Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/59

 spirit, but in this concentration of absence of consciousness man is really not far removed from the brutes. By the Hindus action is not conceived as definite activity, but as simple energy which works through everything. Special activity is despised; it is only stupefaction which is held in esteem, and in this state it is clearly the animal life alone which is left remaining. And if no freedom, no morality, no good customs be present, then the power is only known as inward, torpid power, which belongs likewise to the brutes, and to them in the most complete degree.

Since man when he exists in this way is without freedom, and has no intrinsic worth, we find bound up with this in the sphere of concrete extension that unspeakable and infinitely varied superstition, those enormous fetters and limitations above referred to. The relation of man to external natural things, which is of little consequence to Europeans, that dependence on them, becomes something fixed, something permanent. For superstition has its foundation just in this, that man is not indifferent toward external things; and he is not so if he has no freedom within himself, if he has not the true independence of spirit. All that is indifferent is fixed, while all that is not indifferent, all that belongs to right and morality, is thrown away and abandoned to caprice.

Of this character are the directions which the Brahmans have to observe, and of a similar character, too, is the narrative of Nala in the Mahabharata. Just as superstition is of limitless extent owing to this want of freedom, so too it follows that no morality, no determination of freedom, no rights, no duties have any place here, so that the people of India are sunk in the most complete immorality. Since no rational determination has been able to attain to solidity, the entire condition of this people could never become a legitimate one, a condition inherently justified, and was always merely a condition on sufferance, a contingent and a perverted one.