Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/273

 the question of the immortality of the soul is the one expressly raised, while before their day this idea was considered more as a merely general one, and as one which had not absolute value in and for itself.

As infinite subjectivity, the absolute point of the unity of the Notion, is still wanting to self-consciousness, it is still wanting also to its essentialities, to what represents for it real existence. This unity is found within that which we have come to know as its necessity; but this lies outside the circle of the particular, substantial, essential beings. The particular essential beings, like man as such, have no absolute justification, for any justification they have they possess only as a moment of necessity, and as rooted in this absolute unity which is reflected into itself. They are many, though of divine nature, and this their scattered and manifold character is at the same time a limitation, so that divine nature is not attributed to them in any really serious sense. Above the many substantial essential beings there floats the ultimate unity of absolute form—necessity, and self-consciousness, which is in relation to the gods, is at the same time freed by this necessity from them, so that their divinity is at one time taken in a serious sense and at another in an opposite sense.

This religion has, speaking generally, the character of absolute joyousness; self-consciousness is free in relation to its essential beings, because they are its own, though at the same time it is not chained to them, since absolute necessity floats above them too, and they go back into it, just as consciousness with its particular ends and needs also sinks itself in it.

The feeling accordingly of subjective self-consciousness in relation to necessity is this sense of repose which abides in the region of calm, in this freedom, which is, however, still an abstract freedom. It is so far an escape, a flight, but it is at the same time freedom, inasmuch as man is not overcome, weighed down by outward misfortune.