But it
is by no means allowable to mix and intermingle realities;
and, it may be, to ascribe to the Sensible World what is
supposed to belong to it, at the same time not denying to
to the Moral World any of its rights;--as is sometimes at-
tempted by those who would get rid of these questions al-
together.
is by no means allowable to mix and intermingle realities;
and, it may be, to ascribe to the Sensible World what is
supposed to belong to it, at the same time not denying to
to the Moral World any of its rights;--as is sometimes at-
tempted by those who would get rid of these questions al-
together.
Fichte - Nature of the Scholar
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
own nature, give birth to a division in itself; since in
this act there is apparent not only Knowledge itself,
which would be one, but, at the same time, Knowledge
as this or that, with this or that character or attribute,
which adds a second element to the first, and that one
arising from the first;--so that the very foundation of
reflexion is thus divided into two separate parts. This
is the essential and fundamental law of reflexion.
(e. ) Now the first and immediate object of absolute
reflexion is Ex-istence itself; which, according to the
necessary form of Knowledge, as before explained, has
been changed from a living Life into a definite sub-
stance or World:--thus the first object of absolute
reflexion is the World. By reason of the essential
form of reflexion which we have just set forth, this
World must separate and divide itself in reflexion; so
that the World, or the abiding Ex-istence in the ab-
stract, may assume a definite character, and the ab-
stract World reproduce itself in reflexion under a par-
ticular shape. This, as we said, lies in reflexion it-
self as such;--reflexion, however, as we have also said,
is in itself absolutely free and independent . Hence,
were this reflexion inactive, were there nothing re-
flected,--as in consequence of this freedom might be
the case,--then there would be nothing apparent; but
were reflexion infinitely active, were there an endless
series of its acts--reflexion upon reflexion,--as through
this freedom might as well be the case,--then to every
new reflexion the World would appear in a new shape,
and thus proceed throughout an Infinite Time, which
is likewise created only by the absolute freedom of re-
flexion, in an endless course of change and transmuta-
tion, as an Infinite Manifold. As conception in the
abstract was seen to be the World-creator; so here,
the free act of reflexion is seen to be the creator of
Multiplicity, and indeed of an infinite Multiplicity, in
the World; while the World nevertheless, notwith-
standing this Multiplicity, remains the same, because
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? LECTURE IV.
445
the abstract conception, in its fundamental character,
remains One and the same.
(f. ) And now to combine what we have said into
one view;--Consciousness,--that is we ourselves,--is
the Divine Ex-istence (Daseyn) itself, and absolutely
one with it. This Divine Ex-istence apprehends it-
self and thereby becomes Consciousness; and its own
Being (Seyn) -- the true Divine Being--becomes a
World to it. In this position what does this Con-
sciousness contain? I think each of you will answer:
--" The World and nothing but the World. " Or does
this Consciousness also contain the immediate Divine
Life? I think each of you will answer:--" No;--for
Consciousness must necessarily change this immediate
Divine Life into a World; and thus, Consciousness be-
ing supposed, this change is also supposed as accom-
plished; and Consciousness itself is, by its very nature,
and therefore without being again conscious of it, the
completion of this change. But now, where is that
immediate Divine Life which, in its immediateness, is
itself Consciousness;--where has it vanished, since, ac-
cording to our own admissions rendered clearly neces-
sary by our previous conclusions, in this its immediate-
ness it is irreversibly effaced from Consciousness? We
reply:--It has not vanished, but it is and abides there,
where alone it can be, in the hidden and inaccessible
Being of Consciousness, which no conception can reach;
--in that which alone supports Consciousness, main-
tains it in Ex-istence, and even makes its Ex-istence
possible. In Consciousness the Divine Life is inevit-
ably changed into an actual and abiding World:--
further, every actual Consciousness is an act of re-
flexion; the act of reflexion, however, inevitably di-
vides the One World into an infinite variety of shapes,
the comprehension of which can never be completed,
and of which therefore only a finite series enters into
Consciousness. I ask:--Where then abides the One
World, in itself perfect and complete, as the efficient
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
antitype of the likewise perfect and complete Divine
Life ? --I answer:--It abides there, where alone it is,--
not in any individual act of reflexion, but in the one,
absolute, fundamental form of conception; which thou
canst never reproduce in actual, immediate Conscious-
ness, but only in Thought raising itself above Con-
sciousness;--just as thou canst likewise reproduce in
the same Thought the still farther removed, and more
deeply hidden, Divine Life. Where then,--in this stream
of actual reflexion, and its world-creation, flowing on
for ever through ceaseless changes,--where then abides
the One, Eternal and Unchangeable Being (Seyn) of Con-
sciousness manifested in the Divine Ex-istence (Da-
seyn)? It does not enter into this stream of change, but
only its type, image, or representation, enters therein.
As thy physical eye is a prism in which the light of
the sensuous world, which in itself is pure, simple and
colourless, breaks itself upon the surfaces of things in-
to many hues,--while nevertheless thou wilt not main-
tain on that account that the light is in itself coloured,
but only that, to thy eye, and while standing with thy
eye in this state of reciprocal influence, it separates
itself into colours,--although thou still canst not see
the light colourless, but canst only think it colourless,
to which thought thou givest credence only when the
nature of thy seeing eye becomes known to thee:--so
also proceed in the things of the spiritual world and
with the vision of thy spiritual eye. What thou seest,
that thou art: but thou art it not as thou seest it, nor
dost thou see it as thou art it . Thou art it, unchange-
able and pure, without colour and without shape. Only
reflexion,--which likewise thou thyself art, and which
therefore thou canst never put away from thee,--only
this causes it to separate before thee into innumerable
rays and shapes. Know therefore that it is not in it-
self thus broken up, and formed, and invested with a
multiplicity of shapes, but that it only seems so in this
thy reflexion, thy spiritual eye, by which alone thou
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? LECTURE IV.
447
canst see,-- and in reciprocal influence with this re-
flexion. -- Raise thyself above this Appearance, which in
Reality can as little be obliterated as the colours from
before thy physical eye,--raise thyself above this Ap-
pearance to true Thought, let thyself be penetrated by
it, and thou wilt henceforward have faith in it alone.
So much as has now been said may, in my opinion, be
contributed through the medium of a popular discourse
to the solution of the question :--Whence,--since Being in
itself must be absolutely One, without change or varia-
tion, and is evident to Thought as such,--whence arises the
mutability and change which is nevertheless encountered
by actual Consciousness? Being, in itself, is indeed One,
the One Divine Being; and this alone is the true Reality in
all Ex-istence, and so remains in all Eternity. By reflex-
ion, which in actual Consciousness is indissolubly united with
Being, this One Being is broken up into an infinite variety
of forms. This separation, as we said, is absolutely original,
and in actual Consciousness can never be abolished nor
superseded by anything else; and therefore the visible
forms which by this separation are imposed upon absolute
Reality are discernible only in actual Consciousness, and so
that in the act of observing them we assign to them life
and endurance;--and they are by no means discoverable a
priori to pure Thought. They are simple and absolute Ex-
perience, which is nothing but Experience; which no Spec-
ulation that understands itself will ever attempt or desire to
lay hold of; and indeed the substance of this Experience,
with respect to each particular thing, is that which abso-
lutely belongs to it alone and is its individual character-
istic,--that which in the whole infinite course of Time can
never be repeated, and which can never before have oc-
curred. But the general properties or attributes of these
forms which are thus imposed upon the One Reality by its
separation in Consciousness,--with reference to their agree-
ment with which attributes, classes and species arise,--these
may be discovered by a priori investigation of the different
laws of reflexion, as we have already set forth its one fun-
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? 448
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
damental law;--and a systematic philosophy ought to do
this, and must do it, in a complete and exhaustive manner.
Thus may Matter in Space,--Time,--a fixed system of
Worlds,--how the substance of Consciousness, which in it-
self can be but One, divides itself into a system of separate
and apparently independent individuals,--thus, I say, may
these and all things of this kind, be deduced with perfect
clearness from the laws of reflexion. But these'investiga-
tions are more needful to the attainment of a fundamental
insight into particular Sciences than to the development
of a Blessed Life. They belong to the scientific teaching of
Philosophy as its exclusive property; and they are neither
susceptible of popular exposition nor do they stand in need
of it. Here, therefore, at this indicated point, lies the boun-
dary line which divides strict Science from popular teaching.
We have, as you see, arrived at that limit; and it may
therefore be anticipated that our inquiry shall now gradual-
ly descend to those regions which, at least with respect to
their objects, are familiar to us, and which we have even
sometimes touched upon already.
Besides the division, which we have set forth in to-day's
lecture, of the World which arises in Consciousness from out
the Divine Life, into a World of infinite variety and change,
with reference to its form, by means of the fundamental
law of reflexion; there is yet another division, inseparably
bound up with the first, of the same World, not into an In-
finite but into a Five-fold form, with reference to the pos-
sible modes of viewing it. We must set forth this second
division, at least historically, and make you acquainted with
it, which shall be done in our next lecture. It is only after
these preparatory investigations that we shall be capable of
of comprehending for the first time the essential nature, as
well as the outward manifestations, of the truly Blessed
Life; and, after we have so comprehended it, of seeing
clearly that there is indeed true Blessedness within it, and
what that Blessedness is.
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? 4*9
LECTURE V.
FIVE-FOLD DIVISION IN THE POSSIBLE VIEW OF THE
WORLD:--THE STANDPOINTS OF SENSE,--OF
LEGALITY,--OF THE HIGHER MORALITY,
--OF RELIGION,-- OF SCIENCE.
According to what we have now seen, Blessedness consists
in union with God, as the One and Absolute. We, however,
in our unalterable nature, are but Knowledge, Representa-
tion, Conception; and even in our union with the Infinite
One, this, the essential form of our Being, cannot be ob-
literated. Even in our union with him he does not become
our own Being; but he floats before us as something for-
eign to ourselves, something present there before us, to
which we can only devote ourselves, clinging to him with
earnest love;--He floats before us, as in himself without
form or substance, without definite conception or know-
ledge on our part of his inward essential nature, but only as
that through which alone we can think or comprehend
either ourselves or our World . /^Neither after our union
with God is the World lost to us; it only assumes a new
significance, and, instead of an independent existence such
as it seemed to us before, it becomes only the Appearance
and Manifestation, in Knowledge, of the Divine Life that
lies hidden within itself. Conprehend this once more as a
whole:--The Divine Ex-istence (Daseyn),--his Ex-istence,
Mb
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? 450
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
I say, which, according to the distinction already laid down,
is his Manifestation and Revelation of himself,--is absolute-
ly through itself, and of necessity, Light :--namely, inward
and spiritual Light. This Light, left to itself, separates and
divides itself into an infinite multiplicity of individual rays;
and in this way, in these individual rays, becomes estranged
from itself and its original source. But this same Light
may also again concentrate itself from out this separation,
and conceive and comprehend itself as One, as that which
it is in itself,--the Ex-istence and Revelation of God; re-
maining indeed, even in this conception, that which it is in
its form,--Light; but yet in this conception, and even by
means of this very conception, announcing itself as having
no real Being in itself, but as only the Ex-istence and Self-
Manifestation of God.
In our last two lectures, and more especially in the last
of all, we made it our especial business to investigate this
passage of the One, only possible, and unchangeable Being
into another, and that other a manifold and changeable Be-
ing: so that we might be enabled to penetrate to the very
transition-point of this change, and see its outgoing with
our own eyes. We found the following:--In the first place,
by the essential character of Knowledge in the abstract, as
a mere picture or representation, Being, which subsists alto-
gether independently of that Knowledge, and which in itself
and in God is pure activity and Life, is changed into a de-
terminate and abiding being, or into a World. In the se-
cond place, besides this distinction, the World which, to
mere abstract Knowledge, is simple and indivisible, is, by
the fundamental law of reflexion, further characterized,
formed, and moulded into a particular World, and indeed
into an infinitely varied World, flowing onward in a never-
ending stream of new and changing forms. The insight
thus to be attained was, in our opinion, indispensably ne-
cessary not only to Philosophy but also to Blessedness; since
the latter dwells in man not as a mere instinct or obscure
faith, but desires to be able to render an account to itself of
its own origin and foundation.
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? LECTURE V.
451
Thus far we had proceeded in our last lecture; and we
intimated at its conclusion, that with this division of the
World into an infinite multiplicity of forms, founded on a
fundamental law of all reflexion, there was inseparably con-
nected another division which we should, at this time, if
not critically educe, at least historically set forth and de-
scribe. I do not here approach this new and second division,
in its general character, more deeply than thus. In the
first place, in its essential nature, it is different from the
division which we set forth in our last lecture and have
now again described, in so far as the latter immediately se-
parates and divides the very World itself which, in virtue of
the mere abstract form of Knowledge, arises from out the
Divine Life; while, on the contrary, that which we have
now to consider does not immediately separate and divide
the object itself, but only separates and divides reflexion
on the object. The one is a separation and division in the
object itself; the other is but a separation and division in
the view taken of the object,--not as in the former case, re-
vealing to us objects different in themselves, but only dif-
ferent modes of viewing, apprehending, and understanding
the One abiding World. In the second place, it is not to
be forgotten that neither of these two divisions can assume
the place of the other, and that therefore they cannot sup-
plant or supersede each other; but that they are insepar-
able, and are therefore to be found together wherever re-
flexion, whose unchangeable forms they are, is to be found;
--and that therefore the results of both inseparably accom-
pany each other and always proceed hand in hand. The
result of the first division is, as we have shown in our pre-
vious lecture,--Infinitude;--the result of the second is, as
we also stated,--a Quintitude;--and therefore the result of
the inseparability of these two divisions is this,--that this
Infinity, which in itself remains entire and cannot be super-
seded, may yet be regarded in a Five-fold manner; and on
the other hand, that each of the five possible views so taken
of the World again divides the One World into an Infinite
multiplicity of forms. And thus you may comprehend
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
what we have now said in a single glance:--To the spiritu-
Val vision, that which in itself is the Divine Life becomes a
thing seen,--that is, a complete and present Ex-istence, or a
World:--which was the first point. This vision is always
an act, named reflexion; and by means of this act, partly
as relating to its object the World, and partly as relating to
itself, that World is divided into an infinite Quintentity, or,
what is the same thing, into a five-fold Infinity:--which
was the second point. In order that we may, in the next
place, proceed to the consideration of the second of these
divisions, which is the proper object of to-day's lecture, let
us now make, with regard to it, the following general re-
marks :--
This division, as we have said, presents no distinction in
the object itself, but only a distinction, difference, and varie-
ty, in the view taken of the object. It seems to force it-
self upon the mind that this difference, not in the object
itself but only in the view taken of the object--the object
itself meanwhile remaining the same--can arise only from
the obscurity or clearness, the depth or shallowness, the
completeness or incompleteness of the view thus taken of
the One unchanging World. And this is certainly the case:
or,--to connect this with something that I said before, il-
lustrating the one expression by the other and thus render-
ing both more intelligible,--the five modes of viewing the
World, now spoken of, are the same as those progressions
which, in the third lecture, I named the various possible
stages and grades of development of the inward Spiritual
Life,--when I said that the progress of this free and con-
scious Spiritual Life, which in a peculiar sense belongs to
us, follows the same course as the progress of Physical
Death, and that the former as well as the latter begins in
the remotest members, and thence only gradually advances
to the central-point of the system. What I named the out-
works of the Spiritual Life, in the figure which I then em-
ployed, are, in our present representation of the matter, the
lowest, darkest, and shallowest of the five possible modes of
viewing the World; what I then named the nobler parts,
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? LECTURE V.
453
and the heart, are here the higher and clearer, and the
highest and clearest, of these modes.
But notwithstanding that, according to our former simile
as well as our present representation, Man, after he has
rested for a time in a low view of the World and its signifi-
cance, does, even in the ordinary course of life and accord-
ing to established law, raise himself to a higher; yet, in the
first place, it is not on that account to be denied, but on
the contrary to be expressly held and maintained, that this
manifold view of the World is a true and original distinc-
tion, at least in the capacities possessed by men of compre-
hending the World. Understand me thus :--those higher
views of the World have not their origin in Time, nor so
that they are first engendered and made possible by views
wholly opposed to them; but they are from all Eternity in
the unity of the Divine Existence as necessary determina-
tions of the One Consciousness even although no man
should comprehend them; and no one who does comprehend
them can invent them, or produce them by mere thought,
but he can only perceive them, and appropriate them to
himself. In the second place, this gradual progress is only
the ordinary course of things, and only the established law,
which however is by no means without exception. Some
favoured and inspired men find themselves, as it were by
miracle, without their own knowledge and through mere
birth and instinct, placed at once on a higher standpoint
from which to survey the World; and these are as little
understood by those around them, as they, on their part, are
able to understand their contemporaries. Thus it has been,
since the beginning of the world, with all Religious Teachers,
Sages, Heroes, and Poets; and through these everything
great and good in the world has arisen. On the other hand,
there are individuals, and, where the contagion has become
very dangerous, whole ages with few exceptions, that by
the same inexplicable instinct of nature are so imprisoned
and rooted in the lowest view of things, that even the clear-
est and most evident instruction cannot induce them to
raise their eyes even for a moment from the earth, and to
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? 454
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
apprehend anything whatever but that which they can di-
rectly lay hold of with their hands.
So much in general as to the distinction we have indica-
ted in the modes of viewing the World; and now to set
forth the separate sections of this distinction.
The First, lowest, shallowest, and most confused mode of
viewing the World, is that wherein that only which is per-
<;ceptible to outward Sense is regarded as the World and the
actual existence therein,--as the highest, true, and self-suffi-
cient existence. This view has been already sufficiently de-
picted in these lectures, particularly in the third, and, as it
seems to me, clearly enough characterized; and on that oc-
casion its worthlessness and superficiality were made abun-
dantly evident, although only by a glance at its surface.
We admitted that this view was nevertheless that of our
philosophers, and of the age that is formed in their schools;
but we showed at the same time that this view by no means
proceeds from their logic--since the very nature and possi-
bility of logic directly gives the lie to such a view--but
from their love. We cannot pause any longer at this point,
for in these lectures we must proceed far beyond this, and
therefore we must leave some things behind us as for ever
abolished. Should any one, persisting in the testimony of
his senses, continue to say:--" But these things are obvi-
ously there, really and truly, for I see them there, and hear
them,"--then let such an one know that we are not even
disturbed by his confident assurance and inflexible faith;
but that we abide by our categorical, invincible, and abso-
lutely literal:--" No, these things are not, precisely because
they may be seen and heard,"--and that we can have no-
thing more to say to such a person, as one wholly incapable
of understanding or instruction.
The Second view, proceeding from the original division
in the modes of viewing the World, is that wherein the
v^World is regarded as a Law of Order and of equal rights in
a system of reasonable beings. Let this be understood ex-
actly as I have said it. A Law, and indeed an ordering and
equalizing Law addressed to the freedom of many, is to
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? LECTURE V.
455
this view the peculiar, self-subsistent Reality;--that by
which the World arose, and in which it has its root. Should
any one here wonder how a Law, which indeed, as such an
one would say, is only a relation--a mere abstract concep-
tion,--can be regarded as an independent existence, the
wonder of such an one can proceed only from his inability
to comprehend anything as real except visible and palpable
matter; and thus he also belongs to that class to whom we
have nothing to say. A Law, I say, is to this view of the
World the first thing; --that which alone truly is, and through which everything else that exists first comes into
existence. Freedom and a Human Race is to it the sec-
ond thing;--which exists only because a Law that is ad-
dressed to freedom necessarily assumes the existence of
freedom and of free beings; and in this system the only
foundation and proof of the independence of man is the Mo-
ral Law that reveals itself within him. A Sensible World,
finally, is to it the third thing;--and this is only the sphere
of the free action of man, and only exists because free ac-
tion necessarily assumes the existence of objects of such
action. As to the sciences that arise out of this view,--it
may lay claim not only to Jurisprudence, as setting forth
the legal relations of men, but also to the common doctrine
of Morals, which merely goes the length of forbidding in-
justice between man and man, and merely rejects whatever
is opposed to Duty whether forbidden by an express law of
the State or not. Examples of this view of the World can-
not be adduced from common life, which, rooted in matter,
does not raise itself even thus far; but, in philosophical
literature, Kant is the most striking and consequential ex-
ample of this view, if we do not follow his philosophical
career farther than the Critique of Practical Reason;--the
peculiar character of this mode of thought, as we have ex-
pressed it above,--namely, that the reality and indepen-
dence of man are evidenced only by the Moral Law that
rules within him, and that only thereby does he become
anything in himself,--being expressed by Kant in the same
words. We ourselves, too, have pointed out and investi-
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? 456
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
gated this view of the world, never indeed as the highest,
but as the foundation of a Doctrine of Jurisprudence and a
Doctrine of Morals in our treatment of these subjects; and
have there, as we are conscious, set it forth not without
energy:--and there can therefore be no lack of examples,
in our own age, of this second view of the World, for those
who take a closer interest in what has now been said. For
the rest, the purely moral inward sentiment -- that man
ought to act only in obedience to, and for the sake of, the
Law--which also enters into the sphere of this Lower Mo-
rality, and the inculcation of which has not been forgotten
either by Kant or by us, does not belong to our present
subject, where we have to do only with objective beliefs.
One general remark, which is of importance for all our
subsequent points of view, I shall adduce here as the place
where it may be made with the greatest distinctness. This,
namely:--In order to have a firm standpoint for any view
of the World, it is necessary that we should place the real
and independent being and root of the World in one definite
and unchangeable principle, from which we may be able to
educe the others as only partaking in the reality of the first,
and only assumed by reason of it; just as we have already,
when speaking of the second view of the World, educed the
Human Race as a second element, and the Sensible World
as a third, from the law of Moral Order as the first .
But it
is by no means allowable to mix and intermingle realities;
and, it may be, to ascribe to the Sensible World what is
supposed to belong to it, at the same time not denying to
to the Moral World any of its rights;--as is sometimes at-
tempted by those who would get rid of these questions al-
together. Such persons have no settled view whatever, and
no fixed direction of their spiritual eye, but they continually
turn aside amid the Manifold. Far better than they, is he
who holds firmly by the World of Sense, and denies the re-
ality of everything else but it; for although he may be as
short-sighted as the others, yet he is not at the same time
so timid and spiritless. In a word :--a higher view of the
World does not tolerate the lower beside it; but each high-
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? LECTURE V.
457
er step abolishes the lower as an absolute and highest stand-
point, and subordinates it to itself. ^
The Third view of the World is that from the stand-
point of the True and Higher Morality. It is necessary
that we should render a very distinct account of this stand-
point, which is almost wholly unknown to the present
age. To it also, as well as to the second of the views we
have now described, a Law of the Spiritual World is the
first, highest, and absolute reality; and herein these two
views coincide. But the Law of the third view is not, like
that of the second, merely a Law of Order, regulating pre-
sent existence; but rather a Creative Law, producing the
new and hitherto non-existent, even within the circle of that
which already exists. The former is merely negative,--
abolishing the opposition between diverse free powers, and
establishing equilibrium and peace in its stead; the latter
desires to inform the powers, thus lulled to rest, with a new
life. We may say that it strives, not like the former after
the mere form of the Idea but, after the qualitative and real
Idea itself. Its object may be briefly stated thus;--it seeks,
in those whom it inspires, and through them in others, to
make Humanity in deed, what it is in its original intention,
--the express image, copy, and revelation of the inward and
essential Divine Nature. The process of deduction, by which
this third view of the World arrives at reality, is therefore
the following:--To it, the only truly real and independent
being is the Holy, the Good, the Beautiful;--the second is
Humanity, as destined to be the manifestation of the first;--
the ordering Law in Humanity, as the third, is but the means
of bringing it into internal and external peace for the fulfil-
ment of this its true vocation; -- and finally, the World of
Sense, as the fourth, is only the sphere both of the outward
and inward, the lower and higher, Freedom and Morality;
--only the sphere of Freedom, I say,--that which it is to all
the higher points of view, and thus remains, and can never
assume to itself any other reality.
Examples of this view in human history can be seen only
by him who has an eye to discover them. Through the
Nb
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? 458
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Higher Morality alone, and those who have been inspired
by it, has Religion,--and in particular the Christian Reli-
gion,--Wisdom and Science, Legislation and Culture, Art,
and all else that we possess of Good and Venerable, been
introduced into the world. In Literature there are to be
found, except in the Poets, but few scattered traces of this
view:--among the ancient Philosophers, Plato may have
had some presentiment of it; among the moderns, Jacobi
sometimes touches upon this region.
The Fourth view of the World is that from the stand-
point of Religion; which, since it arises out of the third
view which we have just described, and is conjoined with it,
must be characterized as the clear knowledge and convic-
tion that this Holy, Good, and Beautiful, is by no means a
product of our own spirit, light or thought, or of any other
knowledge which in itself is nothing, but that it is the
immediate manifestation in us of the inward Divine Na-
ture, as Light ;--his expression, his image, wholly, absolute-
ly, and without abatement, in so far as his essential Nature
can come forth in an image or representation. This, the
Religious view, is that same insight for the production of
which we have prepared the way in our previous lectures,
and which now, in the connexion of its principles, may be
thus more precisely and definitely expressed:--(1. ) God alone
is, and nothing besides him:--a principle which, it seems to
me, may be easily comprehended, and which is the indis-
pensable condition of all Religious insight . (2. ) But while
we thus say " God is," we have an altogether empty concep-
tion, furnishing absolutely no explanation of God's essential
Nature. From this conception, what could we answer to
the question:--What then is God 1 The only possible ad-
dition we could make to the axiom,--this, namely, that he
is absolutely, of himself, through himself, and in himself,--
this is but the fundamental form of our own understanding
applied to him, and expresses no more than our mode of
conceiving him; and even that negatively and as we can
not think of him,--that is, we mean only that we cannot
educe his being from another, as we are compelled by the
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? LECTURE V.
459
nature of our understanding to do with all other objects of
our thought . This conception of God is thus an abstract
and unsubstantial conception; and when we say " God is,"
--he is to us essentially nothing; and, by this very expres-
sion itself, is made nothing. (3. ) But beyond this mere
empty and unsubstantial conception, and as we have care-
fully set forth this matter above, God enters into us in his
actual, true, and immediate Life ;--or, to express it more
strictly, we ourselves are this his immediate Life. But we
are not conscious of this immediate Divine Life; and since,
as we have also already seen, our own Ex-istence--that
which properly belongs to us--is that only which we can
embrace in consciousness, so our Being in God, notwith-
standing that at bottom it is indeed ours, remains neverthe-
less for ever foreign to us, and thus, in deed and truth, to
ourselves is not our Being;--we are in no respect the better
of this insight, and remain as far removed as ever from God.
We know nothing of this immediate Divine Life, I said;--
for even at the first touch of consciousness it is changed in-
to a dead outward World, which again divides itself into a
five-fold form according to the point of view from which we
regard it. Although it may be that it is God himself who
ever lives behind all these varied forms, yet we see him not,
but only his garment; we see him as stone, plant, animal,
&c. , or, if we soar higher, as Natural Law, or as Moral Law:
--but all this is yet not He. The form for ever veils the
substance from us; our vision itself conceals its object; our
eye stands in its own light. I say unto thee who thus com- plainest:--" Raise thyself to the standpoint of Religion, and
all these veils are drawn aside; the World, with its dead
principle, disappears from before thee, and the God-head
once more enters and resumes its place within thee, in its
first and original form, as Life,--as thine own Life, which
thou oughtest to live, and shalt live. Still the one, irrever-
sible form of Reflexion remains,--the Infinitude, in thee,
of this Divine Life, which, in God himself, is but One; but
this form troubles thee not, for thou desirest it and lovest
it; it does not mislead thee, for thou art able to explain it
.
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? 460
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
In that which the Holy Man does, lives, and loves, God ap-
pears, no longer surrounded by shadows nor hidden by a
garment, but in his own, immediate, and efficient Life; and
the question which is unanswerable from the mere empty
and unsubstantial conception of God,--" What is God ? "--ia here answered:--" He is that which he who is devoted to
him and inspired by him does. " Wouldst thou behold God
face to face, as he is in himself? Seek him not beyond the
skies; thou canst find him wherever thou art. Behold the
life of his devoted ones, and thou beholdest him; resign
thyself to him, and thou wilt find him within thine own
breast. "
This, my friends, is the view of the World and of Being,
from the standpoint of Religion.
The Fifth and last view of the World is that from the
standpoint of Science. Of Science, I say,-- One, Abso-
lute, and Self-complete. Science thoroughly comprehends
all these points of the transition of the One into a Manifold,
and of the Absolute into a Relative, in their order and in
their relations to each other; being able, in every case, and
from each individual point of view, to carry back that Mul-
tiplicity to its primitive Unity, or to deduce from the origi-
nal Unity that Multiplicity of form:--as we have laid before
you the general characteristics of such Science in this and
our two preceding lectures. Science goes beyond the insight
into the fact that the Manifold is assuredly founded on the
One and is to be referred to it, which is given to us by Reli-
gion,--to the insight into the manner of this fact; and to it,
that becomes a genetic principle which to Religion is but
an absolute fact . Religion without Science is a mere Faith,
although an immovable Faith;-- Science supersedes all
Faith, and changes it into sight. We do not, however, ad-
duce here this Scientific standpoint as properly belonging
to our present inquiry, but only for the sake of complete-
ness; and therefore it is sufficient at present to add the fol-
lowing respecting it:--Science is not indeed a condition of
the Divine and Blessed Life; but nevertheless this Life de-
mands of us that we should realise this Science, in ourselves
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? LECTURE V.
461
and in others, within the region of the Higher Morality.
The true and complete Man ought to be thoroughly clear
in himself; for universal and complete clearness belongs to
the image and representative of God. But, on the other
hand, no one can make this demand upon himself in whom
it has not already been fulfilled without his own aid, and has
thereby itself become already clear and intelligible to him.
We have yet to make the following remarks on the five
points of view which we have now indicated, and thus to complete our picture of the Religious Man.
Both of the two last-mentioned points of view, the Scien-
tific as well as the Religious, are only percipient and con-
templative, not in themselves active and practical They
are merely inert and passive moods, which abide within the
mind itself; not impulses moving towards action, and so
bursting forth into life. On the contrary, the third point of
view, that of the Higher Morality, is practical, impelling to-
wards action. And now I add:--True Religion, notwith-
standing that it raises the view of those who are inspired by
it to its own region, nevertheless retains their Life firmly
within the domain of action, and of right moral action. The true and real Religious Life is not alone percipient and con-
templative, does not merely brood over devout thoughts, but
is essentially active. It consists, as we have seen, in the in-
timate consciousness that God actually lives, moves, and
perfects his work in us. If therefore there is in us no real
Life, if no activity and no visible work proceed forth from
us, then is God not active in us. Our consciousness of union
with God is then deceptive and vain, and the empty shadow
of a condition that is not ours; perhaps the vague but life-
less insight that such a condition is possible, and in others
may be actual, but that we ourselves have, nevertheless, not
the least portion in it. We are expelled from the domain
of Reality, and again banished to that of vain and empty
conception. The latter is Fanaticism and idle dreaming, be-
cause it answers to no Reality; and this fanaticism is one
of the faults of that system of Mysticism which we have
elsewhere described, and contrasted with the True Religion:
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? 4G2
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
--it is by living activity that the True Religious Life is dis-
tinguished from this Fanaticism. Religion does not consist
in mere devout dreams, I said:--Religion is not a business
by and for itself, which a man may practise apart from his
other occupations, perhaps on certain fixed days and hours;
but it is the inmost spirit that penetrates, inspires, and per-
vades all our Thought and Action, which in other respects
pursue their appointed course without change or interrup-
tion. That the Divine Life and Energy actually lives in us,
is inseparable from Religion, I said. But this does not de-
pend upon the sphere in which we act, as may have become
evident from what we said when speaking of the third point
of view. He whose knowledge extends to the objects of the
Higher Morality, if he be animated by Religion, will live
and act in this sphere, because this is his peculiar calling.
But to him who has only a lower vocation, even it may be
sanctified by Religion, and will receive thereby, if not the
material, yet the form of the Higher Morality;--to which
nothing more is essential than that we should recognise and
love our vocation as the Will of God with us and in us. If
a man till his field in this Faith, or practise the most un-
pretending handicraft with this truthfulness, he is higher
and more blessed than if, without this Faith, if that were
possible, he should confer happiness and prosperity upon
mankind for ages to come.
This then is the picture--the inward spirit of the true
Religious man:--He does not conceive of his World, the
object of his love and his endeavour, as something for him
to enjoy;--not as if melancholy and superstitious fear
caused him to look upon eujoyment and pleasure as some-
thing sinful, but because he knows that no such pleasure
can yield him true joy. He conceives of it as a World of
Action, which, because it is his World, he alone creates,
in which alone he can live, and find enjoyment of himself.
This Action again he does not will for the sake of a result in
the World of Sense;--he is in no respect anxious about the
result or no-result that may ensue, for he lives only in Ac-
tion, as Action;--but he wills it, because it is the Will of
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? LECTURE V.
463
God in him, and his own proper portion in Being. And so
does his Life flow onwards, simple and pure, knowing, will-
ing, and desiring nothing else than this,--never wandering
from this centre, neither moved nor troubled by aught ex-
ternal to itself.
Such is his Life. Whether this be not of necessity the
most pure and perfect Blessedness, we shall inquire at an-
other time.
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? 40
LECTURE VI.
EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE JOHANNEAN
GOSPEL:--ITS ACCORDANCE WITH
OUR OWN DOCTRINE.
Oub whole Doctrine, as the foundation of all that we have
yet to say at this time, and generally of all that we can
say at any time, is now clearly and distinctly set forth, and
may be surveyed at a single glance. There is absolutely
no Being and no Life beyond the immediate Divine Life.
According to the essential and irreversible laws of Con-
sciousness,--laws which are founded in the very nature of
Consciousness itself,--this Being is veiled and darkened in
Consciousness by manifold concealments;--but, freed from
these disguises, and modified only by the form of Infinitude,
it reappears in the life and actions of the God-inspired man.
In his actions it is not man who acts;--but God himself, in
his primitive and inward Being and Nature, acts and ful-
fils his work in Man.
I said, in one of the first and introductory lectures, that
this doctrine, however new and unheard of it may seem to
this age, is nevertheless as old as the world;--and that, in
particular, it is the doctrine of Christianity, as this, even to
the present day, lies before our view in its purest and most
excellent record, the Gospel of John; and that this doctrine
is there set forth with the very same images and expres-
sions which we here employ. It may be well, in many re-
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
405
spects, to make good that statement, and to this purpose
we shall devote the present lecture. It will be understood,
even without a special declaration on our part, that we by
no means intend to prove our doctrine, or even to add to
it an outward support, by demonstrating this harmony be-
tween it and Christianity. It must already, by what we
have previously said, have proved itself, and that with abso-
lute evidence,--and it needs no further support. And in
the same way must Christianity, as in harmony with Rea-
son, and as the pure and perfect expression of this Reason,
beyond which there is no truth,--so, I say, must Christiani-
ty prove itself, if it is to lay claim to validity and accept-
ance. It is not by philosophers that you need fear to be
led back again into the chains of blind authority.
In my lectures of last winter,* I have distinctly an-
nounced the grounds upon which I regard the Apostle John
as the only teacher of true Christianity:--namely, that the
Apostle Paul and his party, as the authors of the opposite
system of Christianity, remained half Jews, and left unal-
tered the fundamental error of Judaism as well as of Hea-
thenism, which we must afterwards notice. For the present
the following may be enough:--It is only with John that
the philosopher can deal, for he alone has respect for Rea-
son, and appeals to that evidence which alone has weight
with the philosopher--the internal. "If any man will do
the will of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God. " But this Will of God, according to
John, is that we should truly believe in God, and in Jesus
Christ whom he hath sent. The other promulgators of
Christianity, however, rely upon the external evidence of
Miracle, which to us at least, proves nothing. Further, of
the four Gospels, only that of John contains what we seek
and desire,--a Doctrine of Religion; while, on the contrary,
the best that the others offer to us, without completion and
explanation by John, amounts to nothing more than Mo-
rality ;--which to us has but a very subordinate value. As
* " Characteristics of the Present Age," Lecture VII.
ob
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? +66
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
to the assertion that John had the other Evangelists before
him, and only designed to supply what they had omitted,
we shall not here inquire into it;--should that be the case,
then, in our opinion, the supplement is the best part of the
whole, and John's predecessors had passed over that precise-
ly which was of essential importance.
As to the principle of interpretation which I apply to
this as well as to all the other authors of the Christian
Scriptures, it is the following;--So to understand them as
if they had really desired to say something, and, so far as
their words permit, as if they had said what is right and
true:--a principle that seems to be in accordance with jus-
tice and fairness. But we are wholly opposed to the her-
meneutical principle of a certain party, according to which
the most earnest and simple expressions of these writers are
regarded as mere images and metaphors, and thus explained
and re-explained away, until the result is a flat and insipid
triviality such as these interpreters might themselves have
discovered and brought forward. Other means of interpre-
tation than those contained in themselves seem to me inad-
missible in the case of these writers, and particularly in the
case of John. Where, as in the case of the profane authors
of classical antiquity, we can compare several contemporary
writers with each other, and all of them with a preceding
and succeeding republic of letters, there is room for the em-
ployment of external aids. But Christianity, and particu-
larly John, stands alone and isolated, as a wonderful and
inexplicable phenomenon of Time, without precedent and
without succedent.
In what we shall set forth as the substance of the Johan-
nean doctrine, we must carefully distinguish between that
in it which is true in itself, true absolutely and for all time,
and that which has been true only for the standpoint of
John and the Jesus whom he announces, and for their time
and circumstances. This latter, too, we shall faithfully set
forth; for any other mode of interpretation than this is not
only dishonest, but leads to perplexity and confusion.
The portion of the Gospel of John which must necessarily
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? LECTURE VI.
467
attract our attention at the very outset is the dogmatic in-
troduction which occupies a part of the first chapter;--as it
were the preface. Do not regard this preface as a special
and arbitrary philosopheme of the author himself,--a specu-
lative prelude to his historical narrative, of which, holding
only to the facts themselves, we may, according to the pro-
per intention of the author, adopt whatever opinion we
please;--as some appear to regard this proem. It is much
rather to be considered in relation to the whole Gospel, and
to be understood only in that connexion. Throughout the
whole Gospel, the author represents Jesus as speaking of
himself in a certain manner, which we shall afterwards ad-
vert to; and it is without doubt the conviction of John that
Jesus did speak precisely in this way and in no other, and
that he had heard him thus speak;--and it seems to be his
earnest desire that we should believe him in this. Now the
preface explains how it was possible that Jesus could think
and speak of himself as he did: and it is therefore neces-
sarily assumed by John that not only he himself, and ac-
cording to his own mere personal opinion, so regarded Jesus
and would so interpret him, but that Jesus had likewise re-
garded himself in the same way in which he is here depic-
ted. The preface is to be taken as the essence, the general
standpoint, of all the discourses of Jesus;--it has, therefore,
in the view of the author, the same authority as these dis-
courses themselves. In the sight of John, this preface is
not his own doctrine but that of Jesus, and indeed is the
spirit, the innermost root, of the whole doctrine of Jesus.
Having thus clearly set forth this not-unimportant point,
let us proceed, by the following preliminary remark, to the
subject itself.
The notion of a creation, as the essentially fundamental
error of all false Metaphysics and Religion, and, in particu-
lar, as the radical principle of Judaism and Heathenism,
arises from ignorance of the doctrine which we have pre-
viously laid down.
own nature, give birth to a division in itself; since in
this act there is apparent not only Knowledge itself,
which would be one, but, at the same time, Knowledge
as this or that, with this or that character or attribute,
which adds a second element to the first, and that one
arising from the first;--so that the very foundation of
reflexion is thus divided into two separate parts. This
is the essential and fundamental law of reflexion.
(e. ) Now the first and immediate object of absolute
reflexion is Ex-istence itself; which, according to the
necessary form of Knowledge, as before explained, has
been changed from a living Life into a definite sub-
stance or World:--thus the first object of absolute
reflexion is the World. By reason of the essential
form of reflexion which we have just set forth, this
World must separate and divide itself in reflexion; so
that the World, or the abiding Ex-istence in the ab-
stract, may assume a definite character, and the ab-
stract World reproduce itself in reflexion under a par-
ticular shape. This, as we said, lies in reflexion it-
self as such;--reflexion, however, as we have also said,
is in itself absolutely free and independent . Hence,
were this reflexion inactive, were there nothing re-
flected,--as in consequence of this freedom might be
the case,--then there would be nothing apparent; but
were reflexion infinitely active, were there an endless
series of its acts--reflexion upon reflexion,--as through
this freedom might as well be the case,--then to every
new reflexion the World would appear in a new shape,
and thus proceed throughout an Infinite Time, which
is likewise created only by the absolute freedom of re-
flexion, in an endless course of change and transmuta-
tion, as an Infinite Manifold. As conception in the
abstract was seen to be the World-creator; so here,
the free act of reflexion is seen to be the creator of
Multiplicity, and indeed of an infinite Multiplicity, in
the World; while the World nevertheless, notwith-
standing this Multiplicity, remains the same, because
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? LECTURE IV.
445
the abstract conception, in its fundamental character,
remains One and the same.
(f. ) And now to combine what we have said into
one view;--Consciousness,--that is we ourselves,--is
the Divine Ex-istence (Daseyn) itself, and absolutely
one with it. This Divine Ex-istence apprehends it-
self and thereby becomes Consciousness; and its own
Being (Seyn) -- the true Divine Being--becomes a
World to it. In this position what does this Con-
sciousness contain? I think each of you will answer:
--" The World and nothing but the World. " Or does
this Consciousness also contain the immediate Divine
Life? I think each of you will answer:--" No;--for
Consciousness must necessarily change this immediate
Divine Life into a World; and thus, Consciousness be-
ing supposed, this change is also supposed as accom-
plished; and Consciousness itself is, by its very nature,
and therefore without being again conscious of it, the
completion of this change. But now, where is that
immediate Divine Life which, in its immediateness, is
itself Consciousness;--where has it vanished, since, ac-
cording to our own admissions rendered clearly neces-
sary by our previous conclusions, in this its immediate-
ness it is irreversibly effaced from Consciousness? We
reply:--It has not vanished, but it is and abides there,
where alone it can be, in the hidden and inaccessible
Being of Consciousness, which no conception can reach;
--in that which alone supports Consciousness, main-
tains it in Ex-istence, and even makes its Ex-istence
possible. In Consciousness the Divine Life is inevit-
ably changed into an actual and abiding World:--
further, every actual Consciousness is an act of re-
flexion; the act of reflexion, however, inevitably di-
vides the One World into an infinite variety of shapes,
the comprehension of which can never be completed,
and of which therefore only a finite series enters into
Consciousness. I ask:--Where then abides the One
World, in itself perfect and complete, as the efficient
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
antitype of the likewise perfect and complete Divine
Life ? --I answer:--It abides there, where alone it is,--
not in any individual act of reflexion, but in the one,
absolute, fundamental form of conception; which thou
canst never reproduce in actual, immediate Conscious-
ness, but only in Thought raising itself above Con-
sciousness;--just as thou canst likewise reproduce in
the same Thought the still farther removed, and more
deeply hidden, Divine Life. Where then,--in this stream
of actual reflexion, and its world-creation, flowing on
for ever through ceaseless changes,--where then abides
the One, Eternal and Unchangeable Being (Seyn) of Con-
sciousness manifested in the Divine Ex-istence (Da-
seyn)? It does not enter into this stream of change, but
only its type, image, or representation, enters therein.
As thy physical eye is a prism in which the light of
the sensuous world, which in itself is pure, simple and
colourless, breaks itself upon the surfaces of things in-
to many hues,--while nevertheless thou wilt not main-
tain on that account that the light is in itself coloured,
but only that, to thy eye, and while standing with thy
eye in this state of reciprocal influence, it separates
itself into colours,--although thou still canst not see
the light colourless, but canst only think it colourless,
to which thought thou givest credence only when the
nature of thy seeing eye becomes known to thee:--so
also proceed in the things of the spiritual world and
with the vision of thy spiritual eye. What thou seest,
that thou art: but thou art it not as thou seest it, nor
dost thou see it as thou art it . Thou art it, unchange-
able and pure, without colour and without shape. Only
reflexion,--which likewise thou thyself art, and which
therefore thou canst never put away from thee,--only
this causes it to separate before thee into innumerable
rays and shapes. Know therefore that it is not in it-
self thus broken up, and formed, and invested with a
multiplicity of shapes, but that it only seems so in this
thy reflexion, thy spiritual eye, by which alone thou
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? LECTURE IV.
447
canst see,-- and in reciprocal influence with this re-
flexion. -- Raise thyself above this Appearance, which in
Reality can as little be obliterated as the colours from
before thy physical eye,--raise thyself above this Ap-
pearance to true Thought, let thyself be penetrated by
it, and thou wilt henceforward have faith in it alone.
So much as has now been said may, in my opinion, be
contributed through the medium of a popular discourse
to the solution of the question :--Whence,--since Being in
itself must be absolutely One, without change or varia-
tion, and is evident to Thought as such,--whence arises the
mutability and change which is nevertheless encountered
by actual Consciousness? Being, in itself, is indeed One,
the One Divine Being; and this alone is the true Reality in
all Ex-istence, and so remains in all Eternity. By reflex-
ion, which in actual Consciousness is indissolubly united with
Being, this One Being is broken up into an infinite variety
of forms. This separation, as we said, is absolutely original,
and in actual Consciousness can never be abolished nor
superseded by anything else; and therefore the visible
forms which by this separation are imposed upon absolute
Reality are discernible only in actual Consciousness, and so
that in the act of observing them we assign to them life
and endurance;--and they are by no means discoverable a
priori to pure Thought. They are simple and absolute Ex-
perience, which is nothing but Experience; which no Spec-
ulation that understands itself will ever attempt or desire to
lay hold of; and indeed the substance of this Experience,
with respect to each particular thing, is that which abso-
lutely belongs to it alone and is its individual character-
istic,--that which in the whole infinite course of Time can
never be repeated, and which can never before have oc-
curred. But the general properties or attributes of these
forms which are thus imposed upon the One Reality by its
separation in Consciousness,--with reference to their agree-
ment with which attributes, classes and species arise,--these
may be discovered by a priori investigation of the different
laws of reflexion, as we have already set forth its one fun-
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? 448
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
damental law;--and a systematic philosophy ought to do
this, and must do it, in a complete and exhaustive manner.
Thus may Matter in Space,--Time,--a fixed system of
Worlds,--how the substance of Consciousness, which in it-
self can be but One, divides itself into a system of separate
and apparently independent individuals,--thus, I say, may
these and all things of this kind, be deduced with perfect
clearness from the laws of reflexion. But these'investiga-
tions are more needful to the attainment of a fundamental
insight into particular Sciences than to the development
of a Blessed Life. They belong to the scientific teaching of
Philosophy as its exclusive property; and they are neither
susceptible of popular exposition nor do they stand in need
of it. Here, therefore, at this indicated point, lies the boun-
dary line which divides strict Science from popular teaching.
We have, as you see, arrived at that limit; and it may
therefore be anticipated that our inquiry shall now gradual-
ly descend to those regions which, at least with respect to
their objects, are familiar to us, and which we have even
sometimes touched upon already.
Besides the division, which we have set forth in to-day's
lecture, of the World which arises in Consciousness from out
the Divine Life, into a World of infinite variety and change,
with reference to its form, by means of the fundamental
law of reflexion; there is yet another division, inseparably
bound up with the first, of the same World, not into an In-
finite but into a Five-fold form, with reference to the pos-
sible modes of viewing it. We must set forth this second
division, at least historically, and make you acquainted with
it, which shall be done in our next lecture. It is only after
these preparatory investigations that we shall be capable of
of comprehending for the first time the essential nature, as
well as the outward manifestations, of the truly Blessed
Life; and, after we have so comprehended it, of seeing
clearly that there is indeed true Blessedness within it, and
what that Blessedness is.
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? 4*9
LECTURE V.
FIVE-FOLD DIVISION IN THE POSSIBLE VIEW OF THE
WORLD:--THE STANDPOINTS OF SENSE,--OF
LEGALITY,--OF THE HIGHER MORALITY,
--OF RELIGION,-- OF SCIENCE.
According to what we have now seen, Blessedness consists
in union with God, as the One and Absolute. We, however,
in our unalterable nature, are but Knowledge, Representa-
tion, Conception; and even in our union with the Infinite
One, this, the essential form of our Being, cannot be ob-
literated. Even in our union with him he does not become
our own Being; but he floats before us as something for-
eign to ourselves, something present there before us, to
which we can only devote ourselves, clinging to him with
earnest love;--He floats before us, as in himself without
form or substance, without definite conception or know-
ledge on our part of his inward essential nature, but only as
that through which alone we can think or comprehend
either ourselves or our World . /^Neither after our union
with God is the World lost to us; it only assumes a new
significance, and, instead of an independent existence such
as it seemed to us before, it becomes only the Appearance
and Manifestation, in Knowledge, of the Divine Life that
lies hidden within itself. Conprehend this once more as a
whole:--The Divine Ex-istence (Daseyn),--his Ex-istence,
Mb
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? 450
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
I say, which, according to the distinction already laid down,
is his Manifestation and Revelation of himself,--is absolute-
ly through itself, and of necessity, Light :--namely, inward
and spiritual Light. This Light, left to itself, separates and
divides itself into an infinite multiplicity of individual rays;
and in this way, in these individual rays, becomes estranged
from itself and its original source. But this same Light
may also again concentrate itself from out this separation,
and conceive and comprehend itself as One, as that which
it is in itself,--the Ex-istence and Revelation of God; re-
maining indeed, even in this conception, that which it is in
its form,--Light; but yet in this conception, and even by
means of this very conception, announcing itself as having
no real Being in itself, but as only the Ex-istence and Self-
Manifestation of God.
In our last two lectures, and more especially in the last
of all, we made it our especial business to investigate this
passage of the One, only possible, and unchangeable Being
into another, and that other a manifold and changeable Be-
ing: so that we might be enabled to penetrate to the very
transition-point of this change, and see its outgoing with
our own eyes. We found the following:--In the first place,
by the essential character of Knowledge in the abstract, as
a mere picture or representation, Being, which subsists alto-
gether independently of that Knowledge, and which in itself
and in God is pure activity and Life, is changed into a de-
terminate and abiding being, or into a World. In the se-
cond place, besides this distinction, the World which, to
mere abstract Knowledge, is simple and indivisible, is, by
the fundamental law of reflexion, further characterized,
formed, and moulded into a particular World, and indeed
into an infinitely varied World, flowing onward in a never-
ending stream of new and changing forms. The insight
thus to be attained was, in our opinion, indispensably ne-
cessary not only to Philosophy but also to Blessedness; since
the latter dwells in man not as a mere instinct or obscure
faith, but desires to be able to render an account to itself of
its own origin and foundation.
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? LECTURE V.
451
Thus far we had proceeded in our last lecture; and we
intimated at its conclusion, that with this division of the
World into an infinite multiplicity of forms, founded on a
fundamental law of all reflexion, there was inseparably con-
nected another division which we should, at this time, if
not critically educe, at least historically set forth and de-
scribe. I do not here approach this new and second division,
in its general character, more deeply than thus. In the
first place, in its essential nature, it is different from the
division which we set forth in our last lecture and have
now again described, in so far as the latter immediately se-
parates and divides the very World itself which, in virtue of
the mere abstract form of Knowledge, arises from out the
Divine Life; while, on the contrary, that which we have
now to consider does not immediately separate and divide
the object itself, but only separates and divides reflexion
on the object. The one is a separation and division in the
object itself; the other is but a separation and division in
the view taken of the object,--not as in the former case, re-
vealing to us objects different in themselves, but only dif-
ferent modes of viewing, apprehending, and understanding
the One abiding World. In the second place, it is not to
be forgotten that neither of these two divisions can assume
the place of the other, and that therefore they cannot sup-
plant or supersede each other; but that they are insepar-
able, and are therefore to be found together wherever re-
flexion, whose unchangeable forms they are, is to be found;
--and that therefore the results of both inseparably accom-
pany each other and always proceed hand in hand. The
result of the first division is, as we have shown in our pre-
vious lecture,--Infinitude;--the result of the second is, as
we also stated,--a Quintitude;--and therefore the result of
the inseparability of these two divisions is this,--that this
Infinity, which in itself remains entire and cannot be super-
seded, may yet be regarded in a Five-fold manner; and on
the other hand, that each of the five possible views so taken
of the World again divides the One World into an Infinite
multiplicity of forms. And thus you may comprehend
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
what we have now said in a single glance:--To the spiritu-
Val vision, that which in itself is the Divine Life becomes a
thing seen,--that is, a complete and present Ex-istence, or a
World:--which was the first point. This vision is always
an act, named reflexion; and by means of this act, partly
as relating to its object the World, and partly as relating to
itself, that World is divided into an infinite Quintentity, or,
what is the same thing, into a five-fold Infinity:--which
was the second point. In order that we may, in the next
place, proceed to the consideration of the second of these
divisions, which is the proper object of to-day's lecture, let
us now make, with regard to it, the following general re-
marks :--
This division, as we have said, presents no distinction in
the object itself, but only a distinction, difference, and varie-
ty, in the view taken of the object. It seems to force it-
self upon the mind that this difference, not in the object
itself but only in the view taken of the object--the object
itself meanwhile remaining the same--can arise only from
the obscurity or clearness, the depth or shallowness, the
completeness or incompleteness of the view thus taken of
the One unchanging World. And this is certainly the case:
or,--to connect this with something that I said before, il-
lustrating the one expression by the other and thus render-
ing both more intelligible,--the five modes of viewing the
World, now spoken of, are the same as those progressions
which, in the third lecture, I named the various possible
stages and grades of development of the inward Spiritual
Life,--when I said that the progress of this free and con-
scious Spiritual Life, which in a peculiar sense belongs to
us, follows the same course as the progress of Physical
Death, and that the former as well as the latter begins in
the remotest members, and thence only gradually advances
to the central-point of the system. What I named the out-
works of the Spiritual Life, in the figure which I then em-
ployed, are, in our present representation of the matter, the
lowest, darkest, and shallowest of the five possible modes of
viewing the World; what I then named the nobler parts,
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? LECTURE V.
453
and the heart, are here the higher and clearer, and the
highest and clearest, of these modes.
But notwithstanding that, according to our former simile
as well as our present representation, Man, after he has
rested for a time in a low view of the World and its signifi-
cance, does, even in the ordinary course of life and accord-
ing to established law, raise himself to a higher; yet, in the
first place, it is not on that account to be denied, but on
the contrary to be expressly held and maintained, that this
manifold view of the World is a true and original distinc-
tion, at least in the capacities possessed by men of compre-
hending the World. Understand me thus :--those higher
views of the World have not their origin in Time, nor so
that they are first engendered and made possible by views
wholly opposed to them; but they are from all Eternity in
the unity of the Divine Existence as necessary determina-
tions of the One Consciousness even although no man
should comprehend them; and no one who does comprehend
them can invent them, or produce them by mere thought,
but he can only perceive them, and appropriate them to
himself. In the second place, this gradual progress is only
the ordinary course of things, and only the established law,
which however is by no means without exception. Some
favoured and inspired men find themselves, as it were by
miracle, without their own knowledge and through mere
birth and instinct, placed at once on a higher standpoint
from which to survey the World; and these are as little
understood by those around them, as they, on their part, are
able to understand their contemporaries. Thus it has been,
since the beginning of the world, with all Religious Teachers,
Sages, Heroes, and Poets; and through these everything
great and good in the world has arisen. On the other hand,
there are individuals, and, where the contagion has become
very dangerous, whole ages with few exceptions, that by
the same inexplicable instinct of nature are so imprisoned
and rooted in the lowest view of things, that even the clear-
est and most evident instruction cannot induce them to
raise their eyes even for a moment from the earth, and to
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? 454
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
apprehend anything whatever but that which they can di-
rectly lay hold of with their hands.
So much in general as to the distinction we have indica-
ted in the modes of viewing the World; and now to set
forth the separate sections of this distinction.
The First, lowest, shallowest, and most confused mode of
viewing the World, is that wherein that only which is per-
<;ceptible to outward Sense is regarded as the World and the
actual existence therein,--as the highest, true, and self-suffi-
cient existence. This view has been already sufficiently de-
picted in these lectures, particularly in the third, and, as it
seems to me, clearly enough characterized; and on that oc-
casion its worthlessness and superficiality were made abun-
dantly evident, although only by a glance at its surface.
We admitted that this view was nevertheless that of our
philosophers, and of the age that is formed in their schools;
but we showed at the same time that this view by no means
proceeds from their logic--since the very nature and possi-
bility of logic directly gives the lie to such a view--but
from their love. We cannot pause any longer at this point,
for in these lectures we must proceed far beyond this, and
therefore we must leave some things behind us as for ever
abolished. Should any one, persisting in the testimony of
his senses, continue to say:--" But these things are obvi-
ously there, really and truly, for I see them there, and hear
them,"--then let such an one know that we are not even
disturbed by his confident assurance and inflexible faith;
but that we abide by our categorical, invincible, and abso-
lutely literal:--" No, these things are not, precisely because
they may be seen and heard,"--and that we can have no-
thing more to say to such a person, as one wholly incapable
of understanding or instruction.
The Second view, proceeding from the original division
in the modes of viewing the World, is that wherein the
v^World is regarded as a Law of Order and of equal rights in
a system of reasonable beings. Let this be understood ex-
actly as I have said it. A Law, and indeed an ordering and
equalizing Law addressed to the freedom of many, is to
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? LECTURE V.
455
this view the peculiar, self-subsistent Reality;--that by
which the World arose, and in which it has its root. Should
any one here wonder how a Law, which indeed, as such an
one would say, is only a relation--a mere abstract concep-
tion,--can be regarded as an independent existence, the
wonder of such an one can proceed only from his inability
to comprehend anything as real except visible and palpable
matter; and thus he also belongs to that class to whom we
have nothing to say. A Law, I say, is to this view of the
World the first thing; --that which alone truly is, and through which everything else that exists first comes into
existence. Freedom and a Human Race is to it the sec-
ond thing;--which exists only because a Law that is ad-
dressed to freedom necessarily assumes the existence of
freedom and of free beings; and in this system the only
foundation and proof of the independence of man is the Mo-
ral Law that reveals itself within him. A Sensible World,
finally, is to it the third thing;--and this is only the sphere
of the free action of man, and only exists because free ac-
tion necessarily assumes the existence of objects of such
action. As to the sciences that arise out of this view,--it
may lay claim not only to Jurisprudence, as setting forth
the legal relations of men, but also to the common doctrine
of Morals, which merely goes the length of forbidding in-
justice between man and man, and merely rejects whatever
is opposed to Duty whether forbidden by an express law of
the State or not. Examples of this view of the World can-
not be adduced from common life, which, rooted in matter,
does not raise itself even thus far; but, in philosophical
literature, Kant is the most striking and consequential ex-
ample of this view, if we do not follow his philosophical
career farther than the Critique of Practical Reason;--the
peculiar character of this mode of thought, as we have ex-
pressed it above,--namely, that the reality and indepen-
dence of man are evidenced only by the Moral Law that
rules within him, and that only thereby does he become
anything in himself,--being expressed by Kant in the same
words. We ourselves, too, have pointed out and investi-
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? 456
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
gated this view of the world, never indeed as the highest,
but as the foundation of a Doctrine of Jurisprudence and a
Doctrine of Morals in our treatment of these subjects; and
have there, as we are conscious, set it forth not without
energy:--and there can therefore be no lack of examples,
in our own age, of this second view of the World, for those
who take a closer interest in what has now been said. For
the rest, the purely moral inward sentiment -- that man
ought to act only in obedience to, and for the sake of, the
Law--which also enters into the sphere of this Lower Mo-
rality, and the inculcation of which has not been forgotten
either by Kant or by us, does not belong to our present
subject, where we have to do only with objective beliefs.
One general remark, which is of importance for all our
subsequent points of view, I shall adduce here as the place
where it may be made with the greatest distinctness. This,
namely:--In order to have a firm standpoint for any view
of the World, it is necessary that we should place the real
and independent being and root of the World in one definite
and unchangeable principle, from which we may be able to
educe the others as only partaking in the reality of the first,
and only assumed by reason of it; just as we have already,
when speaking of the second view of the World, educed the
Human Race as a second element, and the Sensible World
as a third, from the law of Moral Order as the first .
But it
is by no means allowable to mix and intermingle realities;
and, it may be, to ascribe to the Sensible World what is
supposed to belong to it, at the same time not denying to
to the Moral World any of its rights;--as is sometimes at-
tempted by those who would get rid of these questions al-
together. Such persons have no settled view whatever, and
no fixed direction of their spiritual eye, but they continually
turn aside amid the Manifold. Far better than they, is he
who holds firmly by the World of Sense, and denies the re-
ality of everything else but it; for although he may be as
short-sighted as the others, yet he is not at the same time
so timid and spiritless. In a word :--a higher view of the
World does not tolerate the lower beside it; but each high-
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? LECTURE V.
457
er step abolishes the lower as an absolute and highest stand-
point, and subordinates it to itself. ^
The Third view of the World is that from the stand-
point of the True and Higher Morality. It is necessary
that we should render a very distinct account of this stand-
point, which is almost wholly unknown to the present
age. To it also, as well as to the second of the views we
have now described, a Law of the Spiritual World is the
first, highest, and absolute reality; and herein these two
views coincide. But the Law of the third view is not, like
that of the second, merely a Law of Order, regulating pre-
sent existence; but rather a Creative Law, producing the
new and hitherto non-existent, even within the circle of that
which already exists. The former is merely negative,--
abolishing the opposition between diverse free powers, and
establishing equilibrium and peace in its stead; the latter
desires to inform the powers, thus lulled to rest, with a new
life. We may say that it strives, not like the former after
the mere form of the Idea but, after the qualitative and real
Idea itself. Its object may be briefly stated thus;--it seeks,
in those whom it inspires, and through them in others, to
make Humanity in deed, what it is in its original intention,
--the express image, copy, and revelation of the inward and
essential Divine Nature. The process of deduction, by which
this third view of the World arrives at reality, is therefore
the following:--To it, the only truly real and independent
being is the Holy, the Good, the Beautiful;--the second is
Humanity, as destined to be the manifestation of the first;--
the ordering Law in Humanity, as the third, is but the means
of bringing it into internal and external peace for the fulfil-
ment of this its true vocation; -- and finally, the World of
Sense, as the fourth, is only the sphere both of the outward
and inward, the lower and higher, Freedom and Morality;
--only the sphere of Freedom, I say,--that which it is to all
the higher points of view, and thus remains, and can never
assume to itself any other reality.
Examples of this view in human history can be seen only
by him who has an eye to discover them. Through the
Nb
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? 458
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Higher Morality alone, and those who have been inspired
by it, has Religion,--and in particular the Christian Reli-
gion,--Wisdom and Science, Legislation and Culture, Art,
and all else that we possess of Good and Venerable, been
introduced into the world. In Literature there are to be
found, except in the Poets, but few scattered traces of this
view:--among the ancient Philosophers, Plato may have
had some presentiment of it; among the moderns, Jacobi
sometimes touches upon this region.
The Fourth view of the World is that from the stand-
point of Religion; which, since it arises out of the third
view which we have just described, and is conjoined with it,
must be characterized as the clear knowledge and convic-
tion that this Holy, Good, and Beautiful, is by no means a
product of our own spirit, light or thought, or of any other
knowledge which in itself is nothing, but that it is the
immediate manifestation in us of the inward Divine Na-
ture, as Light ;--his expression, his image, wholly, absolute-
ly, and without abatement, in so far as his essential Nature
can come forth in an image or representation. This, the
Religious view, is that same insight for the production of
which we have prepared the way in our previous lectures,
and which now, in the connexion of its principles, may be
thus more precisely and definitely expressed:--(1. ) God alone
is, and nothing besides him:--a principle which, it seems to
me, may be easily comprehended, and which is the indis-
pensable condition of all Religious insight . (2. ) But while
we thus say " God is," we have an altogether empty concep-
tion, furnishing absolutely no explanation of God's essential
Nature. From this conception, what could we answer to
the question:--What then is God 1 The only possible ad-
dition we could make to the axiom,--this, namely, that he
is absolutely, of himself, through himself, and in himself,--
this is but the fundamental form of our own understanding
applied to him, and expresses no more than our mode of
conceiving him; and even that negatively and as we can
not think of him,--that is, we mean only that we cannot
educe his being from another, as we are compelled by the
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? LECTURE V.
459
nature of our understanding to do with all other objects of
our thought . This conception of God is thus an abstract
and unsubstantial conception; and when we say " God is,"
--he is to us essentially nothing; and, by this very expres-
sion itself, is made nothing. (3. ) But beyond this mere
empty and unsubstantial conception, and as we have care-
fully set forth this matter above, God enters into us in his
actual, true, and immediate Life ;--or, to express it more
strictly, we ourselves are this his immediate Life. But we
are not conscious of this immediate Divine Life; and since,
as we have also already seen, our own Ex-istence--that
which properly belongs to us--is that only which we can
embrace in consciousness, so our Being in God, notwith-
standing that at bottom it is indeed ours, remains neverthe-
less for ever foreign to us, and thus, in deed and truth, to
ourselves is not our Being;--we are in no respect the better
of this insight, and remain as far removed as ever from God.
We know nothing of this immediate Divine Life, I said;--
for even at the first touch of consciousness it is changed in-
to a dead outward World, which again divides itself into a
five-fold form according to the point of view from which we
regard it. Although it may be that it is God himself who
ever lives behind all these varied forms, yet we see him not,
but only his garment; we see him as stone, plant, animal,
&c. , or, if we soar higher, as Natural Law, or as Moral Law:
--but all this is yet not He. The form for ever veils the
substance from us; our vision itself conceals its object; our
eye stands in its own light. I say unto thee who thus com- plainest:--" Raise thyself to the standpoint of Religion, and
all these veils are drawn aside; the World, with its dead
principle, disappears from before thee, and the God-head
once more enters and resumes its place within thee, in its
first and original form, as Life,--as thine own Life, which
thou oughtest to live, and shalt live. Still the one, irrever-
sible form of Reflexion remains,--the Infinitude, in thee,
of this Divine Life, which, in God himself, is but One; but
this form troubles thee not, for thou desirest it and lovest
it; it does not mislead thee, for thou art able to explain it
.
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? 460
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
In that which the Holy Man does, lives, and loves, God ap-
pears, no longer surrounded by shadows nor hidden by a
garment, but in his own, immediate, and efficient Life; and
the question which is unanswerable from the mere empty
and unsubstantial conception of God,--" What is God ? "--ia here answered:--" He is that which he who is devoted to
him and inspired by him does. " Wouldst thou behold God
face to face, as he is in himself? Seek him not beyond the
skies; thou canst find him wherever thou art. Behold the
life of his devoted ones, and thou beholdest him; resign
thyself to him, and thou wilt find him within thine own
breast. "
This, my friends, is the view of the World and of Being,
from the standpoint of Religion.
The Fifth and last view of the World is that from the
standpoint of Science. Of Science, I say,-- One, Abso-
lute, and Self-complete. Science thoroughly comprehends
all these points of the transition of the One into a Manifold,
and of the Absolute into a Relative, in their order and in
their relations to each other; being able, in every case, and
from each individual point of view, to carry back that Mul-
tiplicity to its primitive Unity, or to deduce from the origi-
nal Unity that Multiplicity of form:--as we have laid before
you the general characteristics of such Science in this and
our two preceding lectures. Science goes beyond the insight
into the fact that the Manifold is assuredly founded on the
One and is to be referred to it, which is given to us by Reli-
gion,--to the insight into the manner of this fact; and to it,
that becomes a genetic principle which to Religion is but
an absolute fact . Religion without Science is a mere Faith,
although an immovable Faith;-- Science supersedes all
Faith, and changes it into sight. We do not, however, ad-
duce here this Scientific standpoint as properly belonging
to our present inquiry, but only for the sake of complete-
ness; and therefore it is sufficient at present to add the fol-
lowing respecting it:--Science is not indeed a condition of
the Divine and Blessed Life; but nevertheless this Life de-
mands of us that we should realise this Science, in ourselves
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? LECTURE V.
461
and in others, within the region of the Higher Morality.
The true and complete Man ought to be thoroughly clear
in himself; for universal and complete clearness belongs to
the image and representative of God. But, on the other
hand, no one can make this demand upon himself in whom
it has not already been fulfilled without his own aid, and has
thereby itself become already clear and intelligible to him.
We have yet to make the following remarks on the five
points of view which we have now indicated, and thus to complete our picture of the Religious Man.
Both of the two last-mentioned points of view, the Scien-
tific as well as the Religious, are only percipient and con-
templative, not in themselves active and practical They
are merely inert and passive moods, which abide within the
mind itself; not impulses moving towards action, and so
bursting forth into life. On the contrary, the third point of
view, that of the Higher Morality, is practical, impelling to-
wards action. And now I add:--True Religion, notwith-
standing that it raises the view of those who are inspired by
it to its own region, nevertheless retains their Life firmly
within the domain of action, and of right moral action. The true and real Religious Life is not alone percipient and con-
templative, does not merely brood over devout thoughts, but
is essentially active. It consists, as we have seen, in the in-
timate consciousness that God actually lives, moves, and
perfects his work in us. If therefore there is in us no real
Life, if no activity and no visible work proceed forth from
us, then is God not active in us. Our consciousness of union
with God is then deceptive and vain, and the empty shadow
of a condition that is not ours; perhaps the vague but life-
less insight that such a condition is possible, and in others
may be actual, but that we ourselves have, nevertheless, not
the least portion in it. We are expelled from the domain
of Reality, and again banished to that of vain and empty
conception. The latter is Fanaticism and idle dreaming, be-
cause it answers to no Reality; and this fanaticism is one
of the faults of that system of Mysticism which we have
elsewhere described, and contrasted with the True Religion:
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? 4G2
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
--it is by living activity that the True Religious Life is dis-
tinguished from this Fanaticism. Religion does not consist
in mere devout dreams, I said:--Religion is not a business
by and for itself, which a man may practise apart from his
other occupations, perhaps on certain fixed days and hours;
but it is the inmost spirit that penetrates, inspires, and per-
vades all our Thought and Action, which in other respects
pursue their appointed course without change or interrup-
tion. That the Divine Life and Energy actually lives in us,
is inseparable from Religion, I said. But this does not de-
pend upon the sphere in which we act, as may have become
evident from what we said when speaking of the third point
of view. He whose knowledge extends to the objects of the
Higher Morality, if he be animated by Religion, will live
and act in this sphere, because this is his peculiar calling.
But to him who has only a lower vocation, even it may be
sanctified by Religion, and will receive thereby, if not the
material, yet the form of the Higher Morality;--to which
nothing more is essential than that we should recognise and
love our vocation as the Will of God with us and in us. If
a man till his field in this Faith, or practise the most un-
pretending handicraft with this truthfulness, he is higher
and more blessed than if, without this Faith, if that were
possible, he should confer happiness and prosperity upon
mankind for ages to come.
This then is the picture--the inward spirit of the true
Religious man:--He does not conceive of his World, the
object of his love and his endeavour, as something for him
to enjoy;--not as if melancholy and superstitious fear
caused him to look upon eujoyment and pleasure as some-
thing sinful, but because he knows that no such pleasure
can yield him true joy. He conceives of it as a World of
Action, which, because it is his World, he alone creates,
in which alone he can live, and find enjoyment of himself.
This Action again he does not will for the sake of a result in
the World of Sense;--he is in no respect anxious about the
result or no-result that may ensue, for he lives only in Ac-
tion, as Action;--but he wills it, because it is the Will of
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? LECTURE V.
463
God in him, and his own proper portion in Being. And so
does his Life flow onwards, simple and pure, knowing, will-
ing, and desiring nothing else than this,--never wandering
from this centre, neither moved nor troubled by aught ex-
ternal to itself.
Such is his Life. Whether this be not of necessity the
most pure and perfect Blessedness, we shall inquire at an-
other time.
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? 40
LECTURE VI.
EXPOSITION OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE JOHANNEAN
GOSPEL:--ITS ACCORDANCE WITH
OUR OWN DOCTRINE.
Oub whole Doctrine, as the foundation of all that we have
yet to say at this time, and generally of all that we can
say at any time, is now clearly and distinctly set forth, and
may be surveyed at a single glance. There is absolutely
no Being and no Life beyond the immediate Divine Life.
According to the essential and irreversible laws of Con-
sciousness,--laws which are founded in the very nature of
Consciousness itself,--this Being is veiled and darkened in
Consciousness by manifold concealments;--but, freed from
these disguises, and modified only by the form of Infinitude,
it reappears in the life and actions of the God-inspired man.
In his actions it is not man who acts;--but God himself, in
his primitive and inward Being and Nature, acts and ful-
fils his work in Man.
I said, in one of the first and introductory lectures, that
this doctrine, however new and unheard of it may seem to
this age, is nevertheless as old as the world;--and that, in
particular, it is the doctrine of Christianity, as this, even to
the present day, lies before our view in its purest and most
excellent record, the Gospel of John; and that this doctrine
is there set forth with the very same images and expres-
sions which we here employ. It may be well, in many re-
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? THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
405
spects, to make good that statement, and to this purpose
we shall devote the present lecture. It will be understood,
even without a special declaration on our part, that we by
no means intend to prove our doctrine, or even to add to
it an outward support, by demonstrating this harmony be-
tween it and Christianity. It must already, by what we
have previously said, have proved itself, and that with abso-
lute evidence,--and it needs no further support. And in
the same way must Christianity, as in harmony with Rea-
son, and as the pure and perfect expression of this Reason,
beyond which there is no truth,--so, I say, must Christiani-
ty prove itself, if it is to lay claim to validity and accept-
ance. It is not by philosophers that you need fear to be
led back again into the chains of blind authority.
In my lectures of last winter,* I have distinctly an-
nounced the grounds upon which I regard the Apostle John
as the only teacher of true Christianity:--namely, that the
Apostle Paul and his party, as the authors of the opposite
system of Christianity, remained half Jews, and left unal-
tered the fundamental error of Judaism as well as of Hea-
thenism, which we must afterwards notice. For the present
the following may be enough:--It is only with John that
the philosopher can deal, for he alone has respect for Rea-
son, and appeals to that evidence which alone has weight
with the philosopher--the internal. "If any man will do
the will of him that sent me, he shall know of the doctrine,
whether it be of God. " But this Will of God, according to
John, is that we should truly believe in God, and in Jesus
Christ whom he hath sent. The other promulgators of
Christianity, however, rely upon the external evidence of
Miracle, which to us at least, proves nothing. Further, of
the four Gospels, only that of John contains what we seek
and desire,--a Doctrine of Religion; while, on the contrary,
the best that the others offer to us, without completion and
explanation by John, amounts to nothing more than Mo-
rality ;--which to us has but a very subordinate value. As
* " Characteristics of the Present Age," Lecture VII.
ob
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? +66
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
to the assertion that John had the other Evangelists before
him, and only designed to supply what they had omitted,
we shall not here inquire into it;--should that be the case,
then, in our opinion, the supplement is the best part of the
whole, and John's predecessors had passed over that precise-
ly which was of essential importance.
As to the principle of interpretation which I apply to
this as well as to all the other authors of the Christian
Scriptures, it is the following;--So to understand them as
if they had really desired to say something, and, so far as
their words permit, as if they had said what is right and
true:--a principle that seems to be in accordance with jus-
tice and fairness. But we are wholly opposed to the her-
meneutical principle of a certain party, according to which
the most earnest and simple expressions of these writers are
regarded as mere images and metaphors, and thus explained
and re-explained away, until the result is a flat and insipid
triviality such as these interpreters might themselves have
discovered and brought forward. Other means of interpre-
tation than those contained in themselves seem to me inad-
missible in the case of these writers, and particularly in the
case of John. Where, as in the case of the profane authors
of classical antiquity, we can compare several contemporary
writers with each other, and all of them with a preceding
and succeeding republic of letters, there is room for the em-
ployment of external aids. But Christianity, and particu-
larly John, stands alone and isolated, as a wonderful and
inexplicable phenomenon of Time, without precedent and
without succedent.
In what we shall set forth as the substance of the Johan-
nean doctrine, we must carefully distinguish between that
in it which is true in itself, true absolutely and for all time,
and that which has been true only for the standpoint of
John and the Jesus whom he announces, and for their time
and circumstances. This latter, too, we shall faithfully set
forth; for any other mode of interpretation than this is not
only dishonest, but leads to perplexity and confusion.
The portion of the Gospel of John which must necessarily
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? LECTURE VI.
467
attract our attention at the very outset is the dogmatic in-
troduction which occupies a part of the first chapter;--as it
were the preface. Do not regard this preface as a special
and arbitrary philosopheme of the author himself,--a specu-
lative prelude to his historical narrative, of which, holding
only to the facts themselves, we may, according to the pro-
per intention of the author, adopt whatever opinion we
please;--as some appear to regard this proem. It is much
rather to be considered in relation to the whole Gospel, and
to be understood only in that connexion. Throughout the
whole Gospel, the author represents Jesus as speaking of
himself in a certain manner, which we shall afterwards ad-
vert to; and it is without doubt the conviction of John that
Jesus did speak precisely in this way and in no other, and
that he had heard him thus speak;--and it seems to be his
earnest desire that we should believe him in this. Now the
preface explains how it was possible that Jesus could think
and speak of himself as he did: and it is therefore neces-
sarily assumed by John that not only he himself, and ac-
cording to his own mere personal opinion, so regarded Jesus
and would so interpret him, but that Jesus had likewise re-
garded himself in the same way in which he is here depic-
ted. The preface is to be taken as the essence, the general
standpoint, of all the discourses of Jesus;--it has, therefore,
in the view of the author, the same authority as these dis-
courses themselves. In the sight of John, this preface is
not his own doctrine but that of Jesus, and indeed is the
spirit, the innermost root, of the whole doctrine of Jesus.
Having thus clearly set forth this not-unimportant point,
let us proceed, by the following preliminary remark, to the
subject itself.
The notion of a creation, as the essentially fundamental
error of all false Metaphysics and Religion, and, in particu-
lar, as the radical principle of Judaism and Heathenism,
arises from ignorance of the doctrine which we have pre-
viously laid down.
