Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/169

 mediation is not absolutely secure, for we are dependent here on the constitution of the medium which stands between us and the content, namely the perception of others. The power of perceiving the meaning of events demands prosaic understanding and its culture, and therefore conditions which were not present among those of olden times, for they lacked the capacity to grasp the history on its finite side, and to draw out of it the inner meaning which it contains, since the antithesis of poetry and prose was not as yet defined with absolute distinctness. And if we place the divine in the historical, we continually get into the element of instability and want of fixed character which essentially belong to all that is historical. The prosaic understanding and unbelief took up a position of antagonism to the miracles of which the apostles tell us, and, regarding the matter from the objective side, there is the further objection of the want of proper proportion between miracle and the Divine.

But even if all these ways of bringing about the connection of the content of idea or ordinary thought with self-consciousness for once attain their end, if the apologetic style of argument with its reasons has brought some to conviction, or if I with the needs, impulses, and sorrows of my heart have found comfort and tranquillity in the content of religion, it is a mere accident that this has taken place. This result depends on the fact that this very standpoint of reflection and inner feeling has not as yet been disturbed and has not yet aroused in itself the presentiment of the existence of a Higher Being. It is therefore dependent on an accidental sense of defect.

I, however, do not consist merely of this heart and feeling, or of this good-natured reflection which shows itself compliant to the apologetics of the understanding, and naively welcomes it and is only too glad when it perceives reasons which are adequate, and suitable to it, but I have other and higher needs besides. I am also concretely determined in an entirely simple and universal