Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/326

 appearance, which is to be looked upon as objective, and thus the principle appears according to which it is to be a case of one or some as exclusive in reference to the rest. Thus one man is a magician, or some men are magicians; they are looked upon as the highest power which is actually present. These are usually princes, and thus, for instance, the Emperor of China is the individual having dominion over men, and at the same time over nature and natural things. Since it is thus a self-consciousness which is reverenced, a distinction at once makes itself apparent here between what an individual is in his essential nature and what he is from the point of view of his external existence. In this latter aspect the individual is a man like other men, but the essential moment or element is spirituality in general; this being for self or independent in contrast to the external contingent mode of existence. A distinction begins to appear here which is of a higher character, as as we shall see later on, and which comes into prominence in the Lamas. What first takes place is that a distinction is made between individuals as such and as universal powers. This universal spiritual power, conceived as existing in its own right, supplies the idea of Genius, of a god who has himself again a sensuous shape in the idea formed of him, and the actually living individual is then the priest of such an idol. At this standpoint, however, the priest and the god often become synonymous. His inner life may become hypostatised; here, however, the essential power of the spiritual and the immediate existence are not as yet separated from one another, and thus this spiritual power is really merely a superficial idea. The priest, the magician, is the principal person, so that they are actually represented sometimes as separate, but if the god comes to express himself outwardly, becomes strong, decides, &c., he only does this as a definite real human being; this reality supplies the god with his strength. These priests sometimes have