Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/134

 outward embodiment, is wanting; what remains is only the task of becoming clear to self, and the spiritual consciousness as being the inner element merely seeks to struggle out of naturalness and be free.

The most important representation by which the essential nature of this struggle is made perfectly plain is the statue of the goddess at Sais, who was represented veiled. It is symbolised in that statue, and in the inscription in her temple, “I am what was, is, and shall be; my veil has been lifted by no mortal,” it is expressly declared that Nature is something differentiated within itself, namely, an Other in contrast to its outward appearance as that immediately presents itself, an enigma. It has an inner element, something that is hidden. “But,” it is stated further in this inscription, “the fruit of my body is Helios.” This as yet hidden essence therefore expresses clearness, the sun, the becoming clear to oneself, the spiritual sun in the form of the son who is born of her. It is this clearness which is attained to in the Greek and Jewish religion, in the former in art and in the beautiful human form, in the latter in objective thought. The enigma is solved; the Egyptian Sphinx, according to a deeply significant and admirable myth, was slain by a Greek, and thus the enigma has been solved. This means that the content is man, free, self-knowing Spirit.

SECOND DIVISION

THE RELIGION OF SPIRITUAL INDIVIDUALITY.

The Religion of Nature is the most difficult to get a grasp of, because it lies farthest from our ordinary thought, and is the crudest and most imperfect form of religion. The natural element has such a variety of shapes within itself, that in the form of naturalness and immediateness the universal absolute content is broken up.