Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/248

 self-consciousness has not as yet attained to development into Totality. The distinction is not in so far taken seriously. Negativity must, it is true, present itself, but not being the product of consciousness itself, the negative is shut out from the inner relation of subjectivity. It has its place outside, and is, as it were, a realm of darkness and of evil to be separated off from the immediate unity. Conflict and strife with that negative may even arise, but it is of such a kind that it is thought of more as an external conflict, and the enmity and return out of it are not regarded as essential moments of self-consciousness. In this stage there is therefore no real reconciliation, for this presupposes an absolute dualism or division in the inner life.

Here, therefore, the essential note of worship is that it is not something peculiar, not anything set apart from the rest of life, but rather a continuous life in the realm of light and in the Good. The temporal life with all its needs—this our immediate life—is itself worship, and the subject has not as yet separated its essential life from the maintenance of its temporal life, and from the occupations belonging to immediate, finite existence.

At this stage, an express consciousness of its God as such must indeed spring up in the subject; there must be a rising up to the thought of the absolute Being, and there must be adoration and praise of Him. But this is to begin with an abstract relation of a separate and independent character into which concrete life does not enter. So soon as the relation of worship takes on a more concrete shape, it takes up the entire external actual existence of the individual into itself, and the whole compass of ordinary daily life, eating, drinking, sleeping, and all actions connected with the satisfaction of natural necessities come to have a reference to worship, and the engaging in these actions and occupations constitutes a holy life.

While, however, externality and need are necessarily inherent in such occupations, they must, if they are to be