Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/259

 at from this side, all that belongs to self-consciousness is passive reception. The mode of this manifestation is one which exists pre-eminently for Thought; what is eternal is taught, given, and its existence does not depend on the caprice of the individual. Dreams, the oracle, are manifestations of this kind. The Greeks embodied this idea in all kinds of forms. For instance, a divine image fallen from heaven, or a meteor, or thunder and lightning, are reckoned as a manifestation of the divine. Or it may be this manifestation, as the first and as yet inarticulate proclamation of the divine to the consciousness, is the rustling of the trees, the stillness of the woods in which Pan is present.

Since this stage is only the stage of freedom and rationality in their first form, the spiritual power either appears in outward guise—and this is the basis of that natural aspect which still attaches to this standpoint—or if the powers and laws that make themselves known to the inward thought of man are spiritual and moral, they are this to begin with because they are, and it is not known whence they come.

The manifestation is now the boundary-line of both sides, which separates them and at the same time relates them to each other. At bottom, however, the activity belongs to both sides, and the true comprehension of this undoubtedly constitutes a serious difficulty. This difficulty also appears again later on in connection with the idea of the grace of God. Grace enlightens the heart of man, it is the Spirit of God in man, so that man can be regarded in relation to its work in him as passive, and in such a way that it is not his own activity which is manifested in his actions. In the Notion, however, this double activity is to be conceived of as one. Here in the present stage, this unity of the Notion is not yet made explicit, and the side of productive activity, which belongs to the subject as well, appears as independent and separate in this way, namely, that the subject