Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/255

 and ideas, and brings it forth in an outward way for sense-perception.

Hitherto we have considered the worship which belongs to this standpoint as it proceeds from the assumed unity of self-consciousness and the Object. A falling away from this original unity notwithstanding, often makes its appearance here, a deviation from this state of reconciliation, or from the sense of defect which gives rise to the need for that state. This falling away has its root partly in the freewill of the subject, in the enjoyment which the individual has in his world,—for he is not spiritually self-conscious, and is thus still inclination, desire,—or it comes in from another side, from the power of Nature, from the misery of man, of the individual, of peoples, or states. After a disturbance of this kind, whereby the unity is interrupted, there is constant need of stern negation to restore it again.

Here we have the severance of the Divine and human, and the meaning of worship is not the enjoyment of this unity, but the abrogation of the separation. Here, too, we have the presupposition of a reconciliation which exists on its own account.

2. This severance or separation is, to begin with, one which presents itself in the natural world, and it appears here as some external disaster which falls upon a people. God is here the substantial power, the power in the spiritual as in the natural world. Now, if death, adverse fortunes in war, pestilence, and other calamities weigh upon a land, the direction which worship takes is that of seeking to regain the goodwill of the gods, originally enjoyed. It is the calamity which here constitutes the severance; it has reference to the natural sphere only, the external state in respect of bodily existence, these outward conditions not being such as the demand for happiness requires. The assumption here is that this natural state is not an accidental one, but depends upon a higher Power, which determines itself as God: God