Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/61

 however poor and mean it may seem, yet stands higher than that which asserts that God cannot be known. For in such a case there can be no possibility of worship, since a man can only worship what he knows, what he has a rational knowledge of. Is colit Deum qui eum novit, is an example in frequent use in the Latin grammar. Self-consciousness has at least here an affirmative relation to this object, for the very essence of being-within-itself is thought itself, and this is the real essential element in self-consciousness, and therefore there is nothing unknown in it, nothing which is “beyond.” It is in presence of its own essence in an affirmative form, since it at once knows this essence as its own essential nature; but it also conceives it as an object, so that it distinguishes this being-within-itself, this pure freedom, from itself, from this particular self-consciousness. For this last is contingent, empirical, independent Being, being for self, determined in a manifold way. This is the fundamental determination.

Substance is universal presence, but as essentiality existing within itself, it must be known concretely too in an individual concentration. This embodiment and definite form is still in accordance with the standpoint of natural religion, the immediate form of the Spiritual, and has the form of a single definite self-consciousness. Thus, as compared with the previous stage, there is an advance made here from fantastic personification split up into a countless multitude of forms, to a personification which is enclosed within definite bounds, and is actually present. A human being is worshipped, and he is as such the god who assumes individual form, and in that form gives himself up to be reverenced. Substance in this individual existence is power, sovereignty, the creating and maintaining of the world, of nature, and of all things—absolute Power.

(b.) The historical existence of this religion.

It is as the religion of Foe that this religion has an historical existence; it is the religion of the Mongols,