text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/336

 origination, alteration, mediation with an Other, though it is a mediation which returns to itself. The living force of what has life consists in making life originate, and the living already is; and so we may indeed say—though it is certainly a bold expression—that such and such a thing originates without originating. It undergoes alteration; every pulsation is an alteration not only in all the pulse-veins, but in all the parts of its entire constitution. In all this change it remains the same individual, and it remains such only in so far as it is this inherently self-altering active force. We may thus say of it that it alters without undergoing alteration, and finally—though we cannot certainly say that of the things—that it previously exists without existing previously, just as we have seen with regard to the cause that it exists previously, is the original cause, while at the same time previously, before its effect, it is not a cause, and so on. It is, however, tedious, and would even be an endless task to follow up and arrange the expressions in which the Understanding presents its finite categories and seeks to give them the character of something permanent.

This annihilation of the category of causality as used by the Understanding takes place in connection with the conception which is expressed by the term Causa Sui. Jacobi, without recognising in it this negation of the finite relation, the speculative element, that is, despatches it simply in a psychological, or, if you like, in a pragmatical fashion. He declares that “it is difficult to conclude from the apodictic proposition, everything must have a cause, that it is possible everything may not have a cause. Therefore it is that the Causa Sui has been invented.” It is certainly difficult for the Understanding not only to have to abandon its apodictic proposition, but to have to assume another possibility which, moreover, has a wrong look in connection with the expression referred to. But it is not hard for


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/337

 reason, which, on the contrary, in its character as the free, and especially as the religious human spirit, abandons such a finite relation as this of mediation with an Other, and knows how to solve in thought the contradiction which comes to consciousness in thought.

Dialectic development, such as has been here given, does not, however, belong to the systems of simple substantiality, to pantheistic systems. They do not get beyond Being or Substance, a form which we shall take up later on. This category, taken in itself, is the basis of all religions and philosophies. In all these God is Absolute Being, an Essence, which exists absolutely in-and-for-itself, and does not exist through an Other, but represents independence pure and simple.

(b.) Categories like these, which are of so abstract a character, do not apply very widely, and are very unsatisfactory. Aristotle (“Metaphysics,” i. 5) says of Xenophanes, that “he was the first to unify (ἑνίσας), he did not advance anything of a definite nature, and so gazing into the whole Heavens—into space (ins Blaue), as we say—said, the One is God.” The Eleatics, who followed him, showed more definitely that the many and the characteristics which rest on multiplicity lead to contradiction and resolve themselves into nothing; and Spinoza, in particular, showed that all that is finite disappears in the unity of Substance, and thus there is no longer left any further, concrete, fruitful determination for this Substance itself. Development has to do only with the form of the starting-points which finds itself in presence of subjective reflection, and with that of its dialectic, by means of which it brings back into that universality the particular and finite, which appear in an independent way. It is true that in Parmenides this One is defined as thought, or that which thinks, what has Being; and so, too, in Spinoza, Substance is defined as the unity of Being (of extension) and thought. Only, one cannot therefore say that this Being or Substance is

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/338

 hereby posited as something which thinks, that is, as activity which determines itself in itself. On the contrary, the unity of Being and thought continues to be conceived of as the One, the Unmoved, the Stolid. There is an outward distinction into attributes and modes, movement and will, a distinction effected by the Understanding. The One is not unfolded as self-developing necessity, not, in accordance with what is indicated by its notion, as the process which mediates the necessity with itself and within itself. If the principle of movement is here wanting, it is certainly found in more concrete principles in the flux of Heraclitus, in number too, and so on; but, on the one hand, the unity of Being, the divine self-equality, is not preserved, and, on the other, a principle of this kind stands in exactly the same relation to the ordinary existing world as the Being, the One, or the Substance referred to.

(c.) Besides this One there is, however, the actual contingent world, Being with the quality of the Negative, the realm of limitations and things finite, and in this connection it makes no difference whether this realm is conceived of as a realm of external existence, of semblance or illusion, or, according to the definition of superficial Idealism, as a merely subjective world, a world of consciousness. This manifoldness with its infinite developments is, to begin with, separated from that Substance, and we have to find out in what relation it stands to this One. On the one hand, this definite existence of the world is merely taken for granted. Spinoza, whose system is the most fully developed, starts from definitions, that is, from the actual characteristics of thought and of ordinary ideas in general. The starting-points of consciousness are presupposed. On the other hand, the Understanding forms this accidental world into a system in accordance with the relations or categories of external necessity. Parmenides gives the beginnings of a system of the phenomenal world at the head of which


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/339

 the goddess Necessity is placed. Spinoza did not construct any philosophy of Nature, but treated of the other part of concrete philosophy, namely, a system of ethics. This system of ethics was from one point of view to be logically connected with the principle of absolute Substance, at least in a general way, because Man’s highest characteristic, his tendency to seek after God, is the pure love of God, according to Spinoza’s expression, sub specie æterni. Only, the principles which underlie his philosophical treatment of the subject, the content, the starting-points, have no connection with the Substance itself. All systematic detailed treatment of the phenomenal world, however logical it may be in itself, when it follows the ordinary procedure, and starts with what is perceived by the senses, becomes an ordinary science in which what is recognised as the Absolute itself, the One, Substance, is not supposed to be living, is not the moving principle, the method, for it is devoid of definite character. There is nothing left of it for the phenomenal world, unless that this natural and spiritual world in general is wholly abstract, is a phenomenal world, a world of appearance, or else that the Being of the world in its affirmative form is Being, the One, Substance, while the particularisation in virtue of which Being is a world, evolution, emanation, is a falling of Substance out of itself into finitude, which is an absolutely inconceivable mode of existence. It is further implied that in Substance itself there is no principle involving the characteristic of being creative; and thirdly, that it is likewise abstract force, the positing of finitude as something negative, the disappearance of the finite.

(Concluded 19th August 1829.)


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/340

has criticised this proof too, as well as the other proofs of the existence of God, and it was chiefly owing to him that they were discredited, so that it is now scarcely considered worth while to look at them closely. And yet Kant says of this proof that it deserves to be always regarded with respect. When, however, he adds that the teleological proof is the oldest, he is wrong. The first determination of God is that of force or power, and the next in order is that of wisdom. This is the proof we meet with first amongst the Greeks also, and it is stated by Socrates (Xenophon, Memor., at the end of Book First). Socrates takes conformity to an end, especially in the form of the Good, as his fundamental principle. The reason why he is in prison, he declares, is that the Athenians consider it to be good. This proof accordingly coincides historically with the development of freedom.

We have already considered the transition from the religion of power to the religion of spirituality in general. We have already had in the intermediate stages also the very same mediation which we recognise as present in the religion of beauty, but broken up and as yet devoid of any spiritual character. But since with that transition to the religion of spirituality there is added another and essential determination, we have first to bring out its meaning in an abstract way, and direct attention to it.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/341

 Here we have the determination of freedom as such, of an activity as freedom, a working in accordance with freedom, no longer an unhindered working in accordance with power, but a working in accordance with ends. Freedom is self-determination, and what is active has self-determination implicitly as its end in so far as it spontaneously determines itself within itself. Power is simply the act of self-projection, and implies that there is an unreconciled element in what is projected; and though this is implicitly an image or picture of the power, still it is not expressly felt in consciousness that what creates simply preserves and produces itself in its creation in suchwise that the characteristics of the Divine itself appear in the creature. God is here conceived of as possessed of the characteristic of wisdom, of activity in accordance with an end. Power is good and righteous, but action in accordance with an end is what first constitutes this characteristic of rationality, according to which nothing comes out of the act but what had been already previously determined upon, that is, this identity of the creating power with itself.

The difference which exists among the proofs of the existence of God consists simply in the difference of their determination. There is in them a mediation, a starting-point, and a point at which we arrive. In the Teleological and Physico-theological Proofs both points possess in common the characteristic of conformity to an end. We start from a form of Being which is actually characterised as in conformity with an end, and what is thereby mediated is the idea of God as positing and working out an end. Being, considered as the immediate from which we start in the Cosmological Proof, is, to begin with, a manifold, contingent Being. In accordance with this, God is defined as necessity which has Being in-and-for-itself, the force or power which is above the contingent. The higher determination accordingly is, that conformity to an end is present in Being. The


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/342

 rational element already finds expression in the end in the form of a free self-determination and carrying out of this content, so that this content which at first in its character as an end is inward, is realised, and the reality corresponds to the notion or end.

A thing is good in so far as it fulfils its destiny or end, and this means that the reality is adequate to the notion or destined character. In the world we perceive a harmonious working of external things, of things which exist in a relation of indifference to each other, which come into existence accidentally so far as other things are concerned, and have no essential reference to one another. Still, although things thus exist apart from each other, there is evidence of a unity in virtue of which there is an absolute conformity amongst them. Kant states this in a detailed way, as follows. The present world reveals to us an inexhaustible scene of manifold life, of order, conformity to ends, and so on. This determination in accordance with an end is seen specially in what has life, both as it is in itself and in its relation to things outside of it. Man, the animal, is something inherently manifold, has certain members, entrails, &c., and although these appear to exist alongside of each other, still the general determination in accordance with an end is present through them all and maintains them. The one exists only through the other and for the other, and all the members and component parts of men are simply means for the self-preservation of the individual which is here the end. Man, all that has life in fact, has many needs: air, nourishment, light, &c., are necessary for his sustenance. All this actually exists on its own account, and the capacity of making it minister to an end is external to it. Animals, flesh, air, and so on, which are required by Man, do not in themselves declare that they are ends, and yet the one is simply a means for the other. There is here an inner connection which is necessary, but which does not exist as such. This inner connection is not


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/343

 made by the objects themselves, but is produced by something else, as these things themselves are. The conformity to an end does not produce itself spontaneously; the active working in accordance with an end is outside of the things, and this harmony which implicitly exists and posits itself, is the force which presides over these objects, which destines them to stand to each other in the relation of things whose existence is determined by an end. The world is thus no longer an aggregate of contingent things, but a collection of relations in conformity with an end, which, however, attach themselves to things from without. This relation of ends must have a cause, a cause full of power and wisdom.

This activity in accordance with an end, this cause, is God.

Kant remarks that this proof is the clearest of all, and can be understood by the ordinary man. It is owing to it that Nature first acquires an interest; it gives life to the knowledge of Nature, just as it has its origin in Nature. This is in a general form the Teleological Proof.

Kant’s criticism is accordingly as follows. This proof, he says, is defective above all, because it takes into consideration merely the form of things. Reference to an end applies only to the determination of form. Each thing preserves itself, and is therefore not merely a means for others, but is an end itself. The quality in virtue of which a thing can be a means has reference to its form merely, and not to its matter. The conclusion, therefore, does not carry us further than the fact, that there is a forming cause; but we do not prove by this that matter also has been produced by it. The proof, says Kant, does not therefore adequately express the idea of God as the creator of matter and not merely of form.

Form contains the characteristics which are mutually related; but matter is to be thought of as without form, and consequently as without relation. This proof therefore stops short at a demiurge, a constructor of matter,


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/344

 and does not get the length of a creator. So far as this criticism is concerned, we may undoubtedly say that all relation is form, and this implies that form is separated from matter. We can see that God’s activity would in this way be a finite one. When we produce anything technical we must take the material for it from the outside. Activity is thus limited and finite. Matter is thus thought of as permanently existing for itself, as eternal. That, in virtue of which things are brought into connection with each other, represents the qualities, the form, not the permanent existence of things as such. The subsistence or permanent existence of things is their matter. It is, to begin with, undoubtedly correct that the relations of things are included within their form; but the question is, Is this distinction, this separation between form and matter admissible, and can we thus put each specially by itself? It has been shown, on the contrary, in the Logic (Encyclop. Phil., § 129), that formless matter is a nonentity, a pure abstraction of the Understanding, which we may certainly construct, but which ought not to be given out to be anything true. The matter which is opposed to God as something unalterable is simply a product of reflection, or, to put it otherwise, this identity of formlessness, this continuous unity of matter is itself one of the specific qualities of form. We must therefore recognise the truth that matter which is thus placed on one side by itself, belongs itself to the other side, to form. But then the form is also identical with itself, relates itself to itself, and in virtue of this has just the very quality which is distinguished from it as matter. The activity of God Himself, His simple unity with Himself, the form, is matter. This remaining equal to self, this subsistence is present in the form in such a way that the latter relates itself to itself, and that is its subsistence, which is just what matter is. Thus the one does not exist apart from the other; on the contrary, they are both the same.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/345

 Kant goes on to say, further, that the syllogism starts from the fact of the order and conformity to an end observable in the world. We find there arrangements in accordance with an end. It is this reference of things to an end, not found in the things themselves, which accordingly serves for the starting-point. We have in this way a third thing, a cause, posited. From the fact of arrangement in accordance with an end, we reason to the existence of its author, who has established the teleology of the relations. We cannot therefore infer the existence of anything more than what, so far as content is concerned, is actually given in presently existing things, and is in conformity with the starting-point. The teleological arrangement strikes us as wonderfully grand, as one of supreme excellence and wisdom; but a wisdom which is very great and worthy of admiration is not yet absolute wisdom. It is an extraordinary power which is recognised as present here, but it is not yet Almighty Power. This, says Kant, is a leap which we are not justified in taking, and so we take refuge in the Ontological Proof, and this starts from the conception of the most real Essence. The mere sense-perception, however, from which we start in the Teleological Proof, does not bring us so far as this totality. It must certainly be granted that the starting-point has a smaller content than what we arrive at. In the world there is merely relative and not absolute wisdom. We must look at this more closely. We have here a syllogism. We reason from the one to the other. We start with the peculiar constitution of the world, and from this go on to conclude the existence of an active force, of something that binds together things which exist apart from each other; this represents their inner nature, their potentiality, and is not present in them in an immediate way. The form of the reasoning process here produces the false impression that God has a basis from which we start. God appears as something conditioned. The arrangement of things in accordance


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/346

 with an end is the condition, and the existence of God is apparently asserted to be something mediated or conditioned. This is an objection upon which Jacobi laid special stress. We try, he says, to reach the unconditioned through the conditions. But, as we have already seen, this merely seems to be the case, and this false impression disappears of itself when we reach the real meaning of the result. So far as this meaning is concerned, it will be allowed that the process is merely the course followed by subjective knowledge. This mediation does not attach to God Himself. He is certainly the Unconditioned, infinite activity which determines itself in accordance with ends, and which has arranged the world on a teleological plan. We do not imagine, when we speak of that process of knowledge, that these conditions from which we start precede that infinite activity. On the contrary, this represents the process of subjective knowledge only, and the result we reach is that it is God who has established these teleological arrangements, and that therefore they represent something established in the first instance by Him, and are not to be regarded as something fundamental. The ground or principle from which we start disappears in what is characterised as the true principle. This is the meaning of the conclusion, that what conditions is itself in turn explained to be the conditioned. The result declares that to posit as the foundation what is itself conditioned would be to introduce a defective element. This procedure accordingly, both actually and as regards its end, is not merely subjective, not something which goes on merely in thought; on the contrary, this defective side is itself removed by means of the result. The objective thus asserts its presence in this form of knowledge. There is not only an affirmative transition here, but there is also a negative moment in it, which is not, however, posited in the form of the syllogism. There is therefore a mediation which is the negation of the first immediacy. The course followed by


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/347

 Spirit is, it is true, a transition to the activity which is in-and-for-itself and posits ends, but, it is involved in the course thus followed, that the actual existence of this teleological arrangement is not held to represent Being in-and-for-itself. This is found only in reason, the activity of eternal reason. That other Being is not true Being, but only an appearance or semblance of this activity.

In dealing with the determination of ends, we must further distinguish between Form and Content. If we consider form pure and simple, we have Being in accordance with an end which is finite, and, so far as form is concerned, its finitude consists in the fact that the end and means, or the material in which the end is realised, are different. This is finitude. We thus use a certain material in order to carry out our ends, since the activity and the material are different. The finitude of form is what constitutes the finitude of Being in accordance with an end. The truth of this relation, however, is not anything of this kind. On the contrary, the truth is in the teleological activity which is means and matter in itself, a teleological activity which accomplishes its ends through itself. This is what is meant by the infinite activity of the end. The end accomplishes itself, realises itself through its own activity, and thus comes into harmony with itself in the process of realising itself. The finitude of the end consists, as we saw, in the separableness of means and material. Viewed thus, the end represents what is as yet a technical mode of action. The truth of the determination of the end consists in the fact that the end has within itself its means, as also the material in which it realises itself. Regarded in this aspect, the end is true so far as the form is concerned, for objective truth consists simply in the correspondence between the notion and reality. The end is true only when what uses the means, and the means, as well as the reality, are identical with the end. The end thus presents itself as something which possesses reality in itself, and is not something


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/348

 subjective, one-sided, the moments of which exist outside of it. This is the truth of the end, while the teleological relation seen in finitude represents, on the contrary, something untrue. It is necessary to remark here that teleological activity as representing a relation thus defined in accordance with its truth, exists in the form of something higher, which is, however, at the same time present, and which we can certainly speak of as the Infinite, since it is a teleological activity which has both material and means in itself. Regarded from another point of view, however, it is finite as well. Teleological determination in this its true form, which is the form we require it to have, is found actually existing, though only in one of its aspects, in what has life, in what is organic. Life as the subject is the soul. This latter is the end, that is, it posits itself, realises itself, and thus the product is the same as the thing that produces. What has life is, however, an organism; the organs are the means. The living soul has a body in itself, and it is only in union with this that it constitutes a whole, something real. The organs are the means of life, and these very means, the organs themselves, are also the element in which life realises and maintains itself, they are material also. This is self-preservation. What has life preserves itself; it is beginning and end; the product is at the same time what begins. The living as such is constantly in a state of activity. The feeling of need is the beginning of activity, and impels to the satisfaction of the need, and this satisfaction, again, is the beginning of a new need. The living exists only in so far as it is constantly a product. This gives us the truth of the end so far as form is concerned. The organs of the living being are means, but they are equally the end; in exercising their activity they produce themselves only. Each organ maintains the other, and in this way maintains itself. This activity constitutes an end, a soul, which is present in every point of the organism. Every part of the


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/349

 body experiences sensation; the soul is in it. Here we have teleological activity in its true form. But the living subject is also something thoroughly finite. The teleological activity presents here the character of something which is formally true, but which is not complete. The living being produces itself; it has the material of production in itself. Each organ excretes animal lymph which is made use of by other organs in order to reproduce themselves. The living being has the material in itself, only this is merely an abstract process. Finitude shows itself in this, that while the organs draw their nourishment from themselves they employ material for this taken from the outside. Everything organic is related to inorganic Nature, which has a definite independent existence. Regarded in one aspect, the organism is infinite since it represents a circle of pure return into self; but it is at the same time in a state of tension relatively to external inorganic Nature, and has its needs. Here the means come from the outside. Man requires air, light, water; he also feeds on other living things, on animals which he in this way reduces to the state of inorganic Nature, to means. It is this relation particularly which leads to the idea of a higher unity representing that harmony in which the means correspond to the end. This harmony is not found in the subject itself, and yet it has in it the harmony which constitutes organic life, as we have seen. The whole construction of the organs, of the nerve and blood system, of the entrails, lungs, liver, stomach, and so on, presents a remarkable agreement. But does not this harmony itself demand something else outside of the subject? We may let this question alone at present; for if we get a grip of the notion of organism such as has been given, then this development of teleological determination is itself a necessary consequence of the living nature of the subject in general. If we do not get a grip of that notion, then the living being will not be the concrete unity referred


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/350

 to. In order to understand what life is, recourse is accordingly had to external mechanical modes of conception as illustrated by the action of the blood, and to chemical conceptions as seen in analysis of foods. It is not, however, possible by such processes to discover what life itself is. It is necessary to suppose the existence of some third thing which has brought these processes into existence. As a matter of fact, however, it is just the subject which is this unity, this harmony of the organism. Still this unity involves the relation of the living subject to external Nature, which is thought of as having a merely indifferent and accidental connection with the subject.

The conditions involved in this relation do not form the sole basis of the development of what has life; still, if the living being did not find these conditions ready to hand, it could not possibly exist. The observation of this fact directly produces the feeling that there must exist something higher which has introduced this harmony. It at once awakens sympathetic attention and admiration in men. Every animal has its own narrow range of means of sustenance, and indeed many animals are limited to a single source of sustenance, human nature having in this respect also the most general character. This fact accordingly, that there exists for every animal this outward particular condition, rouses in Man that feeling of astonishment which passes over into a sense of exalted reverence for that third something which has brought about this unity. This represents Man’s elevation to the thought of that higher existence which produces the conditions necessary for the accomplishment of its end. The subject secures its own preservation, and the act whereby it does this is, further, in all living things an unconscious one, is what in animals we term instinct. The one gets its means of sustenance by force, the other produces it with the help of art. This it is which we term the wisdom of God in Nature, in which we meet with that infinitely manifold


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/351

 arrangement in respect of the various activities and conditions necessary to the existence of all particular things. When we consider all those particular forms in which the living being shows its activity, we find that they are contingent, so to speak; that they have not been produced by the subject itself, and necessitate the existence of a cause outside of them. The fact of life merely involves self-preservation in general; but living beings differ from one another in an infinite variety of ways, and this variety is the work of something other than themselves. The question is simply this, How does inorganic Nature pass over into organic Nature, and how is it possible for it to serve as a means for what is organic? We are here met by a peculiar conception of the way in which these two come together. Animals are inorganic as contrasted with men, and plants are inorganic as contrasted with animals. But Nature, which is in itself inorganic, as represented, for instance, by the sun, the moon, and in general by what appears in the form of means and material, is in the first instance immediate, and exists previous to the organic. Regarded in this way, the relation is one in which the inorganic is independent, while, on the other hand, the organic is what is dependent. The former, the so-called immediate, is the unconditioned. Inorganic Nature appears complete in itself; plants, animals, men, approach it in the first instance from the outside. The earth might have continued to exist without vegetation, the vegetable kingdom without animals, the animal kingdom without men. These various forms of existence thus seem to be independent and to be there for themselves. We are in the habit of referring to this as a matter of experience. Thus there are mountains without any vegetation, without animals and men. The moon has no atmosphere, there does not go on in it any meteorological process such as supplies the conditions necessary for vegetation. It thus exists without having any vegetative nature, and so on.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/352

 Inorganic existence of this kind appears as independent, and Man is related to it in an external way. The idea thus arises that Nature is in itself a producing force which creates blindly, and out of which vegetation comes. From this latter in turn comes what is animal, and then finally Man possessed of conscious thought. We can undoubtedly assert that Nature produces stages of which the one is always the condition of that which follows. But then, since organic life and Man thus appear on the scene in an accidental way, the question arises whether or not Man will get what is necessary. According to the idea referred to, this is equally a matter of chance, since here there is no unity having a valid existence on its own account. Aristotle gave expression to the same idea. Nature is constantly producing living things, and the point is whether or not these will be able to exist. Whether or not any of the things thus produced will be able to maintain itself, is a pure matter of accident. Nature has already made an endless number of attempts, and has produced a host of monstrosities; myriads of beings of various forms have issued from her which were not, however, able to continue in existence, and besides, she did not concern herself at all with the disappearance of such forms of life. By way of proving this assertion, people are in the habit of directing attention specially to the remains of monsters which are still to be found here and there. These species disappeared, it is asserted, because the conditions necessary to their existence had ceased. Regarded in this fashion, the harmony which exists between the organic and the inorganic is held to be accidental. There is here no necessity to begin and ask about a unity. The presence of design is itself affirmed to be accidental. Now, here is what is really involved in this conception. What, speaking generally, we call inorganic Nature as such is thought of as having an independent existence, while the organic is attached to it in an external fashion, so that


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/353

 it is a mere matter of chance whether or not the organic finds the conditions of existence in what confronts it. So far as the form of what essentially constitutes the conception is concerned, we have to remark that inorganic Nature is what comes first, is what is immediate. It was in harmony with the childlike ideas of the Mosaic age that the heavens and the earth, light, and so on, should have been thought of as created first, while the organic appeared later in point of time. The question is this: Is that the true definition or essential nature of the notion of the inorganic, and do living things and Man represent what is dependent? Philosophy, on the other hand, explains the truth involved in the definition of the notion; and apart from this, Man is certain that he is related to the rest of Nature as an end, and that Nature is meant to be a means so far as he is concerned, and that this represents the relation in which the inorganic in general stands to the organic. The organic is in its formal aspect, and by its very nature, something which exists in accordance with an end. It is means and end, and is therefore something infinite in itself. It is an end which returns back into itself; and even regarded as something dependent on what is outside of it, it has the character of an end, and consequently it represents what is truly first in comparison with what has been termed the immediate, in comparison, that is, with Nature. This immediacy is merely one-sided determination, and ought to be brought down to the level of something that is merely posited. This is the true relation. Man is not an accident added on to what is first; but, on the contrary, the organic is itself what is first. The inorganic has in it merely the semblance of Being. This relation is logically developed in Science itself.

This relation, however, still involves an element of separation, as seen in the fact that the organic, regarded from one side, is related outwardly to inorganic Nature,


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/354

 which is not posited as existing in the organic itself. The living being develops out of the germ, and the development is the action of the limbs, the internal organs, and so on; the soul is the unity which brings this about. The truth, however, of organic and inorganic Nature here also is simply the essential relation between the two, their unity and inseparability. This unity is a third something which is neither the one nor the other. It is not found in immediate existence. The absolute determination which brings both, the organic as well as the inorganic, into unity, namely, the subject, is the organic; while the other appears as object, but changes itself into the predicate of the organic, into something which is held to belong to it. This is the reciprocal element in this relation. Both are put into one, and in this one each is something dependent and conditioned. We might call this third something, the thought to which consciousness raises itself, God, using the word in a general sense. It falls, however, very far short of the Notion of God. Taken in this sense, it represents the activity of production, which is a judgment whereby both sides are produced together. In the one Notion they harmonise and exist for one another. The thought to which we rise, namely, that the truth of the relation of ends is this third something, is thus absolutely correct, taking that third thing in the sense in which it has just been defined. Taken thus, however, it is defined in a formal way, and the definition rests, in fact, on something whose truth it is. It is itself living activity; but this is not yet Spirit, rational action. The correspondence between the Notion as representing the organic, and reality as representing the inorganic, simply expresses the essence of life itself. It is involved in a more definite form in what the ancients called the νοῦς. The world is a harmonious whole, an organic life which is determined in accordance with ends. It was this which the ancients held to be νοῦς, and, taken in a more


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/355

 signification, this life was also called the world-soul, the λόγος. All that is posited here is simply the fact of life, and it is not implied that the world-soul is distinguished as Spirit from this active life belonging to it. The soul is simply the living element in the organic; it is not something apart from the body, something material, but is rather the life-force which penetrates the body. Plato accordingly called God an immortal ξῶον, that is, an eternally living being. He did not get beyond the category of life. When we grasp the fact of life in its true nature, it is seen to be one principle, one organic life of the universe, one living system. All that is, simply constitutes the organs of the one subject. The planets which revolve round the sun are simply the giant members of this one system. Regarded in this fashion, the universe is not an aggregate of many accidents existing in a relation of indifference, but is a system endowed with life. With this thought we have not, however, yet reached the essential characteristic of Spirit.

We have considered the formal aspect of the relation of ends. The other aspect is that of the content. The question here may take any of the following forms: What are the essential characteristics of the end, or what is the content of the end which is being realised, or how are these ends constituted in respect of what is called wisdom? So far as the content is concerned, the starting-point is the same as that of experience. We start, that is, from immediate Being. The study of ends in the form in which we actually meet with them, has, when pursued from this side, contributed more than anything else to the neglect of the teleological proof, so much so indeed that this latter has come to be regarded with disdain. We are in the habit of speaking of the wise arrangements of Nature. The various and manifold kinds of animals are, as regards the real nature of the life they have, finite. The external means necessary for


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/356

 this life actually exist; life in its various forms is the end. If accordingly we ask what the substance of this end is, it is seen to be nothing else save the preservation of these insects, of these animals, &c. We may indeed find pleasure in contemplating their life; but the necessity of their nature and destiny is of an absolutely insignificant kind, or, to put it otherwise, is an absolutely insignificant conception. When we say, God has made things thus, we are making a pious observation, we are rising to God; but when we think of God we have the idea of an absolute, infinite end, and these petty ends present a sharp contrast to what we recognise as His actual nature. If we now consider what goes on in higher spheres of existence, and look at human ends, which we may regard as relatively the highest of all, we see that they are for the most part frustrated and disappear, leaving no permanent result. In Nature millions of seeds perish just when they begin to exist, and without ever being able to develop the life-force in them. The life of the largest portion of living things is based on the destruction of other living things; and the same holds good of higher ends. If we traverse the domain of morality, and go on even to its highest stage, namely, civil life, and then consider whether the ends here are realised or not, we shall find, indeed, that much is attained, but that still more is rendered abortive, and destroyed by the passions and wickedness of men; and this is true of the greatest and most exalted ends. We see the earth covered with ruins, with remains of the splendid edifices and works left by the finest nations whose ends we recognise as having a substantial value. Great natural objects and human works do indeed endure and defy time, but all that splendid national life has irrecoverably perished. We thus see how, on the one hand, petty, subordinate, even despicable designs are fulfilled; and, on the other, how those which are recognised as having substantial value are frustrated. We are here certainly


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/357

 forced to rise to the thought of a higher determination and a higher end, when we thus lament the misfortune which has befallen so much that is of high value, and mourn its disappearance. We must regard all those ends, however much they interest us, as finite and subordinate, and ascribe to their finitude the destruction which overtakes them. But this universal end is not discoverable in experience, and thus the general character of the transition is altered, for the transition means that we start from something given, that we reason syllogistically from what we find in experience. But then what we find present in experience is characterised by limitation. The supreme end is the Good, the general final-end of the world. Reason has to regard this end as the absolute final-end of the world, and must look upon it as being based purely on the essential nature of reason, beyond which Spirit cannot go. Reason in the form of thought is, however, recognised as being the source of this end. The next step accordingly is that this end should show that it is accomplished in the world. But the Good is what has a determinate character in-and-for-itself by means of reason; and to this, Nature stands opposed, partly as physical Nature which follows its own course and its own laws, and partly as the natural element in Man, his particular ends which are opposed to the Good. If we go by what our senses show us, we find much that is good in the world, but also an infinite quantity of evil, and we would just have to reckon up the amount of evil, and the amount of good which does not attain realisation, in order to discover which preponderates. The Good, however, is something absolutely substantial; it belongs to the very essence of its nature that it should be realised. But it is something which merely ought to be real, for it cannot reveal itself in experience. It stops short with being something which ought to exist, something which is a postulate. But since the Good has not itself the power thus to realise itself, it is necessary to postulate a


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/358

 third thing through which the final-end of the world will be realised. This is an absolute postulate. Moral good belongs essentially to Man; but since his power is finite, and since the realisation of the Good in him is limited owing to the natural element attaching to him, since, in fact, he is himself the enemy of the Good, it is not within his power to realise it. The existence of God is here conceived of simply as a postulate, as something that should be, and which should have for Man subjective certainty, because the Good represents what is ultimate in his reason. But this certainty is merely subjective; it remains merely a belief, an ideal, and it cannot be shown that it actually exists. Aye, if the Good is to be really moral and present, then we should have to go the length of requiring and presupposing the perpetual existence of the discord, for moral Good can only exist and can only be in so far as it is in conflict with evil. It would thus be necessary to postulate the perpetual existence of the enemy, of what is opposed to the Good. If, then, we turn to the content, we find it to be limited; and if we go on to the supreme end, we find ourselves in another region, where we start from what is inward, not from what is actually present and supplied by experience. If, on the other hand, we start from experience, the Good, the final-end is something subjective merely, and in this case the contradiction between Man’s finite life and the Good would have to exist always.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/359

the proofs of the existence of God, the Cosmological occupies the first place. Only in it is the affirmative, absolute Being, the Infinite, defined not merely as infinite in general, but, in contrast to the characteristic of contingency, as absolutely necessary. The True is the absolutely necessary Essence, and not merely Being or Essence.

This category already involves other characteristics. In fact, these proofs might be multiplied by dozens; each stage of the logical Idea may contribute its quota. The characteristic of absolute necessity is involved in the course of thought described.

The absolutely necessary Essence, taken in a general, abstract sense, is Being not as immediate, but as reflected into itself. We have defined Essence as the non-finite, the negation of that negative we term the finite. That to which we make the transition is thus not abstract Being, barren Being, but Being which is the negation of the negation.

It involves in it the element of difference, the difference which carries itself back into simplicity. In this Infinite, this absolute Being or Essence, there is thus involved the determination of difference, negation of the negation, but difference as it relates itself to itself. But determination of this kind is what we call


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/360

. Negation is determination or specification, negation of determination is itself an act of determination. To posit a difference, is just to posit a determination. Where there is no negation, there is no difference, no determination.

In this unity, in this absolute Being, there is thus involved determination in general, and it is indeed in it since it is self-determination. It is thus defined as determination which is in itself and does not come from without. This unrest is involved in its very nature as the negation of the negation, and this unrest determines itself more definitely as activity. This determination of Essence in itself is Necessity in itself, the positing of determination, of difference, and the cancelling and absorption of it in such a way that the one is action, and this self-determination thus reached remains in simple relation to itself.

Finite Being does not continue to be an Other; there is no gulf between the Infinite and the finite. The finite is something which cancels itself, loses itself in something higher, so that its truth is the Infinite, what has Being in-and-for-itself. Finite, contingent Being is something which implicitly negates itself, but this negation which it undergoes is just the Affirmative, a transition to affirmation, and this affirmation is the absolutely necessary Essence.

Another form of the argument, the basis of which is constituted by the same characteristic, and which is the same in respect of the characteristic of the form, though the content is greater, is seen in the Physico-theological or Teleological Proof. Here, too, we have finite Being on one side; but it is not determined merely abstractly as Being only, but as something which has in it a determination with a richer content, that of something living. Life taken in its more specific sense implies that there are ends in Nature, and that there is an arrangement in conformity with these ends, which is, at the same time,


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/361

 not produced by these ends, so that the orderly arrangement is there independently for itself, and though from a different point of view it may be characterised as an end also, still what is thus actually given shows itself to be in conformity with these ends.

The physico-theological method of regarding the world can be merely the study of outward teleological arrangement, and so this way of looking at things has fallen into discredit, and justly too; for here we have to do merely with finite ends, which require means, as, for instance, the fact that Man requires this or that for his animal life. This might be further specified. If we regard these ends as something primary, and hold that there exist means for the satisfaction of these ends, and that it is God who permits these means to exist for the sake of such ends, then we very soon come to see that this method of regarding things is inadequate to express what God is.

These ends, in so far as they appear in definite special forms, are seen to be essentially unimportant, so that we cannot possibly hold them in high esteem, and cannot conceive that they represent something which is the direct object of the will and wisdom of God. All this has been summed up in one of Goethe’s Xenien. There some one is represented as praising God the Creator, on the ground that He created the cork tree in order that we might have stoppers.

We may remark in reference to the Kantian philosophy that Kant, in his “Critique of Judgment,” adduced the important conception of inner ends, that is, the conception of life-force. This is Aristotle’s conception, namely, that every living thing is an end which has its means in itself, its members, its organisation; and the process of these members constitutes the end, that is to say, the movement of life.

This is infinite, not finite conformity to an end, in which end and means are not outside themselves. The


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/362

 means produces the end, and the end the means. The world is living, it contains the movement of life and the realm of living things. What has not life—inorganic Nature, the sun, the stars—stands in an essential and direct relation to what has life, and to Man in so far as he in a measure belongs to living Nature, and partly because he sets particular ends before himself. This finite conformity to an end is found in Man.

That is the characteristic note of life in general, and at the same time of life as it actually is, life as seen in the world. This, it is true, is life in itself, inner conformity to an end; but it means that each kind or species of life represents a very narrow sphere, and has a very limited nature.

The real advance accordingly is from this finite mode of life to absolute, universal conformity to an end, to the thought that this world is a κόσμος, a system, in which everything has an essential relation to everything else, and nothing is isolated; something which is regularly arranged in itself, in which everything has its place, is closely connected with the whole, subsists through the whole, and thus takes an active part in the production, in the life of the whole.

The main point thus is that a transition is made from finite life to one universal life, to one end which is articulated into particular ends, in such a way that in this particularisation things are in a condition of harmony and of reciprocal essential relation.

God is defined, to begin with, as the absolutely necessary Essence; but this definition, as Kant has already observed, falls very far short of expressing the conception of God. God alone is the absolute necessity, but this definition does not exhaust the conception of God; the definition in which He is described as the universal life-force, the one universal life, is both higher and deeper.

Since life is essentially subjectivity, something living, this universal life is subjective, the νοῦς, a soul. Thus


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/363

 the idea of the soul is involved in the universal life, the characteristic of the one all-disposing, all-ruling, organising νοῦς.

As regards the formal element here, we have to note the very same thing as we found in connection with the previous proofs. We have here once more the transition of the Understanding; because there are arrangements, ends of a like kind, there is a wisdom which disposes and orders everything. But the act of rising to this thought involves at the same time the negative moment, which is the main point, namely, that this life, these ends as they actually are, and as existing in their immediate finite form, do not represent what is true. On the contrary, it is this one life movement, this one νοῦς, which is what is true.

There are not two things; there is indeed a starting-point, but the mediation is of such a character that in the transition what is the first does not continue to be the basis, the condition. On the contrary, its untruth, its negation, is involved in this transition; the negation of the negative, finite element in it, the negation of the particularity of life. This negative is negated, and in this act of elevation, finite particularity disappears. As representing truth, the object of consciousness is the system of one life movement, the νοῦς of one life movement, the soul, the Universal Soul.

Here it happens again that this definition: God is the one universal active force of life, the soul which produces, posits, organises a κόσμος, is a conception which does not yet suffice to express the conception of God. It is essentially involved in the conception of God that He is Spirit.

We have still to consider the third, essential and absolute form from this point of view. In the transition just referred to, the content was life, the finite life movement, immediate life which actually exists. Here in the third form the content which forms the basis is


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/364

 Spirit. Put in the form of a syllogism, it runs thus: Because finite minds exist or are,—and it is Being which here constitutes the starting-point,—therefore the absolute Mind or Spirit exists or is.

But this “because,” this merely affirmative relation, is defective in this respect, that the finite minds would require to be thought of as the basis, and God would be a consequence of the existence of finite minds. The true form is: There are finite minds, but the finite has no truth, the truth of the finite spirit is the absolute Spirit.

The finitude of finite minds is no true Being; it is by its very nature dialectic, which implies that it abrogates itself, negates itself, and the negation of this finitude is affirmation as infinitude, as something universal in-and-for-itself. This is the highest form of the transition; for the transition is here Spirit itself.

There are in this connection two characteristics, Being and God. In so far as we start from Being, this latter, looked at as it first shows itself, is directly finite. Since these characteristics exist, we could equally as well begin from God and go on to Being, though, when we say we could, we must remember that we cannot speak of what we can do in connection with the conception of God, because He is absolute necessity.

This starting-point when it thus appears in finite form does not yet involve Being; for a God who is not, is something finite, and is not truly God. The finitude of this relation consists in the fact that it is subjective, that it is this general conception in fact. God has existence, but He has only this purely finite existence in our idea of Him.

This is one-sided; we have introduced into this content, namely, God, the taint of that one-sidedness, that finitude, which is termed the idea of God. The main point is that the idea should get rid of this defect whereby it is something merely represented in the mind, something


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/365

 subjective, and that this content should have attached to it the determination of Being.

We have to consider this second mediation as it appears in this finite form, or form of the Understanding, in the shape of the Ontological Proof. This proof starts from the Notion or conception of God, and goes from this to Being. We do not find this transition amongst the ancients, for instance in Greek philosophy, nor was it made in the Christian Church till after a long time. It was one of the great scholastic philosophers, Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, that profound, philosophical thinker, who first grasped this idea.

We have the idea of God; but He is not merely an idea, He is. How are we to make this transition? How are we to get to see that God is not merely something subjective in us? How is this determination of Being to be mediated with God?

The Kantian criticism was directed against this so-called Ontological Proof too, and with triumphant success, so to speak, in its day. It is still held at the present day that these proofs have been refuted as being worthless efforts on the part of the Understanding. We have, however, already recognised the fact that the act whereby these higher thoughts are here reached is the act of Spirit, the act peculiarly belonging to thinking Spirit, which Man will not renounce the right to exercise; and so, too, this proof is an act of the same sort.

The ancients did not know of this transition; for, in order to arrive at it, it is necessary that Spirit should go down into itself as deeply as possible. Spirit, when once it has arrived at its highest form of freedom, namely, subjectivity, first conceives this thought of God as subjective, and reaches first this antithesis of subjectivity and objectivity.

Anselm expressed the nature of this transition in the following fashion. The idea of God is that He is absolutely perfect. If accordingly we think of God only


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/366

 as idea, then we find that what is merely subjective, and merely represented in the form of an idea, is defective, and not perfect; for that is the more perfect which is not merely represented as an idea, but also is, really is. Therefore, since God is what is most perfect, He is not idea merely, but, on the contrary, He is possessed of actuality or reality.

The later, broader, and more rational form which represents the development of this thought of Anselm asserts that the conception or Notion of God implies that He is the Substance of all realities, the most real Essence. But Being also is reality, therefore Being belongs to Him.

It has been urged against this that Being is no reality, that it does not belong to the reality of a notion. Reality in a notion or conception implies determinate content in a notion, but Being adds nothing to the notion or to the content of the notion. Kant has put it in the following plausible form: I form an idea of a hundred thalers; but the notion or conception, the determinateness of the content is the same whether I form an idea of them, or whether I actually possess them.

As against the first proposition that Being ought to follow from the Notion in general, it has been urged that Notion and Being are different from each other: the Notion thus exists for itself, while Being is different. Being must come to the Notion from the outside, from elsewhere. Being is not involved in the Notion. This can be put in a very plausible way by the aid of the hundred thalers.

In ordinary life an idea of a hundred thalers is called a notion or conception. That is not a notion at all in which you may have any kind of determination of content. It is certainly true that Being may not belong to an abstract sense-idea such as blue, or to any determinateness of the Understanding which happens to be in my mind; but then this ought not to be called a notion.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/367

 The Notion, and still more the absolute Notion, the Notion in-and-for-itself, the Notion of God, is to be taken for itself, and this Notion contains Being as a determinate characteristic. Being is a form of the determinateness of the Notion. This may easily be shown to be the case in two ways.

First of all, the Notion is essentially the Universal which determines itself, which particularises itself; it is what has the active power of differentiation, of particularising and determining itself, of positing a finitude, and of negating this its own finitude, and of being through the negation of this finitude identical with itself.

This is the Notion in general. This is just what the Notion of God, the absolute Notion, God, really is. God as Spirit or as love means that God particularises Himself, begets the Son, creates the world, an Other of Himself, and possesses Himself, is identical with Himself, in this Other.

In the Notion in general, and still more in the Idea, what, in fact, we see is, that through the negation of the particularisation, the positing of which is at the same time the work of the activity which He Himself is, He is identical with Himself, relates Himself to Himself.

The primary question is, What is Being? what is this attribute, this determinateness, namely, reality? Being is nothing but the unutterable, the inconceivable; it is not that concrete something which the Notion is, but merely the abstraction of reference to self. We may say, it is immediacy, Being is the Immediate in general, and conversely the Immediate is Being, it is in relation to itself, that is, the mediation is negated.

This determination, namely, reference to self, or immediacy, accordingly directly exists for itself in the Notion in general, and it is involved in the absolute Notion, in the Notion of God, that He is reference to self. This abstract reference to self is directly found in the Notion itself.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/368

 The Notion is what has life, what is self-mediating; and so Being, too, is one of its characteristics. Being is different from the Notion to this extent, that Being is not the entire Notion, but is only one of its characteristics, merely that simple aspect of the Notion in virtue of which it is at home with itself, is self-identity.

Being is the determination which is found in the Notion as something different from the Notion, because the Notion is the whole of which Being is only one determination. The other point is that the Notion contains this determination in itself, this latter is one of its determinations; but Being is also different from the Notion, because the Notion is the totality. In so far as they are different, mediation forms a necessary element in their union.

They are not immediately identical; all immediacy is true and real only in so far as it is mediation within self, and conversely all mediation, in so far as it is immediacy in itself, has reference to self. The Notion is different from Being, and the peculiar quality of the difference lies in this that the Notion absorbs and abolishes it.

The Notion is the totality, represented by the movement, the process, whereby it makes itself objective. The Notion as such, as distinct from Being, is something purely subjective, and that implies a defect. The Notion, however, is all that is deepest and highest. The very idea of the Notion implies that it has to do away with this defect of subjectivity, with this distinction between itself and Being, and has to objectify itself. It is itself the act of producing itself as something which has Being, as something objective.

Whenever we think of the Notion, we must give up the idea that it is something which we only possess, and construct within ourselves. The Notion is the Soul, the final-end of an object, of what has life; what we call Soul is the Notion, and in Spirit, in consciousness, the Notion


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/369

 as such attains to existence as a free Notion existing in its subjectivity as distinct from its reality as such.

The sun, the animal is the Notion merely, but has not the Notion; for them the Notion has not become objective. It is in consciousness and not in the sun that we find that division which is called I, the existing Notion, the Notion in its subjective reality, and I, this Notion, am the subjective.

No man, however, is content with his mere self-hood. The Ego is active, and this activity shows itself in objectifying self, in giving to it reality, definite existence. In its more extended and concrete signification, this activity of the Notion is impulse. All sense of satisfaction arises through this process whereby subjectivity is done away with, and what is inward and subjective is posited as at the same time outward, objective, and real, that process by which the unity of the merely subjective and merely objective is brought about, and the two are stripped of their one-sidedness.

There is nothing so well illustrated by all that goes on in the world as the abolition of the antithesis of subjective and objective, whereby the unity of the two is effected.

The thought of Anselm, therefore, so far as its content is concerned, is the truer and more necessary thought; but the form of the proof deduced from it is certainly defective in the same way as the modes of mediation previously referred to. This unity of Notion and Being is hypothetical, and its defect consists just in the very fact of its being hypothetical.

What is presupposed is that the pure Notion, the Notion in-and-for-itself, the Notion of God, is, involves Being also.

If we compare this content with faith or immediate knowledge, we shall find that the content is the same as that of Anselm’s presupposition.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/370

 When the matter is regarded from this standpoint of immediate knowledge, what is said is this. It is a fact of consciousness that I have the idea of God, and along with this idea, Being must be given, so that Being is bound up with the content of the idea. If it is said that we believe it, that we know it immediately, then the unity of the idea and Being is expressed in the form of the presupposition just exactly as it is in Anselm’s argument, and we have not got one bit further. This is the presupposition we everywhere meet with in Spinoza too. He defines the Absolute Cause, Substance, as that which cannot be thought of as not existing, the conception of which involves existence; that is, the idea of God is directly bound up with Being.

This inseparableness of Notion and Being is found in an absolute form only in the case of God. The finitude of things consists in the fact that the Notion, and the determinate form of the Notion, and the Being of the Notion, are essentially different. The finite is what does not correspond to its notion or rather to the Notion.

We have the notion of Soul; the reality, the Being is represented by the corporeal form. Man is mortal; we express this truth also by saying, Soul and body can part. There we have the fact of separation, but in the pure Notion we have the inseparableness referred to.

When we say that every impulse is an example of the Notion which realises itself, we are saying what is formally correct; the impulse which has received satisfaction is undoubtedly infinite so far as the form is concerned. But the impulse has a content, and so far as the determinate character of its content is concerned, it is finite and limited; in this respect it does not correspond to the Notion, to the pure Notion.

This is the explanation of what is involved in the standpoint of the knowledge of the Notion. What was considered last was the knowledge of God, the certainty of the existence of God in general. The essential thought


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/371

 in this connection is the following. When we have knowledge of an object, the object is before us; we are directly related to it. But this immediacy involves mediation, what was called the act of rising to God, the fact that the human spirit comes to consider the finite as non-existent.

By means of this negation Man’s spirit raises itself to God, brings itself into harmony with God. The conclusion: I know that God is, is the simple relation which has originated in this negation.


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/372

the sphere of revealed religion what we have first to consider is the abstract Notion or conception of God. This free, pure revealed Notion is what forms the basis. The manifestation of the Notion, its Being for an Other, is its existence, and the region in which this existence shows itself is the finite spirit. This is the second point—finite Spirit and finite consciousness are concrete. The chief thing in this religion is to attain to a knowledge of the process whereby God manifests Himself in the finite spirit, and is identical with Himself in it. The third point is the identity of the Notion and existence. Identity here is, strictly speaking, an awkward expression, for what we have in God is essentially life.

In the forms hitherto treated of we advanced from what was lower to what was higher, and took as the starting-point one definite form of existence regarded in its different aspects. Being was first taken in its most comprehensive aspect as contingent Being, in the Cosmological Proof. The truth of contingent Being is Being necessary in-and-for-itself. Existence was then further conceived of as involving relations of ends, and this supplied us with the Teleological Proof. Here there is an advance, a beginning from existence as actually given and present. These proofs consequently form part of the finite determination of God. The Notion of God is that of something boundless, not boundless in the bad sense, but rather as representing what has at the same


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/373

 time the most determinate character possible, pure self-determination. These first proofs belong to the domain of finite connection, of finite determination, since we start with what is given. Here, on the other hand, the starting-point is the free, pure Notion, and it is accordingly at this stage that we meet with the Ontological Proof of the existence of God. It constitutes the abstract metaphysical basis of this stage. It was first discovered in Christendom by Anselm of Canterbury. It was then further developed by all the later philosophers, by Descartes, Leibnitz, and Wolff, yet always along with the other proofs, though it alone is the true one. The Ontological Proof starts from the Notion. The Notion is considered to be something subjective, and is defined as something opposed to the object and to reality. Here it constitutes the starting-point, and what we have got to do is to show that Being, too, belongs to this Notion. The exact method of procedure is as follows. The Notion of God is first of all described, and it is shown that He cannot be conceived of unless as including Being in Himself. In so far as Being is separated from the Notion, God exists in a merely subjective way in our thought. As thus subjective He is imperfect, and imperfection belongs only to finite Spirit. It has to be shown that it is not only our notion which exists, but that He exists independent of our thinking. Anselm states the proof in the following simple form: God is what is most perfect, beyond which nothing can be thought of as existing; if God is merely an idea, then He is not what is most perfect. This, however, is in contradiction with the first statement; for we consider that as perfect which is not merely an idea, but which is also possessed of Being. If God is merely subjective, we could bring forward something higher which would be possessed of Being as well. This is further developed as follows. We begin with what is most perfect, and this is defined as the most real Essence, as the Substance


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/374

 of all realities. This has been termed possibility. The Notion as subjective, since it is distinguished from Being, is merely what is possible, or at all events it ought to be what is possible. According to the old Logic, possibility exists only where it can be shown that no contradiction exists. Realities are, in accordance with this idea, to be considered as existing in God only in their affirmative aspect, as limitless, and in such a way that negation is supposed to be eliminated. But it is easy to prove that in this case all that is left is the abstraction of something which is one with itself. For when we speak of realities we mean to imply that they represent different characteristics, such as wisdom, righteousness, almighty power, omniscience. These characteristics are attributes which may easily be shown to be in contradiction with each other. Goodness is not righteousness; absolute power is in contradiction with wisdom; for this latter presupposes final-ends. Power, on the other hand, means the limitlessness of negation and production. If, as is demanded, the Notion is not to contradict itself, all determinateness must be dropped, for every judgment or difference advances to the state of opposition. God is the Substance of all realities, it is said, and since one of these is Being, Being is consequently united with the Notion. This proof maintained itself until recent times, and we find it worked out particularly in Mendelssohn’s “Morning Hours.” Spinoza defines the Notion or conception of God by saying that it is that which cannot be conceived of apart from Being. The finite is something whose existence does not correspond to the Notion. The species is realised in existing individuals, but these are transitory; the species is the Universal for itself. In the case of the finite, existence does not correspond to the Notion. On the other hand, in the case of the Infinite, which is determined within itself, the reality must correspond to the Notion; this is the Idea, the unity of subject and object. Kant criticised


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/375

 this proof, and the objections he urged against it were as follows. If God is defined as the Substance of all realities, then Being does not belong to Him, for Being is no reality. It makes no difference to the Notion or conception whether it exists or does not exist, it remains the same. Already in Anselm’s day this objection was urged by a monk who said, “The fact of my forming an idea of anything does not therefore imply that the thing exists.” Kant maintains that a hundred thalers really remain the same whether I merely form an idea of them or actually possess them; consequently Being is not a reality, or real predicate, since nothing is added by it to the Notion. It may be granted that Being is not any determinate content; all the same, nothing certainly should be added to the Notion. (We may remark in passing that to speak of every wretched form of existence as a notion is to go on quite wrong lines.) On the contrary, it should be rid of the defect attaching to it in that it is merely something subjective, and is not the Idea. The Notion which is only something subjective, and is divorced from Being, is a nullity. In the form of the proof as given by Anselm, the infinitude consists in the very fact that it is not one-sided, something purely subjective to which Being does not attach. The Understanding keeps Being and the Notion strictly apart, and considers each as self-identical. But even according to the ordinary idea the Notion apart from Being is considered one-sided and untrue, and so, too, Being in which there is no Notion is looked on as notionless Being, Being which is inconceivable. This antithesis which is found in finitude cannot have any place in connection with the Infinite or God.

But it is the following circumstance which makes the proof unsatisfactory. That most perfect and most real existence is in fact a presupposition measured by which Being for itself and the Notion for itself are one-sided. Descartes and Spinoza defined God as the cause of Himself. Notion and existence form an identity; in other


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/376

 words, God as Notion cannot be conceived of without Being. What is unsatisfactory in this view is that we have here a presupposition, and this means that the Notion measured by this standard of hypothetical necessity must be something subjective.

The finite and subjective, however, is not finite only as measured by the standard supplied by that presupposition. It is finite in itself, and is consequently the antithesis of itself. It is the unsolved contradiction. Being is supposed to be distinct from the Notion. We may imagine we can regard this latter as strictly subjective, as finite; but the essential characteristic of Being is in the Notion itself. This finitude of subjectivity is done away with in the Notion itself, and the unity of Being and the Notion is not a presupposition relatively to the latter, and by which it is measured. Being in its immediacy is contingent, and we have seen that its truth is necessity. The Notion necessarily involves Being, and this is simple reference to self, the absence of mediation. If we consider the Notion, we find it to be that in which all difference is absorbed, and in which all determinations are merely ideal. This ideality is mediation or difference, which has been absorbed and removed, perfect clearness, pure transparency, being at home with self. The freedom of the Notion is just absolute reference to self, identity which is also immediacy, unity without mediation. The Notion thus has Being in itself potentially. Its very meaning is that it does away with its one-sidedness. The idea that Being can be separated from the Notion is a mere fancy. When Kant says that it is impossible to extract reality from the Notion, he is thinking of the Notion as something finite. But the finite is just what annuls itself; and if we were to think of the Notion in this way as divorced from Being, we should just have that very reference to self which Being essentially is.

The Notion, however, has not Being in itself potentially


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/377

 only. It is not seen to be there merely by us; but, on the contrary, the Notion is actual Being, Being for itself also. It abolishes its subjectivity, and objectifies itself. Man realises his ends; that is, what was, to begin with, merely ideal loses its one-sidedness, and is consequently made into something which has Being. The Notion shows itself eternally in that activity whereby Being is posited as identical with itself. In perception, feeling, &c., we have outward objects before us; but we take them up into ourselves, and thus the objects are ideal in us. The Notion is thus the continuous act whereby it abolishes its difference. When we regard closely the nature of the Notion, we see that this identity with Being is no longer a presupposition, but a result. The course of procedure is as follows: the Notion makes itself objective, turns itself into reality, and is thus the truth, the unity of subject and object. God is an immortal living Being, says Plato, whose body and soul are united in one. Those who separate the two sides do not get beyond what is finite and untrue.

The standpoint which we here occupy is the Christian one. We have here the Notion of God in its entire freedom. This Notion is identical with Being. Being is the poorest of all abstractions; but the Notion is not so poor as not to contain this determination in it. We have not to deal with Being in the poverty of abstraction, in immediacy in its bad form, but with Being as the Being of God, as absolutely concrete Being, distinguished from God. The consciousness of finite Spirit is concrete Being, the material for the realisation of the Notion of God. Here it is not a question of any addition of Being to the Notion, or merely of a unity of the Notion and Being—such expressions are awkward and misleading. The unity is rather to be conceived of as an absolute process, as the living movement of God, and this means that the two sides are distinguished from each other, while the process is thought of as that absolute,


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/378

 act of eternal self-production. Here we have the concrete and popular idea of God as Spirit. The Notion of Spirit is the Notion which has Being in-and-for-itself, that is to say, knowledge. This infinite Notion is negative reference to self. When thus posited it is judgment, the act of distinguishing, self-differentiation. But what is thus differentiated, and which at first appears as something outward, devoid of Spirit, outside of God, is really identical with the Notion. The development of this Idea is the absolute truth. In the Christian religion it is known that God has revealed Himself, and it is the very nature of God to reveal Himself, and to reveal is to differentiate. What is revealed is just that God is the revealed God.

Religion must be something for all men; for those who have so purified their thought that they know what exists in the pure element of thought, and who have arrived at a philosophical knowledge of what God is, as well as for such as have not got beyond feeling and ordinary ideas.

Man is not merely pure thought. On the contrary, thought manifests itself as perception or picture-thought, or in the form of ordinary ideas. The absolute truth which is revealed to Man must therefore exist for him as a being who forms general ideas and sensuous images, who has feelings and sensations. This is the mark by which religion in general is distinguished from philosophy. Philosophy thinks what otherwise exists only for the ordinary idea and sensuous perception. Man who thus forms general ideas, is in his character as Man a thinking being also, and the substance of religion comes to him as a being who thinks. It is only a thinking being that can have a religion, and to think is also to form ideas, though the former act alone is the free form of truth. The Understanding thinks too, but it does not get beyond identity; for it the Notion is Notion, and Being is Being. These two one-sided categories always


text:
Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/379

 keep this one-sided form, so far as it is concerned. In their true nature, on the other hand, these finite forms are no longer held to be inherently identical on the ground that they are, but rather they are considered to be merely moments of a totality.

Those who find fault with philosophy for thinking religion, for stating religion in terms of thought, don’t know what they want. Hatred and vanity here come directly into play under the outward guise of humility. True humility consists in having the spirit absorbed in the truth, in losing ourselves in what is most inward, in having within us the object, and the object only. Thus anything subjective which may still be present in feeling, disappears. We have to consider the Idea from the purely speculative point of view, and to justify its claims as against the Understanding, and against it as being hostile to all content of religion whatsoever. This content is called a mystery, because it is something hidden from the Understanding; for the latter does not get the length of the process which this unity is, and thus it is that everything speculative, everything philosophical, is for the Understanding a mystery.


text: 1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Groener, Wilhelm


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hindenburg, Paul von

HINDENBURG, PAUL VON (1847–), German soldier, chief of the great general staff during the World War, was born on Oct. 2 1847 at Posen. His full family name was von Beneckendorf und Hindenburg. His promotion was slow; from 1877 to 1884 he served on the general staff, but he was 47 years of age when he became colonel, and 49 when he attained a military position of higher importance as chief of the general staff of the VIII. Army Corps. In 1904, when he was 57, he was appointed to the command of the IV. Army Corps, and in 1911 was placed on the retired list, at the instance, it is said, of the Emperor William II. (who had criticized manœuvres of his corps). While in command of this Eastern Corps he had thoroughly studied the strategy, and above all the geography, of a possible war with Russia, a fact which was widely known in the German army, but to which the German Emperor does not appear, at the time, to have attached importance. When, at the outbreak of the World War, East Prussia was overrun by the armies of Rennenkampf, military opinion turned to Hindenburg, and he was recalled from his retirement at Hanover, and appointed to the command of the VIII. Army with Ludendorff as his chief of staff. In Aug. and Sept. he won the victories of Tannenberg and the Masurian Lakes, which were decisive for the deliverance of East Prussia and for the prospects of any Russian advance into Germany, upon which sections of opinion in the Entente countries were reckoning. In the summer of 1915 he planned and executed a German advance against Riga, Dünaburg and Molodetschno. In acknowledgment of his victories he had meanwhile been advanced, on Aug. 27 1914, to the rank of colonel-general (Generaloberst), and, on Nov. 27 of the same year, to that of field-marshal. He had further been appointed, in Nov. 1914, chief in command over the armies of the East, a command which was extended at the beginning of Aug. 1916 so as to embrace sections

of the Austrian front. Finally, on Aug. 29 1916, he was made chief of the general staff of the army in succession to Falkenhayn. In this capacity he controlled the whole conduct of the operations in the East and West, with Ludendorff in the position of quartermaster-general as his adviser and executive officer. His achievements and failures during this period belong to the military history of the war, but it may be mentioned here that his identification with Ludendorff was so close in everything he did that the credit or discredit is rightly attached to the younger soldier, who was in the full vigour of his faculties and powers of initiative. The German people, which was unable to personify, as in 1870–71, the spirit of the war and of its patriotic aspirations in an emperor, a crown prince or a chancellor, centred its hopes and its enthusiasms upon Hindenburg, its deliverer from the tremendous Russian menace. Justice and the facts of the case soon compelled it to associate Ludendorff inseparably with the fame of its hero, but Hindenburg remained during the war the national figure-head. A wooden statue of him was erected in the Königsplatz in Berlin, and patriotic persons of all classes paid sums of money towards war charities for the privilege of driving a nail into this effigy.

Hindenburg entirely associated himself with Ludendorff in urging upon the German Government, in Sept. and Oct. 1918, the necessity of seeking an armistice. When the Armistice had been arranged the urgent question arose of leading the partially disorganized German armies of the West home and disbanding them. It was to the unequalled prestige and authority of Hindenburg that the provisional Republican Government, the Commission of the six Delegates of the People, looked to cope with this gigantic task. And it must be acknowledged that the magnanimity and the patriotic devotion of the man were even more strikingly displayed in this emergency than in his greatest military achievements. He addressed to the army an appeal in which he announced that an Armistice on very hard terms had been signed. He paid a tribute to the services of the army which had kept the enemy far from Germany's frontiers and thus saved the country from the horrors and devastation of war. He maintained that they “issued from the struggle proud and with heads erect.” And he concluded:—

“The terms of the Armistice oblige us to execute a rapid march home in present circumstances a difficult task which demands self-control and the most faithful fulfilment of duty by every single one of you, a hard test for the spirit and the internal cohesion of the Army. In battle your Field-Marshal-General never left you in the lurch. And I rely upon you now as before.”

In other aspects these post-war services of Hindenburg had certain grave and prejudicial effects. The role which was assigned to him and to other soldiers (Ludendorff being carefully excluded as too dangerous a political schemer) demonstrated that the German Republic was at first unable to dispense with the services of royalist officers, just as it was unable for a long time to replace royalist officials by republicans. The Kapp coup d’état of March 1920 was facilitated by the fact that many of these officers and officials were in a position to make their influence felt against the republic. There was at one time, in 1920, some talk of putting up Hindenburg as a candidate for the presidency of the Reich, if it had then become vacant. During the first half of 1919 Hindenburg held the chief command of the forces for defending the Eastern frontier (Grenzschutz Ost), which had headquarters at Kolberg on the Baltic. He retired from active service on July 3 1919, and subsequently lived at Hanover as a private citizen. Unlike Ludendorff, he kept himself clear of the political conflicts of the day. A chivalrous, almost a quixotic action, was his offer, on the morrow of his retirement, to place himself at the disposal of the Allied and Associated Powers as a substitute for the ex-Emperor, if it had been decided by the Allies that William II. should actually be prosecuted. In 1920 he published his recollections under the title of Aus meinem Leben.


text:
Page:Story of the robins.djvu/68

Harriet and Frederick had been gratified with the sight of the robins' nest, they were returning to the house, conducted by their friend Joe, when they were met in the garden by their mamma, accompanied by Miss Lucy Jenkins and her brother Edward. The former was a fine girl about ten years old, the latter a robust, rude boy, more than eleven. "We were coming to seek you, my dears," said Mrs. Benson to her children, "for I was fearful that the business you went upon would make you forgetful of your young visitors."

"I cannot answer for Frederick," replied Harriet, "but indeed, mamma, I would not on any account have slighted my friends.—How do you do, my dear Lucy?" said she; "I am happy to see you. Will

title: Page:Story of the robins.djvu/68


text: Category:Author pages using deprecated parameters


text: Category:Author pages linking to Wikipedia


text: Category:Author pages linking to Wikiquote


text: Category:Author pages linking to Wikimedia Commons


text: Category:Author pages linking to Wikimedia Commons categories


text:
1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Huerta, Victoriano

HUERTA, VICTORIANO (1854-1916), Mexican general and dictator, was born in Colotlán, Jalisco, Dec. 23 1854. He began his military career as a boy, graduating from Chapultepec Military College in 1876, and immediately serving in the successful revolt of Porfirio Diaz against President Lerdo. He was then eight years on the Military Map Commission, from 1890 to 1900 was a member of the General Staff, and later fought Indian campaigns in Sonora and Yucatan. Diaz made him a brigadier-general. When the latter fell, Huerta escorted him to Vera Cruz, then joined Madero, and conducted campaigns against Zapata in 1911 and Pascual Orozco in 1912. From Feb. 9 to 18 1913 he commanded the Madero forces when the Díaz revolutionary forces were besieged in the arsenal at Mexico City and when several thousand non-combatants were shot by the ill-directed gunfire of Huerta's men. On Feb. 18 he betrayed Madero, forcing him and the vice-president Pino Suárez (who were later murdered) to resign and obliging Congress to ratify his usurpation of power. He was recognized as president by the foreign embassies, but President Wilson refused him recognition and insisted upon his elimination. In Oct. 1913 he was characterized as a murderer by a member of the Mexican Congress, who immediately disappeared. The deputies remonstrated, whereupon Huerta arrested 110 of them and seized the legislative and judicial powers. In April 1914 came the Tampico incident, when two American sailors were arrested and removed from a U.S. boat for a trifling cause. Huerta's refusal to make adequate apology brought about the occupation of Vera Cruz by U.S. troops. His resignation was forced on July 15 1914. He went first to Spain, then came to New York in April 1915. In July he was arrested in Texas, charged with instigating invasion of Mexico. He was taken ill after his arrest, and was released from custody just before his death at El Paso on Jan. 13 1916. He was a man of great will power, remarkable physique and native astuteness, but possessed no training in statecraft or exceptional ability as a soldier.


text:
Page:Story of the robins.djvu/69

 Rh you go with me into the play-room? I have got some very pretty new books.—Frederick, have you nothing to show Edward?" "Oh yes," said Frederick, "I have got a new ball, a new top, a new organ, and twenty pretty things; but I had rather go back and show him the robins."

"The robins?" said Edward, "what robins?"

"Why, our robins, that have built in the ivy-wall. You never saw anything so pretty in your life as the little ones."

"Oh, I can see birds enough at home," said Edward; "but why did you not take the nest? it would have been nice diversion to you to toss the young birds about. I have had a great many nests this year, and do believe I have a hundred eggs."

"A hundred eggs! and how do you propose to hatch them?" said Harriet, who turned back on hearing him talk in this manner.

"Hatch them, Miss Benson?" said he; "who ever thinks of hatching birds' eggs?"

"Oh, then, you eat them," said Frederick, "or perhaps let your cook make puddings of them?"

"No, indeed," replied Edward; "I blow out the inside, and then run a thread through them, and give them to Lucy to hang up among her curiosities; and very pretty they look, I assure you."

title: Page:Story of the robins.djvu/69


text:
Page:Story of the robins.djvu/70

 56 "And so," said Harriet, "you had rather see a string of empty egg-shells than hear a sweet concert of birds singing in the trees? I admire your taste, truly!"

"Why, is there any harm in taking birds' eggs?" said Lucy; "I never before heard that there was."

"My dear mamma," replied Harriet, "has taught me to think there is harm in every action which gives causeless pain to any living creature; and I own I have a very particular affection for birds."

"Well," said Lucy, "I have no notion of such affections, for my part. Sometimes, indeed, I try to rear those which Edward brings home, but they are teasing, troublesome things, and I am not lucky. To tell the truth, I do not concern myself much about them: if they live, they live; and if they die they die. He has brought me three nests this day to plague me; I intended to have fed the birds before I came out, but being in a hurry to come to see you, I quite forgot it. Did you feed them, Edward?"

"Not I," said he, "I thought you would do it 'tis enough for me to find the nests."

"And have you actually left three nests of young birds at home without food?" exclaimed Harriet.

"I did not think of them, but will feed them when I return," said Lucy.

title: Page:Story of the robins.djvu/70


text:
User talk:76.3.246.200

Welcome

Hello, and welcome to Wikisource! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

 * Help pages
 * Style Guide
 * Inclusion policy

You are welcome to continue editing articles without logging in, but you may wish to  [ create an account] . Doing so is free, requires no personal information, and provides several benefits. For one thing, if you continue to edit without a username, your IP address is used to publicly identify you.

In any case, I hope you enjoy donating your time to grow the Wikisource library that is free for everyone to use! In discussions, please sign your comments using four tildes ( ~ ); this will automatically produce your IP address (or username if you're logged in) and the date. If you need help, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question here (click  [ edit] ) and place  before your question. Again, welcome! — billinghurst  sDrewth  02:21, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:76.3.246.200


text: Category:Wikisource protected templates

title: Category:Wikisource protected templates