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 one-sided position in reference to each other. This power is an end, and this end, the human, finite end, is the sovereignty of the world, and the realisation of this end is the sovereignty of men, of the Romans.

This universal end, taken in its real meaning, has its basis, its seat in self-consciousness, and this means that the independence of self-consciousness is posited, since the end is included within self-consciousness. On the one side we have a certain indifference in reference to concrete life, and on the other we have this reserve, this inwardness, which is an inwardness both of the divine nature and of the individual, though so far as the individual is concerned, it is a wholly abstract inwardness.

This explains what is a fundamental feature of Roman thought, namely, that the abstract person, the individual abstractly considered, is held to be of so much account. The abstract person is the individual regarded legally; and accordingly, the development of law, of the essential characteristics of property, is an important feature of the Roman way of regarding things. This law, or right, is limited to juridical law, to the law or rights of property.

There are higher laws or rights; the human conscience has its law or right, and this is as much a right as any other; but the law of morality, the law of ethics is something far higher. Here, however, this right no longer possesses its concrete and proper meaning, the truth rather being that abstract right, the right of the person, expresses merely what is contained in the definition of property. It is certainly personality, but it is abstract personality only, subjectivity in the sense just explained, which is given this lofty place.

These are the fundamental features of this Religion of Utility or Conformity to an End. There are contained in it moments, the union of which constitutes the essential character of the next and last stage of religion. The moments which are isolated in the religion of outward utility, but which are related to each other, and


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 are in a condition of contradiction, are, though present here in an unspiritual form, the moments out of which, when united according to their true nature, arises the essential characteristic of the Religion of Spirit.

The Roman world forms the supremely important point of transition to the Christian religion, the indispensable middle term. It is that side of the Idea represented by reality, and, together with this, its potentially determinate character, which are developed at this stage of the religious spirit. At first we saw this reality held firm in immediate unity with the universal. Now, by giving itself a definite character, it has come out of the universal and detached itself from it, and has thus come to be completely realised externality, concrete individuality, and has consequently reached, in this its alienation carried to the furthest point, totality in itself. What now remains to be done, and what is necessary is, that this particularity or individuality, this determinate determinateness should be taken back again into the universal, so that it may reach its true determination, strip off the externality from itself, and consequently that the Idea as such may get its complete determination in itself.

The religion of external conformity to end or utility, viewed according to its inner signification, constitutes the closing stage of the finite religions. What is implied in finite reality is just that the notion of God should be or exist, that it should be posited, i.e., that this notion or conception should be the truth for self-consciousness, and accordingly should be realised in self-consciousness, in its subjective aspect.

It is the notion or conception as thus posited which must develop itself on its own account until it reaches totality, for only then is it capable of being taken up into universality. It was this advance of determinateness to the stage of totality accordingly which took place in the Roman world, for here the determinateness is something

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 concrete and finite, it is particularity, something which is inherently manifold, external, an actual condition, a kingdom, present objectivity, not beautiful objectivity, and consequently not complete or perfect subjectivity. It is through the end, the determinate determinateness, that the determinateness first returns into itself and is found in subjectivity. At first, however, it is finite determinateness, and owing to the subjective return into itself, it is finitude without any measure or standard, the false infinite-finitude.

This measureless finite has two sides or aspects which we must get to understand and have a firm grasp of, its potentiality and its empirical manifestation.

If we consider perfect determinateness in its potential form, we see that it is the absolute form of the Notion, the Notion, namely, in its determinateness, when it has come back into itself. The Notion is to begin with only the universal and abstract, the Notion in its potential form and as not yet posited. It is the true universal when, by means of particularity, it unites itself with itself, i.e., when by means of the mediation of particularity, of determinateness, by the act of going out of itself, and by the doing away with and absorption of this particularity, it returns to itself. This negation of the negation is the absolute form, the truly infinite subjectivity, the reality in its infinitude.

In the Religion of Utility it is just this infinite form which self-consciousness has come to represent to itself. This absolute form is in a special sense the characterisation of self-consciousness, the characterisation of Spirit. This is what constitutes the infinite importance of and necessity for the Roman religion.

This infinite subjectivity, which is infinite form, is the grand moment which has been gained for Power; it is what was wanting in the idea of God as Power, in the God of substantiality. It is true that in Power we had subjectivity, but Power has only single ends, or several


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 single ends, and its end is not yet infinite. It is only infinite subjectivity which has an infinite end, i.e., it is itself the end, and it is only inwardness, this subjectivity as such, which is its end. This characterisation of Spirit was accordingly gained for thought in the Roman world. This absolute form, however, is here still empirical, and appears as a particular immediate person, and thus what is highest when conceived of in a finite way, is what is worst. The deeper the nature of Spirit and genius, the more monstrous are their errors. When superficiality errs, its error is correspondingly superficial and weak, and it is only what possesses depth in itself that can become the most evil and the worst. Thus it is this infinite reflection and infinite form which, since it is devoid of content and without substantiality, is the measureless and unlimited finitude, the limitedness which is itself absolute in its finitude. It is what appears in another shape in the system of the Sophists as reality, for to them man was the measure of all things, man, that is, regarded according to his immediate acts of volition and immediate feeling, from the point of view of his ends and interests. In the Roman world we see that this thinking by man on himself gets an important place, and is elevated to the condition of the Being and consciousness of the world. The act by which thought shuts itself up within finitude and particularity means, to begin with, the total disappearance of all beautiful, moral life, the falling away from true life into the infinitude of the desires, into momentary enjoyment and pleasure, and this stage in the entire shape in which it appears, constitutes a human animalkingdom, from which everything of a higher nature, everything substantial has been removed. Such a state of lapse into purely finite forms of existence, ends, and interests, can certainly be maintained only by the inherently measureless authority and despotism of a single individual whose means for maintaining this authority is the cold unspiritual death of individuals, for only by this


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 means can negation be brought to bear on them, and only thus can they be kept in a condition of fear. The despot is one, a real present God, the singleness or individuality of will in the form of power exercising authority over all the other infinitely many single individualities.

The Emperor represents the Divinity, the divine essence, the Inner and Universal as it appears, and is revealed, and is actually present in the form of the singleness or particularity of the individual. This individual is the characterisation of Power advanced to the state of particularity, the descent of the Idea into the present, but it is a descent which means the loss on the part of the Idea of its inherent universality, of truth, of Being in-and-for self, and consequently of its divine nature. The universal has taken flight, and the Infinite is impressed in such a way on the finite that the finite is the subject of the proposition; this as something which has a fixed, permanent character, and is not negative, is placed within the Infinite.

This completion of finitude is thus pre-eminently the absolute misery and the absolute sorrow of Spirit, it is the opposition of Spirit to Spirit in its most complete form, and this state of opposition is not reduced to a state of reconciliation, this contradiction remains unsolved. But Spirit is what thinks, and so if it has lost itself in this reflection into itself as externality, in its character as thought it at the same time returns into itself through the loss of itself; it is reflected into itself, and in its depth as infinite form, as subjectivity,—but as subjectivity which thinks, and not as immediate subjectivity,—it has placed itself at the highest point which can be reached. In this abstract form it appears as philosophy, or speaking generally as the sorrow of virtue, as a longing and seeking for help.

The resolution and reconciliation of the opposing elements is what is everywhere demanded. This reconciliation becomes possible only when the external finitude,


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 which has been set free, is taken up into the infinite universality of Thought, and is in this way purified from its immediacy, and raised to the condition of what has substantial validity. So, too, this infinite universality of thought which has no external existence or value of its own must in turn receive a present reality, and self-consciousness must at the same time come to be a consciousness of the reality of universality, so that it may see the Divine to be something with an actual definite existence, something belonging to the world and present in the world, and know that God and the world are reconciled.

We have seen how Olympus, that heaven of the gods, that region within which are found the fairest divine forms that were ever created by fancy, represented at the same time a free moral life, a free, though as yet a limited, national spirit. Greek life was split up into many small states, into those stars which themselves are only limited centres of light. In order that the free condition of Spirit may be reached, this state of limitation must be done away with, and the fate which floats in the distance above the world of the gods and above the national life must make its true authority felt in them in such a way that the national spirit of these free peoples is destroyed. The free spirit must get to know itself as free spirit in the entirety of its nature, free spirit in-and-for self. Its value no longer consists in its being simply the free spirit of the Greeks, of the citizens of this or the other state, but rather man must be known to be free as man, and God is thus the God of all men, the all-embracing, universal Spirit. This fate, accordingly, which exercises a kind of corrective discipline on the particular forms in which freedom shows itself and crushes the limited national spirit of the various peoples—so that the nations apostatise from their gods, and get to be conscious of their weakness and powerlessness, since their political life is destroyed by the one universal


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 Power—was the Roman world and its religion. In this religion of utility or conformity to end, the end was none other than the Roman State, which thus represents abstract Power exercising its authority over the national spirit of the various peoples. The gods of all nations are collected together in the Roman Pantheon, and mutually destroy each other, owing to their being thus united. The Roman spirit as representing this fate, destroyed the happiness and joyousness of the beautiful life and consciousness of the religions which went before, and crushed down all the various forms in which this consciousness showed itself into a condition of unity and uniformity. It was this abstract Power which produced the tremendous misery and the universal sorrow which existed in the Roman world, a sorrow which was to be the birth-throe of the religion of truth. The distinction between free men and slaves disappears in the presence of the all-embracing power of the Emperor; everything permanent, whether existing in an inward or in an outward form, is destroyed, and we are in the presence of the death of finitude, since the Fortuna of the one Empire itself succumbs too.

The true taking up of finitude into the Universal, and the perception of this unity, could not have their development within those religions, and could not originate in the Roman and Greek world.

The penitence of the world, the discarding of finitude, and the despair of finding satisfaction in what was temporal and finite which gained the upper hand in the spirit of the world, all served to prepare the soil for the true, spiritual religion, a preparation which had to be completed on the part of man, in order that “the time might be fulfilled.” Granting that the principle of Thought was already developed, still the Universal was not yet an object for consciousness in all its purity, as is evident from the fact that even in philosophical speculation, Thought was united with ordinary externality, as, for


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 instance, when the Stoics made the world originate in fire. The truth is that the reconciliation could appear only amongst a people who possessed the purely abstract idea of the One for itself, and had completely cast away finitude in order to be able to conceive of it again in a purified form. The Oriental principle of pure abstraction had to unite with the finitude and particularity of the West. It was the Jewish nation which preserved the idea of God as representing the ancient sorrow of the world. For here we have the religion of abstract sorrow, of the one Lord, and because of this the reality of life appears relatively to this abstraction and in this abstraction, as the infinite wilfulness of self-consciousness, and is at the same time bound up with the abstraction. The old curse is removed and becomes the source of salvation, and this just because finitude has on its part raised itself to the condition of something positive, has become infinite finitude, and has gained for itself a valid existence.


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 PART III

THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION


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 PART III

THE ABSOLUTE RELIGION

We have now reached the realised notion or conception of religion, the perfect religion, in which it is the notion itself that is its own object. We defined religion as being in the stricter sense the self-consciousness of God. Self-consciousness in its character as consciousness has an object, and it is conscious of itself in this object; this object is also consciousness, but it is consciousness as object, and is consequently finite consciousness, a consciousness which is distinct from God, from the Absolute. The element of determinateness is present in this form of consciousness, and consequently finitude is present in it; God is self-consciousness, He knows Himself in a consciousness which is distinct from Him, which is potentially the consciousness of God, but is also this actually, since it knows its identity with God, an identity which is, however, mediated by the negation of finitude. It is this notion or conception which constitutes the content of religion. We define God when we say, that He distinguishes Himself from Himself, and is an object for Himself, but that in this distinction He is purely identical with Himself, is in fact Spirit. This notion or conception is now realised, consciousness knows this content and knows that it is itself absolutely interwoven with this content; in the Notion which is the process of God, it is itself a moment. Finite consciousness knows God only to the extent to which God knows Himself in it; thus God is Spirit, the Spirit of His Church in fact, i.e., of those who worship Him. This is the perfect religion, the Notion


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 become objective to itself. Here it is revealed what God is; He is no longer a Being above and beyond this world, an Unknown, for He has told men what He is, and this not merely in an outward way in history, but in consciousness. We have here, accordingly, the religion of the manifestation of God, since God knows Himself in the finite spirit. This simply means that God is revealed. Here this is the essential circumstance. What the transition was we discovered when we saw how this knowledge of God as free Spirit was, so far as its substance is concerned, still tinged with finitude and immediacy; this finitude had further to be discarded by the labour of Spirit; it is nothingness, and we saw how this nothingness was revealed to consciousness. The misery, the sorrow of the world, was the condition, the preparation on the subjective side for the consciousness of free Spirit, as the absolutely free and consequently infinite Spirit.

We shall confine ourselves, to begin with (A), to the general aspects of this sphere of thought.

The Absolute Religion is—1. The Revealed Religion. Religion is something revealed, it is manifested, only when the notion or conception of religion itself exists for itself; or, to put it differently, religion or the notion of religion has become objective to itself, not in the form of limited finite objectivity, but rather in such a way that it is objective to itself in accordance with its notion.

This can be expressed in a more definite way by saying that religion, according to its general conception or notion, is the consciousness of the absolute Essence. It is the nature, however, of consciousness to distinguish, and thus we have two things, consciousness and absolute Essence. These two at first are in a state of mutual exclusion, standing in a finite relation to each other. We have the empirical consciousness, and the Essence taken in the sense of something different.

They stand in a finite relation to each other, and so far they are themselves both finite, and thus consciousness


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 knows the absolute Essence only as something finite, not as something true. God is Himself consciousness, He distinguishes Himself from Himself within Himself, and as consciousness He gives Himself as object for what we call the side of consciousness.

Here we have always two elements in consciousness, which are related to each other in a finite and external fashion. When, however, as is the case at this stage, religion comes to have a true comprehension of itself, then it is seen that the content and the object of religion are made up of this very Whole, of the consciousness which brings itself into relation with its Essence, the knowledge of itself as the Essence and of the Essence as itself, i.e., Spirit thus becomes the object in religion. We thus have two things, consciousness and the object; in the religion, however, the fulness of which is the fulness of its own nature, in the revealed religion, the religion which comprehends itself, it is religion, the content itself which is the object, and this object, namely, the Essence which knows itself, is Spirit. Here first is Spirit as such the object, the content of religion, and Spirit is only for Spirit. Since it is content and object, as Spirit it is what knows itself, what distinguishes itself from itself, and itself supplies the other side of subjective consciousness, that which appears as finite. It is the religion which derives its fulness from itself, which is complete in itself. This is the abstract characterisation of the Idea in this form, or, to put it otherwise, religion is, as a matter of fact, Idea. For Idea in the philosophical sense of the term is the Notion which has itself for object, i.e., it is the Notion which has definite existence, reality, objectivity, and which is no longer anything inner or subjective, but gives itself an objective form. Its objectivity, however, is at the same time its return into itself, or, in so far as we describe the Notion as End, it is the realised, developed End, which is consequently objective.

Religion has just that which it itself is, the


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 of the Essence, for its object; it gets an objective form in it, it actually is, just as, to begin with, it existed as Notion and only as the Notion, or just as at first it was our Notion. The absolute religion is the revealed religion, the religion which has itself for its content, its fulness.

It is the Christian religion which is the perfect religion, the religion which represents the Being of Spirit in a realised form, or for itself, the religion in which religion has itself become objective in relation to itself. In it the universal Spirit and the particular spirit, the infinite Spirit and the finite spirit, are inseparably connected; it is their absolute identity which constitutes this religion and is its substance or content. The universal Power is the substance which, since it is potentially quite as much subject as substance, now posits this potential being which belongs to it, and in consequence distinguishes itself from itself, communicates itself to knowledge, to the finite spirit; but in so doing, just because it is a moment in its own development, it remains with itself, and in the act of dividing itself up returns undivided to itself.

The object of theology as generally understood is to get to know God as the merely objective God, who is absolutely separated from the subjective consciousness, and is thus an outward object, just as the sun, the sky, &c., are objects of consciousness, and here the object is permanently characterised as an Other, as something external. In contrast to this the Notion of the absolute religion can be so presented as to suggest that what we have got to do with is not anything of this external sort, but religion itself, i.e., the unity of this idea which we call God with the conscious subject.

We may regard this as representing also the standpoint of the present day, inasmuch as people are now concerned with religion, religiousness, and piety, and thus do not occupy themselves with the object in religion. Men have various religions, and the main


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 thing is for them to be pious. We cannot know God as object, or get a real knowledge of Him, and the main thing, what we are really concerned about, is merely the subjective manner of knowing Him and our subjective religious condition. We may recognise this standpoint as described in what has just been said. It is the standpoint of the age, but at the same time it represents a most important advance by which an infinite moment has had its due value recognised, for it involves a recognition of the consciousness of the subject as constituting an absolute moment. The same content is seen to exist in both sides, and it is this potential or true Being of the two sides which is religion. The great advance which marks our time consists in the recognition of subjectivity as an absolute moment, and this is therefore essentially determination or characterisation. The whole question, however, turns on how subjectivity is determined or characterised.

On this important advance we have to make the following remarks. When religion is determined from the point of view of consciousness, it is so constituted that the content passes beyond consciousness, and in appearance at least remains something strange or foreign to consciousness. It does not matter what content religion has, this content, regarded solely from the standpoint of consciousness, is something which exists above and outside of consciousness, and even if we add to it the peculiar determination of Revelation, it is nevertheless for us something given and outward. The result of such a conception of religion is that the Divine content is regarded as something given independent of us, as something which cannot be known but is to be received and kept in a merely passive way in faith, and on the other hand it lands us in the subjectivity of the feeling which is the end and the result of the worship of God. The standpoint of consciousness is therefore not the sole and only standpoint. The devout man sinks himself in


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 his object, together with his heart, his devotion, and his will, and when he has attained to this height of devoutness he has got rid of the sense of separation which marks the standpoint of consciousness. It is possible also from the standpoint of consciousness to reach this subjectivity, this feeling that the object is not foreign to consciousness, this absorption of the spirit in those depths which do not represent something distant, but rather absolute nearness and presence.

This doing away with the separation can, however, in turn be conceived of as something foreign to consciousness, as the grace of God, which man has to acquiesce in as something foreign to his own nature, and his relation to which is of a passive sort. It is against this separation that the formula is directed which says that it is with religion as such we have got to do, i.e., with the subjective consciousness which has in itself what God wills. It is in the subject accordingly that the inseparability of subjectivity and of the Other or objectivity exists; or, to put it otherwise, the subject as containing in itself the real relation is an essential element in the whole range of thought. Regarded from this standpoint, the subject is accordingly raised to the rank of an essential characteristic. It is in harmony with the freedom of Spirit that it should thus recover its freedom, that there should be no standpoint at which it is not in company with itself. That it is religion which is objective to itself is a truth which is contained in the notion or conception of the absolute religion, but only in the conception. This conception or notion is one thing, and the consciousness of this notion is another.

Thus in the absolute religion as well the notion may potentially contain the truth referred to, but the consciousness of this is something different. This then is the phase of thought which has reached consciousness and come to the front in the formula which says that it is with religion we have to do. The Notion is itself still


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4 extended service, having now been about four years a soldier, and by attention to my duty, and general steadiness of conduct, having acquired the good opinion of my officers. Perhaps my unusual height, six feet five, may also have predisposed them in my favour. It would have been well had I continued in the same line of rectitude, but my imperfect education, and early feelings of discontent returning upon me, I unfortunately became associated with several men of bad character in the Regiment, who gradually acquired an influence over my conduct, which very soon led me into scenes of irregularity, and riotous dissipation. At length, after a six weeks' furlough, during which I visited my friends in Cheshire, I was apprehended, as being implicated with those men in an offence which rendered me liable to punishment. The consequence was, that I was tried at Chatham, and found guilty, but as the laws were strangely administered in those days, where soldiers and sailors were concerned, I do not know to this hour the precise character, or extent of my sentence.

This may appear strange, but the reader will remember, that transportation, as a punishment on any regular or fixed system, had then scarcely been thought of, and, that soldiers and sailors were dealt with more at the pleasure of the Chief Military, and Naval Authorities, than by Judges or Justices, many of whom considered the army and navy outside the pale of their protection. With this sentence, whatever it was, ceased my connection with my family, and I have never since heard of either, or any of them, excepting as I have


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 one-sided, is taken as merely implicit or potential; and so it appears in this one-sided shape where subjectivity itself is one-sided; it has the characteristic of one of two only, is only infinite form, pure self-consciousness, the pure knowledge of itself, it is potentially without content, because religion as such is conceived of only in its potential character, and is not the religion which is objective to itself, but is only religion in a shape which is not yet real, which has not yet made itself objective or given itself a content. What has no objectivity has no content.

It is one of the rights of truth that knowledge should have in religion the absolute content. Here, however, what we have is not the content in its true form, but only in a stunted form. Thus there must be a content. The content in the present case has, as we have seen, the character of something contingent, finite, empirical, and consequently we have a state of things similar to what existed in Roman times. The times of the Roman Emperors resembled ours in many points. The subject as it actually is, is conceived of as infinite; but as abstract, it changes into the direct opposite, and is merely finite and limited. Its freedom consequently is only of the sort which admits the existence of something beyond the present, an aspiration, a freedom which denies the existence of a distinction in consciousness, and consequently casts aside the essential moment of Spirit, and is thus unspiritual subjectivity, subjectivity without thought.

Religion is the knowledge which Spirit has of itself as Spirit; when it takes the form of pure knowledge it does not know itself as Spirit, and is consequently not substantial but subjective knowledge. The fact, however, that it is nothing more than this, and is therefore limited knowledge, is not apparent to subjectivity in its own form, i.e., in the form or shape of knowledge, but rather it is its immediate potentiality which it finds, to begin


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 with, in itself, and consequently in the knowledge of itself as being simply the infinite, the feeling of its finitude and consequently of its infinitude as well, as a kind of potential Being beyond and above it in contrast to its actual Being, or Being-for-self—the feeling, in short, of longing after something above and beyond it which is unexplained. The Absolute Religion, on the other hand, contains the characteristic, the note, of subjectivity or infinite form which is equivalent to substance. We may give the name of knowledge, of pure intelligence, to this subjectivity, this infinite form, this infinite elasticity of substance whereby it breaks itself up within itself, and makes itself an object for itself. Its content is therefore a content which is identical with itself, because it is the infinitely substantial subjectivity which makes itself both object and content. Then in this content itself the finite subject is further distinguished from the infinite object. God regarded as Spirit, when He remains above, when He is not present in His Church as a living Spirit, is Himself characterised in a merely one-sided way as object.

This is the Notion, it is the Notion of the Idea, of the absolute Idea, and the reality is now Spirit which exists for Spirit, which has made itself its object, and this religion is the revealed religion, the religion in which God reveals Himself. Revelation means this differentiation of the infinite form, the act of self-determination, the being for an Other, and this self-manifestation is of the very essence of Spirit. Spirit which is not revealed is not Spirit. We say that God has created the world, and we state this as a fact which has happened once and which will not happen again, and we thus ascribe to the event the character of something which may be or may not be. God, we say, might have revealed Himself or He might not. The character we ascribe to God’s revelation of Himself is that of something arbitrary, accidental as it were, and not that of


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 belonging to the Notion of God. But God as Spirit is essentially this very self-revelation; He does not create the world once for all, but He is the eternal Creator, this eternal self-revelation, this actus. This is His Notion, His essential characteristic.

Religion, the revealed religion, Spirit as for Spirit, is as such the Religion of Spirit. It is not something which does not open itself out for an Other, which is an Other merely momentarily. God posits or lays down the Other, and takes it up again into His eternal movement. Spirit just is what appears to itself or manifests itself; this constitutes its act, or form of action, and its life; this is its only act, and it is itself only its act. What does God reveal, in fact, but just that He is this revelation of Himself? What He reveals is the infinite form. Absolute subjectivity is determination, and this is the positing or bringing into actual existence of distinctions or difference. The positing of the content, what He thus reveals, is that He is the one Power who can make these distinctions in Himself. It is His Being to make these distinctions eternally, to take them back and at the same time to remain with Himself, not to go out of Himself. What is revealed, is, that He is for an Other. This is the essential character, the definition, of revelation.

2. This religion, which is manifest or revealed to itself, is not only the revealed religion, but the religion which is actually known as a religion which has been revealed; and by this is understood, on the one hand, that it has been revealed by God, that God has actually communicated the knowledge of Himself to men; and, on the other hand, that being a revealed religion, it is a positive religion in the sense that it has come to men, and has been given to them from the outside.

In view of this peculiarity which attaches to the idea of what is positive, it becomes interesting to see what the Positive is.


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 The absolute religion is undoubtedly a positive religion in the sense that everything which exists for consciousness is for it something objective. Everything must come to us in an outward way. What belongs to sense is thus something positive, and, to begin with, there is nothing so positive as what we have before us in immediate perception.

Everything spiritual, as a matter of fact, comes to us in this way also, as the spiritual in a finite form, the spiritual in the form of history, and the mode in which the spiritual is thus external and externalises itself is likewise positive.

A higher and purer form of the spiritual is found in what is moral, in the laws of freedom. This, however, is not in its real nature any such outward form of the spiritual as has just been referred to, it is not something external or accidental, but expresses the nature of pure Spirit itself. It too, however, comes to us in an outward way, at first in education, training, definite teaching; there its truth or validity is simply given to us, pointed out to us.

And so, too, laws, civil laws, the laws of the State, are something positive; they come to us, they exist for us, they have authority or validity, they are, not in the sense that we can leave them alone or pass by them, but as implying that in this external form of theirs they ought also to exist for us as something subjectively essential, subjectively binding.

When we get a grasp of the law that crime should be punished, when we recognise its validity and find it to be rational, it is not something essential for us in the sense that it has authority for us only because it is positive, because it is what it is; but it has authority for us inwardly as well, for our reason, as being something essential, because it is also inward and rational.

The fact of its being positive in no way deprives it of its character as something rational, as something which


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 is our own. The laws of freedom, when they actually appear, have always a positive side, a side marked by reality, externality, and contingency. Laws must get a specific character, and into the specification, into the quality of the punishment, there already enters the element of externality, and still more into the quantity of the punishment.

In the case of punishment the positive element cannot at all be absent—it is absolutely necessary. This final determination or specification of the immediate is something positive which is in no sense rational. In the case of punishment, round numbers, for instance, decide the amount; you cannot find out by reason what is the absolutely just penalty. It is the irrational which is naturally positive. It must get a definite character, and it is characterised in a way which has nothing rational about it, or which contains nothing rational in it.

It is necessary to regard revealed religion in the following aspect also. Since in it there is present something historical, something which appears in an outward form, there is also present in it something positive, something contingent, which may take either one form or another. Thus it occurs in the case of religion as well, that owing to the externality, the appearance in an outward form which accompanies it, there is always something positive present.

But we must distinguish between the Positive as such, the abstract Positive, and the Positive in the form of and as the law of freedom. The law of freedom should not possess validity or authority because it is actually there, but rather because it is the essential characteristic of our rational nature itself. It is not, therefore, anything positive, not anything which simply has validity, if it is known to be a characteristic of this kind. Religion, too, appears in a positive form in all that constitutes its doctrines; but it is not meant to remain in this condition, or to be a matter of mere popular ideas or of pure memory.

The positive element connected with the verification


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 of religion consists in the idea that what is external should establish the truth of a religion, and should be regarded as the foundation of its truth. Here in this instance the verification takes the form of something positive as such. There are miracles and evidences which it is held prove the divinity of the person who reveals and prove that this person has communicated to men certain definite doctrines.

Miracles are changes connected with the world of sense, changes in the material world which are actually perceived, and this perception is itself connected with the senses because it has to do with changes in the world of sense. It has been already remarked in reference to this positive element of miracle, that it undoubtedly can produce a kind of verification for the man who is guided by his senses; but this is merely the beginning of verification, an unspiritual kind of verification by which what is spiritual cannot be verified.

The Spiritual, as such, cannot be directly verified or authenticated by what is unspiritual and connected with sense. The chief thing to be noticed in connection with this view of miracles is that in this way they are put on one side.

The understanding may attempt to explain miracles naturally, and may bring many plausible arguments against them—i.e., it may confine its attention simply to the outward fact, to what has happened, and direct its criticism against this. The essential standpoint of reason in the matter of miracles is that the truth of the Spiritual cannot be attested in an outward way; for what is spiritual is higher than what is outward, its truth can be attested only by itself and in itself, and demonstrated only through itself and in itself. This is what has been called the witness of the Spirit.

This very truth has found expression in the history of religion. Moses performs miracles before Pharaoh, and the Egyptian sorcerers imitate them, and this very fact


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 implies that no great value is to be put on them. The main thing, however, is that Christ Himself says, “Many will come who will do miracles in My name, but I know them not.” Here He Himself rejects miracles as a true criterion of truth. This is the essential point of view in regard to this question, and we must hold fast to the principle that the verification of religion by means of miracles, as well as the attacking of miracles, belong to a sphere which has no interest for us. The Witness of the Spirit is the true witness.

This witness may take various forms; it may be indefinite, general, something which is, broadly speaking, in harmony with Spirit, and which awakens a deeper response within it. In history all that is noble, lofty, moral, and divine, appeals to us; our spirit bears witness to it. The witness may not be more than this general response, this assent of the inner life, this sympathy. But it may also be united to intellectual grasp, to thought; and this intellectual grasp, inasmuch as it has no element of sense in it, belongs directly to the sphere of thought. It appears in the form of reasons, distinctions, and such like; in the form of mental activity, exercised along with and according to the specific forms of thought, the categories. It may appear in a more matured form or in a less matured form. It may have the character of something which constitutes the necessary basis of a man’s inner heart-life, of his spiritual life in general, the presupposition of general fundamental principles which have authoritative value for him and accompany him through life. These maxims don’t require to be consciously followed; rather, they represent the mode and manner in which his character is formed, the universal element which has got a firm footing in his spirit, and which accordingly is something permanent within his mind and governs him.

Starting from a firm foundation or presupposition of this sort, he can begin to reason logically, to define or


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 arrange under categories. Here the stages of intellectual advance and the methods of life are of very many kinds, and the needs felt are very various. The highest need of the human spirit, however, is thought—the witness of the Spirit, which is not present only in the merely responsive form of a kind of primary sympathy, nor in that other form according to which such firm foundations and fundamental principles do exist in the spirit, and have reflective thought built upon them, firmly based presuppositions from which conclusions can be drawn and deductions made.

The witness of the Spirit in its highest form takes the form of philosophy, according to which the Notion, purely as such, and without the presence of any presupposition, develops the truth out of itself, and we recognise it as developing, and perceive the necessity of the development in and through the development itself.

Belief has often been opposed to Thought in such a way as to imply that we can have no true conviction regarding God and the truths of religion by any other method than that of Thought, and thus the proofs of the existence of God have been pointed to as supplying the only method by which we can know and be convinced of the truth.

The witness of the Spirit may, however, be present in manifold and various ways; we have no right to demand that the truth should in the case of all men be got at in a philosophical way. The spiritual necessities of men vary according to their culture and free development; and so, too, the demand, the conviction that we should believe on authority, varies according to the different stages of development reached.

Even miracles have their place here, and it is interesting to observe that they have been reduced down to this minimum. There is thus still something positive present in this form of the witness of the Spirit as well. Sympathy, which is immediate certainty, is itself


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 positive in virtue of its immediacy, and the process of inference which starts from something laid down or given has a similar basis. It is man only who has a religion, and religion has its seat and its soil in thought. Heart or feeling is not the heart or feeling of an animal, but the heart of thinking man, a thinking heart, or feeling; and what shows itself in the heart as the feeling for religion, exists in the thinking element of the heart, or feeling. In so far as we begin to draw conclusions, to draw inferences, to suggest reasons, to advance to thought-determinations or categories of thought, we do this always by the exercise of thought.

Inasmuch as the doctrines of the Christian religion are found in the Bible, they are given in a positive way; and if they become subjective, if the Spirit bears witness to their truth, this can happen only in a purely immediate way, by a man’s inner nature, his spirit, his thought, his reason being impressed with their truth and assenting to it. Thus, for the Christian it is the Bible which is this basis, the fundamental basis, and which has upon him the effect referred to, which touches a chord in his heart, and gives firmness to his convictions.

We get a stage further, however, when it is seen that just because he is a thinking being he cannot rest in this state of immediate consent or witnessing to truth, but turns it over by thinking, meditating, and reflecting upon it. This accordingly leads to a further development in religion; and in its highest and most developed form it is theology, scientific religion; it is this content of religion known in a scientific way as the witness of Spirit.

But here a principle which is the opposite of this comes in, and which is expressed by saying that we should simply keep to the Bible. Looked at in one aspect, that is a perfectly correct principle. There are people who are very religious, who do nothing but read the Bible and repeat sayings out of it, and whose piety and religious feeling are of a lofty kind, but they are not


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 theologians; religion does not, so far, take with them a scientific form, the form of theology. Götze, the Lutheran zealot, had a celebrated collection of Bibles; the devil, too, quotes the Bible, but that by no means makes the theologian.

As soon, however, as this ceases to be simply the reading and repetition of passages, as soon as what is called explanation begins, as soon as an attempt is made by reasoning and exegesis to find out the meaning of what is in the Bible, then we pass into the region of inference, reflection, and thought, and then the question comes to be as to whether our thinking is correct or not, and as to how we exercise this power of thought.

It is of no use to say that these particular thoughts or these principles are based on the Bible. As soon as they cease to be anything more than the mere words of the Bible, a definite form is given to what constitutes them, to their content; this content gets a logical form, or, to put it otherwise, certain presuppositions are formed in connection with this content, and we approach the explanation of the passages with these presuppositions which represent the permanent element so far as the explanation is concerned. We bring with us certain ideas which guide us in the explanation given. The explanation of the Bible exhibits the substance or content of the Bible in the form or style of thought belonging to each particular age. The explanation which was first given was wholly different from that given now.

These presuppositions consist, for instance, of such an idea as this, that man is naturally good, or that we cannot know God. Consider how any one with such preconceived ideas in his mind must distort the Bible. Yet people bring such ideas to the interpretation of the Bible, although the Christian religion just means that we know God, and is just the religion in which God has revealed Himself and has shown what He is.

Thus here again the positive element may enter in


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 in another form, and in this connection it is a matter of great importance to determine whether this content, these ideas and principles, are true or not.

It is no longer the Bible which we have here, but the words as these have been conceived of within the mind or spirit. If the spirit gives expression to them, then they have already a form got from the spirit, the form of thought. It is necessary to examine this form which is thus given to the content of these words. Here again the positive element comes in. In this connection it means, for instance, that the existence of the formal logic of syllogistic reasoning, of the relations of thought belonging to what is finite, has been presupposed.

According to the ordinary view of the nature of reasoning, it is only what is finite, only what may be grasped by the understanding, that can be conceived of and known. Reason, as ordinarily understood, is not adequate to deal with a divine element or content. Thus this content is rendered totally useless.

As soon as theology ceases to be a rehearsal of what is in the Bible, and goes beyond the words of the Bible, and concerns itself with the character of the feelings within the heart, it employs forms of thought and passes into thought. If, however, it uses these forms in a haphazard way so that it has presuppositions and preconceived ideas, then its use of them is of an accidental and arbitrary kind, and it is the examination of these forms of thought which alone makes philosophy.

When theology turns against philosophy, it is either not conscious that it uses such forms, that it thinks itself, and that its main concern is to advance in accordance with thought, or else its opposition is not seriously meant, but is simply deception; it wishes to reserve for itself the right to think as it chooses, to indulge in thinking which does not follow laws and which is here the positive element.

The recognition of the true nature of thought lessens


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 the value of this arbitrary kind of thought. This sort of thought, which is a matter of choice and does not follow strict laws, is the positive element which comes in here. It is only the Notion in its true nature, the Notion for itself, which truly frees itself absolutely from this positive element, for both in philosophy and religion freedom in its highest form is thought itself as such.

The doctrine or content also takes on the form of something positive; it is something having a valid existence, and it passes as such in society. All law, all that is rational, and in general all that has true value or validity, takes the form of something which exists or is possessed of being, and as such it is for each one something essential, something having true value or validity. This, however, is merely the form in which what is positive appears; the content or substance must be constituted by the true Spirit.

The Bible represents the Positive in this form; but it is one of its own sayings, that the letter killeth, while the spirit giveth life; and here the important point is the kind of spirit which is brought into connection with the letter, what kind of spirit gives life to the word. We must know that we bring with us a concrete spirit, a thinking, reflecting, or feeling spirit, and we must have a consciousness of the presence of this spirit which is active and forms a conception of the content before it.

This act of apprehending or forming a conception is not a passive reception of something into the mind, but, on the contrary, just because the spirit forms a conception, this conceiving of something is at the same time a manifestation of its activity. It is only in the mechanical sphere that one of the sides remains passive in connection with the process of reception. Thus Spirit plays a part here, and this spirit has its ideas and conceptions, it is a logical Essence, a form of thinking activity, and the spirit must know this activity. Thought in this form, however, can also pass into the various categories of finitude.


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 It is Spirit which after this fashion starts from what is positive but is essentially in it; it must be the true, right spirit, the Holy Spirit which apprehends and knows the Divine, and which apprehends and knows this content as divine. This is the witness of the Spirit, and it may have a more or less developed form.

The main thing, therefore, so far as the Positive is concerned, is that Spirit occupies a thinking relation to things, that it appears in an active form in the categories or specific forms of thought, that Spirit is active here and may take the shape of feeling, reasoning, &c. Some don’t know this, and are not conscious when they have impressions that they are active in receiving them.

Many theologians, while treating their subject exegetically, and as they imagine taking up a purely receptive attitude to what is in the Bible, are not aware that they are at the same time thinking actively and reflecting. Since this kind of thinking is accidental, governed by no necessary laws, it yields itself up to the guidance of the categories of finitude, and is consequently incapable of grasping the divine element in the content; it is not the divine but the human spirit which is actively present in such categories.

It is owing to this finite way of conceiving of the Divine, of what has full and complete Being, what is in and for itself, and to this finite way of thinking of the absolute content, that the fundamental doctrines of Christianity have for the most part disappeared from Dogmatics. At the present time it is philosophy which is not only orthodox, but orthodox par excellence; and it is it which maintains and preserves the principles which have always held good, the fundamental truths of Christianity.

In treating of this religion we do not go to work historically after the fashion of that form of mental action which starts from what is outward, but, on the contrary, we start from the Notion. That form of activity which starts from what is outward takes the shape of


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 which apprehends or receives impressions only when we look at it in one of its two aspects, while looked at in the other it is activity.

Our attitude here is essentially an attitude of activity of this kind; we are, in fact, conscious that we are thinking on thought itself, on the course taken by the categories of thought, a kind of thinking which has tested itself and knows itself, which knows how it thinks, and knows which are the finite and which the true categories of thought. That, regarding the matter from the other point of view, we start from what is positive, is true in reference to education, and is even necessary; but here we must abandon this mode of procedure in so far as we employ the scientific method.

3. The absolute religion is thus the religion of Truth and Freedom. For truth means that the mind does not take up such an attitude to the objective as would imply that this is something foreign to it. Freedom brings out the real meaning of truth, and gives it a specific character by means of negation. Spirit is for Spirit; that expresses its nature, and it is thus its own presupposition. We start with Spirit as subject, it is identical with itself, it is the eternal perception of itself, and it is at the same time conceived of only as a result, as the end of a process. It is the presupposition of itself, and it is at the same time the result, and it exists only as the end of a process. This is truth, this condition of being adequate, of being object and subject. The fact that it is itself the object makes it the reality, the Notion, the Idea, and it is this which makes the Truth. So, too, it is the religion of freedom. Freedom considered abstractly means that the mind is related to something objective which is not regarded as foreign to its nature, its essential character is the same as that of truth, only that in the case of freedom the negation of the difference of Otherness has been done away with and absorbed in something higher, and thus it appears in the form of Reconciliation.


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 starts from the fact that there are different forms of existence which stand to each other in a relation of opposition, namely, God, who has opposed to Him an estranged world, and a world which is estranged from its own essential Being. Reconciliation is the negation of this separation, of this division; it means that each recognises itself, finds itself and its essential nature, in the other. Reconciliation is thus freedom; but it is not something in a state of repose, something which simply is; on the contrary, it is activity. All that we mean by reconciliation, truth, freedom, represents a universal process, and cannot therefore be expressed in a single proposition without becoming one-sided. The main idea which in a popular form expresses the truth, is that of the unity of the divine and human natures; God has become Man. This unity is at first potential only, but being such it has to be eternally produced or brought into actual existence; and this act of production is the freeing process, the reconciliation which in fact is possible only by means of the potentiality. The Substance which is identical with itself is this unity, which as such is the basis, but which as subjectivity is what eternally produces itself.

The final result of the whole of philosophy is that this Idea only is the absolute truth. In its pure form it is the logical result, but it is likewise the result of a study of the concrete world. What constitutes the truth is that Nature, life, Spirit, are thoroughly organic, that each separate thing is merely the mirror of this Idea, in such a way that the Idea exhibits itself in it as in something isolated, as a process in it, and thus it manifests this unity in itself.

The Religion of Nature is the religion which occupies the standpoint of consciousness only. This standpoint is to be found in the Absolute Religion as well, but it exists within it only as a transitory moment. In the Religion of Nature God is represented as an “Other,” as present in a natural shape; or, to put it otherwise, religion appears in the form merely of consciousness. The


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 second form was that of the spiritual religion, of Spirit which does not get beyond finite characterisation. So far it is the religion of self-consciousness, that is, of absolute power, of necessity in the sense which we have given to these terms. The One, the Power, is something defective, because it is abstract Power only, and is not in virtue of its content absolute subjectivity, but is only abstract necessity, abstract, simple, undifferentiated Being. The condition of abstraction in which the Power and the necessity are conceived of as still existing at this stage, constitutes their finitude, and it is the particular powers, namely, the gods who when characterised in accordance with their spiritual content first make totality, since they add a real content to that abstraction. Lastly, we have the third form of religion, the religion of freedom, of self-consciousness, which, however, is at the same time a consciousness of the all-embracing reality which constitutes the determinateness of the eternal Idea of God Himself, and a consciousness which does not go outside of itself, which remains beside itself in this objectivity. Freedom is the essential characteristic of self-consciousness.

B.

THE METAPHYSICAL NOTION OR CONCEPTION OF THE IDEA OF GOD.

The metaphysical notion of God here means that we have to speak only of the pure Notion which is real through its own self. And thus the determination or definition of God here is that He is the Absolute Idea, i.e., that He is Spirit. Spirit, however, or the Absolute Idea, is what appears simply as the unity of the Notion and reality in such a way that the Notion in itself represents totality, while the reality does the same. This reality, however, is Revelation, actual manifestation, manifestation which is for self. Since manifestation, too,


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 has in itself the moment of difference, it contains the note or characteristic of finite Spirit, of human nature, which being finite stands opposed to the Notion above mentioned. Since, however, we call the Absolute Notion the divine nature, the Idea of Spirit means the unity of divine and human nature. But the divine nature itself is merely something which is to be Absolute Spirit, and thus it is just the unity of divine and human nature which is itself the Absolute Spirit. The truth, however, cannot be expressed in a single proposition. The absolute Notion and the Idea as the absolute unity of their reality, are different the one from the other. Spirit is accordingly the living Process by which the implicit unity of the divine and human natures becomes actual and comes to have a definite existence.

Thus the abstract character or description of this Idea is the unity of the Notion with Reality. One of the Proofs of the Existence of God takes the form of a proof which represents this transition or mediation according to which the Being of God follows from the notion or conception of God. It is to be observed that in the case of the other proofs we started from finite Being as representing something immediate, and inferred from its existence the existence of the Infinite, or true Being, which appeared in the form of infinitude, necessity, absolute power which is at the same time wisdom and has ends within itself. Here, on the contrary, we start from the notion or conception, and go on to Being. Both methods are necessary, and it is necessary to point out the existence of this unity, since we may start from either side with equal propriety, for it is the identity of the two which is the truth. The Notion as well as Being, the world, the finite, are equally one-sided determinations, each of which changes round into the other, and appears at one time as a moment without independence, and at another as producing the other determination which it carries within itself. Their truth is to be found in the Idea only, i.e.,


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 both are to be regarded as things posited, as dependent for their existence on something else. Neither of the two can be characterised simply as something which continues to begin or is permanently original, but must show itself in the character of something which passes over into the other, i.e., it must show itself to be something posited. This transition has two opposite meanings, each is represented as a moment, i.e., as something which passes over from immediacy to the Other, so that each is something posited. On the other hand, it has the signification also of something which produces the Other, inasmuch as it posits the Other, or brings it forward into actual existence. Thus one of these two elements represents movement; but so, too, does the other.

If, accordingly, the transition to Being is to be exhibited in the Notion, it is necessary to point out, to begin with, that the characterisation or determination we call Being is of an utterly poor kind. It is abstract equality with self, that last form of abstraction which is indeed affirmation, but affirmation in its most abstract form, purely indeterminate, characterless immediacy. If there were nothing more in the Notion it would be necessary to put into it at least this most extreme form of abstraction, namely, that the Notion is. Even when it is defined simply as infinitude, or with a more concrete meaning as the unity of the Universal and the Particular, as universality which particularises itself and thus returns into itself, this negation of the negative, this reference to self, is Being taken in a purely abstract sense. This identity with self, this characterisation just described, is directly contained in the Notion as an essential element.

Still it is necessary to state that the transition from the Notion to Being has a rich and varied character, and contains what most deeply concerns reason. The understanding of this relation between the Notion and Being is something, too, which very specially concerns our time. We must indicate more definitely the reason why this


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 transition possesses such an interest for us. The appearance of this state of contrast or opposition is a sign that subjectivity has reached the furthest point of its Being for self or independent Being, and has arrived at the condition of Totality, in which it knows itself as infinite and absolute in itself. The essential characteristic of revealed religion appears in the form of something by means of which Substance is Spirit. Of the two opposite sides one is represented by the subject itself which is the realisation of the Idea taken in its concrete meaning. The reason why this opposition seems so hard to overcome and seems to be infinite is that this particular side or aspect of reality, the side of subjectivity, the finite spirit in itself, has reached the point at which it is able to comprehend its infinity. It is only when the subject is a totality, when it has attained to this inner freedom, that it is Being; but then it is also the case that Being in this form is indifferent relatively to this subject, the subject is for itself, and Being stands above it as an Other which is indifferent to it. It is this which more particularly constitutes the reason why the opposition can appear to be of an infinite kind, and it is because of this and as an immediate result of this that there exists in all that has life an impulse to reconcile the opposing elements. The demand that these opposing elements should be reconciled is directly involved in the totality which belongs to them; but the abolition of the opposition has become infinitely difficult, because the opposition is of such an infinite kind, and because the Other is so entirely free, being something which exists in another sphere, in a sphere beyond.

Thus the grandeur of the standpoint of the modern world consists in this going down of the subject into itself whereby the finite knows itself to be the Infinite and is yet hampered with the antithesis or opposition which it is forced to solve. For the Infinite has an Infinite opposed to it, and thus the Infinite itself takes on the form of something finite, so that the subject,


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 because of its infinitude, is driven to do away with this antithesis or opposition which is just what has so deepened it as to make it realise its infinitude. The antithesis consists in this, that I am subject, free, a person existing for myself, and therefore I leave the Other free as something which is in another sphere and remains there. The ancients did not attain to a consciousness of this antithesis or division, which can be tolerated only by Spirit when it exists for itself. Spirit, in fact, simply means that which comprehends itself in an infinite way in antithesis or opposition. Our present standpoint implies that we have on the one side the notion of God, and on the other Being as opposed to the Notion. What accordingly is demanded is the reconciliation of the two in such a way that the Notion will force itself to take on the form of Being, or that the nature of Being will be deduced from the Notion and the Other, the antithesis or contrasted element will proceed out of the Notion. It is necessary to explain briefly the mode and manner in which this takes place, as also the forms of the understanding which belong to it.

The form in which this mediation appears is that of the Ontological Proof of the existence of God, in which we start from the Notion. What then is the notion of God? It is the most real of all things, it is to be conceived of affirmatively only, it is determined in itself, its content has no limitation, it is all reality, and only as reality is it without limit, and consequently all that really remains outside of it is a dead abstraction, as has been already remarked. The possibility of this Notion, i.e., its identity having in it no element of contradiction, is exhibited in the form proper to the Understanding. The second point is involved in the statement, Being is a reality, Non-being is negation, defect, simply the opposite of Being. The third point consists of the conclusion, Being is therefore reality, and this belongs to the notion or conception of God.

The objections brought by Kant against this mode of


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 reasoning amount to an annihilation of the Proof, and their correctness has come to be taken for granted. Kant tells us that the Being of God cannot be got out of the notion or conception of God, for Being is something different from the Notion; we distinguish between the two, they are mutually opposed, and thus the Notion cannot contain Being, which is something outside of it and beyond it. He says further, that Being is not in any sense reality, it is to God that all reality is to be attributed, consequently Being is not contained in the notion of God, and thus it does not stand for any specific content or determination of content, but, on the contrary, is pure Form. I may imagine I have a hundred thalers, or may actually possess them, but in either case the thalers are not altered, and consequently the content is always the same whether I have them or not. Kant thus understands by the content what constitutes the notion or conception, although the meaning attached to the latter is not what is usually implied in the Notion. We may certainly put it so, if by the Notion we understand the determination of the content, and make a distinction between the content and the form which contains the thought, and, on the other side, Being. In this way all content is referred to the Notion, and all that is left to the other side is simply the characteristic of Being. Put shortly, it amounts to saying that the Notion is not Being, but that the two are different. We cannot understand anything about God, or get any knowledge of Him; we can, it is true, form notions or conceptions about Him, but this by no means implies that there is anything actually corresponding to these notions.

As a matter of fact, we know that it is possible to build castles in the air, which, all the same, don’t exist. Kant thus appeals to popular ideas so far, and in this way he has, in the general judgment, annihilated the Ontological Proof, and has won great applause for himself.

Anselm of Canterbury, a thoroughly learned theologian,


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 presented the Proof in the following form. God is the most perfect of all existences, the substance of all reality; but if God is simply an idea, a subjective idea, then He is not the most perfect of beings, for we only regard as perfect something which we do not merely picture to ourselves by an idea, but which has in addition Being. This is perfectly correct, and it contains a presupposition which everybody has in his mind, namely, that what is merely represented in the form of a mental picture is imperfect, and that that alone is perfect which has reality as well, that that only is true which exists just as really as it is thought of. God is thus the most perfect of beings, and must therefore be as truly real and truly exist as He is conception or notion. But it is further implied in the idea, as thus understood, that the ordinary idea and the notion are different, and consequently we get the idea that what is merely pictured to the mind as an idea is imperfect, while God, again, is the most perfect of beings. Kant does not demonstrate the difference between notion or conception and Being; it is understood in a popular sense, its truth is granted, but the healthy human understanding forms pictorial ideas only in connection with imperfect things.

Anselm’s proof, as well as the form given to it in the Ontological Proof, contains the thought that God is the substance of all reality, and consequently contains Being as well. This is perfectly correct. Being is such a poor characteristic or quality that it directly attaches to the Notion. The other point is that Being and Notion are also different from each other. Being and Thought, ideality and reality, are different from and opposed to each other; the true difference is opposition as well, and this contrast is to be done away with, and the unity of the two characteristics is to be exhibited in such a way that it will be seen to be what results from the negation of the contrast. Being is contained in the Notion. This reality when it is unlimited gives us only empty words,


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 empty abstractions. Thus it has to be shown that the characteristic or quality of Being is affirmatively contained in the Notion, and so we get the unity of the Notion and Being.

They are, however, different, too, and thus their unity is the negative unity of both, and what we are concerned with is the abolition of the difference. The difference must be discussed, and the existence of the unity must be established and exhibited in accordance with this difference. It belongs to logic to exhibit the unity in this way—that the Notion is this movement according to which it characterises itself and takes on the form of Being, and that this dialectic, this movement in accordance with which the Notion gives itself the characteristics of Being, of its opposite, and which we may call the logical element, is a further development of thought which is accordingly not found in the Ontological Proof. It is this which constitutes the defect of the latter.

As regards the form of Anselm’s thought, it has been remarked that it is implied in the content that the notion or conception of God presupposes reality, because God is the most perfect of beings. The real point is that the notion gives itself an objective form on its own account; but God is thus the most perfect of beings only in idea, or popular thought. It is when measured with the idea of the most perfect being that the bare conception of God appears defective. The conception of perfection is the standard, and thus it is seen that God as simply notion or thought does not come up to this standard.

Perfection is a merely indeterminate idea. What is really meant when anything is called perfect? The essential quality of the perfect may be directly seen in something which is the opposite of that to which it is here applied, that is to say, imperfection represents merely the thought of God, and thus perfection is the unity of thought or the Notion with reality, and this unity is therefore presupposed or pre-posited here. In


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Rh already said, that my brother was supposed, a short time since, to be still living at Middlewitch.

My fortune had now changed. I was a prisoner, working at the new fortifications being thrown up for the defence of Woolwich. In about six months, however, a new light broke out over my unhappy existence, and an opportunity was afforded me of ultimately retrieving my character, and acquiring freedom: this was by the determination of the British Government to found a penal settlement at Port Phillip, on the south-eastern coast of New Holland; that part known as New South Wales being the only portion of the Continent then occupied. Being a mechanic, I, with others, was selected and placed on board His Majesty's ship Calcutta, Captain Woodriff. Lieutenant-Colonel Collins, of the Royal Marines, was appointed Governor, and he accompanied the expedition, having with him in the same ship, several officers and a detachment of his corps, as a guard over the prisoners during the voyage, and after their landing. The treatment I received on the passage was very good, and, as I endeavoured to make myself useful on board, I was permitted to be the greater part of my time on deck, assisting the crew in working the ship. In justice to the officers placed over us, I must say, the treatment all the prisoners received at their hands, was as far from suffering, as could be expected, at a time when prison discipline was generally carried out by coercion, and the lash and the rope were, in too many instances, considered too good for all who had been convicted. To amend


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 that God is posited as the Most Perfect. He has here no further determination or characterisation, He is the perfect one only, He exists only as such, and this represents His determinate character. It is clear from this that the real point is only this unity of the Notion and reality. This unity is the characteristic of perfection and at the same time of the Godhead itself, and it is in fact the characteristic of the Idea too. It certainly, however, belongs still more to the determination of God.

The presupposition which really underlies the Notion, as it was understood by Anselm, is that of the unity of the Notion and reality, and thus we see why this proof cannot satisfy reason, because it is just this very presupposition that is in question. The view according to which the Notion determines itself in itself, gives itself an objective form or realises itself, is one which is reached later, and proceeds from the nature of the Notion itself, and cannot exist apart from this. This is the view which raises the question as to how far the Notion can itself do away with its one-sidedness.

If we compare this view with that which belongs to our own day, and which in a very special sense originated with Kant, it may be put thus: Man thinks, perceives, wills, and his acts of will are connected with his acts of thought, he both thinks and forms conceptions, and is a being both with a concrete sense nature and a rational nature. Then, further, the notion of God, the Idea, the Infinite, the Unlimited, is, according to this view, a notion merely which we construct; but we must not forget that it is only a notion which exists in our heads. Why is it said that it is only a notion? The notion is something imperfect since thought is only one quality, one form of human activity amongst others, i.e., we measure the notion by the reality which we have actually before us in concrete individuals. Man is certainly not merely a thinking being; he is a being with a sense nature as well, and may have sense objects even


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 in his thought. This is, in fact, merely the subjective element in the notion. We find it to be imperfect on account of the standard applied to it, because this standard is the concrete man. It might be said that we declare the Notion to be nothing more than a notion, and what is perceived by the senses to be reality, and assert that reality means what we see, feel, or perceive in sensation. This might possibly be maintained, and there are many who do maintain this, and who recognise nothing as reality unless what is felt or tasted; only it is not conceivable that men should fall so low as to ascribe reality only to what is perceived by the senses, and not to what is spiritual. It is the concrete total subjectivity of man which is floating before the mind, and which is taken as the standard, measured by which the grasping of things in the Notion is nothing more than a forming of notions or conceptions.

If, accordingly, we compare the two views—that of Anselm, and that which belongs to the present time—we see that what they have in common is that both make presuppositions. Anselm presupposes indeterminate perfection, the modern view the concrete subjectivity of men in general. As compared with that perfection, and, on the other hand, as compared with that empirical and concrete subjectivity, the Notion appears to be something one-sided and unsatisfying. In Anselm’s view, the characteristic of perfection really means, too, that it is the unity of the Notion and reality. With Descartes and Spinoza, too, God is the First, the absolute unity of thought and Being, cogito, ergo sum, the absolute Substance; and this is also the view of Leibnitz. What we thus have on one side is a presupposition, which is in reality something concrete, the unity of subject and object, and judged by this the Notion seems to be defective. According to the modern view, we must hold to the thought that the Notion is merely the Notion, and does not correspond to the concrete. Anselm, on the


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 other hand, tells us that we must abandon the thought of regarding the subjective notion as something fixed and independent, and that, on the contrary, we must start from its one-sidedness. Both views have this in common, that they contain presuppositions, and what is distinctive in each is that the modern world makes the concrete the basis, while, according to Anselm’s view—the metaphysical view—on the other hand, it is absolute thought, the absolute Idea which is the unity of the Notion and reality, that forms the basis. This old view is, so far, superior, inasmuch as it does not take the concrete in the sense of empirical men, empirical reality, but as thought; and it is superior to the other also, because it does not keep to the idea of something imperfect. In the modern view the contradiction between the concrete and what is only notion or conception is not solved; the subjective notion exists, it has a real value, it must be considered as subjective, it is what is real. Thus the older point of view is greatly to be preferred, because its keynote rests on the Idea. The modern view, again, has one characteristic of a broader kind, since it represents the concrete as the unity of the Notion and of reality; while, in contrast to this, the older view does not get beyond an abstraction of perfection.


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6 and reclaim, to bring back to society, and to administer hope and consolation, were, in those days, considered the encouragement of mutiny, and hence, to be permitted to live without additional sentences, and summary punishments, was looked upon,—as mercy.

At length our voyage was at an end, and the Calcutta came to an anchor within the Heads, at about two miles from what is now known as Point Lonsdale.

The Natives call that place Koonan, which means eels, that fish being in great abundance in almost all the streams running into Port Phillip. The particular locality had been chosen as the scite of a penal station, it being six hundred miles from the nearest settlement, Sydney, and the chances of escape offered to the prisoner being, therefore, very few. In a short time the Marines and convicts landed, and encamped. A distinction was made between the mechanics and the rest of the prisoner people, the former being permitted to hut themselves outside the line of sentinels, whilst the labourers were placed under a more careful controul. This was necessary, as the lime-burners, brickmakers, and sawyers, were compelled to work in all directions, and at a distance from the encampment. A magazine and a store-house were the first public buildings commenced, and at the former I had been employed about three months, when I determined on endeavouring to make my escape, and to get, if possible, to Sydney. The attempt was little short of madness, for there was before me the chances of being retaken, and probable death, or other dreadful punishment; or again,


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Rh in an unknown country inhabited by savages; with whose language and habits, I was totally unacquainted, besides the dangers innumerable which the reader may in part imagine, but which no man can describe—no, not even myself; although, by the merciful providence of God, I surmounted them all.

These perils and difficulties are now passed; they were then staring me in the face; but possessed of great personal strength, a good constitution, and having known what might be done by courageous men when combating for life and liberty, I determined on braving everything, and, if possible, making my escape. Perhaps my unsettled nature in a great measure induced this, and, that my impatience of every kind of restraint, also led to the resolution. However this may be, four of us agreed to take to the bush, as absconding is called, and being allowed the use of a gun for killing kangaroo and opossums, we made up our minds to start the first dark night, taking it with us, and as much provisions as we could muster.

The opportunity soon offered and we left, as we hoped, unobserved; we however were not so fortunate, for one of the sentinels challenged, and receiving no answer, immediately fired, shooting the last man of the four of us, as I thought, dead; at least, I never after saw, nor heard of him. After running the greater part of the first three or four hours, to make our escape the more certain, we halted for rest and refreshment. We were now fairly launched on our perilous voyage, and it became necessary to reflect on our position, and to examine our


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8. The latter consisted of sundry tin pots, an iron kettle, the fowling-piece already mentioned, and a few days' rations. We now pushed on again until we came to a river, and near the bay; this stream the natives call Darkee Barwin: here we rested until daylight, and then prepared to renew our march. Early in the morning, a large party, or tribe of the natives, was seen, armed with spears; and, thinking to alarm them by so unusual a sound, I fired the piece, on hearing which, they retired hurriedly into the bush. I should here observe, that we had now very little apprehension of being retaken, believing the opinion of Governor Collins to be, that any prisoner attempting to escape, would gladly deliver himself up, rather than perish of hunger; besides, we had, by the rapid rate at which we had travelled during the night, placed a considerable distance between us and the encampment. Light marching order being very desirable, when starting on our first day's march, we resolved on parting company with the iron kettle, as a useless article, and therefore threw it into the scrub, where it was found, thirty-two years after, by a party of men clearing ground for agricultural purposes.

Our next business was to cross the river, but as all of us could not swim, I passed first to try its depth, and after considerable difficulty succeeded in getting my companions over, and then I swam over again for their clothes, being the best swimmer of the party. That night we reached to about twenty miles distant from what is now the City of Melbourne, and halted there


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Rh until the morning, when we crossed the Yarra River; and, after passing over extensive plains, reached the Yawang Hills, where we finished the last particle of bread and meat that we had, not having divided our rations properly, and taken the precautions necessary to avoid starvation. Here we remained the night; the next morning, I told my companions that we must make for the beach to look for food, or death was certain. They agreed with this suggestion, and after a long and weary march we again made the shore of the bay, and finding a few shell fish, with them appeased our hunger. At a place the natives call Kooraioo, in an extensive bay, we were so fortunate as to find a well of fresh water, and here we remained the night:—the following day continuing our course along the beach gathering shell fish, until we reached a place called Woodela, signifying rock. Here we again rested, if rest it might be called, suffering as we were from the want of the absolute necessaries of life: the fish although preserving it, affecting us all very severely. The next day our route was the same, and as we saw several native huts in our journey, we were hourly expecting to fall in with one of the tribes, hunting or fishing on that part of the coast. Another day's travel brought us to a little island, called Barwal, which we could reach at low water, and here we halted several days to recover our strength, which was by this time greatly exhausted. We found about this place a sort of gum, which, when placed over a fire became soft, and palatable; on this, and fish, we subsisted. From


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10, we could see the Calcutta at anchor on the opposite side of the bay. The perils we had already encountered damped the ardour of my companions, and it was anxiously wished by them that they could rejoin her, so we set about making signals, by lighting fires at night, and hoisting our shirts on trees and poles by day. At length a boat was seen to leave the ship and come in our direction, and although the dread of punishment was naturally great, yet the fear of starvation exceeded it, and they anxiously waited her arrival to deliver themselves up, indulging anticipations of being, after all the sufferings they had undergone, forgiven by the Governor. These expectations of relief were however delusive, when about half way across the bay, the boat returned, and all hope vanished. We remained in the same place, and living in the same way, six more days, signalizing all the time, but without success, so that my companions seeing no probable relief, gave themselves up to despair, and lamented bitterly their helpless situation.

At the end of the next day they determined on retracing their steps round the head of the bay, and if possible, rejoining their companions at the encampment. To all their advice, and entreaties to accompany them, I turned a deaf ear, being determined to endure every kind of suffering rather than again surrender my liberty. After some time we separated, going in different directions. When I had parted from my companions, although I had preferred doing so, I was overwhelmed with the various feelings which oppressed me: it would be vain to attempt describing my sensations. I thought of the


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Broughton, William Robert


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Broun


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Broun, John Allan


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Broun, Richard


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Brinkley, John


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 CHAPTER VI

HER MAID OF ALL WORK

sometimes I was her maid of all work.

It is early morn, and my mother has come noiselessly into my room. I know it is she, though my eyes are shut, and I am only half awake. Perhaps I was dreaming of her, for I accept her presence without surprise, as if in the awakening I had but seen her go out at one door to come in at another. But she is speaking to herself.

"I'm sweer to waken him—I doubt he was working late—oh, that weary writing—no, I maunna waken him."

I start up. She is wringing her hands. "What is wrong?" I cry, but I know before she answers. My sister is down with one of the headaches against which even she cannot fight, and my mother, who bears physical pain as if it were a comrade, is most woe-begone when her daughter is the sufferer.

"And she winna let me go down the stair to make a cup of tea for her," she groans.

"I will soon make the tea, mother."

"Will you?" she says eagerly. It is what she Rh

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