Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/307

 is the ruling power over nature. This spiritual element does not yet exist, however, as Spirit; it is not yet found in its universality, but is merely the particular, contingent, empirical self-consciousness of man, which, although it is only mere passion, knows itself to be higher in its self-consciousness than nature—knows that it is a power ruling over nature.

Two different things are to be remarked here:—

1. In so far as immediate self-consciousness knows that this power lies within it, that it is the seat of this power, it at once marks itself off in that state in which it is such a power from its ordinary condition.

The man who is occupied with ordinary things has, when he goes about his simple business, particular objects before him. He then knows that he has to do with these only, as, for example, in fishing or the chase, and he limits his energies to these particular objects alone. But the consciousness of himself as a power over the universal power of nature, and over the vicissitudes or changes of nature, is something quite different from the consciousness of that ordinary manner of existence with its occupations and various activities.

Here the individual knows that he must transplant himself into a higher state in order to have that power. This state is a gift belonging to particular persons, who have to learn by tradition all those means and ways by which such power can be exercised. A select number of individuals who are sensible of the presence of this sombre subjective quality within themselves, repair for instruction to the older ones.

2. This power is a direct power over nature in general, and is not to be likened to the indirect power, which we exercise by means of implements over natural objects in their separate forms. Such a power as this, which the educated man exercises over individual natural things, presupposes that he has receded from this world, that the world has acquired externality in relation to him,—an