Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/273

 has no place for the dialectic character which thus marks the finite, nor has it any way of expressing it. It is not in a position to express the rational element in it; and since religious elevation is the rational element itself, it cannot find satisfaction in that form of the Understanding, for there is more in it than this form can express. It is accordingly in itself of the greatest importance that Kant should have deprived the so-called proofs of the existence of God of the regard they enjoyed, even though he had done no more than create a prejudice against them by showing their insufficiency. Only, his criticism of these proofs is insufficient in itself; and besides, he failed to recognise the deeper basis upon which these proofs rest, and so was unable to do justice to their true elements. It was he who at the same time began the complete maiming of reason, which has since his day been content to be nothing more than the source of purely immediate knowledge.

So far we have been dealing with the elucidation of the conception which constitutes the logical element in the first characteristic of religion, and have been regarding it, on the one hand, from the side from which it was viewed in metaphysics in its earlier phase; while, on the other hand, we have been looking at the outward form in which it was put. But this is not sufficient if we are to get a real knowledge of the speculative conception of this characteristic. Still, one part of this knowledge has already been indicated, that, namely, which has reference to the passing over of finite Being into infinite Being, and we have now to indicate briefly the other part, the detailed elucidation of which will be deferred till we come to deal with another form of religion to be taken up subsequently. This is just what appeared previously in the form taken by the proposition: the Infinite is, and in which consequently Being is defined in general as what is mediated. The proof has to demonstrate this mediation. It already follows from the