Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/146

 very self the justification of the content and the evidence of its Being or truth, it is necessary to make the following remarks:—

The matter of feeling may be of the most varied character. We have the feeling of justice, of injustice, of God, of colour, of hatred, of enmity, of joy, &c. The most contradictory elements are to be found in feeling; the most debased, as well as the highest and noblest, have a place there. Experience proves that the matter of feeling has the most accidental character possible; it may be the truest, or it may be the worst. God, when He is present in feeling, has no advantage over the very worst possible thing. On the contrary, the kingliest flower springs from the same soil and side by side with the rankest weed. Because a content is found in feeling, it does not mean that this content is in itself anything very fine. For it is not only what exists that comes into our feeling; it is not only the real, the existent, but also the fictitious and the false. All that is good and all that is evil, all that is real and all that is not real, is found in our feeling; the most contradictory things are there. All imaginable things are felt by me; I can become enthusiastic about what is most unworthy. I have hope; hope is a feeling; in it, as in fear, we have to do with the future; that is, in so many words, with what does not yet exist, with what perhaps indeed will, perhaps never will, be. Likewise I can become enthusiastic about the past; but also for such things as neither have been, nor will be. I can imagine myself to be a great and able, a noble-minded, most superior man, to be capable of sacrificing everything for justice, for my opinion; I can imagine myself to have been of great use, to have accomplished much; but the question is, whether it is true, whether as a matter of fact I act so nobly, and am in reality so excellent as I imagine myself to be. Whether my feeling is of a true sort, whether it is good, depends upon its content. The mere fact that there is