Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 2.djvu/77

 itself into an idolatry of the most varied description. In this dogma we have the foundation and origin of that infinite multitude of idols and images which are everywhere worshipped where Foe holds sway. Four-footed beasts, birds, creeping things, in a word, the lowest forms of animal life, have temples and are worshipped, because the god inhabits each one of them in his new births, and any and every animal body may be inhabited by the soul of man.

III.

NATURAL RELIGION IN TRANSITION TO THE RELIGION OF FREEDOM.

As regards its necessity, this transition is based upon the fact that the truth which in the preceding stages is potentially present as the foundation is here actually brought forward and posited. In the Religion of Phantasy and that of Being-within-itself, this subject, this subjective self-consciousness, is identical, though in an immediate manner, with that substantial unity which is called Brahma or characterless nothingness. This One is now conceived of as unity determined within itself, as implicitly subjective unity, and at the same time as this unity in its character as implicitly totality. If the unity be inherently determined as subjective, it then contains the principle of Spirituality in itself, and it is this principle which unfolds itself in the religions which are based upon this transition.

Further, in the Indian religion the One, the unity of Brahma, and determinateness, the many Powers of the Particular, this appearance of differences, stood in a relation to each other which implied that at one time the differences were held to be independent, and at another that they had disappeared and were submerged in unity. The dominant and universal characteristic was the