Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/114

 the thought of reverencing a single sensuous individual as God, and against the combination which this implies. The Oriental does not hesitate to comply with this demand, but then he is nothing, he is implicitly thrown aside as of no value, without, however, having thrown himself aside, i.e., without having the consciousness of infinite freedom in himself. Here, however, this love, this recognition of the Divine in an individual is the direct opposite of this, and is just what constitutes the supreme miracle, that miracle which Spirit itself just is.

This region is accordingly the Kingdom of Spirit, implying that the individual is of infinite value in himself, knows himself to be absolute freedom, possesses in himself the most rigid fixedness, and at the same time yields up this fixedness and maintains himself in what is absolutely an Other. Love harmonises all things, even absolute opposition.

The pictorial conception of this religion demands the despising of all that presently exists, of everything which is otherwise regarded as possessed of value, it is that perfect ideality which takes up a polemical attitude towards all the glory of the world; in this single person, in this present immediate individual in whom the Divine Idea appears, everything that belongs to the world has met together, so that it is the individual sensuous present which has value. This individuality or particularity is consequently to be regarded as absolutely universal. Even in ordinary love we find this infinite abstraction from all worldly things, and the loving person centres all his satisfaction in one particular individual; but this satisfaction still belongs essentially to particularity; it is particular contingency and feeling which opposes itself to the Universal, and desires in this way to become objective.

In contrast to this, that individuality in which I will the Divine Idea, is purely universal, it is for this reason directly removed from the sphere of the senses, it passes away of itself, becomes part of a history that is past, this