Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/113

 once more reinstated, restored again, and as thus eternally returning into himself is he Spirit.

(b.) The concrete idea belonging to this stage.

In this religion, as it actually exists in the religion of the Egyptians, there occur an infinite variety of forms or figures. But the soul or animating principle of the Whole is what constitutes the chief characteristic, and it is brought into prominence in the principal figure. This is Osiris, who in the first place, it is true, has negation opposed to him as external, as other than himself, as Typhon. This external relation is not, however, permanent in the sense of being only a strife such as that carried on by Ormazd; on the contrary, negation makes its entrance into the subject itself.

The subject is slain, Osiris dies, but he is eternally restored again, and he is thus posited in popular conception as born a second time, this birth not having a natural character, but being posited as something apart from what is natural or sensuous. He is consequently posited, defined as belonging to the realm of general ideas, to the region of the Spiritual, which endures above and beyond the finite, not to the natural sphere as such.

Osiris is the God of popular conception, the God conceived of or mentally represented in accordance with his inner character. Accordingly in the idea that he dies, but is likewise restored, it is expressly declared that he is present in the realm of general ideas as opposed to mere natural being.

But he is not only conceived of in this way; he becomes known too as such. That does not mean the same thing. As represented in the form of idea, Osiris is defined as the ruler in the realm of Amenthes; as he is lord of the living, so also is he lord of what no longer continues in sensuous existence, but of the continuously existing soul, which has severed itself from the body, from what is sensuous, perishable. The kingdom of the dead is the realm where natural being is overcome, the