Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/334

 movement is the converse one, namely, that this necessary element has returned to the finite. In the first movement the finite forgets itself. The second is the relation of Substance to the finite. God being only determined here as the Substance of the finite and the power over it, He Himself is still undetermined. He is not yet known as determined within Himself for Himself. He is not yet known as Spirit.

This is the general foundation of several definite forms of religion, which are progressive efforts to grasp Substance as self-determining.

1. To begin with, in the religion of China, for example, Substance is known as the simple foundation, and is thus immediately present in the finite, the contingent.

What occasions the progressive movement of consciousness is that Spirit, even although Substance is not yet conceived of as Spirit, is nevertheless the Truth which potentially lies at the foundation of all the phenomena of consciousness, so that even at this stage nothing can be wanting of what pertains to the conception of Spirit. Therefore here too Substance will take on the specific character of a subject, but the question is as to how it does this. Here, accordingly, the characteristics of Spirit which are potentially existent present themselves in an external shape. Complete determinateness, the ultimate reach of definite form, this final culmination of the unit of independent being, is now posited in an external fashion, so that a present human being is known as the universal Power.

This consciousness already shows itself in the Chinese religion, where the Emperor at all events represents what gives effect to the power.

2. In the religion of India Substance is known as abstract unity, no longer as a mere foundation, and this abstract unity is more nearly akin to Spirit, since Spirit as is itself this abstract unity. Here, then, man rises up, and in lifting himself up to his inner abstract