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 Leighton, Joseph Alexander, 
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 Typical modern conceptions 
 of God 
 

 
 
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Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2019 with funding from 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
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TYPICAL MODERN 
 CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
v-X. 4 
 
 • > - yj i nih -■ 
 
 V 
 
 TYPICAL MODERNV , 
 CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 THE ABSOLUTE OF GERMAN ROMANTIC IDEALISM 
 AND OF ENGLISH EVOLUTIONARY AGNOSTICISM 
 
 WITH 
 
 A CONSTRUCTIVE ESSAY 
 
 BY 
 
 JOSEPH ALEXANDER LEIGHTON 
 
 Professor of Philosophy in Hobart College 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 91 AND 93 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK 
 LONDON AND BOMBAY 
 1901 
 
Copyright, 1901, by 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 Press of J. J. Little & Co. 
 Astor Place, New York 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The chapters which constitute the present 
 volume, with the exception of the one on Schleier- 
 macher, which has been written merely to round 
 out the work, had their origin in a thesis presented 
 to the Faculty of Cornell University some seven 
 years ago in partial fulfilment of the requirements 
 for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 
 
 The original essays on Fichte and Hegel were 
 published in the Philosophical Review. These 
 have since been very much altered and greatly 
 enlarged, and, indeed, the whole ‘work has been 
 rewritten. 
 
 The four men whose views are considered, viz., 
 Fichte, Hegel, Schleiermacher, and Spencer, were 
 chosen by the writer for a comparative study be¬ 
 cause of the typical and partially complementary 
 character of their respective treatments of the 
 problem of the Absolute—the problem of the 
 metaphysical conception of God. 
 
 Fichte and Hegel represent first parallel and 
 then diverging growths from the common root of 
 the Kantian critiques. Fichte’s earliest writings 
 on the philosophy of religion exhibit clearly the 
 effects of Kant’s criticism, particularly in its prac- 
 
VI 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tical aspects, on a mind of great speculative power, 
 but with a predominant bent towards the realiza¬ 
 tion of the good will and with the conscience of a 
 reformer. And Fichte’s development exhibits in 
 a very interesting fashion the growth of such a 
 mind, which, starting from purely ethical prem¬ 
 ises, finds itself impelled to lay a distinctively 
 metaphysical groundwork for life and religion. 
 Every one of his writings reflects afresh the rest¬ 
 less ethical will which is the motive of them all. 
 His system is pan-ethelism or voluntarism. 
 
 Fichte embodies in his writings the principal 
 stages of the transition from Kantian criticism to 
 an idealistic metaphysics. Hegel, on the other 
 hand, offers but slight traces of this development. 
 Aided by the imaginative pantheism of Schelling, 
 he passes at once to a speculative, metaphysical 
 conception of the Absolute as wholly immanent 
 in the temporal world of human experience. He 
 labors to subjugate all spheres of existence, every 
 phase of human experience, to the dominion of 
 the immanent Divine Reason. In the develop¬ 
 ment of his conception of the Absolute we mark 
 no pronounced transitional stages, no severe in¬ 
 ward struggles, no apparent change of view. From 
 first to last his thought moves in the serene ether 
 of pure speculation, and its development, in spite 
 of the contradictions which it swallows and digests 
 in its all-devouring maw, is a placid logical growth. 
 Hegel is the type of the metaphysician pure and 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 • • 
 Vll 
 
 simple. His doctrine is pan-logism in its most 
 thoroughgoing expression. 
 
 Schleiermacher denies the possibility of a purely 
 speculative knowledge of the Absolute-in-himself; 
 i.e.y of God conceived out of relation to man. In 
 this denial he is truer to the spirit of the Kantian 
 critique than either Fichte or Hegel. But Schleier¬ 
 macher goes beyond Kant, and on a road inde¬ 
 pendent of Fichte’s and Hegel’s, in his doctrine 
 of the Absolute as the immediately felt unity of 
 thought and being, of man and the universe. His 
 distinctive doctrine is that man possesses an im¬ 
 mediate consciousness of the Absolute, that there 
 is in man a unique and direct sense or feeling of 
 God’s presence ; and although he makes use of the 
 then prevailing dialectic method— i.e., of the union 
 of opposites—he holds that the immediate God- 
 consciousness transcends the dialectic process. 
 
 Schelling I have not taken up for two reasons. 
 First, his many and chameleon-like changes of 
 view would demand a more extended treatment 
 than falls within the scope of this work, and, 
 secondly, I do not think such an exposition would 
 be worth the trouble expended on it, for the most 
 valuable ideas of Schelling are to be found either 
 in Fichte, Hegel, or Schleiermacher, since Schel¬ 
 ling started from Fichte, Hegel from Schelling, 
 and Schleiermacher developed an independent 
 philosophy of identity. 
 
 Spencer stands as the philosophical representa- 
 
vm 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 tive of modern physical views of the universe. His 
 Unknowable is the indestructible energy of our 
 text-books and popular works on physics, raised 
 to the nth power. His method of speculation 
 stands in sharp contrast to the methods of Fichte 
 and Hegel. This contrast of method, together 
 with the currency which Mr. Spencer’s views have 
 gained, have led me to incorporate a treatment of 
 his views. Mr. Spencer’s system is pan-dynamism. 
 
 So we have four absolutes—that of Will, finding 
 its completion in the intuition of perfect attain¬ 
 ment ; that of Reason, comprehending itself as 
 the eternal process of the world and finding that 
 all is good; that of Feeling, which apprehends the 
 unity of things in a single and immediate act of 
 consciousness; and finally that of Blind Energy, 
 which seems, in a cross-section of time and as 
 viewed by the average spectator, to have a 
 definite direction, but which in reality has neither 
 whence nor whither, and no other goal than the 
 meaningless eternal oscillation between states of 
 motion and states of rest. 
 
 To state and criticise these typical views was 
 the primary object of this work. But in this 
 criticism certain positive views are of necessity im¬ 
 plied. In the fifth chapter these positive philo¬ 
 sophical doctrines are outlined. I am conscious 
 of the meagre and sketchy treatment of the sub¬ 
 ject in this final chapter. It would require a 
 separate large volume to deal at all adequately 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 ix 
 
 with the subject. Such an extensive treatment 
 would, however, fall outside the scope of the pres¬ 
 ent work. On the other hand, the views implied 
 in the other chapters seemed to call for a more 
 positive statement on those aspects of the whole 
 subject most emphasized in the previous pages. 
 The last chapter is therefore offered as an outline 
 treatment of the questions which were most 
 in my mind in my studies of Fichte, Hegel, and 
 Spencer. These are the problem of the relation 
 of the One and the Many, and even more promi¬ 
 nently the relation of the Absolute to Time. It is 
 hoped that the method of treatment and the 
 direction of the work towards a constructive con¬ 
 clusion have given a unity to the whole which 
 would not be apparent from the table of contents. 
 
 I have purposely limited myself to a treatment 
 of but two phases of the problem of the Absolute 
 —a full treatment would involve especially an 
 extended consideration of the growth and nature 
 of an Individual and of the place of Error and 
 Truth, Evil and Goodness, and Ugliness and 
 Beauty in the universe. On these latter subjects 
 I do not feel ready to write at present, even in 
 outline, but I hope within a few years to return 
 to the treatment of some of them. They consti¬ 
 tute respectively the central questions of the 
 metaphysics of knowledge, of ethics, and of aes¬ 
 thetics. 
 
 I am glad of this opportunity to express my 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 deep obligations to William Clark, J. G. Schurman, 
 and J. E. Creighton for stimulus and criticism at 
 various times in the past, and to the writings of 
 
 F. H. Bradley and Josiah Royce. For a renewed 
 interest in Schleiermacher I am indebted to Prof. 
 
 G. Class, of Erlangen. My debts to the philoso¬ 
 phers who have passed into history are too nu¬ 
 merous to make acknowledgment possible. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction .v 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Fichte’s Conception of God . i 
 
 1. Introductory. i 
 
 2. Fichte’s First Period ...... 2 
 
 3. Fichte’s Later Views.22 
 
 4. Conclusion ..27 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Hegel’s Conception of God.35 
 
 1. Introductory General Notions .... 35 
 
 2. The Full Expression of Hegel’s Conception of 
 
 God in the “ Philosophy of Religion” . . 46 
 
 3. Conclusion ..68 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 Schleiermacher’s Conception of God ... 74 
 
 1. Schleiermacher’s Doctrine of God in its Various 
 
 Aspects ........ 75 
 
 A. The General Attitude as Expressed in the 
 
 Reden iiber Religion . . . . 75 
 
 B. The Idea of God in the Dialektic . . 79 
 
 C. The Doctrine of God in the “Christian 
 
 Faith” ...... 87 
 
Xll 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 2. Schleiermacher’s Relations to Spinoza, Kant, 
 
 Fichte, and Schelling . ... . 
 
 3. The Significance of Schleiermacher’s Conception 
 
 of God «.*«..«« 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Mr. Spencer’s Unknown God . 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The Absolute, the Finite Individual, and the 
 Time-Process. 
 
 1. The Implications of Finite Experience 
 
 2. The Evolutionary or Historical Process—The 
 
 Genesis and Growth of the Individual is its 
 Meaning ........ 
 
 3. The Absolute and the Time-Process—The Terms 
 
 of their Union ....... 
 
 4. Further Positive Determination of the Absolute in 
 
 Relation to Man—The Absolute is the Immedi¬ 
 ately Experienced Unity of Will and Thought . 
 
 PAGE 
 
 93 
 
 97 
 
 103 
 
 126 
 
 126 
 
 139 
 
 155 
 
 170 
 
MODERN CONCEPTIONS 
 
 OF GOD 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD. 
 i. Introductory . 
 
 Fichte's utterances on the philosophy of re¬ 
 ligion extend over almost the entire period of his 
 philosophical activity. They mark the develop¬ 
 ment of his thought from 1790 (he was born in 
 1762) until 1813, a year before his death. His 
 views on the nature of God contain the core of 
 his philosophy, for, in common with the other 
 great post-Kantians, Schelling and Hegel, the 
 goal of Fichte’s philosophy is the discovery of 
 an absolute first principle which shall for the 
 philosophic thinker fill the place that, in com¬ 
 mon unreasoned thought and in popular theol¬ 
 ogy, is occupied by the doctrine of an anthro- 
 pomorphically conceived God. Fichte gave re¬ 
 peated expression to his doctrine of God and of 
 religion, but it was not until the year 1806, 
 in The Way to the Blessed Life (Anweisungen 
 
2 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 zum seligen Leben oder auch die Religions lehr e '), 
 that he developed his doctrine with systematic 
 fulness. The difference in tone and in expres¬ 
 sion between this work and his earlier essays and 
 fugitive remarks on the same subject, together 
 with his repeated esoteric and exoteric expositions 
 of the Science of Knowledge , have given rise to 
 the view that Fichte’s earlier and later philoso¬ 
 phies are radically different. I hope to show 
 that, notwithstanding certain variations of ex¬ 
 pression and a shifting of emphasis, Fichte’s doc¬ 
 trine of God is nevertheless a unity in which the 
 change is a development. In order to exhibit 
 this unity we must follow the historical order of 
 his writings. 
 
 2. Fichte s First Period . 
 
 The earliest expression of Fichte’s views on the 
 nature of God is contained in his Aphorisms on 
 Religion and Deism (1790), written before he had 
 made the acquaintance of Kant’s Critique of Pure 
 Reason. In these he says that it seems to be a 
 universal need of the heart to seek in God attri¬ 
 butes which speculation must deny to him. If one 
 follow one’s reflection ( Nachdenken ) one can reach 
 only the bare conclusion that there is a necessary 
 Being through whose thought the world arises. 
 The first cause of every change in the world is the 
 original or creative thought of God. Therefore 
 every feeling and thinking being necessarily exists 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 3 
 
 just as it is. 1 But there are moments when 
 the inexorable God of speculation fails to satisfy 
 the heart. There arises intensest longing for some¬ 
 thing more than this abstract principle. Head 
 and heart are in contradiction. One cannot resolve 
 the contradiction speculatively. One would be 
 saved from it if one could only cut off determi¬ 
 nistic speculation where it crosses the boundary 
 line between theoretical thought and the desires 
 of the heart. But how can one do this? 2 
 
 With this interrogation the record of Fichte’s 
 early religious difficulties closes. Very soon after¬ 
 wards he began the study of Kant’s philosophy, 
 and we know, from his letters to his fiancee, writ¬ 
 ten at this time, with what enthusiasm he em¬ 
 braced Kant’s doctrine. 3 No one, he said, had 
 refuted his determinism, but it had failed to sat¬ 
 isfy his heart, and the Kantian criticism seemed 
 to him to leave a place for the needs of the indi¬ 
 vidual in the determination of the nature of God. 
 His Attempt at a Critique of All Revelation } writ¬ 
 ten in 1791, two years earlier than Kant’s corre¬ 
 sponding work on religion, and submitted to Kant 
 for examination, although wholly Fichte’s own 
 in method and style, is a criticism of the possibil¬ 
 ity, nature, and limits of a divine revelation based 
 on Kant’s practical philosophy. 
 
 1 Werke, V., p. 6. * Ibid., V., p. 8. 
 
 3 J. G. Fichte’s Leben u. Briefwechsel, by his son, J. H. 
 Fichte, I., p. 81 ff., especially the letter of September 5, 1790. 
 
4 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 In this work Fichte begins with a theory of the 
 moral will, on which he says the deduction of the 
 nature of religion must be based. The material 
 of moral action is given by impulse. But an act 
 of will is the determination of one’s self, with the 
 consciousness of one’s own spontaneous activity ; 
 so that the primal impulse must be carried out 
 spontaneously if there is to result free and hence 
 moral action. The higher faculty of desire, the 
 source of the highest impulse to action, is the 
 idea of th <z Absolutely Right 4 If the moral impulse 
 is to be satisfied the moral law must govern na¬ 
 ture. This can happen only in a Being in which 
 moral necessity and absolute physical freedom 
 are united. Consequently the existence of God 
 is to be assumed with the same certainty as the 
 moral law. In God the moral law alone rules, and 
 without limitation. It follows that God is holy , 
 blessed , and, in relation to the sense-world, all- 
 powerful? Moreover, he must be just, for he must 
 bring about a full congruence between morality 
 and the happiness of finite, natural beings. Fur¬ 
 ther, since, into the concept of existence, nothing 
 can be thought beyond the series of causes and 
 effects in the sense-world and the free decisions 
 of moral beings, God must know both : the former 
 since he is its author, the latter since it is the meas- 
 
 1 Versuch einer Kritik alter Offenbarung. IVerke, V., pp. 24, 
 
 25. 
 
 2 Werke , V., p. 40. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 5 
 
 ure according to which he distributes happiness to 
 men; therefore he must be all-knowing. More¬ 
 over, the moral law has eternal validity. Eternity 
 is required for God to establish the balance be¬ 
 tween morality and happiness ; therefore God must 
 b ^ eternal? x These principles are postulates of 
 reason, subjective but universally valid, and the 
 assumption on which they are based is an act of 
 faith. Religion is founded on the idea of God as 
 the determiner of nature to moral ends. 2 Our 
 obligation to the will of God is our obligation to 
 the laws of the practical reason. 3 The highest 
 good is the only unconditioned absolute end we 
 know. The highest good is the supreme practi¬ 
 cal law of reason ; and if reason in us lacks power 
 in the conflict with natural inclination, by regard¬ 
 ing the law of reason as a divine command, we 
 are able to feel ourselves answerable to a Being 
 who demands our deepest reverence. But to dis¬ 
 obey the command then becomes a sin against 
 the Absolute Reason. In this way the thought of 
 God strengthens our reason. So, while in general 
 reason must determine us to obey the will of God, 
 in particular cases the will of God may determine 
 us to obey reason. 4 We may regard the procla¬ 
 mation of the moral law through self-conscious¬ 
 ness as God’s proclamation of his own nature. 5 
 
 1 Werke , V., pp. 40, 41. 3 Ibid., pp. 52, 53. 
 
 2 Ibid. , p. 51. 4 Ibid., p. 55. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 61. 
 
0 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 This is his supernatural proclamation within us. 
 He may also reveal himself in the sense-world. 
 Indeed the entire system of phenomena may ap¬ 
 pear as a revelation, 1 and, further, when a man or 
 humanity has sunk so low that the moral laws 
 given by pure reason have lost their power, a par¬ 
 ticular fact in the world of sense may give sanc¬ 
 tion to the moral law. The pure moral impulse 
 may be specially revealed to man, when he has 
 sunk into a degenerate state, through the medium 
 of sense-phenomena. 2 There may be cases where 
 a revelation is necessary to produce moral feeling 
 in a race. 3 But in any case the authority of a 
 revelation must not compel obedience, but only 
 draw attention to the moral law. 4 The criterion 
 of a revelation is the correspondence of its princi¬ 
 ples with the moral law given independejitly by 
 practical reason. 
 
 It is clear that the Critique of All Revelation is 
 essentially Kantian, in that it derives the existence 
 and attributes of God from the necessity of find¬ 
 ing in the universe a sure footing for the realiza¬ 
 tion of the moral law in finite beings and for the 
 consummation of the union in such beings of 
 happiness with virtue. On the other hand, Fichte, 
 in this work, does not conceive God after the 
 fashion of Kant’s moral Deus ex Machina. We 
 find throughout the Critiqiie suggestions of the 
 
 1 Werke, V., p. 70. 3 Ibid., pp. 91-94. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 80, 81. 4 Ibid., p. 98. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 7 
 
 doctrine, soon to be developed by Fichte, that the 
 only reality in human experience is to be found 
 in the system of interacting and morally free cen¬ 
 tres of self-consciousness. Already morality is 
 identified with the completely free action of these 
 individual /’s, and God is the immanent , unify¬ 
 ing principle of the moral universe which is con¬ 
 stituted by the /’s. The step is already taken 
 from Kant’s doctrine of a transcendent ethical 
 Being to an immanent principle of ethical life. 
 God may transcend the sense-world, but not the 
 moral world. 
 
 For the next six years Fichte busied himself 
 with the development of the groundwork of his 
 system in its general theoretical and practical 
 aspects. In 1792 he lays down in his Review of 
 ZEnesidemus (published in the Jena Liter atur- 
 Zeitung for 1794) a deed-act {That-handlung) as the 
 fundamental principle of philosophy. 1 This deed- 
 act is the self-creating intellectual intuition by the 
 / of itself. 2 The philosophical ultimate is the 
 action whereby the / intuits and so posits itself. 
 To be self-conscious is to posit one’s self; i.e., to 
 exist. 3 The primal fact in being is action. Ini 
 Anfang war die That . Starting from this primi- 
 
 1 Werke, I., p. 8. 2 Ibid., pp. 16, 22. 
 
 3 Professor Everett (Fichte’s Science of Knowledge, p. 71) 
 holds that positing (Seized) does not primarily mean for Fichte 
 creation. But the I is only by virtue of its activity as positing. 
 Is not this self-creation ? 
 
8 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 tive deed-act of self-consciousness, by which and 
 in which the latter alone is, Fichte builds up his 
 Wissenschaftslekre of the year 1794. To this first 
 systematic form of his philosophy belong likewise 
 the two Introductions of 1797. 
 
 The primitive act of consciousness is the asser¬ 
 tion of its own identity. This is expressed in the 
 formal proposition A is A, or A = A. The 
 empirical connection asserted in a given form of 
 this proposition may be false ; but the form of 
 the proposition is always valid, and the bare asser¬ 
 tion of any identity whatsoever depends on the 
 identity of the /. The act of assertion itself con¬ 
 stitutes the identity of the I . 1 But the proposi¬ 
 tion A is A is only possible through the proposi¬ 
 tion A is not not-A. In the latter proposition 
 there is involved the assertion of the existence of 
 a not -1 , which excludes the self-identical I. To 
 the I there is absolutely opposed a not-I. Never¬ 
 theless in this difference the I maintains the 
 identity of its own consciousness, 2 which latter 
 indeed is possible only through the consciousness 
 at the same time of a difference. The I is pro¬ 
 duced by its return into itself. 3 This return is an 
 intellectual intuition of its own free act. 4 The 
 not-I is posited by the /. It is the limit set up 
 by the /, in opposition and relation to which the 
 
 1 Werke , I., pp. 91-98. 
 
 2 Ibid. , p. 106 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 458. 
 
 1 Ibid. , p. 459 ff. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 9 
 
 I may exercise its own conscious activity. 1 The 
 absolute I can be determined by nothing else. 2 
 The I sets up a check or limit ( Anstoss ) to its 
 own activity. Without this check there could be 
 no self-determination; without self-determination 
 there could be no check, nothing objective. 3 The 
 check exists because the I must posit itself at 
 once as finite and as infinite. Without the infinite 
 there can be no limitation (finitude), and vice versa. 
 Infinity and limitation are united in one and the 
 same synthetic terms. The I distinguishes itself 
 from its own unlimited activity. This activity 
 consists in so positing itself without limitation. 
 This play of the absolute I with itself, by which 
 the I strives to unite opposites (the finite and the 
 infinite), is the faculty of imagination ( Einbil - 
 du?igskraft ). 4 This continual play of opposites is 
 the condition of the possibility of knowledge. 
 Reality is the product of the imagination, which 
 presents these opposites, the finite-subjective and 
 the infinite-objective, for contemplation. 5 
 
 The unceasing activity of intelligence is for 
 Fichte the absolute principle of things. He says 
 “ Intelligence is a constant action ” ( Thun). 6 
 
 Objectivity is nothing more than the intuition 
 by intelligence of its own action. 7 But how can 
 
 1 Werke, I., p. no ff. 4 Ibid. , p. 215. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 119. 6 Ibid., pp. 226, 227. 
 
 3 Ibid. , p. 212. 0 Ibid. , p. 440. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 492. 
 
IO 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 we be sure that this intellectual intuition is ulti¬ 
 mate ? Faith in it, says Fichte, can be based only 
 on the conviction that reason 1 is the end, person¬ 
 ality a means. 
 
 The absolute I is thus the one universal activity 
 of intelligence underlying the system of finite 
 conscious F s. The finite I is a form of the mani¬ 
 festation of the free activity of the Eternal Reason. 2 
 In his Foundation of Natural Rights (1796) and the 
 System of Ethics Fichte deduces the rights and 
 duties of finite individuals from the general prin¬ 
 ciples of the Science of Knowledge. In the Science 
 of Rights he says that if a rational being is to posit 
 itself it must be wholly self-determined, i.e., free, 
 and, if free, it must posit a sensuous world on 
 which to exercise this freedom. It must ascribe a 
 like freedom to others; hence it must posit other 
 rational beings. Therefore it is really the univer¬ 
 sal or absolute / which posits itself in this whole 
 system of related finite /’s. In the System of 
 Ethics Fichte defines Reason, or the quality of 
 being an /, as the union of subject and object. 3 In 
 itself the / is pure will. 4 Volition is the absolute 
 tendency towards the Absolute. 5 It is pure activ¬ 
 ity. 6 Impulse (Tried) is this activity determined 
 in a definite direction and objectified. 7 The deter- 
 
 1 Werke, I., p. 466. 4 Ibid., pp. 25, 26. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 505. 6 Ibid., p. 28. 
 
 3 Werke, IV., p. 1. * Ibid., p. 38. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 105. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 11 
 
 mination is a limitation of the /, and gives rise to 
 feeling. Nature is the organic whole of impulses; 1 
 i.e., of the series of determinations of the universal 
 activity of intelligence. There is no Nature-in- 
 itself. My own nature and all other natures that 
 are posited to explain the first nature constitute 
 only a particular way of observing myself. 2 
 
 The last statement, taken by itself, might con¬ 
 vey the impression that the finite individual I and 
 the absolute I are the same. But it is abundantly 
 evident from a consideration of the Science of 
 Knowledge , the Science of Rights, and the System 
 of Ethics that the absolute I is the impersoyial and 
 universal Intelligence which is immanent in and 
 gives reality to the entire activity of the finite F s 
 in all their relations, active and passive. More¬ 
 over, this universal / is ceaseless activity, actus 
 purus , absolute rational will. It is the only reality, 
 for the sense-world has no reality in itself. Fichte’s 
 system is not solipsistic , but acosmistic. The idea 
 of the absolute I is, when viewed from the practical 
 standpoint, the idea of God. 3 The pure I is posited 
 outside ourselves, and called God. 
 
 Now there follows a series of essays which deal 
 directly with the idea of God from the standpoint 
 of the Science of Knowledge. The first of these 
 is entitled On the Ground of Our Faith in a Divine 
 
 1 Werke , IV., p. 114. 2 Ibid., p. 133. 
 
 8 Fichte to Jacobi, August 30, 1795. Leben u. Briefwechsd , 
 II., p. 169. See also the Review of REnesidemus , op. cit. 
 
12 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 Government of the World. This is a brief state¬ 
 ment prefixed to an article by Forberg On the 
 Definition of the Idea of Religion, in the Philosoph¬ 
 ical Journal (1798), edited by Fichte and Nietham- 
 mer. Forberg in this article identified religion and 
 morality. Fichte agreed with him so far as he 
 went, but found it necessary to explain his own 
 views, because Forberg stopped short and failed to 
 draw out the implications of his position. Philos¬ 
 ophy, our author urged, produces no facts ; it only 
 explains them. The philosopher presupposes the 
 fact of faith in God, and “ deduces this fact from 
 the necessary procedure of every reasoning being.’’ 1 
 Faith is not arbitrarily assumed, but is necessary. 
 Two standpoints are possible, namely, the tran¬ 
 scendental and that which is occupied by common 
 consciousness and natural science alike. From the 
 latter standpoint the sense-world is viewed as an 
 absolutely self-existent whole, and every event in 
 it proceeds according to its own immanent laws. 
 To argue from the existence of this sense-world to 
 an Intelligence who is the author of it, is to cheat 
 us with empty words. All the determinations of 
 this intelligence are conceptions, and how can these 
 either create matter ex nihiloox modify an eternal 
 matter? From the transcendental point of view, 
 there is no self-existent world, and what we see is 
 only the reappearance of our own inner activity. 
 From the sense-world we cannot reach in any way 
 
 1 Wer/ce, V., p. 178. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 13 
 
 the moral World-Order. One must seek the latter 
 in the region of the supersensaous. Now, I have 
 the absolute conviction or faith that I can deter¬ 
 mine my own moral nature, which is supersensuous, 
 to act in a certain way. 1 I am free to set before 
 myself a moral end, and “ I posit this end as real¬ 
 ized in some future time.” I am convinced that 
 this end will be realized. I must do this, or deny 
 my own being. But it does not lie within my 
 power to realize any moral end in the world. I 
 can only determine myself to make the choice. 
 The end is achieved only as a consequence of a 
 higher law, a moral World-Order. The living and 
 working moral order is God himself, and we can con¬ 
 ceive no other. 2 This moral World-Order can be 
 deduced from nothing else. It is the basis of all 
 objective knowledge, the ground of all certainty. 
 We must not assume a particular being as cause 
 of it. If we assume a particular being (Seyri) it 
 must be distinguished from ourselves and the 
 world, and personality and consciousness will be 
 attributed to it. It will be a finite being, a multi¬ 
 plication of the individual, and no God, and will 
 explain nothing. 3 The finite cannot comprehend 
 the infinite. In this moral World-Order every ra¬ 
 tional being has a determined place, and its fate, 
 so far as it results directly from its own actions, is 
 the result of the World-Order. The true atheism 
 is that one refuses to hearken to the voice of his 
 1 Werke, V., p. 183. 2 Ibid., p. 186. % Ibid., p. 187. 
 
MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 conscience. 1 Fichte closes his article with two 
 quotations, which he says express his own views. 
 The first of these is the well-known passage in 
 Faust , beginning 
 
 “ Who dare express Him ? 
 
 And who profess Him, 
 
 Saying, I believe in Him ! 
 
 Who, feeling, seeing, 
 
 Deny His Being,” etc. 2 
 
 The second, from Schiller’s Worte des Glaubens , is 
 as follows : 
 
 “ And God is !—a holy Will that abides, 
 
 Though the human will may falter; 
 
 High over both Space and Time it rides, 
 
 The high Thought that will never alter: 
 
 And while all things in change eternal roll, 
 
 It endures, through change, a motionless soul.” 3 
 
 This statement of his position brought against 
 him the accusation of atheism. In the Appeal to 
 the Public against the Charge 0/ Atheism, and the 
 Judicial Answer to the Charge of Atheism, he further 
 develops his own doctrine in contrast with that of 
 his accusers. He contends that his opponents re¬ 
 gard God as a particular substance. Substance 
 means with them “ a sensible being existing in time 
 and space.” This God, extended in time and space, 
 they deduce from the sense-world. Fichte claims 
 that extension or corporeality cannot be predi- 
 
 1 Werke , V., p. 185. 2 Faust , part I., scene xvi. 
 
 3 Merivale’s translation, quoted in Smith’s Memoir , p. 96. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 15 
 
 cated of the Deity. 1 The sensuous world is only 
 the reappearance of the supersensuous or moral 
 world through our attempt to grasp the latter by 
 means of our sensuous faculty of presentation. 
 The sensuous is mere appearance, and can furnish 
 no ground for the existence of God. The Deity 
 is not to be understood as the underlying ground 
 of phenomena, for, so conceived, he is made a 
 corporeal substrate. 2 He is an order of events, 
 not a substance. The sensuous predicate of 
 existence is not to be applied to him, for the 
 supersensuous God alone is. He is not dead 
 Being ( Seyn ), but rather pure action, the life and 
 principle of the supersensuous World-Order. 3 His 
 opponents, continue Fichte, deduce all relations 
 of the Godhead to us from a knowledge of God 
 got independently of these relations. Our author 
 denies the validity of their procedure, and main¬ 
 tains that the relation of the Godhead to us as 
 moral beings is immediately given. 4 He repeats 
 the statement that God as moral World-Order is 
 postulated as guaranteeing the realization of the 
 end which the man of good disposition sets before 
 himself. He regards God, taken in such a sense, 
 as being quite as immediately certain as our own 
 existence. Duty cannot be done absolutely with¬ 
 out reference to an end, for in that case it would 
 be without content. Man must act with regard to 
 
 1 IVerke, V., p. 258. 3 Ibid., p. 261. 
 
 ‘ 2 Ibid., p. 263. 4 Ibid., p. 214. 
 
16 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 an end, and this end is blessedness, not enjoyment. 
 God as moral World-Order makes it possible that 
 this end be realized. On the other hand, the end 
 which his opponents set before themselves is en¬ 
 joyment. Their God who dispenses enjoyment 
 is a material existence, a prince of this world. 1 
 Eudaemonism in morals is allied with dogmatism in 
 speculation. To characterize God as a spirit is of 
 negative value in distinguishing him from things 
 material. 2 It gives us no positive information, 
 for we know as little wherein the being of a spirit 
 consists as wherein the being of God consists. 
 Inasmuch as all our thinking is limiting, God is 
 inconceivable. 3 To determine him is to make him 
 finite. If personality and consciousness are to be 
 denied of God, it is only in the sense in which we 
 conceive ourselves as personal and conscious. 4 
 God is a wider consciousness than we are, a pure 
 intelligence, spiritual life and actuality. He is 
 neither one nor many, neither man nor spirit. 
 Such predicates belong only to finite beings. 
 Again, God’s existence cannot be proved. Not 
 from the sense-world, for Fichte’s system is acos- 
 mistic. Not from the supersensuous world, for 
 proof implies mediation. The supersensuous 
 World-Order is God, and is immediately perceived 
 through the inner sense. 5 
 
 1 Werke, V., p. 218. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 265. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 264. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 266. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 17 
 
 In Reminiscences, Answers, and Questions, written 
 in 1799, but not published until after his death, 
 Fichte emphatically asserts that speculation does 
 not produce the idea of God. Life is higher than 
 knowledge. 1 Speculation is only the means of 
 knowing Life. 2 All certainty is based on immediate 
 feeling, and God exists in the immediacy of our 
 felt life. 3 Philosophy has to do only with a con¬ 
 cept of the idea of God. 4 The expression “ order 
 of a supersensuous world ” has been misappre¬ 
 hended. It is not to be understood “ as if the 
 supersensuous world were, before it had order, 
 and as if order were thus but an accident of that 
 world. On the contrary, that world only becomes 
 a world by being ordered.” 5 The philosopher is 
 not concerned with the actual significance of God 
 for religion, but only with the logical significance 
 for philosophy. Faith in the moral World-Order 
 is belief in a “ principle by virtue of which every 
 determination of the will through duty assuredly 
 effects the promotion of the object of reason in 
 the universal connection of things.” 6 This in¬ 
 volves the presupposition that the world of reason 
 is created, maintained, and governed by this prin¬ 
 ciple. 7 This principle or World-Order is Activ¬ 
 ity, not dead Permanency. It is a living being, 
 
 1 Werke, V., p. 352. 4 Ibid., p. 348. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 342. 5 Ibid., p. 361. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 348, 356. 6 Ibid., pp. 363-4. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 366. 
 
 2 
 
i8 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 “ creating, maintaining, governing.” Inasmuch as 
 these predicates are asserted of one principle, 
 when we reflect we must think a permanent sub¬ 
 strate to which these belong and which unites the 
 different predicates. The oneness is mediate; the 
 predicates arise immediately. The one principle 
 can only be thought of “ as a, for itself, existing 
 and working principle,” 1 as pure Spirit , as Creator , 
 Maintainer, and Governor. But this thinking is 
 an abstraction Abstractly the principle of the 
 world is a logical subject. Concrete thinking 
 gives us God as Activity, as the Creating, Main¬ 
 taining, Governing, etc. “ The conception of 
 God cannot be determined by categories of exist¬ 
 ence, but only by predicates of an activity.” 2 
 In the Vocation of Man, published in 1800, God 
 is characterized as the living holy Will in whom 
 we live and move and have our being. He reveals 
 himself in the heart, and is comprehended by 
 faith. He is best known to the simple child-like 
 mind. Faith in duty is faith in God. My will is 
 apart of two orders, the spiritual and the sensuous. 
 The law or order of the supersensuous world is the 
 Infinite Will. I unite myself with this by making 
 my will conform to it. The voice of conscience, 
 of freedom, in my breast commands me to do this. 
 The Infinite Will unites me with all other finite 
 wills in a world or system of many individuals. 
 The union and direct reciprocal action of many 
 1 Werke , V., p. 368. 2 Ibid., p. 371. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 l 9 
 
 separate and independent wills is the world. What 
 the Infinite is in himself, no finite being can say. 
 As the finite mind conceives it, he is self-existing, 
 self-manifesting Will. 
 
 It had been asserted that Fichte’s doctrine of 
 God was pantheism, that in his theory finite 
 beings are the constituent parts of the moral 
 world, and that our relation to one another is the 
 World-Order. Fichte deals with this charge in 
 “From a private letter,” published in the Philo¬ 
 sophical Journal in 1800. His opponents, he says, 
 understand by order something dead, fixed, and 
 ready-made. Their order consists of a manifold of 
 things lying beside and following one another 
 [Ordo ordinatus ). He, on the contrary, under¬ 
 stands by order an active, working principle (Ordo 
 ordinans). In all human actions, two things are 
 reckoned, a determination of the individual’s will 
 and something independent of his will, by which 
 a consequence follows his willing. So in morality, 
 if A stand for the determination of the will to an 
 end, and B for that principle through which there 
 comes about a consequence necessarily connected 
 with A, then the law of the connection of A and 
 B in the moral order of things is the moral World- 
 Order, and is outside of, and independent of, finite 
 moral beings. 
 
 Fichte now found it necessary to correct the 
 misunderstanding that his absolute / was the same 
 as the finite individual I. In the Sun-Clear Report 
 
20 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 to the Larger Public (1801) he makes plain the 
 distinction. 1 It may have been this misinterpre¬ 
 tation which led him, in the Exposition of the 
 Science of Knowledge of the year 1801, to change 
 his terminology. In place of the absolute / there 
 now appears the absolute Act of Knowing ( Wis - 
 sen) as the starting-point for the deduction of the 
 theoretical and practical worlds. This Absolute 
 Knowing is characterized in the same manner as 
 the absolute I. Knowing is a bemg in and for it¬ 
 self and a dwelling in and disposing of itself. 2 It is 
 the absolute interpenetration of Being and Free¬ 
 dom? It is the fusion of the unifying and the dis¬ 
 persive tendencies of thought into an identity. 4 
 Knowing is the intellectual intuition of the Abso¬ 
 lute, and this is Spirit. In the universe there is 
 no death, no lifeless material, but rather only 
 Life, Spirit, Intelligence. 5 In this exposition the 
 word being ( Seyni) is used to designate absolute 
 knowing. In the Science of Knowledge of 1804 6 
 being and thought are identified. Fichte had 
 formerly denied the applicability of the predi¬ 
 cate being (Seyn) to God on the ground that 
 it was a sensuous concept and denoted some¬ 
 thing dead and fixed, whereas God is pure ac¬ 
 tivity. It has been maintained by some that 
 the introduction of the word being into these 
 
 1 Werke, II., p. 382. 4 Ibid., p. 22. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 19. 5 Ibid., p. 35. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 19. 6 JYachgelassene Werke, II. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 21 
 
 later expositions marks the change to an en¬ 
 tirely new view on Fichte’s part—to an Eleatic 
 conception of the Absolute as a motionless, in¬ 
 active Unity. But this interpretation overlooks 
 the fact that Fichte describes knowing in the ex¬ 
 position of 1801 and thinking (.Denken ) in that of 
 1804 alike in terms of activity. In a letter to Schel- 
 ling, dated August 7, 1801, he says that being is not 
 compression, but is through and through alertness 
 (.Agilitat ), pellucidity, light. 1 God is this pure be¬ 
 ing. He is the inconceivable real ground of the 
 separateness of individuals and the ideal bond of 
 all. 2 He is inconceivable in himself, and we can only 
 say that the Absolute is the Absolute. 3 The Science 
 of Knowledge expounds the universal consciousness 
 of the whole spiritual world. Every individual is 
 the rational square of an irrational root, and the 
 whole spiritual world is the rational square of an 
 irrational root — the immanent Light or God. 4 
 The essence of philosophy lies in conceiving the 
 inconceivable. 5 
 
 We have traced through the preceding works 
 the gradual clarification of Fichte’s thought on 
 the nature of God and his relation to the world 
 of appearance. It becomes evident in the later 
 utterances that the absolute Act of Knowing or 
 
 1 Leben u. Briefwechsel, II., p. 345. 2 Ibid., pp. 344-5* 
 
 8 To Schelling, January 15, 1802. Leben xi. Briefzvcchsel , II., 
 
 P- 367- 
 
 4 Ibid,, p. 345. 
 
 5 Ibid., I., p. 181. 
 
22 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 the Universal Consciousness , which is identical with 
 the absolute I of the earlier Science of Knowledge , 
 is not the Divine Being in his fulness, but a never- 
 ceasing expressio?i of his Being. God manifests 
 himself, but he is not exhausted in his manifesta¬ 
 tions. 
 
 3. Fichte s Later Views. 
 
 In his writings between the years 1806 and 1813 
 Fichte gives, from various starting-points, his doc¬ 
 trine of the Divine Nature in itself and in its 
 relation to the phenomenal world. 
 
 In the Characteristics of the Present Age (1806) 
 he says that Humanity is the one, outer, forceful, 
 living, and self-dependent Existence ( Daseyn ) of 
 God, or the “ one utterance and outflow of the 
 same.” “ Humanity is an eternal ray, that divides 
 itself into individuals, not in very truth, but only 
 in the earthly appearance.” 1 The true destiny of 
 humanity is to return to God, and universal his¬ 
 tory is divided into five epochs which mark the five 
 great stages of the progress of humanity towards 
 its goal. 2 In a corresponding manner, Fichte gives, 
 in the Way to the Blessed Life (1806), the five pos¬ 
 sible ways of viewing the infinite. These mark 
 the stages in the progress of the individual soul 
 Godwards. 3 The first and lowest is when the 
 world is seen through the outer senses and this 
 
 Werke, VII., p. 188. 2 Ibid pp. 11 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid., V., pp. 465 ff. 
 
 1 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 23 
 
 world is held to be the true world. In the second 
 the world is comprehended as a law of order and 
 equality existing in a system of rational beings. 
 
 The practical reason of Kant represents this view. 
 
 The third view is that from the standpoint of the 
 higher morality. Here the highest plane of being 
 is a law for the spirit, but a creative law whose 
 end is to make men revelations of the inner divine 
 Being. 1 Here the truly Real is the Holy, Good, 
 and Beautiful. The fourth view is that of religion. 
 
 This is the clear knowledge that the Holy, Good, 
 and Beautiful are the manifestations in us of the 
 inner Being of God. 2 It is seen that in whatever 
 the holy man does, lives, and loves, God appears 
 in his own immediate forceful Life. The fifth 
 and highest view is the standpoint of pure knowl¬ 
 edge. 3 To point the way to the pure knowledge of 
 the one Absolute Being which is complete in itself 
 is the purpose of the Way to the Blessed Life. 
 
 The Absolute is Being. 4 The fundamental Being x 
 
 of Life is an unchangeable intuition. Being neces¬ 
 sarily appears as “ existence,” which is, hence, the 
 phenomenal form of the inner essence of Being. 5 
 Existence is Life—the absolute concept which 
 breaks itself up into finite /’s. 6 The absolute con¬ 
 cept appears only in the individual consciousness. 7 
 
 1 Werke, V., p. 469. 4 Ibid., p. 508 ; II., p. 682. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 470. 5 Ibid., p. 510 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 472. 6 Nachgelassene Werke , III., p. 36. 
 
 7 Ibid., p. 69 ff. 
 
24 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 The absolute concept itself is the appearance of 
 God as the latter comprehends itself. 1 This self¬ 
 comprehension posits life. 2 Life comes to con¬ 
 sciousness in individuals as absolute thinking 
 (Denken). 3 This appearance is the accident of 
 which God is the substance. The self-intuition 
 of Being in its own manifestation brings forth, as 
 a free act, a process. Through this process the 
 manifold /’s arise. 4 The universal and absolute 
 thought brings forth, by thinking, a community 
 of individuals. 5 But in this manifold appearance 
 existence is still One Spirit, which intuits and under¬ 
 stands itself as a system of many. 6 The purpose 
 of the infinite manifoldness of existence is to ex¬ 
 press Being in Becoming. 7 This process of expres¬ 
 sion is eternal. The power of the absolute Life 
 to create individuals is never exhausted in the 
 forms of individuality. To all eternity Being 
 continues to be broken up into individuals. 8 
 Hence the ethical purpose in the manifestation of 
 the Divine Being in individuals is never fully 
 revealed. 9 Perhaps, in the Moral Order, one 
 world-age is conditioned by another, and so there 
 takes place in greater purity a progressive revela¬ 
 tion of the goal. The individuals arise through 
 
 1 NachgelassenelVerke I., p. 408. 5 Werke, II., pp. 603, 608. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 412. 8 Nachgelassene Werke, p. 526. 
 
 3 Werke, II., pp. 608-10. 7 Werke, II., p. 683. 
 
 4 Nachgelassene Werke, I.,p. 548. 8 Ibid., V., p. 530. 
 
 9 Ibid., II., pp. 666, 667. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 25 
 
 thinking, but God does not. On the contrary, 
 through his Being thinking first arises. 1 The in¬ 
 dividuals are but pictures of the Absolute. Beyond 
 his appearance God exists in the absolute form of 
 Being . 2 
 
 The reflection or splitting up of the Divine 
 Being brings forth free and self-dependent F s. 
 Freedom is the root of existence and the sole 
 organic point of unity for the various forms of 
 the Absolute Being. 3 Through freedom the in¬ 
 dividual rises to those higher stages on the road 
 to union with the Absolute which have already 
 been mentioned. To become one with God the 
 finite individual must freely deny his own exist¬ 
 ence, and then he sinks in God. 4 The inner being 
 of an individual as it appears in his actions will 
 have value only in so far as it is the appearance 
 of God in this individual. 5 
 
 Fichte had repeatedly said that the Absolute-in- 
 himself was the inconceivable. But with the lapse 
 of years his religious feelings had enlarged and 
 deepened, and while in the Way to the Blessed 
 Life the highest standpoint is still that of knowl¬ 
 edge (Wissen), this offers a direct relation to God 
 in the form of an intellectual intuition ( intellec - 
 tuelle Anschammg ), an experience which is deeper 
 than conception (. Begreifen ). This direct relation- 
 
 1 Nachgelassene Werke , I., p. 563. *tVerke, V., p. 513. 
 
 a Ibid. 4 Ibid., pp. 517, 518. 
 
 
 >< 
 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 536. 
 
26 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 ship is love. The love of God causes Being and ex¬ 
 istence, God and man, to melt and flow together. 1 
 
 Love is the fountain of all certainty and all 
 truth and all reality. Love is higher than reason. 
 It furnishes the primal element for the creation 
 of the world. 2 In reflection that has become 
 Divine Love, and denied itself in God there is 
 attained the standpoint of knowledge. 3 In the 
 beginning, higher than all time, and absolute 
 creator of Time is Love, and the Love is in God, 
 for it is God’s self-maintenance of himself in 
 existence. 4 
 
 “ In so far as man is the love of God he is and 
 continues to be God.” 5 In a letter to Jacobi (of 
 May 8, 1806) Fichte says: “Raise thyself by 
 Love above the concept, then by so doing thou 
 art immediately within formless and pure Being.” 6 
 
 Fichte expresses very clearly the final outcome 
 of his thought in two sonnets, 7 from which we 
 quote: 
 
 “ The perennial One 
 Lives in my life and seeth in my sight.” 
 
 “ Naught is but God—and God is only life ! 
 
 And yet thou seest and I see with thee, 
 
 How then could such a thing as seeing be 
 Were it not a knowing of God’s own Life ? 
 
 l lVerke, V., p. 540. 4 Ibid., p. 543. 
 
 a Ibid., p. 541. 6 Ibid., p. 543. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 542. 6 Leben u. Briefwechsel, II., p. 179. 
 
 7 Nachgelassene Werke, III., pp. 347-8. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 27 
 
 ‘How gladly to His would I my life resign ! 
 
 But oh ! how find it ? Whensoe’er it flow 
 Into my knowing, transformed to empty show, 
 
 ’Tis mixed with other semblance, in this hull of mine.’ 
 ’Tis clear, what hath the hindrance been. 
 
 It is thyself! Whate’er can die, resign ! 
 
 And in thy life shall God live evermore. 
 
 Note well what in this dying shall live o’er, 
 
 Then shall the hull as naught but hull be seen, 
 
 And thou shalt see unveiled the life divine ! ” 
 
 4. Conclusion. 
 
 When we put together what Fichte said at 
 different times and from various points of view 
 his doctrine becomes a unity and his thought 
 exhibits a consistent development. He always 
 conceived God as immanent in the moral universe 
 —the only universe which he recognized. He 
 consistently held that the human mind could not 
 conceive God in his transcendence. But he did not 
 deny that transcendence, and indeed in his later 
 writings he emphasized it by his doctrine of the 
 Absolute Being. While in his innermost nature 
 he is beyond the reach of thought, God manifests 
 himself eternally as Active Intelligence or Will, 
 and by the free act of his own intelligence man 
 can rise to an intuitive knowledge of God and 
 enter into union with him. In the earlier form 
 of the Science of Knowledge the Absolute I is the 
 expression of God. In the final form which 
 his philosophy assumes Fichte emphasizes the 
 
28 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 doctrine that God is more than the Absolute I. 
 The idea of God is more fully defined. Beyond 
 his manifestation of himself he exists as Absolute 
 Being. He alone is. But this Being is not an 
 abstract motionless One. Fichte says again and 
 again in the Way to the Blessed Life that the 
 nature of Being is to manifest itself, that it is ever 
 active, ever living and loving. “ Being and Life 
 are one and the same.” “The Divine is think¬ 
 ing and living in one organic unity.” Being be¬ 
 comes conscious of itself in Existence ( Daseyn ). 
 The universal form in which the Divine Essence 
 appears is Knowing (Wissen ), the Concept , Free¬ 
 dom , and these are all equivalent expressions. 
 Knowing is the first image or schema of the 
 Divine Being. 1 We have not yet reached self- 
 consciousness. But free Knowing or the Concept 
 miderstands or becomes conscious of itself in Life , 
 and Life appears in the multiplicity of finite, self- 
 conscious individuals. Consciousness in these is 
 the reflex of real Being. 2 We humans are thus 
 appearances , images 3 of God’s true being. In us 
 his ceaselessly outflowing, living Will concentrates 
 
 1 Werke , IV., pp. 386, 387, etc., and Nachgelassene Werke , I., 
 p. 413 ff. 
 
 'Ibid., III., p. 35 - 
 
 3 There are thus three stages in the process of God’s imaging 
 ( Bilden ) or schematizing himself : (i) Appearance {Erscheimmg), 
 Knowing (Wissen), or the Concept which is Freedom ; (2) Life 
 or Thinking (Denken) ; (3) the Self-understanding of Life (Sich- 
 verstehen), i.e., the individual /’s. 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 29 
 
 itself into innumerable centres of consciousness. 
 But all individuals are enclosed in the one great 
 unity of the pure Spirit. 1 The real and true 
 appearance, like God, whose appearance it is, is 
 above the actual ( Uberwirklich). 2 
 
 Consciousness involves a limit, and hence is a 
 reflex of real Being, not God himself. Deeper 
 than all finite life, higher than all conscious thought, 
 there abides at the heart of things the pure super¬ 
 conscious Intelligence, the absolutely realized Will 
 which is the rest of absolute motion, the fruition 
 of absolute, self-centred activity. God is the in¬ 
 telligent Will that is ever active in forming itself 
 into finite self-conscious wills. But in this eternal 
 manifestation he never exists in his fulness. He 
 is beyond the limits which human will and intelli¬ 
 gence involve. In himself he cannot be a self- 
 conscious being such as we are, for he transcends 
 the limitations and eternally overcomes the op¬ 
 positions through which in us self-consciousness 
 arises. But he is accessible to us as the goal of our 
 free striving . In the immediacy of ethical feeling 
 or love, we penetrate, by way of that self-renuncia¬ 
 tion which is the realization of freedom, the shell 
 of outward conscious existence and touch the 
 Divine Being himself. For this Divine Being is 
 above , not below, our conscious life. God remains 
 in the last period of Fichte’s thought the ethical 
 Absolute, the source and the end of the moral life. 
 
 1 Werke, I., p. 416. 2 Nachgelassene Werke, I., p. 423. 
 
30 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 The free ethical will still is, for him, the key to our 
 own existence. God is still held up as the goal of 
 the active life. But at this period Fichte empha¬ 
 sizes the doctrine that the ethical Absolute is not 
 a mere moral ideal, “a far-off Divine Event,” but 
 now and ever is in all its fulness, and can be 
 experienced directly by him who wills to, in the 
 ethically determined feeling or intuition of love. 
 
 Fichte does not theoretically deduce the finite I 
 from the Absolute. Nor is there on the purely 
 theoretical side of his philosophy any path that 
 leads inevitably from the finite I to God. The I 
 is active through impulse (Tried) and against an 
 obstacle or limit (. Anstoss ). Fichte makes a show 
 of deducing the not-I from the /, but what he 
 really does is, by an analysis of the activity 
 of the /, to reveal the not-I as the indispensa¬ 
 ble condition of this activity. Theoretically, 
 God is simply the hypostatized abstraction of 
 cognition in general. It is in the practical or ethi¬ 
 cal life that Fichte finds the point of closest con¬ 
 tact and union of the finite I with the Absolute. 
 The ultimate reason for the existence of a limit to 
 the I is the development of free ethical activity 
 by the finite self. Through the action of freedom 
 the finite / strives to overcome this limit, and 
 finally, having through opposition found its own 
 vocation, it transcends the limit and becomes one 
 with God. The finite self has then discovered, 
 beneath the antitheses of itself and its world, the 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 31 
 
 unifying principle of the Divine Life. The con¬ 
 sciousness of this Divine Life, interpenetrating the 
 lives of finite selves, grows more inclusive and 
 pervading with the growth of Fichte’s thought. 
 He asserts in many of his earlier writings the abso¬ 
 lute power of man as a free being to raise himself 
 to God, but later he assumes the powerlessness of 
 the human will to unite with God without the aid 
 and presence of the Divine Will. “ Through him¬ 
 self man can do nothing. He can not make him¬ 
 self moral, but he must wait until the divine 
 image breaks forth in him.” 1 Fichte never specifi¬ 
 cally faces the problem of evil and offers no ex¬ 
 planation of its place in his system. 
 
 In the system Being and Becoming are perhaps 
 not fully reconciled. But can they ever be wholly 
 reconciled by other than the way of poetic meta¬ 
 phor ? It is my opinion that no profounder contri¬ 
 bution to the solution of this eternal problem, and 
 none that meets better the ethical demands of hu¬ 
 man nature, has been made than by Fichte in his 
 doctrine that the ceaseless activity of finite wills, 
 considered as a system, is the manifestation in the 
 world of time and space of the infinite Life of 
 God, and that in their spontaneous, self-determined 
 activity the world-system of finite /’s expresses 
 and realizes, each one fragmentarily but not the 
 less truly and unceasingly, the completion and 
 perfection of the Absolute Life. 
 
 1 Nachgelassene Werke, III., pp. 45, 114, etc. 
 
32 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 Fichte prepared the way for Hegel’s Logic by 
 his analysis of the dialectic movement of self-con¬ 
 sciousness and for the Phenomenology of the 
 Spirit by his doctrine of the five stages of indi¬ 
 vidual and racial consciousness. But in his own 
 conception of the movement of self-consciousness 
 he failed to get beyond the Spinozistic principle 
 that all determination is limitation, and therefore 
 involves finitude. He cannot conceive any self- 
 consciousness as arising without an external limit 
 or check which the I strikes against and recoils 
 from, and so kindles into self-consciousness. He 
 ceaselessly pursues the limit and tries to get it 
 into his Absolute. But he only succeeds in so 
 doing by expelling self-consciousness from the 
 Absolute. He cannot avoid doing this, for there 
 clings to his thinking the ancient prejudice of the 
 abstract reason that the Absolute and Infinite 
 must be abstract and indeterminate if it is to be 
 all-inclusive and self-sufficient, and of course self- 
 consciousness must be determinate. Again and 
 again, in trying to conceive the unity of God in 
 relation to the manifoldness of finite/’s, Fichte 
 speaks of the Absolute as going out of itself into 
 the finite individuals in order to return into its 
 own being. In his later writings, indeed, he em¬ 
 phasizes the repose of the Absolute or God in his 
 own nature. But the return of the Divine Being 
 from the multiplicity of his finite manifestations is 
 no true return, and has no unity unless there is in 
 
FICHTE’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 33 
 
 God a self-consciousness which knows and feels 
 itself as such in relation to finite individuals. The 
 ceaseless play of the Absolute Intelligence in its 
 outgoing into the universe of free men is meaning¬ 
 less, and the existence of such a universe is mean¬ 
 ingless, too, unless there is in God an immediate 
 and absolute consciousness of himself as a unity 
 in relation to the manifold forms of his manifesta¬ 
 tion. Fichte’s own strong sense of the ethical 
 significance of the universe of moral selves and 
 his conception of love as the meeting-point of 
 man and God involve necessarily the self-conscious¬ 
 ness of God in himself. There is no real unity in 
 the universe outside the unity of the Divine Con¬ 
 sciousness. Fichte failed to see that self-conscious¬ 
 ness is essentially a unity that differentiates itself, 
 but does not lose itself in these differences. On 
 the contrary, it maintains and expresses in differ¬ 
 ences, in a multiplicity of finite selves, the con¬ 
 crete fulness of its own life. This is precisely the 
 sort of unity that Fichte has in mind in his later 
 writings, but he does not see' clearly in what way 
 it is shadowed forth in consciousness. It is true 
 that this unity is not felt by ourselves in all its 
 fulness. It remains an ideal, but an ideal which 
 is implicated in every fibre of the actual life of the 
 human self. 
 
 From the whole of Fichte’s writings there stands 
 out clearly the firm, unfaltering conviction that 
 outside the world of spirits there is nothing real. 
 
34 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 His ethical idealism develops into a mysticism 
 which yet retains the ethical vigor and elevation 
 that breathed through his earlier utterances. His 
 unio mystica is the immanent ideal of the ethical 
 life. The universe is a system of moral beings 
 whose vocation is to express in individual form 
 the transcendent Divine Life which is the im¬ 
 manent process of their own realization of blessed¬ 
 ness. In his ethical idealism Fichte is the true 
 successor of Kant. In his grasp on the imma¬ 
 nency of the Divine Life in the ethical striving of 
 humanity he goes beyond his master. In his 
 union of moralism and mysticism Fichte has made 
 a permanent contribution to the philosophy of re¬ 
 ligion, and his thought will live on in the meta¬ 
 physics of the future. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 hegel’s conception of god. 
 
 i. Introductory General Notions . 
 
 Hegel’s Philosophy of Religion begins with the 
 thought of God, which is the result, he says, of 
 the other parts of his philosophy. But God is at 
 the same time the Prius that eternally manifests 
 itself. He is the result only in the sense of being 
 the goal of philosophy. There are three stages in 
 the movement of philosophy towards truth : first, 
 the logical, or stage of pure thinking; second, 
 nature; third, finite spirit. From finite spirit we 
 move upward to God, who is the last result of 
 philosophy. “ The result is the absolute truth.” 
 “ The last becomes the first.” 1 
 
 God is thus at once the presupposition and the 
 goal of all Hegel’s thinking. “A reason-derived 
 knowledge of God is the highest problem of 
 philosophy.” 2 God is for him the self-condition¬ 
 ing, self-centred totality of all that is, i.e ., the 
 ultimate unity. But philosophy must not remain 
 
 1 Werke, XI., p. 48. N.B.—The references are to the Philoso¬ 
 phic der Religion in the first edition (Berlin, 1883-4). 
 
 2 Wallace, The Logic of Hegel, p. 73< 
 
36 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 standing with the bare assertion that God is the 
 ultimate unity. It must specify ( bestimmen ) this 
 unity and exhibit it as a concrete system of differ¬ 
 ences. “ Philosophy knows God essentially as 
 concrete, spiritual, real universality, that is not 
 grudging but communicates himself .” 1 The dif¬ 
 ferent parts of Hegel’s system are expositions of 
 different aspects of God’s existence. Taken to¬ 
 gether, they exhibit the development in that pro¬ 
 cess of concretion or specification ( Bestimmung ) 
 which it is the task of philosophy to show forth, 
 as Hegel is always telling us. 
 
 Logic, the first part of the philosophy, is a 
 criticism of the categories by which men interpret 
 reality . 2 Truth, for Hegel, is not the correspon¬ 
 dence of thought with external reality. He has 
 no interest in, and would condemn as utterly 
 fruitless, the attempt to determine the objective 
 validity of thought. Truth for him is “ the agree¬ 
 ment of a thought-content with itself ,” 3 i.e., self- 
 consistency. This definition must constantly be 
 borne in mind, inasmuch as the entire work of the 
 Logic consists in passing in review the ascending 
 series of categories in the light of which men in¬ 
 terpret reality. Each succeeding category is found 
 inadequate, because it does not square at all 
 points with the idea of self-consistency. A given 
 form of conceiving reality can define itself only in 
 
 1 Werke , XII., pp. 287, 447. 
 
 2 Wallace, op. cit ., pp. 30-59. 3 Ibid ., p. 52. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 3/ 
 
 relation to other forms which differ from it. The 
 full development of their differences seem to set 
 these forms of thought in mutual contradiction; 
 but, on further consideration, they turn out to be 
 complementary aspects of a more comprehensive 
 unity of thought. For example, the Notion of 
 Being is defined by reference to its opposite— 
 Becoming. These notions seem absolutely in¬ 
 compatible. But in determinate Being, i.e ., in 
 definite existence, we have Being which has come 
 to be somewhat and is becoming something else. 
 Under the three heads of “Being,” “Essence,” 
 and “Notion ” the inevitable movement of thought 
 is traced from the most abstract to the most con¬ 
 crete conception of things. Each category bears 
 within itself the seeds of its own decay, and in the 
 dialectic process, which pervades the life of 
 thought as well as the life of nature, it merges 
 itself into a more comprehensive category. When 
 the ultimate category of the “ Notion ” is reached, 
 into it all the lower categories are received, and by 
 it they are fulfilled. The Logic is an immanent 
 criticism of categories . 1 
 
 But these categories are not to be, for a mo¬ 
 ment, conceived as hanging in the air or merely 
 going on in the philosopher’s head. They reflect 
 in the mirror of pure thought the true nature of 
 the objective world. If all the categories up to 
 the final Idea of the Notion have to deny them- 
 
 1 A. Seth, Hegelianism and Personality, p. 91. 
 
38 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 selves and be absorbed by their own children this 
 is so precisely because in the world of actuality 
 everything finite is passing away, is suffering death 
 and rebirth in a higher form. The Idea which is 
 the end of the Notion s life does not so pass away. 
 It was from the beginning; without the Idea was 
 not anything made that was made. The Hegelian 
 Logic aims to reflect the ebb and flow of cosmic 
 and human evolution—to paint in the gray colors 
 of thought’s conceptions all the struggle and the 
 passion of historic humanity. 
 
 Inasmuch as men have always used the highest 
 categories of their thinking to interpret and give 
 unity to their experience, logic may be regarded 
 as the history of the different thought-forms in 
 which men have given expression to their concep¬ 
 tions of that ultimate reality which supplies the 
 unity of experience, i.e ., God. “ Logic is metaphys¬ 
 ical theology, which considers the evolution of 
 the idea of God in the ether of pure thought .” 1 
 Hegel’s philosophy is preeminently a philosophy 
 based on experience. But experience means for 
 him chiefly the experience of the race in thinking 
 out the world problem. He seeks his material 
 chiefly in the history of human thought. Cate¬ 
 gories are objective thoughts , 2 i.e., thoughts re¬ 
 garded as objectively true, as universally valid. 
 So Hegel says: “Logic . . . therefore coincides 
 with Metaphysics, the science of things set and 
 
 1 Werki ?, XII., p. 366. 2 Wallace, op. cit. } p. 45. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 39 
 
 held in thoughts—thought accredited able to 
 express the essential reality of things.” 1 
 
 The Logic is a genetic history of Metaphysics. 
 Its work is to bring to light the ground thoughts 
 of metaphysics, and to show their evolution. It 
 has been said, “There is no evolution possible of 
 a fact from a conception .” 2 There is possible, 
 however, an evolution in the conception of a fact. 
 The Hegelian Logic is, I take it, the evolution of 
 the conceptions of isolated facts into their ulti¬ 
 mate implication—the conception of God. Hegel 
 thinks that the conception of God is attained in 
 logical science as the Absolute Idea—the Notion 
 or Totality of Being comprehending itself. He 
 says that the Logic sets forth the self-movement 
 of the Absolute Idea as the original Word or Self- 
 expression. He believes that in the Logic he is 
 tracing the actual course of God’s manifestation 
 of himself through human thought about him. 
 Hegel has no doubt that he has discovered, and 
 is setting forth, the process by which the Abso¬ 
 lute manifests itself in the appearances of our 
 time and space world. The absolute method which 
 is his method gets at the very heart of the object, 
 he would say. The absolute method, being the 
 immanent principle and soul of its object, develops 
 the qualities of that object out of the object itself. 
 This method Hegel unhesitatingly applied to the 
 ultimate Object. The dialectic of thought is for 
 1 Wallace, op. cit., p. 45. 2 Seth, op. cit., p. 125. 
 
40 
 
 MOD.ERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 * 
 
 v 
 
 4 
 
 him the dialectic of Being. The final category is 
 the idea of God regarded in the light of pure 
 thought. It is the Notion ( Begriff ), or End. 
 Hegel’s “ Notion ” corresponds to the Final Cause 
 of Aristotle, in which are included both the effi¬ 
 cient and the formal cause. “ In the End the 
 Notion has entered on free existence and has a 
 being of its own by means of the negation of im¬ 
 mediate objectivity.” 1 The category of End takes 
 up into itself mechanism and chemism as subordi¬ 
 nate categories. The End is not merely blind 
 causation like the efficient cause . 2 In having a 
 being of its own, End has properly subjectivity 
 and is really self-consciousness abstractly consid¬ 
 ered. As subjective, End implies a matter exter¬ 
 nal to itself on which it works. We have so far 
 only external design. This is superseded in the 
 notion of inner design, of reason immanent in the 
 world . 3 The true End is the unity of the subjec¬ 
 tive and objective . 4 The End exists and is active 
 in the world. It constitutes the world. Individ¬ 
 ual existences have their being only in the univer¬ 
 sal End. “ The Good, the absolutely Good is 
 eternally accomplishing itself in the world.” 5 The 
 End as actual is the Idea. “ The Idea may be 
 called Reason (and this is the proper philosophi¬ 
 cal significance of ‘reason’), subject-object, the 
 unity of the ideal and the real, of the finite and 
 
 1 Wallace, op. cit., p. 343. 2 Ibid ., p. 344. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 345. 4 Ibid ., p. 351. 5 Ibid ., p. 352. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 41 
 
 the infinite, of- soul and body ,” 1 etc. The Idea 
 is a process which is ever splitting itself into dif¬ 
 ferences, but always preserves its relation to self. 
 Hegel seeks to throw forth on the philosophical 
 screen a vivid picture of the Absolute at work, 
 weaving a world of men and things in the “ loom 
 of time.” The first form of the Idea is life. Life 
 is the Idea existing in the world as external and 
 immediately given. From life we rise to Cogni¬ 
 tion. Here the subjective Idea stands over against 
 the objective world that is given. In the process 
 of Cognition 2 the subjective Idea starts out with 
 faith in the rationality of the objective world and 
 seeks to know it, i.e,, to realize its own unity with 
 the objective. But the subjective Idea does not 
 merely seek to know the objective world. It also 
 seeks to realize its own ideals in the objective 
 world . 3 This is the effort of will toward the 
 Good. The subjective never quite succeeds in 
 bending the objective to its purposes, and it is 
 forced to fall back on the faith “ that the good is 
 radically and really achieved in the world .” 4 
 This faith is the speculative or absolute Idea. Its 
 object is the “Idea as such ,” 5 and for it the ob¬ 
 jective is Idea. The Absolute Idea is the self- 
 identity which contains the whole system of con¬ 
 crete things and persons as integral parts of itself. 
 
 * Wallace, op. cit., p. 355. 3 Ibid ., p. 371. 
 
 2 Ibid ., p. 363. 4 Ibid., p. 373. 
 
 5 Ibid. 
 
42 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 It is the absolutely Good and absolutely True. It 
 is not a mere abstract universal, but is rather the 
 all-embracing, self-centred unity of things. The 
 Universal realizes itself by determining itself to 
 be the Absolute Individual, the Absolute Subject. 
 Every step that the Absolute Idea takes in going 
 beyond itself is at the same time a reflection into 
 itself, an enrichment of self. The greater exten¬ 
 sion brings the higher intension. The highest, 
 most acute point in the development is pure Per¬ 
 sonality, or absolute Subjectivity. This, through 
 the completion of the absolute dialectic which is 
 its own nature in expression, grasps and holds all 
 in itself, and is conscious of its own unity amidst 
 all the changing details of its world. We have 
 reached the notion of God. Hegel uses the same 
 phrase, “ the Absolute Idea,” to represent both 
 our thought and the object of that thought. This 
 double use has led to the charge that Hegel at¬ 
 tempted to construct the real world out of abstract 
 thought. The double use is in a measure justifi¬ 
 able, since the Absolute Idea as the ultimate 
 existence is really the divine self-consciousness. 
 From Hegel’s point of view, it is the divine in us 
 that enables us to grasp the Idea. Hegel ana¬ 
 lyzes the notion of self-consciousness and puts it 
 forward with courageous anthropomorphism as 
 the ultimate explanation of the universe . 1 He 
 admits no dualism in the realm of consciousness. 
 
 1 See Stirling, The Secret of Hegel, I., p. 239. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 43 
 
 Underneath his double use of the word “Idea” 
 lies the assumption that thought can fathom the 
 depths of the divine activity in the world. Taken 
 by itself this phraseology would support the view 
 that God has no existence outside the process of 
 human thought, and that he reaches self-conscious¬ 
 ness only in the highest forms of human conscious¬ 
 ness. We shall discuss later in what sense this 
 is true of Hegel’s thought. 
 
 But the Idea is the reverse of abstract thought. 
 It is the most concrete reality. It is the rAos. 
 “ As the beginning was the universal, so the re¬ 
 sult is the individual concrete subject.” “The 
 universal is only a moment in the Notion.” The 
 concrete Idea is not an abstraction. It is rather 
 the complete reality. It is this individual and 
 comprehensive character of the Absolute Idea 
 which enables us to see that it is much more than 
 mere thought. The Idea takes up into itself all 
 the wealth of the subjective and the objective 
 worlds. It holds together in one unity all the 
 contradictions of human thought and passion. 
 The Absolute Idea is not less but more than the 
 rich and thronging world of human experience. 
 It is all this because it is the one Absolute Indi¬ 
 vidual. To forget this is to overlook what lies at 
 the heart of Hegel’s thinking. 
 
 Until the Idea is reached in the Logic , we have 
 untrue categories. The Idea alone is true, i.e ., 
 adequate to the reality, because itself the most 
 
44 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 concrete reality. It is the unity of thinking and 
 being, in which both are not merged in a higher 
 existence, but thinking is regarded as the highest 
 form of being, embracing all lower forms. The 
 Idea is the realized Notion ( Begriff ). The real¬ 
 ized Notion is the complete individual. “The 
 Notion is not merely soul, but rather free sub¬ 
 jective Notion that exists for itself and there¬ 
 fore has personality—the practical objective No¬ 
 tion, determined for itself, that as person is im¬ 
 penetrable atomic subjectivity—that is equally 
 not exclusive Individuality, but rather is for 
 itself Universality and Knowledge, and in its 
 Other has its own objectivity for object .” 1 The 
 highest point reached by the dialectic method is 
 the richest and most concrete. It includes in itself 
 all the other stages of the dialectic movement, 
 and thus becomes pure subjectivity or person¬ 
 ality. 
 
 In the Logic , the Philosophy of Nature , and the 
 Philosophy of Spirit are presented the three stages 
 of the dialectic movement of Hegel’s philosophy. 
 The Logic lays the groundwork in pure thought. 
 The other works fill in the details. In the final 
 stage we reach absolute personality or absolute 
 spirit, which is the most concrete fact, for it in¬ 
 cludes all the other facts. The Absolute Spirit 
 is the Whole and the True. It is the ultimate 
 
 1 Werke , V.,p. 318. N. B.—The references are to the Logik, 
 in the second edition (Berlin, 1841). 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 45 
 
 being upon which all finite being depends for its 
 existence. 
 
 It has been thought that Hegel, in making a 
 passage from the Absolute Idea of the Logic to 
 nature, attempted to construct the real world out 
 of abstract thought. It seems to me that what 
 he really tries to do is to preserve the absolute 
 coherence of his system, by showing that the in¬ 
 ner necessity of the Idea demands that the Idea 
 be discovered in nature. This was a presupposi¬ 
 tion of the dialectic method. If the latter, in 
 very truth, reflects reality, then the movement of 
 thought must be shown to repeat itself in concrete 
 form in the world of nature. If nature be not an 
 irreducible and wholly refractory element in the 
 totality of the Divine Idea, then it must be shown 
 how the Idea becomes nature. If nature were not 
 the free, because self-determined, expression of 
 the Idea, then from nature we should never be 
 able to get back to the unity and repose of the 
 Divine Idea in the perfection of its wholeness. 
 Nature would be an unreconciled factor in the 
 universe. So the transition from Logic to Nature 
 is essential, not only to the dialectic movement of 
 the philosopher’s thought, but to the unity of the 
 Absolute Idea in the eternity of its movement. 
 The starting-point for interpreting the natural 
 world is the Idea as end, concrete totality , 1 sub¬ 
 jectivity which includes objectivity. In its appli- 
 
 1 Wallace, op. cit., p. 378. 
 
46 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 V 
 
 -V 
 
 y 
 
 x 
 
 cation to the spheres of nature and spirit the Idea 
 seems to receive more concrete determinations 
 than it receives in the Logic. Nevertheless the 
 Idea in its most concrete form as Absolute Spirit 
 has been the presupposition throughout. In the 
 Philosophy of Religion , God appears as spirit, and 
 nature is his self-externalization. Although Hegel 
 does not construct the world out of abstract 
 thought, he does deprive it of independent exist¬ 
 ence. It is but an aspect of the life of the Abso¬ 
 lute Spirit. This brings us to the consideration 
 of the nature of God as set forth in the Philosophy 
 of Religion. 
 
 2. The Full Expression of Hegels Conception of 
 God in the “ Philosophy of Religion." 
 
 Hegel criticises the theology of the Enlighten¬ 
 ment ( Aufklcirnng ) very sharply, on the ground 
 that it empties the thought of God of all content 
 and makes him a mere unknown being beyond 
 the world . 1 The task of philosophy, he says, is to 
 know God. “ Philosophy has the end to know the 
 truth, to know God, for he is absolute truth, and 
 in contrast to God and his explication, nothing 
 else is worth the trouble of knowing.” 2 It knows 
 “God essentially as concrete, spiritual, real Uni¬ 
 versality.” 3 
 
 The Enlightenment does not get beyond the ab- 
 1 Werkc, XII., pp. 280-1. 'Ibid., p. 287. 3 Ibid. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 47 
 
 stract categories of the understanding {Verstand). 
 The understanding makes distinctions, such as 
 finite and infinite, absolute and relative, and then 
 lets these distinctions harden into oppositions. He 
 criticises Jacobi’s opposition of Cognition ( Erken- 
 nen ), as discursive and finite, to the immediate 
 knowledge (unmittelbare Wissen) of God. Imme¬ 
 diate knowledge tells us only that God is, not 
 what he is . 1 But if God is not an empty Being 
 beyond the stars, he must be present in the com¬ 
 munion of human spirits, and, in his relation to 
 these, he is the One Spirit who pervades reality 
 and thought. Hence there can be no final separa¬ 
 tion between our immediate consciousness of him 
 and our mediated knowledge of reality . 2 The 
 oppositions of mediated thought are overcome 
 from the standpoint of reason (Vernunft ). 8 When 
 we look with the eye of reason we perceive that 
 the infinite includes the finite. God is the Absolute 
 Idea, a circle that returns upon itself, not a straight 
 line projected indefinitely. He contains the world 
 of nature and finite spirits as differences within 
 himself. God is to be conceived as the unity of all 
 that is. He is the universe, the “ concrete totality.” 
 God is the absolutely necessary being in relation 
 to whom contingent things have no being. 
 
 The nature of this being must be further deter¬ 
 mined. To say simply that God is the identity 
 of all that is, is to make him a mere universal, a 
 
 1 Werke, XI., p. 45. 2 Ibid., p. 48. 3 Ibid., pp. 102-57. 
 
4 8 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 substance . 1 We must not rest satisfied with a bare 
 identity. On the other hand, we must define God 
 in his objectivity or universality. To say with 
 Schleiermacher that God is known immediately in 
 feeling is true but trivial . 2 This immediate con¬ 
 sciousness of God must be mediated. To say that 
 he is known only in feeling is to reduce him to a 
 mere subjective experience of the empirical indi¬ 
 vidual. When the empirical self has the higher 
 religious feelings of repentance, sorrow, thankful¬ 
 ness, and, finally, love, it reaches the consciousness 
 of identity with the universal . 3 But this progress 
 of feeling towards universality is produced not by 
 feeling itself, but by the rationality of its content . 4 
 Feeling in itself is mere particularity. It is the 
 private and transient state of the mere em¬ 
 pirical self . 4 From it no definition of God can be 
 reached. 
 
 With a world of concrete differences on his 
 hands, with finite nature and finite spirits before 
 him, ITegel seeks for a definition of the Absolute 
 which will allow it to take up all these differences 
 into itself and still'maintain its own unity. He 
 finds the principle he seeks in self-consciousness or 
 spirit. All things become moments of the Divine 
 Self-consciousness, constituent elements of the 
 Absolute Spirit. “ God is spirit, the absolute spirit, 
 the eternal, simple essential spirit that exists with 
 
 1 Werke, XI., pp. 53, 56, etc. 3 Ibid., p. 125 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid. , p. 115. 4 Ibid. , p. 133. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 49 
 
 itself.” “ It belongs to God to distinguish himself 
 from himself, to be object to himself, but in this 
 distinction to be absolutely identical with himself 
 —Spirit.” 1 Spirit is spirit only as manifesting 
 itself. “ Spirit that does not appear is not .” 2 “God 
 is a living God who is real and active.” 3 “A God 
 who does not manifest himself is an abstraction.” 4 
 It is the very nature of God to manifest himself . 5 
 The finite worlds of nature and spirit are manifes¬ 
 tations of him , 6 and he is the concrete totality of 
 these manifestations . 7 God is the beginning and 
 the end of the world-process. The logical Idea is 
 the potential being of God, the abysmal nature 
 from which all things proceed. But the primal 
 ground of things never for an instant remains a 
 dark abyss. From it eternally proceeds a world 
 which is its objectified expression, and in relation 
 to which God is spirit, is self-conscious subject. 
 Nature, finite spirit, the entire world of conscious¬ 
 ness, intelligence and will are embodiments of the 
 divine Idea. But they are so far prodigal sons. 
 In religion do these errant children first become 
 reconciled with the Divine Father. It is the busi¬ 
 ness of the philosophy of religion to show how this 
 reconciliation is accomplished . 8 
 
 In immediate knowledge or faith, God is object 
 
 1 Werke, XII., p. 151. 
 
 2 Ibid., XI., p. 18. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 24. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 135. 
 
 4 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 134. 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 18. 
 
 7 Ibid., XII., pp. 189-90. 
 
 8 Ibid., XI., p. 27 ff. 
 
MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 
 >r 
 
 for the finite spirit . 1 For faith he is not a mere 
 totality, but rather a being to whom the finite spirit 
 stands in relation . 1 God appears as Object in the 
 form of representation ( Vorstellung ). 2 It is the 
 task of philosophy to exhibit in the form of reason 
 that which exists in the common mind in the form 
 of representation. Philosophy and common-sense 
 correspond in content; they differ only in their 
 manner of conceiving the same fact . 3 We have the 
 logical conception of God as unity, as totality of 
 the finite, as manifesting himself in the finite world. 
 We have also the religious representation of him 
 as objective to the finite spirit. These two views 
 of God must be unified and exhibited as equally 
 necessary aspects of God’s being. This is done 
 in a representational ( vorstellende ) pictorial fashion 
 in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. “ The Trin- 
 ity is the determination of God as Spirit. Spirit 
 without this determination is an empty word .” 4 
 
 The three aspects of God’s being are treated 
 respectively under “ the realm of the Father,” 
 “ the realm of the Son,” “ the realm of the Spirit.” 
 God is the absolute eternal Idea who exists under 
 these aspects. The absolute Idea 5 is, in the first 
 place, God in and for himself, in his eternity, before 
 the creation of the world, beyond the world. In 
 
 1 Werke, XI., pp. 63-64 ff. 
 
 2 The content or object is God, who is present at first in the 
 form of inner intuition (Anschauung). 
 
 3 IVerke, XI., pp. 14-15 ff. 4 Ibid., p. 22. 6 Ibid., XII., p. 177. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 51 
 
 the second place it is the creation of the world. 
 This created world, this other being, divides itself 
 into two parts, physical nature and finite spirit. 
 Created being at first appears as external to God, 
 as having existence independent of him. God 
 reconciles it with himself, and we have, in the third 
 place, the process of reconciliation. In this process 
 the spirit, which as finite was cut off from the 
 divine Spirit, returns to unity with the divine. 
 The third aspect of God’s being is the first enriched 
 by union of the second with it. These three aspects 
 are not external differences, but differentiations of 
 one individual. The one spirit is regarded in these 
 three forms or elements . 1 Each element involves 
 the other two . 2 Any one element by itself is an 
 abstraction and realizes its true being only through 
 the other elements. 
 
 The first element is spaceless and timeless. It 
 is God in his self-existence. It is the unity which 
 preserves its oneness amidst change. In the second 
 element or aspect, God enters the world of space 
 and time, the world of nature and the human spirit. 
 It is God’s manifestation of himself in space and 
 time. The first step in the dialectic of the divine 
 life is the non-temporal act by which from the 
 abysmal depths of his being God eternally brings 
 forth a world of finite things and finite spirits. 
 
 1 Werke , XII., pp. 177-9. 
 
 8 The Idea is the divine self-revelation in these three forms. 
 C Ibid , p. 179.) 
 
52 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 The everlasting process of the world of experience 
 is a dialectic movement of birth and death and 
 rebirth. But the process is upward. It is pervaded 
 by the Divine Idea, impelled by an End that is, 
 while yet the goal, forever realized, and therefore 
 can never faint or grow weary. The movement 
 of the world is a return to the Divine Father. But 
 this return can be real only if the Father has for¬ 
 ever dwelt in the world. That he has so dwelt is 
 the insight of religion. The full consciousness of 
 his immanence is the realization of the absolute 
 unity of man and God. Other religions strive for 
 this. Christianity attains it in its doctrine of the 
 God-Man. But the perfect unity of God and man is 
 attainable only if the Father has been ever with man, 
 bearing the burden and heat of man’s life on earth 
 and sharing in all the passion of his history. To 
 pain and struggle and death in man corresponds 
 the principle of negativity in God. He negates 
 himself that there may be a world, and in this 
 world which is struggling to overcome negation 
 he dwells forever. The principle of negativity or 
 death is an essential moment in the life of God. 
 In the suffering and death of the God-Man is 
 manifested the utter immanence of God in the 
 world, his invincible presence in the dialectic of 
 history. In the life and death of Jesus Christ 
 there was presented at a particular point in time 
 the full representation of the timeless life of God . 1 
 
 1 Werke, XII., p. 287 ff. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 53 
 
 But negation is not the last word. Death is fol¬ 
 lowed by resurrection. Negation is itself negatived. 
 The circle completes itself. The element of nega¬ 
 tivity is taken up into the positive element, which 
 is Spirit. The Spirit which is present in the com¬ 
 munity is the realm of the reconciliation of the 
 finite world to God. It is God as totality. The 
 last becomes the first. The Spirit is the Father, 
 and man, in whom the spirit is become conscious, 
 is a mediate element or moment in the Divine 
 Life . 1 The fulfilment of life is the perfection of 
 subjectivity . 2 In nature God is present only in an 
 external fashion. Man, on the contrary, rises to 
 the consciousness of his unity with God and of 
 the presence of the divine life in himself . 3 In the 
 third sphere, that of the Spirit, we have God, 
 nature, and man comprehended in their unity. God 
 is the u concrete universal ” which sets up a differ¬ 
 ence that is nevertheless “ only ideal and is imme¬ 
 diately abolished.” 4 As Spirit he is the perfect 
 Individuality which arises by the return of the 
 Particular (nature and finite spirit) to the bosom 
 of the Universal Father. The whole process, in 
 which the Father sends out of his own depths the 
 world of things and men only to recall them to 
 himself, is the divine History . 5 In its wholeness 
 this divine history is timeless. The three aspects 
 
 1 Werke , XII., pp. 240, 312. 3 Ibid., pp. 267-8. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 284, 322. 4 Ibid., p. 190. 
 
54 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 of it can be characterized in relation to the forms 
 of human experience. Viewed in relation to human 
 consciousness in general, the first aspect is the 
 element of pure thought, the second that of repre¬ 
 sentation ( Vorstellimg *), and the third is subjectivity 
 as such. The latter in its unanalyzed wholeness 
 is soul, heart, or feeling, but when it knows itself it 
 is thinking Reason. 
 
 Defined in relation to space, the three phases 
 of the divine history are respectively outside the 
 world, within the world, and in the spirit of the 
 church , which is at once planted in space and 
 reaches to the spaceless Heaven of the Father. 
 Defined in relation to time, the three phases are 
 respectively—God as the eternal Idea, timeless in 
 reference to a world of change ; God as having 
 appeared in the past, as the properly historical 
 manifestation in the earthly sense; and, thirdly, 
 God as present in the communion of the church. 
 The latter is limited. It must be reconciled with 
 the timeless Spirit. “ The Spirit which disperses 
 itself into finite flashes of light in the individual 
 consciousness must again gather itself together 
 out of this finitude.” “ Out of the fermentation 
 of finitude, as it transmutes itself into foam, there 
 rises the exhalation of spirit.” 1 
 
 We have in the Philosophy of Religion the fuller 
 development of the Absolute Idea, with which the 
 Logic culminates, expressed in terms of religious 
 
 1 Werke, XII., p. 330. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 55 
 
 thinking. In neither work is God a mere cate¬ 
 gory. It is plain that the Absolute Idea, which is 
 the unity that returns to itself from difference, or, 
 to express the same thought differently, the self 
 that maintains itself amid change, is identical with 
 God as unfolded in the Philosophy of Religion. 
 God is the ground thought of Hegel’s system. 
 But Hegel tells us that the Absolute Idea does 
 not mean quite the same as God . 1 The term 
 “ God ” carries here the meaning that it has for 
 finite spirits contemplating him. It refers to God 
 as he is present in religious devotion. God is ob¬ 
 ject to man’s faith in the form of representation 
 ( Vorstellung ). Religion always presents God in 
 the form of representation. As he exists in re¬ 
 ligion, God is wholly objective in relation to man, 
 hence not the Absolute. The Absolute Idea is 
 the comprehensive unity of God and man. Never¬ 
 theless the Absolute Idea is God speculatively 
 considered. As a mere object to man’s thought, 
 God would be a finite individual entering into rela¬ 
 tion with other finite individuals. His individual 
 character would thus be defective. God is not 
 merely objective to man. Man has his being in 
 God. God is at once the source from which the 
 finite individual springs, and the ground of the 
 relation through which, in its dependence, the 
 finite individual reaches out to, and realizes itself 
 in, the absolute individual. Finite selves are true 
 
 1 Werke, XI., p. 16. 
 
56 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 only because they belong to the infinite self. 
 Therefore, metaphysically, God and the Absolute 
 are one. We have seen above that God, meta¬ 
 physically regarded; is the unity which differenti¬ 
 ates itself into nature and man, and yet remains 
 identical with itself. When man sees himself and 
 nature as contained in this unity, and feels himself 
 to be at one with the unity, he has reached abso¬ 
 lute knowledge. He has attained the metaphysical 
 determination of God. He lives in the kingdom 
 of the spirit. 
 
 What is the relation of God as the central unity 
 to his content, the world-process ? God as self- 
 related unity is not in time or in space, and yet 
 the process of the world is an essential element of 
 God’s being. Hegel would say that the central 
 unity and the world-process are both abstractions. 
 Therefore it is fruitless to talk about their rela¬ 
 tions. God is both. They seem to contradict each 
 other, but this apparent contradiction is a pulse of 
 the divine Life. 
 
 The meaning of the world-process is further de¬ 
 veloped in the Philosophy of History. “ The des¬ 
 tiny of the spiritual world, and—since this is the 
 substantial world, while the physical remains sub¬ 
 ordinate to it, or, in the language of speculation, 
 has no truth as against the spiritual—the final 
 cause of the world at large we allege to be the 
 consciousness of its own freedom on the part of 
 the spirit and ipso facto the reality of that free- 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 5; 
 
 dom.” 1 Freedom is the Idea of Spirit. In the 
 development of the world this freedom is at first 
 implicit and unactualized. All the struggles of 
 nations and individuals are stepping-stones by 
 which men rise to freedom. Men began with the 
 belief that one man only was free, the king, and 
 have risen to the belief that all men are free. 
 
 Hegel says that the Spirit realizes itself in time 
 and that the idea of spirit is the end of history. 
 “ Spirit ” is used here in the generic sense. The 
 Absolute Spirit realizes itself in history, but as 
 eternal; it is at every moment completely real. 
 It does not wait until the end of time to attain 
 fruition. History, Hegel says, is the theatre of the 
 unceasing strife and reconciliation of the Absolute 
 Spirit and the finite individual. The former con¬ 
 tinually overrules the purposes of men in order 
 that they may realize their true destiny—freedom. 
 God is immanent in the world, directs the world’s 
 history towards the development of freedom. 
 God himself does not develop. Men are the sub¬ 
 jects of historical development. The divine Idea 
 realizes its purpose in history through the realiza¬ 
 tion of human freedom. The concrete individuals 
 have a place, not in themselves, but as realizing 
 the divine purpose. On the other hand, the divine 
 Idea has no meaning apart from the concrete indi¬ 
 viduals in which it finds expression. 
 
 It has been asserted that in the consideration 
 1 Philosophy of History , p. 20 (translated by Sibree). 
 
58 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 of the time-process of the finite world God as 
 completed self-consciousness disappears, and that 
 he appears only as subject of the historical devel¬ 
 opment. It is true that, in the specific considera¬ 
 tion of the time-process, which is one aspect of 
 God, the aspect of him as eternally complete real¬ 
 ity does not come forward prominently. Hegel 
 would say that this abstraction is necessary for 
 the purposes of exposition, but that it is not true. 
 The truth is that eternity and the time-process 
 belong together. God is not a mere subject of 
 the historical development, yet the historical de¬ 
 velopment is necessary to his selfhood. For God 
 is the unity of all that is. The objection is made, 
 however, that Hegel makes no passage from the 
 notion of God as eternal, self-related unity to the 
 facts of the finite world . 1 Here, again, Hegel 
 would answer that only the abstract understand¬ 
 ing would ask for such a passage, and that the 
 demand is fruitless. His system is an attempt to 
 give unity to the facts of the time and space 
 world. The facts by their incompleteness demand 
 the unity, and they depend upon that unity for 
 their existence. By his construction of the Trin¬ 
 ity, Hegel seeks to provide a place for the facts of 
 the finite world in his conception of God. The 
 phrases drawn from the conception of the Trinity 
 are used in a metaphorical way. The three spheres 
 of Father, Son, and Spirit express the three rno- 
 
 1 By A. Seth, Hegelianism and Personality , Lecture 6. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 59 
 
 ments in the relation of the eternal and the time- 
 process. God as eternally complete is the eternal- 
 in-itself, being-in-itself. But being-in-itself could 
 never exist by itself. God must manifest himself 
 in the finite world. The eternal must appear in the 
 time-process. This is being-for-self. But by itself 
 being-for-self, that is, being which goes outside it¬ 
 self, is unreal. The eternal and the temporal must 
 exist together. This existence together, being in 
 and for self, the unity of the Father and the Son, 
 of God and the World, exists in the realm of the 
 Spirit. The Spirit is the sphere of reason, or, as 
 we might put it, of constructive imagination that 
 unites and holds together contradictions. In the 
 Spirit we see God, nature, and ourselves in unity. 
 The third element returns to the first. We recog¬ 
 nize ourselves as contained in God. 
 
 But how are we to think together an eternal 
 Unity and the flux of becoming? If change is an 
 essential moment in existence and God in himself 
 does not change, what does change mean in rela¬ 
 tion to him? How can God’s history be timeless 
 if man’s history, which is for himself real and 
 breathing with passion, has any significance for 
 God ? If man’s life is an element in the divine 
 Life, then the latter, sharing as it does in the 
 time-process of the world, suffers imperfection. 
 Does not imperfection then become a moment in 
 the divine Life? Does it not mar the divine per¬ 
 fection? Does it not disturb the eternal repose 
 
6o MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 of God ? Hegel’s answer to the first of these 
 questions is yes! to the other two, no! Hegel 
 holds firmly to the repose of perfection and to the 
 restlessness of imperfection as necessary and com¬ 
 plementary aspects of experience. 
 
 The experience of the real flux of events presses 
 too insistently on the philosopher to permit of his 
 taking refuge in a merely static world. On the 
 other hand, the instinct of thought, the thirst for 
 completeness impels him to seek a unity. In 
 what way shall he best express this unity that 
 persists amidst change as the permanent law of 
 change? How shall he conceive the perfect being 
 without denying the progress of the imperfect 
 world ? In self-consciousness, which is ever in 
 movement but retains its self-identity, which pro¬ 
 ceeds outward and gathers the concrete details of 
 the world into itself, which absorbs and assimilates 
 what at first seems external to it, Hegel finds the 
 principle which best enables him to adumbrate 
 the nature of the totality of things—God. He 
 analyzes with keen insight the Self which, always 
 reaching beyond itself and ever involved in contra¬ 
 dictions, yet never loses itself and never succumbs 
 to these contradictions. He applies the principle 
 of selfhood to all the “ tangled facts of experience.” 
 
 The all-essential quality of self or spirit is, for 
 Hegel, its inevitable tendency to find its own life 
 in its other. The richness and perfection of self¬ 
 hood are proportionate to the degree in which it 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 61 
 
 finds itself in that apparent other which is never¬ 
 theless only the wealth of its own potential being 
 projected outward. The sterner the struggle the 
 greater the victory. The deepest pain gives fullest 
 joy. Spirit can comprehend itself only in infinite 
 opposition . 1 So the Eternal Spirit realizes itself 
 only through negation of self. The principle of 
 negativity is woven into the very texture of being. 
 Time, Space, Evil, Imperfection, are but forms of 
 appearance of this principle of negativity. Yes! 
 through it only truth and freedom, the highest 
 attributes of Spirit, themselves come to be . 2 The 
 dialectic process is a never-ceasing moment of life. 
 “ He that loseth his life shall save it.” 
 
 Hegel’s so-called followers of the Left have in¬ 
 terpreted his conception of God as that of an 
 impersonal Absolute which develops itself in the 
 world-process, comes to consciousness first in man, 
 and reaches perfection only in the greatest man. 
 If the Logic only were in evidence, the interpre¬ 
 tation might be justifiable. Such passages as : 
 “ Spirit, in so far as it is the Spirit of God, is not 
 a Spirit beyond the stars,” “ God is present every¬ 
 where and in all spirits,” 3 have been interpreted in 
 this way. What these passages actually testify to 
 is a belief in God’s living presence in the world. 
 To say that “ man feels and knows God in him¬ 
 self ” 4 is not to say that God has no conscious 
 
 1 Werke, XII., p. 212. 3 Ibid., XI., p. 24. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 208. 4 Ibid., p. 37. 
 
62 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 
 existence apart from this individual feeling. The 
 passage which would give strongest support to 
 the view taken by the Hegelians of the Left is 
 perhaps this: “ Religion is knowledge by the 
 
 Divine Spirit of itself through the mediation of 
 finite spirit .” 1 This statement is perfectly con¬ 
 sistent with the idea of God as objective to every 
 man. Finite spirit is an integral part of God’s 
 being. Man is God as “ other.” But God does 
 not lose his identity in this difference. “ Spirit is 
 spirit for itself .” 2 “ We say God produces eter¬ 
 nally his son (the world). God distinguishes him¬ 
 self from himself, . . . we must know well that 
 God is this whole act. He is the beginning, the 
 end, and the totality .” 3 Nevertheless the process 
 is nothing but a play of self-conservation, self- 
 assertion . 4 God can be said to be conscious of 
 himself in the religious man since he is immanent 
 in man, and in religion this divine immanence 
 comes to consciousness. God knows himself in 
 man only as man knows himself in God. The 
 divine immanence is not a dead fixture, but a 
 living spiritual process. Man is indeed essential 
 to God’s being. The Plegelians of the Left em¬ 
 phasize this aspect of the system and neglect 
 entirely the aspect in which God is regarded as 
 eternally completed self-consciousness. 
 
 That God could never exist as conscious spirit 
 
 1 Werke, XI., p. 129. 3 Ibid., XII., p. 185. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 13. * Ibid., p. 199. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 63 
 
 without a world as objective to his thought is a 
 legitimate inference from Hegel’s system. But 
 the further inference that therefore God had no 
 conscious existence before the development of 
 man on this planet is wholly unwarranted. In 
 his self-diremption into the object of his own con¬ 
 sciousness God is as truly eternal as in the abys¬ 
 mal depths of the Idea which is the father of all 
 things. According to Hegel there was no time 
 when a world did not exist for the divine thought. 
 The principle of negativity is an eternal attribute 
 of the divine Nature. Hence it is irrelevant to 
 Hegel’s system to speak of a point in time when 
 God did not exist in the fulness of being. It is 
 equally irrelevant to speak of a time when the 
 world, considered as a moment in the divine Life, 
 began to be. Spirit is the logical prills of the 
 whole theory, but Spirit defines itself through all 
 eternity in a system of differences. 
 
 Hegel is sometimes criticised for using the word 
 “ spirit ” without qualification “ to designate bt>th 
 God and man.” He used the word in this way 
 because with him “ spirit ” was the meeting-point 
 of the divine and the human. But “spirit ” is no 
 abstraction. Hegel was keenly conscious of the 
 necessity of doing justice to the concrete detail 
 with which the world confronts philosophy. His 
 theory of the concrete universal, i.e., the indi¬ 
 vidual, is an attempt to meet the difficulty. For 
 Hegel the individual is the real, but there is only 
 
64 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 one real individual, namely, God. In the Philos¬ 
 ophy of Religion God is described in the realm of 
 the Spirit as the complete unity which takes up 
 the other two aspects into itself. “ This third 
 realm is the Idea in its determination of individu¬ 
 ality.” 1 Some critics think that the tendency of 
 Hegel’s thought is to make God an impersonal 
 unity. Hegel’s incessant naming of God as Idea 
 lends color to this view. His vice is over-intel- 
 lectualism. But an impersonal Absolute would 
 leave no place for religion, and Hegel maintains 
 in his system the reality of religion. He tells us 
 that the Philosophy of Religion has the task to 
 convert what is present pictorially to the mind of 
 the common man into terms of thought . 2 He says 
 that the opposition of believing and knowing is a 
 false one. In believing or immediate knowing 
 (immittelbares Wissen) there is present in the form 
 of feeling what is present in cognizing (A rkennen ) 3 
 in the form of thought. In his lectures on the 
 proofs for God’s existence, he seeks, not to show 
 that these proofs are adequate, but that they are 
 means by which the human spirit elevates itself to 
 God . 4 He talks quite in the Pauline vein of “ the 
 witness of the spirit to the spirit in man’s knowing 
 God.” The relation of man to God is “ the relation 
 of spirit to spirit.” 5 At the conclusion of the Phi¬ 
 losophy of Religion he tells us that the “ end of these 
 
 1 Werke, XII., p. 257 ff. 2 Ibid., XI., pp. 14-5. 
 
 8 Ibid., p. 64 ff. 4 Ibid., XII., p. 301. 6 Ibid., XI., p. 60. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 65 
 
 lectures is to reconcile science and religion.” 1 His 
 designation of God as Idea is only the logical 
 aspect of his theory of God. I11 his works deal¬ 
 ing with the concrete world, God is called the 
 Absolute Spirit. We have seen that God is essen¬ 
 tially individuality, and that Hegel regards per¬ 
 sonality as the richest and most concrete being, 
 including all differences in itself. Hegel charac¬ 
 terizes the Absolute Idea and Personality in simi¬ 
 lar terms. The Absolute Idea contains in itself 
 as essential moments the facts of the finite world. 
 But in the finite world finite spirits are the true 
 realities over against material things. God is the 
 Absolute Spirit, the supreme self in whom finite 
 spirits live and move and have their being. If 
 God is not personal as we know personality, it is 
 because he is super-personal. In terms of feeling 
 God may be defined as Love—as a play of differ¬ 
 entiation, together with the feeling of the unity 
 which dwells in the differences. 
 
 The question has been raised as to whether 
 Hegel’s God is not better described as a society 
 than as a single person . 2 Now, Hegel’s God is 
 certainly not an individual spirit existing in single 
 blessedness apart from all the contents of his uni¬ 
 verse. He therefore is not a single person in the 
 sense in which we are individual's . 3 But he is for- 
 
 1 Werke, XII., p. 288. 
 
 3 By Mr. McTaggart, Mind , N. S., VI., p. 575. 
 
 3 Werke , XI., p. 66. 
 
66 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 ever the unity of the society of individual finite 
 spirits. In him the scattered rays of light which 
 issue from the multitude of finite selves converge 
 to a single point—to the unstained purity and 
 translucency of an absolute self-consciousness. 
 God, then, is the unity of spirits. The society 
 of finite individuals exists as the object of his 
 thought. Without them his Life would be blind. 
 Without him they would be chaos and anarchy 
 and naught. 
 
 In brief, God, in Hegel's philosophy, is the 
 universal self-consciousness which comprehends 
 within itself all concrete differences, men and 
 things. “ God is a Spirit in his own concrete 
 differences, of which every finite spirit is one .” 1 
 Man truly knows God when he sees nature and 
 himself as manifestations of God, and recognizes 
 himself as the highest of these manifestations, 
 capable of grasping in thought the whole of which 
 he is a part . 2 
 
 It has been doubted whether there is any place 
 in Hegel’s system for individuals. It seems to me 
 that the most insistent note in Hegel’s writings is 
 the emphasis on the concrete individual. He never 
 wearies of attacking abstractions like “ being ” and 
 “ substance.” The movement of the Logic is 
 
 1 Stirling, The Secret of Hegel, II., p. 579. 
 
 3 See Pfleiderer, Philosophy of Religion , II., p. 95. After 
 reaching this conclusion I find myself confirmed in it by Pro¬ 
 fessor Pfleiderer. 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 67 
 
 towards the category of individuality. The Phi¬ 
 losophy of History makes the freedom of the in¬ 
 dividual the goal of history. Hegel maintains 
 that the moral, ethical, religious aspect of human 
 individuals is an end in itself. This aspect in in¬ 
 dividuals is “ inherently eternal and divine.” 1 But 
 the individuality of the Logic is the absolute, all- 
 comprehensive self. The freedom of the human 
 individual exists only where individuality is recog¬ 
 nized as having its real and positive existence in 
 the Divine Being . 2 The Philosophy of Religion is 
 the presentation of an Absolute Individual, a unity 
 in difference, a self-related system in which infinite 
 individuals are at home when they know them¬ 
 selves as dependent on the whole organism, which 
 is God. To speak in concrete terms, in Hegel’s 
 thought man has no existence in himself. He is 
 real only as he knows himself in God. To know 
 himself so is man’s true destiny. But, on the 
 other hand, God exists only as he knows him¬ 
 self in man. To separate the finite and the infinite 
 individual is to destroy both, according to Hegel. 
 The finite individual is but a moment in the 
 Absolute, but he is none the less essential to the 
 life of the Absolute. But, it must be admitted, 
 Hegel does not recognize the value of individ¬ 
 uality in itself. He does not seem to allow 
 any interior life to the human person. He speaks 
 as if the whole nature of the individual were 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 53. 
 
 ) 
 
 1 Philosophy of History, pp. 34-5. 
 
68 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 exhausted in his relations to society, church, 
 and state. Uniqueness in a person seems to 
 be, for him, pathological. Corresponding to his 
 disparagement of individuality is Hegel’s depre¬ 
 ciation of feeling. This, he holds, gets its sig¬ 
 nificance entirely from thought. In itself it 
 is that which we possess in common with the 
 animals. 
 
 3. Conclusion. 
 
 Finally, what is to be said of this magnificent 
 attempt to interpret the whole sphere of being in 
 the light of a self-conscious principle of rationality? 
 It must be said, I think, that the attempt fails to 
 accomplish all that was aimed at. The aim of 
 the system is to show that reality is rational 
 through and through. But the contingent detail 
 of experience proves too refractory for Hegel, and 
 he is forced to admit that all the facts cannot 
 be rationalized. In other words, his absolutism 
 breaks down. The vice of this absolutism con¬ 
 sists in the tendency to identify the ultimate 
 reality with the time-process. 
 
 The key to the relation of the two factors is 
 found in the dialectic method. In his application 
 of this method Hegel has shown that all the 
 forms of finite thought, such as the notion of 
 separate individual things, of mechanical causality 
 conceived as final, etc., are infected with the germs 
 of decay. The knowledge which these finite cate- 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 69 
 
 gories give is mediated. The process of media¬ 
 tion goes relentlessly forward until the categories 
 of common-sense and scientific thought find repose 
 in the Spirit or Idea. This is the final reality. In 
 Spirit the dialectic movement is transcended. It 
 is true that, inasmuch as the march of common- 
 sense and positive science was the march of the 
 Spirit homeward, the dialectic belongs to the nature 
 of spirit. But in the Absolute Spirit it is set at rest. 
 The process of mediation has ended in a higher 
 immediacy. If Absolute Spirit has been really 
 reached mediation is transcended in the vision 
 of reality, and the dialectic of philosophy has 
 achieved its euthanasia. So long as the dialectic 
 is in process spirit is not present in its perfection. 
 Hegel is fond of calling the dialectic process the 
 thing itself, the very reality of life {die Sache 
 selbst). The method, he says, is the soul and 
 substance, the absolute might and highest im¬ 
 pulse of reason itself. 1 Now, a movement must 
 be of something. A process, however essential to 
 that which proceeds, must be from some state 
 of being through some forms of existence and 
 towards a definite goal. According to Hegel, 
 Spirit is the starting-point, the way, and the ter¬ 
 minus of the dialectic process. If this be so, then 
 spirit cannot be adequately expressed as a mere 
 evolutionary process. It may absorb the process, 
 but in its own finality it ceases to be a process, and 
 1 Werke , V., pp. 320, 321, etc. 
 
7 o 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 never was simply that and nothing more. Hegel 
 has to admit this conclusion. Then philosophy, as 
 he conceives it, has not grasped the fulness of 
 Spirit. It has not exhausted the nature of sub¬ 
 jectivity. When the process is ended, being and 
 becoming, the infinite and the finite, the absolute 
 and the relative, holiness and imperfection are no 
 longer united by the negativity of the dialectic 
 itself, but in an experience which has ceased to be 
 philosophy, since the dialectic has been set at rest 
 and the power of the negative has been overcome. 
 It does not seem, then, that philosophy can claim 
 superiority of insight to art and religion. For in 
 the latter the struggle of contradiction, which 
 separates spirit from the immediacy of existence, 
 is laid at rest. The knowledge of the Absolute 
 must be an immediate experience which tran¬ 
 scends negation, and is not a mere incomplete 
 process of overcoming opposition. 
 
 Such an experience perhaps comes only through 
 the higher unity of feeling as an immediate con¬ 
 sciousness. Hegel, I have said, depreciated feel¬ 
 ing and heaped contempt on the finite individual 
 as a centre of unique feeling. The Hegelian sys- 
 tem sought to reveal the warp and woof of the 
 universe, and not merely to show us the pattern of 
 that part of the fabric on which we are figures, 
 but to lift the screen and reveal the Great Weaver 
 sitting at the loom. The fabric woven by Hegel 
 is made up so entirely of intellectual threads that 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 71 
 
 it fails to represent fairly our world with its com¬ 
 plex constituents. The system is one-sidedly 
 intellectualistic. Hegel has marked some of the 
 salient features of self-consciousness or personality. 
 His terms (“ in itself,” “ for itself,” “in and for 
 itself ”) are abstract expressions for the ceaseless 
 movement of the human soul, for our life with its 
 cravings, its desires, and its satisfactions, which 
 seem to follow one another in a never-ending 
 spiral. movement. Our mental life is a ceaseless 
 movement of outgoing to the object and return 
 to self. But in his own application of subjectivity 
 as the key to the riddle of existence, he over¬ 
 looks entirely the place of feeling in the life of 
 the self. He calls the highest form of subjectivity 
 thinking reason, and this he regards as essentially 
 active, that is, as including will. Hegel’s thinking 
 reason is cognition-volition. But the impulse of 
 will lies in feeling, and the goal of will is an imme¬ 
 diate state of feeling. Cognition can never ade¬ 
 quately reflect the life of the subject. It is im¬ 
 personal. Conation or volition, which arises from 
 the union of cognition and feeling, is the expres¬ 
 sion of the personal life. Feeling gives unity to 
 both cognition and volition. Hegel did violence 
 to experience by overlooking the significance of 
 feeling and volition in the life of the self. This 
 oversight gives ground for the view that his phi¬ 
 losophy is a one-sided system of mere logical ideal¬ 
 ism, a very inadequate interpretation of the nature 
 
72 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 of man. The same oversight is responsible for 
 Hegel’s absolutism and his blindness to the 
 uniqueness of personality. But what could one 
 expect from the official philosopher of the Prus¬ 
 sian bureaucracy? 
 
 Hegel was too sure of the similarity of divine 
 and human thought (particularly his own thought). 
 He carries his anthropomorphism too far. There 
 may be forms and conditions of being of which 
 we have never dreamt. It is useless and mis¬ 
 chievous to assume that God exhausts his nature 
 by his manifestations on our planet. We should 
 hesitate before “ transferring to God all the features 
 of our own self-consciousness.” 
 
 Hegel’s great quality as a philosopher is his faith 
 in the rationality of the world. He stands as a 
 splendid example, worthy to be followed by all 
 who would ask questions of the universe. He 
 inspires us with the confidence that such ques¬ 
 tions in some way will be answered. His highest 
 philosophical achievement consists in his insight 
 into the apparent contradictions of life. He sees 
 clearly that the development, not only of thought, 
 but of the spirit of the race and of the individual 
 spirit, is a process of growth into greater fulness 
 and concreteness of life through struggle, suffer¬ 
 ing and decay. He sees that “ Die to live ” is 
 everywhere the law of existence. Contradictions 
 belong to the heart of things. But they do not 
 destroy. Nay, rather they build up. They are 
 
HEGEL’S CONCEPTION OF GOD 
 
 7 3 
 
 complementary factors in the unity of the organic 
 life of man. This is an insight to think and live 
 and work by. But it is the offspring of the whole 
 man, rather than the product of the mere intel¬ 
 lect. Hegel gives us a true standpoint from 
 which to view human history, and then vitiates 
 his work by assuming an air of finality and in¬ 
 fallibility. We cannot, from the standpoint of 
 scientific knowledge, make dogmatic statements 
 with regard to what lies beyond the world of our 
 experience. But Hegel’s insight into the mys¬ 
 teries of the life of the spirit in the individual and 
 the race is profound, and gives a permanent and 
 fruitful point of view from which to appreciate 
 and penetrate the inner meaning of human history 
 and the individual life. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 schleiermacher’s conception of god. 
 
 It should be premised that the word “ concep¬ 
 tion ” does not apply to Schleiermacher’s doctrine 
 of God in the same technical sense in which it 
 applies to Hegel’s doctrine of God. For Hegel 
 the Divine Idea is simply the actualization of the 
 concept ( Begriff ). Schleiermacher, on the other 
 hand, regards the concept as a secondary and 
 inadequate expression of the knowledge of God, 
 possessing only an approximate and constantly 
 changing value. He regards the God-conscious¬ 
 ness as immediate. The direct organ of the 
 knowledge of God is feeling. I hope, in the 
 course of this exposition, to bring out clearly 
 this fundamental divergence of Schleiermacher 
 from Hegel. In the meantime I shall endeavor 
 to follow the course of Schleiermacher’s own ex¬ 
 position of his doctrine. Then I shall give some 
 account of his relation to other philosophers, and 
 I shall conclude with a brief estimate of the value 
 of his views. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 i. Schleiermacher s Doctrine of God in its Variojis 
 
 Aspects. 
 
 A. The General Attitude as Expressed in the “Reden 
 
 iiber Religion." 
 
 Schleiermacher’s deeply gifted and many sided 
 nature early received a profoundly religious im¬ 
 press ; first through the training of his mother, 
 and later in the Herrnhutic communities at Niesky 
 and Barby. The Herrnhutic brotherhood was 
 strictly pietistic in tendency, and its organization 
 and methods were wholly directed towards devel¬ 
 oping in the members a personal relation to the 
 Saviour. The education given at the seminary 
 in Barby was modelled with this design, and the 
 contemporary science and literature of the Auf- 
 klarung were rigorously excluded. At the com¬ 
 munity school in Niesky Schleiermacher had, with 
 several friends, studied the Greek and Latin class¬ 
 ics, and in spite of the watchfulness of the relig¬ 
 ious teachers and directors at Barby the eager 
 spirits of these youthful friends found means of 
 further communication with the outside world. 
 They eagerly devoured the writings of Wieland, 
 Goethe, etc., and the result, in Schleiermacher’s 
 case, was that at the age of seventeen, after a pain¬ 
 ful struggle and in the face of the stern displeas¬ 
 ure of his father, a minister of the Reformed 
 Church, he broke with the brotherhood and sought 
 
;6 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 more light at the University of Halle. Here he 
 found himself in 1787 in the full tide of the Auf- 
 klarung. But Schleiermacher had no interest in 
 the ruling rationalistic theology of Halle, and de¬ 
 voted his attention, for the most part, in these 
 and the succeeding years, to Plato, Aristotle, and 
 Kant, and to current literature. 1 
 
 Notwithstanding the wide gulf that separated 
 Schleiermacher’s maturer views from those of the 
 Herrnhutists, we see clearly from his letters that 
 he remained at one with them in his estimate of 
 the independence and supremacy of religion as a 
 unique factor in the life of man. 
 
 In his first published work, Addresses on Religion 
 to its Cultured Despisers , Schleiermacher speaks as 
 one who has gone through the Aufkldrung, but 
 who nevertheless remains in possession of a genuine 
 religious experience. The epoch-making character 
 of the Addresses consists in their vindication of the 
 uniqueness of religion in full view of the revolution 
 wrought in theology by modern science and phi¬ 
 losophy. There were at the time (the first edition 
 of the Addresses is dated 1799) two currents of 
 theological rationalism, the one waning, the other 
 waxing. The first was that of the natural theol¬ 
 ogy of the eighteenth century, which regarded the 
 only valid element in religion to be the intellectual 
 assent to the existence of a benevolent Designer 
 of Nature. This doctrine had just been shattered 
 1 W. Dilthey, Leben Schleiermacher's, pp. 12-86. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 77 
 
 to its foundations by Kant’s Critique of Pure Rea¬ 
 son, and on its ruins there was being erected the 
 moralistic religion of Kant, which made belief in 
 God simply the necessary postulate of morality 
 and measured the value of religion solely in terms 
 of its relation to moral conduct. 
 
 Against these views Schleiermacher asserts that 
 religion is neither an annex of science nor of mo¬ 
 rality. “True Science is a perfect intuition. True 
 Conduct is self-produced culture and art. True 
 Religion is sense and taste for the Infinite .” 1 The 
 organ of religion is feeling (Gefiihl ). This feeling 
 of the Infinite, which constitutes the essence of 
 religion, exists in the immediate unity of self-con- 
 sciousnes. 1 2 In this immediate feeling sense and 
 the object are one. 3 The aims of both knowledge 
 and action are to become one with the universe. 4 
 But these aims are attained only in religion. 
 When we feel the action of the universe upon us 5 
 this immediate presence of the universe in the 
 feeling of self-consciousness is religion. It is the 
 presence of God in us, the meeting-point of 
 the universal Life with the individual life. 6 The 
 feeling of being an I and the pious feeling are one. 
 The God-consciousness and true self-consciousness 
 are mutually involved. 
 
 1 Reden, second edition of Schwarz’s reissue of the original 
 fourth edition, p. 37. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 40. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid., p. 41. 
 
 5 Ibid., p. 45. 6 Ibid., p. 40. 
 
;8 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 This feeling of the oneness of self with the uni¬ 
 verse might, if not further defined, involve a purely 
 naturalistic or even materialistic pantheism. 
 
 But Schleiermacher holds that it is not preemi¬ 
 nently with the outer universe that one is united 
 in feeling. It is with the world of humanity, 
 which in all its countless individual forms is the 
 expression of God’s life. 1 The feeling for the 
 totality of humanity, as divine in origin, and 
 the reverence for every man, as a unique mani¬ 
 festation of the divine life, constitute religion. 2 
 Hence the true fountain of religion is history. 
 Religion is historic, and history is the expression 
 of religion. Science and morals are both historic 
 manifestations, but they do not present that unity 
 of self and the universe which religion alone offers. 
 Hence science and morals are both incomplete and 
 dependent on religion. 
 
 The unity of self with the universe is realized 
 where the living God is present in feeling, and the 
 conceptual terms in which we are to think of this 
 experience are secondary and dependent on the 
 mental characteristics of the individual. God is 
 directly present in feeling, but not in the concept. 3 
 When we speak of the relation of God to the in¬ 
 dividual we think of him as personal. When we 
 think of the limitations of human personality and 
 the contradictions involved in applying this con¬ 
 ception to God we think of him as impersonal or, 
 1 Reden , pp. 65, 67, etc. 2 Ibid. , pp. 68, 69. 3 Ibid. , p. 87. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 better, as super-personal. Schleiermacher says that 
 the manner in which a man may think of person¬ 
 ality as applied to God will depend on the power 
 of his creative imagination (. Phantasie ) to envisage 
 ideas and on his dialectic conscience. 1 He regards 
 the imagination as the highest power of the human 
 mind, and the concreteness of one’s idea of God as 
 the result of the balance established between imag¬ 
 ination and the dialectic or critical faculty. 
 
 B. The Idea of God in the Dialectic . 
 
 Schleiermacher defines Dialectic as the art of 
 philosophizing, the art of grounding knowledge, 
 etc. 2 Dialectic is both Logic and Metaphysic. 3 
 Logic without Metaphysic is not a science, but a 
 mere technical art. Metaphysic without Logic is 
 capricious and fantastic in its procedure and 
 results. 
 
 Knowledge is the unity of Thought and Being, 
 of the Ideal and the Real. The test of truth is 
 the correspondence of thought with a real being. 4 
 But the unity of thought and being does not lie 
 in an indifference-point outside consciousness. 
 
 “ Knowledge is grounded in the identity of the 
 thinking subjects.” 5 “In our self-consciousness 
 both Thinking and Being are given.” 6 Our first 
 step in grounding knowledge, then, will be to find 
 
 1 Reden, p. 108, etc. 2 Dicilektik , p. 8. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 7 ; see also Beilage C, i.-vi., and D, i-vi. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 386. 5 Ibid., p. 48. 6 Ibid., p. 53. 
 
8o MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 within the mind the point of contact of thinking 
 and being. Schleiermacher begins his investiga¬ 
 tion by defining the objective factor. “ The ob¬ 
 ject of thinking is the inner impulse from which 
 it sets out, and the being to which thinking, as 
 knowing, shall correspond is not something outside 
 of us, but within—the inner will-movement . ” 1 I 
 shall return to this doctrine, that the element of 
 objectivity lies in the will, after considering the 
 manner in which Schleiermacher unites the ideal 
 and the real in the subject regarded as knowing. 
 There are two functions of the self—the intellec¬ 
 tual and the organic. The former is the source of 
 unity in knowledge, the latter of chaotic manifold¬ 
 ness. 2 The two functions are mutually depen¬ 
 dent. 8 Knowledge is the product of their inter¬ 
 action. “ Knowledge is that thinking which can 
 be posited in like manner as having issued from 
 the organic or the intellectual function.” 4 The 
 intellectual function brings unity into the or¬ 
 ganic manifoldness under the form of concepts. 
 A given concept expresses a multiplicity of judg¬ 
 ments. But inasmuch as judgments are poten¬ 
 tially infinite, we can never complete the series of 
 
 1 Dialektik, p. 49. “ The purposeful will makes actual the 
 
 potential personality.” (See P. Schmidt, Spinoza und Schleier¬ 
 macher , p. 172.) 
 
 2 Dialeklik, p. 63. 3 Ibid., p. 57. 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 52. As we shall see, they are at bottom the same. 
 “ Organization is the mental life opened towards the outer 
 world.” {Ibid., p. 387.) 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 8l 
 
 judgments which would make up the perfect 
 sphere of concepts, and hence we can never attain 
 a conception of the absolute unity of Being. 1 
 
 If both factors of knowledge lie within the indi¬ 
 vidual subject, the objective validity of knowledge 
 must be dependent on an assumed identity of 
 reason in all subjects. And this is Schleiermacher’s 
 position. “ The concepts which are contained in 
 the system of knowledge develop in every reason 
 in like manner on occasion of organic affections.” 2 
 The idea of knowledge involves a community of 
 experience and principles, and hence an identity 
 of reason as well as of organization in all. 3 
 
 We have seen that, within the individual subject, 
 there is a mutual relation of ideal and real ex¬ 
 pressed in the interdependence of the intellectual 
 and organic functions. But the community of 
 the organic activities of different individuals in¬ 
 volves a being outside of us. Without a stability 
 of the organic factor in experience judgment would 
 be impossible. Therefore judgment depends on 
 the identity of the organic functions of the subject 
 with a being outside ourselves. 4 In other words, 
 the individual subject does not by itself offer a 
 complete identity of the ideal and the real, and 
 we require a transcendental basis for knowledge 
 in the shape of an over-individual stimulus to 
 organic activity. The unity of the intellectual 
 
 1 Dialektik, pp. 86, 87. 3 Ibid., p. 66. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 107. 4 Ibid., p. 125. 
 
 6 
 
MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 82 
 
 and organic functions in judgment depends on a 
 higher unity. We can have no concept of this ab¬ 
 solute unity. For the concept arises through the 
 union of judgments. But nothing can be predicated 
 of the highest subject. It is, indeed, the unity of 
 the system of judgments, but it is above them . 1 
 For the system of judgments remains incomplete. 
 
 We have now seen that knowledge involves a 
 transcendental ground. Equally so does willing 2 
 (volition). It is first in willing that we reach a 
 genuine conviction as distinguished from mere 
 thinking or opinion . 3 Persistent willing demands a 
 coherence of being with willing. Willing, through 
 its concept of an end, is thinking. Thinking, 
 through the clearness of its free productivity, is 
 willing . 4 “ In thinking, the being of things is 
 posited in us in our manner. In willing, our being 
 is posited in things in our manner.” The identity 
 of thinking and willing supplies the subjective 
 unity of intellectual and organic functions, and 
 at the same time gives us the transcendental basis 
 of both knowledge and action. 
 
 The relative identity of thinking and willing is 
 a unity of feeling ( Gefiihl ), or immediate self-con¬ 
 sciousness? This immediate feeling differs from 
 the reflective self-consciousness or consciousness 
 of the /, which arises from the original feeling, 
 
 1 Dialektik, pp. 125, 135, etc. 3 Ibid., p. 148. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 150. 4 Ibid., p. 428. 
 
 6 Ibid., pp. 151, 429. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 83 
 
 and it also differs from sensation ( Empfindung ), 
 which is the subjectively personal element in a 
 determinate moment of consciousness . 1 In re¬ 
 flection our consciousness is divided into the 
 opposing moments of thinking and willing, which, 
 as we have seen, express antithetical but com¬ 
 plementary aspects of our relation to being. But 
 the immediate self-feeling exists before the oppo¬ 
 sitions develop, and these oppositions are again 
 resolved in the immediacy of self-feeling. Never¬ 
 theless our consciousness could not be this aboli¬ 
 tion of opposites if we were not conditioned and 
 determined by something above the opposites— 
 viz., by the transcendental ground itself . 2 Hence 
 the transcendental basis of knowledge and action, 
 the identity of thought and being, is presupposed 
 in every movement of our consciousness. It lies 
 involved in the immediate unity of our feeling. 
 In feeling we are directly related to the primal 
 ground of things 3 ( Urgrund ). Will and feeling are 
 coordinated as the two aspects of the fundamental 
 being of our determinate existence , 4 but will seems 
 to be the primitive element common to subject 
 and object. Feeling is the subjective identity of 
 the receptive and the spontaneous ( i.e ., of think¬ 
 ing and being ). 5 This identity, objectively con- 
 
 1 Dialektik , p. 429. 3 Ibid., p. 430. 
 
 2 Ibid. , p. 430. 4 Ibid. , p. 473. 
 
 6 Schleiermacher seems to identify the antithesis of thinking 
 and being with that of intellectual and organic. But receptive 
 
84 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 sidered as knowledge, is intuition. Another form 
 of the antithesis is that of representative and 
 prefigurative ( abbildlich und vorbildlich ) think¬ 
 ing, which have their unity in self-conscious¬ 
 ness . 1 
 
 The outcome of this search for a transcendental 
 ground of knowledge and action is the discovery 
 of a God-consciousness in immediate feeling or 
 intuition . We have reached by a more toilsome 
 route the central doctrine of the Addresses on 
 Religion . There is a religious feeling or intuition 
 immediately involved in self-feeling . 2 But we 
 must not suppose for an instant that the intuition 
 of the Godhead is an isolated experience. The 
 very fact that it is the implicate of self-feeling 
 precludes such an assumption. We intuit or 
 feel the Godhead only in and with the entire 
 system of intuitions . 3 The Godhead is just as in¬ 
 conceivable as knowledge. For it is the basis of 
 knowledge . 4 Hence it is as certain as knowl¬ 
 edge . 5 The system of knowledge gives us the 
 
 and spontaneous do not mean quite the same for him as organic 
 and intellectual. The intellectual function is predominantly 
 spontaneous, and the organic predominantly receptive. (See 
 W. Bender, Sc hleier mac tier's Theologie, I., p. 28.) Thinking 
 (Denken ) of course includes both knowing and willing (Er- 
 kennen und Wolleii). (See Bender, op. cit., p. 32 ff.) 
 
 1 Dialektik, pp. 523, 531, etc. 2 Ibid. , p. 430. 
 
 3 “ Intuition is the identity of perception and construction.” 
 (Ibid., p. 319-) 
 
 4 Ibid., p. 322. 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 320. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 85 
 
 intuition of God . 1 Our knowledge of God can 
 only be completed with the completion of our 
 view of the world ( Weltanschauung ), and the two 
 develop together . 2 In the development of this 
 two-sided system of knowledge the system of 
 concepts forms the permanent framework, the 
 system of judgments (empirically determined) 
 the living process of filling-in . 3 
 
 The idea of God and the idea of the world are 
 correlative and mutually dependent . 4 Both are 
 transcendent and involved in knowledge and 
 action, but in different senses. The idea of the 
 world lies outside our real knowledge, but as 
 the idea of a completed system of knowledge it is 
 the basis of our progress in knowledge. In other 
 words, the idea of the world is that of the com¬ 
 pletion of our progressively realized knowledge. 
 It is, as Kant would say, a regulative ideal, and 
 is not directly present in any single act of know¬ 
 ing . 5 The idea of the world is the transcendental 
 terminus ad quern of knowledge. On the other 
 hand, the idea of God, as the unity of thought and 
 being, is directly involved in every act of knowl¬ 
 edge and will. It is the transcendental unity of 
 life which makes possible every step in our lives. 
 The idea of God is the transcendental terminus a 
 quo and the principle of the possibility of knowl- 
 
 1 Dialektik, p. 328. 2 Ibid., p. 322. 3 Ibid., p. 325. 
 
 4 “ Kein Gott ohne Welt, so wie keine Welt ohne Gott.” 
 {Ibid., p. 432.) See also p. 162. 6 Ibid., p. 164. 
 
86 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 edge in itself . 1 The world is a limit to conception 
 ( Begriffsgrenze ). God is the unity which alone 
 makes any conception as well as any action 
 possible . 2 The world is a unity including all 
 opposites. God is a unity excluding and tran¬ 
 scending all opposites . 3 He is Life, developing 
 opposites out of itself, but since it is timeless, not 
 going out of itself . 4 We cannot say more than that 
 God and the world are to be posited as existing 
 in mutual relations . 5 We cannot identify the two 
 ideas. On the other hand, we know nothing of 
 God’s being beyond the world or in himself . 6 
 God dwells in us in our ideas and in our con¬ 
 science. His inborn presence in us constitutes 
 our specific essence, for without ideas and with¬ 
 out conscience we should sink to the level of the 
 brutes . 7 Conscience involves a general agreement. 
 Law is the expression of this agreement, i.e., of 
 conscience. Law must be grounded in an abso¬ 
 lute subject. God, as Creator, is the Law-giver . 8 
 As source of the world-order he is Providence. 
 Law is intelligence conceived as power . 9 God, as 
 Law-giver, is the author of the fixed forms of 
 existence, i.e., he is Creator. The expression 
 Providence is not entirely adequate, but we may 
 
 i 
 
 a 
 
 s 
 
 4 
 
 Dialektik, p. 
 Ibid., p. 526. 
 Ibid ., p. 433. 
 Ibid., p. 531. 
 
 164. 5 Ibid., p. 165. 
 
 6 Ibid., p. 154. 
 
 7 Ibid., pp. 154-6. 
 
 8 Ibid., pp. 427, 519-22. 
 9 Ibid., p. 474. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 87 
 
 say that God, as Creator and Providence is at the 
 same time Law-giver . 1 God is the absolutely 
 free subject—free , because he is self-determined. 
 For freedom is self-development, self-expression . 2 
 Every living being is, in some measure, free, and 
 God is absolute freedom since he is Absolute Life. 
 
 Schleiermacher regards Time and Space not as 
 illusions, but as images respectively of the ideal 
 and the real ( i.e ., of thinking and being) in the 
 subject . 3 Matter he defines as the chaotic mate¬ 
 rial of consciousness, as that which fills space and 
 time . 4 
 
 The Dialectic was never completed, and Schleier- 
 macher’s metaphysical treatment of the idea of 
 God remains unfinished. 
 
 C. The Doctrine of God in the “ Christian Faith." 
 
 Schleiermacher’s Christliche Glaiibe is a system¬ 
 atic exposition of the contents and implications of 
 the specifically Christian religious experience; in 
 other words, a scientific account of the religious 
 consciousness as manifested in the Christian. 
 This exposition falls into two parts. The first 
 part develops the principles of the pious self-con¬ 
 sciousness in so far as this is present in man uni¬ 
 versally, and hence is presupposed in the Chris¬ 
 tian. The scope of the first part corresponds to 
 
 1 Dialektik , p. 527. 3 Ibid ., p. 398. 
 
 2 Ibid., pp. 420-1. 4 Ibid., p. 140. 
 
88 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 that of the old natural theology or to what we to¬ 
 day call the general philosophy of religion. The 
 second part expounds the principles of the specif¬ 
 ically Christian consciousness. The Addresses on 
 Religion discovered the root of religion to be the 
 feeling of dependence. The Dialectic showed us 
 that the objective unity of consciousness and be¬ 
 ing, which is presupposed in the knowledge and 
 action of the individual subject, is presented in 
 religious feeling. The Christian Faith takes this 
 universal feeling of absolute dependence, i.e., the 
 religious feeling, as its starting-point, and ex¬ 
 pounds the nature of God in “ relation to this feel¬ 
 ing.” The Divine Essence, says Schleiermacher, 
 is in itself inexpressible, and the Divine attri¬ 
 butes, as we conceive them, express only moments 
 of the pious self-consciousness . 1 
 
 The feeling of absolute dependence—the relig¬ 
 ious feeling—arises in the meeting together of 
 self-consciousness and object-consciousness . 2 The 
 feeling of dependence is most complete when 
 we identify ourselves with the world, when we 
 see all as one. In this complete oneness of 
 finite being there is posited the most perfect and 
 universal connection of nature . 3 Hence creatio?i , 
 the idea of which expresses the absolute depen¬ 
 dence of the world on God, must be the timeless 
 activity which issues in the order of nature . 4 
 
 1 Christliche Glaube , I., p. 259 ff. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 224. 3 Ibid., p. 227. *Ibid., p. 199. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 89 
 
 The fundamental attribute involved in the feel¬ 
 ing of absolute dependence is the Divine Causal¬ 
 ity} This absolute causality is, with reference to 
 its character, distinct from the causality of nature. 
 For while the latter occurs in time, the former is 
 eternal. On the other hand, with reference to its 
 extent, Divine Causality is simply the whole order 
 of nature . 2 It is omnipotence. When we compare 
 God with finite beings, we get two other attri¬ 
 butes, viz., omnipresence and omniscience . These 
 express respectively the spaceless and timeless 
 nature of the Divine Causality. For the idea of 
 causality, which the feeling of absolute depen¬ 
 dence calls forth in us, cannot be spatial or tem¬ 
 poral . 3 However, the spaceless and timeless char¬ 
 acter of omnipotence is better expressed by say. 
 ing that God’s causality is inward, living, and 
 absolutely spiritual . 4 
 
 It is much more important that the Divine 
 Causality shall be thought as absolutely living 
 than that a similarity shall be established in some 
 specific fashion between God and what we call 
 “ mind ” in ourselves. For the latter can be done 
 only through an infinite process of approximation, 
 since there can be no receptivity or passivity in 
 God, and both these qualities are inherent in our 
 minds. The only kind of thinking in us which 
 is relatively independent of an object is our pur- 
 
 1 Christliche Glaube, I., p. 261. 3 Ibid., pp. 267-80. 
 
 3 Ibid., pp. 264-5. * Ibid., pp. 268, 291. 
 
9 o 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 posive or end-forming ( zweckbildende ) activity. 
 The greater part of our thinking is dependent 
 on the presence of objects. God’s thinking is 
 entirely of the former or purposive kind. But 
 even here we must distinguish between God’s 
 thinking and man’s. We cannot say that in God 
 the formation of a purpose comes first and then 
 later its execution. For the Divine Thinking and 
 the Divine Willing are absolutely identical . 1 
 
 Schleiermacher holds that the Divine foreknowl¬ 
 edge does not destroy human freedom, since the 
 latter is the expression of the nature of the self , 2 
 and not a power of acting arbitrarily. 
 
 In the second part of the Christian Faith we 
 have a statement of the Divine attributes which 
 are involved in the specifically Christian con¬ 
 sciousness. The presupposition here is the recog¬ 
 nition of the reality of both evil and sin and of 
 the need for redemption. Evil is the punishment 
 for sin, but sin is social in its effects, and hence 
 the evil which befalls the individual cannot be 
 deduced from his own sin . 3 Sin is our own act. 
 Every sinful impulse is, on the one side, the 
 expression of a sensuous nature-impulse which 
 involves the Divine Causality . 4 On the other 
 side, sin is a turning away from God, a denial 
 of the God-consciousness or of the consciousness 
 of the Divine Will in regard to the particular 
 
 1 Christliche Glaube, I., pp. 292-3. 3 Ibid., p. 430. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 304. 4 Ibid., p. 452. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 91 
 
 impulse . 1 God is indeed the cause of the natural 
 impulses from which sin arises. On the other 
 hand, every impulse can be brought in relation to 
 God’s will. Hence sin is man’s own deed. But 
 it can exist only where salvation is possible. The 
 consciousness of sin by itself is an abstraction . 2 
 In so far as we can never have a consciousness of 
 grace without a consciousness of sin we must 
 assert that the being of sin is ordained together 
 with the grace of God . 3 
 
 The consideration of the state of sin in relation 
 to the state of grace gives rise to the ideas of the 
 Divine Holiness and Justice. Divine Holiness is 
 that Divine Causality by virtue of which in the com¬ 
 mon life of men the conscience is posited together 
 with the need of salvation . 4 Hence the conscience 
 is social, and the Divine Holiness is the Divine 
 legislative causality in the common life. Divine 
 Justice is the Divine Causality in so far as it has 
 ordained a connection between sin and evil in the 
 common life. Hence Divine Justice is social, not 
 individual . 5 In the Christian life there is no 
 general consciousness of God which does not in¬ 
 clude a relation to Christ and no relation to the 
 Saviour which is not connected with the general 
 God-consciousness. When, through the efficacy 
 of salvation, we become conscious of our restored 
 fellowship with God and refer this work of sal- 
 
 1 Christliche Glaube, I., p. 453. 'Ibid., p. 438. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 439. 4 Ibid., p. 460. 5 Ibid., p. 465. 
 
9 2 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 vation back to the Divine Causality, we assume 
 a Divine Gover7iment of the world, manifesting 
 itself in zvisdom and love 1 The Divine Love is 
 that attribute by virtue of which the Divine 
 Essence communicates itself and is known in the 
 work of salvation. 2 Love is God’s very being in 
 relation to men, and hence it differs from all the 
 other attributes. 3 For in the first part of the 
 Glaubenslehre the entire Divme Activity or Caus¬ 
 ality was assumed and discussed without a motive 
 for its being. Love, manifested in the work of 
 salvation, supplies this motive. All men are 
 objects of the Divme Love , but it is not realized 
 in all. 4 
 
 The Divine Wisdom is the expression of 
 love. Wisdom is the principle which orders and 
 determines the world for the Divine self-commu¬ 
 nication in the work of salvation. The Divine 
 Wisdom is the highest Essence ( Wesen) in its abso¬ 
 lutely simple and originally perfect self-exposition 
 and communication. 5 The Divine Wisdom is the 
 ground by virtue of which the world, as the 
 theatre of redemption, is also the absolute reve¬ 
 lation of the highest being, and consequently 
 good. 6 
 
 The doctrine of the Trinity, says Schleier- 
 macher, expresses the union of the Divine Es- 
 
 1 Christliche Glaube , II., pp. 507-11. 4 Ibid., p. 515. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 513. 6 Ibid., p. 521. 
 
 3 Ibid., p. 517. 6 Ibid., p. 523. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 93 
 
 sence with human nature in Christ and in the 
 Spirit of the Church. It is not a philosopheme, 
 but is the expression of the Christian conscious¬ 
 ness, the touchstone of Christian doctrine, al¬ 
 though not in a wholly satisfactory form. 
 
 2. Schleiermachers Relations to Spinoza , Kant , 
 
 Fichte, a?id Schelling. 
 
 Schleiermacher first made the acquaintance of 
 Spinoza’s system through Jacobi’s Letters on Spi¬ 
 noza. In his commentary on the latter work, al¬ 
 though confined to Jacobi’s quotations for a direct 
 knowledge of Spinoza, he shows a much finer 
 understanding of Spinoza’s system than Jacobi . 1 
 Schleiermacher always spoke of Spinoza with en¬ 
 thusiasm, and he has been called a Spinozist. 
 But while there are important points of contact 
 in the two systems, there are equally important 
 points of divergence. Schleiermacher shares 
 Spinoza’s idea and love of the One. The Infinite 
 is not outside the world of phenomena. On the 
 contrary, the latter exist within the Infinite One. 
 The latter is the completion of the series of con¬ 
 ditioned existences, and not something separated 
 from them. The Infinite exists in the finite. On 
 the other hand, the Infinite One of Schleiermacher 
 is a living Spirituality , dynamically conceived, in 
 which thought holds the primacy, whereas Spi- 
 
 1 See Dilthey, Denkmale Schleiermacher s, pp. 64-9. 
 
94 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 noza’s Absolute is the static indifference-point of 
 an infinite number of attributes, of which two, 
 thought and extension, are known to us. Moreover, 
 Schleiermacher’s most original and important phil¬ 
 osophical doctrine, that of the worth of individ¬ 
 uality, separates him from Spinoza. Whilst the 
 latter holds that Body and Soul are related only in 
 and through the Divine substance, Schleiermacher 
 regards every human individual as a unique mani¬ 
 festation of the unity of the ideal and the real, of 
 thought and being. Hence human individuality 
 is with him a sacred and significant manifestation 
 of the Absolute . 1 There is an inconsistency be¬ 
 tween Spinoza’s conception of the Absolute and 
 his recognition of the reality of the individual. 
 For Spinoza determination, and therefore individ¬ 
 uation, is negation. For Schleiermacher individu¬ 
 ation is affirmation. Here he takes up Leibnitz’s 
 doctrine of the positive reality of the monads as 
 mirrors of the universe, but he rejects their ab¬ 
 solute independence of one another, and sets up 
 instead a dynamic unity. 
 
 Plato and Kant were Schleiermacher’s greatest 
 philosophical masters. Schleiermacher strives to 
 be true to the spirit of the Critical Philosophy, 
 while purging it of its inconsistencies, and infus¬ 
 ing into it the spirit of Plato. He is a more 
 sympathetic and appreciative disciple of Kant 
 
 ^ee Dilthey, Leben Schleiermacher's, pp. 147-52, and P. 
 Schmidt, Spinoza und Schleiermacher . 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 95 
 
 than either Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel. Schleicr- 
 macher rejects Kant’s moral postulate as to the 
 necessity of uniting virtue and happiness, and his 
 consequent inference as to the necessity of an 
 omnipotent Being outside the world, who shall 
 heal the breach existing between them in this life. 
 Schleiermacher accepts the negative results of the 
 Kantian dialectic, and strives to find within the 
 limits of experience, as these are defined by criti¬ 
 cism, a principle by virtue of which the two Kantian 
 dualisms—of sense and understanding within the 
 individual subject, and of thought and being within 
 the cosmos—can be overcome. Such a principle 
 he finds in the synthetic unity of the individual 
 consciousness. Kant’s doctrine is that this syn¬ 
 thetic unity has an over-individual origin, that it 
 is transcendentally involved in knowledge, but 
 cannot be empirically verified in the experience 
 of the finite self. Schleiermacher, guided by the 
 attempt of Kant in the Critique of Judgment to 
 find a solution of his two dualisms in the imme¬ 
 diate unity of aesthetic feeling, endeavours to dis¬ 
 cover the actual presence of such an immediate 
 self-consciousness or feeling of unity in every act 
 of knowledge and volition. In this attempt he 
 was influenced by the current idea of an intel¬ 
 lectual intuition . Schleiermacher’s doctrine of 
 self-feeling or the immediate self-consciousness is 
 the discovery of the actual presence of the syn¬ 
 thetic unity of consciousness in the life of the 
 
96 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 empirical /. His doctrine that the transcendental 
 ground of existence is revealed in this immediate 
 feeling, is the restatement of the Kantian trans¬ 
 cendental unity of consciousness in terms of the 
 felt-unity of the actual self. The God of Schleier- 
 macher is the transcendental unity of Kant dis¬ 
 covered to be the condition of the unity of 
 conscious life in the finite self . 1 
 
 Fichte and Schleiermacher had their common 
 starting-point in Kant. Fichte’s doctrine of the 
 harmony of subject and object, the I and the not- 
 f was congenial to Schleiermacher. He was also 
 in agreement with Fichte’s conception of the will 
 as the centre of the individual /, and Fichte’s en¬ 
 tire genetic method which started from the finite 
 I appealed to him. But Schleiermacher was not 
 willing to go with Fichte in his reduction of the 
 entire outer world to an illusory reflection of the 
 activity of the /. Moreover, as time went on, the 
 important differences in their conceptions of in¬ 
 dividuality came to the front. Fichte regards in¬ 
 dividuality as a limitation,of the Absolute, and 
 holds that the nearer one comes to the Absolute 
 the more does one’s individuality retreat into the 
 background. Schleiermacher, on the other hand, 
 regards the genesis of the individual as a free and 
 self-expressive act of the Absolute, and he carries 
 the finite individual into the holy of holies of the 
 
 1 See Dilthey, Leben Schleiermacher's, pp. 88-128, and J. Gotts- 
 chick, Ueber Schleiermacher's Verhaltniss gegen Kant. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 97 
 
 religious life. 1 In Dilthey’s admirable phrase, 
 Schleiermacher joins together the self-intuition of 
 Fichte and the world-intuition of Spinoza in the 
 original coherence of his own system. 2 
 
 Schleiermacher was influenced by Schelling’s 
 Philosophy of Nature, particularly by his doctrine 
 of opposites. No doubt, too, his own philosophical 
 reflection was stimulated by Schelling’s doctrine 
 of the identity of thought and being. But it 
 would be a great error to regard Schleiermacher’s 
 doctrine of identity as an offshoot from Schell¬ 
 ing’s. For in the Addresses on Religion Schleier¬ 
 macher had already struck out on an independent 
 way to the unification of the ideal and the real. 
 Schelling’s intellectual intuition is exclusive and 
 aristocratic. Schleiermacher’s union with the Ab¬ 
 solute in the immediacy of feeling is universally 
 human and democratic. 
 
 3. The Significance of Schleiermacher s Conception 
 
 of God. 
 
 Schleiermacher’s exposition of the originality 
 and uniqueness of the religious life in man and 
 his doctrine of immediate self-consciousness or 
 the feeling of unity as the source of religion in 
 the individual are the most important contribu¬ 
 tions towards a philosophy of religion that have 
 been made in modern times. While he vindicates 
 
 'See Dilthey, op. cit. y p. 142. 2 Ibid., p. 354. 
 
 7 
 
MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 98 
 
 the uniqueness of religion he does not separate 
 it from the general life of the self. Religion is 
 the meeting-place of self and world. This imme¬ 
 diate feeling of unity or fundamental intuition in 
 which the religious life is grounded is the root of 
 the distinctions and oppositions which arise in the 
 analytical processes of thought and volition, and, 
 at the same time, it is the medium in which these 
 oppositions and distinctions are constantly being 
 transcended in the onward movement of life. 
 “ Self-intuition and intuition of the universe are 
 interchangeable conceptions.” 1 “The universe 
 is like man in that in both activity is the principal 
 thing, the events only the fleeting results of it.” 2 
 
 Hoffding says that, inasmuch as the reality for 
 us consists in subjective feeling or intuition, 
 Schleiermacher is not entitled to regard any doc¬ 
 trines as more than symbols, and that when he in¬ 
 fers from the existence of the feeling of depen¬ 
 dence an objective cause in the form of an Abso¬ 
 lute Being, he has gone beyond his premises. 3 
 Hoffding thinks that the desire to mediate be¬ 
 tween theology and philosophy has betrayed 
 Schleiermacher into this fallacy. Hoffding seems 
 here to misunderstand the procedure by which 
 Schleiermacher reaches his doctrine of God as the 
 transcendental ground of existence. Schleier¬ 
 macher, keeping within the limits of the critical 
 
 ^ilthey,, Denkmale Schleiermacher s, p. 118. 2 Ibid., p. 117. 
 
 3 Hoffding, History of Modern Philosophy (Eng. trans.), p. 211. 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 99 
 
 philosophy, does not anywhere regard God as an 
 individual, objective cause in the same sense in 
 which we speak of one phenomenal event as the 
 cause of another. God, for him, is the under¬ 
 lying principle, the all-embracing life of the 
 phenomenal universe. God transcends the single 
 individual, but not the whole system of individ¬ 
 uals. Schleiermacher’s Absolute is not separated 
 from the universe. He does not hold that the 
 Absolute is the external cause of the feeling of 
 dependence or of the immediate unity of our¬ 
 selves with the universe, but that he is the abso¬ 
 lute ground of these feelings, and in himself 
 transcends the individual life . The specific at¬ 
 tributes of God are indeed symbols, but Schleier- 
 macher repeatedly states that these attributes do 
 not at all account for the unitary being of God. 
 They only express aspects of his relation in and 
 to us. God as the absolute unity is the conditio 
 sine qua non of our conscious selfhood. 
 
 It is clear that Schleiermacher did not hold to 
 the personality of God in the traditional sense. 1 
 He did not see how the transcendental ground of 
 finite personality could be the absolute condition 
 of finite personality and yet be described as per¬ 
 sonal in itself. But Schleiermacher held to what 
 is of most value in the traditional idea of person¬ 
 ality. God is for him the absolute ethical Life, the 
 
 1 See E. Zeller, Erinnerung an Schleiermacher s Lehre von 
 der Personlichkeit Gotles , in his Theologisches Jahrbuch , Bd. I. 
 
IOO MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 Infinite and Transcendent Spirit. Perhaps a re¬ 
 constructed notion of personality will in the future 
 find room for Schleiermacher’s fundamental ideas 
 on the relation of God and man. 
 
 Schleiermacher’s emphasis on the unity and un¬ 
 changeableness of the Divine Causality involves 
 a serious difficulty in regard to the ideas of free¬ 
 dom and sin in the individual. He is a determin- 
 ist, but he asserts the objective reality of sin and 
 at the same time the responsibility of the individ¬ 
 ual. Sin, he says, is an actual destruction of na¬ 
 ture. The reality of sin involves the need of re¬ 
 demption as a historical process. But neither con¬ 
 ception is consistent with Schleiermacher’s doctrine 
 of the absolute unchangeableness and all-inclusive¬ 
 ness of the Divine Causality. Schleiermacher un¬ 
 derstands by human freedom the self-determina¬ 
 tion of the unique individual, and this idea of the 
 free self, taken in conjunction with the reality of 
 a historical process of redemption, involves defi¬ 
 nitely the idea of God as a self-conscious unitary 
 Life who at once expresses himself and limits him¬ 
 self in the production of finite individuals. This 
 idea, when carried out, involves further the exist¬ 
 ence of distinctions within the Divine Nature it¬ 
 self and the reconstruction of the doctrine of the 
 Divine unchangeableness. The latter doctrine 
 must either be formulated in such a manner as to 
 admit a real living and progressive relationship 
 between the finite individual and God, or it must 
 
SCHLEIERMACHER’S CONCEPTION 
 
 IOI 
 
 be given up entirely. Schleiermacher does not 
 seem to have apprehended either the inherent 
 difficulty of this problem or the great import of 
 the practical and religious as well as speculative 
 interests involved in its solution. His own doc¬ 
 trine of the unchangeableness of the Divine 
 Causality approaches very closely the abstract 
 and motionless Absolute of Spinoza. It tends to 
 become a modern version of the Eleatic one. 
 Schleiermacher’s idea of God can be corrected 
 and developed from his own starting-point. He 
 lays stress on the sacredness and worth of indi¬ 
 viduality. He deduces the being of God from 
 the feeling of dependence within the finite self- 
 consciousness. But he does not deal adequately 
 with the social relations of the individual which 
 are involved in the fact of knowledge as well as in 
 action. He hints that the individual conscious¬ 
 ness of change and the feeling of absolute de¬ 
 pendence are the encompassing elements of self- 
 consciousness which lead the individual out of 
 himself. 1 But a more careful consideration of the 
 problem implied in the relation of the individual 
 to the social factor in knowledge and volition 
 would make room for a more concrete conception 
 of God and one more closely related to human 
 personality. 
 
 In his great doctrine of the ethical worth and the 
 philosophical and religious significance of individu- 
 
 1 Philosophische Sittenlehre, p. 243. 
 
102 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 ality or personal uniqueness, Schleiermacher has 
 raised a problem slighted by his great contempo¬ 
 rary Hegel, and has made an important contribu¬ 
 tion to its solution. If we are to attain an adequate 
 philosophical conception of God we must start from 
 the individual, i.e ., we must start from Schleier- 
 macher’s point of departure. But there is another 
 correlated problem which was first seen clearly and 
 handled adequately by Hegel—that of the objec¬ 
 tive or institutional spirit embodied in the work of 
 history. These two ideas of the individual spirit 
 and the objective or historical spirit are comple¬ 
 mentary, and the future philosophical doctrine of 
 man and his relation to God must be built on them. 
 Perhaps just now we need most a reconsideration 
 of individuality. 
 
 Hegel possessed a concrete wealth of knowl¬ 
 edge and a speculative grasp of history which 
 Schleiermacher did not have. On the other hand, 
 Schleiermacher was a virtuoso in the appreciation 
 of personality and looked much further and more 
 clearly into the depths of the personal life. His 
 vindication of the uniqueness of religion, his 
 estimate of the philosophical importance of the 
 immediate or feeling-aspect of human self-con¬ 
 sciousness, and his doctrine of individuality are 
 all evidences that Schleiermacher possessed a 
 keen, subtle, and sympathetic insight into the 
 soul of man. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD. 
 
 Mr. Spencer’s theory of the ultimate reality 
 which underlies appearances may be summed up 
 in a very few words. The object of philosophi¬ 
 cal investigation is ” that unascertained some¬ 
 thing which phenomena and their relations im¬ 
 ply.” 1 The title of the first section of his First 
 Principles is “ The Unknowable.” He proceeds 
 in this work to show us that the “ Unknowable ” 
 is the ground of meeting and reconciliation of 
 science and religion. All religions have their 
 legitimate sphere “ in that nescience which must 
 ever remain the antithesis to science.” 2 Nes¬ 
 cience, then, being the subject-matter of religion, 
 science might claim that by its own methods were 
 disclosed truths hidden to religion. This is true, 
 Mr. Spencer says, but when each scientific prin¬ 
 ciple is pushed to its legitimate conclusion, i.e. y 
 when it is raised to a philosophical principle, it 
 too terminates in nescience. Hence, whether we 
 view it from a religious or a scientific point of 
 view, ** the Power which the universe manifests 
 
 1 First Principles , Fourth Edition, p. 17. 2 Ibid. 
 
104 MODERN conceptions of god 
 
 to us is utterly inscrutable/’ 1 “ The mystery 
 of the universe is not a relative, but an absolute 
 mystery.” 2 These statements are sufficiently 
 clear, but they at once start certain questions. 
 It is positively asserted that we know nothing 
 about the ultimate reality except that it is abso¬ 
 lutely unknowable. This certainly is a species of 
 knowledge unique in kind. How can we know that 
 we can know absolutely nothing about a conceiv¬ 
 able object of knowledge ? Mr. Spencer’s knowl¬ 
 edge of the unknowability of the ultimate reality 
 is, so far as it goes, very positive. And, further¬ 
 more, he knows that the Unknowable is a Power , 
 “ an Infinite and Eternal Energy from which all 
 things proceed. ’ ’ The certainty that such a Power 
 exists, while, on the other hand, its nature tran¬ 
 scends intuition, is the certainty towards which 
 intelligence has from the first been progressing. 3 
 Furthermore, we know the modes in which this 
 inscrtitable Power manifests itself. “ The Power 
 manifested throughout the universe distinguished 
 as material, is the same Power which in ourselves 
 wells up under the form of consciousness. ” 4 Not- 
 withstanding the antinomies which Mr. Spencer 
 finds to be involved in thinking “ Infinite ” and 
 Eternal,” and notwithstanding that the deep¬ 
 est nescience is the goal of human thought, he 
 confidently asserts that “ amid the mysteries 
 
 1 First Principles , p. 46. 3 Ibid. 
 
 2 Ibid. 4 Principles of Sociology, III., p. 171. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 105 
 
 which become the more mysterious the more 
 they are thought about, there will remain (to 
 man) the one absolute certainty, that he is ever 
 in the presence of an Infinite and Eternal Energy, 
 from which all things proceed.” 1 
 
 The positiveness of this conclusion, when com¬ 
 pared with Mr. Spencer’s declaration of the im¬ 
 potence of knowledge when it is confronted with 
 ontological problems, is sufficient of itself to 
 awaken doubts as to the legitimacy of his pro¬ 
 cedure. I therefore propose to inquire: first, 
 how Mr. Spencer arrives at his conclusion; sec¬ 
 ond, whether his procedure is consistent and his 
 conclusion valid; and, third, if the second inquiry 
 receives a negative answer, how may Mr. Spen¬ 
 cer’s procedure be corrected. 
 
 Mr. Spencer is agreed that the starting-point 
 for philosophy lies in consciousness. We can 
 never reach anything which is absolutely differ¬ 
 ent from consciousness. He says if one regard 
 one’s “ conceptions of these activities lying be¬ 
 yond Mind, as constituting knowledge, he is 
 deluding himself; he is but representing these 
 activities in' terms of Mind and can never do 
 otherwise.” 2 Here it is already implied that the 
 activities outside mind are absolutely different 
 from the activities of mind. Hence the mind 
 cannot possibly know the activities which lie out- 
 
 1 Principles of Sociology, III., p. 175. 
 
 2 Principles of Psychology, Third Edition, I., p. 160. 
 
I 0 6 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 side itself. It is at once assumed that the nature 
 of extra-mental reality is such that it cannot be 
 known. Mr. Spencer rehabilitates the “ Ding- 
 an-sich,” and from the same motive which orig¬ 
 inally led Kant to set it up—fear of subjective 
 idealism. Mr. Spencer takes it for granted that 
 if there is a real world beyond the human mind, 
 it must be toto ccelo different from mind; other¬ 
 wise it could not be real. This is an entirely un¬ 
 warranted assumption. Kant, having set up the 
 
 Ding-an-sich ” from the fear of being regarded 
 as a subjective idealist, at once drops it and pro¬ 
 ceeds to analyze experience in itself. Kant sees 
 that the “ Ding-an-sich” can have no place in 
 the analysis of thought. The “ Thing-in-itself ” is 
 a vanishing quantity in Kant's analysis of experi¬ 
 ence. On the other hand, Mr. Spencer’s chief 
 concern is to dump the contents of experience 
 into his Unknowable. Let us see how he accom¬ 
 plishes this end. 
 
 Belief in an external world is, he says, a result 
 of the interaction of the organism and the en¬ 
 vironment. The two factors, subject and object, 
 imply one another, and their relation increasingly 
 discloses some active power beyond conscious¬ 
 ness, always in interaction with consciousness. 1 
 ” The consciousness of self and the conscious¬ 
 ness of not-self are the elements of an unceasing 
 rhythm in consciousness.” 2 We have thus, in 
 1 Principles of Psychology, II., p. 505, hh. 2 Ibid., p. 43S. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 107 
 
 Mr. Spencer’s theory, two factors, mind or the 
 subject, and something external which acts on 
 mind. Mind at once reacts on the “ something 
 external,” and so forms a conception of the lat¬ 
 ter. But the action of mind on its material 
 seems to Mr. Spencer to be the distortion of that 
 material, so that the subject never attains to a 
 true conception of the object. Here he makes 
 a wholly gratuitous assumption of disharmony 
 between the mind and its material. He seeks 
 to prove his assumption by showing that the 
 process of mind in knowing is such that it cannot 
 possibly disclose the nature of Reality. He holds 
 that Reality is necessarily impliedm all knowledge, 
 but is not revealed therein. This is “transfigured 
 realism,” and leads directly to the hypothesis of 
 the unknowability of the objective world. 
 
 Mind does not know the nature of Reality. 
 What, then, is the relation of mind to the total¬ 
 ity of the Real ? Mind “ is a differentiated and 
 integrated division of the totality of being .” 1 
 We can think of matter only in terms of mind. 
 Nevertheless matter is in some way real, and 
 mind is, like matter, a part of the total Real. 
 But the admission that we must think the ex¬ 
 ternal world in terms of mind is strong presump¬ 
 tion in favor of the theory that the external world 
 is likewise mind in some form. Mr. Spencer re¬ 
 plies that we can think mind only in terms of 
 1 Principles of Psychology , II., p. 505, vv. 
 
108 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 matter. He overlooks the fact that matter is 
 one of the categories which the mind uses in 
 thinking its own experience. The theory that 
 matter is of similar nature to mind explains the 
 knowability of the external world. If the latter 
 is mental, then, when the subject reads that world 
 in terms of its own consciousness, it is not falsify¬ 
 ing the external world, but finding itself therein. 
 Throughout his treatment of the epistemological 
 problem of the relation of knowledge to reality 
 Mr. Spencer fails to clearly distinguish mind in 
 its generic capacity and the individual subject- 
 mind. His reasoning is conclusive against solip- 
 sistic idealism, and he is justified in saying that 
 each individual mind is a differentiated and in¬ 
 tegrated division of the totality of being. But 
 he has by no means shown that there exists any¬ 
 thing beyond minds. The mental characteristics 
 of our external world, as revealed in experience, 
 may justify us in assuming a mind in some form 
 as the ultimate Reality from which individual 
 minds are derived. Mr. Spencer would reply 
 that we are in no better case than before, since 
 Mind also is unknowable.” 1 
 He holds that the progress of knowledge con¬ 
 sists in proceeding from concrete mental ex¬ 
 perience to the analysis of that experience into 
 abstractions. For him, abstract hypothetical 
 elements constitute the reality of things, of which 
 
 1 Principles of Psychology, I., p. 159. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 109 
 
 concrete experience is the imperfect manifesta¬ 
 tion. He finds the reality of mind in the sup¬ 
 posed primordial elements out of which it is built 
 up. “ There may be a single primordial element 
 of consciousness.” 1 He thinks it probable “ that 
 something of the same order as that which we 
 call a nervous shock is the ultimate unit of con¬ 
 sciousness, and that all the unlikenesses among 
 our feelings result from unlike modes of integra¬ 
 tion of this ultimate unit. ’ ’ 2 But why assume any 
 such primordial unit of feeling as the substance 
 of mind ? Shall we not gain a truer knowledge 
 of the nature of mind by seeking the relations 
 involved in our concrete experience as a totality ? 
 We throw away all possibility of knowing any¬ 
 thing about either our minds as concrete wholes 
 or the external world, if we resolve the mind into 
 utterly featureless, unknowable elements. The 
 total mind is the real existence, not hypothetical 
 primordial shocks. Mr. Spencer’s procedure is 
 “ the reduction of all the more complex forms to 
 the simplest form,” which “ leaves us with noth¬ 
 ing but this simplest form out of which to frame 
 our thought .” 3 “ If every state of mind is some 
 modification of this substance of mind, there can 
 be no state of mind in which the unmodified sub¬ 
 stance of mind is present .” 4 So that we can 
 know nothing of the substance of mind, hence 
 
 1 Principles of Psychology, I., p. 150. 3 Ibid., p. 157. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 151. 4 Ibid., pp. 146-7. 
 
IIO MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 nothing of mind. This assumption, of simple 
 elements, of a mind-substance existing apart from 
 its manifestations, is but the setting up of a 
 scholastic entity. It is assumed that the sub¬ 
 stance of mind consists of units of feeling, and 
 because these are not known as such it follows 
 of course that mind is unknowable. Mr. Spen¬ 
 cer’s mind-substance is clearly an elusive and 
 unknowable “ghost” of his own raising. This 
 unknowable mind-substance leads us directly to 
 a consideration of Mr. Spencer’s general theory 
 of the Unknowable and the process by which he 
 arrives at it. 
 
 The chapter 1 on ultimate religious ideas opens 
 with a consideration of the nature of conceptions 
 and their adequacy to their objects . 2 
 
 Our conceptions become more symbolic, i.e. y 
 less like the reality, as they rise in generality. 
 This symbolizing process is necessary, but leads 
 to our mistaking our symbolic conceptions for 
 real ones. We habitually regard our symbolic 
 conceptions as real because they can in most 
 cases be developed into complete ones. A con¬ 
 ception is “ complete only when the attributes 
 of the objects conceived are of such number and 
 kind that they can be represented in conscious¬ 
 ness so nearly at the same time as to seem all 
 present together .” 3 As the objects conceived 
 
 1 First Pj-inciples , part i., chap, ii., pp. 25-46. 
 
 a Ibid., § g, p. 25 ff. 3 Ibid., p. 29. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 111 
 
 become larger in extent and meaning the con¬ 
 ceptions of them grow less complete and more 
 symbolic. The use of such symbolic conceptions 
 is legitimate so long as by any process of thought 
 we can assure ourselves that they stand for ac¬ 
 tualities. Beyond this, he says, these symbolic 
 conceptions are vicious and illusory. 
 
 With this criticism of conceptions in mind Mr. 
 Spencer proceeds to examine ultimate religious 
 ideas. The first of these to present themselves 
 are the ideas growing out of the problems of the 
 origin of the universe . 1 In this regard there are 
 three suppositions—self-existence, self-creation, 
 and creation by an external agency. We would 
 all doubtless agree with Mr. Spencer that the 
 idea of the creation of the universe by an ex¬ 
 ternal agency involves a palpable absurdity, pro¬ 
 vided the universe is taken as meaning the entire 
 circle of being, and not a finite world, with be¬ 
 ginning and end. Self-creation or passage from 
 potential existence to actual existence is rightly 
 regarded by him as vague and inconceivable. 
 But if we mean by self-creation that the universe 
 is active and contains within itself a principle of 
 development, this does not seem to me to be an 
 impossible though it is indeed a vague concep¬ 
 tion. Mr. Spencer seems to mistake entirely the 
 meaning of the statement that the universe is 
 self-existent. Strictly speaking, the phrase is, 
 
 1 First Principles, § ii, p. 30 ff. 
 
112 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 perhaps, an unfortunate one. To say that the 
 universe is self-existent is only to say that the 
 universe possesses continuity of existence. Self¬ 
 existence means, indeed, existence without a be¬ 
 ginning, but it does not mean that we must try 
 to think the universe as existent in endless past 
 time. We may say with truth that the Universe 
 of Being possesses continuity of existence. Ac¬ 
 cepting Mr. Spencer’s criticism that this does 
 not explain how being came to be, we may reply 
 that the question how being was made is absurd 
 and meaningless. 
 
 Having disposed of these illusory symbolic 
 conceptions which refer to the origin of the uni¬ 
 verse, he turns to those which express the nature 
 of the universe. “ The objects and actions sur¬ 
 rounding us, not less than the phenomena of 
 our consciousness compel us, to ask a cause : 
 in our search for a cause we discover no resting- 
 place until we arrive at the hypothesis of a First 
 Cause: and we have no alternative but to regard 
 this First Cause as Infinite and Absolute .” 1 
 He says it might be shown that these are sym¬ 
 bolic conceptions of the illegitimate order. He 
 prefers to show the contradictions involved in 
 viewing the three conceptions—the First Cause, 
 the Absolute, and the Infinite as attributes of 
 one and the same being. He avails himself of 
 Mr. Mansel’s demonstration, which is substan- 
 
 1 First Principles , p. 38. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 113 
 
 tially as follows : 1 Cause exists only in relation 
 to effect. The Absolute is out of all relation. 
 Therefore it can cause nothing. It does not 
 avoid the difficulty to say the Absolute exists 
 first by itself and afterwards as a cause. For the 
 Absolute is infinite. How can the Infinite be¬ 
 come that which it was not ? The Absolute can 
 neither be related to anything else nor contain 
 an essential relation within itself. “ For if there 
 is in the Absolute any principle of unity distinct 
 from the mere accumulation of parts or attributes, 
 this principle alone is the true Absolute, ” 2 and 
 if there is no such principle there is no Absolute, 
 but only plurality. Even if these difficulties 
 were overcome it would be impossible to imag¬ 
 ine the Absolute as cause of the relative. The 
 Absolute is perfect. If causal activity is a higher 
 state than quiescence, then in becoming causal 
 the Absolute becomes more perfect, and this 
 again is contradictory. The Absolute and In¬ 
 finite involves contradictions from whatever side 
 it is viewed. 
 
 Nevertheless, says Mr. Spencer, we are not to 
 conclude that there is no “ fundamental verity” 
 contained in these errors. Following his method, 
 he abstracts from all these contradictory views 
 and from the multiplicity of religious creeds their 
 
 1 First Principles , p. 39 ff. Mr. Mansel’s treatment is sub¬ 
 stantially a repetition of Kant’s in the Antinomies of Reason. 
 
 2 First Principles , p. 40. 
 
 8 
 
11 4 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 common element. This common element we 
 discover to be the utter inscrutability of their 
 subject-matter. Mr. Spencer does not tell us 
 how the conception of Power or Energy survives 
 through all this process of abstraction. On his 
 principles he is not entitled to say positively that 
 the ultimate is even an ** Ultimate,” much less 
 an “ absolute mystery. ” Having completely ob¬ 
 literated all content from the ultimate religious 
 ideas, Mr. Spencer performs the same office by 
 the ultimate scientific ideas . 1 He finds time and 
 space inconceivable. Into his criticism I have 
 not space to enter, but I will make one remark 
 thereon. His dilemma—that if Space and Time 
 are entities we cannot conceive them because 
 they are without attributes, and if they are non¬ 
 entities we cannot conceive them since they 
 would be two nothings—does not exhaust the 
 problem. It is thinkable that Space and Time 
 are in some way properties of the Real, and that 
 they are relatively imperfect aspects under which 
 the Real appears to us. It is possible that, in 
 Plato’s words, they share in both being and non- 
 being. Mr. Spencer points out the difficulties in 
 the way of conceiving matter as either infinitely 
 or finitely divisible, and shows that if matter is 
 absolutely solid the law of continuity is broken 
 in regard to collision. Again, he says, if we re¬ 
 gard matter as made up of solid units, we must 
 
 1 First Principles , chap, iii., pp. 47-67. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 115 
 
 still inquire as to the constitution of these units, 
 and so we cannot bring our thought to a termina¬ 
 tion. Motion and the relations of motion and 
 rest are likewise involved in contradictions. We 
 cannot conceive the nature of force or understand 
 the connection between force and matter. Turn¬ 
 ing inward, we ask, Is consciousness finite or in¬ 
 finite ? and cannot find an answer. We cannot 
 know the self truly, for “ a true cognition of the 
 self implies a state in which the knowing and the 
 known are one, in which subject and object are 
 identical .” 1 When we have resolved external 
 phenomena into manifestations of force in space 
 and time, we still find that force, space, and time 
 are incomprehensible. When we have resolved 
 mental actions into sensations we find that sen¬ 
 sations are incomprehensible. To the man of 
 science objective and subjective things are alike 
 inscrutable. 
 
 Having demonstrated the incomprehensibility 
 of ultimate facts, whether viewed from the side 
 of religion or of science, Mr. Spencer proceeds 
 to clinch his argument by showing on rational 
 grounds that all knowledge is relative, and hence, 
 of course, inadequate to its object . 2 All expla¬ 
 nation and all understanding of cognized facts 
 depends on their reduction to more general cogni¬ 
 tions. ” As the most general cognition cannot 
 be reduced to a more general one, it cannot be 
 
 1 First Principles , p. 65. 2 Ibid., chap. iv., pp. 68-97. 
 
II6 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 understood. Of necessity, therefore, explana¬ 
 tion must eventually bring us down to the inex¬ 
 plicable. The deepest truth which we can get at 
 must be unaccountable .” 1 This result reached 
 by an analysis of the product of thought our 
 author finds confirmed by a study of the process 
 of thought. He quotes Sir William Hamilton’s 
 and Mr. Mansel’s demonstrations of the rela¬ 
 tivity of knowledge, which are substantially as 
 follows : 2 To think is to condition, to distinguish 
 objects and bring them into relation with one 
 another. To distinguish one object from another 
 is to limit one by the other. But the Absolute, 
 the Infinite is without condition, and so cannot 
 be thought. The Infinite is the mere negation 
 of the finite. It can have nothing either in com¬ 
 mon with or different from the finite. Again, 
 our whole notion of existence is relative, and we 
 can form no conception of the Absolute, since it 
 is merely the absence of relations. Mr. Spencer 
 tries to strengthen this demonstration by addi¬ 
 tions of his own. If we are to know the Abso¬ 
 lute and Infinite, it must be classed. Classifica¬ 
 tion involves recognition. But the Absolute can 
 be like nothing else that we know, and therefore 
 cannot be recognized or known. Again, the rela¬ 
 tivity of our thinking to relations in our environ¬ 
 ment shows that no thought can express more 
 than relations. 
 
 1 First Principles , p. 73. 3 Ibid ., p. 74 ff. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 II 7 
 
 It has apparently been proved in so many ways 
 that the Absolute is absolutely inscrutable, one 
 might infer that it is Mr. Spencer’s purpose to 
 reduce it to a mere negation of consciousness. 
 But no! He maintains that we have a positive 
 though indefinite consciousness of the Absolute. 
 This consciousness is formed by the attrition and 
 coalescence of all our ideas and conceptions . 1 So 
 we arrive at the consciousness of an actuality 
 lying beyond appearances. When all our concrete 
 experiences have been emptied into the Ultimate 
 Inscrutability, we are told that this Inscrutability 
 still is. This is the mere statement that Being is 
 —a bare tautology. We are told that religion 
 is the consciousness of the “ inscrutable power 
 manifested to us through all phenomena.” We 
 must “ refrain from assigning to it any attributes, 
 on the ground that such attributes, derived as 
 they must be from our own natures, are not eleva¬ 
 tions, but degradations. ” 2 So we are offered as 
 the object of our ultimate belief and worship a 
 ” night in which all cows are black.” 
 
 It is evident that Mr. Spencer regards the prog¬ 
 ress of knowledge as an increase in extension 
 accompanied by a corresponding decrease in in¬ 
 tension. As conceptions embrace wider fields of 
 existence within their grasp, they become less 
 adequate to express the concrete fulness of ex¬ 
 istence. In his own language they become more 
 
 1 First Principles, p. 87 ff. a Ibid., p. 109. 
 
118 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 symbolic and less real. For the completest con¬ 
 ception is one in which all the attributes of the 
 object are held together at the same moment in 
 consciousness. The truth in this view is that 
 the concept should be the logical unity of all the 
 attributes of the object. As such, the concept ex¬ 
 presses the unity of a series of judgments. The 
 ideal concept is a principle of unity of which the 
 attributes are moments. Mr. Spencer says that 
 conceptions become very unlike the things con¬ 
 ceived when we come to propositions concerning 
 wide-embracing classes, e.g., the vertebrata or 
 the whole animal kingdom. Now, the truth is 
 that the perceptual image, which is the psychi¬ 
 cal setting of the concept, may become more 
 unlike the individual objects of the group. But 
 the true concept of a class of objects is not formed 
 merely by the attrition and coalescence of the 
 perceptual images of particular objects. The 
 concept is not an average percept. A concept 
 expresses, through the unification of particular 
 judgments , the unity of the salient features in the 
 form and behavior of the class of objects which 
 it stands for. The concept is adequate only 
 when the attributes of its group are grasped, not 
 simply together, but in their relations to one an¬ 
 other, so that these attributes are conceived, not 
 as existing side by side in an external juxtaposi¬ 
 tion, but as reciprocally influencing one another 
 in the unity of the concrete objects. Every true 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 ll 9 
 
 concept will then be complete in so far as the 
 group of objects it stands for is complete. But 
 since groups of objects exist only in relation to 
 other groups no single group-concept can have 
 meaning in isolation from others. 
 
 Mr. Spencer’s method is wholly analytic. He 
 holds that the goal of thinking is the discovery 
 of the most highly abstract laws. These he holds 
 to be true and yet not true, because they stand 
 at the farthest remove from the concrete world 
 of perception. He holds that science constructs 
 its laws from experience of the real world, and 
 yet the construction is of such a character that 
 the real world cannot be reconstructed in terms 
 of science. Now, on the contrary, knowledge 
 can claim to fulfil its purpose and to approach 
 completeness only when its highest principles or 
 laws are grasped in their mutual relations, not as 
 abstracted from the concrete details of experi¬ 
 ence, but as the principles of the concrete par¬ 
 ticulars which make up the real world of percep¬ 
 tion. Such a system of principles will give to 
 each particular its true meaning by exhibiting its 
 place in the individual system which constitutes 
 reality. The discovery of the laws of phenomena 
 can be said to decrease our knowledge of phe¬ 
 nomena only when these laws are hypostatized 
 and placed above the world of experience in soli¬ 
 tary state. A really synthetic philosophy would 
 endeavor to see each principle of science as an 
 
120 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 element in that organic unity of knowledge 
 through which alone knowledge represents real¬ 
 ity. Each particular law or truth represents a 
 phase or moment of reality. Neither abstract 
 law nor bare fact is true in isolation. Both are 
 elements in a relational unity of experience. As 
 such an element the law represents the fact by 
 stating the conditions of its existence. Conse¬ 
 quently “ the most general cognition at which 
 we can arrive'’ is not “inexplicable.” It Is a 
 cognition, and has a meaning only because it is 
 the organic unity of all less general cognitions, 
 and so represents the organic unity of the real 
 world. It is no more inexplicable than the most 
 modest fact in the world. Indeed, it is nothing 
 but that relational unity which is implied in the 
 concrete world, and the explication of which con¬ 
 fers meaning on the particular facts of percep¬ 
 tion. Truth is an organism, not a mechanical 
 heap of isolated laws. Analysis and synthesis 
 imply one another. It is as necessary for the 
 life of knowledge that they should go on to¬ 
 gether as it is for the animal organism that katabo- 
 lism and anabolism should work together. Any 
 single truth is by itself abstract, a mere particu¬ 
 lar. Truths express the relations of facts. But 
 no truth is true by itself. When a truth is 
 grasped in its relations then the facts which it 
 represents are transformed. Seen in their rela¬ 
 tions they cease to be mere particulars, and be- 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 1 2 1 
 
 come concrete individual elements in the system 
 of experience. 
 
 It is this false conception of knowledge as a 
 mere process of analysis or abstraction that has 
 led Mr. Spencer to accept the empty conceptions 
 of the First Cause, Infinite and Absolute held by 
 Hamilton and Mansel. The First Cause is cer¬ 
 tainly an impossible absolute, if cause be used in 
 its ordinary sense as something antecedent to 
 and existing entirely outside of the effect. The 
 true Absolute is the totality of causes and effects. 
 If the Absolute be thought as wholly character¬ 
 less, a mere absence of relations, it is very easy 
 to show that it is inconceivable. Is not the Ab¬ 
 solute to be thought rather as the total reality of 
 things, embracing all relations within itself as a 
 self-related individuality ? Again, the true In¬ 
 finite is not the mere negation of the finite, but 
 the presupposition and completion of the finite 
 as given in experience. 
 
 In our search for knowledge of the real which 
 is presented to us in experience we are led ever 
 farther into a world of complex relations, of unity 
 in difference. This is a strong presumption that 
 relations belong in some way to Reality. By 
 relations I do not mean mere bloodless cate¬ 
 gories, but relations of energy, of will and feel¬ 
 ing, as well as of discursive thought. If knowl¬ 
 edge is valid in any sense, then the growth of 
 human experience in complexity or interrelated- 
 
122 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 ness is a disclosure of the nature of reality. The 
 goal of human knowledge and action is the con¬ 
 crete Individual, and this goal will find its fufil- 
 ment in the thought of the Absolute Individual. 
 
 Mr. Spencer’s conclusion is that the Absolute 
 is Force. “ The power which manifests itself in 
 consciousness is but a differently conditioned 
 form of the power which manifests itself beyond 
 consciousness .” 1 “The last stage reached is 
 recognition of the truth that force as it exists 
 beyond consciousness, cannot be like what we 
 know as force within consciousness; and that yet 
 as either is incapable of generating the other, 
 they must be different modes of the same. Con¬ 
 sequently the final outcome of that speculation 
 commenced by primitive man is that the Power 
 manifested throughout the universe distinguished 
 as material, is the same Power which in ourselves 
 wells up under the form of consciousness.” 2 
 
 The “ Unknowable,” then, possesses the single 
 positive attribute of being “ Power” or “ En¬ 
 ergy. ” But “ Energy” is a particular category 
 of self-conscious thought. It cannot be used in 
 this offhand fashion to designate the total reality. 
 Like Space, Time, Matter, and Motion, “ En¬ 
 ergy ” is simply a relatively abstract mode under 
 which thought conceives experience. “ Energy” 
 is a name for one generalized aspect of expe¬ 
 rience. “ Energy,” then, as a term to designate 
 1 Principles of Sociology, III., p. 170. 2 Ibid., p. 171. 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 123 
 
 reality, is a mode of conceiving a single aspect of 
 reality. Like the other categories above named, 
 it is a relatively abstract, incomplete expression 
 for reality as experienced. To offer “an Infinite 
 and Eternal Energy ’’ as the ultimate explanation 
 of existence is to explain the whole by the part, 
 to make the tail wag the dog. One might as 
 well call the Absolute Infinite Space or Time. 
 
 The mere category of energy offers no expla¬ 
 nation of the significance of human personalities. 
 It does not account for the self-consciousness 
 from which knowledge of energy itself springs. 
 The mechanical explanation of things is a mode 
 of thinking part of our experience, and arises from 
 the practical need which the human mind has of 
 conceiving the external world for purposes of cal¬ 
 culation in the simplest possible terms. But we 
 have no right to extend this conception to the 
 explanation of the whole of experience. For this 
 explanation does not account for the origin, nor 
 can it explain away the value, of the many-sided 
 self-conscious life of human experience, with its 
 poignant feelings and its unceasing struggle to 
 find expression and satisfaction in the forms of 
 truth, beauty, and goodness. If the category of 
 energy or power is but a means of comprehend¬ 
 ing the movement of the world, and springs from 
 the self’s practical needs, it carries in itself no 
 justification for the subordination to it of those 
 categories which express higher human values. 
 
124 MODERN conceptions of god 
 
 If we must satisfy our metaphysical craving by 
 setting up a single principle to explain experi¬ 
 ence, let such a principle be found by the reinter¬ 
 pretation of consciousness in the wholeness of its 
 life as once affective and expressive, receptive and 
 active. For self-consciousness holds within its 
 own concrete unity all the various aspects and 
 kinds of experience, and these lose their meaning 
 and value when they are permanently isolated 
 from the unity of the experiencing self. 
 
 The Absolute may not, then, indeed be fully 
 known, but it will be intelligible and self-con¬ 
 sistent, since it will be conceived as in some way 
 continuous with and the completion of human 
 experience. It will appear as the fruition of 
 human ideals. The Absolute will be thought as 
 the sustaining and harmonizing central experi¬ 
 ence from which no phase of conscious life is ex¬ 
 cluded, but in which each phase of experience 
 has its place determined by its value for the 
 whole spiritual life, i.e., by its degree of spir¬ 
 ituality. Indeed, the nature of the Absolute can 
 only be adequately defined after a careful esti¬ 
 mation and appreciation of the various activities 
 of consciousness. To carry out this work with 
 completeness would involve a comparative phi¬ 
 losophy of knowledge, aesthetics, ethics, and relig¬ 
 ion on a historical basis. It may turn out that 
 the idea of the Absolute so defined is analogous 
 in content to the God of the highest religion. If 
 
MR. SPENCER’S UNKNOWN GOD 
 
 125 
 
 this should be so, then the idea of God con¬ 
 tained in any given form of historical religion 
 will be expressive of its conception of the ideals 
 of truth, beauty, and goodness fused with and 
 modified by racial characteristics and historically 
 inherited systems of culture. This idea of relig¬ 
 ion gives us the plan for a philosophy of religion. 
 For the ends of metaphysics and of religion are the 
 same, but in a sense very different from that held 
 by Mr. Spencer. Metaphysics, critical and inter¬ 
 pretative in its method, will wait upon, clear up, 
 and unify concrete knowledge, conduct, art, and 
 religion rather than endeavor to anticipate or 
 supplant the intuitions of ethical and religious 
 experience. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE ABSOLUTE, THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL, AND 
 
 THE TIME-PROCESS. 
 
 I. The Implications of Finite Experience. 
 
 Philosophical construction should begin with 
 the fact of conscious experience in general, and 
 proceed by a consideration of its implications. 
 “ Experience ” is the total product of the activity 
 of consciousness. “ Consciousness ” is a name 
 for the self-revealing light of experience. I be¬ 
 gin with the internal and comprehensive unity 
 of conscious experience. Behind this ultimate 
 datum I do not know how to penetrate, except 
 by means of reflection on experience itself. 
 
 All the riddles of philosophy are involved in 
 the questions that are aroused by a consideration 
 of the bare existence of consciousness, viz., con¬ 
 sciousness of what and by whom ? In the mere 
 fact of conscious experience there is presented 
 the unity of the experiencing subject and the ex¬ 
 perienced object. In the last analysis we have 
 no data upon which to proceed other than psy¬ 
 chical appearances. All our thinking, no matter 
 
IMPLICATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 127 
 
 how trans-subjective or transcendental the sub¬ 
 ject-matter may ultimately seem to be, is done 
 in terms of conscious process and upon material 
 supplied by conscious processes. A fact to 
 whose nature it did not appertain to be related 
 to our consciousness, either directly or indirectly, 
 would not be a fact in any intelligible and posi¬ 
 tive sense: it would be an unknowable. Hence 
 the fundamental question for philosophy is, What 
 is implied in the very being of human experience 
 or consciousness ? It may be said that all experi¬ 
 ence must belong to some one in particular—that 
 experience in general is a hypostatized abstrac¬ 
 tion, and therefore we cannot begin with it. Now, 
 it is quite true that there are as many experiences 
 as there are individual centres of consciousness 
 in the world. (Indeed, when we consider the 
 changes that a single conscious individual may 
 undergo, we must admit that there are many 
 more apparent experiences than individuals.) 
 But it is equally true that an experience is never 
 adequately accounted for by saying that it is 
 solely mine or yours. Every step that I take in 
 that analysis of my experience which constitutes 
 the beginnings of knozvledge , or in that primary 
 synthesis which constitutes the fundamental, life- 
 regarding actions, is conditioned by the assumed 
 agreement of my experience with other experi¬ 
 ences, past as well as contemporary. My experi¬ 
 ence first becomes actual through its unity with 
 
128 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 a more comprehensive and systematized whole 
 of possible experience for me. And this whole of 
 possible experiences for me is at the same time 
 regarded as somehow actual for other experi¬ 
 encing subjects. Every move I make in life is 
 made upon this assumption. Whether I think 
 or act, I proceed upon the belief in the reality of 
 an experience which will become actual for me 
 when I place myself in certain relations, and 
 which is now actual for others living in these 
 relations. 
 
 Experience, in one of its aspects, means the 
 unity, continuity, and extent of the conscious¬ 
 ness which exists as belonging to a finite self. 
 But this self recognizes in its own finitude the 
 fact that its experience carries it beyond the 
 limits of its own existence. The finite self tacitly 
 acknowledges itself to be a specific and highly 
 differentiated element in the totality of a social 
 and historical unity of experience, which is made 
 up of other elements like unto itself, and there¬ 
 fore capable of living only in reciprocal relation¬ 
 ships. It lives and develops by virtue of its rec¬ 
 ognition, often with fear and trembling, that its 
 own experience involves vastly more than that 
 lean and hungry centre of consciousness which 
 at the moment it calls “ myself." The growing 
 self finds within the totality of its own experi¬ 
 ence, but beyond the sweep of its immediately 
 active life, certain relatively permanent factors 
 
IMPLICATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 129 
 
 which react upon itself and present limits to its 
 own expansion. These resisting factors offer re¬ 
 peated experiences which are found to be similar 
 to certain constant elements in the self’s most 
 intimate life. (These similar elements are such 
 as make up our experiences of the body on both 
 its sensory and active or impressional and ex- 
 pressional sides.) On the basis of these similar 
 and constant elements of experience the self at 
 first conceives all external realities as like unto 
 itself (animism). But in the growth and differ¬ 
 entiation of its experience the finite centre of 
 consciousness learns to distinguish carefully dif¬ 
 ferent grades and kinds of objects as indicated by 
 the character of their resistances and reactions. 
 Some of these permanent factors in experience it 
 finds to be very like itself, others to be inferior 
 in mobility and power of adjustment. Thus 
 there arises the distinction between personal 
 “ selves ” and impersonal “ things.” The differ¬ 
 entiation of experience into these two classes is 
 complementary to and parallel with the growth 
 in the consciousness of self . 1 ” Iron sharpeneth 
 iron: so a man sharpeneth the countenance of 
 his friend. ” 2 
 
 My experience is part of a social and historical 
 
 1 On the genesis of the ideas of the external world and the self, 
 see G. F. .Stout, Manual of Psychology , IV., chaps, vi. and 
 vii. 
 
 2 Proverbs, chap, xxvii., verse 17. 
 
 9 
 
130 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 organization of experience in which other selves 
 have membership. Whilst certain aspects of my 
 own experience are indeed considered as unique, 
 nevertheless I think and act on the belief in a 
 continuity of my experience with the experiences 
 of other selves. We always regard ourselves as 
 members of a common world. It is in the com¬ 
 munity, furnished by our world of selves and 
 things, that each one of us realizes in his own 
 measure and manner that unity of experience on 
 which the individual depends for the very food¬ 
 stuff of his life. 
 
 Selves or persons are the finite centres of con¬ 
 sciousness in which the world of experience is 
 focalized. Somehow these seemingly isolated 
 centres make connections with one another in 
 a social unity and a historical continuity of ex¬ 
 perience. They think, feel, and act from the 
 permanent background of an actual or possible 
 common content and meaning for their individ¬ 
 ually diverse and emotionally unique experiences. 
 They are aware of being foci of consciousness 
 within a common medium. Naive popular think¬ 
 ing holds that the medium within which this 
 community of experience is possessed, and the 
 permanent ground of its unity and continuity is 
 the so-called external world . But how can a world 
 external to consciousness, if it be conceived as 
 entirely different in kind from consciousness, be 
 the basis of the unity of experience in two finite 
 
IMPLICATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 131 
 
 centres of consciousness ? To ground the unity 
 of experience on the existence of a permanent 
 something which is not experience at all in the 
 sense in which the latter exists for the finite 
 consciousness is to explain this felt and known 
 world in terms of an unknown and inconceivable 
 world. The external world of popular thinking is 
 a mere X, and calls for definition. To carry this 
 conception bodily over into the philosophical 
 consideration of the relation between the single 
 finite experience and the total reality of things 
 is to be guided by a blind, uncritical prejudice. 
 The logical outcome of such a procedure is the 
 doctrine that the real world is absolutely un¬ 
 knowable. 
 
 That a unity and continuity of experience exists, 
 as somehow holding together, and indeed as 
 making possible the diverse experiences of finite 
 selves, is directly implied in the sociality of the 
 finite, human experience. The very existence of 
 organized society depends upon the implicit rec¬ 
 ognition of this unity and continuity. Actual, 
 concrete knowledge and action are social in their 
 genesis. Moreover, the validity of knowledge is 
 finally social. A new bit of knowledge is held by 
 its discoverer to be valid because he confidently 
 foresees that it will gain social recognition, at 
 first from the few leaders who are competent to 
 judge in the department to which this new knowl¬ 
 edge belongs, and afterwards from the multitude 
 
13 2 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 which recognizes in the few experts its own 
 leaders and guides. And thus, in the end, the 
 new bit of knowledge will become a recognized 
 element in the historical continuity of experience. 
 The proposition that all action depends for its 
 efficacy on its social bearings, direct or indirect, 
 immediate or remote, hardly needs explanation 
 or defence in these days. My conclusion is that 
 an epistemology or theory of knowledge, which 
 starts from the basic fact of experience, but fails 
 to take account of its essentially social and his¬ 
 torical character, must end in solipsism, and in¬ 
 deed in the repudiation of its own starting-point. 
 The inference in regard to the present question is 
 that the real external world must be a unity of 
 experience , and yet, since it is more than and in¬ 
 dependent of the finite centre of experience, it 
 cannot be quite the same as our own immediate 
 consciousness of it. 
 
 How, then, can this unity of experience, 
 which is the very presupposition of the finite 
 self-consciousness, be conceived ? Perhaps, here, 
 some one interposes the observation that the 
 problem is an artificial one. Each self repeats 
 in its own way the experiences of others. Very 
 true! Then the so-called unity of experience is 
 but the abstractly conceived similarity of diverse 
 experiences. No! Finite centres do not exist 
 at all, except in actual interconnection. They 
 do not follow one another as a series of isolated 
 
IMPLICATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 133 
 
 points, which is a series only for the philosophiz¬ 
 ing observer. Finite centres of experience are 
 contemporaneous and social, as well as continu¬ 
 ous and historical, in all the theoretical and prac¬ 
 tical aspects of their lives. Besides, each finite 
 self is a private centre of feeling, cognition, and 
 conation, a unique consciousness. The problem is, 
 How can such private and unique centres of con¬ 
 sciousness share their experiences with their con¬ 
 temporaries and hand them down to their suc¬ 
 cessors ? What, in the last analysis, is their 
 medium of exchange ? To offer an absolutely 
 independent, material world as an ultimate ex¬ 
 planation of this actual unity and continuity of 
 human experience is to explain the known in 
 terms of the wholly unknown. 
 
 Some hints as to the probable nature of that 
 absolute unity of experiences which makes pos¬ 
 sible the individual, finite experience may be 
 gleaned from human relationships. There are 
 presented relatively complete unities ( i.e ., com¬ 
 plete from the finite standpoint) of finite individ¬ 
 uals in love, the family relationship, friendships, 
 and religious brotherhoods. But, in all these 
 cases, the principle of unity exists only for the 
 consciousness of the united individuals. More¬ 
 over, it does not exist in the same degree for 
 each member of the union. And when one 
 member perishes or is faithless the unity of life 
 and the community of experience are destroyed. 
 
134 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 Suppose a relationship of this sort to involve two 
 members, A and B. Then U, the unity, is really 
 twofold, UA and UB, i.e., the unity as it is for 
 A and for B. Let A become estranged from B, 
 then for B there is only a memory of experience, 
 UB, an aching fragment torn from the unity 
 which is lost. 
 
 The experience of the individual is, in one 
 aspect, unique and private. Nevertheless it can 
 realize itself only by reaching out into the experi¬ 
 ence of others and making them its own. Now, 
 this twofold process of parallel and continuous 
 outgo from and income to the self, by which the 
 latter is being forever enriched, cannot be con¬ 
 ceived as having a permanent and intelligible char¬ 
 acter, unless it is supported by an absolute unity 
 and continuity of experience. Finite relation¬ 
 ships suggest but do not realize this absolute 
 unity of experience. For the experiences of 
 these relationships repeat themselves as many 
 times as there are members in the relationship, and 
 they depend, for their countenance, on a transient 
 and perishable membership. As relations between 
 finite individuals they are, if considered apart 
 from the Absolute Unity implied in them, finite 
 in scope and fatally infected with the germs of 
 mortality. The absolute unity of experience, 
 on the other hand, must, if there be truth at the 
 basis of human knowledge and a reality at the 
 root of human endeavor, be one and unchanging. 
 
IMPLICATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 135 
 
 The alternative is the possible utter isolation of 
 the finite individual in a universe of figments, 
 and the illusoriness, or at best the absolute un¬ 
 certainty, of his social and growing experience. 
 For if the individual has not membership in a 
 unity more real than himself, then his own en¬ 
 deavors after greater reality of life are not more 
 real in their outcome than the inchoate begin¬ 
 nings of self-consciousness from which they 
 spring. But since this conscious life cannot ex¬ 
 ist without activity, without the search for some 
 sort of good, and since, if there be no absolute 
 unity of experience, there is no ground for any 
 permanent achievement, the life of conscious, 
 personal activity must be illusory. 
 
 If finite centres of experience were from the 
 outset absolutely independent of one another, 
 they could never form any sort of community. 
 They would be motionless things , not selves, and 
 things only by virtue of their presence in some 
 consciousness. The fact that they have their 
 being in living relationships in a social and his¬ 
 torical community of existence is fatal to their 
 absolute independence, but it indicates the nature 
 of the unity on which they depend. The finite 
 individual knows truth, feels beauty, and realizes 
 goodness as a member of a larger whole. Now, 
 why not say that this Whole or Unity is simply 
 the totality of human society ? Why not say 
 that the Absolute is Humanity ? Let us agree 
 
136 modern conceptions of god 
 
 for the moment to this proposal. Then, hi whose 
 experience could this total and perfect Humanity 
 be realized ? Certainly not in that of the finite 
 individual. For this experience realizes itself only 
 by passing beyond itself to other experiences. 
 The experience of the finite self is fragmentary, 
 distracted, and seemingly transient. We cannot 
 get the Absolute , the perfect fruition of experi¬ 
 ence, by adding together any number of imper¬ 
 fect, finite experiences. A given finite experi¬ 
 ence can get permanent value and perfection in 
 its kind only if the absolute experience is now 
 and forever implied and indeed immanent in it. 
 The life of the finite self in its social relationships 
 implies, on both theoretical and practical grounds, 
 a perfect , permanent experience or consciousness. 
 The naive intelligence supplies the most press¬ 
 ing practical needs of a permanent being by the 
 belief in an independent, material world. The 
 primitive man ensouled this world. Modern posi¬ 
 tive science has deprived it of life, and critical 
 reflection shows that its apparent independence 
 and permanence are relative to and derived from 
 man’s socialized and historical thought. The 
 so-called “independent” world is a world of 
 thought’s own making. (Not, of course, that 
 this world is the creation of the thought of the 
 bare individual. The very idea of the world 
 involves its being the common product and 
 property of many. And it is just this social 
 
IMPLICATIONS OF EXPERIENCE 
 
 137 
 
 ideation for which we are seeking a founda¬ 
 tion.) 
 
 An Absolute which can be the source and 
 ground of the community of finite selves must 
 be for thought and in thought. And, of course, 
 it cannot exist merely in the passing thought of 
 a finite experience. Therefore it must be for and 
 in its own thought, i.e ., it must be self-conscious. 
 It must be a perfect unity, otherwise it would not 
 account for the partial and developing unities of 
 experience which come to existence in every 
 finite centre of consciousness. It must be per¬ 
 manent, since the changing finite self implies, in 
 every step of its thinking and its striving, an 
 unchanging reality in which it realizes itself, and 
 which it realizes in itself. And if the Absolute 
 be permanent, it must be at every moment com¬ 
 plete and perfect. The Absolute, then, is the 
 perfect Individual Experience or Self whose ex¬ 
 istence is implied in the lives of imperfect selves. 
 
 It appears, now, that for the naive notion of a 
 permanent and solid material world as the ground 
 of the existence and communal life of finite selves, 
 philosophical reflection must substitute the idea 
 of a permanent and perfect unity of experience, 
 a single, all-embracing consciousness. We have 
 reached the notion of the Absolute as the ground 
 of existence of finite individual experiences. 
 
 Can anything further and more definite be said 
 about the nature of this absolute consciousness ? 
 
138 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 What I have already said has been found to be 
 implied in the nature of finite consciousness. If 
 we are to arrive at any further determinations of 
 the Absolute, we must find our clue in the nature 
 of finite selves. But we have been led to assume 
 that these, in their relations, involve a permanent 
 or timeless unity of experience, i.e. y an Absolute 
 Self that does not change. Now, the finite self 
 is notoriously subject to change. It apparently 
 comes into being and passes out of being in time. 
 How can such a plaything of time furnish us with 
 any adequate hints as to the nature of an un¬ 
 changing consciousness ? How can a timeless 
 Absolute be the unity which underlies and sup¬ 
 ports a community of existences which are appar¬ 
 ently subject to all the conditions of time, and 
 which are historically conditioned in their life 
 and growth ? Finite experience implies an abso¬ 
 lute experience. But does not the thinkable 
 nature of this Absolute involve the conclusion 
 that finite experience as such is illusory ? If this 
 conclusion be involved in our idea of the Abso¬ 
 lute, then we shall be forced to admit the utter 
 unreality of finite progress, and indeed the thor¬ 
 oughgoing phenomenality of all psychical activity 
 which takes place in time, i.e ., the illusoriness of 
 historical experience. This is our central prob¬ 
 lem, and before we can take a step further to¬ 
 wards solving it we must inquire what the time- 
 process means. 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 ! 39 
 
 2. The Evolutionary or Historical 1 Process—The 
 Genesis and Growth of the Individual is its 
 Meaning . 
 
 The possibility of interpreting the world of 
 experience as a development in time rests on the 
 presupposition that in the whole process there is 
 an ascending series of differences in value , in de¬ 
 gree of approximation towards an End or Goal. 
 The evolutionary process is not a dead-level. It 
 does not work as a treadmill. The complexity 
 of the evolving world is a complexity of values , 
 i.e. } of meanings defined with reference to an end 
 or to ends. Now, if there be a unity in the proc¬ 
 ess, the meaning of the whole time-process must 
 be that the highest values given in experience 
 more fully express the significance of the entire 
 movement than the lower values. The finite self, 
 which is an experiencing centre in the evolution¬ 
 ary process, feels directly and acts categorically 
 on the conviction that certain features of its ex¬ 
 perience are higher in value than others. The 
 appraisement of temporal experience in terms of 
 a scale of values is the assertion of the will-to-live 
 by our social individual. It is the expression of 
 the inner nature of the finite self in a universe of 
 
 1 N.B."—I use the word “ historical ” to designate the entire 
 process of development in time, in so far as this is capable of a 
 rational interpretation. In this sense an absolutely unrelated 
 fact would be unhistorical. 
 
i 4 0 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 selves. The more nearly complete a self is the 
 more fully does it find its will-to-live realized in 
 those experiences of higher value which are found 
 in science, the ethical life, art, and religion. It 
 is in these higher experiences that the selves 
 which society admits to be most nearly perfect 
 find their satisfaction. 
 
 If, then, philosophy is to find a principle for 
 the interpretation of the process of temporal and 
 historical evolution, it must read the whole proc¬ 
 ess in the light of the highest, richest, and most 
 comprehensive experience of the finite self. All 
 philosophical procedure must in the end be an¬ 
 thropomorphic, or, to coin a word derived from 
 that part of man in which are embodied the 
 higher experiences we have mentioned, philoso¬ 
 phy must be pneumatomorphic. Phenomena 
 must be interpreted finally (if they are to be in¬ 
 terpreted at all) in terms of human self-conscious¬ 
 ness. It is quite as reasonable to ask a man to 
 jump out of his skin as to demand that the phi¬ 
 losopher divest himself of anthropomorphism. 
 The highest category for the interpretation of 
 experience should be self-evidencing, and by its 
 inclusion and reconciliation of all the lower cate¬ 
 gories it should be self-justifying. If all the 
 categories are drawn from self-experience their 
 respective claims can be adjusted only by a con¬ 
 sideration of their contributions to the deepest 
 and most abiding human experience, or, in other 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 141 
 
 words, by the measure in which they promote 
 the most intense, continuous, and harmonious 
 activity of consciousness. A philosophy which 
 abandons at the outset (as Mr. Spencer’s does) 
 the higher and more inclusive categories of self- 
 consciousness as anthropomorphic and then in¬ 
 terprets the world-process by means of a category 
 which is the product of a one-sided and hence 
 abstract phase of thought performs the double 
 feat of first destroying the ground on which it 
 stands and then contradicting itself. All cate¬ 
 gories of thought are but shorthand expressions 
 for particular aspects of experience, and hence 
 the final category must be that one which best 
 expresses the wholeness and unity of experience. 
 
 If we accept provisionally the world of experi¬ 
 ence as a process in time, and if we make use of 
 the method of interpretation just stated, we have 
 to inquire whether the world-process has a single, 
 unitary meaning. 
 
 Positive science furnishes us with a fairly com¬ 
 plete account of the history of our world. The 
 nebular theory, the Darwinian theory, and the 
 consequent developments of evolutionary thought 
 have enabled us to frame a pretty coherent and 
 definite view of the development of the section 
 of the universe in which we are planted. There 
 is not here space or occasion to give a detailed 
 account of the process of cosmic evolution. What 
 I desire to emphasize is that the evolutionary 
 
142 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 theory of this world, when thought out, implies 
 the doctrine that the history of our world is the 
 story of the development of individuality. 1 Aris¬ 
 totle had already emphasized this principle. 
 The individual occupies the central place in his 
 doctrine of evolution, and indeed in his meta¬ 
 physical theory, but was lost sight of until the 
 breaking up of scholasticism. Leibniz reinstated 
 the individual to his rightful place in modern 
 philosophy. To come down to the nineteenth 
 century, Mr. Spencer rightly defines evolution as 
 a passage from an indefinite, incoherent homo¬ 
 geneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity, 
 brought about by a process of differentiation and 
 integration. 2 Mr. Clifford says, in his essay on 
 Cosmic Emotion, that the tendency of the organic 
 process is to personify itself. 3 The same doctrine 
 finds expression in Schopenhauer’s theory that 
 the “ will-to-live ” is the source of individual ex¬ 
 istences. These instances indicate the wide rec¬ 
 ognition of the principle of individuality as a 
 guide to the interpretation of the processes of 
 organic and general cosmic evolution. 
 
 The same principle furnishes the key to the 
 interpretation of human history as a continuous 
 
 1 See Mr. Spencer’s works, J. Le Conte’s Evolution in its Re¬ 
 lation to Religious Thought, and John Fiske’s Destiny of Man. 
 
 2 Data of Ethics, chap, v., etc. ; First Principles , part ii., 
 chap. xvii. 
 
 3 Lectures and Essays, p. 411. 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 *43 
 
 process of development. Hegel has this prin¬ 
 ciple in mind when he defines history as the de¬ 
 velopment of the consciousness of freedom. Sir 
 H. S. Maine gives expression to the same doc¬ 
 trine when he so neatly and pregnantly sums up 
 the development of human society as a progress 
 “ from status to contract.” Fichte and Schleier- 
 macher, as we have seen, both interpret history 
 in terms of individuality, although with very 
 important differences. (John Stuart Mill, in his 
 essay On Liberty , lays stress on the worth of indi¬ 
 viduality as a guiding principle in politics, and 
 perhaps the greatest service rendered by English 
 political and economic liberalism has been the 
 bringing about of a practical recognition of the 
 worth and dignity of the individual. It is true 
 that this school of political thought was fre¬ 
 quently blind to the social dependence of the 
 individual.) But, on the whole, it must be said 
 that the philosophy of history has lagged far be¬ 
 hind the natural sciences in the general develop¬ 
 ment of thought during the last hundred years. 
 To-day, with our wider historical horizon and 
 our much richer materials for comparative study, 
 together with a clearer insight into the psycho¬ 
 logical relations of the individual to society, we 
 are in a much better position than were the 
 immediate successors of Kant to carry out in 
 detail and with more positive verification the in¬ 
 terpretation of the historical process in terms of 
 
144 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 individuality. What is here offered is but the 
 barest outline. 
 
 Practically the principle of the worth of indi¬ 
 viduality receives very inadequate recognition 
 in our social life. Its two greatest enemies are 
 superficial and mechanical systems of education 
 and extreme socialism. 1 
 
 The world of our present experience is one of 
 concrete individuals, and its movement is towards 
 completer individualization. When we try to re¬ 
 construct the past history of the world, we see 
 at the beginning, as the result of our analysis, 
 only the featureless primordial elements out of 
 which, it is assumed, our present world of mani¬ 
 fold content has been evolved. The meaning of 
 the world-process grows less clear as we recede 
 in our analysis, and finally fades out of sight in 
 the twilight that envelops all temporal origins. 
 All that is left by the physical philosopher at the 
 dawn of our cosmical history are a nebulous mist 
 and a few laws of motion. 
 
 When we reach the last step in the analysis of 
 
 1 For an interesting and valuable treatment of the individual’s 
 place in nature see N. S. Shaler’s “ The Individual: a Study of 
 Life and Death.” The metaphysical importance of the individual 
 was first clearly brought to light in modern times by Leibniz, 
 although the principle was recognized by Giordano Bruno. A 
 fresh and stimulating treatment of the problem will be found in 
 Josiah Royce’s “ The World and the Individual.” I regret that 
 this work did not appear in time for me to make any use of its 
 very suggestive treatment of the subject. 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 145 
 
 the evolutionary process, i.e., the first step in 
 the evolution itself, we are unable to reverse the 
 process and see how the synthesis took place 
 which brought forth the present world of our 
 concrete experience. We cannot do more than 
 note some of the successive phases in the devel¬ 
 opment, unless we go behind the time-process 
 itself. At this point the pure evolutionist comes 
 to a standstill. For the inner principle of the de¬ 
 velopment must be presupposed as already exist¬ 
 ent in the elements, unless the development be 
 explained as the result of supernatural interven¬ 
 tion or regarded as inexplicable. Hence, philoso¬ 
 phy is justified in taking its point of departure in 
 the world of present experience , and in refusing to 
 accept the abstract and hypothetical elements 
 out of which we are told the world has been built 
 up as the final explanation of the world-process. 
 This explanation is to be found by the interpre¬ 
 tation of the past in the light of our concrete 
 present experience. It cannot be discovered by 
 the dissolution of that experience into such ab¬ 
 stractions as atoms and laws of motion, which of 
 themselves are entirely inadequate to explain the 
 origin and growth of our present world of indi¬ 
 viduals. It is abandoning interpretation alto¬ 
 gether to accept a “ thing-in-itself," whether it 
 be “ energy," " mind-stuff," or the ** uncon¬ 
 scious " as the ultimate explanation of experi¬ 
 ence. If reality is present at all in the time-pro- 
 
 10 
 
146 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 cess, then its nature is most adequately revealed 
 in the later phases of the history of the time- 
 process, not at the beginning. 
 
 Natural science has shown the evolution of the 
 world to be a progressive growth in organization. 
 We find an ascending series of individualizations, 
 culminating in man. In inorganic nature the 
 crystal is perhaps the most striking example of 
 individualization. The individual character of 
 the lowest organisms is very vague compared 
 with the crystal. But the primitive organism, 
 unlike the crystal, possesses mobility and respon¬ 
 siveness to the demands of its environment. It 
 has, from the first, a hidden individuality. Indi¬ 
 vidualization grows more nearly perfect ( i.e ., at 
 once more complex and more integrated) as we 
 ascend in the scale of animal life, and this growth 
 is indicated by an increasing responsiveness to 
 environmental influences. Somewhere on the 
 scale the mobile and sensitive structure is lighted 
 up by consciousness which, at first, is doubtless 
 nothing more than a dim feeling of reaction 
 against the environment. The sense of hunger 
 and the feeling which accompanies the reproduc¬ 
 tive instinct are probably at first the sole or at 
 least the predominant factors of consciousness. 
 After this point has been reached the most in¬ 
 teresting and characteristic aspect in the growth 
 of individuality is the psychical aspect. Where, 
 in the scale of life, the first glimmerings of feel- 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 147 
 
 ing light up the organic structure we cannot say. 
 Nor can we determine precisely where the first 
 vague and undifferentiated feeling-consciousness 1 
 gets distinguished into the sense of subject and 
 object. But we know that in man the process 
 reaches clear self-consciousness or personality. 
 Wherever it is present, consciousness has a unity 
 of its own by virtue of which it is. This essen¬ 
 tial unity forbids us to regard consciousness as 
 produced by the fusion of elements that are dis¬ 
 continuous, whether in the forms of “ atoms of 
 mind-stuff ” or “ something of the same order as 
 a nervous shock.” The unity of the rudimentary 
 feeling-consciousness must hold good no matter 
 how far down one places consciousness in the 
 scale of animal life. 
 
 But it is not, therefore, necessary to regard 
 consciousness as a miracle, superinduced from 
 without at a certain stage in the evolution of 
 organisms. The progressive organization of life 
 points us to the hypothesis of organizing princi¬ 
 ples resident and active in the process of organic 
 evolution, i.e., to “ principles of individualiza¬ 
 tion,” as the inner ground or bearer of the de¬ 
 velopment. It may be objected that to set up 
 “principles of individuality” is once more to 
 
 1 By this term I designate the immediate feeling state of a 
 soul in which the distinctions of reflective thinking and of delib¬ 
 erate volition have not arisen and in which, therefore, all is direct 
 feeling and impulse. 
 
148 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 bring in the “ Ding-an-sich." But by “princi¬ 
 ple of individuality” is not meant a mysterious, 
 unknowable entity lying motionless behind phe¬ 
 nomena. The phrase expresses the inherent ten¬ 
 dency of organic life, and therefore of the whole 
 cosmic process, to express itself in individuals. 
 This tendency is an impulse or inner activity. 
 But the individuals have not an absolutely inde¬ 
 pendent existence. Such an independence would 
 be fatal to their genuine participation in the 
 world-process, which I take to be a fact of ex¬ 
 perience. I admit that this idea of individuality 
 as the end of the cosmic process is vague. Here 
 I am only outlining fundamental principles. The 
 concept of individuality as the end can get defini¬ 
 tion only by being carried out in ethics, aesthetics, 
 the Philosophy of Religion and of History, and, 
 above all, in the practice of living. The phe¬ 
 nomena of these different phases of human activ¬ 
 ity would so be interpreted and evaluated in so 
 far as they contribute to the fullest individuality 
 and individuality would be seen to be realized in 
 the various forms of civilized life. In practice it 
 may be doubted whether democracy in its present 
 phase favours the full growth of individuality. 
 
 The world of social and historical experience is 
 the product of the interacting impulses of these 
 “ principles of individualization.” These grow 
 through intercourse with one another and with 
 their environment. (In speaking of the external 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 149 
 
 world I have already indicated what “ environ¬ 
 ment ” must mean.) Individuals must have been, 
 from the first, centres of activity, developing 
 through reciprocal action, but without a clear 
 consciousness of selfhood. Through their very 
 interaction they would be awakened to full self- 
 consciousness. It may be objected that we do 
 not know how an unconscious individual could 
 develop a self-consciousness. The objection is 
 valid. But there is no need, and, indeed, on our 
 premises, there is no good ground, for assuming 
 that a real individual ever existed in absolute un¬ 
 consciousness. I am not prepared to define the 
 lower limits of consciousness in the organic world. 
 Nor can I define the conditions of organized struc¬ 
 ture which accompany the rudiments of conscious¬ 
 ness. If two distinct and conscious personalities 
 can exist in one human organization, 1 an undiffer¬ 
 entiated unity of feeling, i.e., a rudimentary self- 
 consciousness, may have its seat in that which 
 does not appear to us to be a definitively individ¬ 
 ual structure. Perhaps there is a feeling-unity 
 in a colony of polyps. If highly organized indi¬ 
 viduality of structure does not shut out the possi¬ 
 bility of two distinct consciousnesses, why should 
 an imperfect organization of structure preclude 
 the presence of one vague consciousness ? But, 
 of course, the distinction between mere conscious¬ 
 ness and self-consciousness must not be lost sight 
 1 I refer to the well-known facts of double-personality. 
 
150 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 of. The difference does not seem to me merely 
 one of degree, and I confess that I am unable to 
 conceive the transition as taking place by a grad¬ 
 ual and imperceptible growth, i.c ., as simply a 
 product of evolution. The difference between 
 a mere consciousness and a self-consciousness 
 seems to me to be an absolute one, and identical 
 with the difference between a phenomenal or im¬ 
 perfect individual and a real or perfect individual. 
 (The latter maybe finite, but perfect in its kind.) 
 My conception of experience as the only intelli¬ 
 gible and actual datum for the knowledge of real¬ 
 ity involves the doctrine that everything which 
 possesses reality in any kind or degree must be¬ 
 long to an experience, i.e ., that it must apper¬ 
 tain to consciousness. Now, inasmuch as there 
 are many degrees and kinds of reality given in 
 experience, there must be many grades of indi¬ 
 viduality, and every sort of individuality must 
 have some consciousness. But since I cannot 
 find a conceivable transition from a mere con¬ 
 sciousness to a self-consciousness, and since a 
 true individual has been defined as a self-con¬ 
 sciousness, imperfect individuals (i.e., those who 
 are not self-conscious) can exist only as related 
 to the experience of a true individual. 
 
 However, to return to surer ground, every one 
 of us has experience of a self-conscious individ¬ 
 uality which periodically lapses into subconscious 
 or vague feeling-states in sleep and dreams. 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 151 
 
 Whatever be the explanation of the state of the 
 self during the various forms of natural and in¬ 
 duced unconsciousness (so called), perhaps a sim¬ 
 ilar explanation will apply to the state of the self 
 in the earlier stages of its growth. If our semi- 
 unconscious states are due to the suspension of 
 certain complex neural activities, perhaps the 
 earlier phases of our lives as conscious beings 
 were conditioned by the imperfect development 
 of the same neural activities. At any rate, the 
 difficulties in conceiving the continued existence 
 of the self are similar in both cases. 
 
 I have indicated my conception of the growth 
 of consciousness. The individual in its clear, 
 self-conscious experience is continuous with the 
 primitive individual, which, although it is from 
 the beginning the active centre of growth or the 
 impulse to its own development, has at first only 
 a vague unity of self-feeling. A finite centre of 
 consciousness in many of its higher phases is not 
 clearly conscious of and for itself. But the unity 
 of self-feeling which is the basis of the clearest 
 self-consciousness must always be present. Other¬ 
 wise the uniqueness of the individual is lost. 
 
 Does the evolutionary process consist solely of 
 individuals in interaction ? This brings us to the 
 question of how individuals in their genesis and 
 growth maintain relations towards one another. 
 As parts of the world-process individuals develop 
 in a relationship that is organic or social in the 
 
152 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 sense that no individual can exist and grow in 
 total isolation from the rest. This means that 
 individuals interact, and history is the theatre of 
 their interaction. For without interaction it is 
 impossible to understand how the individuals 
 could undergo any change or develop in any way. 
 The inner principle of individuality in each case 
 must have stimuli to start it and keep it going, 
 as well as material to work into its own organic 
 structure. The world-process is essentially an 
 interrelated whole, and to deny interaction of its 
 parts is to make its unity inconceivable and im- 
 ’ possible. An individual absolutely independent 
 of any other individual would have no relation to 
 finite experience. 
 
 Let us recall the results of our first analysis of 
 experience, and we may find a notion which will 
 make clear the unity of the evolutionary process. 
 We have presented in our experience what com¬ 
 mon sense calls hiteraction between selves. Now, 
 when we speak of interaction between individuals, 
 we tacitly assume a medium of the interaction 
 placed between the related individuals as its 
 bearer. So long as the individuals are held apart 
 we must go on assuming fresh media, new terms 
 of relation to the original assumed relations of 
 interaction. The individuals, whose development 
 constitutes the world-process, grow by going out¬ 
 side of themselves. If each were absolutely iso¬ 
 lated no forward movement would be possible. 
 
THE FINITE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 153 
 
 Relationships of interaction are the conditions of 
 a living growth. The relationships of the indi¬ 
 vidual constantly carry him beyond himself. Now, 
 if we place the relationships between the individ¬ 
 uals but external to them, we shut out the pos¬ 
 sibility of a real reciprocal influence, and our 
 network of growing individuals (which we con¬ 
 ceive to be the world-process) falls to pieces. 
 We do not get over the difficulty by inventing 
 new terms of relationship to connect the first 
 relationships of individuals conceived as origi¬ 
 nally isolated. We may carry on this process of 
 making connections ad libitum. But an infinite 
 series of relationships without any real centres 
 of relationship is a non-entity. We move over 
 a hanging cobweb of thought without finding a 
 solid resting-place anywhere. We build bridges 
 in mid-stream without ever reaching the shore. 
 In this way the individuals, which are the real 
 factors in the evolutionary or historical process, 
 fade into nothingness. The process takes place 
 without anything to proceed. Relationships are 
 established without anything to be related. The 
 only way out of the difficulty is to conceive the 
 relations of interaction as directly proceeding 
 from and directly entering into the individuals 
 themselves, i.e., as expressive of and involved in 
 their very nature. But since each individual is 
 finite and dependent, passive as well as active, 
 this conception of the relationship of individuals 
 
154 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 is not possible unless the finite individual is a 
 centre in a larger system. 
 
 The world-process, then, must ultimately be a 
 system. The development of finite individuals is 
 dependent on a unity of existence which underlies 
 and carries forward the entire evolutionary pro¬ 
 cess. Finite individuals, as participating in the 
 world-process, are not wholly independent centres 
 of action. They are conscious foci or concentra¬ 
 tion and radiation points for and in the activity 
 of the whole. They are elements or constituent 
 units in the one system of reality, and this system 
 is a highly complex Individuality. I cannot tell 
 how individuals come to be points of relative 
 independence in one system. I cannot tell how 
 Being as we experience it in all its concrete 
 diversity and manifoldness was made. I must 
 be content to comprehend it as it is, i.e., as it 
 manifests itself. 
 
 My theory, so far, has said nothing in regard 
 to the persistence of the individuals as they may 
 appear to exist at any given time, or the preser¬ 
 vation by them of their present measure of con¬ 
 sciousness. That the individuals influence one 
 another as differentiations in one system may be 
 fatal to the substantiality of a given individual. 
 The whole may shift its arrangements, so that 
 what is now apparently an individual may be dis¬ 
 integrated. But I think we are justified in say¬ 
 ing that the development of individuals is the 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 155 
 
 meaning, or part of the meaning, of the evolution 
 of our section of the universe from its nebulous 
 beginnings to the present stage of historical de¬ 
 velopment. 
 
 If the unity which the world- process involves 
 and on which it depends is the Absolute Reality , 
 then the latter expresses itself in time by the 
 production and development of finite selves 
 or spirits. The meaning of the time-process 
 is the growth of a world of individuals. In order 
 that there may be such a world there must be 
 a Unity behind finite individuals, i.e., an Abso¬ 
 lute Individual who is the source of the finite 
 selves and the groundof their development in time. 
 The interpretation of the time-process has led me 
 to the same result as the former analysis of expe¬ 
 rience without specific reference to its temporal as¬ 
 pect. In both cases I reach an Absolute Individual. 
 
 But the Absolute Individual of the first part, 
 so far as our analysis of experience went, was time¬ 
 less. The Individual, as he has just been defined, 
 lives, works, and manifests himself under the 
 conditions of time. This seems fatal to his Ab¬ 
 soluteness and Perfection. Can we discover sug¬ 
 gestions of a reconciliation ? 
 
 3. The Absolute and the Time-Process—The 
 Terms of their Union. 
 
 The consideration of human experience with¬ 
 out reference to time led us to the idea of an 
 
156 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 Absolute, Self-conscious Unity of Experience—in 
 other words, to an Absolute Individual or Self. 
 The consideration of the world-process led to the 
 doctrine that the finite individuals, which ex¬ 
 press, in their development, the meaning of that 
 process, can have so developed only if there is 
 one originating and sustaining principle of the 
 development. The development of individuals 
 culminates (so far as we know) in the human self. 
 The latter finds its own realization in the attain¬ 
 ment and enjoyment of truth , beauty , and goodness 
 as factors in the living unity of its experience. 
 To possess this sort of nature is to be a spirit or 
 ethical self. The meaning, or an integral part of 
 the meaning, of the world-process, then, is to be 
 found in the development of spiritual individuals. 
 Therefore the active principle which originates and 
 sustains the processes of finite growth must itself 
 be spiritual. The earlier analysis of experience led 
 to the doctrine that the ultimate reality is the 
 Conscious Unity of Experience , i.e., the Absolute 
 Individual or Self. It appears now that this In¬ 
 dividual, considered in his relations to the world- 
 process, may properly be regarded as spiritual. 
 
 But if we undertake to characterize the perfect 
 Unity of Experience in terms derived from the 
 finite self we seem to vitiate its nature. For the 
 finite self is but a part of the world-process, and 
 shares in all the imperfections of the temporal 
 and visible world. It exists in space. It changes 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 15 7 
 
 in time. It is active only against obstacles or 
 in response to stimulation from without. It is 
 tarnished by evil! Can the attributes of such a 
 being afford us any hint as to the nature of a per¬ 
 fect Spirit ? Is it not inconceivable, to begin with, 
 that an unchanging Absolute should manifest him¬ 
 self in space and time ? 
 
 The relation of space to Absolute Reality must 
 here be dealt with briefly. The notion of space 
 is involved in contradictions, for a statement of 
 which the reader is referred to Mr. Bradley’s 
 Appearance and Reality, chap. iii. A space- 
 world seems to have no necessary relation to con¬ 
 scious existence. I can conceive of real non- 
 spatial existence. Consciousness itself does not 
 occupy a definite position in space ; and if we 
 cannot definitely localize consciousness in space 
 it would seem that the latter cannot be a neces¬ 
 sary condition of the existence of consciousness. 
 Consciousness is the condition of spatial existence. 
 If when we endeavor to think space as a real 
 
 X 
 
 existence we become involved in insoluble con¬ 
 tradictions, we may admit its unreality. For, at 
 best, it seems to be the form of outer experience 
 only. Space may be the illusory and pictorial way 
 in which the human imagmation figures to itself 
 objectivity. Now, the true meaning of objectivity 
 is an existence independent of the passing moment 
 of a finite consciousness. Its apparent mean¬ 
 ing is existence outside the finite consciousness. 
 
158 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 Hence, space is perhaps the imaginative form 
 which the human mind gives to objective exist¬ 
 ence. The reality underlying the idea of space 
 is the total world of experience, in which the finite 
 self is a constituent element. 
 
 The question as to the reality of time is more 
 fundamental and more serious. For “ process, de¬ 
 velopment, progress',' are all conceptions which in¬ 
 volve time. Time is the form in which we expe¬ 
 rience all things. Nevertheless it cannot be real 
 as we experience it, since it is full of inconsis¬ 
 tencies. When we attempt to conceive time as 
 divided either finitely or infinitely we fall into 
 contradictions. The attempt to reconstruct in 
 thought the apparent immediacy of time, i.e ., to 
 think the “ now,” is likewise involved in contra¬ 
 dictions . 1 To think any instant of time as pres¬ 
 ent is to seek its relations to a “ before ” and an 
 “ after.” But in thinking these relations the in¬ 
 stant the “ now ” is lost the present is dissolved. 
 We find ourselves involved in an endless search for 
 the final term in a network of relationships. The 
 present moment seems to be most real, but when 
 we try to seize it in thought we find it fades into 
 the past and the future, and these again get their 
 reality only from their relations to the present 
 moment. The present seems to be the only part 
 of time which has reality, and this reality is im¬ 
 mediate, i.e., it cannot be reconstructed in thought. 
 
 1 See Bradley, Appearance and Reality , chap. iv. 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 159 
 
 It has been assumed in this essay that the 
 spiritual life of man is in some sense real and 
 has a positive relation to the Absolute. Now, the 
 spiritual life of man appears to be progressive. 
 Man is essentially a historically conditioned being. 
 He is engaged in an unceasing struggle to over¬ 
 come the shortcomings and contradictions of his 
 own nature. He forever strives to reach a goal 
 which is set before him by his own aspirations. 
 Man’s strivings make up the passion and the 
 pathos of history. Does the Absolute participate 
 in the struggles of history ? Does he share in the 
 joys and sorrows of humanity? Has he an inter¬ 
 est in human striving? If he has not, if our ethi¬ 
 cal experiences are not in some way shared by the 
 absolute Being, then our struggles are finite illu¬ 
 sions. If our progress has no bearing on his life, 
 then all our efforts to attain the higher life are 
 but shadows playing on the shifting scenes of the 
 world-farce, then all our higher aspirations are 
 mere phantasms, born of some meaningless distri¬ 
 bution of the elements of the cosmos, to die away 
 when the mechanism of the whole readjusts itself. 
 If we deny that human progress affects the life of 
 the Absolute Being, then we assert that he is a 
 mere static unity, without any of those qualities 
 which we know as spiritual or living . 
 
 If it be said that a Being who is eternally at 
 one with himself, and who knows not, or if he 
 knows feels not , the struggles of finite spirits may 
 
160 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 yet be spiritual, I answer that such a being would 
 be spiritual in no sense of the term that touches 
 at any point our own ethical, personal experience. 
 Spiritual life signifies the livingness and progress of 
 finite spirits. It is realized in the historical move¬ 
 ment of humanity. If livingness and progress are 
 but illusions, when seen from the point of view 
 of Ultimate Reality, then all the spiritual life we 
 strive after and know is a phantasm and history 
 has no ethical significance. On the other hand, 
 if he shares in the life of finite spirits, if their prog¬ 
 ress is real to him, how can the Absolute now be 
 perfect? Will there not forever be something 
 unrealized in him ? Will he not be imperfect un¬ 
 til finite spirits have reached their goal and time 
 has ceased to be? So long as we continue to 
 think on the plane of the discursive intellect this 
 antinomy remains here. He who seeks exclu¬ 
 sively the ideal of a static , unitary system of being 
 may attain satisfaction; but he gets it at the 
 expense of sacrificing the moral life on the altar 
 of an abstract unity. For him history becomes 
 meaningless. He who regards the meaning of 
 the world as spiritual, and the meaning of our 
 section of it as the spiritual growth of human in¬ 
 dividuals, indeed values the ethical life of man 
 at its highest, but he seems to contradict the 
 demands of speculative thought for a timeless 
 Absolute. 
 
 If time is absolutely real, then the absolute Being 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 161 
 
 is subject to change and hence imperfect. For 
 time has no meaning apart from change. If time 
 is an utter illusion, then the life of finite spirits 
 is an illusion. We seem to be impaled on the 
 horns of a dilemma ! Is there any escape ? Re¬ 
 call the former conclusions! In the first section 
 the Absolute was established as the unity of the 
 system of individual finite experiences. In the 
 second section the Absolute appeared to be the 
 originator and sustainer of the world-process, in 
 and by means of which finite individuals develop. 
 From both standpoints the Absolute is individual 
 and therefore concrete and complex. Now, he 
 could not be an Absolute in the first sense without 
 manifesting and realizing himself in a system 
 of finite individuals. For it was the finite char¬ 
 acter of the experience of human selves that led 
 to the idea of the Absolute. Therefore the re¬ 
 ality of finite individuals is involved in the very 
 existence of the Absolute. If the Absolute is 
 eternally perfect and complete, there can be no 
 cessation of his self-manifestation or self-activity 
 in a system of finite individuals. His absolute 
 perfection is only possible through his constant 
 production of imperfect individuals and the ful¬ 
 filment of his purpose through these. When the 
 genesis and activity of individuals ceases the Ab¬ 
 solute ceases to be conceivable as a living , active 
 Spirit. 
 
 Now, a given finite individual moves in a 
 
162 modern conceptions of god 
 
 definite direction in the total movement of the 
 Absolute, which is the eternal generation of 
 finite selves. The generating process must repeat 
 itself in a unique way in the development of each 
 finite self. Without this uniqueness of experience 
 he would not be an individual. From the stand¬ 
 point of any given finite individual, then, the 
 whole process must appear imperfect, incomplete, 
 and transitory. When he thinks the process, he 
 does so in terms of his own immediate and unique 
 experience. But change is an essential aspect of 
 his own experience as a development. Time is 
 the generalization of this individual experience of 
 change, which is forever repeating itself in new 
 selves. The finite individual therefore projects 
 his experience of change out on the world-process 
 when he thinks the latter as a whole in which he 
 is a part. Time, then, is the imaginative, pictorial 
 way in which the finite self represents his own 
 relatively real experience of development. He 
 marks his own genesis and the genesis of other 
 finite individuals by the idea of time. But in his 
 most profound experiences the finite self drops 
 the idea of time altogether. He becomes uncon¬ 
 scious of it. In the contemplation or creation of 
 beauty, in the successful prosecution of truth, in 
 the highest moral endeavor, and in the deepest 
 religious devotion there is no direct experience of 
 time. Indeed, in any experience in which the self 
 has overcome contradictions or discordances and 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 163 
 
 functions harmoniously in the achievement of its 
 end, the sense of time is absent. These momen¬ 
 tary and interrupted experiences suggest, and in¬ 
 deed partially contain, the goal of the finite self’s 
 growth. Through them abstract time , regarded as 
 a distinct entity, is seen to be an illusion. It dis¬ 
 appears from before the face of the higher unity 
 of experience. 
 
 The time-process, as it appears to the finite self, 
 can never be entirely real for the Absolute Indi¬ 
 vidual. Time is the phenomenal manner in which 
 their own continuous genesis appears to the finite 
 selves. For these, however, it remains the gen¬ 
 eral and enveloping condition of experience, 
 although in their deepest experiences they mo¬ 
 mentarily transcend it. Its cessation, phenomenal 
 and relative to us though it be, would signify the 
 cessation of our experience of the process of our 
 own genesis and growth ; and, inasmuch as expe¬ 
 rience is social, and hence we must share in the 
 experience of growth on the part of other finite 
 individuals, this would mean the completion by 
 the Absolute of a finite number of individuals 
 and the end of all finite growth. This state of 
 things would imply that the activity of the Abso¬ 
 lute at some previous point in time was imperfect 
 and incomplete. The perfection of the Absolute is 
 thinkable only if his activity in the generation and 
 development of finite individuals is forever full 
 and unceasing. If this activity be moving towards 
 
164 modern conceptions of god 
 
 a termination, then it must have had a begin¬ 
 ning. Before the inception of this activity, which 
 appears to us under the form of a time-process, 
 there must have been a felt want in the Absolute 
 which began to be satisfied with the genesis of 
 the finite, and is first fully appeased at the end of 
 the process. Then, of course, the Absolute could 
 not have been perfect and complete before the 
 process began, i.e., could not have been the 
 Absolute. We should have to begin our search 
 anew. 
 
 If, on the other hand, as we have seen good 
 reason for affirming, the genesis of finite individ¬ 
 uals is an essential and eternal process, organic 
 to the very nature of the Absolute, this genesis 
 must go forward forever, and in it the Absolute 
 forever manifests his perfection. For in it his 
 purpose is eternally realized. Nevertheless, so 
 long as there is in the world a single imperfect 
 individual Time will appear to him to exist. We 
 may think the conditions under which it arises, 
 and so convince ourselves that it is phenomenal, 
 but in so far as we are still developing we cannot 
 get rid of time. 
 
 It seems to follow that the number of finite in¬ 
 dividuals which is generated by the activity of the 
 Absolute must be unlimited. The completion of a 
 limited number of finite selves would seem to in¬ 
 volve the cessation of the activity by which they 
 are generated. In each member of the endless 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS. 
 
 165 
 
 series of finite selves the illusion of a really exist¬ 
 ent time will of course repeat itself and in turn 
 be transcended. The goal of development for 
 each finite self will be the attainment of that in¬ 
 sight into its relation to the Absolute and to other 
 finite selves with the coming of which the illusion 
 of an externally existent time will fade away. In 
 the higher forms of experience this goal seems 
 already to be partially reached. Whenever an 
 experience comes to which the self would say, 
 could it feel this experience to be transient, “ Stay, 
 fleeting moment, thou art so fair ! ” there seems 
 to be a transcendence of the time-process. But, 
 of course, while the self directly feels the moment 
 to be so fair, it can have no fear of its transiency, 
 and hence will not entreat it to stay. Not 
 until the momentary experience is disappearing 
 does the self entreat it to stay. This is a paradox 
 of life. The highest experiences which transcend 
 time and contradiction are like angels. They must 
 be entertained unawares. But their reality is not 
 destroyed because they can be fully evaluated 
 only by reference to the phenomenal time-element. 
 For, although in itself illusory, time becomes a 
 subordinated but necessary factor in the complete 
 experience. 
 
 Perhaps one hears at this point the objection 
 raised that we have forsaken pure thought, that 
 we have taken refuge in mystic insights. If it be 
 meant that discursive thought has been abandoned 
 
166 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 as incapable by itself of solving our problems, the 
 charge is admitted. Discursive thinking which 
 cannot take a step not suggested by the logical 
 law of identity takes living wholes of experience 
 to pieces in search of laws of connection or prin¬ 
 ciples of unity which, when found, turn out to be 
 but ghosts and shadows of the concrete reality 
 from which they are extracted. This analytical 
 procedure is legitimate in itself and a necessary 
 step towards a clearer and more penetrating con¬ 
 sciousness of reality. But in itself and out of itself 
 discursive thinking is unable to reconstruct real 
 experience. At the outset of its analysis it is de¬ 
 pendent on something other than itself for its 
 material. If its results are to be brought together 
 into a living unity which will reflect at a higher 
 level of insight the experience with which analyti¬ 
 cal thinking started out, there must take place 
 a synthesis of the elements into which analyti¬ 
 cal thinking has dissected the original experience. 
 This synthesis may be achieved by a speculative 
 insight which, although rational, will transcend 
 the methods and results of analytical reasoning. 
 For such an insight the reality of things will be 
 not an abstract identity of laws and principles in 
 which the individual and his unique experience 
 have no place, but a unity in diversity. The method 
 of analysis brought us face to face with the ap¬ 
 parently insoluble contradictions—of a time-world 
 and a timeless Absolute—of a progress in finite in- 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 167 
 
 dividuals and an unchanging Absolute Individual 
 as the ground of this progress. We are not able 
 by the method of analysis alone to get light on this 
 problem. Discursive thinking, after having ana¬ 
 lyzed and presented our problem, clearly points 
 the way beyond itself to the solution. For if we 
 return to our first starting-point we find that the 
 living experience, which discursive thinking has 
 analyzed, exhibits in the very presentation of 
 thought’s material a clue to the overcoming of the 
 antinomies which thought has developed in the 
 process of analysis. 
 
 Discursive thinking must push its inquiries into 
 reality, even to the length of questioning whether 
 it is in itself capable of fully comprehending and 
 expressing reality. Perhaps thinking is only dis¬ 
 covering its true place when it recognizes that, as 
 it cannot by itself make reality, so it cannot wholly 
 grasp the reality in human experience. Thought, 
 as analytical, always involves an other than itself, 
 on which it works. When we have admitted the 
 presence of thought’s activity in the constitution 
 of our experience and, by analysis, have traced its 
 activity down into the very elements of perception, 
 there still remains in the presentation of the ma¬ 
 terial of experience in the mind a factor not reduci¬ 
 ble to the forms of analytical thinking. The crudest 
 elements of sense-experience are already present as 
 synthetic wholes in relation to the feeling of the 
 unity of the self. Thought does not make the first 
 
168 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 synthesis of experience. And it does not create, 
 as it cannot abolish, the distinction and the unity of 
 subject and object, of experiencing consciousness 
 and that which is experienced. Both the dis¬ 
 tinction and the unity are implicitly given to 
 thought in an immediate experience which goes 
 below analytical thinking, and the opposition 
 of subject and object can be overcome at a 
 higher level by an immediate experience which 
 goes beyond thinking. Thought, then, does not 
 create its “ other 1' The latter is given in expe¬ 
 rience, and when thought discovers its depend¬ 
 ence on the “other" it discovers further that in 
 order to be completely one with its “ other ” it must 
 transcend itself and be taken up into a higher 
 unity. The latter shall be, by reason of thought’s 
 activity, the clearer expression of that immediate 
 unity of experience from which thought started 
 out. When thought embraces its “ other ” it 
 ceases to be any longer itself. By showing the 
 presence in nature and in life of apparently oppos¬ 
 ing powers and contradictory principles, analytical 
 thinking reveals the riches and the depth of the 
 real world which it lights up. But Thought is 
 not in itself Reality. It is only a limited aspect 
 of Reality. Feeling which gives the impulse to 
 
 1 I apply the term Feeling, ( a ) in a narrower sense to those 
 primitive conscious states which have directly conative tendencies, 
 (b) in a wider sense to all immediate phases of consciousness in 
 contrast to reflective thinking. 
 
THE TIME-PROCESS 
 
 169 
 
 Conation, and Emotion , which leads the self to 
 strive until the harmony of feeling, from the dis¬ 
 turbance of which conation originates, is restored 
 —these reveal more fully the reality in human 
 experience, which discursive thinking can analyze 
 and point out, but can never be. Impelled by 
 Feeling, Thinking begins with the reality as im¬ 
 mediate experience. This experience Thinking 
 analyzes in order that conation may bring to pass 
 the higher harmony of feeling. And the latter, 
 after the work of thought has been done, is no 
 longer mere blind feeling, but feeling illuminated 
 and refined by thought and stamped with a 
 fixity of character by its own repeated expression 
 in action. Feeling has become an organized 
 and permanent emotional disposition or Sen¬ 
 timent. 
 
 A key to the nature of the Absolute Being as 
 he is for us has been found in the nature of the 
 finite individual regarded as a unity of conscious¬ 
 ness, in which feeling and its volitional expression 
 are fundamental, and discursive thinking is the 
 organ for their definition and realization. I must 
 still inquire if the finite self offers any further em¬ 
 pirical verification and positive determination of 
 the nature of the Absolute as I have indicated it 
 to be. 
 
I JO MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 4 . Further Positive Determination of the Absolute 
 in Relation to Man — The A bsolute is the Im¬ 
 mediately Experienced Unity of Will and 
 Thought. 
 
 Finite individuals can exist only as organic mem¬ 
 bers of a system which has a central unity. This 
 unity is the Absolute Individual. Can we say 
 more concerning its nature ? 
 
 It must be a unity which preserves its identity 
 amidst differences, its perfection amidst change. 
 It must be a unity which pervades all the apparent 
 contradictions of the actual world and yet re¬ 
 mains at one. with itself. It must be spiritual in 
 its essential nature. For the end of the develop¬ 
 ment which it originates and directs—the goal of 
 the world-process—is the realization of the sys¬ 
 tem of finite spirits. When we look in experi¬ 
 ence for suggestions as to the nature of such a 
 unity we find it in the life of the self. The finite 
 self at its highest power is a unity which embraces 
 concrete differences and undergoes change, and 
 yet maintains itself in an unbroken and continu¬ 
 ous self-feeling. The self preserves itself, from 
 day to day, amidst the struggles and contradic¬ 
 tions that threaten to rend it in twain, and at 
 moments in the pauses of the struggles it gets 
 glimpses of a harmony in which the differences 
 are healed and the struggles have ceased. Rather, 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 171 
 
 may we not say that the self, when it takes stock 
 of itself as a whole, realizes that its true life is lived 
 in the apparent contradictions and discordances 
 that seem to seek its death ? 
 
 Again, if the Absolute is a unity he must be a 
 self-consciousness. For the partial unity of the 
 real in our experience exists for us only as present 
 to our consciousness. Therefore the total Reality 
 can be one experience ( i.e ., can hold together) only 
 if the unity of experience exists immediately in 
 the Absolute. And this unity of experience has 
 no meaning unless the Absolute is a single self 
 consciousness. 
 
 The self-conscious Absolute is God as philoso¬ 
 phy conceives him in relation to us. But the ex¬ 
 perience of the Divine Self in comprehending the 
 contents of this consciousness cannot, for reasons 
 already given, be adequately conceived after the 
 analogy of human thought in its analytic and 
 discursive activity. The Divine Self is best figured 
 as an intuitive Intelligence which penetrates and 
 illuminates the entire system of finite individuals. 
 He may be pictured as a centre or fountain of 
 light the rays of which irradiate the (to it) trans¬ 
 lucent particulars of the universe. God is a self- 
 experience conscious of itself in and through the 
 finite centres of experience which are its contents. 
 This self-experience as a single consciousness is, 
 for us, an intuition. 
 
 God is better described as self-intuitive than as 
 
i;2 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 simply self-conscious. The latter term implies a 
 division between the self and the contents of its 
 experience, a contrast between the self and what 
 it thinks as external to itself. The self is thrown 
 back upon itself from its effort to comprehend the 
 not-self. In God there can be no such division 
 between form and content, self and not-self. By 
 describing God as the absolute self-intuition or 
 self-experience we mean that he is the central con¬ 
 scious unity which experiences all aspects of ex¬ 
 istence as its content. God is a Spiritual Indi¬ 
 viduality. , a Personality infinitely more clear to 
 himself than my own self-consciousness is to me. 
 
 The finite self, considered in the unity of its 
 life, gives us the clearest intimation we can find 
 of how a complexity of contents, a multiplicity 
 of concrete difference, i.e., of individual existences, 
 can be held together as an individual system. But 
 since the jarring details are perhaps never wholly 
 harmonized in the finite self-experience, so we may 
 not be able to understand fully and in detail just 
 how the apparent contradictions in the totality of 
 experience (eg, good and evil) fit harmoniously 
 into a single world-meaning. Nevertheless in the 
 immediacy and unity of our self feeling we have 
 direct experience of a unity that maintains itself 
 successfully amidst the diversity that it embraces. 
 The self preserves its being amidst the almost over¬ 
 mastering impulses, the aching desires, the unreal¬ 
 ized ideals that threaten it with anarchy but really 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 173 
 
 contribute to its life. That the finite self is never 
 completely object to itself, and hence never wholly 
 present in immediate experience, is not a valid 
 objection to taking it as indicative of the nature 
 of the Absolute. The Real must of course tran¬ 
 scend the immediate passing experience. It can 
 never be envisaged as a specific psychological con¬ 
 tent. What we seek is the necessary implicate of 
 our finite experience. The empirical finite self 
 does itself transcend its fleeting experiences. In 
 many of its passing states the self is not aware of its 
 own unity. But its very ability to note these states, 
 to recall them, and to recognize its own immersion 
 in its momentary experiences depends on the un¬ 
 failing presence of the unity of consciousness, even 
 when the self is least aware of itself. The basis 
 of the notion of self is the immediate self-feeling 
 which is always present in cognition and conation, 
 although it may not appear with distinctness in 
 consciousness, since the self may be for the moment 
 immersed in the particulars of its own passing 
 states. Knowledge and action both spring from 
 this unity of feeling or immediate consciousness, 
 and in their attainment they return to enhance it, 
 to make richer the immediate life of the self, which 
 is felt as a single pulse. 
 
 It may be asked whether the world as the content 
 of the Divine Self-consciousness contains anything 
 but selves, i.e. t possesses elements which are not 
 individuals. In a previous section I reached the 
 
174 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 conclusion that all that is real must in some way 
 minister to the life of spirits either as stimulus to 
 their development or organs of their expression. 
 But to be a spirit is to be an individual or self. 
 Anything that could not be defined in relation to 
 spirits would be cut off either from the fragmentary 
 unity of experience in the finite self or from the 
 absolute unity of experience. Such a thing would 
 be a u Ding-an-sich” an “ unknowable.” 
 
 From this point of view, what we call inorganic 
 nature can be so designated only because of the 
 narrowness of our vision. It must be either the 
 embodiment of certain, to us unknown, forms of 
 finite self-hood or (but less likely) the direct 
 embodiment of the Absolute by which he enters 
 into relation to finite spirits, and stimulates, guides, 
 and furthers, as well as limits, the development of 
 finite selves. The two hypotheses are not mu¬ 
 tually exclusive. In any case, so-called inorganic 
 nature is organic to the activity of spirits; it is a 
 medium of intercourse between human selves and 
 the Absolute. Some such explanation would also 
 be valid for the lower forms of organic life. But 
 the further development of the idea belongs to the 
 Philosophy of Nature. 1 
 
 I have constantly spoken of God as the all- 
 
 1 Perhaps the most important and the most difficult question in 
 this connection would be to determine the nature and kinds of 
 imperfect {i.e ., not self-conscious) individuals, their degrees of 
 permanency and the reasons for their existence. 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 175 
 
 embracing self-consciousness, the Infinite Individ¬ 
 ual who unifies and sustains the system of finite 
 individuals. But an individual is, as we have seen, 
 not a mere thought. Its thought serves its cona¬ 
 tion, and the goal of its conation is a harmony of 
 feeling, a perfect unity of experience. Therefore 
 the Absolute Individual, regarded as the source of 
 the conative activity of finite selves, must be zvill. 
 What, then, is the relation of the finite wills to the 
 Universal Will—to God’s will? We cannot logi¬ 
 cally speak of God as the Absolute Will before 
 whom the finite is as nothing. This mode of 
 speech excludes the Absolute Will and the human 
 will from any positive relationship. It then be¬ 
 comes impossible to define the Absolute in any 
 terms, since we have no connecting point in finite 
 experience. By this method of thought when 
 the Absolute is present all human attributes are 
 absent, and, vice versa, when the idea of man is 
 present that of the Absolute is absent. Hence 
 God becomes a blind, unknown Force. We have 
 Mr. Spencer’s doctrine reached by a shorter road. 
 It is true that in religious feeling God is often 
 regarded as the Infinite and Holy Will without 
 the significance of these terms being defined. In¬ 
 deed, at the moment of devotion definition would 
 be fatal. 
 
 But, from our present point of view, the defini¬ 
 tion of God as the Absolute, comprehending all 
 power within himself, must not and does not an- 
 
i;6 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 nihilate the will of the finite individual. For the 
 relation between them is that of the Infinite Spirit 
 to its specific, unique self-conscious organs and 
 manifestations. Neither exists without the other. 
 The religious man who feels his own dependence 
 on God does not even in the depths of this feel¬ 
 ing lose himself completely in God. The feeling 
 of dependence and the sense of self-hood are the 
 two complementary aspects of the religious union 
 of the finite and the infinite. The religious man 
 knows that communion with God demands a har¬ 
 monious relationship with the Divine Life, not a 
 sinking of self in an infinite ocean of being. The 
 true and ethical relation of the absolute and the 
 finite wills is one of unity in diversity, not one of 
 abstract identity. The attempt to proclaim in the 
 same breath the abstract dynamic absoluteness of 
 God and the ethical reality of the human will is 
 foredoomed to failure. Am I free to determine 
 my actions through my own will? If I am so 
 free, then God, conceived as a Being over against 
 and excluding me, is not absolute. The freedom 
 of man 1 is bound up with his character as ethical. 
 Without the power of self-determination man 
 becomes a mere thing, a blind tool. The Divine 
 Being can have positive meaning for us only in so 
 far as he stands towards us in ethical relations. 
 
 1 The freedom insisted on here is not that of absolute indif¬ 
 ference or pure indeterminism, but of the self-expression of the 
 unique, individual spirit. 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 1 77 
 
 In the creation of man, God imposes upon him¬ 
 self a self-limitation or individualization of power 
 which is at the same time a self-realization of love 
 and the expression of his innermost nature. 
 
 If man’s power of self-determination were sud¬ 
 denly taken away it would no longer be possible 
 to define the Absolute in ethical or spiritual terms. 
 The nothingness of man would involve the ethical 
 nothingness of God. It follows that God as he is 
 represented by the ideas which are commonly used 
 to express popular religious thought is not the 
 Absolute of philosophy. In the mystical form of 
 devotion the two ideas approximate more closely. 
 Popular religious thought tends to conceive God 
 as a being outside 0/and over against man. Deeper 
 religious experience recognizes the being of God 
 in man. The philosophical Absolute is the God 
 of popular religion together with finite spirits con¬ 
 ceived as the members of a harmonious system. 
 
 Individual finite wills are relatively independent 
 centres of action. This is matter of experience, 
 and, moreover, to deny the relative reality of the 
 individual will is to saw off the branch which sup¬ 
 ports us while we philosophize. On the other 
 hand, the world-will is God’s will, as it creates and 
 directs the course of our world, and as it unites 
 itself with man’s will. The Absolute Will is the 
 comprehensive unitary will which sustains all the 
 finite centres of will in their interaction and directs 
 their efforts towards the realization of a single 
 
 12 
 
178 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 world-meaning or Telos. The finite individual ful¬ 
 fils his destiny by recognizing and exercising his 
 unique function in the movement of the world-life. 
 If an individual absolutely refuses to so recognizee 
 his function he may ipso facto forfeit his individ¬ 
 uality. His will may perish. This is a possibility. 
 
 This view of the relation of the finite will and 
 the Absolute will does not, as might be thought, 
 divorce the true religious and the metaphysical 
 conceptions of God. Man knows himself as a free 
 or self-determining being in order that he may 
 consciously unite his will with the will of God. In 
 so doing he submits himself to his own highest 
 will. Religion completes itself in the vision of 
 the Absolute Will, which forever finds its fruition 
 by expressing itself through and in finite spirits. 
 The Divine Self fulfils its own life through “ finite 
 centres of experience,” which in turn realize them¬ 
 selves through oneness with the Divine Self. This 
 oneness, this communion of the finite and the Di¬ 
 vine, is the self-expression and self-fulfilment of 
 the Absolute Life. 1 
 
 An objection may be raised to describing the 
 Absolute as Will. Will, it is said, manifests itself 
 in activity, and activity is always finite. It is a 
 mere appearance. It is urged that all perception 
 of activity arises from the expansion of the self 
 against the not-self, and that therefore our notion 
 
 1 The unity in difference of the finite and the absolute selves 
 forms the groundwork of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 179 
 
 of activity must be always finite. For activity can 
 be known, and can therefore exist only as aroused 
 through conflict with external objects. Now, of 
 course, activity in this sense cannot be predicated 
 of the ultimate Reality, inasmuch as there can be 
 nothing beyond the Absolute to occasion his activ¬ 
 ity, and if there were something beyond, he would 
 cease to be absolute. But this objection is not 
 fatal to the ascription of activity to the Absolute. 
 Naturally, we should expect the activity of the 
 finite will to appear as limited and conditioned 
 from without. The finite self, by virtue of its fini- 
 tude, implies more than itself. Nevertheless, in 
 its action as well as in its thought it constantly 
 returns into itself from its dependence on things 
 external. Moreover, from the beginning, its most 
 characteristic action goes out from itself, i.e., is 
 not externally generated. The individual life be¬ 
 gins as the expression of an inter 7ial impulse. We 
 have constant experience in our own lives of an 
 inner striving, an impulse towards self-realization, 
 which is wholly self-generated and arises from the 
 struggle of desires within the self, although the 
 details of its satisfaction depend on the not-self or 
 external world. The will-to-live, the basic and in¬ 
 dividual impulse towards self-realization, is, in all 
 its forms of manifestation, this striving which 
 originates from within. In the ethical form of the 
 will-to-live the inner conflict of desires, as well as 
 the conflict of the will with other wills, is continu- 
 
l8o MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 ously being overcome. Indeed, so far is the feel¬ 
 ing of activity from being a specific result of 
 specific opposition from without that it accom¬ 
 panies the entire conscious life of the finite self. 
 It is not a specific experience which can be defi¬ 
 nitely placed at a single point within experience, 
 precisely in the same way that the entire unity of 
 self-feeling is not a specific experience or separable 
 part of self-consciousness. The feeling of activity 
 is one aspect of the entire unity of consciousness. 
 One who says he cannot see it is in the position 
 of the observer who cannot see the woods for the 
 trees. By activity I mean the sense of a progres¬ 
 sive expansion of life. We find no trace of a spe¬ 
 cific sense of effort as one irreducible element in 
 conscious experience. The truth is that what is 
 popularly called will is not a primitive element of 
 consciousness. All psychic life tends to express 
 itself, i.e., is conative , and our so-called will is de¬ 
 rived from the original feeling-impulses of our 
 nature as these are inhibited, modified, directed, 
 and harmonized under the influence of thought* 
 The original basis of volition, then, lies in the cona¬ 
 tive character of primitive feelings, and its develop¬ 
 ment is determined by the interaction of feeling- 
 impulse and thought. These are the original as¬ 
 pects of finite consciousness. The word “ will ” 
 gets its significance from ethics. It is the latest 
 and highest phase of self-activity. Will is the 
 final form of conation or feeling-impulse. The 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 181 
 
 final form gives significance to the whole devel¬ 
 opment. 
 
 It is true that the finite character of ourselves 
 makes us dependent on the cooperation of the 
 not-self for the realization of our ends. But the 
 truth or value of our activity lies in its purpose 
 or meaning. Activities and achievements as well 
 as all extra-personal facts and events get their 
 final meanings for us from their relations to the 
 realization of our purposes, the attainment of our 
 ends. It is true that the fulfilment of a purpose 
 in a series of successive events is a process in 
 time. It is also true that the objectification or 
 successful realization of our ends is dependent on 
 the establishment of a harmony between the self 
 and the not-self. But even where our end, as at 
 first conceived, seems not to be attained in time 
 it is frequently attained in a new and more sig¬ 
 nificant sense than we had intended. And in any 
 case the meaning of the process of realization for 
 self consists in its felt value. The end is itself con¬ 
 ceived without reference to time, and in its attain¬ 
 ment the self reposes without any sense of tem¬ 
 poral lapse. In the presence and enjoyment of 
 the realized end the conflict between self and not- 
 sel»f has been absorbed, and therefore the sense of 
 strain, which was produced by the obstruction of 
 the purposeful striving (conation), and which in 
 turn produced the sense of the time-interval in 
 its length and its feeling-tone, has vanished. If a 
 
1 82 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 perfect harmony were established between the 
 self and the not-self the lapse of time either as 
 tiresome ( langweilig ), or pleasant ( kurzweilig ), 
 would no longer have any meaning for us. For 
 it is a well-known fact that in proportion as our 
 activity is unobstructed and full of unwaning in¬ 
 terest our experience is pleasurable and the sense 
 of time is absent. We become absorbed in our ac¬ 
 tivity, and the flow of time is not observed. If, 
 then, the flow of activity were wholly uninterrupted 
 and harmonious, is it not conceivable that we should 
 still possess the agreeable experience of our ac¬ 
 tivity as a harmonious element in the One Infinite 
 Life? Now, God, if he be conceived as the Ab¬ 
 solute Spirit, is the self-contained Activity or Life 
 of the universe. Therefore, since he is at every 
 instant active to the fullest degree possible, his 
 purpose, which forever expresses his activity in 
 the life of the endless series of finite individuals, 
 is forever satisfied. The goal of attainment, which, 
 for each one of us, as a very limited factor in the 
 whole, is future , is for him eternally present . 
 What we feel as future attainment is for him pres¬ 
 ent blessedness. 
 
 Our finite experience is a partial appearance 
 of that which is ultimately Real. The living Ab¬ 
 solute manifests himself in every finite experience. 
 Every form of appearance expresses the ultimate 
 Reality in some degree or manner, and is so far 
 real. Truth has degrees, and error somehow be- 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 183 
 
 longs to the Real. What appears to us as error 
 has, in its relation to the Absolute, a truth, and 
 constitutes part of the final world-meaning. 
 
 There are likewise degrees of goodness. Evil 
 transformed has a place in the final world-mean¬ 
 ing. It is not for the Absolute as it appears to 
 us. It is impossible here to discuss at length the 
 place of evil in the world-meaning. Similar ar¬ 
 guments would apply to its relation to the Abso¬ 
 lute as were indicated in the discussion of the 
 time-process. The possibility of evil is the means 
 to the realization of righteousness in man. This 
 could not be otherwise, since man is finite and 
 involved in change. But the good, when seen 
 from the standpoint of the timeless, living Abso¬ 
 lute, is now actually realized. In God’s insight 
 what is in man an evil impulse becomes trans¬ 
 formed into an element in the good will which 
 has membership in the absolute system of wills. 
 In so doing it loses its evil character. Evil, viewed 
 as a totality in relation to the entire system of 
 reality, has just the same position as the evil im¬ 
 pulse in the good man, which, although an immi¬ 
 nent possibility of actual evil, in not becoming 
 actualized forms an element in his realization of 
 goodness. But it may be said evil is actually 
 realized in the world. How do we explain its 
 presence ? It is sometimes more than an illusion 
 or a bare possibility. Why and how is it in such 
 cases a means to the good? Well, if there are to 
 
184 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 be finite wills, if the Absolute cannot express him¬ 
 self otherwise than in the generation of an endless 
 series of individual and limited centres of action, 
 then, unless this whole process is a farce, the indi¬ 
 vidual will must possess a real possibility of act¬ 
 ing out of harmony with the system of reality. 
 Actual evil, then, is the positive disharmony of the 
 finite centres of will with other finite centres, and 
 therefore with the Absolute Will of God. He is 
 conscious of this disharmony, but conscious also 
 of its subordination to his own world-meaning, 
 and its impotence to wreck the absolute purpose 
 which is eternally realized. The finite individual 
 is free to hold himself aloof from God and his 
 fellows. He is free to choose evil. But in per¬ 
 sistently so doing he annihilates himself. For 
 his aloofness is not ultimate but self-destructive. 
 
 The Absolute Reality is a self , which embraces 
 and sustains all finite centres of experience in its 
 concrete unity. It is spiritual , for the develop¬ 
 ment of the spiritual is the meaning of the histori¬ 
 cal process of human experience. All the contra¬ 
 dictions and discordances of life exist as means 
 for the development of individual spirits, and are 
 already overcome in the growth of the natural 
 individual into full personality. Each person is a 
 unique manifestation of the Absolute Reality. 
 The highest value we can find in the world of ex¬ 
 perience, and the only final and comprehensive 
 value in this world, is expressed in the self-con- 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 185 
 
 scious life of spirits. If we cannot postulate the 
 life of finite conscious spirits as in essential har¬ 
 mony with the purpose of the cosmos, and as ex¬ 
 pressing, however imperfectly, the nature of the 
 Absolute, then we know nothing about the latter ; 
 then our knowledge has no goal; the interpreta¬ 
 tion of the world-process in any terms that spring 
 from human thought has no real and final mean¬ 
 ing ; then our social morality and our individual 
 strivings towards the good have no more signifi¬ 
 cance in the universe than the fluttering of a leaf 
 in the autumn stillness ; then our ideals of beauty 
 and perfection are but dreams that have not even 
 a rational cause. For to find the latter would be 
 to assume that the universe is rational. 
 
 Our lives may not have quite the relations to 
 the whole of reality that they seem to us to have. 
 We may not be able to apprehend with perfect 
 clearness the whole process of cosmical develop¬ 
 ment. But if we are not to be put to permanent 
 intellectual and moral confusion we must believe 
 that man is not homeless in the universe, that his 
 spiritual development has value for the whole 
 system of reality. Reality is not pure thought or 
 abstract reason. But it must be rational, and 
 as rational it must be spiritual—the perfect unity 
 of experience. 
 
 Experience in us begins in feeling, traverses 
 the long road of alternate self-estrangement and 
 return-to-self in thought and volition, and attains 
 
186 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 to unity with itself in those moments when it af¬ 
 fords glimpses of that higher unity in which the 
 skeleton of thought is, by the fulfilment of our 
 purposes, clothed once more with the living and 
 now spiritual whole of emotion and sentiment, and 
 goodness and beauty become concrete experiences. 
 The values of life are always experienced as im¬ 
 mediate feelings. 
 
 The Absolute is a living self. What a spirit 
 that did energize and was not in any sense an active 
 experience could mean the present writer is unable 
 to conceive. God is the One Ultimate Spirit, the 
 Absolute Person. He is at once the concrete 
 unity of individual finite spirits and the Infinite 
 Spirit, reposing in himself. He is conscious of 
 himself as living in and through finite spirits. 
 These, again, have achieved the purpose of their 
 being when they can feel and progressively realize 
 their unity with the Absolute Spirit. In the one¬ 
 ness of his consciousness God knows, or rather is, 
 the world-meaning. What we call feeling and 
 thinking must coalesce in him into a sun-clear in¬ 
 tuition of his self and of the universe as the mani¬ 
 festation of himself. This intuition penetrates 
 with its clear light to the inmost recesses of being. 
 As the untroubled, transparent, perfect conscious¬ 
 ness, as the undisturbed unity of experience, God 
 is active and feels his own activity. But since in 
 this activity there is neither partial cessation nor 
 any temporal variation there can be in God no 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 l8 7 
 
 sense of unattained striving. At the same time 
 he must know and feel the strivings of his crea¬ 
 tures. But since he knows what the striving 
 creature does not know as immediately certain, 
 viz., the outcome of the strivings, the unity and 
 the harmony of the Absolute Experience is not 
 marred by doubt or weariness. 
 
 We have reached a conclusion to which mere 
 abstract or discursive thinking would never have 
 led us and with which it may quarrel. But as we 
 have moved further away from discursive thought, 
 impelled by thought’s own needs, we have ap¬ 
 proached nearer to the total experience of life. 
 We have emphasized what intellectualism tends 
 to neglect, viz., that emotion and will, not indeed 
 divorced from but using and reaching beyond 
 mere thought, give us deeper hints of the nature 
 of the Absolute. For thought is the handmaid of 
 the primal feeling-impulses of our nature. 
 
 It is the fullest life lived on earth that contains 
 in itself the most possibilities of contradiction, 
 the deepest experiences of jars and discords. The 
 wider experience, the deeper insight discovers that 
 reality is too rich to be a bare identity and too 
 complex to be capable of expression in terms of 
 abstract thought. 
 
 The impulse to action, whether of thought or 
 of body, comes from feeling. Will, in its devel¬ 
 oped form, is the resultant of thought’s direction 
 of the primal feeling-impulses (conative tenden- 
 
188 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 cies) of the self. The goal of conduct is, after all, 
 the same goal which speculative thought seeks, 
 viz., the attainment of a perfect harmony or feel¬ 
 ing-unity in experience, and this comes from the 
 unimpeded exercise of our active tendencies from 
 the satisfaction of our desires. The reality outside 
 the individual self is known by the immediately 
 felt contrast between the ego and the external 
 world, of which contrast sense-impressions are the 
 signs. The feeling of the contrast between subject 
 and object initiates activities both of body and 
 mind which we commonly designate respectively 
 as action and thought. The end of the activity 
 in both cases is the removal of a felt discordance 
 and the establishment on a higher plane of a felt 
 harmony. The dialectic process of pure thought 
 is no more an end in itself than the volitional 
 processes of our active bodily life. The dialectic 
 of thought springs from the felt needs of a devel¬ 
 oping self. 
 
 Through feeling we get our first dim sense of 
 being. Through feeling we become conscious of 
 divisions, discordances in being. Through feeling 
 our muscles and our thoughts are stirred into 
 action to remove these discordances. And the 
 end is that the immediate feeling-unity of the self 
 shall, through the activity of thought (to which of 
 course bodily activity is supplemental), through 
 the dialectic of life and thought, rise to a more 
 comprehensive, to a spiritual unity. This higher 
 
THE ABSOLUTE SELF 
 
 189 
 
 unity shall be no longer blind, as elemental feel¬ 
 ing is, but rendered articulate and self-compre¬ 
 hending through the activity of thought. Discur¬ 
 sive Thought is not reality. For it does not make 
 its material, and it is not its own result. In the 
 unity of the Absolute Purpose it is transcended. 
 
 To paraphrase the words of a master : “ Appar¬ 
 ent contradiction belongs to the indwelling pulsa¬ 
 tion of self-movement and life.” But in the in¬ 
 sight which man’s highest sentiments (of truth , 
 beauty , goodness , and love ) give into the life of the 
 Absolute Spirit these contradictions are healed. 
 This insight is the intuition or direct experience 
 and conviction of the reality of those higher pur¬ 
 poses 1 of the will which spring from the action of 
 thought in guiding and harmonizing our elemental 
 feelings and emotions, and which express in our 
 lives the manifold phases of the True, the Beauti¬ 
 ful, and the Good, whose union is the Absolute for 
 us. The principle of union might perhaps prop¬ 
 erly be designated active love , a devotion in which 
 the true self is realized. This experience is indeed 
 in us subject to growth, but it always constitutes 
 the inward and immediate feeling-life of the self 
 at its highest level. 
 
 The intuition or insight which apprehends all 
 
 1 These sentiments and purposes find expression and embodi¬ 
 ment in the historical products of human experience—in works of 
 art and aesthetic ideas, in systems of scientific and ethical ideas, 
 and in religious systems of belief and conduct. 
 
190 
 
 MODERN CONCEPTIONS OF GOD 
 
 the difficulties and the apparent contradictions 
 that thought can bring to light, precisely through 
 this apprehension knows that God is perfect and 
 yet manifests his life in an imperfect world, that 
 he is eternal and yet reveals himself in the tem¬ 
 poral world. Thought reveals an aspect of his 
 life. For it analyzes or mediates that which is 
 immediately given in experience, and so displays 
 to view the various aspects of the life of con¬ 
 sciousness. But the end of thought’s analytic and 
 mediating activity is the attainment of a higher 
 immediacy—the harmonious and directly experi¬ 
 enced unity of the spiritual life. In the last 
 analysis the rationality and significance of human 
 life as the manifestation of the Absolute Life arc 
 known as a felt harmony of experience. This 
 harmony can be apprehended by us in part in so 
 far as we endeavor to realize an analogous harmony 
 and completeness in our own lives. In spite of 
 the difficulties in the way of understanding this 
 greatest of all problems we may come to see our 
 own lives as unique and significant if fragmentary 
 manifestations of the Absolute Life. “ If any man 
 will do his will he shall know of the doctrine.” If 
 one would get light on the nature of the Absolute 
 one must strive to become a harmonious and uni¬ 
 fied personality, a spiritual individual. 
 
 / 
 
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