Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/280

 service in which man comes to have a consciousness of unity with his powers has the following signification:—

As for those fruits, those springs, which exist in Nature, they allow themselves to be used and drawn upon without hindrance, or to be laid hold of and used as nourishment. These gifts fall freely into the lap of man; man eats the gifts, drinks the wine, and gets from them invigoration and stimulus, and this invigoration in which they are an element, is their work, the effect they produce. In this relationship it is not a case of mere reciprocal action, the melancholy, continuous, self-producing uniformity of what is mechanical. On the contrary, these gifts are rendered honourable because man eats them and drinks of them; for to what higher honour can natural things attain than to appear as the inspiring force of spiritual action? Wine inspires, but it is man who first exalts it to the rank of an inspiring and power-giving agent. So far the relationship of bare need disappears. In connection with the sense of need man gives thanks to the gods for the receiving of the gifts, and these needs presuppose a separation which it is not in the power of man to do away with. Need, strictly so called, first makes its appearance owing to property and the retention of something by one will, but man does not stand in such a relation of need to the gifts of Nature; on the contrary, they have to thank him that they come to be something, that anything is made of them; without him they would rot and dry up and pass away in uselessness.

The sacrifice which is connected with the enjoyment of these natural gifts has not here the sense of the offering up of what is inward or of the concrete fulness of Spirit; on the contrary, it is just this very fulness which is affirmed and enjoyed. Sacrifice in this case can only signify that acknowledgment of the universal Power which expresses the theoretical giving up of a part of what is to be enjoyed, i.e., the acknowledgment