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 FIRST DIVISION.

I.

IMMEDIATE RELIGION.

Immediate religion is what has in recent times been called natural religion. It coincides with the religion of nature in so far as thought is brought into prominence in the latter.

What in recent times has been understood by “the religion of nature” is what man is capable of discovering and knowing of God by his own unassisted powers, by means of the natural light of his reason. Thus it has been customary to contrast it with revealed religion, and to maintain that what he has in his reason can alone be true for men. But natural reason is a wrong expression; for what we understand by “natural” is the natural as sensuous, the Immediate. The nature of reason is rather the notion or conception of reason. It belongs to the very essence of Spirit to rise above nature. Natural reason in its true meaning is Spirit, reason according to the Notion, and this is in no kind of opposition to revealed religion. God, the Spirit, can only reveal Himself to Spirit, to reason.

Merely metaphysical religion, to speak more precisely, has in recent times been called natural religion, in so far as metaphysic has conveyed the same meaning as thoughts of the understanding, ideas formed by the understanding. This is that modern religion of the understanding which is known as Deism, the result of Enlightenment—that knowing of God as an abstract something, to which abstraction all attributes of God, all faith, are reduced. This cannot be properly called natural religion; it is the ultimate point reached by the extreme development of the abstract understanding, as the result of the Critique of Kant.


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 It remains for us now to refer to a popular conception which, because of the sense attached in it to “natural religion,” makes a definite claim upon our consideration here. What we refer to is the idea that immediate religion must be the true, the finest, the divine religion; and further, that it must, too, have been historically the first form of religion. According to the division we have made, it is the most imperfect, and for that reason the first; and according to this other idea, it is the first, too, but also the truest religion. Natural religion is, as already remarked, so characterised that in it the Spiritual is in this original, untroubled, undisturbed unity with the Natural. This characterisation is, however, taken here as the absolute and true one, and this religion therefore is regarded as the divine religion. Man, it is said, had a true original religion in the state of innocence, before that division or separation which is known as the Fall had as yet appeared in his intelligence. This is founded a priori on the idea that spirits were created by God as the absolutely Good, as images of Himself, and these being in conformity with God, stood in an absolute and essential connection with Him. Under these conditions, Spirit too lived in unity with nature; it was not as yet reflected into itself, had not as yet designed this separation from nature. As regards its practical side, as regards its will, it still remained in the region of happy faith, was still in the state of innocence, and was absolutely good. It is with free-will that guilt first takes its rise, and this means that passion establishes itself in a freedom of its own, that the subject takes out of itself merely such qualities as it has distinguished from what belongs to nature. Plants are in this state of unity; their life is lived in this unity of nature. The individual plant does not become untrue to its nature; it becomes what it ought to be; in it Being and destined character are not different. This separation in anything between what ought-to-be, and its nature, first makes its appearance

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 with free-will, and this last is first found in reflection; but this very reflection and division was not present, we are told, originally, and freedom was as identical with law and rational will as the individual plant is identical with its nature.

In like manner people imagine that in the state of innocence man is perfect in regard to his theoretical consciousness. He seems to determine himself here as identical with nature and the true conception of things; his own true being and that of the things have not as yet separated from each other; he sees into their very heart; nature is not as yet a negative element to him, not something obscured. Not until separation appears does the sensuous rind which separates him from them grow around these things; nature in this way sets up a wall of partition against me. Thus it is said that in such a relation Spirit knows the universal true nature of things, having an immediate knowledge, understanding of them in perception or picture-thought, just because perception is a knowing, a seeing clearly, which may be compared with the state of somnambulism, in which the soul or life returns to this unity of inwardness with its world. Thus the nature of things had, it is supposed, lain open to that original perceiving understanding, because for it that nature is emancipated from the external conditions of space and time, from the character ascribed to things by the understanding. It follows from this that in this unity Spirit, in the exercise of free imagination, which is no kind of caprice, sees things according to their notion, according to their true nature, and the things seen are determined through the notion, appear in everlasting beauty, and stand above that stuntedness which conditions phenomena. In short, Spirit has had before it and has beheld the Universal in the Particular in its pure outward shape, and the Particular, the Individual in its universality as a divine, god-like vitality. And man, in having thus grasped nature in its inmost


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 character, and recognised its true relation to the corresponding side of his own nature, has taken up a relation to nature as to something which is an adequate garment for Spirit, and one which is not destructive of organisation. With this general conception the idea is bound up that Spirit has consequently been in possession of all art and science, and it is further imagined that if man is found within the universal harmony, he beholds harmonious substance—God Himself—in an immediate manner; not as an abstraction of thought, but as a definite Being.

Such is the general idea given of that primitive religion which is supposed to be the immediate religion, and historically the first. Perhaps, too, an attempt is made to confirm this idea by appealing to one aspect of the Christian religion. We are told in the Bible of a Paradise; many peoples have the idea of such a Paradise as lying behind them, and lament over it as a lost one, thinking of it as the goal for which man yearns, and to which he will attain. Such a Paradise, whether it belong to the past or be looked for in the future, is then filled up with moral or unmoral content, according to the stage of culture which has been reached by the peoples in question.

In reference to the criticism of such a general conception as this, it must be stated, in the first place, that such a conception is, as regards its essential substance, a necessary one. The Universal, the inner element, is the divine unity in a human reflex, or, in other words, the thought of the man who stands within this unity as such a reflex. Thus men have the idea that Being-in-and-for-itself, true Being, is a harmony which has not as yet passed over into division or dualism, which has not yet broken up into the dualism of good and evil, nor into the subordinate dualism represented by the multiplicity, intensity, and passion of human needs. This unity, this condition in which the contradictions are resolved,


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 undoubtedly contains truth, and is in entire agreement with the Notion. But the more precise shape under which this unity is represented as a condition in time, as a unity which ought not to have been lost, and which was only lost by accident, is something altogether different. This is a confounding of what is first as representing the Notion with the reality of consciousness, as this reality is adequate or proportionate to the Notion.

We must therefore do this general conception justice. It contains in itself the necessary Idea of the divine self-consciousness, of the serene untroubled consciousness of the absolutely divine Essence. In it this fundamental determination must not only be allowed to be correct, but also to be a true idea from which to start. This idea is that man is no merely natural being as such, no mere animal, but Spirit. In so far as he is Spirit, he has, in short, this universality within himself, the universality of rationality, which is concrete thought in its activity. He has the instinct, too, to know the universal, to know that nature is rational; not, indeed, that it is conscious reason, but that it has reason within itself.

Thus the spirit knows, too, that God is rational, is absolute reason, the absolute activity of reason; and thus it has instinctively the belief that it must know God as well as nature, must find its essence in God, if it takes up toward Him an attitude of rational investigation.

This unity of man with God, with nature in the general sense as Potentiality, is undoubtedly the substantial, essential determination. Man is reason, is Spirit; by means of this quality or capacity he is implicitly the True. That, however, is the Notion, Potentiality, and in forming an idea of what the Notion, the Potentiality is, people usually end in representing it to themselves as something belonging either to the past or else to the future, not as being an inner element which exists on its own account, but in external, immediate existence, in some shape or other, as a state or condition. It is thus


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 the form of the existence, or the mode of the state only, which is in question. The Notion is the inner element, the Potentiality, which has not yet, however, entered upon existence. The question therefore presents itself, What is there to prevent us from believing that the Potentiality has been present from the beginning as actual existence? What prevents this is the nature of Spirit. Spirit is only what it makes itself become. This bringing out of that which it potentially is, is the positing of the Notion in existence.

The Notion must realise itself, and the realisation of the Notion, the active processes by means of which it actualises itself, and the shapes and manifestations of this actualisation which are at hand, have an outward appearance which is something different from what the simple Notion is within itself. The Notion, the Potentiality, is not a state, an existence. On the contrary, it is to the realisation of the Notion that states, existence, are due, and this realisation must be of a quite different kind from what is contained in that description of Paradise.

Man exists essentially as Spirit; Spirit does not, however, exist in an immediate manner. It is, on the contrary, its essential nature to be for itself, or self-conscious, to be free, to place the natural over against itself, to escape from its immersion in nature, to sever itself from nature, and only through and as following on this severance, to reconcile itself with nature, and not with nature alone, but with its own Essence too, with its truth.

It is this unity, which thus springs from division or dualism, which is alone self-conscious, true unity; it is not that state of natural unity which is a oneness not worthy of Spirit, not the unity of Spirit.

If that state be designated the state of innocence, it may appear objectionable to say that man must come out of the state of innocence and become guilty. The state of innocence is that state in which there is nothing good and nothing evil for man: it is the condition of animals,


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 of unconsciousness, where man does not know either good or evil, where that which he desires is not determined as either the one or the other; for if he has no knowledge of evil, he has no knowledge of good either.

The state of man is the state of imputation, of liability to imputation. Guilt is in the general sense imputation. By guilt we usually understand that a man has done evil; the term is taken in its evil sense. Guilt in the general sense, however, means that man may have something attributed or imputed to him, that what is done is his act of knowledge and of will.

The truth is that that original natural unity in its form as existence is not a state of innocence, but rather of barbarism, of passion, of savagery or wildness, in fact. Animals are not good, nor are they evil; but man in an animal condition is wild, is evil, is as he ought not to be. As he is by nature, he is as he ought not to be; what, on the contrary, he is, he must be by means of Spirit, by the knowing and willing of that which is right. This principle, that if man is in accordance with nature only, he is not as he ought to be, has been expressed by saying that man is evil by nature.

It is implied by this that man ought to contemplate himself as he is, so far as he merely lives in accordance with nature and follows his heart, that is to say, follows what merely springs up spontaneously.

We find in the Bible a well-known conception, called in an abstract fashion the Fall, and expressed in an outward and mythical shape. This idea is a very profound one, and represents what is not merely a kind of accidental history, but rather the everlasting necessary history of mankind.

If the Idea, that which has an absolute essential existence, be represented in a mythical way, in the form of an occurrence, inconsistency is unavoidable, and thus it could not fail to be the case that this representation too should have elements of inconsistency in it. The Idea


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 in its living form can be grasped and presented by thought alone.

That representation, then, is not without an element of inconsistency, but the essential outlines of the Idea are contained in it, namely, that man, since he is implicitly this unity, and because he is Spirit, comes out of the natural, out of this Potentiality into differentiation, and that the act of judgment, the judicial trial in reference to himself and the natural, must come in.

It is thus that he comes to know of God and of goodness. If he has a knowledge of them, he has them as the object of his consciousness; if he has them as the object of his consciousness, then the individual distinguishes himself from them.

Consciousness contains a double element within itself, namely, this division or dualism. Now it is true that it is sometimes said that this ought not to have been. But it is involved in the conception of man that he should reach rational knowledge, or, in other words, it is the very nature of Spirit to become that consciousness. In so far as the division and reflection represent freedom, implying that man has a choice between the two sides of the antithesis, or stands as lord over Good and Evil, we have a point of view that ought not to exist, that must be absorbed in something higher. It is not, however, one which should not make its appearance at all, the truth rather being that this standpoint of dualism, in conformity with its own nature, terminates in reconciliation. And both aspects are included in the narrative, namely, that reflection, consciousness, freedom, contain evil, wickedness within themselves—that which ought not to be—but that they likewise contain the principle, the source of healing, namely, freedom.

The one aspect of the truth, namely, that the standpoint of reflection is not to be permanent, is directly implied in the statement that a crime has been committed, denoting something which is not to be, not to remain,


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 Thus it is said that the serpent beguiled man with its lies. The pride of freedom is here the attitude which ought not to be.

The other side, namely, that that severance or division is to exist, in so far as it contains the well-spring of his healing, is expressed in the words of God: “Behold! Adam is become as one of us.” It is thus not only no lie of the serpent’s, but, as a matter of fact, God Himself corroborates it. This, however, is usually overlooked, and not mentioned at all.

We may therefore say that it is the everlasting history of the freedom of man that he should come out of this state of dulness or torpor in which he is in his earliest years; that he should come, in fact, to the light of consciousness; or, to put it more precisely, that both good and evil should exist for him.

If we draw out what is actually implied in this representation, we find it to be the very same as what is contained in the Idea, namely, that man, Spirit, reaches the state of reconciliation, or, to put it superficially, that he becomes good, fulfils his destiny. For the attainment of this reconciliation, this standpoint of consciousness, of reflection, of division or dualism, is just as necessary as the abandonment of it.

That in this state man has had the highest knowledge of nature and of God, has occupied the highest standpoint of philosophical knowledge, is an absurd idea, which, moreover, proves itself historically to be wholly unfounded.

It is imagined that this natural unity is the true attitude of man in religion. Yet he must have already been struck by the circumstance that this Paradise, this age of Saturn, is represented as something that is lost. This alone is sufficient to indicate that such an idea does not contain the Truth, for in divine history there is no past, and no contingency. If the existing Paradise has been lost, in whatever way this may have happened, it is


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 something accidental, something arbitrary, which must have come into the divine life from the outside. That this Paradise is lost proves that it is not absolutely essential as a state. The truly Divine, that which is in conformity with its essential nature, is not capable of being lost, is everlasting, and by its very nature abiding. This loss of Paradise must rather be considered as a divine necessity, and as included in the necessity that this state should cease; that imagined Paradise sinks to the level of a moment or element in that divine totality—a moment which is not the absolutely True.

The unity of man with nature is a favourite and pleasant-sounding expression. Rightly understood, it means the unity of man with his own nature. But his true nature is freedom, free spirituality, the thinking knowledge of the absolutely existing Universal; and as thus fixed this unity is no longer a natural, immediate unity.

Plants are in this condition of unbroken unity. The spiritual, on the contrary, is not in immediate unity with its nature; the truth rather is, that in order to attain to the return to itself, it has to work its way through its infinite dualism or division, and to win the state of accomplished reconciliation by wrestling for it. This is by no means a state of reconciliation which is there from the outset, and this true unity is attained to by spirit only by separation from its immediate character. People speak of innocent children, and lament that this innocence, this love, this trust get lost; or they speak of the innocence of simple peoples, who are, however, rarer than is generally thought. But this innocence is not the true position of man; the morality which is free is not that of the child; it stands higher than the innocence just spoken of, it is self-conscious willing; and in this the true attitude is for the first time reached.

In his original dependence upon nature man may either be gentler or more barbarous. Within a temperate zone—


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 and this is the principal agent in deciding the matter—where nature bestows upon him the means of satisfying his physical wants, his natural character may remain gentle, benevolent, and his natural state be marked by simple needs and conditions, and travellers’ descriptions supply us with pleasant pictures of such a state of things. But these gentle habits are either linked with barbarous, horrible customs, and with a state of complete brutishness, or else such states of simplicity depend upon accidental circumstances, such as climate or an insular situation. In every case, however, they are without that universal self-consciousness and its results which alone constitute the glory of Spirit. Besides, the observations and descriptions, such as we have, of those reputedly innocent peoples, have reference merely to the outward good-humoured conduct of men toward strangers, but do not enter into the inner phases of their life constituted by their mutual relations and actual circumstances. Over against all the opinions and desires of a sickly philanthropy, which wishes men back again in that state of original innocence, stands reality itself, and in essential contrast to all such views stands the real truth of things, namely, that such naturalness is not that for which man is destined. And as to the state of childhood, well, passion, selfishness, and evil exhibit themselves there too.

But if it be said that man originally found himself in the centre of nature, saw into the heart of things, and so forth, we reply that these are mistaken ideas. Two kinds of elements are to be distinguished in things: first, their definite character, their quality, their special character in relation to other things. This is the natural side, the finite aspect. In this their special character things may be more familiar to a man in his natural state; he may have a much more definite knowledge of their particular qualities than in the civilised state. This is an aspect which was discussed even in the philosophy of the Middle Ages, in the Signatura rerum, the external quality through


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 which the special peculiar nature of a thing is indicated, so that the specific peculiarity of its nature is at once suggested by this external quality. This may be found in men in the natural state, and in the animal too this connection between itself and external quality is much more marked than in educated men. An animal is driven by instinct toward that which it requires for its sustenance; it consumes only certain things, and leaves all else untouched. Its relation to things consists in this, that it places itself over against its other only, not what is other in general, and does away with the opposition. Thus it has an instinct for the herbs, by means of which it is cured when ill. In the same way the deadly look, the smell of plants are, for the natural man, indications of their hurtfulness, of their poisonous character. He is more sensitive to anything harmful than the civilised man is, and the instinct of animals is still surer than the natural consciousness of man, for this last impairs animal instinct. It may thus be said that the natural man sees into the heart of things, apprehends their specific qualities more correctly. This, however, is the case only with reference to such specific qualities as are wholly and exclusively of a finite character. This instinct sees into the heart of particular things, but into the source of the life of things generally, into this divine heart, its glance cannot penetrate. The very same conditions are found in sleep, in somnambulism. Experience shows that men have a natural consciousness of this kind. The natural consciousness has become quiescent here, and, on the other hand, the inner sense has awakened, and of this latter it may be said that its knowledge is far more in identity with the world and with surrounding things than that of the waking state. Thence it comes that this condition has been held to be higher than the healthy one. It can actually happen that men may have a consciousness of things which take place a thousand miles away. Among


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 peoples such knowledge and such presentiments are to be found in far greater degree than among civilised nations. Such knowledge, however, is confined to special or single occurrences and the fate of individuals. The connection of this definite individual with definite things which form a part of his consciousness is awakened, but these are in this case merely single or individual things and occurrences.

But all this is not yet the true heart of things. That is only to be found in the Notion, the law, the universal Idea; it is not the slumber of Spirit which can reveal the true heart of the world to us. The heart of a planet is the relation of its distance from the sun, of its orbit, &c. This is the truly rational element, and is only attainable for the man of scientific culture, who is free from bondage to the immediate sensuous experience of sight, hearing, &c., who has withdrawn his senses into himself, and approaches the objects before him in the exercise of free thought. This rationality and this knowledge are a result only of the mediation of thought, and only occur in the final and spiritual stage of the existence of man. That instinctive knowledge of nature is explained as sense-perception, and this is nothing else but immediate consciousness. If we ask, “What has been perceived?” it is not sensuous nature superficially considered (a kind of perception which may also be attributed to animals), but it is the essential being of Nature. But the Essence of nature as a system of laws is nothing else than the Universal. It is nature looked at in its universality, the system of self-developing life, and it is this development in its true form, not nature in its individual form, in which it exists for sense-perception or pictorial thought. The form of the Natural is nature as permeated by thought. But thinking is not something immediate: it begins indeed from data, but raises itself above the sensuous manifoldness of what is given, negates the form of particularity, forgets what takes place under sensuous conditions, and produces the


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, the True. This is not action of an immediate kind, but is the work of mediation; it is the going out of finitude. It is of no avail to contemplate the heavens, however piously, innocently, and believingly we may do it; it is by thinking alone that the essential element can be reached. Accordingly, that assertion of the existence of a direct sight or vision of things, of an immediate consciousness, proves itself to be worthless whenever we make inquiries regarding what ought to be seen. The knowing of nature in its truth is a mediated knowledge, and not immediate. It is the same with the will. The will is good in so far as it wills that which is good, right, and moral; but this is something quite other than the immediate will. This latter is the will which confines itself to the sphere of particularity and finitude, which wills individual things as such. The Good is, on the contrary, the Universal. In order that the will may attain to the willing of good, a process of mediation by which it shall have purified itself from such finite willing must necessarily have taken place. Such purification is the education and work of mediation, and this cannot be something immediate and primary. For the rational knowledge of God this is equally essential. God being the centre of all truth—the pure truth without any kind of limitation—in order to arrive at Him, it is still more imperative that man should have laboured to free himself from his natural particularity of knowing and of willing.

Moreover, what has been asserted all along applies specially to the idea that the true consciousness of God lay in this natural unity of man, in this unity as yet unbroken by reflection. Spirit exists only for Spirit; Spirit in its truth exists for the free Spirit only, and it is this latter which has learnt to disregard immediate perception, which abstracts from understanding, from this reflection, and the like. In theological language, this is spirit which has come to the knowledge of sin; in other words, to the consciousness of the infinite separation of


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 its independent being from unity, and which has returned out of that state of separation to unity and reconciliation. Natural immediacy is therefore not the true form of religion, but it is rather its lowest and least true stage.

Ordinary thought sets up an Ideal, and it is necessary that it should do so. In so doing, it gives expression to what the True essentially is; but what is defective here is that it gives that ideal the character of something pertaining to the future and the past, thereby rendering it something which is not present, and so directly giving it the character of a finite element. The empirical consciousness is consciousness of the finite; what exists on its own account or in and for itself is the inner element. Reflection distinguishes the one from the other, and with justice; but what is defective here is that reflection takes up an abstract attitude, and yet at the same time requires that that which has essential existence should manifest itself and be present in the world of external contingency. Reason grants their sphere to chance, to arbitrariness, but knows that the True is still present even in this thoroughly confused world, as it appears to external observation and upon the surface. The ideal of a state is quite sound, only it is not realised. If we conceive realisation to mean that all things—the general conditions, the developments of justice, of politics, of practical needs—are to be commensurate with the Idea, we find that such a sphere is inadequate to the ideal, and yet the substantial Idea is nevertheless actual and present within it. It is not the confused state of existence alone which constitutes the Present, and this definite existence is not totality. That by means of which the ideal is determined may be present, but the actual presence of the Idea is not as yet recognised, because the Idea is contemplated with finite consciousness only. It is quite possible to recognise the substantial kernel of actuality through this outer rind, but for this severe labour is


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 requisite. In order to gather the rose in the cross of the Present, we must take that cross itself upon us.

Finally, it has been sought to establish the existence of the Idea historically by going back to a beginning of the human race marked by the features above indicated. Among many peoples, remains and indications have been found which present a contrast to the other elements which constitute these ideas, or, it may be, we come upon scientific knowledge which does not seem to be in harmony with their present state, or which could not have been parallel with their initial state of culture. The remains of such a better condition of existence have been made the basis of conclusions as to a previous state of perfection, a condition of complete morality. Among the people of India, for example, great wisdom and varied knowledge have been found, to which their present state of culture does not correspond. This and many other similar circumstances have been looked upon as traces of a better past. The writings of the monks of the Middle Ages, for instance, have certainly often not come out of their own heads, but are remnants of a better past.

At the time of the first discovery of Indian literature, much was heard of the enormous chronological numbers; they seemed to point to a very long duration of time, and to yield wholly new disclosures. In recent times, however, it has been found necessary to give up these numbers entirely, for they express no prosaic conditions whatever as regards years or recollection of the past. Further, the Indian peoples are said to possess great astronomical knowledge; they have formulæ in order to calculate the eclipses of the sun and moon, which, however, they use in a wholly mechanical way, without any foreknowledge or investigation of the presuppositions, or the method and the formula they employ. Quite lately, however, the astronomical and mathematical knowledge of the Indian peoples has been more thoroughly examined into, and an original state of culture is undoubtedly to be recognised


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 in it. In these branches of knowledge they had not, however, got nearly so far as the Greeks. The astronomical formulae are so needlessly involved that they are far behind the methods of the Greeks, and still further behind our own; and true science is precisely that which seeks to reduce its problems to the simplest elements. Those complicated formulae point, no doubt, to a praiseworthy diligence, to painstaking effort with regard to the problems in question, but more than that is not to be found in them: long-continued observations lead to such knowledge. So then this wisdom of the Indian peoples and the Egyptians has diminished in proportion as further acquaintance has been made with it, and it still continues to diminish day by day. The knowledge reached is either to be referred to other sources, or is in itself of very trifling import. Thus the whole idea of the paradisiacal beginning has now proved itself to be a poem of which the Notion is the foundation; only, this state of existence has been taken as an immediate one, instead of its being recognised that it appears for the first time as mediation.

We now proceed to the closer consideration of the religion of nature. Its specific character is in a general sense the unity of the Natural and Spiritual, in such wise that the objective side—God—is posited as something natural, and consciousness is limited to the determinateness of nature. This natural element is particular existence, not nature generally viewed as a whole, as an organic totality. Ideas such as these would already be universal ideas, which do not as yet actually appear at this first stage. Nature, as a whole, is posited as units or particulars; classes, species, belong to a further stage of reflection and of the mediation of thought. This particular natural object, this heaven, this sun, this animal, this man—these immediate natural forms of existence are known as God. The question as to what content is found in this idea of God may here be left undetermined to


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 begin with, and at this stage it is something indefinite, an undefined power or force which cannot as yet be filled up. But since that indefiniteness is not as yet Spirit in its true character, the determinations in Spirit in this form are contingent, they become true only when it is true Spirit, which is consciousness, and which posits them.

The first determination, the beginning of the religion of nature, therefore, is that Spirit is found in an immediate, particular mode of existence.

The religion of nature from the first contains in it the spiritual moment or element, and therefore essentially involves the thought that what is spiritual is for man what is highest. This at once excludes the idea that the religion of nature consists in worshipping natural objects as God; that, indeed, plays a part here, but it is a subordinate part. Yet in the very worst religion the Spiritual is to man as man higher than the Natural: the sun is not higher for him than what is spiritual.

The religion of nature, in this its commencement as immediate religion, means that the Spiritual, a man, even in the natural mode of existence, ranks as what is highest. That religion has not the merely external, physically-natural element as its object, but the spiritually-natural, a definite man as this actual present man. This is not the Idea of man, the Adam Kadmon, the original man, the Son of God—these are more developed conceptions, which are present only through thought and for thought; and therefore it is not the conception of man in his universal essentiality, but of this definite actual natural man; it is the religion of the Spiritual, but in its condition of externality, naturalness, immediacy. We have an interest in getting acquainted with the religion of nature for this reason also, in order that we may even in it bring the truth before consciousness that God has at all times been to man something belonging to the Present, and in order that we may abandon the conception of God as an abstract Being beyond the present.


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 With reference to this stage of the religion of nature—which we cannot hold to be worthy of the name of religion—we must, in order to understand it, forget the ideas and thoughts which are, it may be, thoroughly familiar to us, and which even pertain to the superficial nature of our education and culture.

For natural consciousness, which is what we have here before us, the prosaic categories, such as cause and effect, have as yet no value, and natural things are not yet degraded into external things.

Religion has its soil in Spirit only. The spiritual knows itself as the Power over the natural, and that nature is not what exists on its own account, or in and for itself. Those categories just spoken of are the categories of the understanding, in which nature is conceived of as the Other of Spirit, and Spirit as the True. It is from this fundamental determination that religion has its first beginning.

Immediate religion, on the contrary, is that in which Spirit is still natural, in which Spirit has not as yet made the distinction of itself as the universal Power from itself as what is particular, contingent, transitory, and accidental. This distinction, namely, the antitheses of universal Spirit as universal Power and essential Being, and subjective existence with its contingency, has not yet appeared, and forms the second stage within the religion of nature.

Here in the primal immediate religion, in this immediacy, man has as yet no higher Power than himself. There is perhaps a power over contingent life and its purposes and interests, but this is no essential power in the sense of being inherently universal, being rather found in man himself. The Spiritual here exists in a particular and immediate form.

We may indeed be able to understand and think this form of religion, for in this case we still have it before our thoughts as an object. But it is not possible for us


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 to enter into the experience of it, into the feeling of it; just in the same way as we may perhaps understand a dog without being able to enter experimentally into its sensations. For to do this would mean to fill up entirely the totality of the subject with a similar particular determination, so that it would become our determinateness. Even into religions which approach more nearly to our modes of thought we cannot enter experimentally in this way; they cannot become for a single moment so much our own particular religion that we should be able, for example, to worship a Grecian statue of a god, however beautiful that statue might be. And, moreover, the stage of immediate religion lies at the farthest distance from us, since, even in order to make it intelligible to ourselves, we are obliged to forget all the forms of our own culture.

We must regard man immediately, as he exists for himself alone upon the earth, and thus at the very beginning, as wholly without reflection or the power of rising up to thought. It is with the entrance of thought that more worthy conceptions of God first appear.

Here man is seen in his immediate personal strength and passion, in the exercise and attitude of immediate willing. He asks no theoretical questions yet, such as “Who made that?” &c. This separation of objects into a contingent and an essential side, into that of causality and that of what is merely dependent, merely an effect, does not as yet exist for him.

It is the same with the will. This dualism or division is not as yet present in it, there is as yet no repression of itself within it. In willing, the theoretical element is what we call the Universal, right, law, established determinations, boundaries for the subjective will. These are thoughts, universal forms which belong to thought, to freedom.

These are distinguished from subjective caprice, passion, inclination; all this is repressed, dominated by


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 means of this Universal, trained into harmony with this Universal; the natural will becomes transformed into a willing and acting in accordance with such universal points of view.

Man is therefore still undivided as regards his willing: here it is the passion and wildness of his will which holds sway. In the formation of his ideas, likewise, he is pent up in this undivided state, in this state of torpor and dulness.

This state is only the primal uncivilised reliance of Spirit upon itself: a certain fear, a consciousness of negation is indeed present here, but not as yet, however, the fear of the Lord, that of contingency, rather, of the powers of nature, which show themselves as mighty against him.

Fear of the powers of nature, of the sun, of thunderstorms, &c., is here not as yet fear which might be called religious fear, for this has its seat in freedom. The fear of God is a different fear from the fear of natural forces. It is said that “fear is the beginning of wisdom:” this fear cannot present itself in immediate religion. It first appears in man when he knows himself to be powerless in his particularity, when his particularity trembles within him, and when he has accomplished in himself this abstraction from that particularity in order to exist as free Spirit. When the natural element in man thus trembles, he raises himself above it, he renounces it, he has taken higher ground for himself, and passes over to thought, to knowledge. It is not, however, fear in this higher sense only that is not present here, but even the fear of the powers of nature, so far as it enters at all at this first stage of the religion of nature, changes round into its opposite, and becomes magic.

(a.) Magic.

The absolutely primary form of religion, to which we give the name of magic, consists in this, that the Spiritual


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 is the ruling power over nature. This spiritual element does not yet exist, however, as Spirit; it is not yet found in its universality, but is merely the particular, contingent, empirical self-consciousness of man, which, although it is only mere passion, knows itself to be higher in its self-consciousness than nature—knows that it is a power ruling over nature.

Two different things are to be remarked here:—

1. In so far as immediate self-consciousness knows that this power lies within it, that it is the seat of this power, it at once marks itself off in that state in which it is such a power from its ordinary condition.

The man who is occupied with ordinary things has, when he goes about his simple business, particular objects before him. He then knows that he has to do with these only, as, for example, in fishing or the chase, and he limits his energies to these particular objects alone. But the consciousness of himself as a power over the universal power of nature, and over the vicissitudes or changes of nature, is something quite different from the consciousness of that ordinary manner of existence with its occupations and various activities.

Here the individual knows that he must transplant himself into a higher state in order to have that power. This state is a gift belonging to particular persons, who have to learn by tradition all those means and ways by which such power can be exercised. A select number of individuals who are sensible of the presence of this sombre subjective quality within themselves, repair for instruction to the older ones.

2. This power is a direct power over nature in general, and is not to be likened to the indirect power, which we exercise by means of implements over natural objects in their separate forms. Such a power as this, which the educated man exercises over individual natural things, presupposes that he has receded from this world, that the world has acquired externality in relation to him,—an


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 externality to which he concedes an independence relatively to himself, peculiar qualitative characteristics and laws; and it presupposes further that these things in their qualitative character are relative in regard to each other, standing in a manifold connection with one another.

This power, which gives the world a free standing in its qualitative character, is exercised by the educated man by means of his knowledge of the qualities of things, that is to say, of things as they are in regard to other things; another element thus makes its influence felt in them, and their weakness at once shows itself. He learns to know them on that weak side, and operates on them by so arming himself that he is able to attack them in their weakness and to compel them to submit to him.

For the accomplishment of this it is necessary that man should be free in himself. Not until he is himself free does he allow the external world, other people, and natural things to exist over against him as free. To the man who is not free, others are not free either.

On the other hand, any direct influence exercised by man, by means of his ideas, of his will, presupposes this mutual unfreedom, since power over external things is indeed attributed to man as representing what is Spiritual, but not as being a power which acts in a free manner, and which just on that account does not bring itself into relation to what is free, and as something which mediates; on the contrary, here the power over nature acts in a direct way. It thus is magic or sorcery.

As regards the external mode in which this idea actually appears, it is found in a form which implies that this magic is what is highest in the self-consciousness of those peoples. But in a subordinate way magic steals up to higher standpoints too, and insinuates itself into higher religions, and thus into the popular conception of witches, although in that form it is recognised as something which is partly impotent, and partly improper and godless.


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 There has been an inclination on the part of some (as, for example, in the Kantian philosophy) to consider prayer too as magic, because man seeks to make it effectual, not through mediation, but by starting direct from Spirit. The distinction here, however, is that man appeals to an absolute will, for which even the individual or unit is an object of care, and which can either grant the prayer or not, and which in so acting is determined by general purposes of good. Magic, however, in the general sense, simply amounts to this,—that man has the mastery as he is in his natural state, as possessed of passions and desires.

Such is the general character of this primal and wholly immediate standpoint, namely, that the human consciousness, any definite human being, is recognised as the ruling power over nature in virtue of his own will. The natural has, however, by no means that wide range which it has in our idea of it. For here the greater part of nature still remains indifferent to man, or is just as he is accustomed to see it. Everything is stable. Earthquakes, thunderstorms, floods, animals, which threaten him with death, enemies, and the like, are another matter. To defend himself against these recourse is had to magic.

Such is the oldest mode of religion, the wildest, most barbarous form. It follows from what has been said that God is necessarily of a spiritual nature. This is His fundamental determination. Spiritual existence, in so far as it is an object for self-consciousness, is already a further advance, a differentiation of spirituality as that which is universal and as definite individual empirical self-consciousness; it is already a breaking off of the universal self-consciousness from the empirical spirituality of self-consciousness. At the beginning this does not yet exist.

The religion of nature as that of magic, begins from unfree freedom, so that the single or individual


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 knows itself as something which is higher than natural things, and this knowledge is, to begin with, unmediated.

By recent travellers, such as Captain Parry, and before him Captain Ross, this religion has been found among the Esquimaux, wholly without the element of mediation and as the crudest consciousness. Among other peoples a mediation is already present.

Captain Parry says of them: “They are quite unaware that there is any other world; they live among rocks, ice and snow, upon rye, birds and fish, and do not know that nature exists in any other form. The English had an Esquimaux with them, who had lived some time in England, and he served as interpreter. Through him they obtained some knowledge regarding the people, and learned that they have not the slightest idea of Spirit, of a higher existence, of an essential substance as contrasted with their empirical mode of existence, of the immortality of the soul, of the everlasting duration of spirit, of the evil independent existence of the individual spirit. They know of no evil spirit, and they have, it is true, a great veneration for the sun and moon, but they do not adore them; they worship no image, no living creature. On the other hand, they have amongst them individuals whom they call Angekoks, magicians, conjurers. Those assert that they have it in their power to raise a storm, to create a calm, to bring whales near, &c., and say that they learnt these arts from old Angekoks. The people regard them with fear; in every family, however, there is at least one. A young Angekok wished to make the wind rise, and he proceeded to do it by dint of phrases and gestures. These phrases had no meaning and were directed toward no Supreme Being as a medium, but were addressed in an immediate way to the natural object over which the Angekok wished to exercise power; he required no aid from any one whatever. He was told of an omnipresent, all good,


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 invisible Being who had made everything, and he asked where it lived, and when he was told it was everywhere, he at once became afraid, and wished to run away. On being asked where his people would go when they died, he replied that they would be buried; a long time ago an old man had once said that they would go to the moon, but it was long since any Esquimaux had believed that.”

Thus they occupy the lowest stage of spiritual consciousness, but they possess the belief that self-consciousness is a mighty power over nature, without mediation, apart from any antithesis between that self-consciousness and a divine Being.

The English persuaded an Angekok to practise magic; this was done by means of dancing, so that he became frantic with the prodigious amount of exertion; he fell into a state of exhaustion, and gave forth phrases and sounds, his eyes rolling about all the while.

This religion of magic is very prevalent in Africa, as also among the Mongols and Chinese; here, however, it is no longer found in the absolute crudeness of its first form, but mediations already come in, which owe their origin to the fact that the Spiritual has begun to assume an objective form for self-consciousness.

In its first form this religion is more magic than religion; it is in Africa among the negroes that it prevails most extensively. It was already mentioned by Herodotus, and in recent times it has been found existing in a similar form. Yet the cases are but few in which such peoples appeal to their power over nature, for they use very little, and have few requirements, and, in judging of their conditions, we must forget the manifold needs which surround us, and the variously complicated modes we have of accomplishing our ends. Our information regarding the state of these peoples is for the most part derived from the missionaries of past times; the more recent accounts are, on the other hand, but scanty, and therefore some of the narratives of older


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 date have to be received with suspicion, especially ns missionaries are natural enemies of magic. The general facts, however, are undoubted, being established by a great variety of accounts.

The charge of avarice on the part of the priests must be abandoned here, as in the case of other religions. Offerings, gifts to the gods, become for the most part the share of the priests, but still you can only speak of avarice, and a people are only to be pitied on account of it, when they lay a great stress upon the possession of property. But to these peoples possessions are of no consequence; they know of no better use to which to put what they have than to give it away in this manner.

The character of this magic is more accurately shown by the mode and manner of its exercise. The magician retires to a hill, describes circles or figures in the sand, and utters magical words, makes signs toward the sky, blows toward the wind, sucks in his breath. A missionary who found himself at the head of a Portuguese army relates that the negroes who were their allies had brought a magician of this kind with them. A hurricane rendered his conjuring arts needful, aud, in spite of the strong opposition of the missionary, they were resorted to. The magician appeared in a peculiar fantastical dress, looked up at the sky and the clouds, and afterwards chewed roots and murmured phrases. As the clouds drew nearer, he broke out into howls, made signs to the clouds, and spat towards the sky. The storm continuing notwithstanding, he waxed furious, shot arrows at the sky, threatened it with bad treatment, and thrust at the clouds with his knife.

The Schamans among the Mongols are very similar to these magicians. Wearing a fantastic dress, from which depend figures of metal and wood, they stupefy themselves with drink, and when in this state declare what is to happen and prophesy about the future.

In this sphere of magic the main principle is the


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 direct domination of nature by means of the will, of self-consciousness—in other words, that Spirit is something of a higher kind than nature. However bad this magic may look regarded in one aspect, still in another it is higher than a condition of dependence upon nature and fear of it.

It is to be observed here that there are negro peoples who have the belief that no man dies a natural death; that nature has not power over him, but that it is he who has power over nature. These are the Galla and Gaga tribes, which, as the most savage and most barbarous of conquerors, have repeatedly descended upon the coasts since the year 1542, pouring forth from the interior and inundating the whole country. These look upon man in the strength of his consciousness as too exalted to be capable of being killed by anything so obscure as the power of nature. What therefore takes place is, that sick people, in whose case magic has proved ineffectual, are put to death by their friends. In the same way the wild tribes of North America too killed their aged who had reached decrepitude, the meaning of which is unmistakable, namely, that man is not to perish by means of nature, but is to have due honour rendered to him at human hands. There is another people again who have the belief that everything would go to ruin if their high-priest were to die a natural death. He is therefore executed as soon as ever he becomes ill and weak; if a high-priest should notwithstanding die of some disease, they believe that some other person killed him by means of magic, and the magicians have to ascertain who the murderer was, when he is at once made away with. On the death of a king in particular, many persons are killed: according to a missionary of older days, it is the devil of the king who is slain.

Such, then, is the very first form of religion, which cannot indeed as yet be properly called religion. To religion essentially pertains the moment of objectivity, and this means that spiritual power shows itself as a mode of the


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 Universal relatively to self-consciousness, for the individual, for the particular empirical consciousness. This objectivity is an essential characteristic, on which all depends. Not until it is present does religion begin, does a God exist, and even in the lowest condition there is at least a beginning of it. The mountain, the river, is not in its character as this particular mass of earth, as this particular water, the Divine, but as a mode of the existence of the Divine, of an essential, universal Being. But we do not yet find this in magic as such. It is the individual consciousness as this particular consciousness, and consequently the very negation of the Universal, which is what has the power here; not a god in the magician, but the magician himself is the conjurer and conqueror of nature. This is the religion of passion, which is still infinite for itself, and therefore of sensuous particularity which is certain of itself. But in the religion of magic there is already also a distinguishing of the individual empirical consciousness of the person dealing in magic from that person in his character as representing the Universal. It is owing to this that out of magic the religion of magic is developed.

(b.) The Objective Characteristics of the Religion of Magic.

With the distinction of the singular and universal in general, there enters a relation of self-consciousness to the object, and here mere formal objectifying must be distinguished from the true. The former is that the spiritual Power—God—is known as objective for consciousness; absolute objectifying means that God is, that He is known as existing in and for Himself, in accordance with those characteristics which essentially belong to Spirit in its true nature.

What we have to consider in the first place here is formal objectifying only. The relation here is of a threefold kind.

1. Subjective self-consciousness, subjective spirituality,


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 is, and still remains, master and lord—this living force, this self-conscious power; the ideality of self-consciousness as the force or power is still operative as against feeble objectivity, and maintains the supremacy.

2. The subjective self-consciousness of man is conceived of as dependent on the object. Man, as immediate consciousness, can only conceive himself to be dependent in an accidental manner; only by a deviation from his ordinary state of existence does he reach the condition of dependence. Amongst simple peoples in a state of nature, amongst savages, this dependence is of little importance. They have what they want; what they are in need of exists for them, grows for them; they therefore do not regard themselves as at all in a condition of dependence; their needs are chance needs only. Not until consciousness is further developed, when man and nature, losing their immediate validity and positive character, come to be conceived of as something evil, something negative, does the dependence of consciousness come in, in that it shows itself to be negative relatively to its object or “Other.” Not until man is so conceived of as Essence does the Other—nature—essentially become a mere negative.

3. But this negativity shows itself to be only a point of transition. Spirituality, too, as well as the natural will, the empirical, immediate spirit, man, recognises itself in religion to be essential, comes to see that to depend upon nature is not its fundamental characteristic, but to know itself as Spirit, to be free. Although at the lowest stage this is merely a formal freedom, yet man has a contempt for dependence, remains self-contained, asserts himself, casts away the merely natural connection, and subjugates nature to his own power. It is at another stage that what a later religion says holds good: “God thunders with His thunder, and yet is not recognised.” God can do something better than merely thunder; He can reveal Himself. Spirit does not permit


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 itself to be characterised by a natural phenomenon. The higher relation is that of free adoration, where man reveres the ruling power as free, recognises it as Essence, but not as something which is foreign to his nature.

If, therefore, we consider this objectifying process more closely, we find it partly consists in this, that self-consciousness maintains itself as the power over natural things, and partly that in this objectivity not merely natural things exist for it, but that a Universal begins to come into existence in it, towards which it accordingly assumes the attitude of free adoration.

If, therefore, we consider the process of the objectifying of the Universal as it goes on when still within the sphere of magic, it will be seen that the consciousness of truly essential objectivity—though as yet undeveloped—now begins within it; the consciousness of an essential universal power begins. Magic is retained, but it is accompanied by the perception of an independent, essential objectivity; what the consciousness which uses magic knows as the ultimate principle is not itself, but the universal power or force in things. The two are intermingled, and not until free adoration, as the consciousness of free power, appears, do we emerge from the sphere of magic, although we still find ourselves within the region of the religion of nature. Magic has existed among all peoples and at every period; with the objectifying process, however, a mediation comes in in its higher stages, so that Spirit is the higher notion, the power over it, or the mediating agent with the magic.

Self-consciousness is that relation with the object in which the former is no longer immediate self-consciousness, that which is satisfied within itself, but finds its satisfaction in what is other than itself, by the mediation of an “Other,” and through an “Other” as its channel. The infiniteness of passion shows itself as a finite infinity, since it is restrained by means of reflection within the bounds of a higher power. Man unlocks his


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, and only by the annulling of his particularity does he create full satisfaction for himself in his Essence, unite himself with himself as Essence, and attain to himself by means of the negative mode of himself.

In mediation, as it at first exhibits itself to us in an external form, the mediation takes place, as it were, by means of an Other which remains external. In magic, as such, man exerts direct power over nature. Here he exercises an indirect power, by means of an object, of a charm.

The moments of mediation, looked at more closely, are these:—1. The immediate relation here is that the self-consciousness, as spiritual self-consciousness, knows itself as the power ruling over natural things. These themselves, again, are a power among themselves. This is already, therefore, a further reflection, and no longer an immediate relation, where the as a unit confronts natural things. The next form of universality reached by reflection is that natural things appear to be within one another, stand in connection with one another, that the one is to be known by means of the other, has its meaning as cause and effect, so that, in fact, they are essentially in a condition of relation. This connection is already a form of the objectifying of the Universal, for the thing is thus no longer a unit, it goes out beyond itself, it gives itself a valid existence in what is other than itself; the thing becomes broader in this way. In the first relation am the ideality of the thing, the power over it; now, however, when thus posited objectively, the things are themselves the power in their mutual relation to one another; the one is that which posits the other ideally. This is the sphere of indirect magic through means, while the magic first referred to was direct magic.

This is a form of objectifying which is merely a connection of external things, and means that the subject does not take to itself the direct power over nature, but only over the means. This mediated magic is present at all


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 times and among all peoples. Sympathetic remedies, too, belong to this kind of magic. They are a contrivance the object of which is to produce a result in something quite different; the subject has the means in its hand; to produce this result is merely its intention, its aim. The is the magician, but it conquers the thing by means of the thing itself. In magic, things show themselves as ideal. The ideality is thus a characteristic which belongs to them as things; it is an objective quality, which comes into consciousness by means of the very exercise of magic, and is itself only posited, made use of. Passion seizes on things in an immediate way. Now, however, consciousness reflects itself into itself, and inserts the thing itself as the destroying agent between itself and the thing, while it thereby shows itself as stratagem or cunning in not mixing itself up with the things and their strife. The change which is to be brought about may in one sense depend upon the nature of the means employed, but the principal thing is the will of the subject. This mediated magic is infinitely widespread, and it is difficult to define its limits and determine what is and what is not included in it. The principle of magic is that the connection between the means and the result is not known. Magic exists everywhere where this connection is merely present without being understood. The same thing holds good, too, of medicines in hundreds of cases, and all we can really do is to appeal to experience. The other alternative would be the rational course, namely, to get to know the nature of the remedy, and thus to deduce the change which it brings about. But the art of medicine refuses to adopt the plan of calculating the result from the nature of the remedy. We are simply told that this connection actually exists, and this is mere experience, which, however, contradicts itself endlessly. Thus Brown treated with opium, naphtha, spirit, &c., what was formerly cured by means of remedies of an entirely opposite nature. It is therefore difficult


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 to state the limits of known and unknown connection. In so far as we are here in presence of effects produced by living agents on what is living, and have no longer to do with the effects produced by what is spiritual on what is bodily, there are connections present which cannot be gainsaid, and which yet, so long as the deeper conception of this relation is unknown, may still appear as inscrutable, as magic, or as miracle. Thus in magnetism everything which is usually called connection ceases; regarded in the ordinary way, it is an incomprehensible connection.

If the sphere of mediation in magic be once entered, the huge gate of superstition is opened, and then every detail of existence becomes significant, for every circumstance has results, has ends; everything is both mediated and mediating, everything governs and is governed: what a man does depends as to its results upon circumstances; what he is, his aims, depend upon certain conditions. He exists in an external world, amidst a variety of connections of cause and effect, and the individual is only a ruling force to the extent to which he has power over the particular forces thus connected. In so far as this connection remains undetermined, and the definite nature of things is still unknown, we float about in a condition of absolute contingency. Since reflection enters into this region of relations, it has the belief that things stand to one another in a relation of reciprocity. This belief is quite correct, but the defect in it is that it is still abstract, and consequently the definite special character of action, the precise mode of action, the exact nature of the connection of things with other things is not as yet present in it. Such a connection exists, but its real character is not yet known, and accordingly what is present is the contingent character, the arbitrariness of the means. Most people are on one side of their nature in this position, and nations occupy this standpoint in a way which shows that this aspect is for them the fundamental one,


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 the power which rules their wishes, their actual condition, their mode of existence.

When people act according to an abstract principle, free scope is given to the element of determination. This applies to the endless variety of charms. Many nations use magic in connection with everything they undertake. Among some a charm is made use of when the foundations of a house are laid, in order that it may be a lucky dwelling, and may be beyond the reach of any danger. The particular quarter of the heavens, the direction, is a matter of importance here. At sowing-time, too, a charm must be used to secure a happy result. Relations with other men, love, hatred, peace, war, are brought about by the use of such means, and the connection of these with the effects being unknown, either one or other of these means must be taken. Anything rational is not to be met with in this sphere, and therefore nothing further can be said about the matter. It is customary to attribute to all peoples great insight into the way in which herbs, plants, &c., act in cases of illness and the like. A true connective relation may exist here, but the connection may just as easily be merely arbitrary. The understanding gets to be conscious that there is a connection, but its precise character is unknown to understanding. It seizes upon the means, and imagination, guided by a true or a false instinct, supplies the deficiency in the abstract principle, introduces a definiteness into it which is not actually inherent in the nature of the things themselves.

2. The content of immediate magic in its earliest form has to do with objects over which man is able to exercise direct power. This second form, again, is based upon a relation toward objects which are looked upon rather as independent, and thus as power, so that they appear to man as something different from himself, and which is no longer under his own control. For example, the sun, the moon, the heavens, the sea, are independent natural things


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 of this kind. They are forces or powers, individual or elemental great objects, which seem to man to confront him in a wholly independent way. If in this sphere natural consciousness still adheres to the standpoint of individual passion, it has, properly speaking, no relation to these objects as parts of universal nature; it has not as yet a perception of their universality, and has to do with units alone. Their course, what they produce, is uniform, their mode of action is constant. The consciousness, however, which still adheres to the standpoint of natural unity, and for which what is constant possesses no interest, puts itself in relation with them in accordance with its contingent wishes, needs, interests only, or in so far as their action appears as contingent. From this point of view the sun and moon interest man only in so far as they undergo eclipse, and the earth only when there are earthquakes. The Universal does not exist for him, does not excite his desires, is without interest for him. A river only interests him when he wishes to cross it. Theoretical interest has no existence here, but only the practical relation due to accidental wants. Thinking man, with his higher culture, does not reverence these objects in their aspect as spiritual universalities, nor does he look upon them as representing what is essential. Man does not reverence them in that first sphere either, because he has not in any way come as yet to the consciousness of the Universal which is in these objects. At this last standpoint he has not yet arrived at the universality of all that exists; at the former point of view natural existence has no longer any validity for him. But it is in the midst of these two points of view that the powers of nature make their appearance as a Universal, and consequently as having the ruling power in relation to the particular, empirical consciousness. Such a man may be afraid of them in earthquakes, floods, or eclipses, and may address prayers or entreaties to them; here they appear for the first time as power; for the rest,


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 they follow their ordinary course, and then he does not need to entreat them. But entreaty or supplication of this kind is a species of conjuring too; we use the word to conjure in the sense of entreaty. When a man entreats, he acknowledges that he is in the power of another. It is therefore often difficult to entreat or supplicate, because by that very act I acknowledge the control of the arbitrary will of another in reference to myself. But what is demanded here is that the effect, the entreaty, shall at the same time be the power exercised over the other. These two intermingle, the acknowledgment of the supremacy of the object, and, on the other hand, the consciousness of my own power, in accordance with which I desire to exercise supremacy over this object. Thus we see peoples sacrifice to a river if they wish to cross it, or bring offerings to the sun if it is eclipsed. They make use of the power in this way to conjure; the means are meant to exert a charm over the power of nature—they are meant to produce what the subject desires. The reverence thus shown towards such objects of nature is wholly ambiguous; it is not pure reverence, but reverence mixed with magic.

In conjunction with this reverence for natural objects, it may happen that these are conceived of in a more essential shape, as Genii; for example, the sun may be thought of as a genius, or we may have the genius of rivers, &c. This is a kind of reverence in which man does not stop short at the particularity of the object; on the contrary, it is universality which is before the mind, and it is this which is reverenced. But while this universality too is thus conceived of as in a universal shape and appears as power, man may, notwithstanding, preserve the consciousness of being the power even over these genii; their content is poorer, is only that of natural existences; it still continues a merely natural one, and self-consciousness is thus able to know itself as a power over it.


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 3. The next stage in the objectifying process is reached when man recognises and finds an independent power outside of himself in what has life. Life, even the life force in a tree, and still more in an animal, is a higher principle than the nature of the sun or of a river. This is why it has come about that among a very large number of peoples animals have been reverenced as divinities. This appears to us as the least worthy form of worship, but, as a matter of fact, the principle of life is higher than that of the sun. Animal life is a more exalted, a truer form of existence than any such existing natural object, and it is in so far less undignified to reverence animals as divinities than rivers, stars, &c. The life of an animal gives token of an active independence of subjectivity, and it is that which is the main point here. It is his self-consciousness which a man makes objective to himself, and life is the form, the mode of existence, which is undoubtedly the most nearly related to the spiritual one. Animals are still worshipped by many peoples, especially in India and Africa. An animal has the calm independence, the vitality which does not throw itself away, which has a preference for this or for that; it has accidental arbitrary movement; it is not to be understood; has something secret in its modes of action, in its expressions; it is alive, but not comprehensible as man is to man. This mysteriousness constitutes the miraculous element for man, so that he is able to look upon animal life as higher than his own. Serpents were still reverenced among the Greeks; from ancient times they had the prepossession in their favour of being esteemed as good omens. On the west coast of Africa a serpent is to be found in every house, and it is the greatest crime to murder it. On the one hand, animals are thus held in veneration, and on the other hand they are, notwithstanding this, subject to the most capricious treatment in respect of the veneration shown to them. Negroes use whatever animal comes first to


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 hand as their charm, cast it aside when it does not produce the desired effect, and take another.

Such is the essential character of animal-worship; it exists in so far as man and the spiritual in him have not yet conceived of themselves in their true essentiality. The life of man is thus mere free independence.

In this sphere of the appetite of individual self-consciousness, which neither in itself nor outside of itself recognises universal objective spirituality, that significance is not as yet given to the living creature, thus reverenced or worshiped, which it acquires later in the idea of the transmigration of souls. This general conception is based upon the idea that the spirit of man is of a durable character, but that for his existence in that duration he requires corporeal form, and inasmuch as this is not now a human one, he requires another, and the one most nearly related is accordingly that of the animal. In zoolatry, which is bound up with the transmigration of souls, it is an important and essential moment that the idea of an indwelling spiritual element combines itself with this transmuted life, so that it is properly this which is reverenced. Here in this sphere, where immediate self-consciousness is the fundamental element, it is, however, life in the general sense only that is reverenced. This worship, therefore, is of a contingent character, and connects itself now with this animal, and now with that other. Almost every unaccomplished desire is the occasion of a fresh change. Moreover, any kind of thing is to the purpose here,—a manufactured idol, a hill, a tree, &c. Just as children feel the impulse to play, and mankind the impulse to adorn themselves, there is an impulse here too to have something before one as an independent and powerful object, and to have the consciousness of an arbitrary combination which may be just as easily broken up again, as the more precise character of the object appears at first to be of no consequence.


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 It is in this way that fetish-worship originates. “Fetish” is a corruption of a Portuguese word, and has the same meaning as “idol.” Fetish may mean anything, any carved work, a piece of wood, an animal, a river, a tree, &c. Similarly there are fetishes for whole peoples, and fetishes for any special individual.

The negroes have a great variety of idols, natural objects which they make into their fetishes. The first stone which comes to hand, locusts, &c., these are their Lares, from which they expect to derive good fortune. This is thus an unknown indefinite power, which they have themselves created in an immediate way. Accordingly, if anything unpleasant befalls them, and they do not find the fetish serviceable, they make away with it and choose another. A tree, a river, a lion, a tiger are common national fetishes. If any misfortune occurs, such as floods or war, they change their god. The fetish is subject to being changed, and sinks to a means of procuring something for the individual. The Nile of the Egyptians, on the contrary, is quite different; it is something Divine which they have in common; it is their substantial, unchangeable ruling power, upon which their entire existence depends.

The ultimate form in which independent spirituality is embodied is essentially man himself—a living, independent form of existence which is spiritual. Reverence has here its essential object; and in regard to objectivity the principle makes its appearance that it is not every individual chance consciousness which has power to rule over nature, but that there are some few particular ruling persons who are looked up to and reverenced as embodying spirituality. In the existing self-consciousness which still has power, it is the will, it is knowledge in comparison with and in actual relation to others which is what rules and which shows itself as essentially necessary relatively to the Other, and is a central point among many. Here, therefore, a spiritual power makes its


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 appearance, which is to be looked upon as objective, and thus the principle appears according to which it is to be a case of one or some as exclusive in reference to the rest. Thus one man is a magician, or some men are magicians; they are looked upon as the highest power which is actually present. These are usually princes, and thus, for instance, the Emperor of China is the individual having dominion over men, and at the same time over nature and natural things. Since it is thus a self-consciousness which is reverenced, a distinction at once makes itself apparent here between what an individual is in his essential nature and what he is from the point of view of his external existence. In this latter aspect the individual is a man like other men, but the essential moment or element is spirituality in general; this being for self or independent in contrast to the external contingent mode of existence. A distinction begins to appear here which is of a higher character, as as we shall see later on, and which comes into prominence in the Lamas. What first takes place is that a distinction is made between individuals as such and as universal powers. This universal spiritual power, conceived as existing in its own right, supplies the idea of Genius, of a god who has himself again a sensuous shape in the idea formed of him, and the actually living individual is then the priest of such an idol. At this standpoint, however, the priest and the god often become synonymous. His inner life may become hypostatised; here, however, the essential power of the spiritual and the immediate existence are not as yet separated from one another, and thus this spiritual power is really merely a superficial idea. The priest, the magician, is the principal person, so that they are actually represented sometimes as separate, but if the god comes to express himself outwardly, becomes strong, decides, &c., he only does this as a definite real human being; this reality supplies the god with his strength. These priests sometimes have


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 actual sovereigns over them too; if the priest and prince are distinguished from one another, the man is on the one hand reverenced as God, and on the other compelled to do what others require of him. The negroes, who have magicians who are not at the same time sovereigns, bind and beat them until they are obedient, if they refuse to use their magical charms or are not disposed to do so.

We shall see how the idea runs through various religions that the Spiritual has its presence in man, and that human consciousness is essentially the presence of Spirit. This idea necessarily belongs to the oldest class of principles. It is present in the Christian religion too, but in a higher form, and, as it were, transfigured. The Christian religion interprets and transfigures it.

In the case of a human being, the mode in which objectivity is attained is of a twofold kind. The first is that in which he takes up a position of exclusiveness as against what is other than himself; the second is the natural mode, namely, the stripping off of what is temporal from him; this natural mode is death. Death takes away what is temporal, what is transitory in man, but it has no power or control over that which he essentially is. That man actually has such a region within himself, since he exists in his own right, cannot at this standpoint as yet come into consciousness; here self-consciousness is not as yet in possession of the eternal meaning of its spirit. The stripping off referred to has to do only with the individual’s sensuous existence; the whole remaining contingent mode of his particularity, of his sensuous presence is, on the other hand, retained by him. It is removed into the region of ideas, and is retained there. This, however, has not the form of truth, but what is thus retained for the individual has still the form of his wholly sensuous existence. Reverence for the dead is therefore still quite feeble, and its content is of an accidental character. The dead are a power, but a feeble power.

The lasting part of the dead, a part which is at the


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 same time conspicuously material, what we may call the immortal material part, is represented by the bones. Among many peoples, therefore, the bones of the dead are held in reverence, and are used as instruments of magic. We may in this connection be reminded of relics, and it is the fact that on the one hand missionaries are zealous in opposing this veneration for bones, while on the other hand they ascribe a greater power to their own religion. Thus a monk relates that the negroes have bandages which are prepared with human blood by a magical process, and to which is attributed the power of enabling a man to hold his ground against wild beasts. He had often observed that men provided with such bandages had been torn by animals, from which those upon whom he had hung relics had always remained protected.

As representing this power, the dead therefore demand veneration, and this consists in nothing beyond the bestowal of a certain care upon them, and in providing them with food and drink. Most ancient peoples buried food with the dead. Accordingly the idea of what is true, lasting, enduring, is of a very inferior kind. It is also supposed that the dead return to the present world, or it may be they are thought of partly as a power which will avenge neglect of care, partly as called up by magic, through the power of the magician, of the actual self-consciousness, and consequently as being subject to this latter. A few examples will illustrate this.

The Capuchin monk Cavazzi (Histor. Beschreibung d. drei Königr. Congo u. s. w., München, 1694), who remained for a considerable time in the neighbourhood of the Congo, relates a great deal about these magicians, who are named Singhilli. They are held in great repute by the people, and call them together whenever it pleases them to do so. They always do this from time to time, and state that they are impelled to it by this or that dead person. The tribe must present itself, each man


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 provided with a knife, the magician himself makes his appearance carried in a net, decked with precious stones, feathers, &c. The assembled people receive him with singing, dancing, and shouts of joy, which are accompanied by a barbaric, deafening, hideous kind of music, which is supposed to occasion the entrance of the spirit which has passed away, into the Singhilli; he himself entreats the spirit to enter into him. This accomplished, he rises and gesticulates quite after the manner of one possessed, tears his garments, rolls his eyes, bites and scratches himself; while doing so, he expresses the dead man’s desires, and replies to the questions of those who inquire of him about their own affairs. The speaking dead threatens the survivors with distress and misery, wishes them all kinds of mishaps, inveighs against the ingratitude of his blood-relations in having given him no human blood. Cavazzi says, “The working of demoniacal fury shows itself in him, and he yells in a frightful manner, takes the blood by force which is not rendered to him, seizes a knife, thrusts it into some one’s breast, cleaves heads, rips up bellies, and drinks the blood which streams forth. He rends the bodies and divides the flesh among those present, who devour it without remorse, although it may be that of their nearest relatives; they know beforehand that this is how the thing will end, but go notwithstanding to the gathering with the greatest rejoicing.

“The Gagas imagine that the dead feel hunger and thirst. If any one becomes ill, or especially if he has visions or sees apparitions and dreams, he sends for a Singhilli and questions him. The latter inquires into all the circumstances, and the result is that the apparition proves to be that of one of his deceased relations who is present there, and he is told that he must go to another Singhilli in order to have it driven away, for each Singhilli has his own special business. This last now conducts him to the grave of the person who appeared to him, or who is


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 the cause of the illness. There the dead man is conjured, abused, threatened, until he enters into the Singhilli and discloses what he desires in order to be reconciled. This is the course of procedure when he has been dead for a long time; if he has only recently been buried, the body is dug up, the head cut off and laid open; the moisture which flows from it must be in part consumed in food by the sick person, and of part of it plasters are made which are laid upon him.

“The difficulties are greater when the dead has had no burial, but has been devoured by friend, enemy, or wild beast. The Singhilli then sets about making incantations, and afterwards gives out that the spirit has entered into the body of a monkey, a bird, &c., and manages to effect the capture of the animal or bird. The latter is then killed, and the sick person consumes it, and in consequence of this the spirit loses all right to be anything.”

It is clear from the above that in so far as it is a question of duration, no absolute, free, independent power is conceded to the spirit.

It is as dead that the man is represented in this state of duration, as having had his empirical external existence stripped off him. But his wholly contingent nature still remains to him in this sphere; the objectifying has still reference entirely to the external mode of existence, is still wholly formal. It is not as yet the Essential which is regarded as existent, and what is left behind is still the man’s contingent nature. The duration itself which is given to the dead is a superficial quality; it is not his transfiguration. He continues to be contingent existence, in the power, in the hands of the living self-consciousness, of the magician, so that the latter may even cause him to die over again, and therefore to die a second time.

The idea of immortality hangs together with the idea of God. It always corresponds, in short, with the stage at which the metaphysical conception of God has arrived.


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 The more the power of spirituality is conceived of in accordance with its content in an eternal form, the worthier is the idea of God, as well as the idea of the spirit of the human individual and of the immortality of the spirit.

However weak, however powerless men appear here, they appear just the same among the Greeks and in Homer. In the scene of Odysseus at the Styx we see how he calls forth the dead and slays a black goat; by the help of blood only are the shades able to acquire memory and speech; they are eager for blood, so that vitality may enter into them: Odysseus permits some to drink, and holds the rest back with his sword.

When the idea of the spirit of man is of this material character, the idea of what the ruling power is in its essential nature is equally material.

The example already quoted at once shows us the little value man, as an individual, has for those at this standpoint. This contempt for man, this making light of man by others, is confessedly present also among the negroes too, in the form of the condition of slavery, which is quite universal among them. Prisoners either become slaves or are slaughtered. With the idea of immortality the value of life increases; one might suppose the reverse would take place, and that life would then have less value. On the one hand, such is actually the case too, but, on the other, the right of the individual to life at once becomes so much the greater, and the right becomes for the first time great when man is recognised as free implicitly or in himself, in his own right. Both determinations, that of subjective finite independent being and that of absolute power, which is afterwards to appear definitely as absolute Spirit, are connected in the very closest manner.

On this account, too, one might suppose that man, since he is of so much value as being this power, would be held in great reverence here, and would have the


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 feeling of his dignity. But, on the contrary, man has here complete worthlessness; for man does not possess dignity through what he is as immediate will, but only in virtue of having knowledge of something which exists in-and-for-itself, and of something substantial, and only because he subjects his natural will to this, and brings it into accordance with it. Only by the annulling of natural unruliness, and through the knowledge that a Universal that exists in-and-for-itself is the True, does he acquire a dignity, and then only does life itself too become worth something.

(c.) Worship or Cultus in the Religion of Magic.

In the sphere of magic, where the spiritual element is known as existing in the particular self-consciousness only, there can be no question of worship as free reverence for a spiritual being, for what has an absolute objective existence of its own. Here this relation is rather the exercise of lordship over nature, the rule of some few self-conscious beings over the rest—the sway of the magician over those who do not know. The condition of this lordship is sensuous stupor, in which the particular will is forgotten, extinguished, and the abstract sensuous consciousness is intensified to the utmost degree. The means used for producing this stupor are dancing, music, shouting, gorging, even sexual intercourse; and it is these which at a higher level become cultus.

The way out of this first form of religion is that Spirit gets to be purified from externality, from sensuous immediacy, and attains to the idea of Spirit as Spirit in ordinary conception and in thought.

The important element in the advance is just the objectifying of Spirit—that is to say, the fact that Spirit becomes purely objective, and comes to have the signification of Universal Spirit.


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 II.

THE DIVISION OF CONSCIOUSNESS WITHIN ITSELF.

The first step in advance is when consciousness of a substantial Power comes in, and of the powerlessness of the immediate will. Inasmuch as God is here known as the Absolute Power, this is not as yet the religion of freedom; for though man does actually rise, by the coming in of that consciousness, above himself, and though the essential differentiation of Spirit is carried into effect, still since this lofty Being is known as power, and is not as yet further characterised, the Particular is merely something accidental, is a mere negative or nullity. Everything subsists by means of this power, or, in other words, it is itself the subsistence of everything, so that the freedom of a self-dependent existence is not as yet recognised. This is Pantheism.

This power, which is something reached by thought, is not as yet known as such, as implicitly spiritual. Since it must now have a spiritual mode of existence, but has not as yet in itself freedom in its own right, it has the moment of spirituality again merely in a single human being, who is known as this power.

In the exaltation of spirit with which we have to do here, the point of departure is the finite, the contingent. This is defined as the negative, and the universal self-existent Essence as that in which and by means of which this finite is something negative, something posited. Substance, on the contrary, is the not-posited, the self-existent, the power in relation to the finite.

Now, the consciousness which rises up, rises up in its character as thought, but without having a consciousness regarding this universal thought, without expressing it in the form of thought. The rising up is, however, in the first place, an upward movement only. The other