, and he is conceived as the burning wind, the scorching heat of the sun. Another antithesis is the natural one of Osiris and Isis, the sun and the earth, which is regarded as the principle of procreation generally. Thus Osiris too dies, is vanquished by Typhon, and Isis seeks everywhere for his bones: the god dies, here again is this negation. The bones of Osiris are then buried; he himself, however, has now become ruler of the kingdom of the dead. Here we have the course of living nature, a necessary cycle returning into itself. The same cycle belongs also to the nature of Spirit, and the fate of Osiris exhibits the expression of it. Here again the one signifies the other.


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 To Osiris the other deities attach themselves; he is the uniting point, and they are only single moments of the totality which he represents. Thus Ammon is the moment of the Sun, which characteristic also pertains to Osiris. There are besides a great number of deities which have been called the deities of the calendar, because they have a relation to the natural revolutions of the year. Particular periods of the year, like the vernal equinox, the early summer, and the like, are brought into prominence and personified in the deities of the calendar.

Osiris, however, signifies what is spiritual, not only what is natural; he is a lawgiver, he instituted marriage, taught agriculture and the arts. In these popular conceptions are found historical allusions to ancient kings: Osiris consequently contains historical features too. In the same way the incarnations of Vishnu seem to point to the conquest of Ceylon in the history of India.

Just as the special characteristics represented by Mithras as being the most interesting were brought into prominence, and the religion of the Parsis became the worship of Mithras, so Osiris has become the central point here; not, however, in the immediate, but in the spiritual and intellectual world.

What has been said implies that subjectivity exists at first in the form of idea or ordinary thought here. We have to do with a subject, with a spiritual being conceived after a human fashion. This subject is not, however, a man in his immediate character, his existence not being posited in the immediacy of human thought, but in that of popular conception or ordinary thought.

It is a content which has moments, movement in itself, by means of which it is subjectivity, but is also in the form, on the plane of spirituality, exalted above the Natural. Thus the Idea (Idee) is posited in this region of general conception, but is marked by the deficiency


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 consequent on its being merely a conception formed by subjectivity, by subjectivity as resting on an abstract basis.

The depths of the universal antithesis are not in it as yet; subjectivity is not yet grasped in its absolute universality and spiritual nature. Thus it is superficial, external universality.

The content which is in idea or ordinary thought is not bound to time; it is posited in the region of Universality. The sensuous particularity which implies that a thing exists at a definite time or in definite space is stripped off. Everything, since it rests on a spiritual basis, owing to the presence of general ideas, has universality, although very little of the sensuous is stripped off—as, for example, in the idea of a house. The Universality is thus external Universality only, the possession of certain common features.

That external Universality is still the predominating principle here, is intimately connected with the fact that the foundation, this idea of Universality, is not as yet absolutely immersed in itself, is not as yet a filled up or concrete basis in itself, which absorbs everything, and by means of which natural things are posited ideally.

In so far as this subjectivity is the Essence, it is the universal basis, and the history which the subject is becomes known at once as movement, life, as the history of all things, of the immediate world. And so we have the distinction which is implied in the fact that this universal subjectivity is also the basis for the Natural. It is the inner Universal, that which is the Substance of the Natural.

We have, therefore, two elements here, the Natural element and the inner Substance, and in this we have what characterises symbolism. To natural Being a foundation other than itself is attributed; what is immediate and sensuous acquires another substance. It is no longer itself as immediate, but represents or means


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 something Other than itself, which is its substance, its meaning.

Now in this abstract relation of things the history of Osiris is the inner essential history of the Natural too—of the nature of Egypt. To this belong the sun, its course in the heavens, the Nile, which fertilises and which fluctuates. The history of Osiris is therefore the history of the sun; the sun goes onward till it reaches its culminating point, then it returns; its rays, its strength, become feeble, but afterwards it begins to lift itself up again—it is born anew.

Thus Osiris signifies the sun and the sun Osiris, the sun being conceived of as this cycle. The year is considered as the single subject, which in its own history runs its course through these diverse states. In Osiris what belongs to nature is conceived of as being a symbol of the subject’s history.

Thus Osiris is the Nile, which increases, renders everything fruitful, overflows, and through the heat—here the evil principle comes into play—becomes small and impotent, then again recovers its strength. The year, the sun, the Nile are conceived as this cycle which returns into itself.

The special aspects of such a course are represented as existing momentarily apart and in independence, as a multitude of gods who indicate particular aspects or moments of this cycle. Now, if it be said that the Nile is the inner element, that the meaning of Osiris is the sun, the Nile, and the other gods are calendar deities, such a statement would not be without truth. The one is the kernel, the other what outwardly represents it, the sign, the signifier, by means of which this inner element manifests itself externally. At the same time, however, the course of the Nile is universal history, and they may be taken as standing to each other in a reciprocal relation, the one as the inner element and the other as the form of representation or of apprehension. What


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 really is that inner element is Osiris, the subject, this cycle which returns into itself.

In this mode of representing the truth it is the symbol which is the dominant factor. We have an independent inner element which has an external mode of existence, and these two are distinct from one another. It is the inner element, the subject, which is free here, which has become independent, in order that that inner element may be the substance of what is external, and may not be in contradiction with it, may not be a dualism, but be the signification, the independently self-existing idea, in contrast to the sensuous mode of existence in which last it constitutes the central point.

The representation of subjectivity in this definite shape as the central point is closely connected with the impulse to give the idea visible form. The idea as such must express itself, and it is man who must bring this meaning out of himself and give it a visible form. The immediate has already vanished if it is supposed to appear under the conditions of sense-perception or in some particular mode of immediacy, and the general idea is under the necessity of giving itself completeness in this way. If the general idea thus integrates itself, this immediacy must be of a mediated character, a production of man.

Formerly we had visibility, immediacy in a natural unmediated mode, where Brahma has his existence, the mode of his immediacy in thought, in the immersion or sinking down of man into himself. Such was the case too where the Good is light, and therefore in the form of an immediacy which exists in an immediate mode.

Since here, however, the starting-point is ordinary thought or idea, this must give itself to a definite sensuous form, and must bring itself to immediacy. It is, however, a mediated immediacy, because it is an immediacy posited by man. It is the inner element which


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 is to be brought to immediacy: the Nile, the course of the year, are immediate existences, but they are symbols only of the inner element.

Their history, as natural, is gathered up and comprised within idea, this unification, this course appearing as one subject, and the subject itself is intrinsically the returning movement already spoken of. This cycle is the subject, which idea is, and which as the subject is to make itself perceptible by sense.

(c.) Worship or cultus.

The impulse just described may be regarded as representing in general the cultus of the Egyptians, this endless impulse to work, to describe or represent outwardly what is as yet only inward, contained in idea, and for this reason has not become clear to the mind. The Egyptians worked on for thousands of years. First of all they put their soil into order; but the work which has relation to religion is the most amazing that has ever been accomplished, whether upon the earth or under it. Think of the works of art still in existence, but in the form of parched and arid ruins, which, however, on account of their beauty and the toil which their construction represents, have been a source of astonishment to all the world.

It has been the task, the deed of this people to produce these works; there was no pause in this production; we see the spirit labouring ceaselessly to render its idea visible to itself, to bring into clearness, into consciousness, what it inwardly is. This restless industry of an entire people is directly based upon the definite character which the god has in this religion.

First of all we may recall how, in Osiris, spiritual moments too are revered, such as justice, morality, the institution of marriage, art, and so forth. Osiris is, however, in a special sense the lord of the realm of the dead, judge of the dead. A countless number of pictures or representations are to be found in which Osiris is


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 delineated as judge, while before him is a scribe, who is reckoning up for him the deeds of the soul brought into his presence. This realm of the dead, that of Amenthes, constitutes a principal feature in the religious conceptions of the Egyptians. As Osiris, the life-giving, was opposed to Typhon, the annihilating principle, and was the sun of the earth, so the antithesis of the living and the dead makes its first appearance here. The realm of the dead is just as fixed a conception as the realm of the living. The realm of the dead discloses itself when natural Being is overcome; it is just there that what has no longer natural existence persists.

The enormous works of the Egyptians which still remain to us are almost entirely those only which were destined for the dead. The celebrated labyrinth had as many chambers above as beneath the ground. The palaces of the kings and priests have been transformed into heaps of rubbish, while their tombs have bid defiance to time. Deep grottos extending several miles in length are to be found hewn in the rock for the mummies, and all the walls are covered with hieroglyphics. But the objects which excite the greatest admiration are the pyramid-temples for the dead, not so much in memory of them, as in order to serve them as burial-places and as dwellings. Herodotus says that the Egyptians were the first who taught that souls are immortal. It may occasion surprise that, although the Egyptians believed in the immortality of the soul, they yet devoted so much care to their dead: one might think that man, if he holds the soul to be immortal, would no longer have special respect for his body. But, on the contrary, it is precisely those peoples who do not believe in an immortality who hold the body in slight esteem after its death, and do not provide for its preservation. The honour which is shown to the dead is wholly dependent upon the idea of immortality. If the body falls into the power of the forces of nature, which are no longer restrained by the


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 soul, yet still man does not wish, at least that nature, as such, should be that which exerts its power and physical necessity over the exanimated body, that noble casket of the soul. Man’s desire is, on the contrary, that he himself should exert this power over it. Men accordingly endeavour to protect it against nature as such, or give it themselves, by their own free will, as it were, back to the earth, or else annihilate it by means of fire. In the Egyptian mode of honouring the dead and preserving the body, there is no mistaking the fact that man knew himself to be exalted above the power of nature, and therefore sought to maintain his body against this power, in order to exalt it above it too. The methods followed by peoples in their treatment of the dead stands in the closest connection with the religious principle, and the different customs which are usual at burial are not without bearings of very great importance.

In order then to understand the peculiar position of Art at this stage, we have to recollect that subjectivity does, as a matter of fact, begin to appear here, but as yet only so far as its basis is concerned, and that its conception or idea still passes over into that of substantiality. Consequently the essential differences have not yet mediated and spiritually permeated each other; on the contrary, they are as yet mixed together. Several noteworthy features may be specified which elucidate this intermixture and combination of what is present and of living things with the Idea of the Divine, so that either the Divine is made into something present, or on the other hand into something human; and in fact here even animal forms become divine and spiritual moments Herodotus quotes the Egyptian myth that the Egyptians had been ruled by a succession of kings who were gods. In this there is already the mixing together of the ideas that the god is known as king, and again the king as god. Further, we see in the countless number of the representations of art which portray the consecration of


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 kings, that the god appears as the consecrator and the king as the son of this god; then the king himself too is found represented as Ammon. It is related of Alexander the Great that the oracle of Jupiter Ammon declared him to be the son of that god. This is quite in accordance with the Egyptian character, for the Egyptians said the very same of their kings. The priests were esteemed at one time as the priests of the gods, and then as God himself also. Many monuments and inscriptions remain even from later times, where the Ptolemaic king is always and only called the son of god, or God himself. The same thing happened in the case of the Roman Emperors.

Astonishing certainly, yet considering the mixture of the conception of substantiality with that of subjectivity, no longer inexplicable, is that Zoolatry the practice of which was carried out by the Egyptians in the most rigid manner. In various districts of Egypt special animals were worshipped, such as cats, dogs, monkeys, and so forth; and this worship was even the occasion of wars between the various districts. The life of such animals was held absolutely sacred, and to kill them was to incur severe punishment. Further, dwelling-places and estates were granted to these animals, and provisions laid up for them: indeed, it even happened in a time of famine that human beings were permitted to die rather than that those stores should be invaded. The apis was most of all held in reverence; for it was believed that this bull represented the soul of Osiris. In the coffins in some of the pyramids, apis bones were found carefully preserved. Every form of this religion and every shape taken by it is mingled with zoolatry. This worship of animals is undoubtedly connected with what is most offensive and hateful. But it has been already shown in connection with the religion of the Hindus how man could arrive at the stage in which he worships an animal. If God be not known as Spirit, but rather as power in general, then


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 this power is unconscious activity—universal life, it may be. This unconscious power then appears under an outward form, and first of all in that of an animal. An animal is itself something devoid of consciousness, it leads a dull, still life within itself, as compared with human caprice or free-will, so that it may appear as if it had within itself this unconscious power which works in the whole.

Especially peculiar and characteristic, however, are the forms under which the priests or scribes so frequently appear in plastic representations and paintings with animal masks; and the same is the case with the embalmers of mummies. This duplicate form,—an external mask concealing another form underneath it,—intimates that the consciousness is not merely sunken in dull, animal life, but also knows itself to be separated from it, and recognises in it a further signification.

In the political state of Egypt, too, we find the struggle of Spirit seeking to extricate itself from immediateness. Thus history frequently mentions the conflicts of the kings with the priestly caste, and Herodotus speaks of these even from the earliest times. King Cheops caused the temple of the priests to be shut up, while other kings reduced the priestly caste to complete subjection and excluded them from all power.

This opposition is no longer Oriental; we see here the human free-will revolting against religion. This emergence from a state of dependence is a trait which it is essential to take into account.

It is especially, however, in naive and highly pictorial representations in artistic forms that this struggling on the part of Spirit and its emergence from Nature, are expressed. It is only necessary to think of the image of the Sphinx, for example. In Egyptian works of art everything, indeed, is symbolical; the significance in them reaches even to the minutest details; even the number of pillars and of steps is not reckoned in


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 with external suitability to ends, but means either the months, or the feet that the Nile has to rise in order to overflow the land, or something of a similar kind. The Spirit of the Egyptian nation is, in fact, an enigma. In Greek works of art everything is clear, everything is evident; in Egyptian art a problem is everywhere presented; it is an external sign, by means of which something which has not been yet openly expressed is indicated.

Even if, however, at this standpoint Spirit is still in a state of fermentation, and still has the drawback of a want of clearness, and if even the essential moments of religious consciousness are in part mingled with one another, and partly in this intermingling, or rather on account of this intermingling, are in a state of mutual strife, yet it is still free subjectivity which here takes its rise, and thus it is precisely here that art too, more correctly speaking fine art, must of necessity make its appearance and is needful in religion. Art, it is true, is imitation, but not that alone; it may, notwithstanding, arrest itself at that, but it is then neither fine art nor does it represent a need belonging to religion. Only as fine art does it pertain to the Notion of God. True art is religious art, but art is not a necessity where God has still a natural form; for example, that of the sun or of a river. It is also not a necessity in so far as the reality and visibility of God are expressed in the outward shape of a man or of an animal, nor when the mode of manifestation is light. It begins, it is true, when, as in the case of Buddha, the actual human form has dropped away, but still exists in imagination; and thus it has a commencement where there is imaginative conception of the divine form, as, for example, in images of Buddha; in this case, however, the Divine is regarded as at the same time still present in the teachers, his followers. The human form in the aspect in which it is the appearance of subjectivity, is only then necessary


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 when God is determined as subject. The need begins to exist when the moment of Nature, of immediacy, is overcome, in the conception of subjective self-determination or in the conception of freedom—that is to say, at the standpoint which we have now reached. Inasmuch as the mode of definite Being is determined by means of the inner element itself, the natural form is no longer sufficient, nor is the imitation of it sufficient either. All peoples, with the exception of the Jews and Mahommedans, have images of their gods; these, however, do not belong to fine art, but are mere personifications of conceptions or ideas, signs of merely conceived or imagined subjectivity, where this last does not as yet exist as immanent determination of the Essence itself. Figurate conception or idea has an external form in religion, and from this what is known as pertaining to the Divine Essence is to be essentially distinguished. In the Hindu religion God has become man; it is in totality that Spirit is always present: whether, however, the moments are looked upon as belonging to the Essence or as not belonging to it, is what makes all the difference.

It thus becomes a necessity to represent God by means of fine art when the moment of naturalness is overcome, when Spirit exists as free subjectivity, and its manifestation, its appearance in its definite existence, is determined by means of Spirit from within, and exhibits the character of something which is a spiritual production. Not until God Himself has the determination of positing the differences under which He appears, out of His own inner Being, not until then does art enter as necessary for the form given to the god.

In connection with the introduction here of art, two moments specially deserve attention: first, that God is presented in art as something capable of being beheld by sense; secondly, that as a work of art the god is something produced by human hands. To our notions,


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 both of these represent modes which are inadequate to the Idea of God—so far, that is to say, as they are supposed to be the sole mode; for of course we are all aware that God has been outwardly visible to sense, though only as a transient moment. Art, too, is not the ultimate mode of our worship. But for the stage of that subjectivity which is not as yet spiritualised, which is thus itself as yet immediate, existence which is visible in an immediate way is both adequate and necessary. Here this is the entirety of the mode of manifestation of what God is for self-consciousness.

Thus art makes its appearance here, and this implies that God is apprehended as spiritual subjectivity. It is the nature of Spirit to produce itself, so that the mode of definite existence is one created by the subject, an estrangement or externalisation which is posited by the act of the subject itself. That the subject posits itself, manifests itself, determines itself, that the mode of determinate Being or existence in a definite form is one posited by Spirit, is implied when art is present.

Sensuous existence, in which God is visibly beheld, is commensurate with His Notion; it is not a sign, but expresses in every point that it is produced from within, that it corresponds with thought, with the inner Notion. But it has the defect of being still a sensuously visible mode,—that the mode in which the subject posits itself is sensuous. This defect is the consequence of its being as yet subjectivity in its first form, the primal free Spirit; its determination is its first determination, and thus its freedom is that of what is as yet natural, immediate, primal determination; that is to say, the moment of Nature, of sense.

The other point is that the work of art is produced by human beings. This, too, is inadequate to our Idea of God. That is to say, infinite, truly spiritual subjectivity, that which exists for itself as such, produces itself by its own act, posits itself as Other, namely, as its


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 form or shape, and this last is posited by means of subjectivity itself, and produced freely. But this its assumption of form, which to begin with as the 1 = 1, is as yet reflected into itself, must also have the determination of differentiation expressly in such a way that this differentiation is merely determined by means of subjectivity, or, in other words, that it merely appears in this which is at first still something external. This first freedom further comes to have an additional element, namely, that the outward embodiment produced by the subject is taken back into subjectivity. What is First is thus the creation of the world; what is Second is the reconciliation, namely, that it reconciles itself in itself with the true First. In the subjectivity which is before us at this stage, this return is not as yet present, its mode of existence being as yet of an implicit character; its existence as subject is found outside of it in the form of Beingfor-other. The Idea is not as yet there; for to it belongs that the Other should of its own act reflect itself into the primal unity. This second part of the process which pertains to the divine Idea is not as yet posited here. If we consider the determination as end or aim, then the primal action of subjectivity regarded as an end is still a limited end; it has reference to this particular people, this definite particular end, and if it is to become universal, a truly absolute end, the return is essential, and the doing away with what is merely natural in respect of the outward form is essential likewise. Thus, the Idea is first present when this second part of the process is added to the first, the part which annuls the natural character, the limitation of the end, and it is owing to this that it becomes for the first time an universal end. Here Spirit as regards its manifestation is only the half way of Spirit; it is still one-sided finite Spirit, in other words, subjective Spirit, subjective self-consciousness; it is the outward form of the god, the mode of his existence for an “Other.” The work of art is merely something


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 accomplished, posited by the finite spirit, by the subjective spirit, and for this reason the work of art must be executed by man. This explains why it is necessary that the manifestation of the gods by means of art is a manifestation fashioned by human hands. In the religion of absolute Spirit the outward form of God is not made by the human spirit. God Himself is, in accordance with the true Idea, self-consciousness which exists in and for itself, Spirit. He produces Himself of His own act, appears as Being for “Other;” He is, by His own act, the Son; in the assumption of a definite form as the Son, the other part of the process is present, namely, that God loves the Son, posits Himself as identical with Him, yet also as distinct from Him. The assumption of form makes its appearance in the aspect of determinate Being as independent totality, but as a totality which is retained within love; here, for the first time, we have Spirit in and for itself. The self-consciousness of the Son regarding Himself is at the same time His knowledge of the Father; in the Father the Son has knowledge of His own self, of Himself. At our present stage, on the contrary, the determinate existence of God as God is not existence posited by Himself, but by what is Other. Here Spirit has stopped short half way. This defect of art, namely, that the god is made or fashioned by man, is also felt in those religions in which this is the highest manifestation, and attempts are made to remedy the defect, not, however, in an objective, but in a subjective way. Images of the gods must be consecrated; alike by the Negro and the Greek they are consecrated, that is to say, the divine Spirit is put into them by a process of conjuration. This results from the consciousness, the feeling of defect; but the mode of remedying it is one which is not contained in the objects themselves, but comes to them from without. Even among the Catholics such consecration takes place; of pictures, for example, relics, and the like.


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 This explains the necessity there is that art should make its appearance here, and the moments indicated are those from which it results that the god exists as a work of art. Here, however, art is not yet free and pure; it is not as yet even in the process of transition to fine art. In this perverted state it still presents itself in such a way that outward forms which belong to immediate nature, and which are not produced by Spirit, such as the sun, animals, &c., do just as well as any other for self-consciousness. The artistic form which breaks forth out of an animal, the form of the Sphinx, is more a mixture of artistic form and animal form. Here a human countenance looks forth upon us from the body of an animal; subjectivity is as yet not clear or manifest to itself. The artistic form is therefore not as yet purely beautiful, but is more or less imitation and distortion. The general character of this sphere is the intermingling of subjectivity and substantiality.

The artistic activity of this whole people was not as yet absolutely pure fine art, but rather the impulse towards the fine art. Fine art contains this determination, namely, that Spirit must have become in itself free—free from passion, from the natural life in general, from a condition of subjugation or thraldom produced by means of inner and outer Nature; it must feel the need to know itself as free, and thus to exist as the object of its consciousness.

In so far as Spirit has not yet arrived at the stage of thinking itself free, it must picture itself as free, must have itself before itself as free Spirit in sensuous perception. If it is thus to become an object for sensuous perception in the mode of immediacy, which is a product, this involves that its definite existence, its immediacy, is wholly determined by means of Spirit, has entirely such a character as implies that here it is a free spirit which is described.

This, however, is precisely what we call the Beautiful, in which all externality is absolutely significant and


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 characteristic, and determined by the inner element as representing that which is free. We have here a natural material which implies that the features in it are simply tokens of the Spirit which is essentially free. The natural moment must, in fact, be overcome, that it may serve for the expression, the revelation of Spirit.

While the content in the Egyptian characteristic quality is this subjectivity, the impulse present here toward fine art is one which is worked out architecturally for the most part, and has at the same time endeavoured to pass over to beauty of form. Inasmuch, however, as it was only impulse, beauty itself as such has not as yet actually appeared here.

Such then is the source of this conflict between the signification and the material of the external form in general; it is only the attempt, the effort, to stamp the inward Spirit upon the outward embodiment. The pyramid is an independent crystal, in which a dead man dwells; in the work of art, which is pressing forward toward beauty, the inner soul is impressed upon the externality of the form employed.

What we have here is simply the impulse, because the signification and actual representation, the mental idea and the actual definite form of existence, are in fact opposed to one another in this difference, and this difference exists because subjectivity is, to begin with, merely universal, abstract, and is not yet concrete, filled up subjectivity.

The Egyptian religion thus actually exists for us in Egyptian works of art, since what these tell us is bound up with what is historical, and which has been preserved to us by ancient historians. In recent times especially, the ruins of the land of Egypt have been explored in a variety of ways, and the dumb language of the statues, as also of the mysterious hieroglyphics, has been studied.

If we must recognise the superiority of a people which has laid up its Spirit in works of language over one which has only left dumb works of art behind it for


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 posterity, we must at the same time recollect that here among the Egyptians no written documents are in existence, for the reason that Spirit had not as yet clarified itself, as it were, but was struggling to clear itself of alien elements, and this in an external way, as appears in the works of art. At last, it is true, after prolonged study, advance has been made in the deciphering of hieroglyphics, but, on the one hand, there is still a part of this work which is unaccomplished, and on the other hand, they always remain hieroglyphics. Numerous rolls of papyrii have been found beside the mummies, and it was at first believed that a great treasure had been discovered in these, and that we had come upon important disclosures. These papyrii are, however, nothing else than a species of archives, and contain for the most part deeds of purchase regarding pieces of land, or have reference to objects which the person deceased had acquired.

It is, therefore, principally the extant works of art whose language we have to decipher, and from which a knowledge of this religion may be obtained.

Now, if we contemplate these works of art, we find that everything in them is wonderful and fantastic, but always with a definite meaning, which was not the case among the peoples of India. We thus have the immediateness of externality here, and the meaning, the thought. We have all these elements together in the tremendous conflict of the inner with the outer; there is a tremendous impulse on the part of what is inner to work itself free, and what is outer exhibits to us this struggle of Spirit.

The form is not as yet exalted into form that is free and beautiful, not as yet spiritualised into clearness, transparency; the sensuous, the natural, is not as yet so perfectly transfigured into the spiritual as to be merely an expression of the spiritual, so that this organisation and its features might be mere signs, merely the signification of the spiritual. To the Egyptian principle this transparency of the natural, of the external element of


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 outward embodiment, is wanting; what remains is only the task of becoming clear to self, and the spiritual consciousness as being the inner element merely seeks to struggle out of naturalness and be free.

The most important representation by which the essential nature of this struggle is made perfectly plain is the statue of the goddess at Sais, who was represented veiled. It is symbolised in that statue, and in the inscription in her temple, “I am what was, is, and shall be; my veil has been lifted by no mortal,” it is expressly declared that Nature is something differentiated within itself, namely, an Other in contrast to its outward appearance as that immediately presents itself, an enigma. It has an inner element, something that is hidden. “But,” it is stated further in this inscription, “the fruit of my body is Helios.” This as yet hidden essence therefore expresses clearness, the sun, the becoming clear to oneself, the spiritual sun in the form of the son who is born of her. It is this clearness which is attained to in the Greek and Jewish religion, in the former in art and in the beautiful human form, in the latter in objective thought. The enigma is solved; the Egyptian Sphinx, according to a deeply significant and admirable myth, was slain by a Greek, and thus the enigma has been solved. This means that the content is man, free, self-knowing Spirit.

SECOND DIVISION

THE RELIGION OF SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUALITY.

The Religion of Nature is the most difficult to get a grasp of, because it lies farthest from our ordinary thought, and is the crudest and most imperfect form of religion. The natural element has such a variety of shapes within itself, that in the form of naturalness and immediateness the universal absolute content is broken up.


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 A.

TRANSITION TO THE SPHERE OF SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUALITY.

What is higher is also deeper; in it the separate moments are grasped together in the ideality of subjective unity; the want of connection which characterises immediacy is annulled, and the separate elements are brought back into subjective unity. For this reason it is necessary that what has the quality of naturalness should manifest such a multiplicity of outward shapes, which exhibit themselves as indifferent and mutually exclusive, as independent and individual forms of existence.

The general characteristic is free subjectivity which has satisfied its impulse, its inner desire. It is free subjectivity which has attained to dominion over the finite generally, over the natural and finite elements of consciousness, whether physical or spiritual, so that now the subject, that is, Spirit as spiritual subject, becomes known in its relation to the natural and the finite, while the latter are in part merely subservient to Spirit, and in part the garment of Spirit, and are present concretely in Spirit. Further, as outwardly representing Spirit, the natural and finite merely serve as a manifestation and glorification of Spirit. Spirit in this freedom, power, reconciliation with itself, exists on its own account, free and untrammelled in the natural; the external, the finite, is distinguished from these finite-natural and spiritual elements, from what belongs to the region of empirical, changeable consciousness, as well as to that of external existence.

Such is the general fundamental characteristic of this stage. Spirit being free, and the finite only an ideal moment in it, it is posited as inherently concrete, and inasmuch as we look upon Spirit and the freedom of Spirit as concrete, what we have is rational Spirit; the content constitutes the rationality of Spirit.


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 This determinateness first referred to, looked at from the point of view of its content, is in its formal aspect this, namely, that the natural, the finite, are simply witnesses to Spirit, are simply subservient to its manifestation. Here we have the religion within which rational Spirit is the content.

The next step in advance, therefore, is that the free form of subjectivity, the consciousness of the Divine, comes into view in an unalloyed and independent form, in the character of free subjectivity, so far as this can be in the first form of spirituality which has become free. That this last, however, is known exclusively for itself, or, in other words, that the Divine is determined on its own account as subjectivity, represents a purifying from the natural, which has been already referred to in the previous discussion. The subject is exclusive; it is the principle of infinite negativity, and since as regards its content it is universal, it leaves nothing existing independently beside it which is devoid of Spirit, or is merely natural; and in like manner nothing which is merely substantial, essentially devoid of form. Subjectivity is infinite Form; and as such, it no more leaves to Form which is not free, that is to say external naturalness, any independent existence along side of it, than it does to empty, pure, undetermined substantiality. The fundamental determination is that God becomes known as freely determining Himself within Himself; still formally, it is true, but yet already freely within Himself. We are able to recognise this emergence of free subjectivity in religions and in the peoples to which such religions belong, principally by observing whether among such peoples universal laws, laws of freedom, justice, and morality, constitute fundamental determinations and have the predominance. God conceived of as subject is conceived of as spontaneously determining himself, i.e., His self-determinations are the laws of freedom; they are the determinations of self-determination, and are of such


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 a kind that their content belongs only to the form of free self-determination, and with this is necessarily connected the fact that freedom constitutes the content of the laws. When we perceive this, the element of naturalness or immediacy retires into the background, and inherently universal ends show themselves—ends which are inherently universal, although externally they may be quite unimportant, or, so far as their range is concerned, are not yet universal, just as a man who acts from ethical motives may perform his actions within a sphere extremely restricted, so far as its general content is concerned, and yet be essentially moral. The brighter sun of Spirit makes the natural light pale before it. Thus we pass outside of the circle of the Religion of Nature. We come to gods who are essentially founders of states and marriage, founders of peaceful life, producers of art which originates solely with them, gods who preside over oracles and states, and who originate and protect law and morality. The peoples who have reached that stage in the development of self-consciousness in which subjectivity is recognised to be the ideality of the natural, have thereby crossed over into the sphere of ideality, into the kingdom of the soul, and have come to the region belonging to the realm of Spirit. They have torn from their eyes the bandage of sensuous perception, escaped from the trackless maze which is devoid of thought, they have laid hold of thought, of the Intellectual Sphere, and have made and secured for themselves the solid ground in what is inward. They have laid the foundations of the sanctuary which in its very nature is firm and stable.

The progress made up to this point has been as follows:—We started from the natural desires as seen in the religion of magic, from the authority and power of these desires over Nature, gained simply by individual will which is not determined by thought. The second stage was occupied by the theoretical


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 of the independence of objectivity, in which accordingly all the moments were set free and released, and reached the state of independence. In the third stage was found the theoretical or self-determining element, which took back into itself these moments thus released, so that the practical element is thus made theoretical, the Good self-determination, and, finally, the blending of substantiality and subjectivity.

If we now ask,—How has the idea of God been defined so far? What is God? What have we learned about Him? The answer is as follows:—

In accordance with the abstract form of the metaphysical Notion we began thus: God is the unity of the Infinite and the Finite, and our sole concern is to find out how particularity and determinateness, i.e., the finite, is incorporated with the infinite. What result have we as regards this point so far reached? God is the infinite in general, what is identical with itself, substantial power. When we start by saying this, it is not implied that finitude is as yet posited as contained in it, and it is, to begin with, the purely immediate existence of the infinite self-consciousness. From the fact that God is just infinitude, substantial power, it follows, and it is consciously implied in it, that the substantial Power alone is the truth of finite things, and that their truth consists only in this, that they return into the substantial unity. God is thus, to begin with, the Power referred to, a definition which, being purely abstract, is extremely imperfect. The second position is that God is the substantial Power in Himself, pure Being-for-self, separate from the manifoldness of the finite. This is substantiality which is reflected into itself, and this is the essential conception of God. With this idea of substantiality which exists within itself and distinguishes itself from the finite, we have reached higher ground, but here the determination of the true relation of the finite to the substantial Power, whereby the latter would itself come