Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/331

 single ends, and its end is not yet infinite. It is only infinite subjectivity which has an infinite end, i.e., it is itself the end, and it is only inwardness, this subjectivity as such, which is its end. This characterisation of Spirit was accordingly gained for thought in the Roman world. This absolute form, however, is here still empirical, and appears as a particular immediate person, and thus what is highest when conceived of in a finite way, is what is worst. The deeper the nature of Spirit and genius, the more monstrous are their errors. When superficiality errs, its error is correspondingly superficial and weak, and it is only what possesses depth in itself that can become the most evil and the worst. Thus it is this infinite reflection and infinite form which, since it is devoid of content and without substantiality, is the measureless and unlimited finitude, the limitedness which is itself absolute in its finitude. It is what appears in another shape in the system of the Sophists as reality, for to them man was the measure of all things, man, that is, regarded according to his immediate acts of volition and immediate feeling, from the point of view of his ends and interests. In the Roman world we see that this thinking by man on himself gets an important place, and is elevated to the condition of the Being and consciousness of the world. The act by which thought shuts itself up within finitude and particularity means, to begin with, the total disappearance of all beautiful, moral life, the falling away from true life into the infinitude of the desires, into momentary enjoyment and pleasure, and this stage in the entire shape in which it appears, constitutes a human animalkingdom, from which everything of a higher nature, everything substantial has been removed. Such a state of lapse into purely finite forms of existence, ends, and interests, can certainly be maintained only by the inherently measureless authority and despotism of a single individual whose means for maintaining this authority is the cold unspiritual death of individuals, for only by this