Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/251

 sacrifice of purification, having reference to a specific defilement. From the point of view which we are considering, sin, in the strict sense, has not been committed; the special sacrifices of purification group themselves round all finite action generally. They represent no repentance, no punishment; they have no spiritual change as their aim, and they do not involve the endurance of any kind of loss or damage. It is not considered that a man has done some evil deed for which he must endure an evil in return. All such categories as those just mentioned would include the idea of a justification of the subject; but that is an idea which does not as yet in any sense enter in here. From our standpoint, such sacrifices would be regarded as losses, since something we possess is relinquished by means of them. Such a view is meanwhile wholly absent from the minds of those who occupy the standpoint above referred to; their sacrifice is, on the contrary, essentially symbolical. A defilement has occurred, and this must be got rid of in a similarly immediate manner. The subject, however, cannot make what has happened into something which has not happened, nor can it repent that it has acted as it did. For this reason there must necessarily be an exchange or substitution, and something must be relinquished other than that existence which was really in question. What is offered up may be much more insignificant as regards intrinsic value than what I receive, what I have acquired for myself. Thus I actually take possession of the harvest which I have won, of the animal which I have slaughtered, and then if it is to be shown that I do not seriously take this possession as mine, this is done in a symbolical manner. It is not as if what I do ought not to take place, for such actions are necessary; through the act of sacrifice it is only this becoming finite generally, this independent existence of mine which is once more annulled.

The general characteristic which marks these acts