Page:Ethical Studies (reprint 1911).djvu/286

 for the bad be admitted, we can not see in that the assertion of the divine will. And further, if the question be narrowed to self-sacrifice for good, still we must say that it need involve nothing properly to be called religion. The cause, with which the will is identified to the negation of the temporal self, need not therefore be apprehended as non-temporal, or that which is above the finite; but only as a finite realization, which is above and superior to this or that finite. And thus, too, my will may be identified with some bad interest, which, though finite, is still superior to my finite existence. The doubt which remains is whether, in cases where the personal existence is felt as utterly worthless in comparison of the good to be attained, the good is not so qualified by the comparison that we have passed into the religious consciousness, or at least into that which springs from and depends on it. Here, however, on the other side we must take account of the ‘abstract self-consciousness,’ which stakes its existence on a trifle, not because it cares for this or that content, but because, in its abstract assertion, it cares for no particular content as such, not even that of its own finite existence. But this, as well as the consideration of the former difficulty, besides others no doubt which we have omitted or failed to throw light on, we will leave to the reader (if such there be) who, in spite of its treatment by the writer, remains yet unwearied by the subject.