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 thing; the process truly takes place only in the spirit of the subject.

In this case there is no transubstantiation—transubstantiation there certainly is, but it is of the kind by which what is external is absorbed and abolished; while the presence of God is of a purely spiritual sort, and is directly connected with the faith of the subject.

(3.) According to this third conception God is present only in the conception we form of Him, only in memory, and thus His presence is so far merely immediate and subjective. This is the conception of the Reformed Church, an unspiritual and merely lively remembrance of the Past, not a divine Presence, not a really spiritual existence. Here the Divine, the Truth has got lowered to the prose of the Enlightenment and of the mere Understanding, and expresses a merely moral relation.

(c.) The Realisation of the Spiritual culminating in Universal Reality.

This directly involves the transformation and remodelling of the Spiritual Community.

Religion is here the spiritual religion, and the Spiritual Community exists primarily in what is inward, in Spirit as such. This inner element, this subjectivity which is present to itself as inward, not developed in itself, is feeling or sensation; the Spiritual Community has also as an essential part of its character, consciousness, ordinary thought or mental representation, needs, impulses, a worldly existence in fact, but this brings with it disunion, differentiation; the divine objective Idea presents itself to consciousness as an Other outside of it which is given partly through authority and is partly appropriated in acts of devotion—to put it otherwise, the moment of communion is merely a single moment, or the divine Idea, the divine content is not actually seen, but is only represented in the mind. The Now or actuality of


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 communion as thus represented is transferred partly to a region beyond, to a heaven beyond the present, partly to the past and partly to the future. Spirit, however, is above all things present, and demands a real and complete presence; it demands more than love merely, than sad ideas or mental pictures, it demands that the content should itself be present, or that the feeling, the sensation experienced should be developed and expanded.

Thus the Spiritual Community, in its character as the Kingdom of God, has standing over against it, objectivity in general. Objectivity in the shape of an external immediate world is represented by the heart with its interests; another form of objectivity is the objectivity of Reflection, of abstract Thought, of the Understanding; and the third and true form of objectivity is that of the Notion; and we have now to consider how Spirit realises itself in these three elements.

1. In religion the heart is implicitly reconciled; this reconciliation has thus its place in the heart, it is spiritual—is the pure heart which attains this enjoyment of the presence of God in it, and consequently reconciliation, the enjoyment of being reconciled. This reconciliation is, however, abstract; the self, the subject, that is to say, represents at the same time that aspect of this spiritual presence according to which a worldly element in a developed form is actually found in the self, and thus the Kingdom of God, the Spiritual Community, has a relation to the worldly element.

In order that the reconciliation be real, it is necessary that in this development, in this totality, the reconciliation should also be consciously known, be present, and be brought forward into actuality. The principles which apply to this worldly element actually exist in this spiritual element.

The truth of the worldly element is the Spiritual, or, to put it more definitely, it means that the subject as an object of divine grace, as a being who is reconciled with

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 God, has an infinite value by the very character which is essentially his, and which is further developed in the Spiritual Community. In accordance with this its essential character, the subject is accordingly recognised as being the infinite certainty of Spirit itself, as the eternity of Spirit.

So far as this subject which is thus inherently infinite is concerned, the fact of its being determined or destined to infinitude is its freedom, and just means that it is a free person, and thus is also related to this world, to reality as subjectivity which is at home with itself, reconciled within itself, and is absolutely fixed and infinite subjectivity. This is the substantial element; this specific character which thus belongs to it must form the basis in so far as it brings itself into relation with this world.

The rationality, the freedom of the subject means that the subject is this something which has been freed and has attained to this condition of freedom through religion, that it is essentially free in virtue of its religious character. What we are concerned with is to see how this reconciliation takes place within the worldly sphere itself.

(1.) The first form of reconciliation is the immediate one, and just because of its being immediate it is not yet the true mode of reconciliation. This reconciliation shows itself as follows. At first the Spiritual Community, as representing the fact of reconciliation, the Spiritual, the fact of reconciliation with God in itself, stands aloof from the worldly sphere in an abstract way; the Spiritual renounces the worldly sphere by its own act, takes up a negative relation to the world, and consequently to itself; for the world in the subject shows itself as the impulse to Nature, to social life, to art and science.

The concrete element in the self, namely, the passions, is not able to justify itself in reference to the religious element by the fact of its being natural; while ascetic withdrawal from the world implies that the heart does


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 not get a concrete expansion and is to remain undeveloped, or, in other words, that the spiritual element, the state of reconciliation, and the life in which this reconciliation is to show itself, is to be, and is to continue to be, concentrated in itself and undeveloped. It is, however, the very nature of Spirit to develop itself, to differentiate itself until it reaches the worldly sphere.

(2.) The second form of this reconciliation implies that the interests of the world and religious interests continue to be external to one another, and that still they ought to come into relation to each other. Thus the relation in which both stand is merely an external one, and it means that the one prevails over the other, and thus there is no reconciliation: the religious element, it is felt, should be the ruling element; what has been reconciled, the Church namely, should rule the secular element, which is unreconciled.

There is a union with the worldly element which is unreconciled, the worldly element in its purely crude state, and which in its purely crude state is merely brought under the sway of the other; but the element which thus holds sway absorbs this worldly element into itself, all tendencies, all passions, everything, in short, which represents worldly interests devoid of any spiritual element, make their appearance in the Church owing to the position of sovereignty thus attained, because the secular element is not reconciled in itself.

Thus a sovereignty is reached by means of what is unspiritual, in which what is external is the ruling principle, and in which Man is in his general relationships directly outside of himself; it is, in fact, the relation or condition of want of freedom. The element of disunion enters into everything that can be called human, into all kinds of impulses, and into all those relationships which have reference to the family, to active life, and life in the State; and the ruling principle is that Man is not at home with himself, is in a region foreign to his nature.


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 Man, in fact, in all these forms is in a condition of servitude, and all those forms which his life takes are held to be worthless, unholy, and he himself, by the very fact of his connection with them, is essentially something finite, disunited, and thus has no valid worth, since what possesses validity is an Other.

This reconciliation is connected with worldly interests and with Man’s own heart in such a way that it becomes the direct opposite of reconciliation. The further development of this condition of rupture in reconciliation itself, is accordingly what takes the form of the corruption of the Church—the absolute contradiction of the Spiritual within itself.

(3.) The third characteristic is that this contradiction cancels itself in Morality, that the principle of freedom has forced its way into secular life; and since secular life so constructed is itself in conformity with the Notion, reason, truth, eternal truth, it is a freedom which has become concrete, the rational will.

It is in the organisation of the State that the Divine has passed into the sphere of reality; the latter is penetrated by the former, and the existence of the secular element is justified in-and-for-itself, for its basis is the Divine Will, the law of right and freedom. The true reconciliation whereby the Divine realises itself in the region of reality is found in moral and legal life in the State; this is the true disciplining of the secular life.

The institutions of morality are divine, are holy, not in the sense in which what is holy is opposed to what is moral, as when it is held that celibacy represents what is holy as opposed to family life, or voluntary poverty as opposed to active acquisition by one’s own efforts, to what is lawful. In the same way blind obedience passes for being something holy; while, on the contrary, what makes morality is obedience in freedom, free, rational will, the obedience of the subject in respect of what is moral. In morality the reconciliation of religion with


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 reality, with the secular life, is an actual and accomplished fact.

2. The second point is that the ideal side now emerges here on its own account. In this state in which Spirit is reconciled with itself, what is inward knows itself as being within the sphere of its own nature, knows that it is together with itself, and this knowledge that it is together with itself, not outside of itself, is just Thought, which is the state of reconciliation, the being together with self, the being at peace with self, but in a wholly abstract undeveloped condition of peace with itself. There thus arises the infinite demand that the content of religion should verify its truth for Thought as well, and this is a necessary requirement which cannot be set aside.

Thought is the Universal, the active expression of the Universal, and stands in contrast to the concrete in general, which represents the external.

It is the Freedom of Reason which has been won in religion, and which knows itself in Spirit as existing for itself. This freedom accordingly opposes itself to the purely unspiritual externality, to servitude; for servitude is directly opposed to the conception of reconciliation and liberation, and thus thought enters in and destroys and bids defiance to externality in whatever form it may appear.

This represents the negative and formal act which in its concrete form has been called the “Enlightenment,” and which implies that thought sets itself to oppose externality, and that the freedom of Spirit, which is involved in reconciliation, is asserted. This thought, when it first appears, appears in the form of this abstract Universal, and sets itself against the concrete in general, and consequently against the Idea of God, against the theory that God is the Triune God and not a dead abstraction, but a Being related to Himself, who is at home with Himself and returns to Himself. Abstract thought attacks this doctrinal content, as held by the Church,


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 with its principle of identity; for this concrete content is in contradiction with this law of identity. In the concrete there are determinations, differences; since abstract thought turns against externality in general, it is also opposed to difference as such, the relation of God to Man, the unity of the two, divine grace and human freedom; for all this is the union of opposed determinations. The rule, however, for the Understanding, for this abstract thought, is abstract identity; this kind of thought thus aims at dissolving all that is concrete, all determinations, all content in God, and accordingly reflection has as its final resultant merely the objectivity of identity itself, this, namely, that God is nothing but the Supreme Essence, without definite character or determination, empty; for every determination makes what is determined concrete. He is for cognition something beyond the present, for cognition or reasoned knowledge is knowledge of a concrete content. Reflection in this its complete form is the antithesis of the Christian Church; and as everything concrete in God is destroyed, this fact is expressed somewhat in this fashion—Man cannot know God; for to know God is to know Him in accordance with His attributes or determinations, but according to this view He remains a pure abstraction. This formula certainly contains the principle of freedom, of inwardness, of religion even; but it is, to begin with, conceived of in a merely abstract way.

The Other, by means of which determination enters into this universality which exists alongside of this abstraction, is nothing but what is contained in the natural inclinations, the impulses of the subject. Regarding the matter from this standpoint, it is accordingly said that Man is by nature good. Inasmuch as this pure subjectivity, this ideality, is pure freedom, it is certainly brought into connection with the essential character of the Good, but the Good itself must in this case equally remain an abstraction.


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 The determination of the Good here is the arbitrariness, the accidental nature of the subject in general, and this latter is thus the extreme or culminating point of this subjectivity, the freedom which renounces its claim to truth and to the development of truth, which thus moves within itself and knows that what it considers as having validity is simply its own determinations, and that it has the mastery over all that is called good and evil.

This is an inner self-enclosed life which may indeed coexist with calm, lofty, and pious aspirations, but may as readily appear as hypocrisy or as vanity in its most extreme form. It is what is called the pious life of feeling, to which Pietism also restricts itself. Pietism recognises no objective truth, sets itself in opposition to dogmas, to the content of religion, and though it does indeed preserve the element of mediation, and still maintains a certain relation to Christ, yet this relation is supposed to remain in the sphere of feeling, in the sphere of inner sentiment. Each person has thus his own God, Christ, &c. The element of particularity in which each has his own individual religion, his own theory of the Universe, &c., does undoubtedly exist in Man; but in religion it is absorbed by life in the Spiritual Community, and for the truly pious man it has no longer any real worth and is laid aside.

On this side of the empty essence of God there thus stands a finitude which is free on its own account and has become independent, which has an absolute value in itself, e.g., in the shape of the righteousness of individuals. The further consequence is, that not only is the objectivity of God thus put in a sphere beyond the present and negated, but all other objective characteristics which have validity in-and-for-themselves, and which have appeared in the world as Right, as what is moral, &c., absolutely disappear. Since the subject thus retreats to the extreme point of its infinity, the Good, all that is right, &c., are contained only in it, it takes all this as constituting


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 its own subjective character, it is only its thought. What gives body to this Good is accordingly taken from natural caprice, from what is accidental, from passion, &c. This subject is further the consciousness that objectivity is shut up within it itself, and that this objectivity has no permanent existence; it is only the principle of identity which has for it validity; this subject is something abstract, it can be filled up with any kind of content, since it has the power to subsume every content which is thus planted in the heart of Man. Subjectivity is thus caprice itself, and is, in short, the knowledge of that power belonging to it whereby it produces objectivity or the Good and gives it a content.

The other development of this point of view, accordingly, is that the subject has no independent existence, is not for itself in reference to the unity which it has reached by emptying itself, it does not preserve its particularity as against it, but has for its specific aim self-absorption in the unity of God. The subject has thus no particular end, nor any objective end beyond simply the glory of the one God. What we have here is religion; there is in it an affirmative relation to its Essence which is constituted by this One, in it the subject yields itself up. This religion has the same objective content as the Jewish religion, but the relation in which men stand to one another is broadened; there is no particularity left in it, the Jewish idea of national value which establishes the relation in which Man stands to the One, is wanting here. Here there is no limitation, Man is related to this One as a purely abstract self-consciousness. This is the characteristic of the Mohammedan religion. It forms the antithesis of Christianity, because it occupies a like sphere with the Christian religion. It is, as it were, the Jewish spiritual religion, but this God exists for self-consciousness in Spirit which has merely abstract knowledge, and occupies a stage which is one with that occupied by the Christian religion,


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 inasmuch as in it no kind of particularity is retained. The man who fears God is acceptable to Him, and Man has value only in so far as he finds his truth in the knowledge that this God is the One, the Essence. There is no recognition of the existence of any wall of partition between believers themselves or between them and God. Before God all specific distinction of the subject according to his standing or rank is done away with; rank may exist, there may be slaves, but this is to be regarded as merely accidental.

The contrast between the Christian and Mohammedan religions consists in the fact that in Christ the spiritual element is developed in a concrete way, and is known as Trinity, i.e., as Spirit, and that the history of Man, the relation in which he stands to the One, is a concrete history. It takes its start from the natural will, which is not as it ought to be, and the yielding up of this will is the act whereby it reaches this its essence by means of this negation of itself. The Mohammedan hates and proscribes everything concrete, God is the absolute One, and as against Him Man retains for himself no end, no particularity, no interests of his own. Man as actually existing does undoubtedly particularise himself in his natural inclinations and interests, and these are here all the more savage and unrestrained that reflection is wanting in connection with them; but this again involves something which is the complete opposite, namely, the tendency to let everything take its course, an indifference in respect of every kind of end, absolute fatalism, indifference in respect of life, while no practical end is regarded as having any essential worth. Since, however, Man is as a matter of fact practical and active, the end to be pursued can only be to bring about the worship of the One amongst all men, and accordingly the Mohammedan religion is essentially fanatical.

Reflection, as we have seen, occupies the same standpoint as Mohammedanism in so far as it maintains that


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 God has no content, is not concrete. Thus the manifestation of God in the flesh, the exaltation of Christ to the position of Son of the God, the transfiguration of the finitude of the world and of self-consciousness until they appear as the infinite self-determination of God, have no place here. Christianity is held to be a system of teaching or set of doctrines, and Christ an ambassador from God, a divine teacher, and so a teacher like Socrates, only a still more distinguished teacher, since he was without sin. This, however, is to go only half way, it is a compromise. Christ was either merely a man, or he was the “Son of Man.” There would thus be nothing left of the divine history, and Christ would be spoken of as he is in the Koran. The difference between this standpoint and Mohammedanism consists merely in the fact that the latter, the conceptions of which are bathed in the ether of illimitableness, and which represents this infinite independence, directly gives up all particular interests, enjoyment, position, individual knowledge, all “vanity” in short. On the other hand, rationalistic Enlightenment gives Man an abstract standing on his own account, since for it God is beyond this world and has no affirmative relation to the subject, so that Man recognises the affirmative Universal only in so far as it is in him, and yet has it in him in a merely abstract way, and accordingly what gives it body or substance is taken only from what is accidental and arbitrary.

Still we must recognise the presence of reconciliation in this last form too, and thus this final manifestation is also a realisation of Faith. Since, in fact, all content, all truth perishes in this particular subjectivity which knows itself infinitely in itself, the principle of subjective freedom has as a consequence come to be consciously known. What is called in the Spiritual Community the inner life, is now developed in itself; it is not only something inward, conscience, but it is subjectivity which differentiates itself makes distinctions within itself, is concrete;


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 it appears as its own objectivity, it knows the Universal as being in itself, as something which it produces out of itself, it is the subjectivity which is independent, for itself, self-conscious, determines itself within itself, and is thus the complete development of the subjective extreme until it has reached the Idea in itself. The defect here is that this is merely formal, that it misses having true objectivity, it represents the extreme point of formal spiritual development without inner necessity. If the Idea is to get a truly complete form, it is necessary that the objectivity should be set free, should be the totality of objectivity in itself.

The result of this objectivity, therefore, is, that everything in the subject is refined away, without objectivity, without fixed character, without development in God. This final and culminating point thus reached by the formal culture of our day is at the same time the most extreme crudeness, because it possesses merely the form of culture.

We have so far recognised the presence of these two mutually opposing extremes in the development of the Spiritual Community. The one was that unfreedom, that servitude of the Spirit in the absolute region of freedom; the other was abstract subjectivity, subjective freedom without content.

3. What we have finally still to consider is, that subjectivity develops the content out of itself, but does this in accordance with necessity—knows and recognises the content to be necessary and that it is objective, that it has an essential existence of its own, is in-and-for-itself. This is the standpoint of philosophy, according to which the content takes refuge in the Notion and by means of thought gets its restoration and justification.

This thought is not merely the process of abstraction and determination which is governed by the law of identity; this thought is itself essentially concrete, and thus it is comprehension, grasping in the Notion, it means that


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 the Notion so determines itself as to take on the form of totality, of the Idea.

It is free reason which has an essential existence, is in-and-for-itself, which develops the content of truth and justifies it in knowledge, recognises and cognises one truth. The purely subjective standpoint, the volatilisation of all content, the Enlightenment of the Understanding, together with Pietism, do not recognise any content, and consequently no truth.

The Notion, however, produces the truth—this is subjective freedom—but at the same time recognises this content to be something not produced, to be something which is inherent and essentially true, true in-and-for-itself. This objective standpoint is alone capable of expressing and attesting the witness of the Spirit in a way which betokens intellectual training and thought, and it is involved in the position taken up by the better kind of dogmatic theology of our day.

This standpoint consequently supplies us with the justification of religion, and in particular of the Christian or true religion; it knows the content in accordance with its necessity, in accordance with its reason, and so, too, it knows the forms also in the development of this content.

What these forms are we have already seen, namely, the manifestation of God, that representation for the sensuous, spiritual consciousness which has arrived at universality, at thought, that complete development which exists for Spirit.

In the act of justifying the content and the forms, in getting a rational knowledge of the specific character of the manifestation, thought at the same time also knows the limits of the forms. Enlightenment knows only of negation, of limit, of determinateness as such, and because of this is unjust to the content.

Form or determinateness is not merely finitude, or limit, but rather the form, as totality of the form is


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 itself the Notion, and these forms are necessary and essential.

Owing to the fact that reflection has invaded the domain of religion, thought or reflection takes up a hostile attitude to the ordinary or popular idea in religion and to its concrete content. Thought, when it has thus begun, never pauses again, but goes on its way, empties feeling, heaven, and the knowing mind, and the religious content accordingly takes refuge in the Notion. Here it must get its justification, here thought must conceive of itself as concrete and free, preserving the differences not as if they were only posited or dependent on something, but allowing them to appear as free, and consequently recognising the content as objective.

It is the business of philosophy to establish the relation in which thought stands to the two preceding stages. Religion, the need felt by the pious mind, can take refuge in “experience,” in feeling, as well as in the Notion, and limit itself to this, and thus give up the search after truth, renounce the possibility of knowing any content, so that the Holy Church has no longer any communion in it, but splits up into atoms. For what communion there is is in doctrine; but here each individual has a feeling of his own, has his own sensations or experiences, and his particular theory of the universe. This form does not answer to Spirit which also wishes to know what its relation is to doctrine. Philosophy thus stands opposed to two points of view. On the one hand, it appears to be opposed to the Church, and has this in common with culture and reflection, that in comprehending the popular religious idea it does not keep to the forms of the popular idea, but has to comprehend it in thought, though in doing this it recognises that the form of the popular idea is also necessary. But the Notion is that higher element which also embraces within it different forms and allows their right to exist. The second way in which it takes up an attitude of


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 is when it appears in antagonism to Enlightenment, to the theory which holds that the content is of no consequence, to opinion, to the despair which renounces the truth. The aim of philosophy is to know the truth, to know God, for He is the absolute truth, inasmuch as nothing else is worth troubling about save God and the unfolding of God’s nature. Philosophy knows God as essentially concrete, as spiritual, real universality which is not jealous but imparts itself. Light by its very nature imparts itself. Whoever says that God cannot be known, says He is jealous, and so makes no earnest effort to believe in Him, however much he may speak of God. Enlightenment, that conceit, that vanity of the Understanding is the most violent opponent of philosophy, and is displeased when the latter points to the element of reason in the Christian religion, when it shows that the witness of the Spirit, of truth, is lodged in religion. Philosophy, which is theology, is solely concerned with showing the rationality of religion.

In philosophy, religion gets its justification from thinking consciousness. Piety of the naive kind stands in no need of this, it receives the truth as authority, and experiences satisfaction, reconciliation by means of this truth.

In faith the true content is certainly already found, but there is still wanting to it the form of thought. All forms such as we have already dealt with, feeling, popular ideas, and such like, may certainly have the form of truth, but they themselves are not the true form which makes the true content necessary. Thought is the absolute judge before which the content must verify and attest its claims.

Philosophy has been reproached with setting itself above religion; this, however, is false as an actual matter of fact, for it possesses this particular content only and no other, though it presents it in the form of thought; it sets itself merely above the form of faith, the content is the same in both cases.


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 The form of the subject as an individual who feels, &c., concerns the subject as a single individual; but feeling as such is not rejected by philosophy. The question merely is as to whether the content of feeling is the truth, whether it can prove itself to be true in thought. Philosophy thinks what the subject as such feels, and leaves it to the latter to settle with its feeling. Feeling is thus not rejected by philosophy; on the contrary, it simply gets through philosophy its true content.

But, in so far as thought begins to place itself in opposition to the concrete, the process of thought then consists in carrying through this opposition until it reaches reconciliation. This reconciliation is philosophy; so far philosophy is theology, it sets forth the reconciliation of God with Himself and with Nature, and shows that Nature, Other-Being is divine, that it partly belongs to the very nature of finite Spirit to rise into the state of reconciliation, and that it partly reaches this state of reconciliation in the history of the world.

This religious knowledge thus reached through the Notion is not universal in its nature, and it is further only knowledge in the Spiritual Community, and thus we get in reference to the Kingdom of God three stages or positions: the first position is that of immediate naive religion and faith; the second, the position of the Understanding, of the so-called cultured, of reflection and Enlightenment; and finally, the third position, the stage of philosophy.

But if now, after having considered the origin and permanent existence of the Spiritual Community, we see that in attaining realisation in its spiritual reality it falls into this condition of inner disruption, then this realisation appears to be at the same time its disappearance. But ought we to speak here of destruction when the Kingdom of God is founded eternally, when the Holy Spirit as such lives eternally in its Spiritual Community, and when the gates of Hell are not to prevail against the


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 Church? To speak of the Spiritual Community passing away is to end with a discordant note.

Only, how can it be helped? This discordant note is actually present in reality. Just as in the time of the Roman Empire, because universal unity in religion had disappeared, and the Divine was profaned, and because, further, political life was universally devoid of principle, of action, and of confidence, reason took refuge only in the form of private right, or, to put it otherwise, because what was by its very nature essential, what existed in-and-for-itself was given up, individual well-being was elevated to the rank of an end, so, too, is it now. Moral views, individual opinion and conviction without objective truth, have attained authority, and the pursuit of private rights and enjoyment is the order of the day. When the time is fulfilled in which speculative justification, justification by means of the Notion, is what is needed, then the unity of the outer and inner no longer exists in immediate consciousness, in the world of reality, and in the sphere of Faith nothing is justified. The rigidity of an objective command, an external direction, the power of the State can effect nothing here; the process of decay has gone too deep for that. When the Gospel is no longer preached to the poor, when the salt has lost its savour, and all the foundations have been tacitly removed, then the people, for whose ever solid reason truth can exist only in a pictorial conception, no longer know how to assist the impulses and emotions they feel within them. They are nearest to the condition of infinite sorrow; but since love has been perverted to a love and enjoyment from which all sorrow is absent, they seem to themselves to be deserted by their teachers. These latter have, it is true, brought help to themselves by means of reflection, and have found their satisfaction in finitude, in subjectivity and its virtuosity, and consequently in what is empty and vain, but the substantial kernel of the people cannot find its satisfaction there.


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gary, Elbert Henry

GARY, ELBERT HENRY (1846-), American business man, was born near Wheaton, Ill., Oct. 8 1846. He attended Wheaton College and then after studying law for a time in an office he continued his legal studies at the university of Chicago (LL.B. 1867). In 1871 he began practice in Chicago where he became a noted corporation lawyer. In 1874 he organized the Gary-Wheaton Bank, of which he was president. He was elected judge of Du Page co. in 1882 and again in 1886; was three times elected president of the town of Wheaton and on its becoming a city (1892) served as its first mayor for two terms. He was president of the Chicago Bar Association 1893-4. He early saw the advantages of combination in business and in 1891 was one of the organizers of the Consolidated Steel & Wire Co. In 1898 upon the organization of the Federal Steel Corp., with a capital stock of $200,000,000, he became its head and retired from legal practice. This company was merged in the U.S. Steel Corp. in 1901 and he was elected chairman of the board of directors and of the finance committee. The town of Gary, Ind., laid out in 1906 as a model home for steel workmen, was named in his honour. In 1914 he was made chairman of the committee appointed by Mayor Mitchel, of New York, to study the question of unemployment and its relief. When America entered the World War (1917) he was appointed chairman of the committee on steel of the Council of National Defense. Through his own connexion with a business essential for munitions of war he exerted great influence in bringing about cooperation between the Government and industry. He was interested in strengthening the friendship between America and Japan. In 1919 he was invited by President Wilson to attend the Industrial Conference in Washington, and took a prominent part in it as a firm upholder of the “open shop,” of which he was always a strong advocate.


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 For us philosophical knowledge has harmonised this discord, and the aim of these lectures has just been to reconcile reason and religion, to show how we know this latter to be in all its manifold forms necessary, and to rediscover in revealed religion the truth and the Idea.

But this reconciliation is itself merely a partial one without outward universality. Philosophy forms in this connection a sanctuary apart, and those who serve in it constitute an isolated order of priests, who must not mix with the world, and whose work is to protect the possessions of Truth. How the actual present-day world is to find its way out of this state of disruption, and what form it is to take, are questions which must be left to itself to settle, and to deal with them is not the immediate practical business and concern of philosophy.


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 LECTURES ON THE PROOFS OF THE

EXISTENCE OF GOD


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 FIRST LECTURE

Lectures are devoted to the consideration of the proofs of the existence of God. The occasion for them is this. I had at first to make up my mind to give only one set of lectures in this summer session on philosophical knowledge as a whole, and then afterwards I felt I would like to add a second set on at least one separate subject of knowledge. I have therefore chosen a subject which is connected with the other set of lectures which I gave on logic, and constitutes, not in substance, but in form, a kind of supplement to that set, inasmuch as it is concerned with only a particular aspect of the fundamental conceptions of logic. These lectures are therefore chiefly meant for those of my hearers who were present at the others, and to them they will be most easily intelligible.

But inasmuch as the task we have set ourselves is to consider the proofs of the existence of God, it would appear as if only one aspect of the matter belongs to the subject of logic, namely, the nature of proof. The other, again, the content, which is God Himself, belongs to a different sphere, that of religion, and to the consideration of it by thought, to the philosophy of religion. In point of fact, it is a portion of this branch of knowledge which has to be set apart and treated by itself in these lectures. In what follows it will more clearly be seen what relation this part bears to the entirety of the doctrine of religion; and further, that this doctrine in so far as it is scientific, and what belongs to the sphere of logic, do not fall outside one another to the extent that would appear from the first statement of our aim, and that what is logical does 155


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 not constitute the merely formal side, but, in fact, occupies the very centre point of the content.

The first thing we encounter when we seek to make a beginning with the execution of our design is the general, and, so far as this design is concerned, repugnant, point of view of the prepossessions of present-day culture. If the object, God, is in itself capable of producing exaltation of mind by its very name, and of stirring our soul to its innermost depths, our lofty expectation may just as quickly die away when we reflect that it is the proofs of the existence of God with which we are about to concern ourselves. For the proofs of the existence of God are to such an extent fallen into discredit that they pass for something antiquated, belonging to the metaphysics of days gone by; a barren desert, out of which we have escaped and brought ourselves back to a living faith; the region of arid Understanding, out of which we have once more raised ourselves to the warm feeling of religion. The attempt to renovate, by means of new applications and artifices of an acute Understanding, those rotten props of our belief that there is a God, which have passed for proofs, or to improve the places which have become weak through attacks and counter-proofs, could of itself gain no favour merely by its good intention. For it is not this or that proof, or this or that form and way of putting it, that has lost its weight, but the very proving of religious truth has so much lost credit with the mode of thought peculiar to our time that the impossibility of such proof is already a generally accepted opinion. Nay more, it has come to be regarded as irreligious to place confidence in such reasoned knowledge, and to seek by such a path to reach a sure conviction regarding God and His nature, or even regarding His mere existence. This business of proof, therefore, is so much out of date, that the proofs themselves are barely even historically known here and there; and even to theologians, that is to say, people who desire to have a scientific acquaintance with religious truths, they are sometimes unknown.


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PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 157 The proofs of the existence of God have originated in the necessity of satisfying thought and reason. But this necessity has assumed, in modern culture, quite a different position from that which it had formerly, and those points of view must first of all be considered which have presented themselves in this reference. Yet since they are known in their general aspects, and this is not the place to follow them back to their foundations, we need only recall them, and, in fact, limit ourselves to the form which they assume within the sphere of Christianity. It is in this region that the conflict between faith and reason in Man himself first finds a basis, and that doubt enters his soul, and can reach the fearful height of depriving him of all peace. Thought must indeed touch the earlier religions of imagination, as we may shortly call them; it must turn itself with its opposite principles directly against their sensuous pictures and all else in them. The contradictions, the strife and enmity which have thus arisen belong to the external history of philosophy. But the collisions between philosophy and religion here get the length of hostility merely, and have not come to be that inner division of mind and feeling, such as we see in Christianity, where the two sides which come into contradiction get possession of the depth of the Spirit as their single and consequently common source, and in this position, bound together in their contradiction, are able to disturb this spot itself, the Spirit in its inmost nature. The expression “faith” is reserved for Christianity; we do not speak of Greek or Egyptian faith, or of a faith in Zeus or Apis. Faith expresses the inwardness of certainty, and certainty of the deepest and most concentrated kind, as distinguished from all other opinion, conception, persuasion, or volition. This inwardness, at once as being what is deepest and at the same time most abstract, comprises thought itself; a contradiction of this faith by thought is therefore the most painful of all divisions in the depths of the Spirit.


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158 THE PHILOSOPHY OF RELIGION Yet such misery is happily, if we may so express ourselves, not the only form in which the relation of faith and knowledge is to be found. On the contrary, this relation presents itself in a peaceful form, in the conviction that revelation, faith, positive religion, and, on the other hand, reason and thought in general, must not be in contradiction, and not only that they may be in harmony, but also that God does not so contradict Himself in His works, cannot so contradict Himself, as that the human Spirit in its essence, in its thinking reason, in that which it must have come from the very first to regard as divine in itself, could get into conflict with what has come to it through greater enlightenment about the nature of God and Man’s relation to that nature. During the whole of the Middle Ages, theology was understood to mean nothing else than a scientific knowledge of Christian truths, that is to say, a knowledge essentially connected with philosophy. The Middle Ages were far enough away from taking the historical knowledge of faith for scientific knowledge; in the Fathers and in what may be reckoned generally as historical material, they sought only authorities, edification, and information on the doctrines of the Church. The opposite tendency is simply to search out the human origin of the articles of faith by the historical treatment of the older evidences and works of every kind, and in this way to reduce them to the minimum of their most primitive form. This form must be regarded as wholly unfruitful in deeper knowledge and development, because it is in contradiction with that Spirit, which, after the removal of that primitive form as something immediately present, had been poured out on the adherents of these doctrines, in order to lead them now, for the first time, into all truth. The tendency here described was unknown in these times. In the belief in the unity of this Spirit with itself, the whole of these doctrines, even those which are most abstruse for reason, are regarded from the point of view of thinking, and the


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PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF GOD 159 attempt is made, in the case of all of these which are recognised as in themselves the content of belief, to prove them on rational grounds. The great theologian Anselm of Canterbury, whom we shall have to consider elsewhere, declares in this sense that, if we are firm in the faith, it is idleness, negligentiæ mihi esse videtur, not to know what we believe. In the Protestant Church it has in the same way come about that the rational knowledge of religious truths is cherished and held in honour in combination with theology or along with it. The point of interest was to see how far the natural light of reason, human reason by itself, could progress in the knowledge of the truth, with the important reservation that through religion Man can learn higher truths than reason is in a position to discover of itself.

Here we come upon two distinct spheres, and, to begin with, a peaceful relation between them is justified by means of the distinction that the teachings of positive religion are above but not against reason. This activity of thinking knowledge found itself stimulated and supported from without through the example which lay before its eyes in the pre-Christian, or, speaking generally, non-Christian religions. This showed that the human spirit, even when left to itself, has attained to deep insight into the nature of God, and with all its errors has arrived at great truths, even at fundamental truths, such as the existence of God and the purer idea, free from sensuous ingredients, of that existence, the immortality of the soul, providence, and such like. Thus positive doctrine and the rational knowledge of religious truths have been peacefully pursued alongside of one another. This position of reason in relation to dogma was, however, different from that confidence of reason which was first considered, which dared to approach the highest mysteries of doctrine, such as the Trinity, and the incarnation of Christ; whereas, on the contrary, the point of view referred to after the one just mentioned


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 timidly confined itself to the business of merely venturing through the medium of thought to deal with what the Christian religion possesses in common with heathen and non-Christian religions in general, and what must therefore remain a part merely of what is abstract in religion. But when once we have become conscious of the difference of these two spheres, we must pronounce the relation of equality in which faith and reason are to be regarded as standing each alongside of the other, to be unintelligible, or else to be a misleading pretence. The tendency of thought to seek unity leads of necessity to the comparison of these spheres first of all, and then when they once pass for different, to the agreement of faith with itself alone, and of thought with itself alone, so that each sphere refuses to recognise the other and rejects it. It is one of the commonest self-deceptions of the Understanding to regard the element of difference, which is found in the one central point of Spirit, as though it must not necessarily advance to opposition and so to contradiction. The point at which the conflict on the part of Spirit begins has been reached as soon as what is concrete in Spirit has, by means of analysis, attained to the consciousness of difference. All that partakes of Spirit is concrete; in this we have before us the Spiritual in its most profound aspect, that of Spirit as the concrete element of faith and thought. The two are not only mixed up in the most manifold way, in immediate passing over from one side to the other, but are so inwardly bound up together that there is no faith which does not contain within itself reflection, argumentation, or, in fact, thought, and, on the other hand, no thinking which does not, even if it be only for the moment, contain faith,—for faith in general is the form of any presupposition, of any assumption, come whence it may, which lies firmly at the foundation—momentary faith. This means that even in free thinking that which now exists as a presupposition, is a comprehended result, thought out either before or after,


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 but in this transformation of the presupposition into a result, again has a side which is a presupposition, an assumption or unconscious immediacy of the activity of the Spirit.

Yet the explanation of the nature of free self-conscious thought we must here leave on one side, and rather remark that for the attainment of this essentially and actually existent union of faith and thought a long time has been necessary—more than fifteen hundred years—and that it has cost the most severe toil to reach the point at which thought has escaped from its absorption in faith, and attained to the abstract consciousness of its freedom, and thereby of its independence and its complete self-sufficiency, in the light of which nothing can have validity for thought which has not come before its judgment-seat, and been then justified as admissible. Thought thus taking its stand upon the extreme point of its freedom—and it is only completely free in this extreme point—and rejecting authority and faith in general, has driven faith in like manner to take its stand in an abstract fashion upon itself, and to attempt entirely to free itself from thought. At all events, it has arrived at the point of declaring itself to be freed from and not to require thought. Wrapped up in unconsciousness of the at all events small amount of thought which must remain to it, it goes on to declare thought to be incapable of reaching truth and destructive of it, so that thought is capable of comprehending one thing only, its incapacity to grasp the truth and see into it, and of proving to itself its own nothingness, with the result that suicide is its highest vocation. So completely has the relation in the view of the time been reversed, that faith has now become exalted as immediate knowledge in opposition to thought, as the only means of attaining to the truth, just as formerly, on the other hand, only that could give peace to Man of which he could become conscious as truth through proof by thought.


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 This standpoint of opposition cannot better show how important and far-reaching it is than when it is considered in relation to the subject which we have set ourselves to discuss, the knowledge of God. In the working out into opposition of the difference between faith and thought, it is immediately apparent that they have reached formal extremes in which abstraction is made from all content, so that in the first instance they are no longer opposed as concretely defined religious faith and thought about religious subjects, but abstractly, as faith in general, and as thought in general, or knowledge, in so far as this last does not yield merely forms of thought, but gives us a content in and with its truth. From this point of view the knowledge of God is made dependent on the question as to the nature of knowledge in general, and before we can pass to the investigation of the concrete it seems necessary to ascertain whether the consciousness of what is true can and must be thinking knowledge, or, faith. Our proposed consideration of the knowledge of the existence of God thus changed into this general consideration of knowledge, just as the new philosophical epoch has made it the beginning and foundation of all philosophical speculation that the nature of knowledge itself is to be examined before the actual, i.e., concrete knowledge of an object. We thus incurred the danger—a danger, however, necessary in the interests of thoroughness—of having to trace the subject further back than the time at our disposal for carrying out the aim of these lectures would permit of our doing. If, however, we look more closely at the demand which appears to have met us, it becomes perfectly plain that it is only the subject that has changed with it, not the thing. In both cases, either if we admitted the demand for that inquiry, or stuck directly to our theme, we should have to know, and in that case we should have a subject, too, in the shape of knowledge itself. And as in doing so we should not have emerged from the activity


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 of knowledge, from real knowledge, there is nothing to hinder our leaving the other subject which it is not our aim to consider, alone, and thus stick to our own subject. It will further appear, as we follow out our purpose, that the knowledge of our subject will also in itself justify itself as knowledge. That in true and real knowledge the justification of knowledge will and must lie, might admittedly be said in advance, for to say so is simply a tautology, just as we may know in advance that the desired way round, the desiring to know knowledge before actual knowledge, is superfluous just because it is inherently absurd. If under the process of knowledge we figure to ourselves an external operation in which it is brought into a merely mechanical relation with an object, that is to say, remains outside it, and is only externally applied to it, knowledge is presented in such a relation as a particular thing for itself, so that it may well be that its forms have nothing in common with the qualities of the object; and thus when it concerns itself with an object, it remains only in its own forms, and does not reach the essential qualities of the object, that is to say, does not become real knowledge of it. In such a relation knowledge is determined as finite, and as of the finite; in its object there remains something essentially inner, whose notion is thus unattainable by and foreign to knowledge, which finds here its limit and its end, and is on that account limited and finite. But to take such a relation as the only one, or as final or absolute, is a purely made-up and unjustifiable assumption of the Understanding. Real knowledge, inasmuch as it does not remain outside the object, but in point of fact occupies itself with it, must be immanent in the object, the proper movement of its nature, only expressed in the form of thought and taken up into consciousness.

We have now provisionally indicated those standpoints of culture which in the case of such material as we have before us ought in the present day to be taken into


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 account. It is pre-eminently, or, properly speaking, only here that it is self-evident that the proposition already laid down, according to which the consideration of knowledge is not different from the consideration of its object, must hold good without limitation. I will therefore at once indicate the general sense in which the proposed theme, the proofs of the existence of God, is taken, and which will be shown to be the true one. It is that they ought to comprise the elevation of the human spirit to God, and express it for thought, just as the elevation itself is an elevation of thought and into the kingdom of thought.

And to begin with, as regards knowledge, Man is essentially consciousness, and thus what is felt, the content, the determinateness which a feeling or sensation has, is also in consciousness as something presented in the form of an idea. That in virtue of which feeling is religious feeling, is the divine content; it is therefore essentially something of which we have knowledge. But this content is in its essence no sensuous perception or sensuous idea; it does not exist for imagination, but only for thought; God is Spirit, only for Spirit, and only for pure Spirit, that is, for thought. This is the root of such a content, even though imagination and even sense-perception may afterwards accompany it, and this content itself may enter into feeling. It is the elevation of the thinking Spirit to that which is the highest thought, to God, that we thus wish to consider.

This elevation is besides essentially rooted in the nature of our mind. It is necessary to it, and it is this necessity that we have before us in this elevation, and the setting forth of this necessity itself is nothing else than what we call proof. Therefore we have not to prove this elevation from the outside; it proves itself in itself, and this means nothing else than that it is by its very nature necessary. We have only to look to its own process, and we have there, since it is necessary in itself, the necessity, insight into the nature of which has to be vouched for by proof.


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 SECOND LECTURE

the undertaking which is commonly called proof of the existence of God has been understood in the form in which it was set forth in the first lecture, the chief objection to it will have been got rid of. For the nature of proof was held to consist in this, that it is only the consciousness of the proper movement of the object in itself. If this thought might be attended with difficulties in its application to other objects, these difficulties would necessarily disappear in the case of the object with which we are concerned, for it is not a passive and external object, but really a subjective movement, the elevation of the Spirit to God, an activity, the following of a certain course, a process, and thus has in it that necessary procedure which constitutes proof, and which has only to be taken up and studied in order that it may be seen to involve proof. But the expression proof carries with it too definitely the idea of a merely subjective line of thought to be followed on our behoof, to allow of the conception of it just stated being considered sufficient in itself apart from any attempt to expressly examine and get rid of this contrasted idea. In this lecture, then, we must first come to an understanding about the nature of proof in general, and with especial definiteness as regards that aspect of it which we here put aside and exclude. It is not our business to assert that there is no proof of the kind indicated, but to assign its limits, and to see that it is not, as is falsely thought, the only form of proof. This is bound up with the contrast drawn between immediate and mediated knowledge, in which in our time the chief interest centres in


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 with religious knowledge, and even the religious frame of mind itself, which must accordingly be likewise considered.

The distinction, which has already been touched upon in connection with knowledge, implies that two kinds of proof must be taken into account, of which the one is clearly that which we use simply as an aid to knowledge, as something subjective, whose activity and movement have their place within ourselves, and are not the peculiar movement of the thing considered. That this kind of proof finds a place in the scientific knowledge of finite things and their finite content, becomes apparent when we examine the nature of the procedure more closely. Let us take for this purpose an example from a science in which this method of proof is admittedly applied in its most complete form. If we prove a geometrical proposition every part of the proof must in part carry its justification within itself, so also when we solve an equation in algebra. In part, however, the whole course of procedure is defined and justified through the aim which we have in connection with this, and because that end is attained by such procedure. But we are very well aware that that of which the quantitive value has been developed out of the equation, has not as an actual thing run through these operations in order to reach the quantity which it possesses, and that the magnitude of the geometrical lines, angles, and so on, has not gone through and been brought about by the series of propositions by which we have arrived at it as representing a result. The necessity which we see in such proof corresponds indeed to the individual properties of the object itself, these relations of quantity actually belong to it; but the progress in connecting the one with the other is something which goes on entirely within us; it is a process for realising the aim we have in view, namely, to see into the meaning of the thing, not a course in which the object arrives at its inherent relations and their


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. It does not thus create itself, and is not created, as we create it and its relations in the process of attaining insight into it.

Besides proof proper, of which the essential characteristic—for this is all that is necessary for the purpose of our investigation—has been brought out, we find further, that in the region of finite knowledge the term proof is also applied to what, when more closely examined, is only the indicating of something, the pointing out of an idea, a proposition, a law, and so on in experience. Historical proof we do not require from the point of view from which we here consider knowledge, to elaborate in detail; it depends for its material on experience, or rather perception. Looked at in one light, it makes no difference that it has reference to foreign perceptions and their evidences; argumentation, that is to say, the exercise of understanding proper regarding the objective connection of circumstances and actions, makes these data into presuppositions and fundamental assumptions, just as its criticism of evidences has done in drawing its conclusions. But in so far as argument and criticism constitute the other essential side of historical proof, such proof treats its data as being the ideas of other people; the subjective element directly enters into the material, and the reasoning about and combination of that material is likewise subjective activity; so that the course and activity of knowledge has quite different ingredients from the course followed by the circumstances themselves. As regards the pointing things out in everyday experience, this is certainly concerned, in the first instance, with individual perceptions, observations, and so on, that is to say, with the kind of material which is only pointed out, but its interest is by so doing to prove further that there are in Nature and in Spirit such species and kinds, such laws, forces, faculties, and activities as are mentioned in the sciences. We pass by the metaphysical or common psychological reflections about that subjective element of


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 sense, external and internal, which accompanies perception. But the material, however, in so far as it enters into the sciences, is not so left to itself as it is in the senses and in perception. On the contrary, the content of the sciences—the species, kinds, laws, forces, and so on—is built up out of that material, which is, perhaps, already called by the name of phenomena, by putting together through analysis what is common, the leaving aside of what is not essential, the retention of what is called essential, without any certain test having been applied to distinguish between what is to be regarded as non-essential and what as essential. It is admitted that what is perceived does not itself make these abstractions, does not compare its individuals (or individual positions, circumstances, and so on), or put what is common in them together; that therefore a great part of the activity of knowledge is a subjective affair, just as in the content which has been obtained a part of its definitions, as being logical forms, are the product of this subjective activity. The expression “predicate,” or mark (Merkmal), if people will still use this stupid expression, directly indicates a subjective purpose of isolating properties for our use in marking distinctions, while others, which likewise exist in the object, are put aside. This expression is to be called stupid, because the definitions of species and kinds directly pass for something essential and objective, and not as existing merely for us who mark distinctions. We may certainly also express ourselves by saying that the species leaves aside, in one kind, properties which it places in another, or that energy in one form of its manifestation leaves aside circumstances which are present in another, that these circumstances are thus shown by it to be unessential, and it of itself gives up the form of its manifestation, and withdraws itself into inactivity or self-containedness; that thus, for example, the law of the motion of the heavenly bodies penetrates to every single place and every moment in which the heavenly


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 body occupies that place, and just by this continual abstraction shows itself to be a law. If we thus look on abstraction as objective activity, which it so far is, it is yet very different from subjective activity and its products. The former leaves the heavenly body to fall back again after abstraction from this particular place and this particular moment into the particular changing place and moment of time, just as the species may appear in the kind in other contingent or unessential forms and in the external particularity of individuals. On the other hand, subjective abstraction raises the law like the species into its universality as such, and makes it exist and preserves it in this form, in the mind.

In these forms of the knowledge which progresses from mere indication to proof, from immediate objectivity to special products, the necessity may be felt of considering explicitly the method, the nature, and fashion of the subjective activity, in order to test its claims and procedure; for this method has its own characteristics and kind of progress which are quite different from the characteristics and process of the object in itself. And without entering more particularly into the nature of this method of knowledge, it becomes immediately apparent, from a single characteristic which we observe in it, that inasmuch as it is represented as being concerned with the object in accordance with subjective forms, it is only capable of apprehending relations of the object. It is therefore idle to start the question whether these relations are objective and real or only subjective and ideal, not to mention the fact that such expressions as subjectivity and objectivity, reality and ideality, are simply vague abstractions. The content, be it objective or merely subjective, real or ideal, remains always the same, an aggregate of relations, not something that is in-and-for-itself, the notion of the thing, or the infinite, with which knowledge must have to do. If that content of knowledge is taken by perverted sense as containing relations only,


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 and these are understood to be phenomena or relations to a faculty of subjective knowledge, it must, so far as results are concerned, always be recognised as representing the great intellectual advance which modern philosophy has achieved, that the mode of thinking, proving, and knowing the infinite, which has been described, is proved incapable of reaching what is eternal and divine.

What has been brought out in the preceding exposition regarding knowledge in general, and especially what relates to thinking knowledge (which is what alone concerns us), and to proof, the principal moment in that knowledge, we have looked at from the point of view from which it is seen to be a movement of the activity of thought which is outside the object and different from the development of the object itself. This definition may in part be taken to be sufficient for our purpose, but partly, too, it is to be taken as what is essential in opposition to the one-sidedness which lies in the reflections about the subjectivity of knowledge.

In the opposition of the process of knowledge to the object to be known lies the finiteness of knowledge. But this opposition is not on that account to be regarded as itself infinite and absolute, and its products are not to be taken to be appearances only because of the mere abstraction of subjectivity; but in so far as they themselves are determined by that opposition, the content as such is affected by the externality referred to. This point of view has an effect upon the nature of the content, and yields a definite insight into it; while, on the contrary, the other way of looking at the question gives us nothing but the abstract category of the subjective, which is, moreover, taken to be absolute. What we thus get as the result of the way in which we look at the proof, for the otherwise quite general quality of the content, is, speaking generally, just this, that the content, inasmuch as it bears an external relation to knowledge, is itself determined as something external, or, to put it


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 more definitely, consists of abstractions from finite properties. Mathematical content as such is essentially magnitude. Geometrical figures pertain to space, and have thus in themselves externality as their principle, since they are distinguished from real objects, and represent only the one-sided spatiality of these objects, as distinguished from their concrete filling up, through which they first became real. So number has the unit for its principle, and is the putting together of a multiplicity of units which are independent, and is thus a completely external combination. The knowledge which we have here before us can only attain its greatest perfection in this field, because that field contains only simple and definite qualities, and the dependence of these upon each other, the insight into the nature of which is proof, is thus stable, and ensures for proof the logical progress of necessity. This kind of knowledge is capable of exhausting the nature of its objects. The logical nature of the process of proof is not, however, confined to mathematical content, but enters into all departments of natural and spiritual material; but we may sum up what is logical in knowledge in connection with proof by saying that it depends on the rules of inference; the proofs of the existence of God are therefore essentially inferences. The express investigation of these forms belongs, however, partly to logic, and for the rest the nature of the fundamental defect must be ascertained in the course of the examination of these proofs which is about to be taken in hand. For the present it is enough to remark further, in connection with what has been said, that the rules of inference have a kind of foundation which is of the nature of mathematical calculation. The connection of propositions which are requisite to constitute a syllogistic conclusion depends on the relations of the sphere which each of them occupies as regards the other, and which is quite properly regarded as greater or smaller. The definite extent of such


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 a sphere is what determines the correctness of the subsumption. The older logicians, such as Lambert and Ploucquet, have been at the pains of inventing a notation by means of which the relation in inference may be reduced to that of identity, that is, to the abstract mathematical relation of equality, so that inference is shown to be the mechanism of a kind of calculation. As regards, however, the further nature of knowledge in such an external connection of objects, which in their very nature are external in themselves, we shall have to speak of it presently under the name of mediate knowledge, and to consider the opposition in its more definite form.

As regards these forms which are called species, laws, forces, and so on, knowledge does not stand to them in an external relation; they are rather its products. But the knowledge which produces them, as has been shown, produces them only by abstraction from what is objective; they have their root in this, but are essentially separated from what is actual; they are more concrete than mathematical figures, but their content differs essentially from that from which the start was made, and which must constitute their only foundation of proof.

The defective element in this mode of knowledge has thus attention drawn to it in a different form from that shown in the way of looking at it, which declares the products of knowledge to be mere phenomena, because knowledge itself is only a subjective activity. But the general result, however, is the same, and we have now to see what has been set over against this result. What is determined as insufficient for the aim of the Spirit, which is the absorption into its very nature of what is infinite, eternal, divine, is the activity of the Spirit which in thinking proceeds by means of abstraction, inference, and proof. This view, itself the product of the mode of thought characteristic of the period, has jumped straight over to the other extreme in giving out a proofless,


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 immediate knowledge, an unreasoning faith, a feeling devoid of thought, as the only way of grasping and having within oneself divine truth. It is asserted that that kind of knowledge which is insufficient for the higher kind of truth is the exclusive and sole kind of knowledge. The two assumptions are most closely connected. On the one side, we have, in the investigation of what we have undertaken to consider, to free that knowledge from its one-sidedness, and in doing so at the same time to show by facts that there exists another kind of knowledge than that which is given out as the only kind. On the other side, the pretension which faith as such sets up against knowledge is a prejudice which occupies too firm and sure a position not to make a stricter investigation necessary. In view of this pretension it must be borne in mind that the true, unsophisticated faith, the more it in case of dire necessity might reasonably make pretensions, the less it does make them, and that the case of necessity exists only for the merely rationalising, dry, and polemical assertion of faith.

But I have elsewhere already explained how the matter stands as regards that faith or immediate knowledge. It is not possible that in the forefront of any attempt to deal at the present time with the proofs of the existence of God, the position taken up by faith can be set aside as done with; the chief points from which it is to be criticised, and the place to be assigned to it, must at least be called to mind.


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 THIRD LECTURE

has already been remarked that the assertion of faith, of which we have to speak, is found outside of genuine simple faith. This latter, in so far as it has advanced to conscious knowledge, and has consequently acquired a consciousness of knowledge, accedes to knowledge with full confidence in it, because it is pre-eminently full of confidence in itself, is sure of itself, and firmly established in itself. We are rather concerned with faith in so far as it takes up a polemical attitude towards rational knowledge, and expresses itself in a polemical fashion even against knowledge in general. It is thus not a faith which opposes itself to another kind of faith. Faith (or belief) is what is common to both; it is therefore the content which fights against the content. But this fact of having to do with content at once brings knowledge with it. If it were otherwise, the overthrow and defence of the truth of religion would not be carried out with external weapons, which are just as foreign to faith and religion as to knowledge. The faith which rejects knowledge as such, is just because of this devoid of content, and is, to begin with, to be taken abstractly as faith in general, as it opposes itself to concrete knowledge, to rational knowledge, without reference to content. As thus abstract, it is removed back into the simplicity of self-consciousness. This is in its simplicity, in so far as it has any fulness at all, feeling, and what is content in knowledge is definiteness of feeling. The assertion of abstract faith thus leads immediately to the form of feeling, in which the subjectivity of knowledge intrenches itself as in an inaccessible place. The standpoints of both must therefore be briefly indicated, from which their one-sidedness,


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 and consequently the untruth of the fashion in which they are asserted to be ultimate and fundamental determinations, becomes apparent. Faith, to begin with it, starts from this, that the nullity of knowledge, so far as absolute truth is concerned, has been demonstrated. We wish so to proceed as to leave faith in possession of this assumption, and to see accordingly what it is in itself.

To begin with, if the opposition is conceived of as being of such an absolutely general kind as that between faith and knowledge, as we often hear it put, this abstraction must be directly found fault with. For faith belongs to consciousness; we know about what we believe; nay, we know about it with certainty. It is thus at once apparent that it is absurd to wish to separate faith and knowledge in such a general fashion.

But faith is now called immediate knowledge, and is accordingly to be distinguished radically from mediate and mediating knowledge. Since at this stage we leave on one side the speculative examination of these conceptions, in order to keep within the proper sphere of this kind of assertion, we will oppose to this separation, which is asserted to be absolute, the fact that there is no act of knowledge, any more than there is any act of sensation, conception, or volition, no activity, property, or condition pertaining to Spirit, which is not mediated and mediating; just as there is no other object in Nature or Spirit, be it what it may, in heaven or the earth, or under the earth, which does not include within itself the quality of mediation as well as that of immediacy. It is thus as a universal fact that logical philosophy presents it—we might add, along with the exhibition of its necessity, to which we need not here appeal—in the completed circle of the forms of thought. As regards the matter of sense, whether it belongs to outer or inner perception, it is admitted that it is finite, that is, that it exists only as mediated through what is other than sense. But of this matter itself, and still more of the higher content of


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 Spirit, it will be admitted that it derives its essential character from categories, and that the nature of this character is shown in logic to be the possession of the moment of mediation above indicated inseparably in itself. But we pause here to call attention to the absolutely universal fact, in whatever sense and with whatever meaning the facts may be understood. Without digressing into examples, we abide by the one object which here lies nearest to us.

God is activity, free activity relating itself to itself, and remaining with itself. The essential element in the notion or conception of God, or, for that matter, in every idea of God, is that He is Himself, the mediation of Himself with Himself. If God is defined merely as the Creator, His activity is taken only as going out of itself, as expanding itself out of itself, as sensible or material producing, without any return into itself. The product is something different from Him, it is the world; the introduction of the category of mediation would at once bring with it the idea that God must be through the medium of the world; one might, at all events, say with truth that He is Creator only by means of the world, or what He creates. Only this would be mere empty tautology; for the category, “that which is created,” is itself directly involved in the first category, that of the Creator. On the other hand, what is created remains, so far as the ordinary idea of it is concerned, as a world outside God, as an Other over against Him, so that He exists away beyond that world, apart from it, in-and-for-Himself. But in Christianity least of all is it true that we have to know God only as creation, activity, not as Spirit. The fact rather is that to this religion, the explicit consciousness that God is Spirit is peculiar, the consciousness that He, even as He is in-and-for-Himself, relates Himself, as it were, to the Other of Himself (called the Son), to Himself, that He is related to Himself in Himself as love, essentially as this love is mediation with itself. God is indeed the


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 Creator of the world, and is so sufficiently defined. But God is more than this; He is the true God in that He is the mediation of Himself with Himself, and is this love.

Faith, then, inasmuch as it has God as the object of its consciousness, has this mediation for its object; just as faith, as existing in the individual, only exists through teaching and training, the teaching and training of men, but still more through the teaching and training of the Spirit of God, and exists only through this process of mediation. But faith, like consciousness in general, this relation of the subject to an object, is quite abstract, whether God is its object, or whatever thing or content may be the object, and so faith or knowledge only exists through the medium of an object. Otherwise we have empty identity, a faith in or knowledge of nothing.

But conversely there is to be found here the other fact that, in like manner, there can be nothing which is only and exclusively the product of mediation. If we examine into what we understand by immediacy, it will be seen that it must exist in itself without any difference, such as that through which mediation is at once posited. It is simple reference to self, and is thus in its immediate form merely Being. Now all knowledge, mediate and immediate, and indeed everything else, at all events is; and that it is, is itself the least and most abstract thing that one can say of anything. If it is even only subjective, as faith or knowledge is, at all events it is, the predicate of Being belongs to it, just as such Being appertains to the object which exists only in faith or knowledge. The insight involved in this view is of a very simple kind. Yet we may be impatient with philosophy just because of this simplicity, in so far as we pass from the fulness and warmth which belong to faith, over to such abstractions as Being and immediacy. But, in point of fact, this is not the fault of philosophy; on the contrary, it is that assertion of faith and immediate knowledge which takes its stand on these abstractions. In this fact, that faith is


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 not mediate knowledge, there lies the entire value of the matter, and the verdict passed upon it. But we come also to the content, or rather, we may likewise come only to the relation of a content, to knowledge.

It is further to be remarked that immediacy in knowledge, which is faith, has this further quality, that faith knows that in which it believes, not merely generally, not merely in the sense of having an idea or knowledge from without of it, but knows it with certainty. It is in certainty that the nerve of faith lies. And here we encounter a further distinction, we further distinguish truth from certainty. We know very well that much has been known, and is known for certain, which is nevertheless not true. Men have long enough known it to be certain, and millions still know it to be certain, to take a trivial example, that the sun goes round the earth. And what is more, the Egyptians believed, and knew it for certain, that Apis was a great or the greatest god; while the Greeks thought the same regarding Jupiter; just as the Hindus still know for certain that the cow, and other inhabitants of India, the Mongols and many races, that a man, the Dalai-Lama, is God. That this certainty is expressed and asserted is admitted. A man may quite well say, I know something for certain, I believe it, it is true. But, at the same time, every one else must be allowed the right to say the same thing, for every one is “I,” every one knows, every one knows for certain. But this unavoidable admission expresses the truth that this knowledge, knowledge for certain, this abstraction, may have a content of the most diverse and opposite kind, and the proof of the content must lie just in this assurance of being certain, of faith. But what man will come forward and say, Only that which I know and know as certain is true; what I know as certain is true just because I know it as certain. Truth stands eternally over against mere certainty, and neither certainty, nor immediate knowledge, nor faith decides what is truth. Christ directed the minds of the Apostles and His friends


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 away from the genuinely immediate visible certainty which they derived from His immediate presence, from His own sayings and spoken words heard with their ears and apprehended through their senses and feelings, away from such a faith and such a source of faith to the truth, into which they were to be led only in the further future and through the Spirit. For the attainment of anything more in addition to this highest certainty, derived from the source above indicated, there exists nothing except just what is in the content itself.

Faith, in so far as it is defined to be immediate knowledge, as distinguished from what is mediate, reduces itself to the abstract formalism above mentioned. This abstraction makes it possible not only to rank as faith the sensuous certainty which I have that I possess a body, and that there are things outside me, but to deduce or prove from it what the nature of faith is. But we should do gross injustice to what in the sphere of religion is termed faith if we were to see in it only this abstraction. Faith must rather be full of substance; it must be a content, and this is to be a true content; it must be far removed from such a content as the sensuous certainty that I have a body, that things perceived by the senses surround me. It must contain the truth, and quite a different truth from that last mentioned, the truth of finite things of sense, and derived from quite a different source. The tendency above indicated to formal subjectivity must find faith as such even too objective, for this latter has always to do with ideas of things, with a knowledge of them, with a state of conviction regarding some content. This extreme form of the subjective, in which the definite form of the content and the conception and knowledge of it have vanished, is that of feeling. We cannot, therefore, avoid speaking of it too; it is this form, moreover, which is asked for in our times, not feeling of the simple or naive kind, but as a result of culture, derived from grounds or reasons which are the same as those already referred to.


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 FOURTH LECTURE

has been shown in the preceding lecture, the form of feeling is closely related to mere faith as such. It is the yet more intensive forcing back of self-consciousness into itself, the development of the content to mere definiteness of feeling.

Religion must be felt, must exist in feeling, otherwise it is not religion; faith cannot exist without feeling, otherwise it is not religion. This must be admitted to be true, for feeling is nothing but my subjectivity in its simplicity and immediacy—myself as this particular existent personality. If I have religion only as idea, faith takes the form of certainty about these ideas; its content is before me, it is still an object over against me; it is not yet identical with me as simple self; I am not so penetrated through and through with it that it constitutes my qualitative, determinate character. The very inmost unity of the content of faith with me is requisite in order that I may have quality or substance, its substance. It thus becomes my feeling. As against religion Man must hold nothing in reserve for himself, for it is the innermost region of truth. Religion must therefore possess not only this as yet abstract “I,” which even as faith is yet knowledge, but the concrete “I” in its simple personality, comprehending the whole of it in itself. Feeling is this inwardness which is not separated in itself.

Feeling is, however, understood to have the property of being something purely individual, lasting for a single moment, just as one individual thing in the process of alternation with another exists either after that other or


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 alongside of it. But the heart signifies the all-embracing unity of the feelings, both in their quantity and also as regards their duration in time. The heart is the ground or basis which contains in itself and preserves the essential nature of feelings, independent of the fleeting nature of their succession in consciousness. In this their unbroken unity—for the heart expresses the simple pulse of the living spirit—religion is able to penetrate the different kinds of feeling, and to become for them the substance which holds, masters, and rules them.

But this brings us at once to the reflection that feeling and heart as such are only the one side, definite forms of feeling and heart being the other. And, accordingly, we must at once go further and say, that just as little is religion true, because it exists in our feelings or hearts, as because it is believed and known immediately and for certain. All religions, even the most false and unworthy, exist in our feelings and hearts just as much as those that are true. There are feelings which are immoral, unjust, and godless, just as much as there are feelings which are moral, just, and pious. Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murder, adultery, backbiting, and so forth; that is to say, the fact that thoughts are not bad, but good, does not depend on their being in the heart and proceeding out of it. We have to do with the definite form which is assumed by the feeling which is in the heart. This is a truism so trivial that one hesitates to give it expression, but it is part of philosophical culture to carry the analysis of ideas even to the length of questioning and denying what is most simple and most commonly received. To that shallow type of thought or Enlightenment which is vain of its boldness, it appears unmeaning and unseemly to recall trivial truths, such, for instance, as that which may be here once more brought to mind, the truth that Man is distinguished from the brute by the faculty of thought, but


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 shares that of feeling with it. If feeling is religious feeling, religion is its definite quality. If it is wicked, bad feeling, what is bad and wicked is its definite quality. It is this determinate quality which forms the content for consciousness, what in the words already used is called thought. Feeling is bad on account of its bad content; the heart, because of its sinful thoughts. Feeling is the common form for the most different kinds of content. It can on that account just as little serve as a justification for any of its determinate qualities, for its content, as can immediate certainty.

Feeling makes itself known as a subjective form, as being something in me, while I am the subject of something. This form is that which is simple, which remains equal to itself, and therefore potentially indeterminate in every difference of content—the abstraction of my existence as a single individual. The determinateness or special character of the feeling is, on the contrary, to begin with, difference in general, the being unlike some other, being manifold. It must therefore be explicitly distinguished from the general form whose particular and definite quality it is, and be regarded on its own account. It has the form of the content which must be regarded “on its own merits,” and judged on its own account; on this value depends the value of the feeling. This content must be true, to begin with, and independently of the feeling, just as religion is true on its own account—it is what is in itself necessary and universal—the Thing or true fact which develops itself to a kingdom of truths and of laws, as well as to a kingdom of their knowledge and their final ground, God.

I shall indicate only in outline the consequences which ensue if immediate knowledge and feeling as such are elevated into a principle. It is their very concentration which carries with it for the content, simplification, abstraction, and indefiniteness. Thus they both reduce the divine content, be it religious as such, or legal and moral,


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 to a minimum, to what is most abstract. With this the determination of the content becomes arbitrary, for in that minimum there exists nothing determinate. This is a weighty consequence, from a theoretical as well as a practical point of view. Chiefly from a practical, for since, for the justification of disposition and action, reasons are necessary, the faculty of argument must still be very untrained, and very little skilled in its work, if it does not know how to assign good reasons for what is arbitrary.

Another feature in the situation, which the withdrawal into immediate knowledge and into feeling brings into view, concerns the relation of men to other men, and their spiritual fellowship. The objective, the true fact or Thing, is what is in-and-for-itself universal, and is so, therefore, for all. As what is most universal, it is implicitly thought in general; and thought is the common basis. The man who betakes himself to feeling, to immediate knowledge, to his own ideas or his own thoughts, shuts himself up, as I have already said, in his own particularity, and breaks off any fellowship or community with others—the only way is to leave him alone. But this kind of feeling and heart lets us see more closely into the nature of feeling and heart. Restricting itself in accordance with its first principle to its own feeling, the consciousness of a content degrades it to the determinate form belonging to itself; it maintains itself rigidly as self-consciousness, in which this determinateness inheres; the self is for consciousness the object which it sets before itself, the substance which has the content only as an attribute, as a predicate in it, so that it is not the independent element in which the subject is sublated, or loses itself. The subject is itself in this way a fixed condition, which has been called the life of feeling. In the so-called Irony, which is connected with it, the “myself “is abstract only in relation to itself; in the distinction of itself from its content it stands as pure consciousness of itself, and as separated from it.