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 has vindicated Being for itself, Being has dropped away from the object. If the object is notwithstanding to be spoken of as possessed of Being, a reason or ground must be given for this. It must be shown that God is in my Being, and thus—since we are now in the region of experience and observation—the demand sounds as if we were asked to point to the state or condition in which God is in me, in which we are not two; something observable, where the separateness drops away, where God is in this Being which remains to me in virtue of the fact that I am; a place in which the Universal is in me as possessed of Being, and not separated from me.

This place is Feeling.

b. Religious feeling is commonly spoken of as that element in which faith in God is given to us, and as that inmost region in which it is for us absolutely certain that God is. Of certainty we have already spoken. This certainty means that two different kinds of Being are posited in reflection as One Being. Being is abstract relation to self; there are, however, two things possessed of Being, but they are only one Being, and this undivided Being is my Being; this is certainty. This certainty, with a content in a more concrete form, is feeling, and this feeling is set forth as the ground of faith and of the knowledge of God. What is in our feeling, that we call knowledge, and so, accordingly, God exists. In this way feeling is regarded as that which is the basis or causal ground. The form of knowledge is what is first, then come the distinctions, and with these enter the differences between the two, and the reflection that the Being is my Being, that it belongs to me. And here accordingly is the need that the object, too, should be in this Being which I assume as mine; and this is Feeling. In this way we refer or appeal to feeling.

“I feel something hard;” when I thus speak, is


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 the One, the Other is that “something;” there are two of them. The expression of the consciousness—what is common to the two—is the hardness. There is hardness in my feeling, and the object, too, is hard. This community exists in feeling, the object touches me, and I am filled with its specific quality. When I say and “object,” the two still exist independently; it is only in feeling that the double Being vanishes. The specific character of the object becomes mine, and indeed so much mine that at first reflection in reference to the object, entirely drops away; in so far as the other remains independent, it is not felt, or tasted. I, however, since I get a determinate character in feeling, take up an immediate attitude in it. In feeling I am this single empirical I, and the determinate character of my feeling belongs to this particular empirical self-consciousness.

A distinction is thus implicitly contained in feeling. On the one side am I, the Universal, the Subject; and this transparent, pure fluidity, this immediate reflection into myself, becomes disturbed by an “Other;” but in this “Other” I keep myself entirely with myself, I preserve completely my self-centred existence. The extraneous quality becomes, so to speak, fluid in my universality, and that which is for me an “Other,” I make my own. When another quality has been put into what is lifeless, this particular thing has acquired another quality too. But I, as feeling, maintain myself in that “Other” which penetrates me, and continue to be, in the determinateness, I. The distinction in feeling is, in the first place, an inner one in the Ego itself; it is the distinction between me in my pure fluidity, and me in my definite character. But this inner distinction, owing to the fact that reflection enters into it, is none the less also posited as such. I separate myself from my definite character of determinateness, place it as “Other” over against me, and subjectivity comes to exist on its own account merely in relation to objectivity.

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 It is usual to say that feeling is something purely subjective; but it is in reference to an object of perception, or of which I form an idea, that I first become subjective by placing some “other” over against me. It would consequently appear that feeling cannot be termed something subjective, since in it the distinction of subjectivity and objectivity has not as yet appeared. This division, however, namely, that I as subject exist in reference to objectivity, is in reality a relation and identity, which is at the same time distinguished from this distinction, and it is just here that Universality begins. While I stand in relation to another, and in perception, or in forming ideas, distinguish the object from myself, I am the mutual reference of these two, myself and the other, and I am making a distinction in which an identity is posited, and my attitude with regard to the object is that of a grasping over (übergreifen) or bridging over of the difference. In feeling, as such, on the contrary, the Ego exists in this immediate simple unity, in a condition in which it is wholly filled with determinate character, and does not go beyond this character. Thus I am, as feeling, something entirely special or particular; I am thoroughly immersed in determinateness, and am in the strict sense of the word subjective only, without objectivity and without universality.

Now, if feeling be the essential religious attitude, this attitude is identical with my empirical self. Determinateness, representing the eternal thought of the Universal, and I as wholly empirical subjectivity, are in me comprised and comprehended in feeling. I am the immediate reconciliation and resolution of the strife between the two. But just because I thus find myself determined on the one hand as a particular empirical subject, and am on the other raised into a wholly different region, and have the experience of passing to and fro from the one to the other, and have the feeling of the relation of the two, do I


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 find myself determined as against myself, or as distinguished from myself. That is to say, in this very feeling of mine I am driven by its content into contrast or opposition—in other words, to reflection and to the distinction of subject and object.

This transition to reflection is not peculiar to religious feeling only, but to human feeling generally. For man is Spirit, consciousness, idea; there is no feeling which does not contain in itself this transition to reflection. In every other feeling, however, it is only the inner necessity and nature of the process which impels to reflection, namely, the necessity whereby the Ego distinguishes itself from its determinate state. Religious feeling, on the contrary, contains in its content, in its very determinateness, not only the necessity but the reality of the opposition itself, and consequently contains reflection. For the substance or content of the religious relation is just the thought of the Universal, which is itself, indeed, reflection, and therefore the other moment of my empirical consciousness, and the relation of both. Therefore in religious feeling I am alienated from myself, for the Universal, the Thought which has an absolute existence, is the negation of my particular empirical existence, which appears in regard to it as a nullity which has its truth in the Universal only. The religious attitude is unity, but it involves the power of judgment or differentiation. In feeling the moment of empirical existence, I feel the universal aspect, that of negation, as a determinateness which exists entirely outside of me; or, to put it otherwise, while I am in this last I feel myself estranged from myself in my empirical existence, I feel I am renouncing myself and negating my empirical consciousness.

Now the subjectivity which is contained in religious feeling, being empirical and particular, exists in feeling in the shape of some particular interest, or in some


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 particular determinate form in fact. Religious feeling contains just this definite (twofold) character, that of empirical self-consciousness, and that of universal thought, and their relation and unity. It therefore hovers between their opposition and their unity and harmony, differing in character with the attitude of individual subjectivity to the Universal, as it determines itself in accordance with the particular shape assumed by the interest in which I happen at the time to be absorbed. Accordingly the relation of the Universal and the empirical self-consciousness may be of a very varied kind. There may be the utmost tension and hostility of the extremes, or the most entire unity. When the condition is that of separation, in which the Universal is the Substantial in relation to which the empirical consciousness feels that it exists, and at the same time feels its essential nothingness, but desires still to cling to its positive existence and remain what it is, we have the feeling of fear. When we realise that our own inner existence and feeling are null, and when self-consciousness is at the same time on the side of the Universal and condemns that existence, we get the feeling of contrition, of sorrow on account of ourselves. The empirical existence of self-consciousness feels itself benefited or furthered, either as a whole, or in some one or other of its aspects. Feeling that it has hardly been thus benefited by its own self-activity, but owing to combination and a power lying outside of its own strength and wisdom, which is conceived of as the absolutely existing Universal, and to which that benefit is ascribed—it comes to have the feeling of gratitude, and so on. The higher unity of my self-consciousness generally with the Universal, the certainty, assurance, and feeling of this identity, is love, blessedness.

c. But if with this advance of feeling to reflection, and this distinguishing between the and its determinate state, which thus appears as content and object, such a position be given to feeling that it becomes in its


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 very self the justification of the content and the evidence of its Being or truth, it is necessary to make the following remarks:—

The matter of feeling may be of the most varied character. We have the feeling of justice, of injustice, of God, of colour, of hatred, of enmity, of joy, &c. The most contradictory elements are to be found in feeling; the most debased, as well as the highest and noblest, have a place there. Experience proves that the matter of feeling has the most accidental character possible; it may be the truest, or it may be the worst. God, when He is present in feeling, has no advantage over the very worst possible thing. On the contrary, the kingliest flower springs from the same soil and side by side with the rankest weed. Because a content is found in feeling, it does not mean that this content is in itself anything very fine. For it is not only what exists that comes into our feeling; it is not only the real, the existent, but also the fictitious and the false. All that is good and all that is evil, all that is real and all that is not real, is found in our feeling; the most contradictory things are there. All imaginable things are felt by me; I can become enthusiastic about what is most unworthy. I have hope; hope is a feeling; in it, as in fear, we have to do with the future; that is, in so many words, with what does not yet exist, with what perhaps indeed will, perhaps never will, be. Likewise I can become enthusiastic about the past; but also for such things as neither have been, nor will be. I can imagine myself to be a great and able, a noble-minded, most superior man, to be capable of sacrificing everything for justice, for my opinion; I can imagine myself to have been of great use, to have accomplished much; but the question is, whether it is true, whether as a matter of fact I act so nobly, and am in reality so excellent as I imagine myself to be. Whether my feeling is of a true sort, whether it is good, depends upon its content. The mere fact that there is


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 a content in feeling does not decide the matter, for the very worst elements are there too. In like manner the question as to the existence of the content does not depend upon whether or not it is in feeling, for things which have been imagined merely, which have never existed, and never will exist, are found there. Consequently, feeling is a form, or mould, for every possible kind of content, and this content receives no determination therefrom which could affect its own independent existence, its being in-and-for self. Feeling is the form in which the content appears as perfectly accidental, for it may just as well be posited by my caprice, or good pleasure, as by Nature. The content as it exists in feeling thus appears as not absolutely determined on its own account, as not posited through the Universal, through the Notion. Therefore it is in its very essence the particular, the limited; and it is a matter of indifference whether it be this particular content, since another content may just as well be in my feeling. Thus when the Being of God is shown to be present in our feeling, it is just as accidental there as all else to which this Being may belong. This, then, we call Subjectivity, but in the worst sense. Personality, self-determination, the highest intensity of Spirit in itself is subjectivity too, but in a higher sense, in a freer form. Here, however, subjectivity means mere contingency or fortuitousness.

It frequently occurs that a man appeals to feeling when reasons fail. Such a man must be left to himself, for with the appeal to his own feeling the community between us is broken off. In the sphere of thought, on the contrary, of the Notion, we are in that of the Universal, of rationality; there we have the nature of the real object before us; we can come to an understanding concerning it; we submit ourselves to the object, and the object is that which we have in common. But if we pass over to feeling, we forsake this common ground; we


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 withdraw ourselves into the sphere of our contingency, and merely look at the object as it is there. In this sphere each man makes the object his own affair, something peculiar to himself; and thus if one person says you ought to have such feelings, another may reply, I simply have not those feelings; as a matter of fact, I am not so constituted. For what is really in question in this demand is merely that contingent existence of mine, which takes this or the other form indifferently.

Further, feeling is that which man has in common with the lower animals; it is the animal, sensuous form. It follows, therefore, that when what belongs to the category of justice, of morality, of God, is exhibited to us in feeling, this is the worst possible way in which to draw attention to the existence of a content of such a kind. God exists essentially in Thought. The suspicion that He exists through thought, and only in thought, must occur to us from the mere fact that man alone has religion, not the beasts.

All in man, whose true soil or element is thought, can be transplanted into the form of feeling. Justice, freedom, morality, and so on have their roots in the higher destiny of man, whereby he is not beast, but Spirit. All that belongs to the higher characteristics of humanity can be transplanted into the form of feeling; yet the feeling is only the form for this content, which itself belongs to a quite different region. Thus we have feelings of justice, freedom, morality; but it is no merit on the part of feeling that its content is true. The educated man may have a true feeling of justice, of God; he does not, however, derive this from feeling, but he owes it to the education of thought; it is only through thought that the content of the idea, and thus the feeling itself, is present. It is a fallacy to credit the true and the good to feeling.

Yet not only may a true content exist in our feeling, it ought to exist, and must exist; or, as it used to be put,


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 we must have God in our heart. Heart is indeed more than feeling. This last is only momentary, accidental, transient; but when I say “I have God in my heart,” the feeling is here expressly represented as the continuous, permanent manner of my existence. The heart is what I am; not merely what I am at this moment, but what I am in general; it is my character. The form of feeling as something universal thus means the principles or settled habits of my existence, the fixed manner of my way of acting.

In the Bible, however, evil, as such, is expressly attributed to the heart, and the heart—this natural particularity of ours—is, as a matter of fact, the seat of evil. But goodness, morality, do not consist in the fact that a man enforces the claims of his particularity, his selfishness, or selfness. If he does so, he is evil. The element of self is the evil element which we generally call the heart. Now when it is said, as above, that God, justice, &c., must exist in my feeling, in my heart, what is meant is only that these are not to be merely something of which I form ideas, but are to be inseparably identical with me. I, as actual, as this definite individual, am to be so determined completely and entirely; this definite nature is to be my character, is to constitute the whole manner of my actual existence, and thus it is essential that every true content should be in feeling, in the heart. Such is the manner in which religion is to be brought into the heart, and it is here that the necessity for the religious education of the individual comes in. The heart, feeling, must be purified, educated; and this education means that another, a higher mode of feeling is the true one, and comes into existence with the individual. Yet the content is not true, not self-existent, good, inherently excellent, simply because it is in feeling. If what is in feeling be true, then all must be true; as, for example, Apis-worship. Feeling is the central point of subjective, accidental Being. To give his feelings a


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 true content, is therefore the concern of the individual; but a theology which only describes feelings does not get beyond the empirical, the historical, and such contingent particulars, and has not yet to do with thoughts that have a content.

The ideas and knowledge of an educated man do not exclude feeling and emotion. On the contrary, feeling nourishes itself, and gives itself permanence by means of ideas, and by means of ideas renews and kindles itself afresh. Anger, resentment, hatred, show just as much activity in keeping themselves alive by representing to themselves the various aspects of the injustice sustained, and the various aspects in which they view the enemy, as do love, goodwill, joy, in giving themselves fresh life by figuring to themselves the equally manifold relations of their objects. If we do not think, as it is called, of the object of hatred, anger, or of love, the feeling and the inclination become extinct. If the object fades out of the mind, the feeling vanishes too, and every external cause stirs up sorrow and love afresh. To divert the mind, to present other objects to it to exercise itself upon, and to transplant it into other situations and circumstances in which those various relations are not present to the mind, is one of the means of weakening sensation and feeling. The mind must forget the object; and in hatred to forget is more than to forgive, just as in love to forget is more than to be unfaithful, and to be forgotten is worse than to be only disregarded. Man, as Spirit, since he is not merely animal, in feeling essentially exercises knowledge; he is consciousness, and he only has knowledge of himself when he withdraws himself out of immediate identity with the particular state of the moment. Therefore if religion is only to exist as feeling, it dies away into something void of ideas, and equally void of action, and loses all definite content.

In fact, it is so far from being the case that in feeling alone we can truly find God, that if we are to find this


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 content there, we must already know it from some other source. And if it be affirmed that we do not truly know God, that we can know nothing of Him, how then can we say that He is in feeling? We must first have looked around us in consciousness in search of characteristics belonging to the content which is distinct from the Ego, and not till then shall we be in a position to point to feeling as religious, that is, in so far as we rediscover those characteristics of the content in it.

In more recent times it has been customary to speak of conviction, and not of the heart, the “heart” being the expression still used for any one’s immediate character. When, however, we speak of acting according to conviction, it is implied that the content is a power which governs me; it is my power, and I belong to it; but this power rules me from within in a fashion which implies that it is already mediated by thought and intellectual insight.

In regard further to what has special reference to the idea that the heart is the germ of this content, it may be freely conceded that the idea is correct, but this does not carry us far. That the heart is the source, means nearly this—that it is the first mode in which any such content appears in the subject; it is its first place, or seat. A man begins by having religious feeling or wanting it; in the former case the heart is undoubtedly the germ; but as a vegetable seed-corn represents the undeveloped mode of the plant’s existence, so feeling, too, is this hidden or undeveloped mode.

That seed-corn, with which the life of the plant begins, is only in appearance, in an empirical fashion, what is first; for the seed-corn is likewise a product, a result, is what is last. It is the result of the fully developed life of the tree, and incloses this perfect development of the nature of the tree in itself. The primariness is therefore only of a relative character. In a similar way in our subjective actuality, this entire content exists in an


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 undeveloped form in feeling; but it is quite another thing to say that this content as such belongs to feeling as such. Such a content as God, is a content which is self-existent and universal; and in like manner the content of right and duty is a characteristic of rational will.

I am will, I am not desire only; I have not only inclination;—“I” is the Universal. As will, however, I am in my freedom, in my Universality itself, in the Universality of my self-determination; and if my will be rational, then its determining is in fact an universal one, a determining in accordance with the pure Notion. The rational will is very different from the contingent will, from willing according to accidental impulses or inclinations. The rational will determines itself in accordance with its notion or conception; and the notion, the substance of the will, is pure freedom. And all determinations of the will which are rational are developments of freedom, and the developments which result from the determinations are duties.

This is the content which belongs to rationality; it is determination by means of, in accordance with, the pure Notion, and therefore belongs in like manner to thought. Will is only rational in so far as it involves thought. The popular idea that will and intelligence represent two different provinces, and that will can be rational, and so moral, without thought, must therefore be relinquished. As regards God it has already been observed that this content in like manner belongs to thought, that the region in which this content is apprehended as well as produced is thought.

Now, though we have designated feeling as the sphere in which the Being of God is to be immediately exhibited, we have not in that region found the Being, the Object—God—in the form in which we sought for it; that is to say, we have not found it there as free, independent Being, Being in and for self. God is, He is independent and self-existent, is free; we do not find this independence,


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 this free Being, in feeling; nor do we find the content as a self-existent content; on the contrary, any kind of particular content may be in feeling. If feeling is to be of a truthful, genuine character, it must be so by means of its content; but it is not feeling which, as such, renders its content true.

Such is the nature of this sphere of feeling, and such are the characteristics which pertain to it. It is feeling of any kind of content, and simultaneously feeling of self. In feeling we thus as it were have the enjoyment of our own selves, of our realisation of the object. The reason why feeling is so popular, is just because in it a man is in presence of his particularity or particular existence. He who lives in the object or actual fact itself, in science, in the practical, forgets himself in it; it involves no feeling so far as feeling is recollection of his individual self, and in that forgetting of himself he is as regards his particular existence a minimum. Vanity, self-satisfaction, on the other hand, which likes nothing better than self, and the possession of self, and only desires to remain in the enjoyment of self, appeals to personal feeling, and therefore does not arrive at objective thinking and acting. A man who has to do with feeling only is not as yet complete; he is a beginner in knowledge, in action, &c.

We must now therefore look around us for another basis for God. In feeling, we have not found God either in accordance with His independent Being, or in accordance with His content. In immediate knowledge, the Object was not possessed of Being; on the contrary, its Being was found in the knowing subject, which discovered the basis of this Being in feeling.

In regard to the determinate character of the Ego, which constitutes the content of feeling, we have already seen that it is not only distinct from the pure Ego, but must also be distinguished from feeling in its own peculiar movement in that the Ego finds itself determined as


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 against itself. This distinction is now, too, to be posited as such, so that the activity of the Ego comes into operation, and sets its determinate character at a distance, so to speak, as not its own, places it outside of itself, and makes it objective. And further, we saw that the Ego is in feeling potentially estranged from itself, and has potentially in the Universality which it contains, the negation of its particular empirical existence. Now, in putting its determinateness outside of itself, the Ego estranges itself, does away, in fact, with its immediacy, and has entered into the sphere of the Universal.

At first, however, the determinateness of Spirit appears as the external object in general, and gets the entirely objective character of externality in space and time. And the consciousness which places it in this externality, and relates itself to it, is perception, which we here have to consider in its perfect form as Art-perception.

2. Perception.

Art had its origin in the feeling of the absolute spiritual need that the Divine, the spiritual Idea, should exist as object for consciousness, and in the first place for perception in its immediate form. The law and content of art is Truth as it appears in mind or Spirit, and is therefore spiritual truth, but spiritual truth in such a form that it is at the same time sensuous truth, existing for perception in its simple form. Thus the representation of truth is the work of man, but it appears in an external fashion, so that it is produced under the conditions of sense. When the Idea appears immediately in Nature and in spiritual relations too, when the True shows itself in the midst of diversity and confusion, the Idea is not yet gathered into one centre of manifestation; it still shows itself in the form of externality, or mutual exclusion. In immediate existence the manifestation of the Notion does not yet appear in harmony with truth. That sensuous perception to


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 which art gives occasion is, on the contrary, something which is necessarily the product of Spirit, not something which appears in an immediate or sensuous shape, and it has the Idea as its life-giving centre.

In what may be regarded as constituting the entire sphere of art, there may be other elements included than those which have just been alluded to. For truth has here a double meaning, and first of all that of accuracy, by which is meant, that the representation should be in conformity with the otherwise known object. In this sense art is formal, and is imitation of given objects, whatever the content may be. Here its law is not beauty. But in so far also as beauty is its law, art can be still taken as involving form, and have, moreover, a limited, well-defined content, as much as the literal truth itself. But this last in its true sense is correspondence of the object with its conception or notion, namely, the Idea. And this, as the free expression of the notion unhindered in any way by contingency or caprice, is the self-existent content of art, and is a content indeed which has to do with the substantial universal elements, the essential qualities, and powers of nature and of Spirit.

The artist, then, has to present truth, so that the reality, in which the conception or notion has power, and in which it rules, is at the same time something sensuous. The Idea exists consequently in a sensuous form, and in an individualised shape, which cannot miss having the contingent character attaching to what is sensuous. The work of art is conceived in the mind of the artist, and in his mind the union of the notion or conception and of reality has implicitly taken place. But when the artist has let his thoughts emerge into externality, and the work is completed, he soon retires from it.

Thus the work of art is, so far as perception is concerned, in the first instance, an external object of a quite ordinary sort, which has no feeling of self, and does not know itself. The form, the subjectivity, which the artist


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 has given to his work, is external only; it is not the absolute form of what knows itself, of self-consciousness. Subjectivity, in its complete form, is wanting to the work of art. This self-consciousness belongs to the subjective consciousness, to the perceiving Subject. In relation to the work of art, therefore, which in itself is not something having knowledge, the element of self-consciousness is the Other, but an element, too, which belongs to it absolutely, and which knows the object represented, and represents it to itself as the substantial truth. The work of art, since it does not know itself, is essentially incomplete, and (since self-consciousness belongs to the Idea) it needs that completion which it acquires by the relation to it of what is self-conscious. It is in this consciousness that the process takes place by which the work of art ceases to be merely object, and by which self-consciousness posits that which seems to it as an Other, as identical with itself. This is the process which does away with that externality in which truth appears in art, and which annuls these lifeless relations of immediacy, and it is through it that the perceiving subject gives itself the conscious feeling of having in the object its own essence. Since this characteristic, which is a going into itself out of externality, belongs to the subject, there exists a separation between the subject and the work of art; the subject is able to contemplate the work in a wholly external manner, to take it to pieces, or he can make smart, æsthetical, and learned remarks upon it; but that process which is the essential one for perception, that necessary completion of the work of art, in turn does away with this prosaic separation.

In the oriental idea of the substantiality of consciousness, its unity with the one Absolute Substance, this separation has not yet been reached, and therefore art-perception is not brought to a perfect state either, for this last presupposes the higher freedom of self-consciousness, which is able to place its truth and substantiality


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 freely over against itself. Bruce, when in Abyssinia, showed a painted fish to a Turk, but the remark which the latter made was this: “At the last day the fish will lay it to your charge that you gave it no soul.” An oriental does not desire mere form; on the contrary, for him the soul remains absorbed in unity, and does not advance to the condition of separation, nor reach the process in which truth stands on the one side as embodied without a soul, and on the other the perceiving self-consciousness, which again annuls this separation.

If we now look back upon the progress which the religious attitude has made in its development up to this point, and if we compare perception with feeling, we shall see that truth has indeed definitely appeared in its objectivity; but we see too that the defect, or deficiency, in its manifestation is, that it remains in sensuous, immediate independence, that is to say, in that independence which in turn annuls itself, does not exist on its own account, and which likewise proves itself to be the product of the subject, since it only attains to subjectivity and self-consciousness in the perceiving subject. In perception the elements of the totality of the religious relation—namely, the object, and self-consciousness—have got separated. The religious process belongs, indeed, to the perceiving subject only, and yet it is not complete in the subject, but needs the object perceived by sense. On the other hand, the object is the truth, and yet it needs, in order to be true, the self-consciousness which lies outside of it.

The advance now necessary is this, that the totality of the religious relation should be actually posited as such, and as unity. Truth attains to objectivity, in which its content as existing on its own account is not merely something posited, but exists essentially in the form of subjectivity itself, and the entire process takes place in the element of self-consciousness.

In accordance with this, the religious attitude is in the first place that of the general idea or ordinary thought.


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 3. Idea, or Ordinary Thought.

We can very easily distinguish between a picture (Bild) and an idea (Vorstellung). Something different is meant when we say “We have an idea,” from what is meant when we say, “We have a picture of God;” the same difference exists with regard to sensuous objects. A picture derives its content from the sphere of sense, and presents it in the immediate mode of its existence, in its singularity, and in the arbitrariness of its sensuous manifestation. But since the infinite number of individual things, as they are present in immediate, definite existence, cannot, even by means of the most detailed or ample representation, be rendered as a whole, the picture is necessarily always something limited; and in religious perception, which is able only to present its content as a picture, the Idea splits up into a multitude of forms, in which it limits itself and renders itself finite. The universal Idea (Idee), which appears in the circle of these finite forms, and only in these, and which is merely their basis, must as such remain concealed.

General idea or ordinary thought (Vorstellung), on the other hand, is the picture lifted up into the form of Universality, of thought, so that the one fundamental characteristic, which constitutes the essence of the object, is held fast, and is present before the mind which thus forms the idea. If, for instance, we say “world,” in this single sound we have gathered together and united the entire wealth of this infinite universe. If the consciousness of


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 the object be reduced to this simple, specific form of thought, it is then idea, which needs nothing but the word for its manifestation—this simple utterance or outward expression which remains within itself. The manifold content which idea simplifies may be derived from the inner life, from freedom, and then we have ideas of right, of morality, of wickedness. Or it may be derived from external phenomena, too, as, for instance, we may have ideas of battles, or of wars in general.

Religion, when lifted up into the form of idea, directly involves a polemical element. The content is not grasped in sensuous perception, not in a pictorial and immediate manner, but mediately, after the fashion of Abstraction. What is sensuous and pictorial is lifted up into the Universal, and with the elevation into this sphere there is necessarily linked a negative attitude towards what is pictorial. But this negative attitude does not merely concern the form (in which case the distinction between sense-perception and idea would lie in that only), but it also touches the content. The Idea (Idee) and the mode of presentation are so closely related for sense-perception, that the two appear as One, and pictorial art implies that the Idea is essentially linked with it, and could not be severed from it. On the contrary, general idea (Vorstellung) proceeds on the supposition that the absolute, really true Idea cannot be grasped by means of a picture, and that the pictorial mode is a limitation of the content; it therefore does away with that unity of perception, rejects the unity of the picture and its meaning, and brings this meaning into prominence for itself.

Finally, then, religious idea or general conception, is to be understood as embodying truth, objective content, and is thus meant to be antagonistic not only to the pictorial mode of representing truth, but also to other modes of subjectivity. Its content is that which has validity in and for itself, which remains substantially fixed as against individual suppositions and opinions, and


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 is inflexible as contrasted with the fluctuations of individual desires and likings.

This has reference to the essence of idea in a general sense. With regard to its more specific form, we have to make the following remarks:—

a. We have seen that in idea the essential content is posited in the form of thought, but this does not mean that it is already posited as thought. When, therefore, we said that idea takes up a polemical attitude to the sensuous and pictorial, and assumes a negative attitude with regard to it, this does not imply that idea has freed itself absolutely from the sensuous, and posited the latter ideally in a complete and perfect way. It is only in actual thought that this is accomplished, which lifts up the sensuous qualities of the content to the region of universal thought-determinations, to the inward moments, or to the determinateness as peculiar to the Idea itself. Since idea is not this concrete elevation of the sensuous to the Universal, its negative attitude towards the sensuous means nothing more than that it is not truly liberated from the sensuous. General idea or ordinary thought is still essentially entangled with the sensuous; it requires it, and requires to enter on this contest with the sensuous in order to exist. The sensuous element, therefore, belongs essentially to idea, although idea never permits the sensuous to enjoy an independent validity. Further, the Universal, of which idea is conscious, is only the abstract Universality of its object, only its undetermined Essence, or approximate nature. In order to give a determinate character to that essence, it again requires what is determined by Sense, the pictorial; but to this as being sensuous it gives the position of something which is separate from what is signified by it, and treats it as a point at which it is not permissible to remain, as something which only serves to represent the proper or true content which is separate from it.


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 On this account, then, idea is in a state of constant unrest between immediate sensuous perception on the one hand, and thought proper on the other. Its determinateness is of sensuous kind, derived from what is sensuous, but thought has introduced itself; in other words, the Sensuous becomes elevated into thought by the process of abstraction. But these two, the Sensuous and the Universal, do not interpenetrate one another thoroughly; thought has not as yet completely overcome the sensuous determinateness, and although the content of idea is also something universal, yet it is still encumbered with the determinateness of the Sensuous, and needs the form of the natural (Natürlichkeit). But it is not the less true that this moment of the Sensuous does not possess independent validity.

Thus there are many forms in religion, regarding which we know that they are not to be taken in their strict sense. For instance, “Son,” or “Begetting” is only a figure derived from a natural relation, regarding which we know quite well that it is not intended to be understood in its immediate sense, but that what is indicated is rather a relation which is only approximately the one here described, and that this sensuous relation has in it what corresponds most nearly to that relation which is taken in the strict sense in regard to God. And further, when we speak of the wrath of God, of His repentance, or His vengeance, we know at once that the words are not meant to be taken in the strict sense, but merely as implying resemblance, likeness. Then, too, we meet with figures worked out in detail. We hear, for instance, of a tree of knowledge of good and evil. With the eating of the fruit, it already begins to become doubtful whether what is said of this tree is to be taken strictly as a narrative as a historical truth—and so, too, of the eating—or whether this tree is not rather to be taken as a figure. When mention is made of a tree of knowledge of good and evil, such opposite elements are involved


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 in the conception that we very soon come to perceive that the fruit is no sensuous fruit, and that the tree is not to be taken in the strict sense.

b. What is not merely to be taken as a figure, but rather in the sense of something historical as such, belongs also, in respect to the sensuous element in it, to the mode of the general idea. Something may be stated in a historical way, but we do not take it seriously as such, we do not ask if it is meant to be taken seriously. Such, for instance, is our attitude toward what Homer tells us of Jupiter and the other gods.

But then besides this there is something historical which is a divine history, and of such a nature that it is regarded as in the strict sense a history, the history of Jesus Christ. This is not taken merely as a myth in a figurative way, but as something perfectly historical. That accordingly is something which belongs to be sphere of general ideas, but it has another side as well. It has the Divine for its content, divine action, divine timeless events, a mode of working that is absolutely divine. And this is the inward, the true, the substantial element of this history, and it is just this that is the object of reason. In every narrative, in fact, there is this double element; a myth, too, has a meaning in itself. There are, it is true, myths in which the external form in which they appear is of the most importance, but usually such a myth contains an allegory, like the myths of Plato.

Every narrative in fact contains this external series of occurrences and actions, but these are occurrences it must be remembered in the life of a man, a spirit. The history of a state is that of the mode of working, the actions, the fate of a universal spirit, the spirit of a people. Anything of this kind has already on its own account and in itself a universal element. Looking at the matter in a superficial sense, it may be said that it is possible to draw a moral out of every bit of history.


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 The moral which is drawn from it contains at all events the essential moral forces which have been at work in it, which have produced it. These are its inner, its substantial element. The narrative thus presents the aspect of something which is broken up into detail, it possesses this detached or isolated character, and is individualised to the utmost possible degree; but universal laws, moral forces are recognisable in it too. These do not exist for idea or ordinary thought as such. What concerns idea or ordinary thought is the narrative as it historically develops itself in the phenomenal sphere.

In an historical narrative of this kind, there is something even for the man whose thoughts or conceptions have not as yet been definitely formed and cultivated. He feels these forces in it, and has a dim consciousness of them. Such is the essential form which religion takes for the ordinary consciousness, for consciousness in its ordinary state of cultivation. It is a content which at first presents itself in a sensuous manner, a succession of actions, of sensuous determinations, which follow each other in time, and are, further, side by side in space. The content is empirical, concrete, manifold, but it has also an inner element. There is spirit in it which acts upon spirit; the subjective spirit bears witness to the Spirit which is in the content, at first through dim recognition without this Spirit being developed for consciousness.

c. All spiritual content, all spiritual relation in general is finally idea when its inner characteristics come to be conceived of simply as self-related and independent.

If we say, “God is all-wise, good, righteous,” we have a definite content; but each of these determinations of the content is single and independent; “and,” “also,” are the links which belong to the general idea. “All-wise,” “supremely good,” are conceptions too: they are no longer imagery, do not belong to sense or history, but are spiritual determinations. They are not, however, as yet actually analysed; the distinctions are not yet


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 posited in their mutual relations, but are merely taken in an abstract simple self-reference. In so far certainly as the content already has manifold relations in itself, but a relation which is only external, there is posited thereby an external identity. When we say a thing is this, then that, and then so and so, these determinations have to begin with the form of contingency.

Or if idea contain relations which are nearer to thought, as for instance, that God created the world, the relation is still grasped by idea in the form of contingency and externality. Thus, in the idea of the creation, God remains on the one side apart, and the world on the other, but the connection of the two sides is not posited under the form of necessity. This connection is either expressed according to the analogies of natural life and natural events, or, if it be designated as creation, it is treated as a connection to be regarded as quite peculiar and incomprehensible. If, however, the word “Activity” be used as expressive of that which produced the world, it is indeed a more abstract term, but it is not as yet the notion. The essential content stands fast by itself in the form of simple universality, in which it lies concealed and undeveloped, and its transition by its own act into another, its identity with that other, has not yet been reached; it is merely identical with itself. The bond of necessity and the unity of their difference are wanting to the individual points.

As soon, therefore, as idea or ordinary thought attempts to conceive an essential connection, it leaves the connection in the form of contingency, and does not go on to its true essence and to its eternal interpenetrative unity. Thus in idea the thought of providence and the movements of history are embraced in and grounded on the eternal decree of God. But here the connection is at once transplanted into a sphere where it is said to be incomprehensible and inscrutable for us. The thought of the universal, therefore, does not become


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 determined in itself, and is no sooner expressed than it is immediately cancelled.

Having seen what is the general character of idea, or ordinary thought, it is now time to touch upon the pedagogic question of recent times, namely, whether religion can be taught. Teachers who do not know how to set about teaching religion, hold that instruction in the doctrines of religion is out of place. But religion has a content or substantial element, which must be capable of being placed before the mind in an objective manner. This involves the possibility of communicating the content so represented to the mind, for ideas are communicable by words. To warm the heart, to excite emotions, is something different. That is not to teach, that is to interest my subjectivity in something, and an eloquent sermon may produce the effect without containing doctrine or instruction. If, indeed, we make feeling our point of departure, if we posit it as that which is primary and original, and then say that religious ideas spring from feeling, that is, in one aspect of the matter, true, in so far as the original determinateness belongs to the nature of Spirit itself. But, on the other hand, feeling is so indeterminate that anything may be in it, and the knowledge of what lies in feeling does not belong to feeling itself, but is supplied only by the culture and instruction which ordinary thought communicates. The instructors referred to do not wish that children and mankind generally should go beyond their subjective emotions of love, and they represent the love of God as being like that of parents to their children, who love them, and should love them just as they are: they pride themselves on abiding in the love of God, and while they tread all divine and human laws under foot, they think and say they have not injured love. But if love is to be pure, it must first renounce selfishness, it must have freed itself, and Spirit is only freed when it has come outside of itself and has once beheld the


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 Substantial as Another and a Higher over against itself. It is only when it has taken up a definite position toward the absolute power, toward the awe-inspiring Object, and thereby has come outside of itself in it, freed itself from itself and yielded itself up, that Spirit truly returns to itself. That is to say, the fear of God is the presupposition of true love. What the essentially True is must reveal itself to the heart as an independent existence, in relation to which it renounces itself, and only through this mediation, through the restoration of itself, wins true freedom.

When the objective truth exists for me, I have emptied myself of myself, I have kept nothing for myself, and have at the same time conceived of this truth as mine. I have identified myself with it, and have maintained myself in it, but as pure passionless self-consciousness. This relation—Faith—as the absolute identity of the content with myself, is the same thing as religious feeling, but with this difference, that it at the same time expresses that absolute objectivity which the content has for me. The Church and the Reformers knew perfectly well what they meant by faith. They did not say that men are saved by feeling, by sensation (αἴσθησις), but by faith, so that in the absolute object I have freedom, which essentially includes the renunciation of my own will and pleasure, and of particular conviction.

Now since, as compared with feeling, in which the content exists as a specific state of the subject, and consequently as contingent, idea implies that the content is lifted up into objectivity, it is in connection with the latter of these that the content should justify itself on its own account on the one hand, and on the other, that the necessity of its essential connection with self-consciousness should be explained.

It is to be observed here, however, in reference to what primarily concerns the content itself, that the value which it has in idea is that of something given, of which


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 all that is known is that it is so; then over against this abstract immediate objectivity, the connection of the content with self-consciousness appears, to begin with, as one which has still a purely subjective character. The content, it is then said, commends itself to me for its own sake, and the witness of the Spirit teaches me to recognise it as truth, as my essential determination. And, undoubtedly, the infinite idea of the Incarnation for example—that speculative central point—has so great a power in it that it penetrates irresistibly into the heart which is not as yet darkened by reflection. But here my own connection with the content is not yet truly developed, and it appears only as something instinctive. The Ego, which turns itself in this manner to the content, does not require merely to be this simple and ingenuous Ego, it can be worked upon and inwardly moulded in various ways. Thus incipient reflection, which goes beyond adherence to what is given, may already have perplexed me, and perplexity in this region is all the more dangerous and serious, that, owing to it, morality and every other stay in myself and in life, in action and in the state, become unstable. The experience, accordingly, that I cannot help myself by means of reflection, that I cannot, in fact, take my stand upon myself at all, and the circumstance that I still crave after something that stands firm—all this forces me back from reflection and leads me to adhere to the content in the form in which it is given. Yet this return to the content is not brought about by means of the form of inward necessity, and is only a result of despair, in that I know not where to turn, nor how to help myself in any other way than by taking that step. Or it may be that we reflect on the wonderful way in which religion has spread, and how millions have found comfort, satisfaction, and dignity in it. To cut oneself off from this authority is declared to be perilous, and the authority of private individual opinion is laid aside in its favour. But here too a false


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 turn is taken, in that personal conviction is subjugated to general authority, and in relation to it is silenced. The consolation lies only in the supposition that the manner in which millions have regarded the matter must probably be right, and the possibility remains that, on being looked at once more, it may turn out to be otherwise.

All these aspects of thought may be put into the form of evidences of the truth of religion, and they have had this form given to them by apologists. But this only introduces mere arguing and reflection, a form of reasoning which does not take to do with the content of truth in its essential nature, which only brings forward credibilities or probabilities, and instead of contemplating the truth in its essential nature is only able to conceive of it in connection with other circumstances, occurrences, and conditions. And besides, although Apologetics, with its mere arguings, passes over into the region of thought and the drawing of conclusions, and seeks to bring forward grounds or reasons which are supposed to be different from authority, yet its principal ground is again a mere authority, namely, the divine one that God has revealed to man what he has to represent to himself in the form of an idea. Without this authority apologetics cannot stir for a single moment, and this perpetual mixing up and confusion of thought, or syllogistic reasoning and authority, is essential to the standpoint. But since from this point of view it is inevitable that the arguing process should go on ad infinitum, that supreme divine authority is in turn seen to be one which itself stands in need of proof and rests upon an authority. For we were not present, and did not see God when He gave the revelation. It is always others only who tell us of it, and assure us of the fact, and the very witness of these others, who lived through the history, or who at first learned it from eyewitnesses, is, according to those apologists, to be the means of uniting our conviction with a content which is separated from us as to time and space. Yet even this


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 mediation is not absolutely secure, for we are dependent here on the constitution of the medium which stands between us and the content, namely the perception of others. The power of perceiving the meaning of events demands prosaic understanding and its culture, and therefore conditions which were not present among those of olden times, for they lacked the capacity to grasp the history on its finite side, and to draw out of it the inner meaning which it contains, since the antithesis of poetry and prose was not as yet defined with absolute distinctness. And if we place the divine in the historical, we continually get into the element of instability and want of fixed character which essentially belong to all that is historical. The prosaic understanding and unbelief took up a position of antagonism to the miracles of which the apostles tell us, and, regarding the matter from the objective side, there is the further objection of the want of proper proportion between miracle and the Divine.

But even if all these ways of bringing about the connection of the content of idea or ordinary thought with self-consciousness for once attain their end, if the apologetic style of argument with its reasons has brought some to conviction, or if I with the needs, impulses, and sorrows of my heart have found comfort and tranquillity in the content of religion, it is a mere accident that this has taken place. This result depends on the fact that this very standpoint of reflection and inner feeling has not as yet been disturbed and has not yet aroused in itself the presentiment of the existence of a Higher Being. It is therefore dependent on an accidental sense of defect.

I, however, do not consist merely of this heart and feeling, or of this good-natured reflection which shows itself compliant to the apologetics of the understanding, and naively welcomes it and is only too glad when it perceives reasons which are adequate, and suitable to it, but I have other and higher needs besides. I am also concretely determined in an entirely simple and universal


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 way, so that the determinateness in me is pure simple determinateness. That is to say, I am the absolutely concrete Ego, thought determining itself in itself; I exist as the Notion. This is another mode of my being concrete; here I do not only seek satisfaction for my heart, but the Notion seeks satisfaction, and it is as compared with the Notion that the religious content in the mode of idea or ordinary thought keeps the form of externality. Although many a great and richly endowed nature, and many a profound intelligence has found satisfaction in religious truth, yet it is the Notion, this inherently concrete thought, which is not as yet satisfied, and which asserts itself to begin with as the impulse of rational insight. If the as yet indefinite expression, “reason, rational insight,” be not reduced merely to this, that something or other is certain for me as an external specific fact; if, on the contrary, thought have so determined itself that the object stands firm to me on its own basis, and is founded in itself, then it is the Notion which as universal thought differentiates itself in itself and in the differentiation remains identical with itself. Whatever further content in regard to the will or intelligence I may have in what is rational, the essential matter is always that such content should be known by me as founded in itself, that I have in it the consciousness of the Notion; that is to say, not conviction merely, certainty, and conformity with principles which are otherwise held to be true, and under which I subserve it, but that in it I have the truth as truth, in the form of truth—in the form of the absolutely concrete, and of that which absolutely and perfectly harmonises with itself.

And thus it is that idea melts into the form of thought, and it is this quality of form which philosophic knowledge imparts to truth. From this it is clear that nothing is further from the aim of philosophy than to overthrow religion, and to maintain forsooth that the content of religion cannot for itself be truth. On the contrary, it is


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 just religion which is the true content, only in the form of idea or ordinary thought, and it is philosophy which must first supply substantial truth, nor has mankind had to wait for philosophy in order to receive the consciousness of truth.

III.—The Necessity and Mediation of the Religious Attitude in the Form of Thought.

That inner connection and absolute necessity into which the content of idea is transplanted in thought is nothing else but the Notion in its freedom, in such a form that all content comes to be determination of the Notion, and is harmonised with or equalised with the Ego itself. The determinateness is here absolutely my own; in it, Spirit has its own essential nature as object, and the given character, the authority and externality of the content, vanish for me.

Thought consequently gives to self-consciousness the absolute relation of freedom. Idea or ordinary conception still keeps within the sphere of outward necessity, since all its moments, while bringing themselves into relation with each other, do this without in any way yielding up their independence. The relation of these elements in thought, on the contrary, is that of ideality, and this means that no element stands apart or is independent of the rest, but each rather appears as something that is a show or semblance (Schein) in relation to the others. Thus every distinction, every definite element, is something transparent, not existing on its own account in a dark and impenetrable fashion. This implies that the objects distinguished are not independent, and do not offer resistance to each other, but are posited in their ideality. The relation or condition of the absence of freedom, both that of the content and of the subject, has now vanished, because we have now absolute correspondence of the content with the form. The content


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 is in itself free, and its inherent appearance is its absolute form; and in the object the subject has before it the action of the Idea, of the Notion which exists in and for itself, which it itself is.

In describing thought and its development, we have now to observe in the first place how it shows itself in relation to idea or ordinary conception, or rather as the inner dialectic of idea; then, secondly, how as Reflection it seeks to mediate the essential moments of the religious attitude; and finally, how as speculative thought it completes itself in the notion or conception of religion, and does away with Reflection in the free necessity of the Idea.

1. The Dialectic of Idea.

a. What we have here to notice first of all is that thought dissolves this form of simplicity in which the content exists in idea. And that is the very charge which is so often brought against philosophy, when it is said that it does not leave the form of idea or ordinary thought untouched, but that it alters it, or strips off it the content. And then, since for the ordinary consciousness the truth is bound up with that form, it imagines that if the form be altered, it will lose the content and the essential reality, and it interprets that transformation as destruction. If philosophy changes what is in the form of the ordinary idea into the form of the Notion, we are undoubtedly met with the difficulty of how to separate in any content what is content as such, which is thought, from what belongs to the ordinary idea as such. But to break up the simplicity of idea or ordinary thought only means to begin with, to get the idea of distinct characteristics, as existing in this simple subject-matter, and to exhibit them in such a way that it is recognised as being something which is inherently manifold. This process is directly involved in the question: “What is that?” Blue, for instance, is a sensuous idea.


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 If it be asked, “What is blue?” blue is perhaps pointed out in order that the perception of it may be acquired; in the general idea, however, this perception is already included. What is sought after in this question, when seriously put, is rather the knowledge of the Notion; it is to know blue as a relation of itself within itself, to know determinations in their distinctness and in their unity. Blue, according to Goethe’s theory, is a unity of light and dark, and of such a kind that in it the dark element is the foundation, and what disturbs this darkness is something different, a light-giving element, a medium by means of which we see this darkness. The sky is darkness, is obscure; the atmosphere clear; through this clear medium we see the blue.

Thus God, as the content of idea, is still in the form of simplicity. Now, when we think this simple content, distinct characteristics or attributes have to be indicated, whose unity, so to speak, whose sum, or, more accurately, whose identity, constitutes the object. Orientals say God has an infinite number of names, that is, of attributes; to pronounce exhaustively what He is would be impossible. If, however, we are to grasp the notion of God, He must have distinct attributes, and these have to be reduced to a narrow circle, in order that by means of these and the unity of the attributes, the Object may be complete.

b. A more definite category is the following. In so so far as a thing is thought of, it is posited in relation to an Other. Either the object is known in itself as the mutual relation of elements which are distinguished, or as the relation of itself to an Other which we know outside of it. In idea, or ordinary conception, we always have qualities which are distinct, whether they belong to a whole or are arranged separately.

In thought, however, we become conscious of the contradiction of those elements which are at the same time supposed to constitute One. If they contradict each other, it does not seem as if they could belong to what is


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 One. If, for instance, God is kind and just too, the kindness contradicts the justice. In like manner, God is almighty and wise. He is therefore on the one hand the power before which everything vanishes—is not; but this negation of all that has a definite existence is in contradiction with His wisdom. This last demands something which is definite, it has an aim or purpose, it is the limitation of that indefinite element, which power is. In idea, each element has its place, and all rest quietly side by side: man is free and also dependent; there is good and there is evil, too, in the world. In thought the various elements are brought into mutual relation, and then the contradiction becomes apparent.

There is something quite characteristic about the action of reflecting thought, when it appears as the abstract understanding and takes to do with idea, when the latter expresses inner qualities and relations in a sensuous, natural, or, to speak generally, in an external shape. As the reflecting understanding, besides, always has pre-suppositions of finitude, as it gives these absolute validity, and makes them the rule or standard, overthrowing the Idea and absolute truth if these are opposed to them, so, too, it turns sensuous and natural specific forms, in which, after all, idea seeks to recognise the thought of the Universal, into quite definite finite relations, holds fast this finiteness, and then declares idea, or ordinary thought, to be in error. To a certain degree, it is still the dialectic of idea itself which is contained in this activity of the understanding, and hence the enormous importance of the Aufklärung, which that action of understanding was, for the clearing up of thought. To a certain extent, however, it is the case that here the dialectic of idea is driven beyond its true compass, and transplanted into the territory of formal arbitrariness or caprice.

Thus, for instance, in the popular conception or idea of original sin, the inner relation of thought is at the same time conceived of in the specific form of what is


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User:Spangineer/Sandbox3

I propose that portal links in mainspace headers appear directly underneath the links to sister sites.

The advantage is that we can clean up divergent systems of linking to portals, and increase usability by making our methods of linking consistent.

To cleanly accomplish this, a parameter is added to Plain sister (see User:Spangineer/Sandbox2), namely. It uses the keyword #titleparts, which allows up to three portals to be linked, each separated by a slash character.

Header is then adjusted (see User:Spangineer/Sandbox) to pass this parameter, and show the portal links in the header, if any are defined.

title: User:Spangineer/Sandbox3


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 natural; but yet, by using the expression “sin,” it means to raise into the sphere of the universal the natural element which lies in the conception of inheritance. The understanding, on the contrary, conceives of the relation in finite fashion, and thinks only of natural possessions or of hereditary disease. It is freely conceded that here, so far as the children are concerned, it is a matter of accident that parents should have property or should be tainted with disease; children may inherit noble rank, property, or evil without either merit or blame. If, then, we further reflect on the fact that the freedom of self-consciousness is superior to these conditions of chance, and that in the absolutely spiritual sphere of goodness each one has in that which he does his own deed, or, it may be, his own sin, it is easy to point out the contradiction involved if that which belongs absolutely to my freedom be supposed to have come upon me from elsewhere in a natural way, unconsciously and from the outside.

It is much the same when understanding attacks the idea of the Trinity. In this idea, too, the inner thought-relation is conceived of in an external fashion, for number is thought in the abstract form of externality. But here understanding holds fast the externality only, keeps to numeration, and finds each of the Three externally complete in relation to the Others. Now, if this quality of number be made the foundation of the relation, it is undoubtedly a complete contradiction that those who are perfectly external in relation to one another should at the same time be One.

c. Finally the category of necessity too comes in. In ordinary thought space exists, there is space. Philosophic thought desires to know the necessity of this. This necessity lies in the fact that in thought a content is not taken as being, as existing in simple determinateness, in this simple relation to self merely, but essentially in relation to an “Other,” and as a relation of elements which are mutually distinct.


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 What we call “necessary” is this, that if the one is, the other is thereby posited too, the first is only determined in so far as the second exists, and conversely. For idea or ordinary thought the finite exists, the finite is. For philosophic thought, the finite immediately becomes something which does not exist on its own account, but which requires for its existence something else, only is in fact through an Other. For thought in general, for definite thought, more precisely for notional comprehension or philosophic conception there is nothing immediate.

Immediacy is the leading category of idea or ordinary conception where the content is known in its simple relation to self. For thought, that only exists in which mediation is essentially present. These are the abstract, general characteristics which belong to this abstract distinction between religious idea or conception and thought.

If, in relation to the question before us, we consider this point more closely, all forms of immediate knowledge, faith, feeling, &c., are seen to belong in this respect to the category of idea or ordinary thought. And here the question arises, “Is religion, the knowledge of God, an immediate or a mediated knowledge?”

2. The Mediation of the Religious Consciousness in itself.

In passing on to consider what is essentially involved in thought and necessity, and consequently to mediation, the demand for such a mediated knowledge comes into opposition with immediate knowledge, and it is in this aspect of opposition that we have in the first place to consider it.

(a.) Immediate knowledge and mediation.

It is a very general opinion, and it is generally asserted that the knowledge of God exists only in an immediate fashion; it is a fact of our consciousness, it is so. We have an idea of God and the conviction that this idea is not only subjective in us but that God also is. It is said that religion, the knowledge of God, is faith only,


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 that mediated knowledge is to be excluded, and that it destroys the certainty, the security of faith, and what really constitutes faith. Here we have this antithesis between immediate and mediated knowledge. Thought, concrete thought, philosophic comprehension, is mediated knowledge. But immediacy and mediation of knowledge are one-sided abstractions, and the one is this as much as the other. What is meant, or presupposed, is not that correctness or truth is to be ascribed to the one to the exclusion of the other, to one or the other by itself, to one of the two as isolated. Further on we shall see that true thought or philosophical comprehension unites both in itself, and does not exclude either.

($$\alpha$$.) To mediated knowledge belongs the deduction of the one from the other, the dependence, conditionality of one determination on another, what we call Reflection. Immediate knowledge discards all differentiations; it puts away these modes of connection, and has only what is simple, one mode of connection, one knowledge, the subjective form, and then, “it is.” In so far as I know certainly that God is, knowledge is a connection between myself and this content; as certainly as I exist, so certainly does God exist. My being and the being of God are thus connected together in one, and the relation is Being. This Being is simple, and at the same time double, or twofold.

In immediate knowledge this connection is entirely simple; all modes involving relation are obliterated. To begin with, let us also conceive of it in an empirical manner, that is, let us place ourselves at the same standpoint as that occupied by immediate knowledge. What speaking generally we call empirical knowledge, amounts just to this: I simply know it, this is a fact of consciousness; I find in myself the idea of God and that He is.

This standpoint is, that what is empirical only is to be regarded as valid, that man is not to go beyond what he


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 finds in consciousness. It is not asked why it is found, or how it is necessary. This would lead to cognition or philosophical knowledge, and that is just the evil which is to be guarded against. The empirical question then is, “Is there an immediate knowledge?”

To mediated knowledge belongs knowledge of necessity. What is necessary has a cause, it must be. The existence of something else or an Other, through which or through the existence of which it itself exists, is essential to such knowledge. In it there is a connection of what is differentiated. The mediation can only be merely finite mediation. The effect, for example, is taken as something standing on the one side, the cause as something on the other.

It is the very nature of the finite to be dependent on an Other; it does not exist independently, in and for itself, or through itself; something else is necessary to its existence. Man is physically dependent; he needs external nature, external things. These are not produced by his act; they appear as self-existent in relation to him; he can only prolong his life in so far as they exist and are of use to him.

The higher mediation of the Notion, of reason, is a mediation with itself. To mediation belongs this differentiation, and essential connection of Two; such connection, namely, that the One only is, in so far as the Other is. Now in immediacy this mediation is excluded.

($$\beta$$.) But even if we take up an empirical, an external attitude, it will be found that there is nothing at all that is immediate, that there is nothing to which only the quality of immediacy belongs to the exclusion of that of mediation, but that what is immediate is likewise mediated, and that immediacy itself is essentially mediated.

It is the nature of finite things to be mediated; finite things are created, begotten, as a star, or an animal. The man who is a father, is as much begotten,


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 mediated, as the son. If we start from the father, then the father is, in the first instance, what is immediate, and the son, as the one begotten, is what is mediated. Everything that lives, however, inasmuch as it is a begetter, and is determined accordingly as something which begins, something immediate, is also something begotten.

Immediateness means, in fact, Being. It means this simple reference to self; it is immediate, in so far as we put the relation out of sight. If we define this existence as being one of the related sides in the relation—as effect—then what is without relation is recognised as something mediated. In like manner the cause only exists in virtue of having an effect, for otherwise it would be no cause at all. Only in this relation, and therefore only in this mediation, is it a cause. Everything that exists (we do not as yet speak of mediation with self), since it requires an Other for its being, that is to say, for its immediacy, is in so far mediated.

The sphere of Logic is that of the Dialectic in which Being is considered as that which, if taken as something immediate, is untrue. The truth of Being is Becoming; Becoming is a single determination, self-related; it is a something immediate, an entirely simple idea, but it contains both determinations—Being and Not-Being. There is no Immediate; the truth rather being that it is a mere scholastic notion. Only in this bad sense is there any such thing as immediacy.

It is just the same with regard to immediate knowledge, which is a particular mode, a kind of immediacy; there is no immediate knowledge. “Immediate knowledge” exists where we have not the consciousness of mediation; all the same, it is mediated. We have feelings, and this is something immediate; we have perception, and that appears under the form of immediacy. When, however, we have to do with thought-determinations, with the categories of thought, we must not stop


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 short with knowing how anything first presents itself, but find out whether this is actually its nature.

If, for instance, we consider a perception, we see that I am the knowledge, the perception, and that further there is an Other, an object; or, if it is not conceived of as objective, but as subjective, there is at least some determinateness or conscious state present for me. In sensation, I am thus mediated only by means of the object, by means of the definite character of my sensation. It is always a content; two elements go to the making of it. Knowledge is absolutely simple, but I must know something; if I am mere knowledge, I know nothing at all. It is the same with pure seeing. In pure seeing I see nothing at all. Pure knowledge may be called immediate, it is simple; but if knowledge be actual, be real, we have then what knows and what is known, we have relation and mediacy.

Speaking more definitely, religious knowledge is essentially a mediated knowledge, but all the same it is not admissible to look in a one-sided way upon mere mediated knowledge as being real and true. To whatever religion a man may belong, every one knows that he was brought up in it, that he received instruction in it. This instruction, this up-bringing, supplies me with my knowledge; my knowledge is mediated through doctrine, education, &c.

Besides, if it be positive religion that is in question, it is revealed, and that in a manner external to the individual; there the faith in the religion is essentially mediated through revelation. These circumstances and doctrines, and this revelation, are not of a chance character, they are not accidental, but are essential; they undoubtedly have to do with an external relation, but this relation is not non-essential on account of its being external.

If we now turn our attention to the other side, the inner side, and forget that faith, conviction, has this


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 mediated character, we are then in a position to consider it as independent. It is just here for the most part that the assertion of immediate knowledge comes in; we have immediate knowledge of God it is said; this is a revelation in us. This is a great principle, which it is essential we should hold fast; it involves the truth that positive revelation cannot supply a religion in such a way that it could have the character of something mechanically produced, of something effected from the outside, and set up within man by an external agency.

Here the old saying of Plato is in place, that man learns nothing, he only remembers; the truth is something which man originally carries within himself; expressed in an outward, and not in a philosophical way, it is his remembering a content which was known in a preceding state. Here it is represented mythically, but it involves the thought that religion, justice, morality, all that is spiritual, is only aroused in man; he is potentially Spirit, the truth lies in him, and what has to be done is merely to bring it into consciousness.

Spirit bears witness to Spirit; this witness is the peculiar inner nature of Spirit. In this the weighty idea is involved that religion is not brought into man from the outside, but lies hidden in himself, in his reason, in his freedom, in fact. If we abstract from this relation, and consider what this knowledge is, how this religious feeling, this self-revelation in the Spirit is constituted, it is seen to be immediacy indeed, like all knowledge, but immediacy which likewise contains mediation in itself. For if I form an idea of God, this directly involves mediation, although the reference to God is quite direct and immediate. I exist as knowledge, and then there is an Object, namely, God, and therefore a relation, and knowledge as representing this relation is mediation. I as one having knowledge in a religious way have this character only by means of this content which is in my knowledge.


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 ($$\gamma$$.) If we look at religious knowledge more closely, it shows itself not only to be the simple relation of myself to the object, but to be knowledge of a much more concrete kind. This purely simple relation, the knowledge of God, is inner movement, or to put it more accurately, it is a rising up or elevation to God. We describe religion as being essentially this passing over, or transition from one content to another, from the finite to the absolute, infinite content.

This transition, in which the characteristics peculiar to mediation are definitely pronounced, is of a twofold kind. In its first form it is a passing over from finite things, from things of the world, or from the finiteness of our consciousness, and from this finiteness in general which we call "ourselves,"—"I," this particular subject—to the infinite, to this infinite more strictly defined as God. The second mode of the transition has aspects of a more abstract kind, which are related in accordance with a deeper, more abstract antithesis. Here the one side is determined as God, the infinite generally, as something known by us; the other side, to which we pass over, is, to use a general term, determinateness as something objective, something existent. In the former transition what the two sides have in common is Being, and this content of both sides is set down as finite and infinite; in the latter what the two have in common is the infinite, and this is stated in the form of the subjective and objective.

We have now to consider the relation of knowledge of God within itself. Knowledge is relation within itself, it is mediated; either mediated through what is Other than itself or within itself, but it is mediation, because in it the reference of myself to an object takes place—a reference to God, who is an "Other."

I and God are different from one another; if both were One, there would then be immediate relation, free from any mediation; relationless unity, that is to say,


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 unity without differentiation. Because the two are different, One is not what the Other is; if, however, they are related, if they have identity at the same time with their difference, then this identity is itself different from their difference; it is something different from both of these, because otherwise they would not be different.

Both are different, their unity is not themselves; that wherein they are One, is that wherein they are different; they are, however, different, therefore their unity is different from their difference. And this implies that mediation takes place more strictly in a Third as contrasted with the elements of difference, and thus we have a syllogism; we have Two who are different, and a Third which brings them together, in which they are mediated, are identical.

Thus it is not merely indirectly suggested by, but is actually involved in, the very object with which we are dealing, that in so far as we treat of the knowledge of God we are directly concerned with what has the form of a syllogism. The two are different, and there is a unity, in which they are put into One through a Third; that is the syllogism. Therefore we have to consider more closely the nature of the knowledge of God, which is essentially mediated in itself. The knowledge of God presents itself in its more precise shape under the form of the Proofs of the existence of God. Here the knowledge of God is represented as a mediated knowledge.

That only which is One, abstractly One, is unmediated. The Proofs of the existence of God represent the knowledge of God, because it contains mediacy within itself. Religion itself is knowledge of God. The explication or unfolding of this knowledge, which is mediated, is an unfolding of religion itself. But this form of proof undoubtedly goes somewhat on wrong lines when this knowledge is represented as the proof of the existence of God. Criticism has been directed against it, but the one-sided moment of form which characterises this


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 mediated knowledge, does not invalidate the whole procedure.

What has to be done, therefore, is to restore the proofs of the existence of God to their place of honour, by divesting them of what is inadequate in them. We have God and His existence (Dasein); existence is determinate finite Being; the Being of God is not in any way whatever a limited Being; existence (Existenz) too is taken in the sense of specific existence. We thus have God in His Being, actuality, objectivity, and the process of proof has for its object to point out to us the connection between the two determinations, because they are different, and not immediately One.

Everything is immediate in its relation to itself—God as God, Being as Being. To prove is to show that those elements which are to begin with in a condition of difference have also a connection, an identity—not a pure identity, for that would be immediacy, sameness. To exhibit a connection means, in fact, to prove; this connection may be of different kinds, and so far as the process of proof is concerned, the kind of connection which is in question is left undecided.

There is connection which is of an entirely external, mechanical kind. For example, we see that a roof is necessary to the walls; the house has this roofed form as protection against the weather, &c. It may be said, it is proved that a house must have a roof; the object is the combination of the walls with the roof. This is certainly a case of one thing matching with another; it is connection, but at the same time we have the consciousness that this connection does not concern the being of these objects. That wood and tiles constitute a roof, does not affect their being; so far as they are concerned, the connection is merely an external one. In this case, proof consists in pointing out a connection between entities for which the connection is itself external.

There are accordingly other forms of connection which


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 are inherent in the object, in the content itself. This is the case, for example, as regards geometrical axioms. Given a right-angled triangle, you have at once given a certain relation between the square of the hypothenuse and the squares of the containing sides. That is essential necessity; here the relation is not one of those in which the connection is external; on the contrary, here the one cannot be without the other; along with the one the other is given too.

But in this necessity, the mode in which we perceive the necessity is different from the connection of the determinations in the actual thing itself. The course which we follow in the process of proof is not the course of the object or actual thing itself; it is one different from that which is involved in the nature of the object. It is we who draw auxiliary lines; it would not occur to any one to say, that a triangle in order to have its three angles equal to two right angles takes the plan of extending one of its angles, and only thereby acquires the property in question. Here our perception of what is necessary, the intermediary process which we go through, and the process in the object itself, are different from one another.

The construction and the demonstration are only undertaken on behalf of our subjective apprehension. It is not objectively the case that the triangle attains by this process to the relation or property in question; it is only we who get to see the truth through this process, and that is merely subjective necessity, not a connection, not a process in the object itself.

This kind of demonstration, these connections, are at once seen to be unsatisfactory as regards the knowledge of God, the inherent connection of the attributes of God, and the connection of our knowledge of God and of His attributes.

The unsatisfactoriness takes, more strictly speaking, the following form:—In the course followed by subjective necessity, just referred to, we set out from primary,


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 certainly known, determinations, from such things as are already known to us. We have presuppositions here, certainly known conditions, implying that the triangle, the right-angle exists. Certainly known connections are presupposed, and in such demonstrations we point out that, if such and such a determination exist, then such and such another must also exist; that is to say, we make the result dependent on given conditions which are already present.

The attitude assumed is that the result we aim at is represented as something dependent upon presuppositions. Geometrical proof, as simply the work of the understanding, is undoubtedly the most perfect kind of proof; the proof of the understanding, in which a thing is shown to be dependent upon something else, is carried through with the utmost consistency and thoroughness. But when we apply this to the Being of God, the inadequacy involved in attempting to exhibit such a connection in regard to God becomes evident at once. And it indeed appears especially in that first movement which we called rising up to God, for when we conceive of this in the form of proof, what is implied is that the finite becomes the foundation or basis upon which the Being of God is demonstrated. In this connection, the Being of God appears as an inference, as dependent on the Being of the finite.

And thus the inadequacy of this process which we call proof to exhibit that which we represent to ourselves under the name of God, becomes apparent. For we conceive of Him precisely as that which is undeduced, underived, absolutely existent in and for itself. That, then, is the perversion above referred to. But if it be thought that in consequence of an observation of this kind, this movement has been shown to be futile, such an idea would in turn imply a one-sidedness which would at once be found to be in contradiction with the universal consciousness of man.

Man contemplates the world, and because he is a thinking, rational being, since he finds no satisfaction in


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 the chance nature of things, he rises from the finite to absolute necessity, and says, “finite being is contingent, there must therefore be a self-existent necessity, which is the basis of this contingency.” That is the course which human reason, the human spirit follows, and this proof of the existence of God is nothing but the description of that act of rising up to the infinite.

In like manner the following more concrete line of thought will always be adopted. Since living things exist in the world, which in virtue of their life, and as essentially organised, constitute a harmony of diverse component parts, and further, since these living things stand in need of external objects, such as air, &c., which are yet independent of them, men will always argue that there must be an inner ground for the harmony which exists between things which are not self-evidently dependent on one another.

This harmony does actually exist, and it presupposes an activity which has produced it, and has been exercised in accordance with ends. To contemplate this is to admire the wisdom of God in Nature, as it is termed, this marvel presented by the living organism, and the harmony of external objects with it. From this harmony man rises to the consciousness of God. If any one supposes that in case of the form of the proofs of the existence of God being disputed these proofs are rendered obsolete as regards their content also, he is mistaken.

But undoubtedly the content is not represented in its purity. This deficiency may be made plain, as follows:—It is said that in proving anything a man remains cold; he has to do with an objective content. He may indeed perceive that such-and-such a thing exists, but the knowledge thus reached is external, the insight thus gained remains something merely external. Such a process of thought, it is said, is too objective; it is cold conviction; this kind of insight is not in the heart, and it is in the heart and its feelings that convictions must exist.


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 In this charge of deficiency it is implied that this very process of thought is to be our own elevation; that we are not to behave as if we were contemplating a connection of external determinations, but that it is the feeling, believing spirit, Spirit in fact, which is to rise or be elevated. Spiritual movement, the movement of our self, of our knowledge, is to be in it too, and we miss that when we speak of it as an external connection of determinations.

The elevation and the movement of the objective content, however, actually come to form one process, namely, in Thought. I, in so far as I think, am myself this passing over, or transition, this spiritual movement, and as this movement we have now to consider Thought. To begin with, however, it is empirical observation and reflexion.

(b.) Mediated knowledge as Observation and as Reflection.

Those who take up this standpoint, which indeed is peculiar to the present time, proceed in accordance with the methods of empirical psychology, accept what is found in ordinary consciousness, and accept it as it is found there, observe the phenomena, and place outside of consciousness what is the Infinite in consciousness.

Religion, from this point of view, is the consciousness men have of a Higher, of something beyond the present, outside of themselves, and existing above themselves; that is to say, consciousness finds itself dependent, finite, and in this its experience it is in so far consciousness, that it presupposes an Other, on which it is dependent, and which is held by it to be its true Essence, since it is itself characterised as the negative or finite.

This observation or reflection, if we look at it in the first place in its general form, is seen to develop itself in the following shape:—

In consciousness, in so far as I have knowledge of an object, and am reflected into myself as in contrast to it, I