Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/130

 accomplished, posited by the finite spirit, by the subjective spirit, and for this reason the work of art must be executed by man. This explains why it is necessary that the manifestation of the gods by means of art is a manifestation fashioned by human hands. In the religion of absolute Spirit the outward form of God is not made by the human spirit. God Himself is, in accordance with the true Idea, self-consciousness which exists in and for itself, Spirit. He produces Himself of His own act, appears as Being for “Other;” He is, by His own act, the Son; in the assumption of a definite form as the Son, the other part of the process is present, namely, that God loves the Son, posits Himself as identical with Him, yet also as distinct from Him. The assumption of form makes its appearance in the aspect of determinate Being as independent totality, but as a totality which is retained within love; here, for the first time, we have Spirit in and for itself. The self-consciousness of the Son regarding Himself is at the same time His knowledge of the Father; in the Father the Son has knowledge of His own self, of Himself. At our present stage, on the contrary, the determinate existence of God as God is not existence posited by Himself, but by what is Other. Here Spirit has stopped short half way. This defect of art, namely, that the god is made or fashioned by man, is also felt in those religions in which this is the highest manifestation, and attempts are made to remedy the defect, not, however, in an objective, but in a subjective way. Images of the gods must be consecrated; alike by the Negro and the Greek they are consecrated, that is to say, the divine Spirit is put into them by a process of conjuration. This results from the consciousness, the feeling of defect; but the mode of remedying it is one which is not contained in the objects themselves, but comes to them from without. Even among the Catholics such consecration takes place; of pictures, for example, relics, and the like.