Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/42

 see the three gods working separately from one another; what they produce is one-sided only and without truth. Finally, Brima, Vishnu, and Rudra united their forces, and thus created men, ten of them, in fact.

(c.) Worship.

Subjective religion—the comprehension of itself by self-consciousness in relation to its divine world—corresponds with the character of that world itself.

As in this world the Idea has developed itself to such an extent that its fundamental determinations have emerged into prominence though they remain mutually external, and as in like manner the empirical world remains external and unintelligible relatively to them and to itself, and therefore abandoned to the caprice of imagination, consciousness too, although developed in all directions, does not attain to the conception of itself as true subjectivity. The leading place in this sphere is occupied by the pure equality or identity of thought, which at the same time is inherently existing creative Power. This foundation is, however, purely theoretical. It is still the substantiality out of which indeed potentially all proceeds, and in which all is retained, but outside of which all content has assumed independence, and is not, so far as regards its determinate existence and standing, made by means of that unity into an objective and universal content. Merely theoretical, formal thought supports the content when it thus appears as accidentally determined; it can indeed abstract from it, but cannot exalt it to the connected unity of a system, and consequently to a connected existence in accordance with law. Thought, therefore, does not really acquire a practical signification here; that is to say, activity and will do not give the character of universality to its determinations; and though form develops itself potentially, indeed, in accordance with the nature of the Notion, still it does not appear in the character of something posited by the Notion, and does not appear as held within its