Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 1.djvu/77

 particular content itself, the particular subjects. What is in this connection called the notion, has no further influence upon this content beyond pointing out in a general way what is the ground upon which we stand in dealing with these subjects, and preventing the introduction of content from any other sphere. The content, for example, magnetism, electricity, answers to the subject-matter itself, the notion to the formal element. The conception or notion which is placed in the foreground (as, for example, that of Right) may, however, in connection with such a mode of considering the subject, become a mere name for the most abstract, uncertain content.

For the philosophical way of looking at things, too, the notion occupies the first place, but here the notion is the content itself, the absolute subject-matter, the substance, as in the case of the germ, out of which the whole tree develops itself. All specifications or determinations are contained in this, the whole nature of the tree, the kind of sap it has, the way in which the branches grow; but in a spiritual manner, and not pre-formed so that a microscope could reveal its boughs, its leaves, in miniature. It is thus that the notion contains the whole nature of the object, and knowledge itself is nothing else than the development of the notion, of that which is implicitly contained in the notion, and has not yet come into existence, has not been unfolded, displayed. Thus we begin with the notion or conception of religion.

1. The Moment of Universality.

In the notion or conception of religion the purely universal, again, does indeed take the first place; that is, the moment of thought in its complete universality. It is not this or that that is thought, but Thought thinks itself. The object is the Universal, which, as active, is Thought. As the act of rising up to the True, religion is