Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/55

 seeing that what is of most importance becomes unessential, the worship is infinite in its range; everything comes into it, the content is of no importance, it has no limit within itself; the religious acts are thus essentially irrational, they are determined in an entirely external manner. Whatever is truly essential is stable; is, as regards its form, exempt from the influence of subjective opinion and caprice. Here, however, the content is this sensuous contingency, and the action is a merely characterless action, consisting of usages which cannot be understood, because there is no understanding in it; on the contrary, a latitude is introduced into it which runs out in all directions. In so far as all this is transcended, and in so far as there must be satisfaction in these religious acts, we find this to be attained merely by means of sensuous stupefaction. The one extreme is the flight of abstraction, the middle point is the slavery of unintelligent being and doing, and the other extreme is capricious extravagance—surely the saddest possible religion. In so far as flight or escape enters into this cult, what is actually done represents mere purely external accomplished action, mere activity, and to this are added the wildest intoxication and orgies of the most fearful kind. Such is the necessary character of this worship, a character which it acquires owing to the fact that the consciousness of the One is broken up in this way, for the connection with the rest of concrete existence is interrupted, and everything becomes disconnected. In the region of imagination are found wildness and freedom, and here fancy has free scope. Thus we find most beautiful poetry among the Indian peoples, but it always rests upon the craziest foundation; we are attracted by its loveliness, and repelled by the confusion and nonsense in it.

The delicate sensibility and charm of the tenderest feelings and this infinite resignation of personality, must necessarily possess supreme beauty under such conditions