Page:History of Modern Philosophy (Falckenberg).djvu/506

 484 SCHLEJERMACHER, itself in the form of particular historical religions, which are termed revealed because founded by religious heroes, creative personalities, in whom an especially lively reli- gious feeling is aroused by a new view of the universe, and determines (not, like artistic inspiration, single moments, but) their whole existence. Three stages are to be distin- guished in the development of religion, according as the world is represented as an unordered unity (chaos), or as an indeterminate manifold of forces and elements (plurality without unity), or, finally, as an organized plurality dom- inated by unity (system) — fetichism with fatalism, poly- theism, mono- (including pan-) theism. Among the religions of the third stadium Islam is physical or aesthetic in spirit ; Judaism and Christianity, on the other hand, ethical or teleological. The Christian religion is the most perfect, because it gives the central place to the concept of redemption and reconciliation (hence to that which is essential to religion) instead of to the Jewish idea of retribution. The concept of individuality became of the highest importance for Schleiermacher's ethics, as well as for his philosophy of religion ; and by his high appreciation of it he ranges himself with Leibnitz, Herder, Goethe, and Novalis. Now two sides may be distinguished both in regard to that which the individual is and to that which he ought to accomplish. Like every particular being, man is an abbrevi- ated, concentrated presentation of the universe; he con- tains everything in himself, contains all, that is, in a not yet unfolded, germinal manner, awaiting development in life in time, but yet in a form peculiar to him, which is never repeated elsewhere. This yields a twofold moral task. The individual ought to rouse into actuality the infinite fullness of content which he possesses as possibility, as slumbering germs, should harmoniously develop his capacities; yet in this he must not look upon the unique- form which has been bestowed upon him as worthless. He is not to feel himself a mere specimen, an unimportant rep- etition of the type, but as a particular, and in this par- ticularity a significant, expression of the absolute, A'hose omission would cause a gap in the world. It is surprising