No More Learning

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? LECTURE VII.
4. f)3
sense, even historically, anything that lies beyond its own
mode of thought. They would think that they had cast off all love of humanity, and had done the most grievous injus-
tice to an honourable man, were they to admit that, however
singularly he might express himself, he could mean, or wish
to mean, anything else than that which they mean and say;
or were they to ascribe to any communication from other
men any other purpose than to repeat before them some old
and well-known lesson, so that they might be satisfied that
the speaker had thoroughly learned it by rote. Let a man
guard himself as he may by means of the most distinctly
marked antagonisms,--let him exhaust all the resources of
language to choose the strongest, most striking, and most
convincing expression,--as soon as it reaches their ear, it
loses its nature, and becomes changed into the old triviality;
and their art of dragging down everything to their own
level is triumphant over all other art. Therefore are they
in the highest degree averse to all powerful and energetic
expressions, and particularly to such as strive to enforce
comprehension by means of images; and, according to their
law, those expressions must everywhere be selected that are
most vague, indefinite, and far-fetched, and on that very
account most powerless and inexpressive, under pain of ap-
pearing to be unpolished and obtrusive. Thus, when Jesus
spoke of eating his flesh and drinking his blood, his disci-
ples found it a hard saying; and when he mentioned the
possibility of a union with God, the Jews took up stones
and cast at'him. They are always in the right; and since
there can nothing whatever be said at any time but that
which they already express in their language in this way or
that, whence then the surprising effort to express this same
thing in another fashion, whereby there is only imposed up-
on them the superfluous labour of translating it back again
into their own speech?
This delineation of spiritual Non-Existence, or, to use the
image of Christianity, of the Death and Burial of a living
body, has been here introduced, partly in order to set forth
the Spiritual Life more clearly by contrast, and partly be-
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? 4. 94
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
cause it is itself a necessary element in that description of
man, in his relation to Well-Being, which it is our next duty
to undertake. As a guide to this description, we possess,
and shall employ, those five standpoints in man's view of the
World which we set forth in our fifth lecture;--or, since the
standpoint of Science is excluded from popular discourses,
the other four,--as so many standpoints in man's enjoyment
of the World and of himself. To them the state of spiritual
Non-Existence which we have just described does not at all
belong;--it is no possible or positive something, but a pure
nothing; and so it is likewise altogether negative in relation
to enjoyment and Well-Being. In it there is no such thing
as Love;--whilst all enjoyment is founded on Love. Hence,
to this condition enjoyment is altogether impossible; and
therefore a description of it was requisite at the outset, as
the description of absolute joylessness or unblessedness, in
opposition to the several modes, now to be set forth, in
which man may actually enjoy the World, or himself.
All enjoyment, I have said, is founded on Love. What
then is Love? I say; Love is the affection (Affekt) of Be-
ing (Seyri). Argue it thus with me:--Being (Seyn) is self-
reliant, self-sufficient, self-complete; and needs no Being
beyond itself. Now let this be felt in absolute Self-con-
sciousness; and what arises? Obviously a feeling of this
independence and self-sufficiency;--hence, a Love of this
self;--or, as I said, an affection or attachment of Being, by
means of itself alone; that is, the feeling of Being as Being.
Add further, that in the Finite Being, such as we have de-
scribed above, who always conceives of himself as in a state
of change and transition, there likewise dwells an original
image of his True and Proper Being,--then does he love this
original image; and when his actual and sensible being is
in harmony with this primitive image, then is his Love sat-
isfied, and it is well with him;--but when, on the contrary,
his actual being is not in harmony with this primitive im-
age, which nevertheless continues living, inextinguishable,
and eternally beloved within him, then it is not well with
him, for then he wants that which nevertheless he cannot
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? LECTURE VII.
495
hinder himself from loving before all things, longing and
sorrowing after it continually. Well-being is union with the
object of our Love; sorrow is separation from it. Only
through Love does man subject himself to the influence of
well-being or of sorrow; he who does not love is secure
from both of these. But let no one believe that the wan
and death-like condition that we have described above,
which as it is without love is also assuredly without sorrow,
is on that account to be perferred to the life in Love, that
is accessible to sorrow, and may be wounded by it. For, in
the first place, we at least feel, recognise, and possess our-
selves, even in the feeling of sorrow, and this of itself is un-
speakably more blessed than that absolute want of any self-
consciousness; and, in the second place, this sorrow is the
wholesome spur that should impel us, and that sooner or
later will impel us, to union with the object of our Love,
and to Blessedness therein. Happy, therefore, is the man
who is able to sorrow and to aspire.
To the first standpoint from which man may view the
World, in which reality is attributed only to the objects of
Outward Sense, sensual pleasure is of course the predomi-
nant motive in his enjoyment of himself and of the World.
Even this,--as we have already said with a more scientific
purpose, and in illustration of the first principle we laid
down of this whole matter,--even this is founded on an af-
fection of Being,--in this case, as an organized sensuous life;
on the love for this Being, and for the conditions of this Be-
ing, immediately felt, demanded, and developed,--not, as
some have supposed, perceived only by an unconscious in-
ference of the understanding. An article of food has a
pleasant taste to us, and a flower a pleasant smell, because
they exalt and enliven our organic existence; and the pleas-
ant taste, as well as the pleasant smell, is nothing else than
the immediate feeling of this exaltation and enlivenment.
But let us not longer pause at this mode of enjoyment,
which, although it certainly is a constituent element in the
system of Universal Life, and on that account is perhaps not
properly to be despised, is nevertheless undeserving of de-
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? 49G
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
liberate thought or earnest attention! --although I must can-
didly confess that, in a comparative point of view, he who
can throw himself wholly and with undivided feeling into a
sensual enjoyment, is, in my opinion, of far greater worth,
in the eyes of the consequential philosopher, than he who,
from mere superficiality, vagrancy, and vague diffusiveness,
is incapable of rightly enjoying even taste or smell, where
only taste or smell can be enjoyed.
In the social state there intervenes between this merely
sensual appetite and the higher forms of enjoyment, another
class of affections, interposed by means of fancy, which how-
ever always relate at last to a sensual enjoyment, and pro-
ceed from such. Thus, for example, the miser indeed volun-
tarily subjects himself to present want for which he has
no immediate desire, but only from fear of future want for
which he has still less desire; and because he has so strange-
ly trained his fancy, that he suffers more from this imagined
future hunger than from the real hunger that he actually
feels at the present moment. Neither let us pause any long-
er at these unsubstantial, shallow, and capricious affections,
even although they are opposed to immediate sensual en-
joyment :--all that belongs to this region is alike shallow
and capricious.
The second standpoint from which the World may be
viewed is that of Legality, in which reality is attributed
only to a Spiritual Law ordering all actual Existence.
What is the affection of this standpoint, and what is its
consequent relation to Well-Being? For those among you
who possess philosophical knowledge, I shall here, in pass-
ing, in a few short remarks and with strict consequentiality,
throw a new light on this matter which has already been
so well treated of by Kant.
From this standpoint, Man, in the deepest root of his be-
ing, is himself the Law. This Law is the self-reliant, self-
supporting Being of such a man, which neither needs nor
can admit of any other Being whatever besides itself:--a
Law absolutely for the sake of Law, and wholly disdaining
any purpose beyond itself.
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? LECTURE VII.
497
In the first place:--thus rooted in Law, man can still be,
think, and act. The philosopher who is not wholly super-
ficial proves this a priori; the man who is not wholly rude
or senseless feels it constantly in himself, and proves it by
his whole life and thought. The celebrated axiom which,
since this principle has been reproduced in our own time
by Kant and others, has been brought forward and repeated
usque ad nauseam by a decisive majority of the theologians,
philosophers, and beaux-esprits of the age,--the axiom that
it is absolutely impossible for a man to will without having
an externa] object of his volition, or to act without having
an external object of his action--this axiom we need not
meddle with, but have only to meet it with cold and con-
temptuous rejection. Whence do they know what they so
categorically maintain, and how do they propose to prove
their axiom? They know it only from their knowledge of
themselves; and hence they ask nothing from an opponent
but that he should look into his own bosom and find him-
self such as they are. They cannot do it, and therefore they
maintain that no man can do it. But again:--what is it
they cannot do? Will and act without an object beyond
the action. And what is there that lies beyond will and
action, and mental independence? Nothing whatever but
sensual well-being; for this is the only opposite of these :--
sensual well-being, I say, however strangely it may be de-
scribed, and even although the time and place of its fruition
should be placed on the other side the grave. And thus,
what is it which they have discovered in this knowledge of
themselves? Answer:--that they cannot even think, move,
nor in any way bestir themselves, unless with a view to some
outward well-being which is thereby to be attained; that
they cannot regard themselves as anything but the means
and instruments of some sensual enjoyment, and that, ac-
cording to their firm conviction, the Spiritual in them only
exists for the purpose of nursing and tending on the Ani-
mal . Who shall dispute their self-knowledge, or attempt to
gainsay them in that which they must know best of all,
and which, in truth, only they themselves can know?
sb
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? 498
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Man, on the second standpoint from which the World
may be viewed, is himself the Law, we said;--a living, self-
conscious, self-attached Law,--or an affection of Law. But
the affection of Law, as Law, and in this form, is, as I call
upon you to perceive, an absolute command, an uncondition-
al obligation, a Categorical Imperative; which, on account
of this very categorical nature of its form, wholly rejects all
love or even inclination towards the thing commanded. It
shall be, that is all:--simply it shall. If thou wouldst do it,
there would be no need of the shall; it would come too late,
and would be rejected; while, on the contrary, as surely as
thou, on thy part, obeyest the shall, and canst so obey, so
surely dost thou not will; volition is beyond thy reach,
inclination and love are expressly laid aside.
Now, could man wholly resign himself with his entire Life
to this affection of Law, then would he abide solely by this
cold and rigid commandment; and, with regard to his view
of himself and of the World, by the absolutely uninterested
judgment whether a thing be in accordance with the Law
or not;--wholly excluding all personal inclination, and every
thought of it being agreeable or disagreeable; as indeed is
actually the case where men give themselves up to this
affection. Such an one, through his strict acceptance of
the Law, might yet declare that he did not, and would
not, act in accordance with it, without anything like re-
morse or displeasure with himself; and indeed with the
same coolness with which he might acknowledge that some
thousand years before his birth, and in a remote quarter of
the world, some other person had not performed the obliga-
tion imposed upon him. But, in actual life, this affection
is usually conjoined with an interest for ourselves, and our
own personality; which latter interest then assumes the na-
ture of the first affection, and becomes modified thereby .
so that the view we take of ourselves, while it remains in-
deed a mere judgment, which it must be in virtue of the
first affection, is yet not wholly an uninterested judgment;
--we are constrained to despise ourselves if we do not walk
according to the Law, and we are free from this self-contempt
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? LECTURE VII.
499
if we act in harmony with it; and we would consequently
rather find ourselves in the latter position than in the for-
mer.
The interest which man feels in himself, we said, is
swallowed up in this affection of Law. He desires only not
to be constrained to despise himself before the tribunal of
the Law. Not to despise himself, I say,--negatively; by
no means to be able to respect himself,--positively. Where-
ever positive self-respect is spoken of, it is only, and can
only be, the absence of self-contempt that is meant. For
the judgment of which we here speak is founded solely on
the Law, which is completely determined, and assumes
jurisdiction over the whole of humanity. There is no third
course:--either man is not in harmony with the Law, and
then he must despise himself; or he is in harmony with it,
and then he has nothing to allege against himself;--but, in
his fulfilment of the Law, he can by no means transcend its
requirements in aught, and do something beyond what he is
bound to do, which would thus be done without command-
ment, and hence be a free and voluntary act;--and there-
fore he can never positively respect himself, nor honour
himself as something excellent.
The interest which man feels in himself is swallowed up
in the affection of Law; this affection destroys all inclina-
tion, all love, and all desire. Man has but one thing need-
ful to him--not to despise himself; beyond this he wills
nothing, needs nothing, and can use nothing. In that one
want of his nature, however, he is dependent on himself
alone; for an Absolute Law, by which man is wholly
encompassed, must necessarily represent him as entirely
free . By means of this conception he is now elevated above
all love, desire, and want, and thus above all that is external
to him and that does not depend on himself; needing
nothing but himself; and thus, by the extinction of every-
thing in him that was dependent, himself truly independent,
exalted above all things, and like the blessed Gods. It is
only unsatisfied wants that produce unhappiness: require
then nothing but that which thou thyself canst secure,--
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? 500
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
thou canst, however, only make sure that thou shalt have
no fault to find with thyself,--and thou art for ever inacces-
sible to unhappiness. Thou hast no need of anything
beyond thyself;--not even of a God,--for thou art thine own
God, thine own salvation, and thine own Redeemer.
No one who can justly lay claim to the amount of his-
torical knowledge which every educated man is presumed
to possess, can have failed to perceive that I have now set
forth the mode of thought peculiar to that celebrated system
of antiquity--Stoicism. A venerable picture of this mode
of thought is the representation, made by an ancient poet,
of the mythical Prometheus; who, in the consciousness of
his own just and good deed, laughs at the Thunderer seated
above the clouds, and at all the torments heaped upon his
head by the relentless God; and who, with undaunted
courage, sees a world crashing around him into ruins, and,
in the language of one of our own poets, thus addresses
Zeus:--
"Here I sit,--forming men
After my image;
A race that, like me,
Shall suffer, weep,
Enjoy and rejoice,--
And despise thee, Zeus!
As I do. "*
You have sufficiently understood that to us this mode of
thought stands only upon the second grade in the possible
views of the World, and is only the first and lowest form of
the higher Spiritual Life. You have already, in our former
lecture, received indications of a far more earnest and perfect
Life, which shall be further developed in the succeeding
lectures. Yet it is not our intention to surrender this mode
of thought, which is indeed worthy of all honour, to the con-
tempt of spiritual perversion, nor even to leave a single
lurking-place open to such perversion. With this view, I
add the following.
It is unquestionably true that this mode of thought can
* Goethe's "Prometheus. "
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? LECTURE VII.
501
arrive at the admission of a God only through inconsequen-
tially; and that, wherever it is consistent, although it may
at times make use of the conception of a God,--perhaps for
the theoretical explanation of Nature, but assuredly never
for its own practical need of such a conception,--yet it needs
no God for its own heart, reverences none, and is indeed its
own God. But what sort of God is that which it rejects?
It is no other, and can be no other--because on this stand-
point no other is possible--than the arbitrary distributor
of sensual well-being whom we have already described,
whose favour must be acquired by means of some expedient,
even if that expedient be a behaviour in accordance with
the Law. This God, so constituted, is rightly rejected; he
ought to be rejected, for he is not God; and the higher view
of the World never again accepts God in this shape, as we,
in the proper place, shall clearly see. Stoicism does not
reject the truth, but only the lie; it does not attain to the
truth, but remains, with relation to it, only in a negative
position;--this is its defect.
Thus also, the delusion of a certain system that calls itself
Christian,--that sensual desire is sanctified by means of
Christianity and its satisfaction entrusted to a God, and
that it has discovered the secret whereby it may serve God
even by means of its servitude to this desire;--this delusion
too, I say, remains an error. The happiness which the
sensuous man seeks is irrevocably separated from the Bles-
sedness which Religion--does not indeed promise, but--
immediately presents, by the gulf of subjection to a Sacred
Law before which all desire grows dumb;--separated, not in
degree, but in its very nature. And thus do those who, as
philosophers, teach this same doctrine, and who in the most
animated appeals seek to convince us that, by our demands,
we would destroy the essential character of human nature,
and tear its very heart from its body, besides their fitting
despicableness, make themselves also ridiculous. So also
those beaux-esprits, who raise a cry about the extirpation of
love by means of Stoicism--meaning by this love, not the
flame of Divine Love, of which we shall afterwards speak,
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? 502
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
but only mere earthly love and desire--and who believe
that, as a child who innocently extends its little hands
towards an offered dainty is a touching and therefore a
pleasing spectacle, so may the grown man, who behaves in
like manner, demand the moral approval of the earnest
censor; and that whatever is capable of affording the
beholder a pleasing aesthetical spectacle is, on that account,
in itself noble and good, these, I say, are lost in the
most singular confusion of ideas.
Thus much had I to say, with reference to Well-Being,
regarding the second standpoint from which the World may
be viewed by man; which, in this respect, is only negative,
--mere Apathy: and I desired to set forth this strictly and
clearly, in order, by means of this Apathy, as the middle
state, to distinguish the Vulgar from the Holy, and to set
up an insurmountable wall of separation between them.
Wherein this Apathy is limited, and how it thereby becomes
an impulse towards the development of a Higher Life in
the Divine Love;--of this we shall speak in our next
lecture.
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? 503
LECTURE VIII.
EXPOSITION OF FORM AS THE UNIVERSAL CONDITION
OF EXISTENCE;--FREEDOM AND INDEPENDENCE
OF THE EGO;--CATEGORICAL IMPERATIVE;--
PASSAGE TO THE HIGHER MORALITY.
The entire purpose and import of these Lectures may be
thus briefly stated:--to give a description of the One, True,
and therefore Blessed Life. Every good description, how-
ever, ought to be genetic, and gradually unfold the matter
described before the eyes of the beholders. The true
Spiritual Life is peculiarly susceptible of such a genetic
description; for it developes itself, as we said before,--
figuratively, as it then seemed, but, as it now appears, with
very literal earnestness,--this Life developes itself gradually,
and step by step, having its several determinate stations.
As these stations of the Spiritual Life, we have recognized
five chief standpoints in man's possible view of the World;
and through these we have ascended throughout the scale of
Life, at first in a mere cold and uninterested survey;--but
in the previous lecture we have, in place of this merely
intellectual view, taken cognizance of its affections, its love,
and its self-enjoyment; and thereby we have, for the first
time, completed the form of Life. This Life, thus defined,
we have followed, in our last lecture, through the conditions
of Nullity, of mere Sensual Enjoyment, and of strict Legality
or harmony with an assumed Law.
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? 504
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
How such a description of the Spiritual Life is now to
ascend to its higher forms, is, for obvious reasons, more
obscure and unintelligible to a majority of a degenerate
age, because it now enters upon regions which are foreign
to such an age,--not known to it, either by its own spiritual
experience, or even by hearsay.
Thus it becomes the duty
of those who undertake to speak of such subjects, if they
must resign the hope of being positively understood by all
men, at least to guard carefully against themselves giving
occasion for any misconception; and, if they cannot bring
home the truth to all, yet to take care that no one, through
their fault, is led to receive anything false; and at least so
to equip and prepare those who possess the power of fully
comprehending their instructions, that these shall be able,
each in his own circle, to give an account of the truth, and
to correct the misapprehensions of others. This considera-
tion has determined me to devote a portion of this lecture
to a profound and exhaustive exposition of the matter which,
in our last lecture, we brought to its culminating point, and
have still to treat of in this.
Those among you who are already initiated into specula-
tive science shall, on this occasion, be introduced into the
organic central-point of all speculation, in such a manner
as, to my knowledge, has never and nowhere been attempted
before. The others, who either are unable, or do not desire,
to philosophize with us, may at least avail themselves of the
opportunity thus presented to them of personally listening
to a strictly philosophical demonstration, in order to acquire
a general conception of the matter, and to be convinced that,
when rightly treated, it is by no means so strange and arti-
ficial a thing as is commonly supposed, but proceeds in a
quite simple and natural manner, and requires in the stu-
dent nothing more than the power of sustained attention.
Nevertheless it will be necessary that even they who belong
to this latter class should apprehend what is now to be said,
historically at least, because before the conclusion of the
lecture we shall come to something which all will wish to
understand, but which can not be understood unless the
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? LECTURE VIII.
505
first part has been at least historically apprehended, and as-
sumed as a possible hypothesis.
We have seen and understood:-- that Being (Seyn) is--
absolutely;--that it has never arisen nor become, nor has
anything in it ever arisen or become. But further, this
Being is also outwardly present, ex-'mts,--as may be dis-
covered and perceived, but not genetically understood; and
after it has been thus discovered and perceived as ex-isting
there present, then it may also be understood that this Ex-
istence (Daseyn) has likewise not arisen nor become, but is
founded in the inward necessity of Being (Seyn) itself, and
is, through it, absolutely determined. By means of its thus
ex-isting, and in this Ex-istence, Being now becomes Con-
sciousness; and that a Consciousness separated and broken
up into a manifold variety of Forms:--and this may, in
like manner, be seen and understood as the necessary result
of Ex-istence.
In order that we may not have constantly to repeat the
same series of words, we shall now comprehend under the
term Form, everything that attaches to Being in conse-
quence of Ex-istence;--which word, Form, shall hencefor-
ward signify all that we have already seen to be the neces-
sary result of Ex-istence. (I may here mention, for the
benefit of those who do not enter with us into the strictly
philosophical view of our subject, that this is the case with
all philosophical terminology;--its expressions are only
abbreviations of speech, employed to recall to mind briefly
something which has been previously apprehended in im-
mediate contemplation; and to him who has not been a
partaker in this immediate contemplation, but to him alone,
they are empty, unmeaning, formulas. )
Thus we have these two elements:--Being, as it is essen-
tially and in itself;--and Form, which is assumed by the for-
mer in consequence of its Ex-istence. But how have we
expressed ourselves? What is it that assumes a Form?
Answer:--Being, as it is in itself, without any change
whatever of its inward Essential Nature. But what then is
there in Ex-istence? Answer:--Nothing else than the One,
Tb
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? 506
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
Eternal and Unchangeable Being, besides which there can
be nothing. Again:--May this Eternal Being ex-ist other-
wise than in this precise Form? How were that possible,
since this Form is nothing else than Ex-istence itself; and
consequently the assertion, that Being could also ex-ist in
another Form, would be equivalent to saying, that Being
could ex-ist, and yet not ex-ist? Let us call Being A, and
Form,--I mean universal Form, apprehended in its unity,--
B;--then Actual Ex-istence is A x B and B x A,-- or A as
determined by B, and the reverse. Determined, I say,
emphatically, so that your thoughts may now proceed, not
from one of the extremes, but from the central-point; and
you may thus understand, that both these elements have
mutually entered together into Reality, and are reciprocally
interpenetrated by each other, so that in Reality, and
indeed without the annihilation of Reality, they can never
again be separated. This is the point upon which every-
thing depends; this is the organic central-point of all
Speculation; and he who thoroughly penetrates to this, has
reached the ultimate perfection of light.
To make this yet stronger;--God himself, that is, the
Essential Nature of the Absolute, which is separated from
his outward Ex-istence only by means of our limited com-
prehension, cannot throw off this absolute blending of
Essence with Form; for even his Ex-istence, which only to
the first merely phenomenal glance seems contingent and
phenomenal, is yet to true Thought, which is the only de-
cisive criterion, not contingent,--but, since it is and could
not be otherwise, it must be a necessary result of his inward
Essential Nature. By reason therefore of God's Essential
Nature itself, this Essential Nature is inseparably bound up
with Form, and has itself entered into Form; which to
those who are able to comprehend it, thoroughly solves the
highest difficulty of Speculation which has existed from the
beginning of the world down to the present day, and con-
firms our previous commentary on the words of John :--" In
the beginning,--absolutely independent of all possibility of
opposition, of all caprice, of all contingency, and therefore of
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? LECTURE VIII.
507
all Time,--founded on the inward necessity of the Divine
Nature itself,--was Form;--and Form was with God,--con-
tained in, established on, and its very Ex-istence proceed-
ing from, the inward determinate character of the Divine
Nature;--and Form was itself God; God manifested him-
self in it even as he is in himself. "
For example:--One portion of Form was the infinite-
ly progressive and continuous manifestation and charac-
terization of Being; which in itself eternally remains the
same, -- A. I ask you, that you may hereby test your
knowledge of the subject:--In this Infinite Manifestation
and characterization, what is the real and active principle
that is manifested and characterized? Is it Form? This, in
itself, is nothing. No: it is the Absolute Reality = A, that
manifests itself as it essentially is;--manifests itself, I say,
according to the laws which govern an Infinity. Nothing
does not manifest itself;--but the Essential Divine Nature
manifests itself.
Out of this Infinity, take, wherever you will, the substance
of any one particular moment. This substance, let it be
understood, is wholly determined; it is that which it is, and
nothing else. I ask :--Wherefore is it that which it is, and
by what has it been thus determined? You can give no an-
swer but this :--By two factors;--in the first place, because
the Absolute, in. its Essential Nature, is as it is; and, in the
second place, because this same Absolute flows forth in an
Infinite Manifestation. After deducting that element of
the substance of the moment which proceeds from the
Essential Nature of the Absolute, what remains in this
moment--i. e. that in it which is purely and simply Mani-
festation--is that which especially belongs to this moment
out of the infinite multiplicity of Form.
We have said that this infinite divisibility is the one por-
tion of Form; and we made use of this portion as an exam-
ple, in order thereby to make our fundamental principle
more distinct. For our present purpose, however, we require
the second portion of Form, to which we must also apply
the fundamental principle we have laid down, and which is
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? 508
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
now, we hope, understood;--to which end I must again lay
claim to your attention.
This second portion of Form is a division into five col-
lateral--but as dominant points reciprocally exclusive--
standpoints in the view of Reality. Collateral, but as domi-
nant points reciprocally exclusive:--it is of importance
that this should here be borne in mind. We have already
proved this above; and indeed it is immediately evident
at the first glance. Once more then:--What is it that
is divided in this new division? Obviously, the Absolute,
as it is in itself;--the same Absolute which, in the same
unity and completeness of Form, divides itself likewise
to Infinity. Of this there can be no donbt . But, how
are these points presented to us:--are they presented as
actual, like the entire Infinity that flows through Time?
No, for they reciprocally exclude each other, as dominant,
in one and the same moment of Time; and hence, in rela-
tion to the fulfilment of all moments of Time by any one of
them, they are all assumed as equally possible; and Being
appears, in relation to each of them individually, not as ne-
cessarily to be so understood, nor as actually so understood,
but only as possibly to be so understood. Specially:--Does
then the One Being, which is indeed irrevocably broken up
in an Infinite Time, itself assume this first mode, or this
second mode, and so on? Certainly not:--this Being is,
in and through itself, perfectly undetermined, and wholly
indifferent with regard to these modes of its acceptation.
In this relation, Reality proceeds only the length of Possi-
bility, not further. It thus assumes, by means of its Ex-ist ence, the existence of a Freedom and Independence in the
mode of its acceptation, or in the way in which it is reflect-
ed, wholly independent of itself in its inward Essential
Nature. And now to express the same thing more strictly:
--The Absolute Being, in this its Ex-istence, regards itself
as this Absolute Freedom and Independence in the mode of
its own acceptation, and as this Independence of its own
inward Being;--it does not create a Freedom external to
itself, but it is itself, in this portion of Form, its own Free-
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? LECTURE VIII.
509
dom external to itself;--and in this respect, the self in its
Ex-istence is separated from the self in its Being, and is
projected, as it were, out of itself, in order to return again
to itself as a living Ex-istence. Now the universal form of
Reflexion is Ego;--hence we have here a free and indepen-
dent Ego;--or, what is the same thing, an Ego, and that
which alone is an Ego, a free and independent Ego, belongs
to Absolute Form = B, and is the peculiar organic central-
point of the Absolute Form of Absolute Being;--since even
that division into an Infinite Manifold which we placed by
the side of this second portion of Form, is, according to our
own deduction, founded upon the independence of the Form
of Reflexion; and, according to the above remarks, is insep-
arable from the inward necessity of the Divine Nature, so
that it cannot be cast off even by God himself.
It is convenient, in passing, to note the following princi-
ples :--(1. ) Freedom does certainly and truly exist, and is
itself the very root of Ex-istence: but yet it is not imme-
diately real, for in it Reality proceeds only the length of Pos-
sibility. The paradox apparently contained in this latter
principle will be solved of itself as we proceed in our
inquiry. (2. ) Freedom, in Time, and as an independent,
self-determining fulfilment of Time, exists only in relation
to the five standpoints of Spiritual Life which we have set
forth, and only in so far as it arises out of these:--and it
does not exist beyond that five-fold division,--for beyond
that there is nothing but the inwardly determined Absolute
Being, in the likewise unchangeably determined Form of
Infinity, and Time immediately filled by Reality itself;--
nor does it exist on this side of that division, and thus place
the Ego in one of these points,--for, on the other hand, on
this side there is nothing but strict necessity, and sequence
from principle.
This in passing, on account of its importance in another
connexion, and also because it does not seem to be very well
understood. Not however in passing, but as belonging
essentially to our present subject, we add the following, to
which I must anew demand your attention:--(1. ) Since
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? 510
Tfl"E DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
this Independence and Freedom of the Ego belongs to
Being itself, and all conscious Being has its Affection
(Affekt), there must necessarily exist, in so far as there is an
immediate Consciousness of personal, individual, Freedom,
an Affection for such Independence, the Love of it, and
consequent Faith in it. In so far as there is such an im-
mediate Consciousness of personal, individual, Freedom, I
say: for (2. )--and this is the chief object of our whole
inquiry, and the true end of all that has gone before,--and
therefore I beg of you to note it well,--this Freedom and
Independence is nothing more than the mere possibility of
the Standpoint of Life; this possibility, however, is limited
to the five modes already pointed out, and hence, if any one
has completed the comprehension of Life according to this
scheme, he has at the same time completed the round of
possibility and elevated it into reality; he has exhausted
his estate of Freedom,--there is, in the root of his Ex-ist-
ence no more Freedom remaining; but with the Being of
Freedom there also necessarily disappears the Affection, the
Love, and the Faith in this Freedom,--doubtless to give
place to a far holier Love, and a far more bliss-giving Faith.
So long as the Ego has yet to labour, by its own original self-
activity, in moulding itself to the perfect Form of Reality,
there indeed remains in it the impulse towards such self-
activity, the unsatisfied impulse, as a salutary impelling
spur,--and the intimate self-consciousness of a Freedom,
which, in this position of the matter, is absolutely true and
without delusion;--but when this self-discipline has been
completed, then that consciousness, which would now cer-
tainly become deceptive, disappears; and henceforward
Reality flows forth before it in the sole remaining and inde-
structible Form of Infinity.
Thus,--and I now announce this result as what may be
understood by all, and not by the speculative portion of my
audience only,--thus the presence of an Affection, a Love,
and a Faith in personal, individual, Freedom on the one
hand, and the absence of such Affection on the other, are the
fundamental points of two entirely opposite modes of view-
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? LECTURE VIII.
511
ing and enjoying the World, into which I shall now com-
bine more strictly our previous five-fold division.
In the first place, with regard to the condition of the Pre-
sence of the Affection for personal, individual, Freedom:--
this again has two different forms,--(you will observe that
this is a subordinate division in the first section of the prin-
cipal division)--the first and lower of which I thus explain
to you. The Ego, as the subject of this Freedom, is, as you
know, Reflexion. This, as you also know, in its first func-
tion, forms, determines, and characterizes the World. With-
in these forms, and in the exercise of this formative func-
tion, the particular Ego here described by us is a proper and
independent Being; and this, its determinate Being, it on
that very account embraces with Love; and thus acquires
an impulse towards, and a need of, this determinate Being.
Again:--What kind of Being is this ? --Being in a deter-
minate Form of its Life. Whence the need of this Form?
From its self-love in this standpoint of its Freedom. If the
need were satisfied, what would be the result? Enjoyment.
Whence would this Enjoyment arise? From a certain
modification of its Life by means of the World which it has
itself formed,--that is, of the objective, divided, and mani-
fold World. Herein lies the foundation of the sensual desire
of man, and this is the true creator of the World of Sense.
Thus there arises the desire and need of a certain and de-
terminate Form of our Life--this is the important point,
the characteristic feature, to which I entreat your attention:
--the impulse towards Happiness in determinate, and by
means of determinate, objects. That the objective deter-
mination of this impulse towards Happiness is not without
foundation, but rests upon the Reality still remaining in
this Form of Independence, is understood:--as also this,
that since, in this Form of the progressive development of
the World, there is an uninterrupted course of change, the
Ego itself likewise unceasingly becomes changed; and, on
that account, that also in which it is compelled to place its
Happiness gradually changes; and in the course of this
change the first objects of desire are set aside, and others
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? 512
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
take their place. From this absolute uncertainty respecting
the particular object in which the source of Happiness is to
be found, we arrive, at last, at a conception, in this respect
completely empty and indefinite,--which yet retains this
fundamental characteristic, that Happiness does not arise
from any determinate object:--the conception of a Life in
which all our wants, whatever they may be, are to be satis-
fied upon the spot, an absence of all grief, all weariness, and
all toil,--the Islands of the Blessed and the Elysian Fields
of the Greeks, the Abraham's bosom of the Jews, the Heaven
of the Christians of the present day. At this stage the Free-
dom aud Independence are material. --The second mode of
the Presence of the Affection for personal, individual, Free-
dom and Independence is that in which the feeling and love
of this Freedom is only general, and therefore bare, empty,
and formal, without any definite object being thereby either
proposed or striven after. This gives the standpoint of Le-
gality described at the end of the last lecture, and which
we also called that of Stoicism. Here man regards himself
as free, for he assumes that he has the power to refuse
obedience to the Law; he consequently separates himself
from, and places himself, as a self-existent power, in opposi-
tion to the Law, or to whatever may appear to him as Law.
He cannot otherwise comprehend and regard himself than
as one who has it in his power to refuse obedience to the
Law, I said. Nevertheless, according to his necessary view
of things, he must obey the Law and not follow his own in-
clination; he therefore completely loses all title to Happi-
ness, and, if his avowed opinion be actually living within
him, he loses also the need of Happiness, and of a God who
is the author and giver of Happiness. But through this
first supposition of his ability to refuse obedience, there
arises to him, for the first time, a Law;--for his Freedom,
bereft of inclination, is now empty and without aim. He
must once more control it;--and constraint upon Freedom,
or Law, is one and the same thing. Hence it is only
through that Faith in Freedom, which still remains after he
has given up all desire, that he makes a Law possible for
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? LECTURE VIII.
513
himself, and gives to his view of true Reality the form of a
Law.
Comprehend this profoundly, and therefore fully and clear-
ly, thus:--(1. ) The Divine Nature does not enter, whole
and undivided, into these reciprocally exclusive points
of Freedom, but it enters them partially only:--beyond
these points, however, it reveals itself, unconcealed by any
veil whatever (every such veil having its foundation only in
these points), such as it is in itself,--in an infinitely pro-
gressive development and Manifestation--in this Form of
eternal, progressive Life which is inseparable from its pure,
internal Life. This eternal forth-flowing of the Divine Life
is the true, innermost and deepest root of Ex-istence,--the
absolutely indissoluble union of Essence with Form which
we have referred to above. This Being of Ex-istence, like
all other Being, obviously carries with it the Affection of
itself; it is the abiding, eternal, and unchangeable Will of
the Absolute Reality thus continuously to develope itself,
as it necessarily must develope itself. (2. ) So long as any
Ego whatever occupies any one of the points of Freedom,
he has still a personal, individual Being, which is a partial
and imperfect Ex-istence of the Divine Ex-istence, and
hence properly a negation of Being; and such an Ego has
also an affection for this Being, and a fixed and unchange-
able will to maintain this his Ex-istence. His actual will,
ever present with him, is hence by no means identical with
the abiding Affection and Will of the perfect Divine Ex-
istence. (3. ) Should an Ego, occupying this standpoint, be
nevertheless capable of willing in conformity with that
Eternal Will, yet could this never come to pass by means of
his mere present will, but this Ego must first make the
Eternal Will his own by means of a third intervening vol-
ition, usually called a determination of the Will. Exactly in
this case stands the votary of Law; and he becomes so just
because he stands in this case. Since he professes,--and
this is the peculiar root of his whole mode of thought, and
that whereby we must comprehend him,--since he professes
that he is also able to refuse obedience,--which (since we
ub
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? 514
THE DOCTRINE OF RELIGION.
have nothing to do here with mere physical power, the de-
pendence of which upon will we must assume), is obviously
equivalent to saying that he also has it in his power to will
such disobedience,--to which assertion, as the immediate
expression of his self-consciousness, we must doubtless accord
faith,--this profession is equivalent to saying that it is not
his predominant and ever-present will to obey;--for who can
act contrary to his own will, and who can think in opposi-
tion to his own ever-present and continually active will?
Not that he is disinclined to obedience;--for then another,
and indeed sensuous desire would necessarily bear sway in
him, which is contrary to the supposition, since he would
then not be even a moral being, but would require to be
maintained in order and discipline by means of outward
compulsion;--but only that he is not positively inclined to
it, and occupies a position of mere indifference. In conse-
quence of this indifference of his own actually present will,
does that other Will become to him a foreign behest, which
he at first regards as a Law to his own naturally inactive
will; and to the fulfilment of which he must first produce
in himself the will that is naturally awanting, by means of
a positive determination. And thus, the indifference to-
wards the Eternal Will, which still remains after actual
renunciation of the Sensuous Will, is the source of a Cate-
gorical Imperative within us; as the faith which we still
retain in our own, at least formal, Independence, is the
source of that indifference.
Just as this faith disappears by means of the highest
crowning act of Freedom, does the previously existing Ego
likewise disappear in the pure Divine Ex-istence; and we
can no longer say, strictly speaking, that the Affection, the
Love, and the Will of this Divine Ex-istence is ours, since
there are no longer two Ex-istences and two Wills; but
/ now one Ex-istence, and one and the same Will, is all in all.
So long as man cherishes the desire of being himself some-
's,/ 'thing, God comes not to him, for no man can become God.
But so soon as he renounces himself sincerely, wholly, and
, radically, then God alone remains, and is all in alL Man
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