Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/208

 a moral one, and it finds its sphere in real freedom. It is that part of thought in which what is practical comes into play, an end in actual consciousness. It is, however, a first end, and the morality connected with it is of the immediate natural kind. The end is thus the family and the connection of the family. It is this one particular family exclusive of all others.

The real immediate first end of divine wisdom is thus still quite limited, quite particular, just because it is the first end. God is absolute wisdom, but He is this in the sense of being entirely abstract wisdom, or, to put it otherwise, the end in the divine notion is one which is as yet purely general, and is consequently an end devoid of content. This indeterminate end thus devoid of content, changes in actual existence into immediate particularity, into the most perfect limitation; or, in other words, the state of potentiality in which wisdom still exists is itself immediacy, naturalness.

God’s real end is thus the family, and in fact this particular family, for the idea of many single families already gives proof of the extension of the thought of singleness by means of reflection. We have here a noteworthy, and absolutely rigid contrast—in fact, the most rigid possible contrast. God is, on the one hand, the God of heaven and of earth, absolute wisdom, universal power, and the end aimed at by this God is at the same time so limited that it concerns only one family, only this one people. All peoples, it is true, ought also to acknowledge Him and praise His name, but His actual work and that which has been really accomplished consists of this particular people only, regarded in their general condition and definite existence, in their inner and outer, political and moral actually existing condition. God is thus only the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God who has brought us out of Egypt. Since God is only One, He is present also only in one universal spirit, in one family, in one world. The families as families come