Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/266

 the business of cultured thought, and is specially the business of philosophy, which may, perhaps, in this sense be termed worldly wisdom. It is a matter of no importance under what external form true laws have succeeded in establishing themselves, and whether they have been extorted by threats out of rulers or not; the cultivation and development of the conception of freedom, of right, of humanity, is on its own account necessary to mankind. With regard to the truth that laws are the divine will, it is therefore of the utmost moment to determine what these laws are. Principles as such are mere abstract thoughts, which only attain their truth in being unfolded and developed; held fast in their abstract state, they represent what is wholly untrue.

3. Finally, the State and religion may be severed from one another, and may have different laws. What is worldly and what is religious stand on a different basis, and a distinction in regard to principle also may make its appearance here. Religion does not merely keep to its own proper sphere, but concerns the subject too, prescribes rules in reference to his religious life, and consequently in reference to his active life also. Those rules which religion makes for the individual may be different from the fundamental principles of right and of morality which prevail in the State. The form in which this contradiction expresses itself is that the demands of religion have reference to holiness; those of the State, to right and morality: what is in view on the one side is Eternity; on the other, Time and temporal welfare, which must be sacrificed to eternal well-being. In this way a religious ideal is set up—a heaven upon earth; in other words, the abstraction of Spirit as against the substantial element of the actual world. Renunciation of this actual world is the fundamental principle which appears here, and with it appear conflict and flight. Something quite different, which is to be regarded as higher, is set in opposition to the substantial foundation, to the True.