Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/53

 concrete element of self-consciousness is separated from this region; the connection is interrupted. This is the leading characteristic of this sphere of thought, which, it is true, has in it the development of the moments, but in such a way that they remain separate from one another. Self-consciousness being thus cut off, the region in which it is is devoid of spirit, that is to say, has a merely natural character as something inborn, and to the extent to which this inborn self-consciousness is different from the universal one, it is the privilege of certain individuals. The individual “This” is in an immediate manner the Universal, the Divine. Spirit thus exists, but Spirit which has merely bare Being is devoid of Spirit. By this means, too, the life of the “this” as “this” and its life in universality are irremediably separated from one another. In the religions where such is not the case, that is to say, where the consciousness of the Universal, of essentiality, appears in the Particular, and is active in it, freedom of the Spirit takes its rise, and upon the fact that the Particular is determined by means of the Universal depends the appearance of uprightness, morality. In civil law, for example, we find freedom of the individual in the use he can make of property. I in this particular relation of actual existence am free; the object is held to be mine, as that of a free subject, and thus the particular existence is determined through the Universal; my particular existence is co-related with this universality. The same holds good of family relations. Morality exists only where unity is what determines the Particular, where all particularity is determined by the substantial unity. In so far as this is not posited, the consciousness of the Universal is essentially a consciousness cut off from all else, inactive and devoid of Spirit. Thus by this isolation the Highest is made into something unfree and only naturally born.

II. Worship, strictly speaking, is the relation of self-consciousness to what is essential, to that which exists