Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/139

 contained in it are of the very baldest and emptiest kind. It is a proof of the grossest ignorance to believe that immediate knowledge is outside the region of thought. We fight with such distinctions, and when they are considered more closely they simply vanish. Even according to the very poorest definition of “immediate knowledge,” namely, that given above, religion belongs to the sphere of thought.

We, accordingly, go on to inquire more precisely wherein it is that what I know in immediate consciousness is different from other things that I know. I know as yet nothing but that the Universal is; what further content God has is to be discussed in the sequel. The standpoint of immediate consciousness gives nothing more than the form of Being referred to. That man cannot know what God is, is the standpoint of “enlightenment,” and this coincides with that of the immediate knowledge of God. But further, God is an Object of my consciousness, I distinguish Him from myself, He is something different from me, and I from Him. If we compare other objects in accordance with what we know of them, we find we know of them this too, that they are, and are something other than ourselves, they exist for themselves, and further they are either universal or they are not, they are something universal and at the same time something particular; they have some sort of definite content. The wall is; it is a thing. Thing is a Universal, and thus much I know too of God. We know far more of other things, but if we abstract from all their definite characteristics, we only say, as we said just now of the wall, “It is,” thus we know just as much of it as we do of God. And thus God has been called an abstract Ens. But this ens is the very emptiest form of existence compared with which other entia show themselves to have a far fuller existence.

We have said that God is in immediate knowledge; we are too; this immediateness of Being belongs to the Ego too. All other concrete, empirical things are or exist also, they are identical with themselves, this is