Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/209

 first, those which were brought out of Egypt are the nation, and here it is the heads of the family who constitute the definite element of the end. Universality is thus still something natural, and the end is accordingly only human, and is therefore the family. Religion is thus patriarchal, and it is accordingly the family which expands into the people. A nation means a people, because, to begin with, it has its origin in Nature. This is the limited end, and in reference to all others it is exclusively the divine end.

The five Books of Moses start with the creation of the world, and immediately after we come upon the Fall, which has to do with the nature of man as man. This universal element present in the creation of the world, and next that fall of man, and of man in his generic character, are ideas which have had no influence on the form subsequently taken by the Jewish religion. We have merely this prophecy, the universal element in which did not become a truth for the Israelitish people. God is only the God of this people, not the God of men, and this people is God’s people.

It may be further remarked, with the view of making more generally intelligible the connection between the universal wisdom of God in itself and the completely limited nature of the real end, that when man wills the universal good, and has this as his end, he has made his arbitrary will the principle of his resolves and his acts. For this universal good, this universal end, does not contain within itself the Other, the Particular. When, however, it is necessary to act, then this real end demands something determinate, and this determinateness lies outside of the Notion, since the latter has no such determinateness in itself, but is still abstract, and the particular end is for this reason not yet sanctified, because it has not yet been taken up into the universal end of the Good.

In politics, if it is only universal laws which are to hold sway, then the governing element is force, the