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 I 
 
 
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ON BELIGrlON. 
 
ON RELIGION 
 
 SPEECHES TO ITS CULTURED DESPISERS 
 
 0 
 
 BY 
 
 FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER 
 
 TRANSLATED, WITH INTRODUCTION, BY 
 
 JOHN OMAN, B.D. 
 
 » 
 
 K 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., Ltd. 
 
 PATERNOSTER HOUSE, CHARING CROSS ROAD 
 
 1893 
 
<il0/3 ; f~3 
 
 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 ' Page 
 
 Preface .vii 
 
 Introduction .ix 
 
 First Speech—Defence.1 
 
 Second Speech—The Nature of Religion . . . .26 
 
 Third Speech—The Cultivation of Religion .... 119 
 Fourth Speech—Association in Religion, or Church and 
 
 Priesthood.146 
 
 Fifth Speech—The Religions.210 
 
 Epilogue.266 
 
 The First Edition.275 
 
 Index .285 
 
PEE FACE. 
 
 In making this^translation, I have been deeply impressed 
 with the truth of Friedrich Schlegel’s saying, that the 
 modern literature, though in several languages, is only one. 
 Though this work, so far as I know, is now translated for 
 the first time, it does not now begin to enter into English 
 thought. Traces of the movement at least, of which it is 
 the most characteristic product, may be found in our 
 philosophy, our theology, and our literature. Seeing, then, 
 that this book claims more than a merely philosophical 
 interest, it may well be thought that I should have done 
 something more to give it an English accent. Intuition, 
 used broadly for immediate knowledge, and the All, the 
 "Whole, the Word-Spirit for aspects of the world we feel 
 and seem to know, can hardly be acknowledged as natural 
 to our native tongue. But, though unfamiliar, I hope that, 
 in their connections, they are not incomprehensible. My 
 excuse for imposing upon the reader 'the necessity of a 
 second translation in thought, must be found in Schleier- 
 macher’s own opinion. There are two ways, he considered, 
 of making a good translation : either the author must be 
 left alone as far as possible and the reader be made to 
 approach, or the reader be left and the author be manipu¬ 
 lated. In the former case, the work is translated as we 
 believe the author would have done it, had he learned the 
 language of the translation; in the latter, as he would have 
 written, had it been his native tongue. In philosophical 
 
Vlll 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 works, lie thought the former method alone practicable. 
 If the wisdom and science of the author are not to be trans¬ 
 formed and subjected to the wildest caprice, the language 
 of the translation must be bent to the language of the 
 original. As we have not yet any example of a breach of 
 this rule that encourages imitation, I have not been bold 
 enough to make the attempt. Still I would fain believe 
 that, except the first half of the Second Speech, the book is 
 not beyond measure difficult. That section is acknowledged, 
 even by the most patient Germans, to be obscure, and I 
 would direct the reader’s attention to the summary in the 
 Appendix of its first form, which is very much simpler. 
 Further, I might suggest that in the first reading the 
 Explanations be omitted, and that it be borne in mind that 
 they are not meant to elucidate the text, but rather to 
 expand or modify it into harmony with later positions. 
 For a more careful study of the book, I have sought to 
 make the Index helpful. 
 
 My thanks are due to Professor Calderwood for encourage¬ 
 ment in the work, and to my friend, Mr. G. W. Alexander, 
 M.A., for revising the proofs and for many suggestions in 
 the translation. 
 
 Alnwick, 1893. 
 
INTEODUCTION. 
 
 As the “ Speeches on Eeligion ” were first published in 1799 
 this translation is in one sense exceedingly belated. In 
 Germany itself, however, it has been more commented upon 
 during the last twenty years than ever before. In 1868 
 Schenkels Sketch of Schleiermacher’s Life land Characterwas 
 published. In 1870 Dilthey's Life of Schleiermacher fol¬ 
 lowed, at least the first volume of it, which is all that has yet 
 seen the light. In 1874 Eitschl published a treatise on 
 “ Schleiermacher’s Speeches on Eeligion and their influence 
 on the Evangelical Church of Germany.” This was followed 
 by two very elaborate articles on the “ Speeches ” by 
 Lipsius in the “ Jahrbücher für protestantische Theologie,” 
 wherein he drew attention to the very material changes in 
 the various editions. In 1879 Pünjer made this apparent 
 by a critical edition, which gave the first edition in the 
 text, and the changes in foot-notes. Since then treatises 
 have appeared on the idea of religion in the different 
 editions by Braasch, on Schleiermacher’s conception of 
 Individuality by Frohne, on his relation to Christianity by 
 Otto Eitschl, and on the quintessence of his theology, a 
 severely hostile criticism, by Locke. 
 
 Why this book should attain the classic position of being 
 a subject for other books may well need to be explained 
 to the English reader. Under various titles it may be 
 found mentioned in certain learned treatises, but it would 
 be difficult to learn from any English book the place it 
 
X 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 occupies either in theology or philosophy. The reason is 
 not far to seek. The most earnest and thorough students 
 of this period have either had a wholly philosophical or a 
 wholly literary interest. For the former Hegel spoke the last 
 word, and for the latter Goethe. This book, being the out¬ 
 come of the literary, philosophical and religious movements 
 of the time, has very naturally fallen between. Even to such 
 a profound student of the time as Professor Adamson, 
 Schleiermacher is simply a philosopher who stopped short at 
 Spinoza, in parti-coloured combination with the theologian 
 who ended in mysticism. 
 
 Yet it may be questioned whether, after Kant’s Critique 
 and Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, any book of the period has 
 had such a great and lasting effect, and it is certainly no 
 question that it foreshadows the problems chiefly discussed 
 among us to-day as is done by no other book of that time. 
 We have still with us the unity of the church, the relation 
 of church and state, inspiration, the non-christian religions, 
 the essential nature of religion, the place of religion in life. 
 
 Yet the interest and value of this book must now be 
 chiefly historical. It marks the transition from the “ Illu¬ 
 mination ” to the new time. Its very faults have a certain 
 importance, for they are a true reflection of that age of 
 ferment. As we try to recall those dim opponents, those 
 cultured despisers of religion, we see, in the closing years of 
 the century, a class of men engaged in high hope upon “an 
 intellectual Tower of Babel/’ which was to be the object 
 both of their patriotism and their religion. It was a great 
 and not very lucid time, and the thoughts of it roll across 
 tl^e pages of this book as a mixture of mist and broad sun¬ 
 shine. 
 
 Many estimates, not only of Schleiermacher himself, 
 but • of this book may be found in German writers. 
 Zeller, the historian of Greek philosophy, says of him, ‘ that 
 he was the greatest theologian of the Protestant Church 
 since the Reformation. He was a churchman whose grand 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xi 
 
 ideas of the union of the Protestant confessions, of a more 
 liberal constitution of the Church, of the rights of science 
 and of religious individuality will force their way despite all 
 resistance. He was a preacher of mark, a gifted and 
 effective religious teacher, forming the heart by the under¬ 
 standing and the understanding by the heart. He was a 
 philosopher who without a perfected system sowed most 
 fruitful seeds, and he led in a new era in the knowledge of 
 Greek philosophy. He lent his aid in the work of the politi¬ 
 cal regeneration of Prussia and Germany. In personal 
 intercourse he exerted a wide and useful influence on count¬ 
 less minds, awakening in many a new intellectual life/ 
 
 Ueberweg, who quotes the above, says ‘ Schleiermacher’s 
 system is far inferior in formal perfection to Hegel’s or 
 Herbart’s, but it is free from many of their limitations, and 
 . in its still largely unfinished form is more capable than any 
 other post-Kantian philosophy of such a development as 
 might remedy the defects of other systems.’ 
 
 Neander, who ascribed to the “ Speeches ” more than to 
 anv other influence his conversion from Judaism to 
 Christianity, and who passed through Schleiermacher to a 
 more definite Christian standpoint, said, in announcing 
 SchleiermachePs death, “We have now lost a man from 
 whom will be dated henceforth a new era in the history of 
 theology.’"’ Lipsius in his articles says, “ However much 
 or however little may ultimately remain of Schleiermacher’s 
 peculiar world of thought, his way of regarding the theory 
 of perception is as epoch-making in the religious sphere as 
 Kant’s f Critique of Reason ’ in the sphere of philosophy 
 Treitschke, the historian of Germany in the Nineteenth 
 Century, who ascribes to Schleiermacher a place second to 
 none in awaking the patriotism of his native land for the 
 great struggle with Napoleon, says, “ He became the 
 renovator of our theology, the greatest of all our theologians 
 since the Reformation, and even yet no German theologian 
 arrives at inward liberty who has not settled accounts with 
 
Xll 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Schleiermacher’s ideas.” Probably one of the most remark¬ 
 able testimonies is from Claus Harms, the preacher, 
 evangelist and missionary organizer. The “ Speeches,” 
 he says, gave him an impulse to an eternal movement. But 
 he adds, “ He that begat me had no bread for me.” 
 
 Probably that phrase sums up the defects of the book as 
 well as possible; it stirs emotions which it does not always 
 satisfy. 
 
 Of all criticisms on this book, however, none is profounder 
 or more helpful for its interpretation than Friedrich 
 Schlegel's truly German verdict, “It is a work of infinite 
 subjectivity.” That is the ground both of its excellence and 
 its defects. Beyond any book probably that ever was writ¬ 
 ten, it is a revelation of the individuality of its author. In 
 a quite unusual degree Schleier machör lived his philosophy, 
 and he succeeded in keeping his promise to reveal the 
 sacred secrets of his deepest impulses even better than he 
 was aware. His most original doctrine was his conception 
 of individuality, and it was not a mere doctrine with him 
 but an ideal of life. 
 
 Though he was only thirty-one when this book appeared, 
 he had° felt, probably more than any man alive at that time, 
 the various influences of his age. There were more learned 
 men, and men of greater faculty in various directions, but 
 none had by the same fortunate variety of life and 
 indomitable perseverance been able to come into such 
 general contact with the thoughts and feelings both of the 
 learned and of the people. In the technical sense of the 
 word he was not a profound scholar, but, as a German 
 puts it, he was a through and through cultured spirit. At 
 marshalling great masses of detail, wherein his countrymen 
 excel, he was no adept, but in the larger knowledge which 
 consists in insight and assimilation, he has had few equals. 
 He was an early riser and a diligent employer of his time. 
 Not even sickness was allowed to interfere with his work. 
 He even despised himself when he allowed it to depress his 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Xlll 
 
 spirits or damp his ardour. A person who had the un¬ 
 fortunate custom of sleeping too much he thought more to 
 be pitied than one who suffered from toothache, colic, or 
 any similar ill. He acquired slowly, his memory not being 
 readily retentive, but from that very cause he was compelled 
 to profounder reflection and deeper interest. 
 
 But the circumstances of his life had done even more 
 than his studies to give breadth and character to his mind. 
 Chief among the influences that moulded him, we must 
 reckon the piety of his home and his education among the 
 Moravians. He himself ascribed to them the largest place 
 in determining his opinions and moulding his character. 
 Piety, he says, was the first feeling developed in him, and 
 it was not “ the daughter of theology.'” “ I can recall its 
 first stirrings. It was during a walk with my father, who 
 never again allowed me to lose sight of it.” All his later 
 years, despite doubt and change, were, he believed, ‘ linked 
 each to each by natural piety. ; 
 
 His father was a chaplain of the Reformed Church to 
 a regiment in Silesia. He was constitutionally disquali¬ 
 fied for understanding his son and Schleiermacher's re¬ 
 lation to him was probably the first germ of his doctrine 
 of individuality which claims respect for the natural 
 character even of the youngest. Schleiermacher’s heredi¬ 
 tary gifts did not come to him from his father but from his 
 grandfather, an earnest conscientious man who had some 
 marvellous experiences among certain enthusiasts on the 
 Lower Rhine. This grandfather was one of the last persons 
 in Germany to be publicly charged with witchcraft. Even 
 the description of his person as under middle height, pale 
 countenance, light blue eyes and prominent nose might have 
 been applied to his grandson. 
 
 Schleiermacher's father grew up amid these strange 
 doings with doubts he never dared to utter. “ For twelve 
 years,” he said, in a letter to his son, “ I preached as an 
 actual unbeliever ”; evidently having accepted Kant's 
 
XIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 position that it was a preacher’s duty to support the moral 
 law by appealing to the ordinary faith of the people. 
 Before his son’s birth he seems to have returned to the 
 orthodox faith. At all events, he dealt with his son’s 
 aberrations in the most uncompromising, denunciatory way. 
 All his life he was burdened with debt, incurred chiefly in 
 book buying. He had wide interests and read extensively, 
 and his advice to his son is full of practical wisdom and 
 insight, yet he leaves the impression of being dogmatic and 
 even domineering, obstinate, and unstable. Consequently, 
 it was only after time had mellowed him that he entered 
 into kindlier and closer relations with his son. Schleier- 
 macher’s mother, again, leaves in her letters the most 
 beautiful impressions of piety, wisdom, and goodness. She, 
 however, died when her son, born in 1768, was only fourteen. 
 
 A year before her death, Friedrich had been placed in 
 the school of the Moravian Brethren in Upper Lusatia. 
 The Moravians were at that time doing for Germany what 
 the Methodists were doing for England. Amid barren 
 Deism and argumentative orthodoxy they maintained a dis¬ 
 tinctively religious spirit. Traces of their influence are 
 everywhere apparent in this book, and in the notes he 
 openly acknowledges his admiration for their institutions. 
 “ Verily,” he says in a letter, concerning their love feasts, 
 “ there is not throughout Christendom in our day a form 
 of public worship that expresses more worthily or awakens 
 more thoroughly the spirit of true Christian piety.” And 
 after all his wanderings, he felt he had become a “ Moravian 
 again of a higher order.” 
 
 Yet his sojourn among them was not without much out¬ 
 ward and inward conflict. His early letters are strongly 
 marked by the peculiar phraseology of the Brethren. He 
 strove hard for the supernatural experiences known as 
 intercourse with Jesus. After a time, he believed he had 
 found peace, and resolved to remain always among the 
 Brethren, though it were only to work at a trade. Yet the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xv 
 
 Halle professor who was charged with botanizing in a green 
 jacket, was not quite extinguished. We hear from other 
 quarters of pleasant days spent in the woods, and he asks 
 his sister to hint to his father that his purse has caught 
 consumption from fruit. 
 
 In his seventeenth year he was transferred, along with his 
 bosom friend, Albertini, to the seminary at Barby, which 
 was at that time the University of the Brethren. “ The 
 increase of liberty,” he says, u seemed to loosen the fetters 
 of the mind ”; and again he calls this period “ the first 
 blossoming time of the mind.” A number of brilliant 
 spirits formed themselves into a “ club.” They read the 
 “ Jena Literaturzeitung,” an able periodical that looked at 
 life from the standpoint of Kant; and from a “ friendly 
 one-eyed man” in Zerbst, they obtained such books as 
 Wieland’s poems and Goethe’s “Werther.” This was 
 enough to let them know that there was a large world of 
 thought outside. The attempts of their teachers to hedge 
 in this mental activity, only increased their suspicion that 
 their doubts could not be answered by better means ; and 
 even when prevailing opinions were controverted, there was 
 always a feeling that the other side had not been heard. 
 The Illumination had been working in Germany for about 
 twenty years, and was now everywhere prevalent, and all 
 the zeal of the Moravian teachers could not stop the chinks 
 whereby the flood was entering. Their suspicion and their 
 attempts at discipline only hastened the catastrophe; and 
 soon by manifold departure the poor club was scattered to 
 the winds. Among the first, Schleiermacher felt that he 
 also must be gone, if all his doubts were not to harden into 
 absolute unbelief. 
 
 In 1787, after overcoming much bitter opposition from 
 his father, he entered Halle as a student. Halle was then 
 at the height of its fame, and was almost entirely dominated 
 by the spirit of the Illumination. This was the ground of 
 his choice, for he believed that if ever he was to reach a 
 
XVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 fuller faith, it must be by hearing everything that could be 
 said against it. During his two years’ stay in Halle, he 
 came entirely under the influence of the prevailing ideas. 
 “ I have always believed,” he says in a letter to his father, 
 “ that examination and investigation and the patient 
 interrogation of all witnesses and of all parties, is the only 
 means for attaining sufficient certainty, and above all for 
 setting a fast boundary between that on which a man must 
 take a side and that which, without injury to his peace and 
 happiness, may be left undecided: ” a pretty accurate 
 summary of the Illumination ideal. 
 
 In Halle none of the theological professors impressed 
 him greatly. Sender, indeed, who has been called the 
 father of the critical study of the Scriptures, was not 
 without an influence on his views of Scripture exegesis, 
 but Semler was now old and much troubled by disputes. 
 Eberhard, however, a professor of philosophy, may be con¬ 
 sidered a decisive influence in his life, for he led him to 
 the careful study of Kant’s Critique. If truth be told, 
 Schleiermacher was a very bad attender at lectures and 
 never perhaps entered much into the spirit of the University. 
 But in the garret in his uncle’s house, where he sat till two 
 in the morning, he studied, not pursuing subjects but seeking 
 truth for f life and death.’ Even before leaving Halle, he 
 wrote a treatise on the idea of the Highest Good, wherein 
 he tries to settle matters with Kant. But the frightful 
 conflict he had just come through still depressed his spirits, 
 and he had the worst opinion of the coarseness of his fellow- 
 students. His circumstances also were of the worst, which 
 rendered social intercourse somewhat trying for a proud 
 spirit. Yet he could never be without a friend, and he 
 found one in a fellow-student from Barby, a Swede, named 
 Gustav von Brinkmann. This youth, to whom he after¬ 
 wards dedicated this book, was a marvellous result of 
 Moravian training, sporting with Amaryllis in preference 
 to burning the midnight oil. But Schleiermacher was 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XVII 
 
 persuaded that more than any man he lived laborious days, 
 and corrected and copied his love-letters for him and 
 admired his endless poetical compositions. With all his 
 faults, Brinkmann, by his larger knowledge of the world, 
 was at this period a useful friend. 
 
 After two years’ study his father’s willingness and ability 
 to support him were both exhausted. Yain efforts were 
 made to obtain a situation as family tutor, and nothing was 
 left but to go once more to uncle Stubenrauch, who had 
 left Halle and was now settled as pastor at Drossen near 
 Frankfort on the Oder. Hopes were entertained of pos¬ 
 sible acquaintances that might prove useful, and at all 
 events he could have house-room while he was preparing 
 for his theological examination. 
 
 Of this uncle, the brother of his mother, he says, “ would 
 that I had so availed myself of his friendship as to be able 
 to say in lieu of all praise, see what I have become and to 
 him I owe it.” In this uncle he encountered the very best 
 type of the theological spirit of the Illumination, an up¬ 
 right, earnest man, effective in his pastoral work, and 
 deeply interested in all questions of human progress. In 
 his house for a whole year Schleiermacher studied and 
 thought, reading such' books as came his way, and 
 having dim thoughts of authorship. Already his own 
 world of thought was taking shape, he had revised Kant 
 and come to some definite conclusions about him, and 
 chiefly stimulated by the loves and poesies of friend Brink¬ 
 mann he had thoughts that he did not think of revealing to 
 his uncle in spite of their free and affectionate intercourse. 
 
 With anything but liking for the business, he finally 
 went to Berlin to pass his examination in theology. His 
 father, who had married again, raised the needful money 
 and not before time, for the candidate’s clothes, much 
 less than being fitted to make the right impression on 
 the authorities in Berlin, were hardly decent enough for 
 Drossen. To some extent the iron had at this time 
 
 a 
 
XV111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 entered his soul. He was poor and not very well, and his 
 slight deformity had been made a ground for refusing him 
 a situation. 
 
 But the examinations were successfully passed, and then 
 it became his duty to make himself agreeable to persons 
 with ecclesiastical patronage, relatives and acquaintances 
 of his uncle, highly respectable c moderates 5 for the most 
 part. Aunt Stubenrauch’s urgent advice notwithstanding, 
 this part of the undertaking was exceedingly badly done. 
 
 We observe gratefully/' says his biographer, “how in 
 this matter one generation after another in Germany 
 improves by practice.” 
 
 Finally, however, a situation was obtained for him. He 
 became tutor in the family of Count Dohna of Schlobitten. 
 A new phase of life now opened for the student, which he 
 believed lasted as long as was good for him and no longer. 
 e Good like a Dohna/ was a proverb in East Prussia. At 
 Schlobitten he found a simple and sincere piety along with 
 genuine refinement. For the first time he felt the influence 
 of cultured female society, an experience which he marks 
 as an epoch. “ With a knowledge of the female heart I 
 won a knowledge of true manly worth.” To Friedrike, the 
 second daughter of the family, who died young, he spe¬ 
 cially ascribes this service. “ She has taken it with her 
 into eternity and it will not I hope be the least that her 
 beautiful existence has accomplished.” The love of art 
 also was awakened in him, another dangerous possession for 
 the ‘ enlightened understanding.’ Above all he saw in the 
 family life of which the wise and capable mother was the 
 head, a beautiful fellowship ennobled by freedom, which 
 shone all the more in contrast to the memory of his own 
 youth. Wedike, a neighbouring pastor, an earnest, thought¬ 
 ful, patriotic man, was of great help to him, but above all 
 in long solitary walks he came to understand himself. At 
 that time the eyes of all the civilized world were turned 
 towards the revolution in France. Schleiermacher pondered 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xix 
 
 deeply on the matter, giving his whole sympathy to the 
 popular side. Even when in 1793 Louis XYI. was executed, 
 though he regretted the cruelty, he could find no additional 
 horror in the fact that the head that had been severed, was 
 anointed. It was dangerous ground in the house of a 
 Prussian nobleman, more especially as he defended his 
 conviction, not merely with passionate earnestness, but 
 with argument and eloquence which put the irate Count to 
 rout. Yet the crisis came on education, not politics. The 
 * Count had his own ideas on education, and especially on 
 the position of family tutors. The tutor had different 
 views, which were sustained by a very strong sense of self- 
 respect and of duty to his pupils. A great reserve of 
 somewhat sarcastic utterance also occasionally cropped 
 through his respect for his superiors. Finally the 
 irascible Count lost all self-control and spoke words which 
 he dimly desired to withdraw, but which the tutor assured 
 him would only make their relations more unpleasant if 
 he did. Wherefore, amid many tokens of good-will from 
 every side, and not least from the Count himself, Schleier- 
 macher departed with his heart almost breaking, but only 
 able to say, when he was paid double, that his employer 
 did himself much wrong. 
 
 In Schlobitten he parted with the Illumination, and 
 began his own development. None of his doctrines were 
 yet clear, but traces of them all, dim foreshadowings in 
 feeling rather than in thought, can be traced in his letters, 
 his sermons and in a fragment on the f Value of Life,’ 
 which he wrote at this time and had some thoughts of 
 publishing. On the question of church and state especially 
 he had come to the conclusion that nothing can guarantee 
 complete tolerance but the entire separation of the two. 
 This shows how far he had departed from the Illumination 
 ideal which considered the church simply an institution for 
 the moral education of the people. His uncle feared evil 
 results and thought the clergy would starve, but the 
 
 a 2 
 
XX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 nephew had more faith in the power of the religious 
 sentiment. This position was doubtless first suggested to 
 him by the Moravian system, but it received confirmation 
 from the course of events in France, and was fixed by the 
 evils the ecclesiastical states caused to Germany in the 
 early days of Napoleon, when the princes of Germany 
 crowded “ like flies on the bleeding wounds of their 
 country.’- 
 
 After a few months in Drossen, he went to Berlin, where 
 the friendly influence of his relative Sack obtained for 
 him a position in an educational institution. Utter lack of 
 discipline, which his short sight prevented him from deal¬ 
 ing with, made his days unhappy, and in six months he 
 went to be curate to a relative at Landsberg on the 
 Warthe. While at Schlobitten, he had discovered his 
 vocation as a preacher, and had already begun his method 
 of careful mental preparation without writing, from which 
 he never afterwards departed. As a preacher he at once 
 took his place. His sermons of this period are marked by 
 great moral earnestness, which at times recalls Kant rather 
 than Jesus Christ. At the same time it is apparent that 
 he has been making a deeper study of Christianity and re¬ 
 flecting on his relation to its Founder. Two years passed 
 here peacefully and happily, in spite of small conflicts with 
 the authorities about educational matters to which he had 
 zealously devoted himself. Books were difficult to obtain, 
 but he thought the more, and was more diligent in corre¬ 
 spondence with friends, especially with his sister Charlotte, 
 who was still among the Moravians, and his father, who 
 now began to understand him. This change much consoled 
 him after his father's death, which happened about the close 
 of these years. Finally, he entered on his career as an 
 author, by translating, along with his patron Sack, Blair's 
 Sermons, the models of the respectable ‘ moderates' of 
 that time. 
 
 When his relative Schumann died, the congregation 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxi 
 
 asked of the authorities in Berlin that Schleier macher 
 should be appointed, but he was considered too young, and 
 the place was given to his uncle Stubenrauch, much to the 
 old man’s sorrow. As compensation, Schleiermacher was 
 appointed preacher at the Charite Institute in Berlin. In 
 September, 1796, he entered upon his work. 
 
 Berlin had hitherto been the chosen home of the Illumin¬ 
 ation, and the leading preachers were all of the highly 
 respectable, cautious type of Rationalist, known, in Scotland 
 at least, as the ‘ moderate.’ 
 
 The Illumination, or as it might better be translated, the 
 f Enlightenment,’ was not a purely theological movement. 
 Kant defines it as man’s emergence from self-caused 
 pupilage,” and he gives its watch-word as sapere aude , have 
 courage to use your own understandings. It is peculiarly 
 the movement of the Eighteenth Century. In England it 
 culminated in the Freethinkers, and in the form of Deism 
 was in direct antagonism to the prevailing Christian faith. 
 In France the same movement under Voltaire was not 
 only more hostile to Christianity, but less earnest. Rousseau 
 carried the same teaching into social and political questions 
 and the “ Gospel of Jean-Jacques ” was the creed of the 
 Revolution. Its essential feature was a demand for a 
 reason for everything from the standpoint of the individual. 
 The consequence was individualism in politics, sen¬ 
 sationalism in philosophy, and utilitarianism in morals. 
 
 In Germany, the movement never assumed the same 
 spirit of opposition to the church, and as a political develop¬ 
 ment was hardly possible, it took an almost exclusively 
 theological aspect. Its creed consisted of a personal God full 
 of wisdom and goodness; immortality; and the necessity 
 of religious ideas for moral motives. In its directly 
 theological aspect, the movement became Rationalism, 
 the belief in Scripture as containing a revelation already 
 implicit in man’s mind, which in practice came to mean the 
 discovery of its own abstractions in the written word. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xxii 
 
 In so far as this Enlightenment was the end of man’s 
 nonage, it was inevitable and right. The authority of the 
 church had been extended to every department of life. In 
 all research, men wrought ‘ with the sword of Damocles 
 over their heads.’ Now the rights of research were es¬ 
 tablished, and the church was directed to its own sphere : 
 and only in complete ignorance of history can it be main¬ 
 tained that this did not happen to the eminent profit of 
 both. 
 
 But this good was more than counterbalanced by its 
 easy-going optimism, its shallowness, its frivolity and 
 self-satisfaction. Understanding was the final test, and 
 argument the only proof. Religion was reduced to a few 
 commonplaces; God was a scientific abstraction; aspiration 
 succumbed to utter paltriness ; and the deeper needs of man 
 were fast becoming incomprehensible. 
 
 From one point of view Kant is the coping-stone of this 
 movement, from another he is the foundation of the new 
 time. He sought to found again the old Illumination 
 theology, in the same abstract way. His book, “ Religion 
 within the Limits of mere Reason,” makes religion simp ly 
 a handmaid of morality. _ If men were what they should 
 be, the mere moral law ought to carry its own authori ty, 
 but, to remedy the defect, the idea of a Lawgiver and an 
 all-seeing Eye isuseful. ^et it is never to be forgotten 
 that all this is only a reflection of morality. Chiefly by 
 allegorizing, he weaves the dogmas of Christianity into his 
 system, everything finally being' reduced to ethics and 
 metaphysics. 
 
 Yet Kant, of all men, introduced a more earnest spirit into 
 the time. His true fore-runner was Butler, with his maxim, 
 “ if conscience had might as it had right, it would absolutely 
 govern the world/* “ There is nothing absolutely good 
 
 in the world,” Kant said, at the beginning of his “ Critique 
 of Practical Reason,’ ; “ a good will alone excepted.” An 
 action was not moral according to its consequences, but 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 XXlll 
 
 according to the law from which it sprang. This law is not 
 an abstraction from experience of personal and social 
 requirement,, but is uttered by reason the universal element 
 in man. Finally, while all consciousness is purely phe¬ 
 nomenal, man by the freedom of his will is rooted in the 
 real world, and takes his place as a thing in itself. Whether 
 the critical philosophy will ultimately be found to have 
 circumnavigated the world of thought, or to be simply a 
 larger and more barren and dangerous excursion into 
 polar seas, may still be doubtful, but the greater moral 
 earnestness that Kant made possible for his time is now a 
 matter of history. 
 
 For ten years Schleiermacher had been constantly renew¬ 
 ing his study of Kant. He found his style of exposition 
 barbarous and he was annoyed by his misunderstandings 
 not only of others, but of himself. Still he kept continually 
 f gnawing* at him. Already he had rejected his proof of 
 the World and Freedom and God, and had departed 
 considerably from his theory of perception, but he had 
 firmly settled with himself that the blessedness of life is 
 within and that the end of life is not happiness but the 
 fulfilment of the law of reason. By this study of Kant, 
 Schleiermacher, though he did not come out quite unspotted 
 from intercourse with the Romanticists, at least rescued his 
 soul from deadly peril and, in the midst of the overweening 
 individualism of his contemporaries, held firm ground in 
 universal truth and law. 
 
 In Plato Schleiermacher found the substance of Kant’s 
 teaching. Of late years also he had made a more earnest 
 study of Aristotle. Spinoza was only known to him through 
 Jacobi's work, but he was already a devoted admirer and 
 pupil, and among his papers of this time is found a very 
 careful study of this great writer, wherein he corrects 
 Jacobi's views on some important points. 
 
 In severe studies of this nature his life had hitherto been 
 spent. Such literature as he had read was mostly of an 
 
XXIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 earlier time, and the great literary movement that began 
 with Lessing, and was now culminating in Goethe and 
 the young Romance, was, before he settled in Berlin, little 
 known to him and not deeply interesting. Berlin was 
 already the seat of the conflict between the old classical and 
 the new Romantic schools. 
 
 Schleiermacher was introduced to the Romanticists by 
 Alexander Dohna, the eldest son of the Count of Schlo- 
 bitten. Berlin of late had increased largely in population 
 and in material prosperity. Many Jewish families especially 
 had become rich. Being excluded from all public concerns, 
 they devoted themselves to society. Their ambition was to 
 have literary gatherings, and sociality was laboured for as a 
 fine art. Henrietta Herz, the wife of the most famous Jew¬ 
 ish physician in the town, was a leader in this world ; being 
 beautiful, and having a mind of unusual receptivity, she 
 was among those who made what was called a house. 
 Schleiermacher was introduced at one of her gatherings 
 and, having the very best recommendation in Alexander 
 Dohna, he soon became her most intimate friend. 
 
 His position at the Charite was not the happiest. A 
 wit said that the veterinary institute opposite was a place 
 where dogs were treated like men, while the Charite 
 was a place where men were treated like dogs. His 
 sphere as a preacher was circumscribed and he had no scope 
 for any other kind of activity in his office. Yet to the 
 astonishment of his friends he loved his work, and with the 
 aboundiug literary intercourse now open to him, he was 
 almost in felicity. 
 
 The famous Wednesday Club was just beginning, and 
 Schleiermacher became a member. Soon all the leading 
 spirits of the new School met there, wonderfully discordant 
 minds, but united now by a common purpose. There were 
 the two Schlegels, the orderly, laborious but vain and 
 irritable Wilhelm, whose power of translation was almost 
 genius, and the younger Friedrich, quick, brilliant and 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXV 
 
 attractive, but superficial and unstable. Tieck, with, his 
 restless fancy gleaming from his eager face, was there, and 
 Wackenroder, a profound and pious soul, who died at 
 twenty-five, and Novalis, whom Schleiermacher himself 
 celebrates in this book, and others of less note. Of these, 
 Friedrich Schlegel was Schleiermacher’s bosom friend. 
 For a time they lodged together, and even entertained 
 thoughts of literary partnership. At Schlegel’ s instigation 
 the “ Speeches ;; were written. There is a graphic scene in 
 Schleiermacher’s letters of Schlegel making him register a 
 solemn vow of literary activity in the presence of friends 
 who had gathered to celebrate his birthday. Schleier¬ 
 macher was therefore, by constant intercourse and devoted 
 friendship, powerfully under the influence of the Romantic 
 School when he wrote this book. 
 
 The true intellectual father of the School was Goethe, 
 and his Wilhelm Meister was their ideal. He preferred in¬ 
 sight to argument, and an individual thing to an abstraction. 
 Nature he regarded as a beautiful, progressive whole, with¬ 
 out upheaval or interruption. “ Life is Nature’s most beauti¬ 
 ful discovery and death is her device for Laving more life.” 
 Her greatest production is man. He is most worthy of 
 study, but all reality in its place deserves to be rightly 
 apprehended by loving observation. 
 
 Herder carried Goethe’s thought into history. “ Alex¬ 
 ander conquered Persia, because he was Alexander the son 
 of Philip/’ yet withal there is a grand and even progress 
 of human culture. 
 
 The germ of much of Schleiermacher’s thought is here— 
 the importance of the individual, the place of intuition, 
 everything a revelation of the Universe, the Universe itself 
 one glorious, eternally active whole. 
 
 What with Goethe was art with the younger generation 
 was criticism. By critical resolve they determined to be 
 the uncritical Hüolian harp of every feeling. The cultiva¬ 
 tion of the individual was the high end of life, a doctrine 
 
XXVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 which with such men as Friedrich Schlegel did not mean 
 much else than a rejection of the command e Let a man 
 deny himself/ They were all enthusiasts for the modern 
 literature, the principle of which they considered not beauty 
 but interest. Politically, Germany was at its lowest degrada¬ 
 tion, and the only unity in the empire was the new litera¬ 
 ture. Art, therefore, was religion and patriotism in one. 
 “ We sought/’ says Steffens, “to rear an intellectual Tower 
 of Babel, that all men might behold/'’ The great end was 
 to have an artistic appreciation of everything. Under¬ 
 standing was nothing, imagination was everything. 
 Schleiermacher himself, though he complains that the 
 want of the artistic sense was his worst limitation, would 
 sell the understanding of the world for a singularly small 
 equivalent in imagination. This desire to sympathetically 
 think again all human experience, led to such ardent and 
 careful historical research as is altogether without parallel. 
 
 The impress of the School is more marked in the first 
 edition than in the later form of this work, but, as he himself 
 observed, it was so deep that no changes could remove it. 
 The literary companions were the cultured despisers to 
 whom he addressed himself. Their artistic sense most 
 nearly resembled his religious sense. He sought to make 
 them regard the Universe as the great work of art. For 
 their idea of individuality he laid a philosophical and 
 religious basis. Their historical research gave him warrant 
 for claiming a high value for positive religions. Perhaps 
 their contempt for established institutions coloured his idea 
 of the church. Their exaltation of feeling, joined to 
 Moravianism, led to his view of religion. Finally, their 
 models determined the style of this book, described as 
 literary chiaroscuro. 
 
 But Schleiermacher’s previous philosophical discipline 
 and earnest thinking out of his own position raised him 
 far above the ordinary standpoint of the Romantic School. 
 Schelling said, on reading the “ Speeches/’ “ whosoever 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXVll 
 
 would produce anything of the kind must have made the 
 profoundest philosophical studies, or he must have written 
 it under blind divine inspiration.” 
 
 X 
 
 Dilthey, with careful toil, has not only indicated every 
 rivulet that trickled into the stream of Schleiermacher’s 
 thought, but has circumnavigated every lake from which it 
 might have come. By his help we can trace the growth 
 of the system which underlies this work. Schleiermacher 
 was conscious of his system, and was pained that no one 
 was able to discover it; and, to instructed eyes at least, it 
 is closely interwoven both with argument and with appeal. 
 Subsequently, it was elaborated, filled in, and more 
 scientifically expressed, but the main outlines were never 
 changed. 
 
 Kant is his starting-point, and he interprets him some¬ 
 what after the manner of Fichte. Kant asked himself this 
 question : What is this skein of self-consciousness, just 
 what we are conscious of and no more, and what are its 
 laws ? His answer was to conceive it very much as a 
 spider’s web. The elements out of which it is composed 
 float in promiscuously, and are called the manifold of sense. 
 They are spun into a net, according to a definite scheme. 
 Lines converge at definite "angles : this is time and space. 
 These concentric lines are bound together by cross-threads 
 at definite intervals : they are categories of judgment. 
 Finally, all the lines converge to one point : it is the 
 synthetic unity of apperception, the conscious I. Of this 
 skein alone you are conscious. By thought you cannot get 
 outside of it, but by the claims of morality, as it were by 
 shaking the net, you learn that there is a spider underneath 
 that spins the web, and stout beams outside, known as the 
 world and God, to which it is attached. The claims of the 
 moral law demand free-will that must be noumenal not 
 phenomenal, and goodness and happiness must ultimately 
 be one, therefore there must be a God. 
 
 Schleiermacher rejected this proof. He did not accept 
 
XXV111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 free-will except as the outcome of the nature apart from 
 external compulsion, and he held that the Good does not 
 involve happiness. But for him also thought is activity, 
 the mind is creative, and not merely receptive. From 
 Kant’s practical philosophy he accepted with unwavering 
 conviction the view that the moral law is the utterance of 
 reason, and that the highest good is to live in harmony with 
 reason. 
 
 To Fichte reason is nothing but the universal element 
 in life. It is in deadly struggle with all that is individual. 
 The ideal of reason was one for all men, to be established 
 in opposition to all accidents of life and diversities of 
 character. Practically, this was apt to mean that everyone 
 was wrong who was different from Johann Gottlieb Fichte. 
 Theoretically, it came more and more to mean that the 
 individual reason was simply the universal reason self¬ 
 limited. 
 
 For many years it did not occur to Schleiermacher to 
 question the position that reason is the identical element 
 in all men. The study of Plato and Leibnitz seems to have 
 suggested to him that reason itself might be the source of 
 individuality. Leibnitz's monads he regarded as an importa¬ 
 tion from Fairyland, yet they served to make him see that 
 the individual might be such a copy of the Universe as to 
 be not merely a part of it, but an exhibition of it. 
 
 He had long and earnestly been studying Spinoza, and 
 acknowledged a large debt to him. Yet the Spinozism of 
 Schleiermacher is more in form than substance. In his con¬ 
 ception of the Universe Spinoza's distinction between natura 
 natlirans and natura naturata re-appears, natura naturans 
 being the World-Spirit. We also find his doctrine of the 
 immanence of the Infinite in the finite, and his distinction 
 between things in their observed relations, and things as 
 seen sub specie seternitatis. But to Spinoza the individual 
 was merely a delusion of the imagination, a section 
 arbitrarily cut out of the Universe, while the motive of all 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXIX 
 
 Schlei ermacher’s speculation was to find reality for the 
 individual as a whole within a whole. 
 
 The Universe, in accordance with the new philosophy, 
 was conceived as infinitely active. In this part of Schleier- 
 macher’s doctrine there are distinct traces of Schelling. 
 This activity divides itself, but division is not separation, 
 but parallelism and interaction. This division that is not 
 separation, is found throughout the Universe. God indeed 
 is the union of knowledge and being, yet even He is only 
 known in His works. Spirit and body are not one, yet 
 they are nothing separate. The spiritual and sensuous in 
 life again are co-ordinate in morals, and the super¬ 
 natural and the natural in religion. The threads are, as it 
 were, spun for a moment apart, then woven into an 
 inseparable cord. There are thus no hard drawn lines in 
 the Universe, but it weaves all its activities together. 
 
 The fact that the individual is thus a part of one vast 
 whole, however, does not make it less a whole in itself. 
 Rather it must, before it could in such circumstances main¬ 
 tain an existence, have a principle fashioning its individu¬ 
 ality, uniting what comes to it from the Universe and 
 again re-acting upon the Universe. Thus the Universe 
 and the individual are equally real. Without the reality of 
 the Universe, the individual were nothing, for all its life 
 consists in being acted upon by the Universe and acting 
 upon the Universe again. By what means the Universe acts 
 upon us, whether by special noumena or directly, w r e cannot 
 tell, but all our experience goes back to the point where our 
 own activity and the activity of Universe are in contact and 
 •mutual understanding. By going back in thought, we 
 reach a mystic point beyond which we cannot go, but which 
 is the source of all our knowledge. That is the touch of 
 our spirits with the Universe whereby, like the touch of 
 lips that love, there are large mutual understandings. 
 This is the source and the type of all experience. Per¬ 
 ception therefore rests not on reasoned knowledge but on 
 
XXX 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 belief; it is a transaction with the Universe and therefore 
 a religious act. 
 
 Jacobi, whom Schleiermacher always reverenced as a 
 kindred soul, is apparent in this, but there are many 
 resemblances to Berkeley. There is no evidence that 
 Schleiermacher studied Berkeley, but Berkeley’s influence 
 on the thought of Germany of that time, though indirect 
 was much larger than is usually acknowledged. To 
 Berkeley also perception was a religious act, it was talking 
 with God. The chief difference is that Berkeley regarded 
 experience as wholly given, Schleiermacher makes the in¬ 
 dividual mind share in the manufacture of it. 
 
 The conscious individual, therefore, is a product and 
 representation of the Infinite, in constant interaction with 
 the Infinite. The Universe is like a great work of art, 
 having leading ideas running through the whole, wrought 
 out with infinite variety of detail in every part. Mankind 
 for example is an individuality exhibiting the Universe. 
 It contains the general character of the Universe and the 
 particular form also in which it is embodied. Similarly a 
 nationality is an individuality. It embraces the general 
 character of humanity, and exhibits it in a special form as 
 well. Similarly each man is a characteristic presentation 
 of his people. 
 
 Man’s spirit in this respect is like his body. The body 
 is part of the material world. It is a product of the same 
 laws that made any organism. An animal organism is a 
 characteristic presentation of organic life, and a human 
 organism of animal organization. Yet they all consist of 
 one material, organized ever more elaborately by one set of 
 laws. In the same way, the same spiritual matter and the 
 same spiritual laws have organized the individual mind. 
 
 This explains how Schleiermacher only distinguished 
 individuals quantitatively, not qualitatively. Positive 
 religions we find are only permutations and combinations 
 of the same elements, all variety being variety of degree 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXI 
 
 and position. We might call it the atomic theory of the 
 individual. Quality is explained quantitatively, and the 
 reason that this can be accomplished is that we are dealing 
 with a production of the Infinite, having in itself a certain 
 infinity. One man for example is distinguished from 
 another by the prominence of his imagination. All his 
 other faculties are grouped round it. Another man is 
 equally imaginative, but his other faculties are grouped 
 differently. Again imaginations may differ in kind, 
 having many elements each of which may be prominent, 
 while all the others may be variously grouped. 
 
 The conscious individual, as a product and representation 
 of the Universe in ceaseless interaction with it, may have 
 three aims. All the elements of his experience, being 
 products of a Universe which is a whole, have connections 
 and relations. He may therefore endeavour to refer the 
 different parts of his experience to one another by dis¬ 
 covering their casual and other connections. This is the 
 aim of science. Again, he may take himself as an inde¬ 
 pendent manifestation of the Universe, and, starting from 
 the common elements of reason, proceed to carry out the 
 purpose of the Universe by applying them in accordance 
 with his own nature and circumstances. This is the aim of 
 morals. Finally, he may begin at the other end with the 
 distinct phenomena of life, and travel backwards towards 
 the Universe. This is the aim of religion. 
 
 As every perception is an interaction of the whole 
 Universe with our whole being, the religious man who has 
 once had a feeling and intuition of the Universe can reach 
 the Universe from every experience. And if the sense 
 were not hindered it would naturally reach this intuition, 
 just as every man, were there not obstructions, would 
 naturally have scientific and moral interests. Whether by 
 external or internal observation, if carried far enough, we 
 should finally reach the Universe. But men are hindered 
 by mechanical burdens, and above all by the present 
 
XXX11 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 worldly-wise calculating type of education. Even art, 
 which should be inspired by religion, and is fitted in turn 
 to adorn it, satisfies men with a narrower object than the 
 Universe. By reflection we best awake to this larger 
 sense. We find that our souls are an epitome of all 
 mankind. Whatsoever any man has thought or felt comes 
 to us as our thought and feeling. Nay, all that can be 
 thought is only possible to be thought because in some 
 sense it is ourselves already. As Plato expressed it/ all 
 knowledge is only recollection. Ourselves and all that we 
 know only exhibit one Universe. 
 
 This waking of the sense for the Universe is the larger 
 life. Before we were conscious only of paint, now, how¬ 
 ever dimly, we perceive the picture. How it shall define 
 itself in idea is not yet apparent and is a question of science, 
 and how it shall affect our actions is a question of ethics ; 
 but already there is a life of feeling. Fear unmixed it 
 cannot be, but it may be fear feebly changing to love, and 
 everything from fear to the perfect love which makes us 
 feel we are one with the Universe without a doubting or a 
 jarring note. 
 
 Beligion therefore is sense and taste for the Infinite, 
 and is neither metaphysics nor morals, but as essentially a 
 part of human nature as either knowledge or action. 
 Because this has been obscured or forgotten, religion has 
 fallen into evil repute. Simply by setting religion by itself, 
 Schleiermacher hopes to fulfil the task, he has set himself of 
 awaking a new regard for religion. This purpose is much 
 more distinctly the aim of the first than of the second 
 edition. 
 
 “ As a rule,” Schleiermacher himself said, “ one age only 
 knows how to meet the errors of its predecessor by com¬ 
 mitting another error.” He somewhat exemplifies his own 
 judgment, if not by actual perpetration, at least by an 
 omission that made others perpetrate it. He did not show 
 how knowledge and conscience are implicit in feeling, as 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 xxxm 
 
 they must be if it is immediately given by the Universe. 
 He is even at times found speaking as if one feeling might 
 correspond to two ideas, and one sense for the Universe 
 be represented by different conceptions of God. He does 
 not show the ground of his own contention in later life 
 that religion must rest on truth and freedom. Yet it 
 must not be forgotten that he held no act of the mind 
 single and distinct. An activity of the mind is marked 
 only by the element that is most prominent in it, and 
 surely the prominent element in religion is feeling. 
 
 In Europe both science and morals had been nurtured by 
 Christianity, but science had already emancipated itself 
 from authority and morals was seeking an authority of its 
 own. It was necessary, therefore, to say that there was a 
 religious element in man not affected by either, and that 
 indifference to religion was indifference to the pro- 
 foundest element in man evident in some way among all 
 peoples. 
 
 But this artistic conception of religion is not merely a 
 simile to explain the nature of religion, it appears also in 
 his conception of the church. Religion cannot be conveyed 
 by instruction. All a master can do is to exhibit his own 
 religion, just as an artist exhibits his own art to awake the 
 sense for art in his pupils. The vaster the variety of 
 religious emotion the better, because the Infinite is best 
 shown by the multitude and variety of its productions, 
 and each individual is the more likely to find what will so 
 harmonize with himself as to awake his own sense. There 
 should, therefore, be only one church that one may learn 
 more from those most different from him, and the visible 
 societies should be as fluid as possible, schools where the 
 pupil seeks the master, according to affinity, and departs to 
 another according to need. 
 
 The visible church does not consist of religious persons 
 but of persons seeking religion, though how people could 
 seek religion without, in some degree, having the sense 
 
 b 
 
XXXIV 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 awakened for it, lie does not explain. The members of the 
 true cliurcli, therefore, the masters in a divine art, shall be 
 I the priests, not indeed to exercise official authority, but by 
 ^ native superiority to have large respect and influence. 
 
 The supreme foe of religion is death. Wheresoever there 
 is activity there is hope. The state has been an evil in¬ 
 fluence in religion, because it has misled the church in its 
 own work, and subjected it to an authority to which no art 
 can submit without disaster. The state did not create the 
 evils. Evils were inevitable in this as in ail human affairs, but 
 the state has fixed the evils and made them permanent. He 
 takes the most pessimistic view of the state church, and hopes 
 for little good till, by a revolution, it is overturned, or till 
 some other institution is allowed to grow up alongside of it. 
 
 In all this the pupil of the Moravians is manifest. He 
 calls attention to assemblies where no one man is priest 
 by office, but any man speaks who has the inspiration, 
 apparently assemblies of Moravians. But there is also a 
 reason in his theory for making the visible society what 
 Strauss has called “ a merely infusorial life.” Religion 
 seeks only one system, the Universe. Wherefore, custom 
 and formality 7 ^musUUe'ffts chief foes. Hence, he never 
 altered his description of the visible church in the text, 
 though in the notes he acknowledges that the church con¬ 
 tains more religious people than he had thought and 
 should, in so far as it is the communion of the pious, be an 
 organization. 
 
 The last Speech has probably had more influence of 
 various kinds than any part of the book. The polemic 
 against the abstract jejune spirit of the Illumination 
 applied to religion the same principle that had already been 
 accepted by the younger generation in literature. Religion, 
 being infinite, must have a principle of individualization. 
 Here SchleiermacheEs doctrine of individuality found appli¬ 
 cation. Each religion is not distinguished by the quantity 
 of religious matter, but by the special form in which the 
 
INTRODUCTION, 
 
 XXXV 
 
 matter is organized. The same religious matter appears in 
 all religions, but the fundamental intuition, selected, not 
 by any superiority but by some need or some insight of 
 the people and the age that believe it, and the mode in 
 which the rest is grouped around it, distinguish a positive 
 religion. What this would mean in respect of Judaism 
 he seeks to show. Though inadequate, there is deep and 
 fruitful historical insight. The relation of Judaism to 
 Christianity he never fully acknowledged, and even in later 
 life he preached almost exclusively from the New Testament. 
 In his conception of Christianity his Moravian education 
 appears. In Moravianism the doctrine of the total depravity 
 o f man and reconciliation by gr ace overshadowed all else. 
 
 Hence, the __ fundamental view of Christianity is “ t he 
 universal resistance of all things finite to the unity of the 
 Whole_and the way the Deity treats this resistance,” and 
 the prevailing Christian note is sadness, and its attitude 
 ceaseless polemic against the difference between actuality 
 and the religious idea. 
 
 The relation of this central intuition of Christianity to its 
 historical beginning and subsequent historical development 
 is in the first edition very slight. The historical Christ 
 seems at times only to be the discoverer and originator. 
 
 But we shall better understand the changes in the 
 second edition when we know Schleiermacher’s life up till 
 its appearance in 1806. 
 
 The " Speeches ” were at first little known to the theo¬ 
 logical world. The adherents of the old rationalistic school 
 were repelled by the pantheistic expressions in the book, 
 which were more prominent in the first edition than in its 
 later form. Sack, to whom Schleiermacher felt it his duty 
 to acknowledge his authorship, marvelled why he should still 
 wish to be a preacher of Christianity. Schleiermacher 
 replied, “ I hold the position of a preacher the noblest that 
 a truly religious, virtuous and earnest soul can fill, and I 
 shall never, with my will, exchange it with any other. 
 
 b 2 
 
XXXVI 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The elder Kantians, such as Schiller, thought the book pre¬ 
 tentious and barren, and troubled it no more. But in the 
 Romantic circle, now gathered at Jena, it created a great 
 enthusiasm. "Novalis and Schlegel,” Caroline Schlegel 
 wrote Schleiermacher, “ have made religion the order of the 
 day.” Novalis wrote many poems under the immediate 
 inspiration of the Speeches.” Already the interest of the 
 older school in antiquity was passing, and the new school 
 were deep in the Middle Ages. The new religion of 
 intuition and feeling accorded with this vein, and soon the 
 Christianity of the Middle Ages was the chief object of 
 glorification. Already Schleiermacher was in opposition, 
 telling Novalis that the papacy was the corruption, not the 
 perfection of Catholicism, but the artistic admiration for 
 Catholicism continued till many members of the Romantic 
 School found their way into the Church of Rome. 
 
 The offence of this book to the church party was 
 increased by the “ Confidential Letters on Lucinde ” which 
 followed it. Already Schleiermacher and Schlegel had 
 drifted far apart. Schlegel had wonderful gifts of adap¬ 
 tation. He had even maintained for a time a friendship with 
 Fichte, a man whose nature was nothing but ethical, ethical 
 in the narrowest sense. But already Schleiermacher had had 
 such proofs of SchlegeTs unreliableness as even his self- 
 sacrificing devoted friendship which gives him the high 
 distinction of being the only person in the circle in whose 
 letters Dilthey has found no duplicity, was unable to pass. 
 Schlegel had caused Dorothea, the daughter of Mendelssohn, 
 to separate from her husband, the banker Yeit. Schleier¬ 
 macher sought to avert the separation, but when it was 
 done he urged Schlegel to marry her. Schlegel showed 
 himself utterlv base and selfish in the whole matter, but 
 Schleiermacher strove through it all to believe in him. 
 Schlegel was always in want of money, always at least 
 after he had drained his friends, and in his desire for funds 
 he wrote a novel “ Lucinde.” Imagination utterly failed 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 XXXVll 
 
 him, and to fill his book he set forth his relation with 
 Dorothea, in a way which Dorothea herself considered a 
 desecration of the temple of love, and Schleiermacher, in 
 remonstrating with him, described as a f public exhibition/ 
 But necessities were urgent, and Schlegel published his 
 book. At once a storm of adverse criticism arose. Dorothea 
 straightway turned round and besought Schleiermacher to 
 do something to defend her husband. He very unwillingly 
 consented. The criticism had been more prudery than 
 purity, and Schleier macher hated all unreality; he also found 
 in the book his own theory that the union of soul and body 
 is necessary for a complete human life, but his “ Letters/' 
 though a good commentary, bore traces of being on a bad 
 text." 
 
 Once more Schleiermacher stood largely alone. He 
 occupied his mind in writing his “ Monologues," which 
 developes his moral philosophy as the “ Speeches ” deve¬ 
 loped his religious philosophy. He also wrote upon the 
 Jewish question, opposing the desire to convert the Jews to 
 a nominal Christianity, and urging that all civil privileges 
 should be accorded them in order that they might not 
 be led to endanger Christianity by embracing it through 
 indifference. But neither of those writings, so far as they 
 were known to be his, tended to re-establish him ecclesias¬ 
 tically. 
 
 Yet it was another matter that drove him from Berlin. 
 The current ideas of marriage were partly the result of the 
 corrupt society of the Berlin that had grown up around the 
 court of Frederick the Great, and partly of the spirit of a 
 time when all institutions were in the crucible. Even 
 Fichte is found recommending Dorothea Yeit, after she 
 had separated from her husband, to his wife’s care. Schleier¬ 
 macher did not escape the spirit of the time. With a sub- 
 tilty that frequently prevented him from seeing practical 
 consequences, but which kept all his aberrations from 
 being matters of caprice, he wrought his views into his 
 
XXXV111 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 system. He then held that where there was no true union, 
 but where marriage was an emphatic hindrance to the 
 development of the soul, separation was a duty. 
 
 Here we find the weakness of all his early philosophiz¬ 
 ing. He was excessively short-sighted, the sensuous side 
 of him was weak, he was of student's habits, and had a 
 student’s way of looking at life. To him an idea was a 
 sufficient motive, and the ideal a sufficient standard; and 
 he was utterly ignorant of how much was needed to restrain 
 mankind. 
 
 Even with himself, however, this theorizing came to a 
 practical result. Eleonore Grünow, the wife of a pastor in 
 Berlin, had made an unhappy marriage. Grünow was not 
 only somewhat of a boor towards his wife, but Dilthey says 
 an immoral man. Schleiermacher began by giving sym¬ 
 pathy and good advice. Finally he advised divorce, and 
 when no other prospect was open for Eleonore, he offered 
 marriage. 
 
 To leave her absolutely free, he accepted Sack's urgent 
 offer to leave Berlin for a pastorate at Stolpe, away in the 
 far north-east on the Baltic Sea. Eleonore finally resolved 
 to continue to bear her burden, and though Schleiermacher 
 passed through a very bitter struggle, long after, when he 
 met Eleonore in an assembly, he went up to her and said, 
 “ God has been good both to you and me, Eleonore." 
 
 In much affliction of body as well as mind, almost 
 entirely without the stimulus of literary companionship, 
 with the utmost difficulty in obtaining the materials for 
 study, he wrote in Stolpe his “ Outlines of all Existing 
 Theories of Morals." Plato alone he spared. The moderns 
 seemed to him all to aim at one uniformity of ideal, without 
 any acknowledgment of individuality. 
 
 He also wrote on church reform, largely in the spirit of 
 the Fourth Speech of this book. He would have union, 
 not uniformity, freedom of belief and action. The 
 diminished external dignity of churchmen he considered 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 XXXIX 
 
 good. He wished to see matters so arranged that no one 
 should be tempted to enter the ministry as an easy way of 
 getting a livelihood, as was the case especially with persons 
 of a lower social rank. He could wish another career to 
 be open for all who do not love the calling, but as that is 
 not possible, he would exclude “ blockheads, idlers, and 
 performers ! ” Above all, every man shall speak the truth 
 as he sees it, without fear of rank or prejudice. 
 
 Finally he was occupied with the translation of Plato. 
 It had been begun in partnership with Schlegel, but 
 Schlegel did practically nothing, breaking faith with 
 Schleiermacher and the publisher in the most offensive 
 manner. Schleiermacher set himself to the task alone, and 
 his friend Reimer, the Berlin publisher, accepted the 
 responsibilities, and for the first time paid him a reasonable 
 price for his work. 
 
 During all this time his chief interest had been in his 
 preaching and his instruction of the young, and he had 
 published a small volume of sermons. When a professor¬ 
 ship at Halle was offered to him, therefore, it was an 
 additional inducement that he was also to be University 
 preacher. A Reformed preacher was an innovation, and 
 the University service was long postponed on various pre¬ 
 texts. Gradually however matters were arranged, and he 
 began to approve himself as a teacher and to be recognized 
 as a power in the pulpit. At this stage, in 1806, when 
 political disasters were falling upon his country, he issued 
 the second edition of this book. 
 
 The nature and value of the many changes introduced 
 into the text have long been under discussion. Pünjer 
 seems to consider them chiefly a marring of the original 
 work. Lipsius thinks many valuable things in the first 
 edition are dropped, especially the use of intuition in re¬ 
 ligion, feeling alone having largely taken its place, yet he 
 grants many improvements. 
 
 The discussion has largely turned on the author's 
 
xl 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 ‘ Pantheism ” or “ Spinozism,” and his relation to histori¬ 
 cal Christianity. The most various views are defended. 
 Schleiermacher began as a Pantheist, and ended in the same 
 way. Bitschl finds characteristic inconsistency. On the one 
 hand Schleier macher regards the Universe simply as a -work 
 of art,religion being the artistic sense applied to the Universe, 
 which necessarily involves Pantheism; on the other his 
 doctrine of individuality gives a value to the individual as a 
 whole within a whole, that is entirely Christian and opposed 
 to Pantheism. Lipsius gives a very full and elaborate 
 comparison of the various editions. The first edition had 
 elements in it that made it the outer court by which 
 Schleiermacher himself and with him all modern theology 
 entered into the Holy of Holies of Christianity. It was 
 clearer, the psychological process was more justly con¬ 
 ceived, it was less troubled by artificial theory, but on the 
 other hand the relation of religion to dogma and discipline 
 is less justly conceived, the hesitation to ascribe person¬ 
 ality to God is more marked. The later editions are only 
 Pantheistic in a very general way. Above all the author 
 has found his place not only in Christianity but in 
 Protestantism. Christianity is not now a transitory form, 
 but has a fundamental relation to a state of thiugs that can 
 only end with time. Finally, Christ is not merely the 
 originator of the Christian intuition of the world, and men 
 are not merely Christians when they have His view, but 
 He is the centre of all mediation and to have the Christian 
 view is to be in a position to recognize His place when 
 He is shown us. Again the changes are explained simply 
 by difference of audience. The artistic paraphernalia are 
 simply a device for awaking in men whose whole interest was 
 in art, the sense for religion. This will certainly explain 
 some changes. The time had quite passed, and new mis¬ 
 apprehensions had to be guarded against. 
 
 Braasch defends Schleiermacher’s own view of the 
 changes. The later presentations are explained by the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xli 
 
 thoroughly successful attempt to formulate better the same 
 original conception of fundamental problems. The author’s 
 own view is given in the dedication to Brinkmann. The 
 book, he says, bears the impress of the period which gave 
 it birth. But so utterly had the time changed that its 
 use for the new race of readers and thinkers was to be 
 doubted. Yet he might not now withhold it, having once 
 given it to the public. The colour of the time in which it 
 was written he neither could nor would remove. Where¬ 
 fore, he has only altered details that might cause mis¬ 
 understandings, and chiefly concerning the relation of 
 religion and philosophy. “ But what I would willingly 
 have quite removed, had it been possible, is the mark, all 
 too strongly impressed on the whole book, of the untrained 
 beginner, who does not know the limits of the language he 
 has to deal with and who cannot succeed in presenting an 
 object as clearly as he sees it.” The essential meaning and 
 purpose of the book, however, he believes to be unchanged, 
 and even in the preface to the third edition he says that 
 already, i.e. when this book was first written, his “way of 
 thinking had reached the form in which, with the exception 
 of what in every man years ripen and clarify, it has since 
 remained.” 
 
 Though every man is entitled to a hearing on his own 
 mental progress, he is not necessarily the best judge. Yet 
 the main outlines of Schleiermacher’s thought seem to have 
 remained unchanged, and if we allow the ripening and 
 clarifying process to involve a considerable change of spiritual 
 attitude we may accept his estimate. But he grew perhaps 
 more than any man with the growing age, and the most 
 superficial reader cannot fail to detect the difference. 
 
 Three points of difference between the Halle theological 
 professor of 1806 and the member of the Wednesday Club 
 of 1799 make themselves apparent. 
 
 First, he has drifted out of the B-omantic circle, and the 
 effusiveness of the first edition, especially the gush about 
 
xlii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 art has grown strange to him. Several references to 
 himself are erased or toned down, notably his confession 
 that he wished to do homage to the goddess of art, and that 
 the lack of the artistic sense is his most marked limitation. 
 For the same cause he moderates some figures of speech 
 and softens many statements. But the newer lava is much 
 cooler than the old, and the mixture is a conglomerate of 
 somewhat confused nature. This specially applies to the 
 first part of the Second Speech. There is a slight difference 
 of theory. Religion is feeling which gives reality to know¬ 
 ledge and substance to morals. Religion in the old form 
 was intuitio n and feeling, wi thouT muclire ference either 
 to knowing or acting* Yet the excessive difficulty in the 
 present exposition is not in any great difficulty of the new 
 theory, but in the fact that the Halle professor calmly said I 
 will expound the relations of science, religion and ethics, 
 whereas the Romanticist said passionately I must tear these 
 metaphysical and ethical rags off religion that men may 
 see it undisguised. 
 
 This leads to the second difference. The Schleiermacher 
 of 1806 was no longer in deadly struggle with the “ Illumi¬ 
 nation,” but had quite other misconceptions to guard 
 against. To the Illumination God was not only outside of 
 the world but outside of man. He was a person who 
 rewarded and punished. Dogmas were abstractions, 
 reached by understanding and useful for persuading to 
 moral action. Away with your dogmas altogether, and 
 away with your goodness produced by desire of Heaven and 
 fear of Hell, was his message. Just what the Illumination 
 gave no place to, was for Schleiermacher the surest part of 
 religion, “ that in Him we live and move, and have our 
 being /’ Except through the world without and the world 
 within there is no knowledge of God. In opposition to the 
 Deistic view of God, he refuses to commit himself to any 
 statement about God's existence as a person. 
 
 Yet even here it is evident that it is hesitation and not 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xliii 
 
 any definite Pantheistic creed that hinders him from 
 ascribing personality to God. He is conscious of the value 
 of his doctrine of individuality and he knows that it dis¬ 
 tinguishes his system from Spinoza. Place for it in the 
 Universe there must be and God must be greater, not less. 
 In a letter to Sack he defends anthropomorphistic expres¬ 
 sions in religion as necessary for any utterance of it, which 
 means that our human ways of speech, such as to speak of 
 God as a person like ourselves, are so utterly inadequate as 
 to be no representation of reality, but still something on 
 the way to truth. But in rejecting religion as abstract 
 doctrine meant to influence morals, he scarcely stopped to 
 ask whether there was any right religious thinking, or 
 religious acting. 
 
 In 1806 he stood opposed to an entirely different state 
 of matters. Religion among his ancient friends was now 
 purely an aesthetic feeling, dogma was denounced religious 
 discipline little regarded. The question of the relation of 
 religion to knowledge and morals was urgent. Schleier¬ 
 macher solved the difficulty by saying that one part of the 
 mind can take the other for its object. 
 
 Thus the mind can make its feelings the object of its 
 thought, and doctrines arise. Religious ideas are reflections 
 on religious feeling. This is the conception he works out 
 in the Glaubenslehre (the Doctrine of Faith). Doctrines 
 are generalizations of feelings, but not therefore merely 
 subjective, for the feelings are the result of the operation of 
 the Universe, of personal experience, not merely of personal 
 excitability. Lipsius thinks if he had- retained his first 
 conception of intuition he would have reached the truth. 
 Doctrines are abstractions from our intuitions as well as 
 generalizations from our feelings. 
 
 In the same way the will may make the feelings an object to 
 work upon. Action is never to be from religion, but should 
 always be with religion. This has been uniformly criticized 
 as defective, but it rather seems to contain a profound truth. 
 
xliv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Is not much damage done because zeal issues in act before 
 it has taken counsel with conscience, and spiritual disciplines 
 are determined upon not as the ascetic which a man’s own 
 conscience has decreed for him, but as the result of imme¬ 
 diate feeling or of a fashion in the religious communion ? 
 
 This change of position necessarily involves somewhat 
 more boldness in speaking of God and not merely of the 
 Universe. A positive religion is determined not by a 
 fundamental intuition of the Universe, but by a fundamen¬ 
 tal relation to God. Religion is somewhat strictly limited 
 to feeling, and traces of the theory that religion is the feeling 
 of absolute dependence, are manifest. That the theory is 
 rendered more consistent is doubtful, but the change was 
 made in the interests of a great truth, that religion has not 
 merely an aesthetic but an ethical side. It has the merit 
 at least of stating a problem and suggesting its solution. 
 But the meaning of this theory will better appear in 
 considering the Explanations. 
 
 The third difference in the author which finds its way into 
 the second edition, is his deeper historical consciousness. 
 He has carried out a remorseless war against foreign 
 words. In his earlier days he made an unusually free use of 
 such words, but now, if any respectable native equivalent 
 can be discovered, they receive their quittance. He begins 
 with the title of the First Speech. “ Apology ” is supplanted 
 by the German equivalent here translated “ Defence.” 
 Even common words like philosophers and prophets are 
 changed to seers and wise men. Universe, the favourite 
 term of the first edition, is frequently replaced by Whole 
 and All, words of sadly alien aspect in the English transla¬ 
 tion. These changes are by no means uniformly felicitous, 
 but they mark one of the greatest movements of modern 
 times. The artistic Tower of Babel Germany had been 
 dissolved by the “ confusion of tongues,” and now, as the 
 shadow of the French invasion was gathering over her, her 
 sons were waking to an earnest and practical love for their 
 native land. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlv 
 
 Schleiermacher himself was conscious of the value of 
 this patriotism for religion. He speaks of it on p. 255, 
 note 2. For SchleierinacheFs theology as well as for his 
 life this movement was of value. It was his high merit to 
 have maintained the social nature of religion and the 
 knowledge of divine things in life and not apart from it, 
 but now he was to perceive the larger, more practical 
 bearing of his own doctrine. If each man is a whole 
 within a nationality that is a whole within humanity, a 
 morality that begins with the general elements of reason in 
 man, begins with duty to his country and to all men. 
 Similarly a man not only has his own religion, he not only 
 participates in the universal elements of all religion, but he 
 is rooted in the form of religion in which his life has 
 grown. Historical facts he found to be realities of the 
 spiritual life. In those years he had also struggled with 
 himself and tested his theory in self-conquest, and found 
 that however lofty the conception of the individual, indi¬ 
 vidual perfection is not an adequate moral aim. 
 
 This change is most apparent in the striking addition 
 called the Epilogue. Here in contrast to Friedrich 
 Schlegel and his followers, he takes up a definite position 
 not only as a Christian, but as a Protestant, and he has no 
 more interest in new forms of religion either without or 
 within Christianity. I 
 
 In the first edition he sets Christianity apart from all other 
 religions. He says he does not care how heathen religions 
 may be estimated. Judaism he describes for the value it 
 once had, but reckons it dead. Christianity he sets forth; 
 unquestionably, according to his own demand, from his own 
 experience. There is a strength and power in his descrip¬ 
 tion that bespeak personal devotion and reverence. 
 
 Christianity is the religion of religions, a higher 
 power of religion. All religions do something to mediate 
 between the finite and the Infinite. But Christianity is 
 conscious of this as its highest aim. And what Christianity 
 is to other religions Christ is to other men. His expecta- 
 
xlvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion of a new religion of humanity is not an anticipation 
 that Christianity will be replaced, because he fears that its 
 purpose can only end with time, but the hope of some new 
 organization of the religious matter that may wake the 
 religious sense in persons far distant from Christianity. It 
 is parallel with the conception which he subsequently re¬ 
 jected also, that idol worshippers will need to be prepared 
 for Christianity by Polytheism. 
 
 Shortly after this second edition, he published his 
 “ Christmas Festival ” (Weihnachtsfeier), a dialogue 
 among representatives of various types of thought, who 
 discuss the non-supernatural views of the occasion of the 
 celebration. 
 
 Hitherto Schleiermacher had been almost wholly a man 
 of ideas. In 1807 the defeat at Jena brought disaster upon 
 Prussia and upon Halle in particular. In the years of 
 humiliation that followed he became a man of action. 
 Even an opponent said, “ In those years there was no 
 better patriot.” He rejoiced at the war because there 
 could be no worse evil than base submission, but he did 
 not deceive himself about the results. Napoleon, he 
 believed, hated Protestantism as he hated ail independent 
 thought, and victory was scarcely to be hoped for except 
 by a coalition among the Protestant states of the North, 
 and then only after much purification by sorrow. The 
 end would demand every effort and self-sacrifice, and it 
 was worthy of it. “ The lives of us all are rooted in German 
 freedom and German sentiment, and they are at stake.” 
 
 His own circumstances were of the worst. Any little 
 possession he ever had, had been pillaged by the French 
 soldiers. Napoleon, using as a pretext the conduct of 
 the students, closed the University. For economy, 
 Schleiermacher and his youngest sister who lived with 
 him, joined Steffens in housekeeping, and even then he 
 was indebted to a French officer for wood for his winter’s 
 fire. But as long as “ potatoes and salt ” would hold out he 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 xlvii 
 
 was determined not to move, although a tempting offer 
 was made to him from Breslau. As opportunities arose he 
 preached and did not shun to deal with the present sad 
 state of things. Meantime in the corner of Steffens’s study 
 he was as busy as ever with his pen. He is found review¬ 
 ing Fichte, the other great patriot of the time, with almost 
 fierce hostility. History had become real to Schleiermacher ; 
 Christianity he believed was the living power most needed 
 at that time; and the cause of Protestantism and the cause 
 of Germany he regarded as one ; and Fichte, he thought, had 
 made light of all three. At this time also he issued his 
 first effort at exegesis, an inquiry into the authenticity of 
 the First Epistle of Timothy. The divineness of Christianity 
 must stand by itself, and not depend on a different divine¬ 
 ness of the Scriptures. Each book in the Bible must be 
 examined by itself and its authenticity must be established 
 on the same canons that would be applied to any other 
 book. 
 
 At the close of 1807 he left Halle for Berlin. Halle had 
 been transferred to Westphalia, and as he would not pray 
 for the king and queen he could not preach. After long 
 delay and much poverty a new sphere opened for him in 
 Berlin. A new University was founded in the capital to 
 replace Halle, and Schleiermacher had much to do with the 
 construction of it. Once more he came into violent collision 
 with Fichte, who wished to make the University a sort of 
 philosophical cloister under the stern discipline of the state. 
 Schleiermacher maintained that science to be prosperous 
 must be independent of the state, even when it receives the 
 state’s support. By individual spirit and effort it must 
 prosper, by men who really taught and who were not merely 
 paid for having the right to forget the existence of the 
 printing press. 
 
 By the Peace of Tilsit Napoleon had divided a large part 
 of the territory of Prussia among the neighbouring states, 
 and he continued by many oppressive devices his policy of 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 xlviii 
 
 annihilation. The government was incapable of any right 
 decision; but a band of true patriots arose, who without 
 any express union wrought together for the restoration of 
 their country. Schleiermacher was a recognized member, 
 and was despatched on several dangerous commissions. 
 
 In 1808, he was settled as preacher in the Dreifältigkeits 
 Church in Berlin, and he was not slow to use his oppor¬ 
 tunities for teaching national duties. Once he was 
 summoned before the French commander Davoust, but he 
 was so self-possessed that it came to nothing. During a 
 short time of peace afforded by the war with Austria, he 
 married the widow of his friend Willich ; a marriage which 
 was none the less happy because it was begun with nothing 
 in store and with the utmost uncertainty as to the future. 
 
 The last link that bound him to the Romantic period was 
 now broken. Friedrich Schlegel and his wife had already 
 entered the Catholic Church; and henceforward, while 
 Schleiermacher was fighting for Prussia and for Protestant¬ 
 ism as one cause, Schlegel was in Austria, sinking ever 
 deeper into Ultramontanism. 
 
 The patriots under Stein's leadership desired reforms in 
 the state. Schleiermacher seized the occasion to demand 
 reforms in the church. He found the cause of the indiffer¬ 
 ence to public worship, of the failure of the religious 
 sentiment to influence morals, of the want of an active 
 relationship between preachers and their congregation, 
 and of the utter lack of church discipline, in the subordina¬ 
 tion of the church to the state, in the idea that it was a 
 mere state institute. 
 
 During the last great struggle with Napoleon, after the 
 disaster in Russia, Schleier macher lent his aid in the 
 formation of the militia. Every morning he lectured as 
 usual, having determined to be the last to quit his post. 
 He preached with prophetic voice, showing the spiritual 
 purpose and the spiritual claims of such a time. Where 
 blame seemed to him to be due he spoke out, and for a 
 
INTRODUCTION . 
 
 xlix 
 
 newspaper article was severely censured by the government. 
 Finally he was among the first to enrol himself in a 
 battalion of the Landwehr, and spent some hours every 
 day in being drilled. 
 
 After Napoleon's strength had been broken at Leipzig, 
 Schleiermacher was even more gravely suspected by the 
 government. For many years be had been subject to cramp 
 in the stomach, and in the troubles of the time it increased 
 upon him, but with tongue and pen he laboured to obtain 
 the constitution that had been promised in the time of 
 calamity. 
 
 For the freedom of the church especially he felt called 
 upon to fight. Instead of granting a constitution, the 
 government appointed a commission to draw up a liturgy 
 and to re-establish the ancient Lutheran rigidity. Schleier¬ 
 macher was already in bitter opposition to the spirit of the 
 time which he felt there was no one to oppose, and now he 
 came forward boldly as the critic of the commission. He 
 desired a constitution based on congregational representa¬ 
 tion. To their presbyteries and synods he would give all 
 matters of order and discipline. The teacher must be free 
 to speak the truth and he must not be bound by any 
 formula, but where he departs from the spirit and truth of 
 Christianity so as to alienate from him the congregation, 
 he is to be dealt with by the church authorities. 
 
 The king, not content with the commission, issued a 
 liturgy, largely composed by himself, which was enforced 
 in military churches, and was being extended to others. It 
 was directly contrary to the spirit of the Reformed Church, 
 and the manner of introduction was opposed to the spirit of 
 Protestantism. Schleiermacher, therefore, in spite of the 
 difficulty of opposing the king, felt called upon to speak. 
 The new liturgy was not only rigid, it gave the sermon and 
 congregational singing a very inferior place. Protestant 
 worship^ Schleiermacher maintained^ i s based on tr uth and 
 freedom, and to that end teaching must have a prominent 
 
 c 
 
1 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 place, and the congregation must have a large liberty to 
 use the means best suited for its own edification. 
 
 He is also found defending the rights of critical study 
 of the Scriptures. “ Purest simplest faith and sharpest 
 testing are one and the same, for no one that would believe 
 what is divine, should wish to believe deceptions old or 
 new, his own or other peoples'.” 
 
 A certain outward unity of the Lutheran and Reformed 
 Churches had been brought to pass chiefly by the authority 
 of the king. Schleiermacher felt that a movement of this 
 kind should have been the outcome of the Christian 
 sentiment of the community; but he also felt it his duty to 
 forward it by whatever means it might have been accom¬ 
 plished. This union, however, was followed by the most 
 arbitrary attempts at uniformity. The king, a well-meaning 
 but rather weak man, was convinced by his court ecclesiastics 
 that from Constantine and Charlemagne he inherited the 
 right and duty to be head of the church, and that this 
 transference of ecclesiastical power to the Prince of the 
 land was the true outcome of the Reformation. Schleier¬ 
 macher with trenchant argument and pungent sarcastic 
 wit, replied. While he spared such honest enthusiasts as 
 Harms, he chastised the time-servers with scorpions. If 
 all the Reformation did was to transfer the Pope's power 
 to the Prince of the land, he thought there was need of 
 another reformation. The agenda was right for a 
 community that had been reared in the Catholic Church, 
 but Luther himself would have been the first to resist its 
 imposition in a merely traditional spirit on the church of 
 the Nineteenth Century. 
 
 For many years the struggle continued. Schleiermacher 
 was regarded as a political agitator, who sought to introduce 
 republicanism into the church as a beginning for introducing 
 into the state. 
 
 Meantime a movement similar to the High Church move¬ 
 ment which followed in England some ten years later was 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 li 
 
 passing over Germany. Schleiermacher gradually felt that 
 the spirit of the time was not with him. The people still 
 were on his side, but he was not fitted to be a popular leader 
 and years and illness were telling upon him. While smaller 
 men had been dealt with by the authorities, he had been too 
 terrible an opponent to touch, and now many concessions 
 were made to him. Finally he accepted a much simpler 
 form of the agenda, on the understanding that he was to use 
 it as he liked. Thus the strife ended, and with it the 
 hope of a church that might by its own free vitality have 
 produced a new religious life in Germany. 
 
 In the midst of these struggles he produced his last 
 great work, his “ Christian Doctrine of Faith ” (Christliche 
 Glaubenslehre), and, immediately after its publication, the 
 third edition of the “ Speeches ” appeared. The text was 
 little changed except in details of expression, but the 
 Explanations at the end of each Speech were added. They 
 represent the third and last stage of Schleiermachei^s 
 thought. 
 
 These Explanations are not to be regarded as expositions 
 of the text. They are an attempt to harmonize his earlier 
 utterances with his later, to guard against misconceptions, 
 to give more precise expression to the old ideas, usually in 
 the new dress of the Glaubenslehre, and finally to point out 
 to his time the lessons of his former teaching. 
 
 Strauss criticizes them very unfavourably. He considers 
 them a superintendence of the youthful Schleiermacher by 
 the old, which gives an unpleasant impression and “ is the 
 same petty smallness of soul with which the theologians of 
 the Catholic Church compelled the Antinicene Fathers into 
 agreement with Athanasian orthodoxy.” Had he said this 
 of the changes in the second edition there might have been 
 some force in it. In how far it applies to the Explanations 
 the reader has the means of judgiug. There is certainly a 
 very great difference of tone, and no man can harmonize 
 his youth with his old age without some subtilty, but to 
 
 c 2 
 
Hi 
 
 INTRODUCTION . 
 
 most minds the contrast will not give an unpleasant 
 impression, but be a very interesting study in the growth 
 of a very striking mind. 
 
 These notes are not all alike of the same value, but they 
 touch on most points in Schleiermacher’s later thinking as 
 set forth in his “ Doctrine of Faith ” and an earlier work 
 prepared in anticipation of the arrangement of the theolo¬ 
 gical faculty in Berlin University, “ A Short Presentation 
 of Theological Study” (Kurze Darstellung des theologischen 
 Studiums). In this latter writing he accepts the funda¬ 
 mental fact of Christianity as entirely original, yet coming 
 to him through the consciousness existing in the Christian 
 or rather the Protestant communion. Theology therefore 
 is a positive science of the existing Christian consciousness 
 of God, linked to the practical task of guiding the church. 
 There are three chief divisions, philosophical,—to find 
 the place of Christianity in general religion, leading to 
 apologetics—historical and practical. Most characteristic 
 for his way of thinking is the insertion, not only of Dog¬ 
 matics but of Exegesis among historical sciences. 
 
 In the Introduction to the “ Doctrine of Faith ” he 
 discusses many matters already treated in this book, as can 
 be seen from the frequent references in the Explanations. 
 With out__the “ Speeches ” indeed it is hardly possible to 
 understand the whole bearing of his later views, especially 
 his doctrine that piety ^ig. th e conscio u sness t hat w e ar e 
 absolutely dependen t, or.what he^considersphe same thing, 
 in relation to God. It is simply the old feeling and 
 intuition of the Universe with the idea of God more definite, 
 and with a more definite moral purpose. Hegel’s criticism 
 that it would make Schleiermacher’s dog more pious than 
 himself may be a fair criticism of the terminology, but it 
 has no truth in respect of the matter of the theory. It is 
 simply the consciousness of the roots of our nature. 
 
 We live in the region of antithesis, but God is the 
 unity of knowing and being. Wherefore, though we are 
 
 / 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 liii 
 
 always conscious of God, we cannot have a consciousness 
 that can stand outside of Him and regard Him, but one of 
 immediate contact only, and therefore of absolute depen¬ 
 dence. This is not separate from our other experience but 
 is simply one side, the consciousness of freedom being the 
 other. Pietv embodies itself in communities or churches, 
 and it may be distinguished by the stage or by the kind. 
 The first stage is Idolatry based on a confused sense of the 
 world, on admiration and terror ; next there is Polytheism, 
 involving clear sense perception and sense of law in 
 difference. The feeling of absolute dependence, however, 
 is only perfect in Monotheism, which involves a deeper self- 
 consciousness that finds everything in itself and therefore 
 everything in harmony with itself, and thus sees the world 
 as system. There have been three Monotheistic religions. 
 Judaism, however, by its constant limitation of God to 
 Israel has affinities with Idolatry, and Mahommedanism, by 
 its sensuous and passionate character, shows Polytheistic 
 elements. Christianity, therefore,, is the highest stage of 
 piety. 
 
 In kind, Christianity is distinguished as more teleolo¬ 
 gical, that is, its pious emotions bear more on the moral than 
 on the natural state of man, the Kingdom of Heaven being 
 its chief end. Judaism gives more prominence to personal 
 feeling and Mahommedanism is the aesthetic type of piety, 
 its feeling of absolute dependence bearing on the passive 
 side of life. 
 
 Further, Christianity is distinguished by its relation to 
 the redemption accomplished by Jesus of Nazareth. His 
 appearance in history is as a divine revelation not abso¬ 
 lutely supernatural or above reason. Every beginning is in 
 one sense supernatural, yet for the production of every man 
 there must have been an indwelling power of development 
 in the species, and though Christ, to be a universal divine 
 revelation, must be entirely set apart from other men, yet 
 human nature must have had the power to take up into it 
 
liv 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 the divine as it was in Christ. The actual implanting could 
 only be by a divine, an eternal act, but the temporal issue 
 of the act in a special person must be founded in the 
 original constitution of human nature. And without more 
 than human reason He could not be a Redeemer for all, and 
 yet in a sense all that was in Christ must be in man, 
 before we could have any need to be reconciled. There is 
 no way of sharing in Christian fellowship except by faith 
 in Jesus as the Redeemer. Dogmatic theology is the science 
 of the connection of the teaching valid in a Christian society 
 at a given time. The first duty of the theologian is to 
 discover a rule to distinguish the false from the true. In 
 Christianity there are four natural heresies, which either 
 make Christ too near or too far from human nature, so that 
 either it cannot be redeemed, or it does not need redemption. 
 There are two Christological, the Ebionite and the Docetic, 
 and two anthropological, the Pelagian and the Manichaean. 
 Further the theologian must either be Protestant or 
 Catholic. In so far as the Reformation was not merely 
 purification of abuses, Protestantism makes the relation of 
 the individual to the church dependent upon his relation 
 'to Christ, Catholicism on the contrary makes the relation 
 of the individual to Christ dependent on his relation to the 
 church. 
 
 Like many other men in Germany at that time he lec¬ 
 tured on a wide range of subjects. As a philosopher he 
 enjoyed a reputation not second to his colleague Hegel, 
 with whom, as an apostle of ideas and a Tory of the deepest 
 dye in all things social and political, he was frequently in 
 collision. He lectured on politics, aesthetics, education, 
 philology and all departments of theology. Many of the 
 notes for these lectures have been published and help to fill 
 in the outlines of his scheme of thought. 
 
 In his own home, where in addition to his wife’s 
 two children by her former marriage, there were three 
 daughters and a son of his own, he enjoyed the most 
 
INTRO D UCTION. 
 
 lv 
 
 perfect happiness. He had many friends and much social 
 intercourse, which on account of very early rising did not 
 hinder him from overtaking an astounding amount of work. 
 Holidays were usually spent in travelling. He was a 
 great pedestrian, and even when most broken down by ill- 
 health and overwork, several days’ walking in all weathers 
 restored him. At times he made longer journeys and was 
 once at least in this country. 
 
 In 1829 his only son Nathaniel died. He made the 
 funeral speech himself, but he felt that at his age ‘ such a 
 wound heals no more/ He had long been acknowledged 
 as the greatest preacher of his time. In the main his 
 audience consisted of educated people, particularly of 
 students, but he had hearers of all classes. A journal had 
 described him as a great man, and a sublime preacher. 
 
 ‘ We Germans,’ he said, ‘ ascribe greatness to so few that 
 to say it of a man of my stamp can only be absurd, and 
 sublimity in preaching is against my principles. The 
 sublimer the Gospel the simpler must the preaching of it 
 be.’ His style was conversational, in the highest degree 
 natural, forcible and adapted to all. But after his son’s 
 death there was larger depth of sympathy, he spoke more 
 persistently of God’s love in Christ, and he was frequently 
 moved even to tears. 
 
 Almost to the end he was able to carry on all his work. 
 The will which had enabled him to work in so much sick¬ 
 ness, now resisted nature too far and he was seized with 
 inflammation of the lungs. On his death-bed he said “ I am 
 in a state between consciousness and unconsciousness, but I 
 have the divinest moments. I must think the profoundest 
 speculative thoughts, and they are quite one with the 
 tenderest religious feelings.” Once he cried “ Lord I suffer 
 much.” Soon after the pain passed, then as if meditating he 
 said, “ Lord, I have never clung to the dead letter, and we 
 have the propitiatory death of - Jesus Christ, His body and 
 His blood. I have ever believed and believe still that the 
 
lvi 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Lord Jesus gave the Supper in water and wine.” Then 
 raising himself, he said, “ Are you also at one with me in 
 this faith that the Lord Jesus blessed also the water in the 
 wine ? ” On the assent of the by-standers he continued, 
 “ Then let us take the Supper, you the wine and me the 
 water. Let no one be troubled about the form.” After 
 the words of the institution he said, c: On these words of 
 the Scripture I rest, they are the foundation of my faith.” 
 Then turning to his wife he said, “ In this love and commu¬ 
 nion we are and remain one.” A few moments more and 
 he had departed. It was the 12th of February, 1834. 
 
 To enter on the various criticisms of this book is impos¬ 
 sible. Its power was not in satisfying but in stimulating 
 the mind. The historical results, however, have been 
 estimated in comparatively short space by Neander and 
 Ritschl, men of pre-eminent qualifications. 
 
 “ Whosoever,” says Neander, “ participated in the re¬ 
 ligious movements at the beginning of the Nineteenth Cen¬ 
 tury, will recognize how a pantheistic enthusiasm can be for 
 « many a thoughtful and profound spirit a starting-point for 
 faith in the Gospel. Specially important, as a stepping- 
 stone to the theological and religious development, was the 
 appearance of the “Speeches on Religion” by the late 
 Schleiermacher. This book was the occasion of a great 
 revolution and mighty stirring of spirits. Men of the 
 older generation, adherents of the ancient Christian super¬ 
 naturalism or earnest Rationalists whose living faith in a 
 God above the world and a life beyond was a relic of 
 it, rejected the pantheistic elements in the book with anger 
 and detestation. But those who were then among the rising 
 generation, know with what might this book that testified 
 in youthful enthusiasm of the neglected religious elements 
 in human nature, wrought upon the heart. In opposition 
 to a one-sided intellectualism, it was of the greatest im¬ 
 portance that the might oh religious feeling, the seat of 
 religion in the heart, should be pointed out. It was a 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 lvii 
 
 weighty impulse to science that men were directed from 
 the arbitrary abstract aggregate called the Religion of 
 Reason to the historical significance, in the flesh and blood 
 of life, of religion, and of Christianity as part of religion. 
 This accorded with the newly awakened interest and sense 
 for historical research.” 
 
 Ritschl is not free from using Schleiermacher as a pulpit 
 from which to preach to his age, and is more concerned to 
 show defects. He regards this book as the religious 
 programme of Romanticism. ‘ It represents a movement 
 that would necessarily have had a large influence without 
 it, yet the soil would not have been so fruitful either of bad 
 or good had not Schleiermacher tilled it. On page 144, 
 note 4, Schleiermacher disowns Pietism, nevertheless it 
 was intimately connected with him. Both had their root 
 in Moravianism. Pietism, influenced by Methodism, made 
 a keen sense of sin a condition of assurance of Grace, while 
 Schleiermacher followed the earlier Moravian type of a 
 child-like disposition towards Gcd. Yet this penitence was 
 largely the refinement of the aesthetic sense so conspicuous 
 in the “ Speeches.” The Pietists differ also from him in 
 attaching the state of feeling to the Lutheran doctrine of 
 Justification, and yet their position is derived from Schleier- 
 macher’s view of Christianity as reconciling men who by 
 nature cannot receive anything that is of the Spirit of 
 God, and they hold with him the prevailing mood of 
 Christianity to be sadness. Their type of preaching too, 
 is Schleiermacher’s mastership in the religious art. Where¬ 
 fore they only influenced persons of a higher rank, and the 
 communion of the “ awakened,” in the consciousness of 
 having proved their artistic sense in religion, regarded 
 themselves as the aristocracy of the church. They lacked 
 Sckleiermacker’s large view of what makes a characteristic 
 personality, gave a smaller place than he did to religious 
 communion, and treated all their members as only on the 
 threshold of the Christian life. Above all they had nothing 
 
 d 
 
lviii 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of his belief that all things lead to God, but having no 
 gospel for the six working days, had no message for the 
 great mass of the toilers. 
 
 Hierarchical Orthodoxy was justified by Schleier macher’s 
 principle that “ in their circle the perfect in religion have 
 to rule.” The modern Hierarchists are in their own 
 opinion Lutherans, but in truth they are modified Schleier- 
 macherites. Their illusion of infallibility and dislike to 
 painful discussion does not rest on a knowledge of 
 Reformation theology, but on the aesthetic sense, the 
 musical temperament. 
 
 “ Strauss in religious science never had a positive, a 
 fruitful, or even an original thought, but he has ever urged 
 the thought of another beyond the proper measure.” 
 His materialism is only the winter covering of what when 
 the sun was high was his Romantic culture. The high 
 value assigned to individuality by Schleiermacher was 
 omitted by Strauss. Nor has it been rightly estimated by 
 any of liis followers. Their movement has not followed 
 the conditions of personal responsibility and moral freedom, 
 and has been contrary to moral progress and characteristic 
 development of the individual. 
 
 In practical matters Schleiermacher’s influence has 
 been towards creating a hybrid unworkable relation of 
 the church to the state. 
 
 In scientific theology his examination of the general 
 idea of religion in relation to its kinds and grades, marks 
 an era. His conception of each individual religion as an 
 organic whole is of great .value, but he has encouraged the 
 neglect of the study of the cult. Nor are his conceptions 
 of Judaism or Christianity adequate. Many of his most 
 valuable suggestions have been neglected by his successors, 
 and the lack of systematic and exhaustive treatment which 
 was necessary for his aim in this book, has had an evil 
 influence on the method of his successors.’ 
 
ON RELIGION. 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 DEFENCE. 
 
 It may be an unexpected and even a marvellous under¬ 
 taking, that any one should still' venture to demand 
 from the very class that have raised themselves above 
 the vulgar, and are saturated with the wisdom of the 
 centuries, attention for a subject so entirely neglected by 
 them. And I confess that I am aware of nothing that 
 promises any easy success, whether it be in winning for my 
 efforts your approval, or in the more difficult and more 
 desirable task of instilling into you my thought and in¬ 
 spiring you for my subject. From of old faith has not 
 been every man's affair. At all times but few have discerned 
 religion itself, while millions, in various ways, have been 
 satisfied to juggle with its trappings. Now especially the 
 life of cultivated people is far from anything that might 
 have even a resemblance to religion. Just as little, I know, 
 do you worship the Deity in sacred retirement, as you visit 
 the forsaken temples. In your ornamented dwellings, the 
 only sacred things to be met with are the sage maxims of 
 our wise men, and the splendid compositions of our poets. 
 Suavity and sociability, art and science have so fully taken 
 possession of your minds, that no room remains for the 
 eternal and holy Being that lies beyond the world. I 
 
 B 
 
2 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 know how well you have succeeded in making your earthly 
 life so rich and varied, that you no longer stand in need of 
 an eternity. Having made a universe for yourselves, you 
 are above the need of thinking of the Universe that made 
 you. You are agreed, I know, that nothing new, nothing 
 convincing can any more be said on this matter, which on 
 every side by sages and seers, and I might add by scoffers 
 and priests, has been abundantly discussed. To priests, 
 least of all, are you inclined to listen. They have long 
 been outcasts for you, and are declared unworthy of your 
 trust, because they like best to lodge in the battered ruins 
 of their sanctuary and cannot, even there, live without 
 disfiguring and destroying it still more. All this I know, 
 and yet, divinely swayed by an irresistible necessity within 
 me, I feel myself compelled to speak, and cannot take back 
 my invitation that you and none else should listen to me. 
 
 Might I ask one question ? On every subject, however 
 small and unimportant, you would most willingly be taught 
 by those who have devoted to it their lives and their 
 powers. In your desire for knowledge you do not avoid 
 the cottages of the peasant or the workshops of the humble 
 artizans. How then does it come about that, in matters of 
 religion alone, you hold every thing the more dubious when 
 it comes from those who are experts, not only according to 
 their own profession, but by recognition from the state, and 
 from the people ? Or can you perhaps, strangely enough, 
 show that they are not more experienced, but maintain 
 and cry up anything rather than religion ? Scarcely, my 
 good sirs! Hot setting much store on a judgment so 
 baseless I confess, as is right, that I also am a member of 
 this order. I venture, though I run the risk, if you do not 
 give me an attentive hearing, of being reckoned among 
 the great crowd from which you admit so few exceptions. 
 
 This is at least a voluntary confession, for my speech would 
 not readily have betrayed me. Still less have I any expec¬ 
 tations of danger from the praise which my brethren will 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 3 
 
 bestow on this undertaking, for my present aim lies almost 
 entirely outside their sphere, and can have but small re¬ 
 semblance to what they would most willingly see and hear. 1 
 With the cry of distress, in which most of them join, 
 over the downfall of religion I have no sympathy, for I 
 know no age that has given religion a better reception 
 than the present. I have nothing to do with the conserva¬ 
 tive and barbarian lamentation whereby they seek to rear 
 again the fallen walls and gothic pillars of their Jewish Zion. 
 
 Why then, as I am fully conscious that in all I have 
 to say to you I entirely belie my profession, should I not 
 acknowledge it like any other accident ? Its prepossessions 
 shall in no way hinder us. Neither in asking nor in answer¬ 
 ing shall the limits it holds sacred be valid between us. 
 As a man I speak to you of the sacred secrets of mankind 
 according to my views—of what was in me as with youthful 
 enthusiasm I sought the unknown, of what since then I 
 have thought and experienced, of the innermost springs of 
 my being which shall for ever remain for me the highest, 
 however I be moved by the changes of time and mankind. 
 I do not speak from any reasoned resolve, nor from hope, 
 nor from fear. Nor is it done from any caprice or accident. 
 Rather it is the pure necessity of my nature; it is a divine 
 call; it is that which determines my position in the world 
 and makes me what I am. Wherefore, even if it were neither 
 fitting nor prudent to speak of religion, there is something 
 which compels me and represses with its heavenly power 
 all those small considerations. 
 
 You know how the Deity, by an immutable law, has 
 compelled Himself to divide His great work even to 
 infinity. Each definite thing can only be made up by 
 melting together two opposite activities. Each of His 
 eternal thoughts can only be actualized in two hostile yet 
 twin forms, one of which cannot exist except by means of 
 the other. The whole corporeal world, insight into which 
 is the highest aim of your researches, appears to the best 
 
 b 2 
 
4 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 instructed and most contemplative among you, simply a 
 never-ending play of opposing forces. Each life is merely 
 the uninterrupted manifestation of a perpetually renewed 
 gain and loss, as each thing has its determinate existence 
 by uniting and holding fast in a special way the opposing 
 forces of Nature. Wherefore the spirit also, in so far as 
 it manifests itself in a finite life, must be subject to the 
 same law. The human soul, as is shown both by its pass¬ 
 ing actions and its inward characteristics, has its existence 
 chiefly in two opposing impulses. Following the one im¬ 
 pulse, it strives to establish itself as an individual. For 
 increase, no less than sustenance, it draws what surrounds 
 it to itself, weaving it into its life, and absorbing it into its 
 own being. The other impulse, again, is the dread fear to 
 stand alone over against the Whole, the longing to sur¬ 
 render oneself and be absorbed in a greater, to be taken 
 hold of and determined. All you feel and do that bears on 
 your separate existence, all you are accustomed to call 
 enjoyment or possession works for the first object. The 
 other is wrought for when you are not directed towards 
 the individual life, but seek and retain for yourselves what 
 is the same in all and for all the same existence, that in 
 which, therefore, you acknowledge in your thinking and 
 acting, law and order, necessity and connection, right and 
 fitness. Just as no material thing can exist by only one 
 of the forces of corporeal nature, every soul shares in the 
 two original tendencies of spiritual nature. At the ex¬ 
 tremes one impulse may preponderate almost to the ex¬ 
 clusion of the other, but the perfection of the living world 
 consists in this, that between these opposite ends all com¬ 
 binations are actually present in humanity. 
 
 And not only so, but a common band of consciousness 
 embraces them all, so that though the man cannot be other 
 than he is, he knows every other person as clearly as himself, 
 and comprehends perfectly every single manifestation of 
 humanity. Persons, however, at the extremes of this great 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 5 
 
 series, are furthest removed from such a knowledge of the 
 whole. The endeavour to appropriate, too little influenced 
 by the opposite endeavour, takes the form of insatiable 
 sensuality that is mindful only of its individual life, and en¬ 
 deavours only in an earthly way to incorporate into it more 
 and more material and to keep itself active and strong. 
 Swinging eternally between desire and enjoyment, such 
 persons never get beyond consciousness of the individual, 
 and being ever busy with mere self-regarding concerns, they 
 are neither able to feel nor know the common, the whole 
 being and nature of humanity. To persons, on the other hand, 
 too forcibly seized by the opposite impulse, who, from defec¬ 
 tive power of grasp, are incapable of acquiring any charac¬ 
 teristic, definite culture, the true life of the world must just as 
 much remain hidden. It is not granted them to penetrate 
 with plastic mind and to fashion something of their own, 
 but their activity dissipates itself in a futile game with 
 empty notions. They never make a living study of any¬ 
 thing, but devote their whole zeal to abstract precepts that 
 degrade everything to means, and leave nothing to be an 
 end. They consume themselves in mistaken hate against 
 everything that comes before them with prosperous force. 
 How are these extremes to be brought together, and the 
 long series be made into a closed ring, the symbol of 
 eternity and completeness ? 
 
 Persous in whom both tendencies are toned down to an un¬ 
 attractive equilibrium are not rare, but, in truth, they stand 
 lower than either. For this frequent phenomenon which so 
 many value highly, we are not indebted to a living union of 
 both impulses, but both are distorted and smoothed away to 
 a dull mediocrity in which no excess appears, because all 
 fresh life is wanting. This is the position to which a false 
 discretion seeks to bring the younger generation. But were 
 the extremes avoided in no other way, all men would have 
 departed from the right life and from contemplation of 
 the truth, the higher spirit would have vanished from the 
 
6 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 world, and the will of the Deity been entirely frustrated. 
 Elements so separated or so reduced to equilibrium would 
 disclose little even to men of deep insight, and, for a 
 common eye that has no power of insight to give life to 
 the scattered bones, a world so peopled would be only a 
 mock mirror that neither reflects their own forms nor 
 allows them to see behind it. 
 
 Wherefore the Deity at all times sends some here and there, 
 who in a fruitful manner are imbued with both impulses, 
 either as a direct gift from above, or as the result of a severe 
 and complete self-training. They are equipped with wonder¬ 
 ful gifts, their way is made even by an almighty indwelling 
 word. They are interpreters of the Deity and His works, 
 and reconcilers of things that otherwise would be eternally 
 divided. I mean, in particular, those who unite those 
 opposing activities, by imprinting in their lives a character¬ 
 istic form upon just that common nature of spirit, the 
 shadow of which only appears to most in empty notions, as 
 an image upon mist. They seek order and connection, 
 right and fitness, and they find just because they do not lose 
 themselves. Their impulse is not sighed out in inaudible 
 wishes, but works in them as creative power. For this 
 power they create and acquire, and not for that degraded 
 animal sensuality. They do not devour destructively, but, 
 creatively recasting, they breathe into life and life’s tools 
 a higher spirit, ordering and fashioning a world that bears 
 the impress of their mind. Earthly things they wisely 
 control, showing themselves lawgivers and inventors, 
 heroes and compellers of nature, or, in narrower circles, 
 as good fairies they create and diffuse in quiet a nobler 
 happiness. By their very existence they prove themselves 
 ambassadors of God, and mediators between limited man 
 and infinite humanity. To them the captive under the 
 power of empty notions may look, to perceive in their 
 works the right object of his own incomprehensible 
 requirements, and in their persons the material hitherto 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 7 
 
 despised, with which he ought to deal. They interpret 
 to him the misunderstood voice of God, and reconcile 
 him to the earth and to his place thereon. Far more 
 the earthly and sensual require such mediators from 
 whom to learn how much of the highest nature of 
 humanity is wanting to their own works and ways. They 
 stand in need of such a person to oppose to their base 
 animal enjoyment another enjoyment, the object of which 
 is not this thing or that, but the One in All, and All in One, 
 an object that knows no other bounds but the world, that 
 the spirit has learned to comprehend. He is needed to 
 show to their anxious, restless self-love, another self-love 
 whereby man in this earthly life and along with it loves 
 the highest and the eternal, and to their restless passionate 
 greed a quiet and sure possession. 
 
 Acknowledge, then, with me, what a priceless gift the 
 appearance of such a person must be when the higher feel¬ 
 ing has risen to inspiration, and can no longer be kept 
 silent, when every pulse-beat of his spiritual life takes 
 communicable form in word or figure, so that, despite of his 
 indifference to the presence of others, he almost unwillingly 
 becomes fcr others the master of some divine art. This is 
 the true priest of the highest, for he brings it nearer those 
 who are only accustomed to lay hold of the finite and the 
 trivial. The heavenly and eternal he exhibits as an object of 
 enjoyment and agreement, as the sole exhaustless source of 
 the things towards which their whole endeavour is directed. 
 In this way he strives to awaken the slumbering germ of 
 a better humanity, to kindle love for higher things, to 
 change the common life into a nobler, to reconcile the 
 children of earth with the Heaven that hears them, and 
 to counterbalance the deep attachment of the age to the 
 baser side. This is the higher priesthood that announces 
 the inner meaning of all spiritual secrets, and speaks from 
 the kingdom of God. It is the source of all visions and 
 prophecies, of all the sacred works of art and inspired 
 
8 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 speeches that are scattered abroad, on the chance of finding 
 some receptive heart where they may bring forth fruit. 
 
 Might it sometime arrive that this office of mediator 
 cease, and a fairer destiny await the priesthood of humanity ! 
 Might the time come, which an ancient prophecy describes, 
 when no one should need to be taught of man, for they 
 should all be taught of God ! If everywhere the sacred fire 
 burned, fervid prayers would not be needed to call it down 
 from heaven, but only the placid quiet of holy virgins 
 to maintain it. Nor would it burst forth in oft-dreaded 
 flames, but would strive only to communicate equally to all 
 its hidden glow. In quiet, then, each one would illumine 
 himself and others. The communication of holy thoughts and 
 feelings would be an easy interchange, the different beams 
 of this light being now combined and again broken up, now 
 scattered, and again here and there concentrated on single 
 objects. A whispered word would then be understood, 
 where now the clearest expression cannot escape miscon¬ 
 ception. Men could crowd together into the Holy of Holies 
 who now busy themselves with the rudiments in the outer 
 courts. How much pleasanter it is to exchange with 
 friends and sympathizers completed views, than to go into 
 the wide wilderness with outlines barely sketched ! But 
 how far from one another now are those persons between 
 whom such intercourse might take place! They are 
 scattered with as wise an economy among mankind, as the 
 hidden points from which the elastic primordial matter 
 expands on every side are in space. The outer boundaries 
 of their sphere of operations just touch so that there is no 
 void, yet one never meets the other. A wise economy 
 indeed ! for all their longing for intercourse and friend¬ 
 liness is thus wholly directed towards those who stand most 
 in need, and they labour the more persistently to provide 
 for themselves the comrades they lack. 
 
 To this very power I now submit, and of this very nature 
 is my call. Permit me to speak of myself. You know that 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 9 
 
 what is spoken at the instigation of piety cannot be pride, 
 for piety is always full of humility. Piety was the mother's 
 womb, in whose sacred darkness my young life was 
 nourished and was prepared for a world still sealed for it. 
 In it my spirit breathed ere it had yet found its own place 
 in knowledge and experience. It helped me as I began to 
 sift the faith of my fathers and to cleanse thought and 
 feeling from the rubbish of antiquity. When the God and 
 the immortality of my childhood vanished from my doubt¬ 
 ing eyes it remained to me. 2 Without design of mine it 
 guided me into active life. It showed me how, with my 
 endowments and defects, I should keep myself holy in an 
 undivided existence, and through it alone I have learnt 
 friendship and love. In respect of other human excellences, 
 before j^our judgment-seat, ye wise and understanding of 
 the people, I know it is small proof of possession to be able 
 to speak of their value. They can be known from descrip¬ 
 tion, from observation of others, or, as all virtues are 
 known, from the ancient and general traditions of their 
 nature. But religion is of such a sort and is so rare, that 
 whoever utters anything of it, must necessarily have had it, 
 for nowhere could he have heard it. Of all that I praise, 
 all that I feel to be the true work of religion, you would find 
 little even in the sacred books. To the man who has not 
 himself experienced it, it would only be an annoyance and a 
 folly. 
 
 Finally, if I am thus impelled to speak of religion and to 
 deliver my testimony, to whom should I turn if not to the 
 sons of Germany ? Where else is an audience for my 
 speech ? It is not blind predilection for my native soil or 
 for my fellows in government and language, that makes me 
 speak thus, but the deep conviction that you alone are 
 capable, as well as worthy, of having awakened in you the 
 sense for holy and divine things. Those proud Islanders 
 whom many unduly honour, know no watchword but gain 
 and enjoyment. Their zeal for knowledge is only a sham 
 
IO 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 fight, their worldly wisdom a false jewel, skilfully and 
 deceptively composed, and their sacred freedom itself too 
 often and too easily serves self-interest. They are never 
 in earnest with anything that goes beyond palpable utility. 3 
 All knowledge they have robbed of life and use only as 
 dead wood to make masts and helms for their lifers voyage 
 in pursuit of gain. Similarly they know nothing of religion, 
 save that all preach devotion to ancient usages and defend its 
 institutions, regarding them as a protection wisely cherished 
 by the constitution against the natural enemy of the state. 
 
 For other reasons I turn from the French. On them, 
 one who honours religion can hardly endure to look, for 
 in every act and almost in every word, they tread its 
 holiest ordinances under foot. The barbarous indifference 
 of the millions of the people, and the witty frivolity with 
 which individual brilliant spirits behold the sublimest fact 
 of history that is not only taking place before their eyes, 
 but has them all in its grasp, and determines every move¬ 
 ment of their lives, witnesses clearly enough how little they 
 are capable of a holy awe or a true adoration. What does 
 religion more abhor than the unbridled arrogance with 
 which the rulers of the people bid defiance to the eternal 
 laws of the world ? What does it inculcate more strongly 
 than that discreet and lowly moderation of which aught, 
 even the slightest feeling, does not seem to be suggested 
 to them ? What is more sacred to it than that lofty 
 Nemesis, of whose most terrible dealings in the intoxication 
 of infatuation they have no understanding ? Where varied 
 punishments that formerly only needed to light on single 
 families to fill whole peoples with awe before the heavenly 
 Being and to dedicate to eternal Fate the works of the poets fcr 
 centuries, are a thousandfold renewed in vain, how ludicrously 
 would a single lonely voice resound unheard and unnoticed. 
 
 Only in my native land is that happy clime which 
 refuses no fruit entirely. There you find, though it be 
 only scattered, all that adorns humanity. Somewhere, 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 ii 
 
 in individuals at least, all that grows attains its most 
 beautiful form. Neither wise moderation, nor quiet con¬ 
 templation is wanting; there, therefore, religion must find 
 a refuge from the coarse barbarism and the cold worldly 
 mind of the age. 
 
 Or will you direct me to those whom you look down upon 
 as rude and uncultured, as if the sense for sacred things 
 had passed like an old-fashioned garment to the lower 
 portion of the people, as if it became them alone to 
 be impressed with belief and awe of the unseen ? You are 
 well disposed towards these, our brethren. You would 
 have them addressed also, on other higher subjects, on 
 morals, justice and freedom, that for single moments, at 
 least, their highest endeavours should be turned towards 
 better things, and an impression of the worth of man be 
 awakened in them. Let them be addressed at the same 
 time on religion; arouse occasionally their whole nature ; 
 let the holiest impulse, asleep or hidden though it be, be 
 brought to life; enchant them with single flashes, charmed 
 from the depths of their hearts ; open out of their narrow 
 lives a glimpse into infinity ; raise even for a moment their 
 low sensuality to the high consciousness of human will and 
 of human existence, and much cannot fail to be won. But, 
 pray you, do you turn to this class when you wish to unfold 
 the inmost connection and the highest ground of human 
 powers and actions, when idea and feeling, law and fact 
 are to be traced to their common source, when you would 
 exhibit the actual as eternal and necessarily based in the 
 nature of humanity ? Is it not as much as can be looked 
 for if your wise men are understood by the best among you : 
 Now that is just my present endeavour in regard to religion. 
 I do not seek to arouse single feelings possibly belonging to 
 it, nor to justify and defend single conceptions, but I would 
 conduct you into the profoundest depths whence every feel¬ 
 ing and conception receives its form. I would show you from 
 what human tendency religion proceeds and how it belongs 
 
12 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 to what is for yon highest and dearest. To the roof of the 
 temple I would lead you that you might survey the whole 
 sanctuary and discover its inmost secrets. 
 
 Do you seriously expect me to believe that those who 
 daily distress themselves most toilsomely about earthly 
 things have pre-eminent fitness for becoming intimate with 
 heavenly things, those who brood anxiously over the next 
 moment and are fast bound to the nearest objects can 
 extend their vision widest over the world, and that those, 
 who, in the monotonous round of a dull industry have not 
 yet found themselves will discover most clearly the living 
 Deity ! Surely you will not maintain that -to your 
 shame? You alone, therefore, I can invite, you who are 
 called to leave the common standpoint of mankind, who do 
 not shun the toilsome way into the depths of man's spirit to 
 find his inmost emotions and see the living worth and con¬ 
 nection of his outward works. 
 
 Since this became clear to me, I have long found myself 
 in the hesitating mood of one who has lost a precious jewel, 
 and does not dare to examine the last spot where it could 
 be hidden. There was a time when vou held it a mark of 
 special courage to cast off partially the restraints of inherited 
 dogma. You still were ready to discuss particular subjects, 
 though it were only to efface one of those notions. Such a 
 figure as religion moving gracefully, adorned in eloquence, 
 still pleased you, if only that you wished to maintain in the 
 gentler sex a certain feeling for sacred things. But that 
 time is long past. Piety is now no more to be spoken of, and 
 even the Graces, with most unwomanly hardness, destroy 
 the tenderest blossoms of the human heart, and I can link the 
 interest I require from you to nothing but your contempt. 
 I will ask you, therefore, just to be well informed and 
 thorough-going in this contempt. 
 
 Let us then, I pray you, examine whence exactly religion 
 has its rise. Is it from some clear intuition, or from some 
 vague thought ? Is it from the different kinds and sects 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 13 
 
 of religion found in history, or from some general idea which 
 you have perhaps conceived arbitrarily ? Some doubtless 
 will profess the latter view. But here as in other things the 
 ready judgment may be without ground, the matter being 
 superficially considered and no trouble being taken to gain 
 an accurate knowledge. Your general idea turns on fear of • 
 an eternal being,’or, broadly, respect for his influence on the 
 occurrences of this life called by you providence, on expec¬ 
 tation of a future life after this one, called by you immor¬ 
 tality. These two conceptions which you have rejected, 
 are, you consider, in one way or another, the hinges of all 
 religion. But say, my dear sirs, how you have found this; 
 for there are two points of view from which everything* 
 taking place in man or proceeding from him may be 
 regarded. Considered from the centre outwards, that 
 is according to its inner quality, it is an expression of 
 human nature, based in one of its necessary modes of acting 
 or impulses or whatever else’ you like to call it, for I will 
 not now quarrel with your technical language. On the 
 contrary, regarded from the outside, according to the defi¬ 
 nite attitude and form it assumes in particular cases, it is 
 a product of time and history. From what side have you 
 considered religion that great spiritual phenomenon, that 
 you have reached the idea that everything called by this 
 name has a common content ? You can hardly affirm that 
 it is by regarding it from within. If so, my good sirs, you 
 would have to admit that these thoughts are at least in 
 some way based in human nature. And should you say 
 that as now found they have sprung only from misinterpre¬ 
 tations or false references of a necessary human aim, it 
 would become you to seek in it the true and eternal, and to 
 unite your efforts to ours to free human nature from the 
 injustice which it always suffers when aught in it is mis¬ 
 understood or misdirected. 
 
 By all that is sacred, and according to that avowal, some¬ 
 thing must be sacred to you, I adjure you, do not neglect 
 
14 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 this business, that mankind, whom with us you honour, 
 do not most justly scorn you for forsaking them in a grave 
 matter. If you find from what you hear that the business is 
 as good as done, even if it ends otherwise than you expect, 
 I venture to reckon on your thanks and approval. 
 
 But you will probably say that your idea of the content 
 of religion is from the other view of this spiritual phe¬ 
 nomenon. You start with the outside, with the opinions, 
 dogmas and usages, in which every religion is presented. 
 They always return to providence and immortality. For 
 these externals you have sought an inward and original 
 source in vain. Wherefore religion generally can be nothing 
 but an empty pretence which, like a murky and oppressive 
 atmosphere, has enshrouded part of the truth. Doubtless 
 this is your genuine opinion. But if you really consider 
 these two points the sum of religion in all the forms in 
 which it has appeared in history, permit me to ask whether 
 you have rightly observed all these phenomena and have 
 rightly comprehended their common content ? If your idea 
 has had its rise in this way you must justify it by instances. 
 If anyone says it is wrong and beside the mark, and if he 
 point out something else in religion not hollow, but having 
 a kernel of excellent quality and extraction, you must first 
 hear and judge before you venture further to despise. Do 
 not grudge, therefore, to listen to what I shall say to those 
 who, from first to last, have more accurately and laboriously 
 adhered to observation of particulars. 
 
 You are doubtless acquainted with the histories of human 
 follies, and have reviewed the various structures of religious 
 doctrine from the senseless fables of wanton peoples to the 
 most refined Deism, from the rude superstition of human 
 sacrifice to the ill-put together fragments of metaphysics 
 and ethics now called purified Christianity, and you have 
 found them all without rhyme or reason. I am far from 
 wishing to contradict you. Bather, if you really mean 
 that the most cultured religious system is no better than 
 
DEFENCE . 
 
 15 
 
 the rudest, if you only perceive that the divine cannot 
 lie in a series that ends on both sides in something ordinary 
 and despicable, I will gladly spare you the trouble of esti¬ 
 mating further all that lies between. Possibly they may all 
 appear to you transitions and stages towards the final form. 
 Out of the hand of its age each comes better polished and 
 carved, till at length art has grown equal to that perfect 
 plaything with which our century has presented history. 
 But this consummation of doctrines and systems is often 
 anything rather than consummation of religion. Nay, not 
 infrequently, the progress of the one has not the smallest 
 connection with the other. I cannot speak of it without 
 indignation. All who have a regard for what issues from 
 within the mind, and who are in earnest that every side of 
 man be trained and exhibited, must bewail how the high and 
 glorious is often turned from its destination and robbed of 
 its freedom in order to be held in despicable bondage by 
 the scholastic spirit of a barbarian and cold time. What 
 are all these systems, considered in themselves, but the 
 handiwork of the calculating understanding, wherein only by 
 mutual limitation each part holds' its place ? What else 
 can they be, these systems of theology, these theories of the 
 origin and the end of the world, these analyses of the nature 
 of an incomprehensible Being, wherein everything runs to 
 cold argufying, and the highest can be treated in the tone 
 of a common controversy ? And this is certainly—let me 
 appeal to your own feeling—not the character of religion. 
 
 If you have only given attention to these dogmas and 
 opinions, therefore, you do not yet know religion itself, and 
 what you despise is not it. Why have you not penetrated 
 deeper to find the kernel of this shell P I am a.stonished at 
 your voluntary ignorance, ye easy-going inquirers, and at the 
 all too quiet satisfaction with which you linger by the first 
 thing presented to you. Why do you not regard the religious 
 life itself, and first those pious exaltations of the mind in 
 which all other known activities are set aside or almost sup- 
 
i6 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 pressed, and the whole soul is dissolved in the immediate 
 feeling of the Infinite and Eternal ? In such moments the 
 disposition you pretend to despise reveals itself in pri¬ 
 mordial and visible form. He only who has studied and truly 
 known man in these emotions can rediscover religion in those 
 outward manifestations. He will assuredly perceive some¬ 
 thing more in them than you. Bound up in them all some¬ 
 thing of that spiritual matter lies, without which they could 
 not have arisen. But in the hands of those who do not under¬ 
 stand how to unbind it, let them break it up and examine 
 it as they may, nothing but the cold dead mass remains. 
 
 This recommendation to seek rather in those scattered 
 and seemingly undeveloped elements your object that 
 you have net yet found in the developed and the com¬ 
 plete to which you have hitherto been directed, cannot 
 surprise you who have more or less busied yourselves with 
 philosophy, and are acquainted with its fortunes. With 
 philosophy, indeed, it should be quite otherwise. From its 
 nature it must strive to fashion itself into the closest con¬ 
 nection. That special kind of knowledge is only verified 
 and its communication assured by its completeness, and yet 
 even here you must commence with the scattered and in¬ 
 complete. Kecollect how very few of those who, in a way 
 of their own, have penetrated into the secrets of nature 
 and spirit, viewing and exhibiting their mutual relation and 
 inner harmony in a light of their own, have put forth at 
 once a system of their knowledge. In a finer, if more fragile 
 form, they have communicated their discoveries. 
 
 On the contrary, if you regard the systems in all schools, 
 how often are they mere habitations and nurseries of the dead 
 letter. With few exceptions, the plastic spirit of high con¬ 
 templation is too fleeting and too free for those rigid forms 
 whereby those who would willingly grasp and retain what is 
 strange, believe they are best helped. Suppose that any one 
 held the architects of those great edifices of philosophy, with¬ 
 out distinction, for true philosophers ! Suppose he would 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 1 7 
 
 learn from them the spirit of their research ! Would you not 
 
 advise him thus, “ See to it, friend, that you have not lighted 
 
 upon those who merely follow, and collect, and rest satisfied 
 
 with what another has furnished : with them vou will never 
 
 «/ 
 
 find the spirit of that art: to the discoverers you must 
 go, on whom it surely rests/’ To you who seek religion I 
 must give the same advice. It is all the more necessary, 
 as religion is as far removed, by its whole nature, from all 
 that is systematic as philosophy is naturally disposed to it. 
 
 Consider only with whom those ingenious erections 
 originate, the mutability of which you scorn, the bad pro¬ 
 portions of which offend you, and the incongruity of which, 
 with your contemptuous tendency, almost strikes you as 
 absurd. Have they come from the heroes of religion ? 
 Name one among those who have brought down any 
 kind of new revelation to us, who has thought it worth 
 his while to occupy himself with such a labour of 
 Sisyphus, beginning with Him who first conceived the idea 
 of the kingdom of God, from which, if from anything in 
 the sphere of religion, a system might have been produced 
 to the new mystics or enthusiasts^ as you are accustomed to 
 call them, in whom, perhaps, an original beam of the inner 
 light still shines. You will not blame me if I do not reckon 
 among them the theologians of the letter, who believe the 
 salvation of the world and the light of wisdom are to be 
 found in a new vesture of formulas, or a new arrangement 
 of ingenious proofs. In isolation only the mighty thuuder 
 of their speech, announcing that the Deity is revealing 
 Himself through them, is accustomed to be heard when the 
 celestial feelings are unburdened, when the sacred fires 
 must burst forth from the overcharged spirit. Idea and 
 word are simply the necessary and inseparable outcome of 
 the heart, only to be understood by it and along with it. 
 Doctrine is only united to doctrine occasionally to remove 
 misunderstanding or expose unreality. 
 
 From many such combinations those systems were gradu- 
 
 c 
 
i8 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 ally compacted. Wherefore, you must not rest satisfied with 
 the repeated oft-broken echo of that original sound. You 
 must transport yourselves into the interior of a pious soul and 
 seek to understand its inspiration. In the very act, you 
 must understand the production of light and heat in a soul 
 surrendered to the Universe . 4 Otherwise you learn nothing 
 of religion, and it goes with you as with one who should too 
 late bring fuel to the fire which the steel has struck from 
 the flint, who finds only a cold, insignificant speck of coarse 
 metal with which he can kindle nothing any more. 
 
 I ask, therefore, that you turn from everything usually 
 reckoned religion, and fix your regard on the inward emo¬ 
 tions and dispositions, as all utterances and acts of inspired 
 men direct. Despite your acquirements, your culture and 
 your prejudices, I hope for good success. At all events, till 
 you have looked from this standpoint without discover¬ 
 ing anything real, or having any change of opinion, or 
 enlarging your contemptuous conception, the product of 
 superficial observation, and are still able to hold in ridicule 
 this reaching of the heart towards the Eternal, I will not 
 confess that I have lost. Then, however, I will finally 
 believe that your contempt for religion is in accordance with 
 your nature, and I shall have no more to say. 
 
 Yet you need not fear that I shall betake myself in the 
 end to that common device of representing how necessary 
 religion is for maintaining justice and order in the world. 
 Nor shall I remind you of an all-seeing eye, nor of the un¬ 
 speakable short-sightedness of human management, nor of 
 the narrow bounds of human power to render help. Nor 
 shall I say how religion is a faithful friend and useful stay 
 of morality, how, by its sacred feelings and glorious pros¬ 
 pects, it makes the struggle with self and the perfecting of 
 goodness much easier for weak man. Those who profess 
 to be the best friends and most zealous defenders do indeed 
 speak in this way. Which of the two is more degraded in 
 being thus thought of together, I shall not decide, whether 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 19 
 
 justice and morality which are represented as needing 
 support, or religion which is to support them, or even 
 whether it be not you to whom such things are said. 
 
 Though otherwise this wise counsel might be given you, how 
 could I dare to suppose that you play with your consciences 
 a sort of fast and loose game, and could be impelled by 
 something you have hitherto had no cause to respect and 
 love to something else that without it you already honour, 
 and to which you have already devoted yourselves ? Or 
 suppose that these Speeches were merely to suggest what 
 you should do for the sake of the people ! How could you, 
 who are called to educate others and make them like your¬ 
 selves, begin by deceiving them, offering them as holy 
 and vitally necessary what is in the highest degree in¬ 
 different to yourselves, and which, in your opinion, they 
 can again reject as soon as they have attained your level ? 
 I, at least, cannot invite you to a course of action in which 
 I perceive the most ruinous hypocrisy towards the world 
 and towards yourselves. To recommend religion by such 
 means would only increase the contempt to which it is at 
 present exposed. Granted that our civil organizations are 
 still burdened with a very high degree of imperfection and 
 have shown but small power to prevent or abolish injustice, 
 it would still be a culpable abandonment of a weighty 
 matter, a faint-hearted unbelief in the approach of better 
 things, if religion that in itself is not otherwise desirable 
 must be called in. 
 
 Answer me this one question. Could there be a legal 
 constitution resting on piety ? 5 Would not the whole idea 
 that you hold so sacred vanish as soon as you took such a 
 point of departure ? Deal with the matter directly, there¬ 
 fore, if it seems to be in such an evil plight. Improve the 
 laws, recast the whole constitution, give the state an iron 
 hand, give it a hundred eyes if it has not got them already. 
 At least do not allow those it has to sleep veiled in delusion. 
 If you leave a business like this to an intermediary, you 
 
 c 2 
 
20 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 have never managed it. Do not declare to the disgrace of 
 mankind that your loftiest creation is but a parasitic plant 
 that can only nourish itself from strauge sap. 
 
 Speaking from your standpoint, law must not even 
 require morality to assure for it the most unlimited juris¬ 
 diction in its own territory. It must stand quite alone. 
 Statesmen must make it universal. Now quite apart from the 
 question whether what only exists in so far as it proceeds 
 from the heart can be thus arbitrarily combined, if this 
 general jurisdiction is only possible when religion is com¬ 
 bined with law, none but persons skilled to infuse the spirit 
 of religion into the human soul should be statesmen. And 
 in what dark barbarousness of evil times would that land us ! 
 
 Just as little can morality be in need of religion. A 
 weak, tempted heart must take refuge in the thought of 
 a future world. But it is folly to make a distinction 
 between this world and the next. Religious persons at 
 least know only one. If the desire for happiness is foreign 
 to morality, later happiness can be no more valid than 
 earlier ; if it should be quite independent of praise, dread 
 of the Eternal cannot be more valid than dread of a wise 
 man. If morality loses in splendour and stability by every 
 addition, how much more must it lose from something that 
 can never hide its foreign extraction. 
 
 All this, however, you have heard of sufficiently from those 
 who defend the independence and might of the moral law. 
 Yet let me add, that to wish to transport religion into another 
 sphere that it may serve and labour is to manifest towards it 
 also great contempt. It is not so ambitious of conquest as to 
 seek to reign in a foreign kingdom. The power that is its 
 due, being earned afresh at every moment, satisfies it. 
 Everything is sacred to it, and above all everything holding 
 with it the same rank in human nature. 6 But it must 
 render a special service ; it must have an aim ; it must 
 show itself useful! What degradation ! And its defenders 
 should be eager for it! 
 
DEFENCE. 
 
 21 
 
 At the last remove, morality and justice also must conduce 
 to some further advantage. It were better that such utili¬ 
 tarians should be submerged in this eternal whirlpool of 
 universal utility, in which everything good is allowed to go 
 down, of which no man that would be anything for himself 
 understands a single sensible word, than that they should 
 venture to come forward as defenders of religion, for of all 
 men they are least skilled to conduct its case. High 
 renown it were for the heavenly to conduct so wretchedly 
 the earthly concerns of man! Great honour for the free 
 and unconcerned to make the conscience of man a little 
 sharper and more alert! For such a purpose religion does 
 not descend from heaven. What is loved and honoured 
 only on account of some extraneous advantage may be 
 needful, but it is not in itself necessary, and a sensible 
 person simply values it according to the end for which it is 
 desired. By this standard, religion would be valueless 
 enough. I, at least, would offer little, for I must confess 
 that I do not believe much in the unjust dealings it would 
 hinder, nor the moral dealings it would produce. If that 
 is all it could do to gain respect, I would have no more to 
 do with its case. To recommend it merely as an accessory 
 is too unimportant. An imaginary praise that vanishes on 
 closer contemplation, cannot avail anything going about 
 with higher pretensions. I maintain that in all better 
 souls piety springs necessarily by itself; that a province of 
 its own in the mind belongs to it, in which it has un* 
 limited sway; that it is worthy to animate most profoundly 
 the noblest and best and to be fully accepted and known 
 by them. That is my contention, and it now behoves you 
 to decide whether it is worth your while to hear me, before 
 you still further strengthen yourselves in your contempt. 
 
EXPLANATIONS OF THE FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 (1) Page 3.—Though I had been several years in the ministry 
 when this was written, I stood very much alone among my professional 
 brethren, and my acquaintance with them was small. What is here 
 rather hinted at than uttered was more a distant presentiment 
 than clear knowledge. Longer experience, however, and friendly 
 relations have only confirmed the judgment, that any deeper insight 
 into the nature of religion generally, or any genuinely historical, real 
 way of regarding the present state of religion is much too rare among 
 the members of our clerical order. We should have fewer complaints 
 of the increase of the sectarian spirit and of factious religious 
 associations, if so many of the clergy were not without understand¬ 
 ing of religious wants and emotions. Their stand-point generally is 
 too low. Prom the same cause we have the miserable views so often 
 expressed respecting the means necessary for remedying this so-called 
 decay of religion. It is an opinion that will probably find little 
 favour, which yet, for the right understanding of this passage 
 I cannot hide, that a deeper speculative discipline would best 
 remove this evil. Most of the clergy, however, and most of those who 
 train them, do not acknowledge this necessity, because they foolishly 
 suppose it would render them more unpractical. 
 
 (2) Page 9.—The first conception both of God and immortality, 
 which at a time when the soul lives entirely in images is always - 
 highly sensuous, does not, by any means, always vanish. With 
 most it is gradually purified and elevated. The analogy with the 
 human in the conception of the Highest Being and the analogy with 
 the earthly still remains the shell of the hidden kernel. But those 
 who are early absorbed in a pure contemplative endeavour take 
 another way. There is nothing in God, they say to themselves, 
 opposed, divided or isolated. Wherefore nothing human can be said 
 of Him. Nothing earthly is to be transferred from the earthly 
 world that gave it birth in our souls. Both conceptions, therefore, 
 in their first forms are found untenable, they become incapable of 
 living reproduction and disappear. But this does not involve any 
 positive unbelief, not even any positive doubt. The childish form 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 2 3 
 
 vanishes with the known sensuous co-efficient, but the unknown 
 greatness remains in the soul, and its reality is apparent in the 
 endeavour to connect it with another co-efficient and so to bring it to 
 a higher actual consciousness. In this endeavour faith is implicit, 
 even when no fully satisfactory solution is reached. The unknown 
 greatness, even though it do not appear in any definite result, is 
 yet present in all operations of the spirit. The author was, therefore, 
 far removed from suggesting that there ever was a time when he 
 was an unbeliever or an atheist. Such a misunderstanding could only 
 arise in those who have never felt the speculative impulse to an¬ 
 nihilate anthropomorphism in the conception of the Highest Being, 
 an impulse most clearly expressed in the writings of the profoundest 
 Christian teachers. 
 
 (3) Page 10.—It is to be remembered that the severe judgment of 
 the English people was given at a time when it seemed necessary to 
 protest strongly against the prevailing Anglomania. Moreover, the 
 popular interest in missions and the spread of the Bible was not then 
 as apparent as it is now. Yet I would not on that account retract 
 much from my earlier judgment. For one thing the English are 
 well accustomed to organized private companies, whereby they unite 
 their individual resources for important undertakings. The results 
 obtained in this way are so great that persons, caring for nothing 
 but the progress of culture and the gain to be made of it, are not ex¬ 
 cluded from sharing in enterprises that have taken their rise with a 
 far smaller number of truly pious people, and yet the principle is 
 not weakened. Nor is it to be denied that those undertakings are 
 regarded by a great number more from a political and mercantile point 
 of view. The pure interest of Christian piety does not dominate as 
 appears in this, that the religious needs at home have been attended 
 to much later and with much less brilliant result. These are merely 
 indications whereby I would express my belief that a closer acquaint¬ 
 ance with the state of religion in England would rather confirm 
 than disprove the above opinion. The same would apply to what 
 was said about the scientific spirit. As France and England were 
 almost the only countries in which we were interested, and which had 
 much influence in Germany,it seemed superfluousto glance elsewhere. 
 At present it might not be wrong to say a word on the capacity in 
 the Greek Church for such researches. "Despite the fine veil cast 
 over it by the fascinating panegyrics of a Stourdza, all depth is lost 
 in the mechanism of antiquated usages and liturgical forms. In all 
 that is most important for a mind aroused to reflection, it still stands 
 far behind the Catholic Church. 
 
 (4) Page 18.—A pious spirit, which is here unquestionably the sub- 
 
24 
 
 FIRST SPEECH. 
 
 ject of discourse, is elsewhere always defined as a soul surrendered to 
 God. But here the Universe is put for God and the pantheism of 
 the author is undeniable ! This is the interpolation, not interpreta¬ 
 tion of superficial and suspicious readers who do not consider that 
 the subject here is the production of light and warmth in such a 
 spirit, the springing of such pious emotions as pass immediately 
 into religious ideas and views (light) and into a temperament 
 of surrender to God (warmth). It was therefore desirable to call 
 attention to the way in which such emotions take their rise. 
 They arise when a man surrenders himself to the Universe, and are 
 only habitual in a spirit in which such surrender is habitual. Hot 
 only in general, but on each occasion we are conscious of God and of 
 His divine power and godhead by the word of creation, and not by 
 any one thing taken by itself, but by it only in so far as it is 
 embraced in the unity and completeness in which alone God is 
 immediately revealed. The further development of this subject 
 can be seen in my “ Glaubenslehre,” § 8, 2, and § 36, 1, 2. 
 
 (5) Page 19.—That the state would not be a constitution if it 
 rested on piety, does not mean that the state so long as it labours 
 under imperfection can do without piety, the thing that best supplies 
 all deficiency and imperfection. This would only mean, however, 
 that it is politically necessary for the citizens to be pious in pro¬ 
 portion as they are not equally and adequately pervaded by the 
 legal principles of the state. Humanly speaking this perfection is 
 not to be looked for, but were it once effected the state, in respect of 
 its own particular sphere of operation, could dispense with the piety 
 of its members. This appears from the fact that in states where 
 constitutionalism has not quite triumphed over arbitrariness, the 
 relation of piety between the governor and the governed is most 
 prominent and religious institutions have most sway. This ceases 
 when the constitution is strengthened, unless indeed an institution 
 have Some special historical basis. When afterwards (page 20) it is 
 said that statesmen must be able to produce universally in men the 
 sense of law, it will doubtless appear absurd to those who think of 
 the servants of the state. But the word statesman is here taken in 
 the sense of the ancient 7toXltlkos, and it means less that he accom¬ 
 plishes something definite in the state, a thing entirely accidental, 
 than that he first of all lives in the idea of the state. The dark times 
 referred to are the theocratic’ times. I make this reference because 
 Novalis, my very dear friend in other respects, wished once more to 
 glorify the theocracy. It is still, however, my strong conviction that 
 it is one of the most essential tendencies of Christianity to separate 
 completely church and state, and I can just as little agree with that 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 25 
 
 glorification of the theocracy as with the opposite view that the 
 church should ever more and more be absorbed in the state. 
 
 (6) Page 20.—I am not using the privileges of the rhetorical method 
 to say to the despisers of religion at the very beginning that piety 
 surpasses morality and law. Also I was not concerned in this place 
 to say which is first, for, in my opinion, piety and scientific specula¬ 
 tion share with each other, and the more closely they are conjoined 
 the more both advance. The distinction however will be found in 
 my “ Glaubenslehre,” but here I had to defend the equal rank of 
 morality, law and piety in human nature. In so far as the two 
 former do not involve an immediate relation of man to the 
 Highest Being, they are inferior to the third, but all alike regulate 
 as essentially what is eminent and characteristic in human nature. 
 They are functions of human nature not to be subordinated to one 
 another, and in so far are equal. Man can just as little be thought 
 of without capacity for morality or endeavour after government as 
 without capacity for religion. 
 
SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 THE NATURE OP RELIGION. 
 
 You know how the aged Simonides, by long and repeated 
 hesitation, put to silence the person who troubled him with 
 the question, What are the gods ? Our question, What is 
 religion ? is similar and equally extensive, and I would fain 
 begin with a like hesitation. Naturally I would not mean 
 by ultimate silence, as he did, to leave you in perplexity. 
 But you might attempt something for yourselves; you 
 might give steady and continuous attention to the point 
 about} which we are inquiring; you might entirely exclude 
 other thoughts. Do not even conjurors of common spirits 
 demand abstinence from earthly things and solemn stillness, 
 as a preparation, and undistracted, close attention to the 
 place where the apparition is to show itself? How much more 
 should I claim ? It is a rare spirit that I am to call forth, 
 which can, only when long regarded with fixed attention, 
 be recognized as the object of your desire. You must have 
 that unbiassed sobriety of judgment that seizes clearly and 
 accurately every outline. Without being misled by old 
 memories or hindered by preconceptions, you must 
 endeavour to understand the object presented simply by 
 itself. Even then it may not win your love, and otherwise 
 I cannot hope for any unanimity about the meaning of 
 religion or any recognition of its worth. 
 
 I could wish to exhibit religion in some well known 
 form, reminding you, by feature, carriage and deportment, 
 of what here and there at least you, have seen in life. 
 Religion, however, as I wish to show it, which is to say, in 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 2 7 
 
 its own original, characteristic form, is not accustomed to 
 appear openly, but is only seen in secret by those who love 
 ft. Not that this applies to religion alone. Nothing 
 that is essentially characteristic and peculiar can be quite 
 the same as that which openly exhibits and represents it. 
 Speech, for example, is not the pure work of science nor morals 
 of intention. Among ourselves at the present time this is 
 specially recognized. It belongs to the opposition of the new 
 time to the old that no longer is one person one thing, but 
 everyone is all things. Just as among civilized peoples, by 
 extensive intercourse their characteristic ways of thought no 
 longer appear unalloyed, so in the human mind there is such 
 a complete sociableness founded, that no special faculty or 
 capacity, however much it may be separated for observation, 
 can ever,- in separation, produce its work. Speaking 
 broadly, one is, in operation, influenced and permeated by 
 the ready love and support of the others. The predominat¬ 
 ing power is all you can distinguish. Wherefore every 
 activity of the spirit is only to be understood, in so far as a 
 man can study it in himself. Seeing you maintain that in 
 this way you do not know religion, i-t is incumbent upon 
 me to warn you against the errors that naturally issue from 
 the present state of things. We shall, therefore, begin by 
 reviewing the main points in your own position to see 
 whether they are right, or whether we may from them 
 reach the right. 
 
 Religion is for you at one time a way of thinking, a faith, 
 a peculiar way of contemplating the world, and of combin¬ 
 ing what meets us in the world : at another, it is a way of 
 acting, a peculiar desire and love, a special kind of con¬ 
 duct and character. Without this distinction of a theoreti¬ 
 cal and practical you could hardly think at all, and though 
 both sides belong to religion, you are usually accustomed 
 to give heed chiefly to only one at a time. Wherefore, we 
 shall look closely at religion from both sides. 
 
 We commence with religion as a kind of activity. 
 
28 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 Activity is twofold, having to do with life and with art. You 
 would ascribe with the poet earnestness to life and cheer¬ 
 fulness to art; or, in some other way, you would contrast 
 them. Separate them you certainly will. For life, duty is 
 the watchword. The moral law shall order it, and virtue 
 shall show itself the ruling power in it, that the individual 
 may be in harmony with the universal order of the world, 
 and may nowhere encroach in a manner to disturb and 
 confuse. This life, you consider, may appear without any 
 discernible trace of art. Rather is it to be attained by 
 rigid rules that have nothing to do with the free and 
 variable precepts of art. Nay, you look upon it almost as a 
 rule that art should be somewhat in the background, and 
 non-essential for those who are strictest in the ordering of 
 life. On the other hand, imagination shall inspire the 
 artist, and genius shall completely sway him. Now im¬ 
 agination and genius are for you quite different from virtue 
 and morality, being capable of existing in the largest 
 measure along with a much more meagre moral endowment. 
 Nay you are inclined, because the prudent power often 
 comes into danger by reason of the fiery power, to relax for 
 the artist somewhat of the strict demands of life. 
 
 How now does it stand with piety, in so far as you regard 
 it as a peculiar kind of activity ? Has it to do with right 
 living ? Is it something good and praiseworthy, yet different 
 from morality, for you will not hold them to be identical ? But 
 in that case morality does not exhaust the sphere which it 
 should govern. Another power works alongside of it, and 
 has both right and might to continue working. Or will 
 you perhaps betake yourselves to the position that piety is 
 a virtue, and religion a duty or section of duties ? Is religion 
 incorporated into morality and subordinated to it, as a part 
 to the whole ? Is it, as some suppose, special duties towards 
 God, and therefore a part of all morality which is the per¬ 
 formance of all duties ? But, if I have rightly appreciated 
 or accurately reproduced what you say, you do not think so. 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 29 
 
 Yon rather seem to say that the pious person has something en¬ 
 tirely peculiar, both in his doing and leaving undone, and that 
 morality can be quite moral without therefore being pious. 
 
 And how are religion and art related ? They can hardly 
 be quite alien, because, from of old, what is greatest in art 
 has had a religious character. When, therefore, you speak 
 of an artist as pious, do you still grant him that relaxation 
 of the strict demands of virtue ? Eather he is then sub¬ 
 jected, like every other person. But then to make the cases 
 parallel, you must secure that those who devote themselves 
 to life do not remain quite without art. Perhaps this 
 combination gives its peculiar form to religion. With your 
 view, there seems no other possible issue. 
 
 Eeligion then, as a kind of activity, is a mixture of 
 elements that oppose and neutralize each other. Pray is 
 not this rather the utterance of your dislike than your 
 conviction ? Such an accidental shaking together, leaving 
 both elements unaltered, does not, even though the most 
 accurate equality be attained, make something specific. 
 But suppose it is otherwise, suppose piety is something 
 which truly fuses both, then it cannot be formed simply by 
 bringing the two together, but must be an original unity. 
 Take care, however, I warn you, that you do not make such 
 an admission. Were it the case, morality and genius apart 
 would be only fragments of the ruins of religion, or its 
 corpse when it is dead. Eeligion were then higher than 
 both, the true divine life itself. But, in return for this 
 warning, if you accept it, and discover no other solution, 
 be so good as tell me how your opinion about religion is to 
 be distinguished from nothing? Till then nothing remains 
 for me but to assume that you have not yet, by exami¬ 
 nation, satisfied yourselves about this side of religion. 
 Perhaps we shall have better fortune with the other side— 
 what is known as the way of thinking, or faith* 
 
 You will, I believe, grant that your knowledge, however 
 many-sided it may appear, falls, as a whole, into two con- 
 
30 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 trasted sciences. How yon shall subdivide and name 
 belongs to the controversies of your schools, with which at 
 present I am not concerned. Do not, therefore, be too 
 critical about my terminology, even though it come from 
 various quarters. Let us call the one division physics or 
 metaphysics, applying both names indifferently, or indicating 
 sections of the same thing. Let the other be ethics or the 
 doctrine of duties or practical philosophy. At least we are 
 agreed about the distinction meant. The former describes 
 the nature of things, or if that seems too much, how man 
 conceives and must conceive of things and of the world as 
 the sum of things. The latter science, on the contrary, 
 teaches what man should be for the world, and what he 
 should do in it. Now, in so far as religion is a way of 
 thinking of something and a knowledge about something, 
 has it not the same object as these sciences ? What does 
 faith know about except the relation of man to God and to 
 the world—God’s purpose in making him, and the world’s 
 power to help or hinder him ? Again it distinguishes in its 
 own fashion a good action from a bad. Is then religion 
 identical with natural science and ethics ? You would not 
 agree, you would never grant that our faith is as surely 
 founded, or stands on the same level of certainty as your 
 scientific knowledge ! Your accusation against it is just that 
 it does not know how to distinguish between the demonstrable 
 and the probable. Similarly, you do not forget to remark 
 diligently that very marvellous injunctions both to do and 
 leave undone have issued from religion. You may be quite 
 right; only do not forget that it has been the same with that 
 which you call science. In both spheres you believe you 
 have made improvements and are better than your fathers. 
 
 What then, are we to say that religion is ? As before, 
 that it is a mixture—mingled theoretical and practical 
 knowledge ? But this is even less permissible, particularly 
 if, as appears, each of these two branches of knowledge 
 has ics own characteristic mode of procedure. Such 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION 
 
 3 i 
 
 a mixture of elements that would eitheT counteract or 
 separate, could only be made most arbitrarily. The 
 utmost gain to be looked for would be to furnish us 
 with another method for putting known results into shape 
 for beginners, and for stimulating them to a further study. 
 But if that be so, why do you strive against religion ? You 
 might, so long as beginners are to be found, leave it in 
 peace and security. If we presumed to subject you, you 
 might smile at our folly, but, knowing for certain that you 
 have left it far behind, and that it is only prepared for us 
 by you wiser people, you would be wrong in losing a serious 
 word on the matter. But it is not so, I think. Unless I 
 am quite mistaken, you have long been labouring to pro¬ 
 vide the mass of the people with just such an epitome of 
 your knowledge. The name is of no consequence, whether 
 it be “ religion ” or c< enlightenment ” or aught else. But 
 there is something different which must first be expelled, 
 or, at least, excluded. This something it is that you call 
 belief, and it is the object of your hostility, and not an 
 article you would desire to extend. 
 
 Wherefore, my friends, belief must be something different 
 from a mixture of opinions about God and the world, and of 
 precepts for one life or for two. Piety cannot be an instinct 
 craving for a mess of metaphysical and ethical crumbs. If it 
 were, you would scarcely oppose it. It would not occur to 
 you to speak of religion as different from your knowledge, 
 however much it might be distant. The strife of the cultured 
 and learned with the pious would simply be the strife of 
 depth and thoroughness with superficiality ; it would be the 
 strife of the master with pupils who are to emancipate them¬ 
 selves in due time. 
 
 Were you, after all, to take this view, I should like 
 to plague you with all sorts of Socratic questions, till I 
 compelled many of you to give a direct answer to the 
 question, whether it is at all possible to be wise and pious 
 at the same time. I should also wish to submit whether in 
 
32 
 
 SECOND SPEECH . 
 
 other well-known matters you do not acknowledge the 
 principle that things similar are to be placed together and 
 particulars to be subordinated to generals ? Is it that you 
 may joke with the world about a serious subject, that in 
 religion only the principle is not applied ? But let us 
 suppose you are serious. How does it come, then, that in 
 religious faith, what, in science, you separate into two 
 spheres, is united and so indissolubly bound together that 
 one cannot be thought of without the other? The pious 
 man does not believe that the right course of action can be 
 determined, except in so far as, at the same time, there is 
 knowledge of the relations of man to God; and again right 
 action, he holds, is necessary for right knowledge. Suppose 
 the binding principle lies in the theoretic side. Why then 
 is a practical philosophy set over against a theoretic, and 
 not rather regarded as a section ? Or suppose the prin¬ 
 ciple is in the practical side, the same would apply to 
 a theoretic philosophy. Or both may be united, only in a 
 yet higher, an original knowledge. That this highest, 
 long-lost unity of knowledge should be religion you cannot 
 believe, for you have found it most, and have opposed it 
 most, in those who are furthest from science. I will not 
 hold you to any such conclusion, for I would not take up a 
 position that I cannot maintain. 1 This, however, you may 
 well grant, that, concerning this side of religion, you must 
 take time to consider what is its proper significance. 
 
 Let us be honest with one another. As we recently 
 agreed, you have no liking for religion. But, in carrying 
 on an honourable war which is not quite without strain, you 
 would not wish to fight against such a shadow as that with 
 which we have so far been battling. It must be something 
 special that could fashion itself so peculiarly in the human 
 heart, something thinkable, the real nature of which can so 
 be presented as to be spoken of and argued about, and 
 I consider it very wrong that out of things so disparate as 
 modes of knowing and modes of acting, you patch together 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION . 
 
 33 
 
 an. untenable something, and call it religion, and then are 
 so needlessly ceremonious with it. But you would deny 
 that you have not gone to work with straightforwardness. 
 Seeing I have rejected systems, commentaries and apo¬ 
 logies, you would demand that I unfold all the original 
 sources of religion from the beautiful fictions of the Greeks 
 to the sacred scriptures of the Christians. Should I not 
 find everywhere the nature of the Gods, and the will of 
 the Gods ? Is not that man everywhere accounted holy 
 and blessed who knows the former, and does the latter ? 
 
 But that is just what I have already said. Religion h 
 never appears quite pure. Its outward form is ever deter-w- 
 mined by something else. Our task first is to exhibit its 
 true nature, and not to assume off-hand, as you seem to do, 1 
 that the outward form and the true nature are the same. 1 
 Does the material world present you with any element in its \ 
 original purity as a spontaneous product of nature ? Must \ 
 you, therefore, as you have done in the intellectual world, 
 take very gross things for simple ? It is the one ceaseless 
 aim of all analysis to present something really simple. So 
 also it is in spiritual things. You can only obtain what is 
 original by producing it, as it were, by a second, an artificial 
 creation in yourselves, and even then it is but for the 
 moment of its production. Pray come to an understanding 
 on the point, for you shall be ceaselessly remiuded of it. 
 
 But let us go on to the sources and original writings 
 of religion. To attach them to your sciences of resist¬ 
 ance and of action, of nature and of spirit is an un¬ 
 avoidable necessity, because they are the sources of your 
 terminology. Furthermore the best preparation for 
 awaking consciousness for your own higher subject is to 
 study what has already been more or less scientifically 
 thought. The deepest and highest in a work is not always ^ 
 either first or last. Did you but know how to read between 
 the lines ! All sacred writings are like these modest books 
 which were formerly in use in our modest Fatherland. Under 
 
 l) 
 
34 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 a paltry heading they treated weighty matters,, and, offering 
 but few explanations, aimed at the most profound inquiry. 
 Similarly, the sacred writings include metaphysical and 
 moral conceptions. Except where they are more directly 
 poetic, this seems the beginning and the end. But of. you 
 it is expected that, seeing through the appearance, you will 
 recognize the real intent. It is as when nature gives 
 precious metals alloyed with baser substances, and our skill 
 knows how to discover them and restore them to their 
 refulgent splendour. The sacred writings were not for 
 perfect believers alone, but rather for children in belief, for 
 novices, for those who are standing at the entrance and 
 would be invited in, and how could they go to work except 
 as I am now doing with you ? They had to accept what 
 was granted. In it they had to find the means for stimu¬ 
 lating the new sense they would awake, by giving a severe 
 concentration and lofty temper to the mind. Can you not 
 recognize, even in the way these moral and metaphysical 
 conceptions are treated, in the creative, poetic impulse, 
 though it necessarily works in a poor and thankless speech, 
 an endeavour to break through from a lower region to a 
 higher ? As you can easily see, a communication of this 
 sort could be nothing other than poetical or rhetorical. 
 Akin to the rhetorical is the dialectic, and what method 
 has from of old been more brilliantly or more successfully 
 employed in revealing the higher nature, not only of 
 knowledge, but of the deeper feelings ? But if the vehicle 
 alone satisfies, this end will not be reached. Wherefore, 
 as it has become so common to seek metaphysics and 
 ethics chiefly, in the sacred writings, and to appraise them 
 accordingly, it seems time to approach the matter from the 
 other end, and to begin with the clear cut distinction 
 between our faith and your ethics and metaphysics, 
 between our piety and what you call morality. This is 
 what I would attain by this digression. I wished to throw 
 some light on the conception that is dominant among you. 
 That being done, I now return. 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 35 
 
 In order to make quite clear to you what is the original 
 and characteristic possession of religion, it resigns, at once, 
 all claims on anything that belongs either to science or 
 morality. Whether it has been borrowed or bestowed it is 
 now returned. What then does your science of being, your 
 natural science, all your theoretical philosophy, in so far 
 as it has to do with the actual world, have for its aim ? 
 To know things, I suppose, as they really are; to show the 
 peculiar relations by which each is what it is; to determine 
 for each its place in the Whole, and to distinguish it rightly 
 from all else; to present the whole real world in its 
 mutually conditioned necessity ; and to exhibit the oneness 
 of all phenomena with their eternal laws. This is truly 
 beautiful and excellent, and I am not disposed to de¬ 
 preciate. Rather, if this description of mine, so slightly 
 sketched, does not suffice, I will grant the highest and most 
 exhaustive you are able to give. 
 
 And yet, however high you go; though you pass from the 
 laws to the Universal Lawgiver, in whom is the unity of all 
 things j though you allege that nature cannot be compre¬ 
 hended without God, I would still maintain that religion has 
 nothing to do with this knowledge, and that, quite apart from 
 it, its nature can be known. Quantity of knowledge is not 
 quantity of piety. Piety can gloriously display itself, both 
 with originality and individuality, in those to whom this 
 kind of knowledge is not original. They may only know it 
 as everybody does, as isolated results known in connection 
 with other things. The pious man must, in a sense, be a ^ 
 wise man, but he will readily admit, even though you some¬ 
 what proudly look down upon him, that, in so far as he is 
 pious, he does not held his knowledge in the same way as you. 
 
 Let me interpret in clear words what most pious persons 
 only guess at and never know how to express. Were 
 you to set God as the apex of your science as the 
 foundation of all knowing as well as of all knowledge, 
 they would accord praise and honour, but it would not be 
 their way of having and knowing God. From their way, 
 
 d 2 
 
36 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 7 
 
 as they would readily grant, and as is easy enough to see, 
 knowledge and science do not proceed. 
 
 It is true that religion is essentially contemplative. You 
 would never call anyone pious who went about in impervious 
 stupidity, whose sense is not open for the life of the world. 
 But this contemplation is not turned, as your knowledge of 
 nature is, to the existence of a finite thing, combined with 
 and opposed to another finite thing. It has not even, like 
 your knowledge of God—if for once I might use an old 
 expression—to do with the nature of the first cause, in 
 itself and in its relation to every other cause and operation. 
 
 'v The contemplation of the pious is the immediate conscious¬ 
 ness of the universal existence of all finite things, in and 
 through the Infinite, and of all temporal things in and 
 through the Eternal. Religion is to seek this and find it 
 in all that lives and moves, in all growth and change, in all 
 doing and suffering. It is to have life and to know life in 
 immediate feeling, only as such an existence in the Infinite 
 and Eternal. Where this is found religion is satisfied, 
 where it hides itself there is for her unrest and anguish, 
 extremity and death. Wherefore it is a life in the infinite 
 nature of the Whole, in the One and in the All, in God, 
 having and possessing all things in God, and God in all. 
 Yet religion is not knowledge and science, either of the 
 world or of God. Without being knowledge, it recognizes 
 knowledge and science. In itself it is an affection, a ~ 
 revelation of the Infinite in the finite, God being seen in 
 it and it in God. 
 
 Similarly, what is the object of your ethics, of your 
 science of action ? Does it not seek to distinguish precisely 
 each part of human doing and producing, and at the same 
 time to combine them into a whole, according to actual 
 relations ? But the pious man confesses that, as pious, he 
 knows nothing about it. He does, indeed, contemplate 
 human action, but it is not the kind of contemplation from 
 which an ethical system takes its rise. Only one thing he 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 37 
 
 seeks out and detects, action from God, God’s activity 
 among men. If your ethics are right, and his piety as 
 well, he will not, it is true, acknowledge any action as 
 excellent which is not embraced in your system. But to 
 know and to construct this system is your business, ye 
 learned, not his. If you will not believe, regard the case 
 of women. You ascribe to them religion, not only as an 
 adornment, but you demand of them the finest feeling for 
 distinguishing the things that excel: do you equally expect 
 them to know your ethics as a science ? 
 
 It is the same, let me say at once, with action itself. 
 
 The artist fashions what is given him to fashion, by virtue 
 of his special talent. These talents are so different that 
 the one he possesses another lacks ; unless someone, 
 against heaven’s will, would possess all. But when anyone 
 is praised to you as pious, you are not accustomed to ask 
 which of these gifts dwell in him by virtue of his piety. 
 
 The citizen—taking the word in the sense of the ancients, 
 not in its present meagre significance—regulates, leads, and 
 influences in virtue of his morality. But this is something 
 different from piety. Piety has also a passive side. While \/ 
 morality always shows itself as manipulating, as self¬ 
 controlling, piety appears as a surrender, a submission to 
 be moved by the Whole that stands over against man. 
 Morality depends, therefore, entirely on the consciousness v 
 of freedom, within the sphere of which all that it produces 
 falls. Piety, on the contrary, is not at all bound to this 
 side of life. In the opposite sphere of necessity, where 
 there is no properly individual action, it is quite as active. 
 Wherefore the two are different. Piety does, indeed, linger ^ 
 with satisfaction on every action that is from God, and 
 every activity that reveals the Infinite in the finite, and yet 
 it is not itself this activity. Only by keeping quite outside t/ 
 the range both of science and of practice can it maintain 
 its proper sphere and character. Only when piety takes 
 its place alongside of science and practice, as a necessary, 
 
38 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 s/ 
 
 an indispensable third, as tlieir natural counterpart, not less 
 in worth and splendour than either, will the common field 
 be altogether occupied and human nature on this side 
 complete. 
 
 But pray understand me fairly. I do not mean that one 
 could exist without the other, that, for example, a man 
 might have religion and be pious, and at the same time be 
 immoral. That is impossible. But, in my opinion, it is 
 vjust as impossible to be moral or scientific without being 
 religious. But have I not said that religion can be had 
 without science ? Wherefore, I have myself begun the 
 separation. But remember, I only said piety is not the 
 measure of science. Just as one cannot be truly scientific 
 without being pious, the pious man may not know at all, 
 but he cannot know falsely. His proper nature is not of 
 that subordinate kind, which, according to the old adage 
 that like is only known to like, knows nothing except 
 semblance of reality. 
 
 His nature is reality which knows realit} 7 , and where it 
 encounters nothing it does not suppose it sees something. 
 And what a precious jewel of science, in my view, is igno¬ 
 rance for those who are captive to semblance. If you have 
 not learned it from my Speeches or discovered it for your¬ 
 selves, go and learn it from your Socrates. Grant me con¬ 
 sistency at least. With ignorance your knowledge will ever 
 be mixed, but the true and proper opposite of knowledge 
 is presumption of knowledge. By piety this presumption 
 is most certainly removed, for with it piety cannot exist. 
 
 Such a separation of knowledge and piety, and of action 
 and piety, do not accuse me of making. You are only 
 ascribing to me, without my deserving it, your own view 
 and the very confusion, as common as it is unavoidable, 
 which it has been my chief endeavour to show you in the 
 mirror of my Speech. Just because you do not acknow¬ 
 ledge religion as the third, knowledge and action are 
 so much apart that you can discover no unity, but believe 
 
THE HA THEE OE RELIGION. 
 
 39 
 
 that right knowing can be had without right acting, 
 and vice versa. I hold that is it only in contemplation 
 that there is division. There, where it is necessary, you 
 despise it, and instead transfer it to life, as if in life itself 
 objects could be found independent one of the other. Con¬ 
 sequently you have no living insight into any of these 
 activities. Each is for you a part, a fragment. Because 
 you do not deal with life in a living way, your conception 
 bears the stamp of perishableness, and is altogether meagre. 
 True science is complete vision ; true practice is culture ^ 
 and art self-produced; true religion is sense and taste for ^ 
 the Infinite. To wish to have true science or true practice 
 without religion, or to imagine it is possessed, is obstinate, " 
 arrogant delusion, and culpable error. It issues from the 
 unholy sense that would rather have a show of possession 
 by cowardly purloining than have secure possession by 
 demanding and waiting. What can man accomplish that is 
 worth speaking of, either in life or in art, that does not 
 arise in his own self from the influence of this sense for the 
 Infinite P Without it, how can anyone wish to comprehend 
 the world scientifically, or if, in some distinct talent, the 
 knowledge is thrust upon him, how should he wish to 
 exercise it ? What is all science, if not the existence of things 
 in you, in your reason ? what is all art and culture if not 
 your existence in the things to which you give measure, 
 form and order ? And how can both come to life in you 
 except in so far as there lives immediately in you the eternal 
 unity of Reason and Nature, the universal existence of all 
 finite things in the Infinite ? 2 
 
 Wherefore, you will find every truly learned man devout 
 and pious. Where you see science without religion, be sure 
 it is transferred, learned up from another. It is sickly, if 
 indeed it is not that empty appearance which serves neces¬ 
 sity and is no knowledge at all. And what else do you take 
 this deduction and weaving together of ideas to be, which 
 neither live nor correspond to any living thing ? Or in ethics, 
 
40 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 what else is this wretched uniformity that thinks it can 
 grasp the highest human life in a single dead formula ? 
 The former arises because there is no fundamental feeling 
 ofthat living nature which everywhere presents variety and 
 individuality, and the latter because the sense fails to give 
 infinity to the finite by determining its nature and boun¬ 
 daries only from the Infinite. Hence the dominion of the 
 mere notion ; hence the mechanical erections of your systems 
 instead of an organic structure ; hence the vain juggling 
 with analytical formulas, in which, whether categorical or 
 hypothetical, life will not be fettered. ■ Science is not your 
 calling, if you despise religion and fear to surrender your¬ 
 self to reverence and aspiration for the primordial. Either 
 science must become as low as your life, or it must be 
 separated and stand alone, a division that precludes success. 
 If man is not one with the Eternal in the unity of intuition 
 and feeling which is immediate, he remains, in the unity of 
 consciousness which is derived, for ever apart. 
 
 What, then, shall become of the highest utterance of the 
 speculation of our days, complete rounded idealism, if it do 
 not again sink itself in this unity, if the humility of religion 
 do not suggest to its pride another realism than that which 
 it so boldly and with such perfect right, subordinates to 
 itself ? It annihilates the Universe, while it seems to aim at 
 constructing it. It would degrade it to a mere allegory, to 
 a mere phantom of the one-sided limitation of its own empty 
 consciousness. Offer with me reverently a tribute to the 
 manes of the holy, rejected Spinoza. The high World- 
 Spirit pervaded him; the Infinite was his beginning and 
 his end; the Universe was his only and his everlasting love. 
 In holy innocence and in deep humility he beheld himself 
 mirrored in the eternal world, and perceived how he also 
 was its most worthy mirror. He was full of religion, full 
 of the Holy Spirit. Wherefore, he stands there alone and 
 unequalled ; master in his art, yet without disciples and 
 without citizenship, sublime above the profane tribe. 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 41 
 
 Why should I need to show that the same applies to 
 art? Because, from the same causes, you have here also 
 a thousand phantoms, delusions, and mistakes. In place 
 of all else I would point to another example which should 
 be as well known to you all. I would point in silence—for 
 pain that is new and deep has no words. It is that superb 
 youth, who has too early fallen -asleep, with whom every¬ 
 thing his spirit touched became art. His whole contem¬ 
 plation of the world was forthwith a great poem. Though 
 he had scarce more than struck the first chords, you must 
 associate him with the most opulent poets, with those 
 select spirits who are as profound as they are clear and 
 vivacious. See in him the power of the enthusiasm and 
 the caution of a pious spirit, and acknowledge that when 
 the philosophers shall become religious and seek God like 
 Spinoza, and the artists be pious and love Christ like 
 Novalis, the great resurrection shall be celebrated for both 
 worlds . 3 
 
 But, in order that you may understand what I mean by 
 this unity and difference of religion, science and art, we 
 shall endeavour to descend into the inmost sanctuary of 
 life. There, perhaps, we may find ourselves agreed. There 
 alone you discover the original relation of intuition and 
 feeling from which alone this identity and difference is to 
 be understood. But I must direct you to your own selves. 
 You must apprehend a living movement. You must know 
 how to listen to yourselves before your own consciousness. 
 At least you must be able to reconstruct from your con¬ 
 sciousness your own state. What you are to notice is the 
 rise of your consciousness and not to reflect upon some¬ 
 thing already there. Your thought can only embrace what 
 is sundered. Wherefore as soon as you have made any 
 given definite activity of your soul an object of communi¬ 
 cation or of contemplation, you have already begun to 
 separate. It is impossible, therefore, to adduce any definite 
 example, for, as soon as anything is an example, what I 
 
42 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 wish to indicate is already past. Only the faintest trace 
 of the original unity could then he shown. Such as it is, 
 however, I will not despise it, as a preliminary. 
 
 Consider how you delineate an object.. Is there not both 
 a stimulation and a determination by the object, at one 
 and the same time, which for one particular moment forms 
 your existence ? The more definite your image, the more, 
 in this way, you become the object, and the more you lose 
 yourselves. But just because you can trace the growing 
 preponderance of one side over the other, both must have 
 been one and equal in the first, the original moment that 
 has escaped you. Or sunk in yourselves, you find all that 
 you formerly regarded as a disconnected manifold com¬ 
 pacted now indivisibly into the one peculiar content of 
 your being. Yet when you give heed, can you not see 
 as it disappears, the image of an object, from whose 
 influence, from whose magical contact this definite con¬ 
 sciousness has proceeded ? The more your own state 
 sways you the paler and more unrecognizable your image 
 becomes. The greater your emotion, the more you are 
 absorbed in it, the more your whole nature is concerned to 
 retain for the memory an imperishable trace of what is 
 necessarily fleeting, to carry over to what you may engage in, 
 its colour and impress, and so unite two moments into a dura¬ 
 tion, the less you observe the object that caused it. But just 
 because it grows pale and vanishes, it must before have been 
 nearer and clearer. Originally it must have been one and 
 the same with your feeling. But, as was said, these are mere 
 traces. Unless you will go back on the first beginning of 
 this consciousness, you can scarcely understand them. 
 
 And suppose you cannot ? Then say, weighing it 
 quite generally and originally, what is every act of your 
 life in itself and without distinction from other acts. 
 What is it merely as act, as movement ? Is it not the 
 coming into being of something for itself, and at the same 
 time in the Whole ? It is an endeavour to return into 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 43 
 
 the Whole, and to exist for oneself at the same time. 
 These are the links from which the whole chain is made. 
 Your whole life is such an existence for self in the Whole. 
 How now are you in the Whole ? By your senses. And 
 how are you for yourselves ? By the unity of your self- 
 consciousness, which is given chiefly in the possibility of 
 comparing the varying degrees of sensation. How both 
 can only rise together, if both together fashion every act of 
 life, is easy to see. You become sense and the Whole 
 becomes object. Sense and object mingle and unite, then 
 each returns to its place, and the object rent from sense 
 is a perception, and you rent from the object are for your¬ 
 selves, a feeling. It is this earlier moment I mean, which 
 you always experience yet never experience. The phe¬ 
 nomenon of your life is just the result of its constant 
 departure and return. It is scarcely in time at all, so 
 swiftly it passes; it can scarcely be described, so little 
 does it properly exist. Would that I could hold it fast and 
 refer to it your commonest as well as your highest activities. 
 
 Did I venture to compare it, seeing I cannot describe 
 it, I would say it is fleeting and transparent as the vapour 
 which the dew breathes on blossom and fruit, it is bashful 
 aud tender as a maidens kiss, it is holy and fruitful 
 as a bridal embrace. Nor is it merely like, it is all this. 
 It is the first contact of the universal life with an indivi¬ 
 dual. It fills no time and fashions nothing palpable. It 
 is the holy wedlock of the Universe with the incarnated 
 Reason for a creative, productive embrace. It is immediate, 
 raised above all error and misunderstanding. You lie 
 directly on the bosom of the infinite world. In that 
 moment, you are its soul. Through one part of your 
 nature you feel, as your own, all its powers and its endless 
 life. In that moment it is your body, you pervade, as 
 your own, its muscles and members and your thinking 
 and forecasting set its inmost nerves in motion. In this 
 way every living, original movement in your life is first 
 
44 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 received. Among the rest it is the source of every 
 religious emotion. But it is not, as I said, even a moment. 
 The incoming of existence to us, by this immediate union, 
 at once stops as soon as it reaches consciousness. Either 
 the intuition displays itself more vividly and clearly, like 
 the figure of the vanishing mistress to the eyes of her 
 lover ; or feeling issues from your heart and overspreads 
 your whole being, as the blush of shame and love over the 
 face of the maiden. At length your consciousness is 
 finally determined as one or other, as intuition or feeling. 
 Then, even though you have not quite surrendered to this 
 division and lost consciousness of your life as a unity, 
 there remains nothing but the knowledge that they were 
 originally one, that they issued simultaneously from the 
 fundamental relation of your nature. Wherefore, it is in 
 this sense true what an ancient sage has taught you, that 
 all knowledge is recollection. It is recollection of what 
 is outside of all time, and is therefore justly to be placed 
 at the head of all temporal things. 
 
 And, as it is with intuition and feeling on the one hand, so 
 it is with knowledge which includes both and with activity 
 on the other. Through the constant play and mutual influ¬ 
 ence of these opposites, your life expands and has its place in 
 time. Both knowledge and activity are a desire to be iden¬ 
 tified with the Universe through an object. If the power of 
 the objects preponderates, if, as intuition or feeling, it enters 
 and seeks to draw you into the circle of their existence, it 
 is always a knowledge. If the preponderating power is on 
 your side, so that you give the impress and reflect your¬ 
 selves in the objects, it is activity in the narrower sense, 
 external working. Yet it is only as you are stimulated 
 and determined that you can communicate yourselves to 
 things. In founding or establishing anything in the world 
 you are only giving back what that original act of fellow¬ 
 ship has wrought in you, and similarly everything the 
 world fashions in you must be by the same act. One must 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 45 
 
 mutually stimulate tlie other. Ouly in an interchange of 
 knowing and activity can your life consist. A peaceful 
 existence, wherein one side did not stimulate the other, 
 would not be your life. It would be that from which it first 
 developed, and into which it will again disappear. 
 
 There then you have the three things about which my 
 Speech has so far turned,— percepitioivf^Lmg and acti vity , 
 and you now understand what I mean when I say they are 
 not identical and yet are inseparable. Take what belongs 
 to each class and consider it by itself. You will find that 
 those moments in which you exercise power over things and 
 impress yourselves upon them, form what you call your 
 practical, or, in the narrower sense, your moral life; again 
 the contemplative moments, be they few or many, in which 
 things produce themselves in you as intuition, you will 
 doubtless call your scientific life. Now can either series 
 alone form a human life? Would it not be death? If 
 each activity were not stimulated and renewed by the other, 
 would it not be self-consumed ? Yet they are not identical. 
 If you would understand your life and speak comprehensi¬ 
 bly of it, they must be distinguished. As it stands with 
 these two in respect of one another, it must stand with the 
 third in respect of both. How then are you to name this 
 third, which is the series of feeling ? What life will it 
 form ? The religious as I think, and as you will not be able 
 to deny, when you have considered it more closely. 
 
 The chief point in my Speech is now uttered. This is the 
 peculiar sphere which I would assign to religion—the 
 whole of it, and nothing more. Unless you grant it, you 
 must either prefer the old confusion to clear analysis, or 
 produce something else, I know not what, new and 
 quite wonderful. Your feeling is piety, in so far as it ex¬ 
 presses, in the manner described, the being and life com¬ 
 mon to you and to the All. Your feeling is piety in so far 
 as it is the result of the operation of God in you by means 
 of the operation of the world upon you. This series is not 
 
46 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 made up either of perceptions or of objects of perception, 
 either of works or operations or of different spheres of 
 operation, but purely of sensations and the influence of all 
 that lives and moves around, which accompanies them 
 and conditions them. These feelings are exclusively the 
 elements of religion, and none are excluded. There is no 
 sensation that is not pious , 4 except it indicate some diseased 
 and impaired state of the life, the influence of which will 
 not be confined to religion. Wherefore, it follows that ideas 
 and principles are all foreign to religion. This truth 
 we here come upon for the second time. If ideas and prin¬ 
 ciples are to be anything, they must belong to knowledge 
 which is a different department of life from religion. 
 
 Now that we have some ground beneath us, we are in a 
 better position to inquire about the source of this con¬ 
 fusion. May there not be some reason for this constant 
 connection of principles and ideas with religion ? In the 
 same way is there not a cause for the connection of 
 action with religion ? Without such an inquiry it would 
 be vain to proceed farther. The misunderstanding would 
 be confirmed, for you would change what I say into ideas 
 and begin seeking for principles in them. Whether you 
 will follow my exposition, who can tell? What now is to 
 hinder that each of the functions of life just indicated 
 should not be an object for the others? Or does it not 
 rather manifestly belong to their inner unity and equality 
 that they should in this manner strive to pass over into one 
 another ? So at least it seems to me. Thus, as a feeling 
 person, you can become an object to yourself and you can con¬ 
 template your own feeling. Nay, you can, as a feeling person, 
 become an object for yourself to operate upon and more and 
 more to impress your deepest nature upon. Would you now 
 call the general description of the nature of your feelings 
 that is the product of this contemplation a principle, and 
 the description of each feeling, an idea, you are cer¬ 
 tainly free to do so. And if you call them religious 
 principles and ideas, you are not in error. But do not 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 47 
 
 forget that this is scientific treatment of religion, know¬ 
 ledge about it, and not religion itself. 
 
 Nor can the description be equal to the thing described. 
 The feeling may dwell in many sound and strong, as for 
 example in almost all women, without ever having been 
 specially a matter of contemplation. Nor may you say 
 religion is lacking, but only knowledge about religion. 
 Furthermore, do not forget what we have already estab¬ 
 lished, that this contemplation presupposes the original 
 activity. It depends entirely upon it. If the ideas and 
 principles are not from reflection on a man’s own feeling, 
 they must be learned by rote and utterly void. Make sure 
 of this, that no man is pious, however perfectly he under¬ 
 stands these principles and conceptions, however much he 
 believes he possesses them in clearest consciousness, who 
 cannot show that they have originated in himself and, being 
 the outcome of his own feeling, are peculiar to himself. 
 Do not present him to me as pious, for he is not. His soul 
 is barren in religious matters, and his ideas are merely 
 supposititious children which he has adopted, in the secret 
 feeling of his own weakness. As for those who parade 
 religion and make a boast of it, I always characterize them 
 as unholy and removed from all divine life. One has concep¬ 
 tions of the ordering of the world and formulas to express 
 them, the other has prescriptions whereby to order himself 
 and inner experiences to authenticate them. The one weaves 
 his formulas into a system of faith, and the other spins out of 
 his prescriptions a scheme of salvation. It being observed 
 that neither has any proper standing ground without feeling, 
 strife ensues as to how many conceptions and declarations, 
 how many precepts and exercises, how many emotions and 
 sensations must be accepted in order to conglomerate a 
 sound religion that shall be neither specially cold nor enthu¬ 
 siastic, dry nor shallow. 0 fools, and slow of heart ! They 
 do not know that all this is mere analysis of the religious 
 sense, which they must have made for themselves, if it is 
 to have any meaning. 
 
48 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 But if they are not conscious of haying anything to 
 analyze, whence have they those ideas and rules ? They 
 have memory and imitation, but that they have religion do 
 not believe. They have no ideas of their own from which 
 formulas might be known, so they must learn them by rote, 
 and the feelings which they would have accompanying 
 them are copies, and like all copies, are apt to become cari¬ 
 catures. And out of this dead, corrupt, second-hand stuff, 
 a religion is to be concocted ! The members and juices of 
 an organized body can be dissected ; but take these elements 
 now and mix them and treat them in every possible way; 
 and will you be able to make heart’s blood of them ? 
 Once dead, can it ever again move in a living body ? 
 Such restoration of the products of living nature out of its 
 component parts, once divided, passes all human skill, and, 
 just as little, would you succeed with religion, however 
 completely the various kindred elements be given from 
 without. From within, in their original, characteristic 
 form, the emotions of piety must issue. They must be in¬ 
 dubitably your own feelings, and not mere stale descriptions 
 of the feelings of others, which could at best issue in a 
 wretched imitation. 
 
 Now the religious ideas which form those systems can and 
 ought to be nothing else than such a description, for religion 
 cannot and will not originate in the pure impulse to know. 
 What we feel and are conscious of in religious emotions is 
 not the nature of things, but their operation upon us. What 
 you may know or believe about the nature of things is far 
 beneath the sphere of religion. The Universe is ceaselessly 
 active and at every moment is revealing itself to us. Every 
 form it has produced, everything to which, from the fulness 
 of its life, it has given a separate existence, every occurrence 
 scattered from its fertile bosom is an operation of the 
 Universe upon us. Now religion is to take up into our 
 lives and to submit to be swayed by them, each of these 
 influences and their consequent emotions, not by themselves 
 
THE NA TURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 49 
 
 but as a part of the Whole, not as limited and in opposition 
 to other things, but as an exhibition of the Infinite in our life. 5 
 Anything beyond this, any effort to penetrate into the nature 
 and substance of things is no longer religion, but seeks to be 
 a science of some sort. 
 
 On the other hand, to take what are meant as descriptions 
 of our feelings for a science of the object, in some way the 
 revealed product of religion, or to regard it as science and 
 religion at the same time, necessarily leads to mysticism 
 and vain mythology. For example, it was religion when 
 the Ancients, abolishing the limitations of time and space, 
 regarded every special form of life throughout the whole 
 world as the work and as the kingdom of a being who in 
 this sphere was omnipresent and omnipotent, because one 
 peculiar way in which the Universe operates was present as 
 a definite feeling, and they described it after this fashion. 
 It was religion when they assigned a peculiar name and 
 built a temple to the god to whom they ascribed any help¬ 
 ful occurrence whereby in an obvious, if accidental, way, 
 the laws of the world were revealed, because they had com¬ 
 prehended something as a deed of the Universe, and after 
 their own fashion set forth its connection and peculiar 
 character. It was religion when they rose above the rude 
 iron age, full of flaws and inequalities, and sought again the 
 golden age on Olympus in the joyous life of the gods, 
 because beyond all change and all apparent evil that results 
 only from the strife of finite forms, they felt the ever-stir¬ 
 ring, living and serene activity of the World and the World- 
 Spirit. But when they drew up marvellous and complex 
 genealogies of the gods, or when a later faith produced a 
 long series of emanations and procreations, it was not reli¬ 
 gion. Even though these things may have their source in 
 a religious presentation of the relation of 'the human and 
 the divine, of the imperfect and the perfect, tfyey were, in 
 themselves, vain mythology, and, in respect of science, 
 ruinous mysticism. The sum total of religion is to feel 
 
 E 
 
50 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 that, in its highest unity, all that moves us in feeling is one ; 
 to feel that aught single and particular is only possible by 
 means of this unity; to feel, that is to say, that our being 
 and living is a being and living in and through God. But 
 it is not necessary that the Deity should be presented as 
 also one distinct object. To many this view is necessary, 
 and to all it is welcome, yet it is always hazardous and 
 fruitful in difficulties. It is not easy to avoid the appear¬ 
 ance of making Him susceptible of suffering like other 
 objects. It is only one way of characterizing God, and, 
 from the difficulties of it, common speech will probably 
 never rid itself. But to treat this objective conception of 
 God just as if it were a perception, as if apart from His 
 operation upon us through the world the existence of God 
 before the world, and outside of the world, though for the 
 world, were either by or in religion exhibited as science is, 
 so far as religion is concerned, vain mythology. 6 What is 
 only a help for presentation is treated as a reality. It is 
 a misunderstanding very easily made, but it is quite outside 
 the peculiar territory of religion. 
 
 From all this you will at once perceive how the question, 
 whether religion is a system or not, is to be treated. It 
 admits of an entire negative, and also of a direct affirmative, 
 in a way that perhaps you scarce expected. Religion is 
 certainly a system, if you mean that it is formed according 
 to an inward and necessary connection. That the religious 
 sense of one person is moved in one way, and that of another 
 in another is not pure accident, as if the emotions formed 
 no whole, as if any emotions might be caused in the same 
 individual by the same object. Whatever occurs any¬ 
 where, whether among many or few as a peculiar and 
 distinct kind of feeling is in itself complete, and by its 
 nature necessary. What you find as religious emotions 
 among Turks or Indians, cannot equally appear among 
 Christians. The essential oneness of religiousness spreads 
 itself out in a great variety of provinces, and again, in each 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 51 
 
 province it contracts itself, and tlie narrower and smaller 
 the province there is necessarily more excluded as incom¬ 
 patible and more included as characteristic. Christianity,'^ 
 for example, is a whole in itself, but so is any of the divisions 
 that may at any time have appeared in it, down to Pro¬ 
 testantism and Catholicism in modern times. Finally, the 
 piety of eacb individual, whereby he is rooted in the greater 
 unity, is a whole by itself. It is a rounded whole, based on 
 his peculiarity, on what you call bis character, of which it 
 forms one side. Religion thus fashions itself. with endless 1 / 
 variety, down even to the single personality. 
 
 Each form again is a whole and capable of an endless 
 number of characteristic manifestations. You would not 
 have individuals issue from the Whole in a finite way, each 
 being at a definite distance from the other, so that one 
 might be determined, construed and numbered from the 
 others, and its characteristics be accurately determined in a 
 conception ? Were I to compare religion in this respect 
 with anything it would be with music, which indeed is other¬ 
 wise closely connected with it. Music is one great whole ; 
 it is a special, a self-contained revelation of the world. Yet 
 the music of each people is a whole by itself, which again is 
 divided into different characteristic forms, till we come to 
 the genius and style of the individual. Each actual instance 
 of this inner revelation in the individual contains all these 
 unities. Yet while nothing is possible for a musician, 
 except in and through the unity of the music of his people, 
 and the unity of music generally, he presents it in the charm 
 of sound with all the pleasure and joyousness of boundless 
 caprice, according as his life stirs in him, and the world 
 influences him. In the same way, despite the necessary 
 elements in its structure, religion is, in its individual mani¬ 
 festations whereby it displays itself immediately in life, 
 from nothing farther removed than from all semblance of 
 compulsion or limitation. In life, the necessary element is 
 taken up, taken up into freedom. Each emotion appears as 
 
 e 2 
 
52 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 the free self-determination of this very disposition, and 
 mirrors one passing moment of the world. 
 
 It would be impious to demand here something held in 
 constraint, something limited and determined from without. 
 If anything of this kind lies in your conception of system 
 then you must set it quite aside. A system of perceptions 
 and feelings you may yourselves see to be somewhat mar¬ 
 vellous. Suppose now you feel something. Is there not at 
 the same time an accompanying feeling or thought—make 
 your own choice—that you would have to feel in accordance 
 with this feeling, and not otherwise were but this or that 
 object, which does not now move you, to be present? But 
 for this immediate association your feeling would be at an 
 end, and a cold calculating and refining would take its place. 
 Wherefore it is plainly an error to assert that it belongs 
 to religion, to be conscious of the connection of its separate 
 manifestations, not only to have it within, and to develope 
 it from within, but to see it described and to comprehend it 
 from without, and it is presumption to consider that, with¬ 
 out it, piety is poverty-stricken. The truly pious are not 
 disturbed in the simplicity of their way, for they give 
 little heed to all the so-called religious systems that have 
 been erected in consequence of this view. 
 
 Poor enough they are too, far inferior to the theories 
 about music, defective though they be. Among those syste¬ 
 matizes there is less than anywhere, a devout watching 
 and listening to discover in their own hearts what they are 
 to describe. They would rather reckon with symbols, and 
 complete a designation which is about as accidental as the 
 designation of the stars. It is purely arbitrary and never 
 sufficient, for something new that should be included, is 
 always being discovered, and a system, anything permanent 
 and secure, anything corresponding to nature, and not the 
 result of caprice and tradition, is not to be found in it. 
 The designation, let the forms of religion be ever so inward 
 and self-dependent, must be from without. Thousands 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 53 
 
 might be moved religiously in the same way, and yet each, 
 led, not so much by disposition, as by external circum¬ 
 stances, might designate his feeling by different symbols. 7 
 Furthermore, those systematizers are less anxious to 
 present the details of religion than to subordinate them 
 one to the other, and to deduce them from a higher. 
 Nothing is of less importance to religion, for it knows 
 nothing of deducing and connecting. There is no single 
 fact in it that can be called original and chief. Its facts 
 are one and all immediate. Without dependence on any 
 other, each exists for itself. True, a special type of religion 
 is constituted by one definite kind and manner of feeling, 
 but it is mere perversion to call it a principle, and to treat 
 it as if the rest could be deduced from it. This distinct 
 form of a religion is found, in the same way, in every 
 single element of religion. Each expression of feeling 
 bears on it immediately this peculiar impress. It cannot 
 show itself without it, nor be comprehended without it. 
 Everything is to be found immediately, and not proved 
 from something else. Generals, which include particulars, 
 combination and connection belong to another sphere, if 
 they rest on reality, or they are merely a work of phantasy 
 and caprice. Every man may have his own regulation and 
 his own rubrics. What is essential can neither gain nor 
 lose thereby. Consequently, the man who truly knows the 
 nature of his religion, will give a very subordinate place to 
 all apparent connection of details, and will not sacrifice the 
 smallest for the sake of it. 
 
 By takiug the opposite course, the marvellous thought 
 has arisen of a universality of one religion, of one single 
 form which is true, and in respect of which all others 
 are false. Were it not that misunderstanding must be 
 guarded against, I would say that it is only by such 
 deducing and connecting that such a comparison as true 
 and false, which is not peculiarly appropriate to religion, 
 has ever been reached. It only applies where we have to 
 
54 
 
 SECOND SPEECH . 
 
 do with ideas. Elsewhere the negative laws of your logic 
 are not in place. All is immediately true in religion, for 
 except immediately how could anything arise ? But that 
 only is immediate which has not yet passed through the 
 stage of idea, but has grown up purely in the feeling. 
 All that is religious is good, for it is only religious 
 as it expresses a common higher life. But the whole 
 circumference of religion is infinite, and is not to be com¬ 
 prehended under one form, but only under the sum total 
 of all forms. 8 It is infinite, not merely because any single 
 religious organization has a limited horizon, and, not 
 being able to embrace all, cannot believe that there is 
 nothing beyond; but more particularly, because everyone 
 is a person by himself, and is only to be moved in his own 
 way, so that for everyone the elements of religion have 
 most characteristic differences. Religion is infinite, not only 
 because something new is ever being produced in time, 
 by the endless relations both active and passive between 
 different minds and the same limited matter; not only 
 because the capacity for religion is never perfected, but is 
 ever being developed anew, is ever being more beautifully 
 reproduced, is ever entering deeper into the nature of man; 
 but religion is infinite on all sides. As the knowledge of 
 its eternal truth and infallibility accompanies knowledge, 
 the consciousness of this infinity accompanies religion. It is 
 the very feeling of religion, and must therefore accompany 
 everyone that really has religion. He must be conscious 
 that his religion is only part of the whole; that about the 
 same circumstances there may be views and sentiments 
 quite different from his, yet just as pious; and that there 
 may be perceptions and feelings belonging to other modifica¬ 
 tions of religion, for which the sense may entirely fail him. 
 
 You see how immediately this beautiful modesty, this 
 friendly, attractive forbearance springs from the nature 
 of religion. How unjustly, therefore, do you reproach 
 religion with loving persecution, with being malignant, 
 
THE NA TURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 55 
 
 with overturning society, and making blood flow like 
 water. Blame those who corrupt religion, who flood it 
 with an army of formulas and definitions, and seek to 
 cast it into the fetters of a so-called system. What is it in 
 religion about which men have quarrelled and made parties 
 and kindled wars ? About definitions, the practical some¬ 
 times, the theoretical always, both of which belong else¬ 
 where. Philosophy, indeed, seeks to bring those who 
 would know to a common knowledge. Yet even philo¬ 
 sophy leaves room for variety, and the more readily the 
 better it understands itself. But religion does not, even 
 once, desire to bring those who believe and feel to one 
 belief and one feeling. Its endeavour is to open in those 
 who are not yet capable of religious emotions, the sense for 
 the unity of the original source of life. But just because 
 each seer is a new priest, a new mediator, a new organ, he 
 flees with repugnance the bald uniformity which would 
 again destroy this divine abundance. 
 
 This miserable love of system 9 rejects what is strange, 
 often without any patient examination of its claims, because, 
 were it to receive its place, the closed ranks would be de¬ 
 stroyed, and the beautiful coherence disturbed. There is 
 the seat of the art and love of strife. War must be carried 
 on, and persecution, for by thus relating detail to finite 
 detail, one may destroy the other, while, in its immediate 
 relation to the Infinite, all stand together in their original 
 genuine connection, all is one and all is true. These syste¬ 
 matizes, therefore, have caused it all. Modern Rome, god¬ 
 less but consequent, hurls anathemas and ejects heretics. 10 
 Ancient Rome, truly pious, and, in a high style religious, 
 was hospitable to every god. The adherents of the dead 
 letter which religion casts out, have filled the world with 
 clamour and turmoil. 
 
 Seers of the Infinite have ever been quiet souls. They 
 abide alone with themselves and the Infinite, or if they do 
 look around them, grudge to no one who understands the 
 
56 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 mighty word liis own peculiar way. By means of this wide 
 vision, this feeling of the Infinite, they are able to look 
 beyond their own sphere. There is in religion such a 
 Capacity for unlimited manysidedness in judgment and in 
 contemplation as is nowhere else to be found. I will not 
 except even morality and philosophy, not at least so much 
 of them as remains after religion is taken away. Let me 
 appeal to your own experience. Does not every other object 
 whereto man’s thinking and striving are directed, draw 
 around him a narrow circle, inside of which all that is highest 
 for him is enclosed, and outside of which all appears common 
 and unworthy ? The man who only thinks methodically, 
 and acts from principle and design, and will accomplish this 
 or that in the world, unavoidably circumscribes himself, and 
 makes everything that does not forward him an object of 
 antipathy. Only when the free impulse of seeing, and of 
 living is directed towards the Infinite and goes into the 
 Infinite, is the mind set in unbounded liberty. Religion 
 alone rescues it from the heavy fetters of opinion and desire. 
 For it, all that-is is necessary, all that can be is an indis¬ 
 pensable image of the Infinite. In this respect, it is all 
 worthy of preservation and contemplation, however much, 
 in other respects, and in itself, it is to be rejected. To a 
 pious mind religion makes everything holy, even unholiness 
 and commonness, whether he comprehends it or does not 
 comprehend it, whether it is embraced in his system of 
 thought, or lies outside, whether it agrees with his peculiar 
 mode of acting or disagrees. Religion is the natural and 
 sw 7 orn foe of all narrowmindedness, and of all onesidedness. 
 
 These charges, therefore, do not touch religion. They 
 rest upon the confusion between religion and that know¬ 
 ledge which belongs to theology. It is a knowledge, 
 whatever be its value, and is to be always distinguished 
 from religion. Just as inapplicable are the charges you 
 have made in respect of action. Something of this I have 
 already touched upon, but let us take a general glance at 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 57 
 
 it in order to set it entirely aside, and to show yon exactly 
 what I mean. Two things must be carefully distinguished. 
 
 In the first place, you charge religion with causing not 
 infrequently in the social, civil, and moral life, improper, 
 horrible, and even unnatural dealings. I will not demand 
 proof that these actions have proceeded from pious men. 
 
 I will grant it provisionally. But in the very utterance of 
 your accusation, you separate religion and morality. Do 
 you mean then that religion is immorality, or a branch of 
 it ? Scarcely, for your war against it would then be of 
 quite another sort, and you would have to make success in 
 vanquishing religion a test of morality. With the excep¬ 
 tion of a few who have shown themselves almost mad in 
 their mistaken zeal, you have not yet taken up this posi¬ 
 tion. Or do you only mean that piety is different from 
 morality, indifferent in respect of it, and capable therefore 
 of accidentally becoming immoral ? Piety and morality can v 
 be considered apart, and so far they are different. As 
 I have already admitted and asserted, the one is based on 
 feeling, the other on action. But how, from this opposi¬ 
 tion do you come to make religion responsible for action ? 
 Would it not be more correct to say that such men were 
 not moral enough, and had they been, they might have 
 been quite as pious without harm ? If you are seeking 
 progress—as doubtless you are—where two faculties that 
 should be equal have become unequal, it is not advisable 
 to call back the one in advance. It would be better to 
 urge forward the laggard. 
 
 Lest you should think I am merely quibbling, consider 
 that religion by itself does not urge men to activity at all. 
 
 If you could imagine it implanted in man quite alone, it 
 would produce neither these nor any other deeds. The 
 man, according to what we have said, would not act, he 
 would only feel. Wherefore, as you rightly complain, there 
 have been many most religious men in whom the proper im¬ 
 pulses to action have been wanting, and morality been too 
 
58 
 
 SECOND SPEECH . 
 
 mncli in the background, who have retired from the world 
 and have betaken themselves in solitude to idle contem¬ 
 plation. Religion, when isolated and morbid, is capable of 
 such effects, but not of cruel and horrible deeds. In this 
 way, your accusation can be turned into praise. 
 
 However different the actions you blame may be, they 
 have this in common, that they all seem to issue immediately 
 from one single impulse. Whether you call this special 
 feeling religious or not, I am far from disagreeing with you 
 when you so constantly blame it. Rather I praise you the 
 more thorough and impartial you are. Blame also, I pray 
 you, not only where the action appears bad, but still more 
 where it has a good appearance. When action follows a 
 single impulse, it falls into an undue dependence and is far 
 too much under the influence of the external objects that 
 work upon this one emotion. Feeling, whatever it be about, 
 if it is not dormant, is naturally violent. It is a com¬ 
 motion, a force to which action should not be subject and 
 from which it should not proceed. Quiet and discretion, 
 the whole impress of our nature should give action birth 
 and character, and this is as much required in common life as 
 in politics and art. But this divergence could only come 
 because the agent did not make his piety sufficiently evident. 
 Wherefore, it would rather appear that, if he had been 
 more pious he would have acted more morally. The 
 whole religious life consists of two elements, that man 
 surrender himself to the Universe and allow himself to be 
 influenced by the side of it that is turned towards him is one 
 part, and that he transplant this contact which is one definite 
 feeling, within, and take it up into the inner unity of his 
 life and being, is the other. The religious life is nothing 
 else than the constant renewal of this proceeding. When, 
 therefore, anyone is stirred, in a definite way, by the 
 World, is it his piety that straightway sets, him to such 
 working and acting as bear the traces of commotion and 
 disturb the pure connection of the moral life ? Impossible. 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 59 
 
 On the contrary, his piety invites him to enjoy what he has 
 won, to absorb it, to combine it, to strip it of what is 
 temporal and individual, that it may no more dwell in him 
 as commotion but be quiet, pure and eternal. From this 
 inner unity, action springs of its own accord, as a natural 
 branch of life. As we agreed, activity is a reaction of 
 feeling, but the sum of activity should only be a reaction of 
 the sum of feeling, and single actions should depend on 
 something quite- different from momentary feeling. Only 
 when each action is in its own connection and in its proper 
 place, and not when, dependently and slavishly, it cor¬ 
 responds to one emotion, does it exhibit, in a free and 
 characteristic way, the whole inner unity of the spirit. 
 
 Consequently your charge does not touch religion. And, 
 if you are speaking of a morbid state of it, you are speak¬ 
 ing of what is quite general and is not in any way original 
 to religion nor specially seated in it, and from which 
 consequently nothing is to be concluded against religion 
 in particular. Religion is of course finite, and therefore , 
 subject to imperfections, but it must be apparent to you . 
 that, in a healthy state, man cannot be represented as 
 acting from religion or being driven to action by religion, 
 but piety and morality form each a series by itself and are 
 two different functions of one and the same life. But 
 while man does nothing from religion, he should do every¬ 
 thing with religion. Uninterruptedly, like a sacred music, \j 
 the religious feelings should accompany his active life. 
 
 That by this representation of religion I am neither 
 deceiving you nor myself, you can easily see, if you observe 
 that each feeling in proportion as it bears the character of 
 piety, is disposed to withdraw itself into the heart and 
 not break forth into deeds. Would not a pious person who 
 was right deeply moved find himself in great perplexity, or 
 even quite fail to understand you, if you asked him by 
 what particular action he proposed to give expression and 
 vent to his feeling ? They are bad spirits and not good that 
 
6o 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 take possession of man, and drive him. The legions of 
 angels with which the Father provided His Son, exercised 
 no power over Him. They had no call to help Him in 
 any doing or forbearing, but they poured serenity and 
 calm into a soul exhausted with doing and thinking. For 
 a little, in that moment when His whole power was roused 
 for action, these friendly spirits were lost to His view, but 
 again they hovered round Him in joyous throng and 
 served Him. But why do I direct you to instances and 
 speak in images ? Because by starting from the separa¬ 
 tion which you make between religion and morality, and 
 following it closely, we have come back to their essential 
 unity in real life. This separation means corruption in the 
 one and weakness in the other ; aud if one is not what it 
 should be, neither can be perfect. 
 
 There are, however, other actions you often speak of. 
 The distinct purpose of them is to produce religion. 
 Being of no importance for morality, they are not moral, and 
 being of no importance for sense, they are not immoral, but 
 they are nevertheless disastrous, because they accustom man 
 to attach himself to what is void and to value what is worth¬ 
 less. Let them be ever so inane and meaningless, they, far 
 too often, take the place of moral action or hide its absence. 
 
 I know what you mean. Spare me the long catalogue 
 of outward disciplines, spiritual exercises, privations, mortifi¬ 
 cations and the rest. All these things you accuse religion 
 of producing, and yet you cannot overlook the fact that the 
 greatest heroes of religion, the founders and reformers of 
 the church, have regarded them with great iudifference. 
 There is a difference, I admit, but I believe that, in this 
 regard also, the subject I defend will justify itself. 
 
 First of all, let us understand what we are dealing 
 with. It is with action as an exercise of feeling, not with 
 any symbolical or significant action meant to represent 
 feeling. We have already seen how those dogmas and 
 opinions that would join themselves more closely to 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 61 
 
 religion than is fitting, are only designations and de¬ 
 scriptions of feeling. In short, they are a knowledge 
 about feeling, and in no way an immediate knowledge 
 about the operations of the Universe, that gave rise to the 
 feeling. We saw also, how it necessarily resulted in evil, 
 when they were put in place of the feeling, of the proper 
 and original perception. Similarly this conducting and 
 exercising of feeling which often turns out so vain and 
 meaningless, is an acting at second-hand. Just as that 
 knowledge made feeling an object to be contemplated and 
 understood, this acting makes it an object to be operated 
 upon and cultivated. What value this kind of activity may 
 have, and whether it may not be as unreal as that kind of 
 knowing, I shall not here decide. In what sense man can 
 act upon himself and particularly upon his feeling is 
 difficult to determine, and needs to be well weighed. Can 
 it be the result of a personal resolve, or does it not rather 
 appear to be the business of the Whole, and therefore a 
 given product of life ? But as I said, this does not belong 
 here, and I would rather discuss it with the friends of 
 religion than with you. So much, however, is certain, and 
 I grant it fully, that few errors are so disastrous as the 
 substitution of these disciplinary exercises of feeling for 
 the original feeling itself. Only, it is plainly an error into 
 which religious men could not fall. 
 
 If you would recall that something quite similar is to be 
 found in morality, you would perhaps at once agree with me. 
 Men, as they say, lay down for themselves just such acting 
 upon their own acting, just such exercisings of morals, to 
 the end of self-improvement. It happens that these are 
 sometimes put in place of direct moral action, of goodness 
 and righteousness themselves, but you would not admit that 
 it is through moral men. Men do all kinds of things, 
 accepting them from one and transmitting them to another, 
 though they have no meaning or value for themselves. 
 
 These actions are always, however, to be understood as 
 
62 
 
 SECOND SPEECH . 
 
 being done to rouse, sustain and direct religious feeling. 
 Where the activity is self-produced and really has this 
 meaning, it manifestly rests on the man’s own feeling. A 
 special state of feeling of which the man is conscious, is pre¬ 
 supposed, a knowledge of his own inner life with its weak¬ 
 nesses and inequalities. It presupposes an interest, a higher 
 self-love directed to himself, as a morally feeling person, 
 as an essential part of the spiritual world. When this love 
 ceases, the action also must cease. By supplanting feeling, 
 it abolishes itself, and such an error could only arise among 
 those who are in their hearts hostile to piety. 
 
 For them such exercisings of feeling have a special worth, 
 as if they also had some of the hidden virtue, seeing they can 
 outwardly imitate what, in others, has a deep significance. 
 Consciously or unconsciously, they deceive themselves and 
 others with the appearance of a higher life which they do not 
 really have. Either it is base hypocrisy or wretched super¬ 
 stition, and I willingly expose it to your condemnation. No 
 exercise of this kind is of any value, and we shall reject not 
 only what, regarded by itself, is manifestly void, unnatural and 
 perverted, but all that in this way arises, however specious. 
 Severe mortifications, dull renunciation of the beautiful, 
 empty phrases and usages and charities shall all be reckoned 
 at the same value. Every superstition shall be alike unholy. 
 
 But we must never confuse it with the well-meant 
 endeavours of pious souls. The difference is easy to 
 discern. Each religious person fashions his own asceticism 
 according to his need, and looks for no rule outside of 
 himself, while the superstitious person and the hypocrite 
 adhere strictly to the accepted and traditional, and are 
 zealous for it, as for something universal and holy. This 
 zeal is natural, for if they were expected to think out for 
 themselves, their own outward discipline and exercise, 
 their own training of the feelings, having regard to their 
 own personal state, they would be in an evil case, and their 
 inward poverty could be no longer hidden. 
 
THE NA TURK OF RELIGION. 
 
 63 
 
 The most general, almost preliminary truths have long 
 delayed us. They should have been understood of them¬ 
 selves, but neither you, nor many who would at least wish 
 to be counted among you, understood the relation of 
 religion to the other branches of life. Wherefore, it was 
 necessary to drain off at once the sources of the commonest 
 misconceptions, that they might not afterwards retard us. 
 This having been done to the utmost of my ability, we 
 have now, I hope, firm ground beneath us. We have 
 attached ourselves to that moment, which is never directly 
 observed, but in which all the different phenomena of life 
 fashion themselves together, as in the buds of some plants 
 blossom and fruit are both enclosed. When, therefore, we 
 have asked where now among all it produces is religion 
 chiefly to be sought, we have found only one right and 
 consistent answer. Chiefly where the living contact of 
 man with the world fashions itself as feeling. These feelings 
 are the beautiful and sweet scented flowers of religion, 
 which, after the hidden activity opens, soon fall, but which 
 the divine growth ever anew produces from the fulness of 
 life. A climate of paradise is thus created in which no 
 penuriousness disturbs the development, and no rude 
 surrounding injures the tender lights and fine texture of its 
 flowers. To this I would now conduct you, your vision 
 having been purified and prepared. 
 
 First of all, then, follow me to outward nature, which is 
 to many the first and only temple of the Godhead. In 
 virtue of its peculiar way of stirring the heart, it is held 
 to be the inmost sanctuary of religion. At present, how¬ 
 ever, this outward nature, although it should be more, is 
 little else than the outer court, for the view with which 
 you next oppose me is utterly to be repudiated. The 
 fear of the powers which rule in nature, which spare 
 nothing, which threaten the life and works 'of man, is 
 said to give the first feeling of the Infinite, or even to 
 be the sole basis of religion. Surely in that case you 
 
64 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 must admit that if piety came with fear it must go with 
 fear. 
 
 Let us then consider the matter. Manifestly the great 
 aim of all industry spent in cultivating the earth is to destroy 
 the dominion of the powers of nature over man, and to bring 
 all fear of them to an end. Already a marvellous amount 
 has been done. The lightnings of Zeus terrify no more since 
 Hephaistus has prepared for us a shield against them; and 
 Hestia protects what she has won from Poseidon, even against 
 the angriest blows of his trident; the sons of Ares unite with 
 those of iEsculapius to ward off the deadly arrows of Apollo. 
 Man is ever learning to resist and to destroy one of these 
 gods by means of the others, and is preparing soon, as con¬ 
 queror and lord, to be but a smiling spectator at this play. 
 Were fear then the ground of reverence for the powers of 
 nature, by thus mutually destroying one another, they 
 would gradually appear ordinary and common; for what 
 man has controlled or attempted to control, he can measure, 
 and what is measurable cannot stand in awful opposition to 
 him as the Infinite. The objects of religion would thus be 
 ever more and more unfaithful to it. But, are they ? 
 Would not these gods, conducting themselves towards one 
 another as brethren and kinsfolk, and caring for man as the 
 youngest son of the same Father, be just as zealously wor¬ 
 shipped ? If you are still capable of being filled with rever¬ 
 ence for the great powers of nature, does it depend on your 
 security or insecurity? When you stand under your light¬ 
 ning conductors, have you, perhaps, a laugh ready wherewith 
 to mock the thunder ? Is not nature protecting and sustain¬ 
 ing quite as much an object of adoration? Or, consider it 
 in this way. Does the great and infinite alone threaten 
 man’s existence and oppose his working ? Does he not 
 also suffer from much that is small and paltry, w r hich, 
 because it cannot be definitely comprehended or fashioned 
 into something great, you call accident and the accidental ? 
 Has this ever been made an object of religion and been 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 65 
 
 worshipped ? If you have such a small conception of the 
 Fate of the Ancients, you must have understood little of 
 their poetic piety. Under this dread Fate the sustaining 
 powers were as much embraced as the destructive. Very 
 different from that slavish fear, to banish which was a credit 
 and a virtue, was the holy reverence for Fate, the rejection 
 of which, in the best and most cultured times of Antiquity, 
 was accounted, among better disposed persons, absolute 
 recklessness . 11 Such a sacred reverence I will readily ac¬ 
 knowledge as the first element of religion, but the fear you 
 mean is not only not religion itself, it is not even prepara¬ 
 tory or introductory. If it should be praised, it must be 
 for urging men, by the desire to be rid of it, into earthly 
 fellowship in the state. But piety first begins when it is 
 put aside, for the aim of all religion is to love the World- 
 Spirit 12 and joyfully to regard his working, and fear is not 
 in love. 
 
 But that joy in Nature, which so many extol, is just as 
 little truly religious. I almost hate to speak of their 
 doings when they dart off into the great, glorious world to 
 get for themselves little impressions : how they inspect the 
 delicate markings and tints of flowers, or gaze at the magic 
 play of colours in the glowing evening sky, and how they 
 admire the songs of the birds on a beautiful country-side. 
 They are quite full of admiration and transport, and will 
 have it that no instrument could conjure forth these sounds 
 and no brush attain this gloss and marking. But suppose 
 we take their course and subtilize after their fashion! 
 What is it that they do admire ? Bear the plant in a dark 
 cellar, and, if you are successful, you can rob it of all these 
 beauties, without in the least degree altering its nature. 
 Suppose the vapour above us somewhat differently disposed ; 
 instead of that splendour, you would have before your eyes 
 one unpleasant grayness, and yet what you are contemplating 
 would be essentially the same. Once more, try to imagine 
 how the midday sun, the glare of which you cannot endure, 
 
 F 
 
66 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 already appears to the inhabitants of the East the glimmer¬ 
 ing twilight. Is it not manifest, then, when they have not 
 the same sensation, that they have gone after a mere void 
 appearance ? But they do not believe in it merely as an 
 appearance; it is for them really true. They are in per¬ 
 plexity between appearance and reality, and what is so 
 doubtful cannot be a religious stimulus, and can call forth no 
 genuine feeling. Were they children who, without further 
 thinking and willing, without comparison and reflection, 
 received the light and splendour, their hearts being opened 
 for the world by the soul of the world, so that they are 
 stirred to pious feeling by every object; or were they sages 
 in whose clear intuition all strife between appearance and 
 reality is resolved, and who, therefore, undisturbed by these 
 refinements, can again be stirred like children, their joy 
 would be a real and pure feeling, a living impulse, a gladly 
 communicative contact’ between them and the world. If 
 you understand this better way, then you can say that this 
 also is a necessary and indispensable element of religion. 
 But do not present me that ’empty affected thing that sits 
 so loose and is but a wretched mask for their cold, hard 
 refinement, as an emotion of piety. In opposing religion, 
 do not ascribe to it what does not belong to it. Do not 
 scoff, as if man entered most easily into this sanctuary by 
 being debased to fear of the irrational, and by vain trifling 
 with transitory show, as if piety were easiest, and most 
 becoming to timid, weak, sensitive souls. 
 
 The next thing to meet us in corporeal nature is its 
 material boundlessness, the enormous masses which are 
 scattered over illimitable space and which circulate in • 
 measureless orbits. Many hold that the exhaustion of the 
 imagination, when we try to expand our diminished pictures 
 of them to their natural size, is the feeling of the greatness 
 and majesty of the Universe. This arithmetical amazement 
 which, just on account of their ignorance, is easiest to 
 awake in infants and ignoramuses, you are quite right in 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 67 
 
 finding somewhat childish and worthless. But would those 
 who are accustomed to take this view grant us that, when 
 these great orbits had not yet been calculated, when half 
 of those worlds were not discovered, nay, when it was not 
 yet known that these shining points were worlds, piety, 
 lacking one essential element, was necessarily poorer ? 
 Just as little can they deny that, in so far as it can be 
 conceived—and without that it means nothing for us— 
 the infinity of mass and number is only finite and the 
 mind can comprehend every infinity of this kind into short 
 formulae, and reckon with them, as daily happens. But 
 they would certainly not grant that anything of their 
 reverence for the greatness and majesty of the Universe is 
 lost through advancing education and skill. As soon, how¬ 
 ever, as we are in a position to compare these units, which 
 are our measure of size and motion, with those great world 
 units, this spell of number and mass must disappear. As 
 long as this feeling rests on difference of mass, it is merely 
 a feeling of personal incapacity, which is doubtless a 
 religious feeling, but is not that gloriou^ reverence, as ex¬ 
 alting as it is humbling, which is the feeling of our relation 
 to the Whole. Neither a world operation too great for an 
 organization, nor anything beyond it from smallness, can 
 constitute this feeling, but it must be just as strong when 
 the operation is equal and conformable to our powers. 
 
 What moves us so wondrously is not the contrast between 
 small and great, but the essence of greatness, the external 
 law in virtue of which size and number in general first arose. 
 Life alone can work on us in a characteristic way, and not 
 what is captive to weight and in so far dead. The religious 
 sense corresponds not to the masses in the outer world, but 
 to their eternal laws. Bise to the height of seeing how 
 these laws equally embrace all things, the greatest and the 
 smallest, the world systems and the mote which-floats in 
 the air, and then say whether you are not conscious of the 
 divine unity and the eternal immutability of the world. 
 
 y 2 
 
68 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 By the most constant repetition, some elements in these 
 laws cannot escape even common perception. There is 
 the order in which all movements return in the heavens 
 and on the earth, the recognized coming and going of all 
 organized forces, the perpetual trustworthiness of the rules 
 of mechanics, and the eternal uniformity in the striving of 
 plastic Nature. But, if it is allowable to make a com¬ 
 parison, this regularity gives a less great and lively 
 religious feeling than the sense of law in all difference. 
 Nor should this appear strange to you. 
 
 Suppose you are looking at a fragment of a great work 
 of art. In the separate parts of this fragment you perceive 
 beautiful outlines and situations, complete and fully to be 
 understood without anything besides. Would not the 
 fragment then rather appear a work by itself than a part 
 of a greater work, and would you not judge that, if the 
 whole was wrought throughout in this style, it must lack 
 breadth and boldness and all that suggests a great spirit ? 
 If a loftier unity is to be suspected, along with the general 
 tendency to order and harmony, there must be here and 
 there situations not fully explicable. Now the world is a 
 work of which you only see a part. Were this part per¬ 
 fectly ordered and complete in itself, we could be conscious 
 of the greatness of the whole only in a limited way. 
 
 You see that the irregularity of the world, so often 
 employed against religion, has really a greater value for 
 religion than the order which is first presented to us in our 
 study of the world and which is visible in a smaller part. 
 The perturbations in the course of the stars point to a 
 higher unity and a bolder combination than those we have 
 already discovered in the regularity of their orbits. The 
 anomalies, the idle sports of plastic Nature, compel us to 
 see that she handles her most definite forms with free, nay 
 capricious arbitrariness, with a phantasy the laws of which 
 only a higher.standpoint can show. 
 
 Wherefore, in the religion of the Ancients, only inferior 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 69 
 
 divinities and ministering virgins had the oversight of all 
 that recurred uniformly and had an already discovered 
 order, but the exceptions which were not understood, the 
 revolutions for which there was no law, were the work c£ 
 the father of the gods. We also have strange, dread, 
 mysterious emotions, when the imagination reminds us that 
 there is more in nature than we know. They are easy to 
 distinguish from the quiet and settled consciousness that 
 everything is involved in the most distant combinations 
 of the Whole, that every individual thing is determined by 
 the yet unexplored general life. This consciousness is pro¬ 
 duced by what we understand in Nature, but I mean those 
 dim presentiments which are the same in all, even though, 
 as is right, only the educated seek to elucidate them and 
 change them into a more lively activity of perception. In 
 others, being comprehended in ignorance and misunder¬ 
 standing, they grow to a delusion which we call pure 
 superstition, under which, however, there manifestly lies 
 a pious shudder of which we shall not be ashamed. 
 
 Furthermore, consider how you are impressed by the 
 universal opposition of life and death. The sustained, 
 conquering power, whereby every living thing nourishes 
 itself, forcefully awakes the dead and enters it on a new 
 course by drawing it into its own life. On every side we 
 find provision prepared for all living, not lying dead, but 
 itself alive and everywhere being reproduced. With all 
 this multitude of forms of life, and the enormous mass of 
 material which each uses in turn, there is enough for all. 
 Thus each completes his course and succumbs to an inward 
 fate and not to outward want. What a feeling of endless 
 fulness and superabundant riches ! How are we impressed 
 by a universal paternal care and a childlike confidence that 
 without anxiety plays away sweet life in a full a$d abun¬ 
 dant world ! Consider the lilies of the field, they sow not, 
 neither do they reap, yet your Heavenly Father feedeth 
 them, wherefore be not anxious. This happy view, this 
 
7° 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 serene, easy mind was for one of the greatest heroes of 
 religion, the fair profit of a very limited and meagre com¬ 
 munion with nature. How much more should we win who 
 have been permitted by a richer age to go deeper ! 
 
 Already we know something more of the universally dis¬ 
 tributed forces, the eternal laws, whereby individual things, 
 that is things which have their souls in themselves apart, 
 in a more definite boundary, in what - we call bodies, are 
 fashioned and destroyed. See how attraction and repulsion, 
 everywhere and always active, determine everything; and 
 how all difference and opposition are again resolved into 
 a higher unity. Only in appearance, can anything finite 
 boast itself of a separate existence. See how all likeness is 
 concealed by being distributed in a thousand different 
 shapes. Nothing simple is to be found, but all is skilfully 
 connected and interwoven. We would see and exhort all who 
 share in the culture of the age to observe, how, in this sense, 
 the Spirit of the World reveals itself as visibly, as completely, 
 in small as in great, and we would not stop with such a con¬ 
 sciousness of it as might be had anywhere and from any¬ 
 thing. Even without all the knowledge which has made 
 our century glorious, the World-Spirit showed itself to the 
 most ancient sages. Not only did they have, by intuition, 
 the first pure speaking image of the world, but there was 
 kindled in their hearts a love for nature and a joy in her, 
 that is for us still loyely and pleasing. Had this but 
 penetrated to the people, who knows what strong and lofty 
 way religion might have taken from the beginning P At 
 present it has penetrated to all who would be considered 
 cultured. Through the gradual operation of the fellowship 
 between knowledge and feeling, they have arrived at the 
 immediate feeling that there is nothing even in their own 
 nature that is not a work of this Spirit, an exhibition and 
 application of these laws. In virtue of this feeling, all that 
 touches their life becomes truly a world, a unity permeated 
 by the Divinity that fashions it. It is natural, therefore. 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 71 
 
 that there should be in them all, that love and joy, that 
 deep reverence for nature which made sacred the art and 
 life of Antiquity, which was the source of that wisdom, which 
 we have returned to and are at length beginning to commend 
 and glorify by fruits long delayed. Such a feeling of being 
 one with nature, of being quite rooted in it, so that in all 
 the changing phenomena of life, even in the change be¬ 
 tween life and death itself, we might await all that should 
 befall us with approbation and peace, as merely the working 
 out of those eternal laws, would indeed be the germ of all 
 the religious feelings furnished by this side of existence. 
 
 But is it so easy to find original in nature the love and 
 resistance, the unity and peculiarity, whereby it is a Whole 
 for us ? • Just because our sense tends in quite another direc¬ 
 tion, is there so little truly religious enjoyment of nature. The 
 sense of the Whole must be first found, chiefly within our 
 own minds, and from thence transferred to corporeal nature. 
 Wherefore the spirit is for us not only the seat of religion 
 but its nearest world . 13 The Universe portrays itself in the 
 inner life, and then the corporeal is comprehensible from 
 the spiritual. If the mind is to produce and sustain reli¬ 
 gion it must operate upon us as a world and as in a world. 
 
 Let me reveal a secret to you that lies almost hidden in 
 one of the oldest sources of poetry and religion. As long 
 as the first man was alone with himself and nature, the Deity 
 ruled over him and addressed him in various ways, but he did 
 not understand and answered nothing. His paradise was 
 beautiful, the stars shone down on him from a beautiful 
 heaven, but there awoke in him no sense for the world. 
 Even from within, this sense was not developed. Still his 
 mind was stirred with longing for a world, and he collected 
 the animal creation before him, if perhaps out of them a 
 world might be formed. Then the Deity recognized that 
 the world would be nothing, as long as man was alone. 
 He created a helpmate for him. At length the deep-toned 
 harmonies awoke in him, and the world fashioned itself 
 
72 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 before bis eyes. In flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone, 
 he discovered humanity. In this first love he had a foretaste 
 of all love's forms and tendencies—in humanity he found 
 the world. From this moment he was capable of seeing and 
 hearing the voice of the Deity, and even the most insolent 
 transgression of His laws did' not any more shut him out 
 from intercourse with the Eternal Being . 14 
 
 The history of us- all is related in this sacred legend. 
 All is present in vain for those who set themselves alone. 
 In order to receive the life of the World-Spirit, and have 
 religion, man must first, in love, and through love, have 
 found humanity. 1 Wherefore, humanity and religion are 
 closely and indissolubly united. v/A longing for love, ever 
 satisfied and ever again renewed, forthwith becomes reli¬ 
 gion. Each man embraces most warmly the person in 
 whom the world mirrors itself for him most clearly and 
 purely ; he loves most tenderly the person whom he believes 
 combines all he lacks of a complete manhood. Similarly 
 the pious feelings are most holy that express for him 
 existence in the whole of humanity, whether as blessed¬ 
 ness in attaining or of need in coming short. 
 
 Wherefore, to find the most glorious elements of religion, 
 let us enter upon the territory where you are in your pecu¬ 
 liar, your most loved home. Here your inner life had its 
 birth, here you see the goal of all your striving and doing 
 before your eyes, and here you feel the growth of your 
 powers whereby you are evermore conducted towards it. 
 Humanity itself is for you the true universe, and the rest is 
 only added in so far as it is related to it or forms its 
 surroundings. Even for me, this point of view suffices. 
 Yet it has often pained me that, with all your interest in 
 humanity, and with all your zeal for it, you are always in 
 difficulties with it, and divided from it, and pure love cannot 
 become right prominent in you. Each of you in his own way 
 harasses himself to improve it, and to educate it, and what 
 will not come to an issue you finally cast aside in dejection. 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 73 
 
 I make bold to say, tbat this also comes from your lack of 
 religion. You wish to work on humanity, and you select 
 men, individuals for contemplation. They displease you 
 vastly. Among the thousand possible causes, unques¬ 
 tionably that which is finest in itself, and which belongs to 
 the best of you, is that you are, in your own way, far too 
 ethical. You take men singly, and you have an ideal of the 
 individual to which no one corresponds. If you would begin 
 with religion, you would have far more success. If you would 
 only attempt to exchange the objects of your working and 
 the objects of your contemplation ! Work on individuals, 
 but rise in contemplation, on the wings of religion, to end¬ 
 less, undivided humanity. Seek this humanity in each 
 individual; regard the nature of every person as one 
 revelation of it, and of all that now oppresses you no trace 
 would remain. I at least boast myself of a moral dis¬ 
 position, I know how to value human excellence, and 
 commonness could almost overwhelm me with the un¬ 
 pleasant feeling of contempt, were it not that religion gives 
 me a great and glorious view of all. 
 
 Just consider what a consummate artist the Genius of 
 humanity is. It can make nothing that has not a nature 
 of its own. As soon as it assays its brush, or sharpens its 
 pencil, there appear living and significant features. It 
 imagines and fashions countless forms. Millions wear the 
 costume of the time, and are faithful pictures of its neces¬ 
 sities and its tastes. In others there are memories of the 
 past, or presentiments of a distant future. Some are most 
 lofty and striking types of the fairest and divinest, others 
 resemble grotesques produced in the most original and 
 fleeting mood of a master. The common view, based on a 
 misunderstanding of the sacred words that there are vessels 
 of honour and vessels of dishonour, is not pious. Only by 
 comparing details could such an opposition appear to you. 
 You must not contemplate anything alone, you must rather 
 regoice in everything in its own place. All that we can be 
 
74 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 conscious of at once, all, as it were, that stands on one 
 sheet, presents one movement of the complete working of 
 the Whole, and belongs, as it were, to one great historical 
 picture. Would you make light of the chief groups that 
 give life and affluence to the Whole? Should not each 
 heavenly form be glorified in having a thousand others 
 that regard it and are related to it, bowing before it ? 
 Indeed, there is more in this presentation than a mere 
 simile. Eternal humanity is unweariedly active, seeking to 
 step forth from its inward, mysterious existence into the 
 light, and to present itself in the most varied way, in the 
 fleeting manifestation of the endless life. That is the 
 harmony of the Universe, the wondrous and unparalleled 
 unity of that eternal work of art. 
 
 Being occupied in the outer court of morality, and there 
 only with elements, caring for details and satisfied with 
 them, and despising high religion, you slander its magnifi¬ 
 cence by your demands for a lamentable dismemberment. 
 This is sufficient to indicate your need, may you now recog¬ 
 nize it and satisfy it! Make search among all the circum¬ 
 stances in which the heavenly order portrays itself, and 
 perhaps some favourite passage of history may be a divine 
 sign to you, whereby you may more easily recognize how 
 real the insignificant is, and how important for the Whole. 
 Then what you regard with coldness or contempt may draw 
 you with love. Or, allow yourselves to be pleased with an 
 old, rejected conception ; seek out among the holy men, in 
 whom humanity is pre-eminently revealed, someone to be 
 a mediator between your limited way of thinking, and the 
 eternal laws of the world. And when you have found one 
 who, in a way you understand, by imparting himself, 
 strengthens the weak, and gives life to the dead, traverse 
 humanity, and let all that has hitherto seemed useless and 
 wretched be illuminated by the reflection of this new light. 
 
 What would the uniform repetition of even a highest ideal 
 be? Mankind, time and circumstances excepted, would be 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 75 
 
 identical. They would be the same formula with a different 
 co-efficient. What would it be in comparison with the end¬ 
 less variety which humanity does manifest ? Take any 
 element of humanity, and you will find it in almost every 
 possible condition. You will not find it quite by itself, nor 
 quite combined with all other elements, but you will find all 
 possible mixtures between, in every odd and unusual com¬ 
 bination. And if you could think of unions you do not see, 
 this gap would be a negative revelation of the Universe, an 
 indication that, in the present temperature of the world, this 
 mixture is not possible, in the requisite degree. Your 
 imagination thus gives you a glimpse beyond the present 
 boundaries of humanity, and whether it be only a ray from 
 a vanished past, or an involuntary and unconscious prophecy 
 of the future, it is a real higher inspiration. And just as 
 this, that seems to come short of the requisite infinite 
 variety is not really too little, so what, from your stand¬ 
 point appears superfluous, is not really too much. 
 
 This oft-bewailed superfluity of the commonest forms of 
 humanity, ever returning unchanged in a thousand copies, 
 does not disturb the pious mind. The Eternal Mind com¬ 
 mands that the forms in which individuality is most difficult 
 to discern, should stand closest together, and even the finite 
 mind can see the reason why. And each has something of 
 its own, and no two are identical. In every life there is some 
 moment, like the coruscation of baser metals, when, by the 
 approach of something higher, or by some electric shock, it 
 surpasses itself and stands on the highest pinnacle of its possi¬ 
 bilities. For this moment it was created, in this moment it 
 fulfilled its purpose, and, after this moment its exhausted 
 vitality again subsides. To call forth this moment in ordi¬ 
 nary souls and to contemplate them during it is a pleasure 
 to be envied, and to those who have not known it, the whole 
 existence of them must appear superfluous and despicable. 
 
 Yet the existence of such an ordinary soul has a double 
 meaning in respect of the Whole. If I arrest in thought 
 
76 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 the course of that unresting machinery whereby all that is 
 human is woven together and made interdependent, I see 
 that each individual in his inner nature is a necessary com¬ 
 plement of a complete intuition of humanity. One shows 
 me how any fragment, if only the plastic impulse of the 
 Whole still quickens it, can calmly progress, fashioning it¬ 
 self in graceful, regular forms; another how, from want of 
 a vivifying and combining warmth, the hardness of the 
 earthly material cannot be overcome; while, in a third, I 
 see how, in an atmosphere too violently agitated, the spirit 
 within is disturbed in its working, so that nothing comes 
 clearly and recognizably to light. One appears as the 
 rude and animal portion of mankind, stirred only by the 
 first ungainly motions of humanity; another is the pure 
 dematerialized spirit that, having been separated from all 
 that is base and unworthy, hovers with noiseless foot over 
 the earth. But everything between also has a purpose. 
 It shows how, in the minute detached phenomena of indi¬ 
 vidual lives, the different elements of human nature all 
 appear at every stage and in every manner. It is not 
 enough that among this countless multitude there are 
 always a few at least who are the distinguished represen¬ 
 tatives of humanity, who strike different melodious chords 
 that require no further accompaniment, and no subsequent 
 explication, but who, in the one note, charm and satisfy 
 by their harmony the whole soul. But even the noblest only 
 presents mankind in.one way and in one of its movements, 
 and in some sense everyone is a peculiar exhibition of 
 humanity and does the same thing, and were a single 
 figure to fail in the great picture, it would be impossible 
 to comprehend it completely and perfectly. If now 
 every one is so essentially connected with that which is 
 the inner kernel of our own life, how can we avoid feeling 
 this connection, and embracing all, without distinction of 
 disposition or mental capacity, with heartfelt liking and 
 affection ? That is one meaning that every individual has 
 in respect of the Whole. 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 77 
 
 Do I, on the other hand, observe the eternal wheels of 
 humanity in motion, this vast interaction, nothing moved by 
 itself, nothing moving only itself, I am greatly quieted 
 about the other side of your complaint, that reason and soul, 
 sensuality and morality, understanding and blind force 
 appear in such separate masses. Why do you see things 
 singly that are not single and do not work by themselves? 
 The reason of one and the disposition of another have as 
 strong a mutual influence as if they were in one and the 
 same subject. The morality that belongs to this sensuality 
 is set apart from it, and do you suppose its dominion is, on 
 that account, limited ? Would the sensuality be better ruled 
 if the morality, without being specially concentrated any¬ 
 where, were divided out in small, scarce noticeable portions 
 to each individual ? The blind power which is allotted to 
 the great mass, is not, in its operation on the Whole, aban¬ 
 doned to a rude peradventure, but the understanding, con¬ 
 centrated at other points, leads it, without being aware of 
 the fact, and it follows, in invisible bands, quite as uncon¬ 
 sciously. The outlines of personality which appear to you 
 so definite, from my standpoint, dissolve. The magic circle 
 of prevailing opinions and infectious feelings surrounds all 
 and plays around all like an atmosphere filled with dis¬ 
 solving and magnetic forces. By the most vital diffusion 
 it smelts all things, even the most distant, into a single 
 activity, the issue of which is to impel those who are really 
 in possession of light and truth to activity, so that some 
 are deeply influenced, and others have at least a superficial 
 illumination, brilliant and deceptive. 
 
 In this connection of everything with the sphere to which 
 it belongs and in which it has significance all is good and 
 divine, and a fulness of joy and peace is the feeling of those 
 who allow all things to work upon them in this great con-' 
 nection. But they will also feel how contemplation isolates 
 single things in single moments. The common impulse of 
 men, who know nothing of this dependence, is to seize 
 and retain this and that, to hedge in their Ego and to 
 
78 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 surround it with manifold outworks. They seek to conduct 
 their own existence according to their own self-will and not 
 be disturbed by the eternal current of the world. And 
 when we who have an entirely opposite impulse perceive 
 how fate necessarily sweeps all this away and how they 
 wound and torture themselves in a thousand ways, what is 
 more natural than the most heartfelt compassion with all 
 the bitter suffering that must arise from this unequal strife, 
 and with all the stripes which awful Nemesis deals out on 
 . every side ? 
 
 From these wanderings through the whole territory of • 
 humanity, pious feeling returns, quickened and educated, 
 into its own Ego, and there finds all the influences that had 
 streamed upon it from the most distant regions. If, on 
 returning with the consecration of intercourse with the 
 world still fresh upon us, we give heed how it is with us in 
 this feeling, we become conscious that our Ego vanishes, 
 not only into smallness and insignificance, but into one¬ 
 sidedness, insufficiency and nothingness. What lies nearer 
 to mortal man than unaffected humility ? And when gradu¬ 
 ally our feeling becomes quick and alert to what there is in 
 the path of humanity that sustains and forwards, and what, 
 on the contrary, must sooner or later be conquered and 
 destroyed, if it is not recast and transformed, and when 
 from this law we regard all doings in the world, what is 
 more natural than deep contrition for all in us that is hostile 
 to human nature, the submissive desire to conciliate the 
 Deity, and the most earnest longing to put ourselves and all 
 that belongs to us in safety in that sacred region where 
 alone there is security against death and destruction ? 
 Advancing further, we perceive how the Whole only 
 becomes clear to us, how we only reach intuition of it and 
 * unity with it in fellowship with others, by the influence 
 of those who have long been freed from dependence on 
 their own fleeting being, and from the endeavour to expand 
 and isolate it. How, then, can we avoid a feeling of special 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 79 
 
 affinity to those whose actions have defended our existence, 
 and happily guided it through threatening dangers ? 
 Though by us they become conscious of their life in the 
 Whole, we honour them as those who, before us, have 
 reached this union. 
 
 Not by examples which are rare, but by passing through 
 these and similar feelings you discover in yourselves the 
 outlines of the fairest and the basest, the noblest and the 
 most despicable. You not only find at times all the 
 manifold degrees of human powers within you, but when 
 self-love is quite submerged in sympathy, all the count¬ 
 less mixture of human tendencies that you have ever 
 seen in the characters of others appears simply arrested 
 impulses of your own life. There are moments when, de¬ 
 spite all distinction of sex, culture, or environment, you 
 think, feel, and act as if you were really this or that person. 
 In your own order, you have actually passed through all 
 those different forms. You are a compendium of humanity. 
 In a certain sense your single nature embraces all human 
 nature. Your Ego, being multiplied and more clearly out¬ 
 lined, is in all its smallest and swiftest changes immortalized 
 in the manifestations of human nature. As soon as this is 
 seen, you can love yourselves with a pure and blameless 
 love. Humility, that never forsakes you, has its counter¬ 
 part in the feeling that the whole of humanity lives and 
 works in you. Even contrition is sweetened to joyful self- 
 sufficiency. This is the completion of religion on this side. 
 It works its way back to the heart, and there finds the 
 Infinite. The man in whom this is accomplished, is no 
 more in need of a mediator for any sort of intuition of 
 humanity. Rather he is himself a mediator for many. 
 
 But there is not merely the swinging of feelihg between 
 the world and the individual, in the present moment. 
 Except as something going on, we cannot comprehend 
 what affects us, and we cannot comprehend ourselves, 
 except as thus progressively affected. Wherefore, as feeling 
 
8o 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 persons, we are ever driven back into the past. The spirit 
 furnishes the chief nourishment for our piety, and history 
 immediately and especially is for religion the richest source. 
 History is not of value for religion, because it hastens or 
 controls in any way the progress of humanity in its develop¬ 
 ment, but because it is the greatest and most general revela¬ 
 tion of the deepest and holiest. In this sense, however, 
 religion begins and ends with history. Prophecy and 
 history are for religion the same and indistinguishable, and 
 all true history has at first had a religious purpose, and has 
 taken its departure from religious ideas. 
 
 What is finest and tenderest in history, moreover, 
 cannot be communicated scientifically, but can only be 
 comprehended in the feeling of a religious disposition. 
 The religious mind recognizes the transmigration of 
 spirits and souls, which to others is but graceful fiction, 
 as, in more than one sense, a wonderful arrangement 
 of the Universe for comparing the different periods of 
 humanity according to a sure standard. After a long 
 period, during which nature could produce nothing simila r, 
 some distinguished individual almost entirely the same 
 returns. But only the seers recognize him, and it is they 
 who should judge by his works the signs of different times. 
 A movement of humanity returns exactly like something 
 of which some distant foretime has left you an image, and 
 you are to recognize from the various causes which have 
 now produced it, the course of development and the 
 formula of its law. The genius of some human endow¬ 
 ment awakes as from slumber. Here and there rising and 
 falling, it has already finished its course. How it appears 
 in a new life in another place and under different circum¬ 
 stances. Its quicker increase, its deeper working, its fairer 
 stronger form, indicate how much the climate of humanity 
 has improved, and how much fitter the soil has grown to 
 nourish nobler plants. Peoples and generations of mortals 
 appear as all alike necessary for the completeness of history, 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 Si 
 
 though, like individuals, of different worth. Some are 
 estimable and spirited, and work strongly without ceasing, 
 permeating space and defying time. Others are common 
 and insignificant, fitted only to show some peculiar shade 
 of some single form of life. For one moment only they 
 are really living and noticeable. One thought they 
 exhibit, one conception they produce, and then they hasten 
 towards destruction that the power that produced them may 
 be given to something else. As vegetable nature, from 
 the destruction of whole species, and from the ruins of 
 whole generations of plants, produces and nourishes a new 
 race, so spiritual nature rears from the ruins of a glorious 
 and beautiful world of men, a new world that draws its 
 first vital strength from elements decomposed and won- 
 drously transformed. Being deeply impressed with this 
 sense of a universal connection, your glance perhaps passes 
 so often directly from least to greatest and greatest to 
 least, going backwards and forwards, till through dizziness 
 it can neither distinguish great nor small, cause nor 
 effect, preservation nor destruction. This state continues, 
 and then that well-known figure of an eternal fate appears. 
 Its features bear the impress of this state, being a 
 marvellous mixture of obstinate self-will and deep wisdom, 
 of rude unfeeling force and heartfelt love, of which first one 
 seizes you and then another, now inviting you to impotent 
 defiance and now to childlike submission. 
 
 Penetrate further and compare this partial striving of the 
 individual, the fruit of opposing views, with the quiet uniform 
 course of the Whole. You will see how the high World- 
 Spirit smilingly marches_pMt all that furiously opposes him. 
 You will see how dread Nemesis, never wearied, follows his 
 steps, meting out punishment to the haughty who resist 
 the gods. Even the stoutest and choicest who have with 
 steadfastness, worthy perhaps of praise and wonder, refused 
 to bow before the gentle breath of the great Spirit, it mows 
 down with iron hand. Would you comprehend the proper 
 
 G 
 
8 2 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 character of all changes and of all human progress, a 
 feeling resting on history must show you more surely than 
 aught else, that living gods rule who hate nothing so much 
 as death, and that nothing is to be persecuted and 
 destroyed like this first and last foe of the spirit. The 
 ' rude, the barbarian, the formless are to be absorbed and 
 recast. Nothing is to be a dead mass that moves only by 
 impact and resists only by unconscious collision ; all is 
 to be individual, connected, complex, exalted life. Blind 
 instinct, unthinking custom, dull obedience, everything 
 lazy and passive, all those sad symptoms of the death 
 slumber of freedom and humanity are to be abolished. To 
 this the work of the minutes and the centuries is directed, 
 it is the great ever advancing work of redemptive love. 
 
 Some prominent emotions of religion connected with na¬ 
 ture and humanity, I have now sketched in vague outline. 
 I have brought you to the limits of your horizon. Here is 
 the end and summit of religion for all to whom humanity 
 is the whole world. But consider that in your feeling 
 there is something that despises these bounds, something 
 in virtue of which you cannot stay where you are. Beyond 
 this point only infinity is to be looked into. I will not 
 speak of the presentiments which define themselves and 
 become thoughts which might by subtilty be established, 
 that humanity, being capable of motion and cultivation, 
 being not only differently manifested in the individual, 
 but here and there really being different, cannot possibly 
 be the highest, the sole manifestation of the unity of spirit 
 and matter. As the individual is ouly one form of 
 humanity, so humanity may be only one form of this 
 unity. Beside it many other similar forms may exist, 
 bounding it and standing over against it. But in our own 
 feeling we all find something similar. The dependence 
 of our earth, and therefore of the highest unity it has pro¬ 
 duced, upon other worlds, bas been impressed upon us 
 both by nature and by education. Hence this ever active 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION 
 
 83 
 
 but seldom understood presentiment of some other 
 marriage of spirit and matter, visible and finite, but above 
 humanity, higher and closer and productive of more 
 beautiful forms. But any sketch that could be drawn 
 would be too definite. Any echo of the feeling could only 
 be fleeting and vague. Hence it is exposed to misconcep¬ 
 tion and is so often taken for folly and superstition. 
 
 This is sufficient reference to a thing so immeasurably 
 far from you. More would be incomprehensible. Had you 
 only the religion that you could have! Were you but 
 conscious of what you already have ! Were you to con¬ 
 sider the few religious opinions and feelings that I have so 
 slightly sketched, you would be very far from finding them 
 all strange to you. Something of the same kind you must 
 have had in your thoughts before. But I do not know 
 whether to lack religion quite, or not to understand it, is 
 the greater misfortune. In the latter case also it fails of its 
 purpose, and you impose upon yourselves in addition. 
 
 Two things I would specially blame in you. Some things 
 you select and stamp as exclusively religious, other things 
 you withdraw from religion as exclusively moral. Both you 
 apparently do on the same ground. Religion with you is 
 the retribution which alights on all who resist the Spirit 
 of the Whole, it is the hatred everywhere active against 
 haughtiness and audacity, the steady advance of all human 
 things to one goal. You are conscious of the feeling that 
 points to this unfailing progress. After it has been purified 
 from all abuses, you would willingly see it sustained and ex¬ 
 tended. But you will then have it that this is exclusively 
 religion, and you would exclude other feelings that take 
 their rise from the same operation of the mind in exactly 
 the same way. 
 
 How have you come to this torn off fragment P I will tell 
 you. You do not regard it as religion but as an echo of 
 moral action, and you simply wish to foist the name upon 
 it, in order to give religion the last blow. What we have 
 
 G 2 
 
8 4 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 agreed to acknowledge as religion does not arise exclu¬ 
 sively in the moral sphere, not at least in the narrow 
 sense in which you understand the word. Feeling knows 
 nothing of such a limited predilection. If I direct you 
 specially to the sphere of the spirit and to history, it does 
 not follow that the moral world is religion’s Universe. In 
 your narrow sense of it the moral world would produce 
 very few religious emotions. The pious man can detect 
 the operation of the World-Spirit in all that belongs to 
 human activity, in play and earnest, in smallest things and 
 in greatest. Everywhere he perceives enough to move 
 him by the presence of this Spirit and without this in¬ 
 fluence nothing is his own. Therein he finds a divine 
 Nemesis that those who, being predominantly ethical or 
 rather legal, would, by selecting from religion only the 
 elements suited to this purpose, make of it an insignificant 
 appendage to morals, do yet, purify religion as they may, 
 irrecoverably corrupt their moral doctrine itself and sow 
 in it the seed of new errors. When anyone succumbs in 
 moral action, it sounds well to say it is the will of the 
 Eternal, and that what does not succeed through us, will 
 sometime, by others, come to pass. But if this high assur¬ 
 ance belonged to moral action, moral action would be depen¬ 
 dent on the degree of receptivity for this assurance in each 
 person at any moment. Morality cannot include immedi¬ 
 ately aught of feeling without at once having its original 
 power and purity disturbed. 
 
 With all those feelings, love, humility, joy, and the 
 others that I pictured as the undulation of the mind 
 between the two points of which the world is one, and your 
 Ego the other, you deal in another way. The ancients knew 
 what was right. They called them all piety. For them 
 those feelings were an essential part of religion, the noblest 
 part. You also recognize them, but you try to persuade 
 yourselves that they are an essential section of your moral 
 action. You would justify these sentiments on moral 
 
THE NA THEE OE RELIGION. 
 
 85 
 
 principles, and assign them their place in your moral 
 system. But in vain, for, if you remain true to your¬ 
 selves, they will there neither be desired nor endured. If 
 action proceed directly from the emotions of love or affec¬ 
 tion, it*will be insecure and thoughtless. Moral actioa 
 should not proceed from such a momentary influence of an 
 outward object. Wherefore your doctrine of morals, when 
 it is strict and pure, acknowledges no reverence except for 
 its own law. Everything done from pity or gratitude it 
 condemns as impure, almost as selfish. It makes light of, 
 almost despises, humility. If you talk of contrition it speaks 
 of lost time being needlessly increased. Your own feeling 
 must assure you that the immediate object of all these sen¬ 
 timents is not action. They are spontaneous functions of 
 your deepest and highest life, coming by themselves and 
 ending by themselves . 15 Why do you make such an ado, 
 and begging for grace for them, where they have no right 
 to be ? Be content to consider them religion, and then you 
 will not need to demand anything for them except their 
 own sure rights, and you will not deceive yourselves with 
 the baseless claims which you are disposed to make in 
 their name. Tteturn them to religion : the treasure belongs 
 to it alone. As the possessor of it, religion is for morality 
 and all else that is an object of human doing, not the hand¬ 
 maid, but an indispensable friend and sufficient advocate 
 with humanity. This is the rank of religion, as the sum 
 of all higher feelings. 
 
 That it alone removes man from one-sidedness and narrow¬ 
 ness I have already indicated. Now I am in a position to 
 be more definite. In all activity and working, be it moral 
 or artistic, man must strive for mastery. But when man 
 becomes quite absorbed, all mastery limits and fchills, and 
 makes one-sided and hard. The mind is directed chiefly to 
 one poii\t, and this one point cannot satisfy it. Can man, 
 by advancing from one narrow work to another, really use 
 his whole power? Will not the larger part be unused, and 
 
86 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 turn, in consequence, against himself and devour him? 
 How many of you go to ruin because you are too great for 
 yourselves ? A superfluity of power and impulse that 
 never issues in any work, because there is no work adequate, 
 drives you aimlessly about, and is your destruction. • 
 
 To resist this evil would you have those who are too great 
 for one object of human endeavour, unite them all—art, 
 science, life, and any others you may know of? This would 
 simply be your old desire to have humanity complete every¬ 
 where, your ever recurring love of uniformity. But is it 
 possible? Those objects, as soon as they are attended to 
 separately, all alike strive to rouse and dominate the mind. 
 Each tendency is directed to a work that should be com¬ 
 pleted, it has an ideal to be copied, a totality to be em¬ 
 braced. This rivalry of several objects of endeavour can 
 only end by one expelling the others. Nay, even within 
 this one sphere, the more eminent a mastery a man would 
 attain, the more he must restrict himself. But if this pre¬ 
 eminence entirely occupy him, and if he lives only to attain 
 it, how shall he duly participate in the world, and how shall 
 his life become a whole? Hence most virtuosos are one¬ 
 sided and defective, or at least, outside of their own sphere, 
 they sink into an inferior kind of life. 
 
 The only remedy is for each man, while he is defiuitely 
 active in some one department, to allow himself, without 
 definite activity, to be affected by the Infinite. In every 
 species of religious feeling he will then become conscious of 
 all that lies beyond the department which he directly culti¬ 
 vates. The Infinite is near to everyone, for whatever be the 
 object you have chosen for your deliberate technical working, 
 it does not demand much thought to advance from it to find 
 the Universe. In it you discover the rest as precept, or in¬ 
 spiration or revelation. The only way of acquiring what 
 lies outside the direction of the mind we have selected, is 
 to enjoy and comprehend it thus as a whole, not by will as 
 art, but by instinct for the Universe as religion. 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 87 
 
 Even in the religious form these objects again fall into 
 rivalry. This result of human imperfection causes religion 
 to appear dismembered. Religion takes the form of some 
 peculiar receptivity and taste for art, philosophy or morality, 
 and is consequently often mistaken. Oftener, I say, it 
 appears thus than freed from all participation in one-sided¬ 
 ness, than completed, all-embracing. Yet this complete 
 form of religion remains the highest, and it is only by it, 
 that, with satisfactory result, man sets alongside of the finite 
 that he specially concentrates on, an Infinite ; alongside of 
 the contracting endeavour for something definite and com¬ 
 plete, expansive soaring in the Whole and the Inexhaustible. 
 In this way he restores the balance and harmony of his 
 nature, which would be lost for ever, if, without at the 
 same time having religion, he abandon himself to one object, 
 were it the most beautiful, most splendid. A man’s special 
 calling is the melody of his life, and it remains a simple, 
 meagre series of notes unless religion, with its endlessly 
 rich variety, accompany it with all notes, and raise the 
 simple song to a full-voiced, glorious harmony. 
 
 If then this, that I trust I have indicated clearly enough 
 for you all, is really the nature of religion, I have already an¬ 
 swered the questions. Whence do those dogmas and doctrines 
 come that many consider the essence of religion ? Where do 
 they properly belong ? And how do they stand related to 
 what is essential in religion ? They are all the result of that 
 contemplation of feeling, of that reflection and comparison, 
 of which we have already spoken. The conceptions that 
 underlie these propositions are, like your conceptions from 
 experience, nothing but general expressions for definite 
 feelings. They are not necessary for religion itself, scarcely 
 even for communicating religion, but reflection requires 
 and creates them. Miracle, inspiration, revelation, super¬ 
 natural intimations, much piety can be had without the need 
 of any one of these conceptions. But when feeling is made 
 the subject of reflection and comparison they are absolutely 
 
88 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 unavoidable. In this sense all these conceptions do cer¬ 
 tainly belong to the sphere of religion, and indeed belong 
 without condition or the smallest limit to their application. 
 
 The strife about what event is properly a miracle, and 
 wherein its character properly consists, how much revelation 
 there may be and how far and for what reasons man may pro¬ 
 perly believe in it, and the manifest endeavour to deny and 
 set aside as much as can be done with decency and con¬ 
 sideration, fp. the foolish notion that philosophy and reason 
 are served thereby, is one of the childish operations of the 
 metaphysicians and moralists in religion. They confuse 
 all points of view and bring religion into discredit, as if it 
 trespassed on the universal validity of scientific and physical 
 conclusions. Pray do not be misled, to the detriment of 
 religion, by their sophistical disputations, nor even by 
 their hypocritical mystery about what they would only too 
 willingly publish. Religion, however loudly it may demand 
 back all those well abused conceptions, leaves your physics 
 untouched, and please God, also your psychology. 
 
 What is a miracle ? What we call miracle is everywhere 
 else called sign, indication. Our name, which means a 
 wonder, refers purely to the mental condition of the ob¬ 
 server. It is only in so far appropriate that a sign, espe¬ 
 cially when it is nothing besides, must be fitted to call 
 attention to itself and to the power in it that gives it signifi¬ 
 cance. Every finite thing, however, is a sign of the Infinite, 
 and so these various expressions declare the immediate rela¬ 
 tion of a phenomenon to the Infinite and the Whole. But 
 does that involve that every event should not have quite as 
 immediate a relation to the finite and to nature ? Miracle 
 is simply the religious name for event. Every event, even 
 the most natural and usual, becomes a miracle, as soon as 
 the religious view of it can be the dominant. To me all is 
 miracle. In your sense the inexplicable and strange alone is 
 miracle, in mine it is no miracle. The more religious you 
 are, the more miracle would you see everywhere. All dis- 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 89 
 
 puting about single events, as to whether or not they are to 
 be called miraculous, gives me a painful impression of the 
 poverty and wretchedness of the religious sense of the 
 combatants. One party show it by protesting everywhere 
 against miracle, whereby they manifest their wish not to 
 see anything of immediate relationship to the Infinite and 
 to the Deity. The other party display the same poverty 
 by laying stress on this and that. A phenomenon for them 
 must be marvellous before they will regard it as a miracle, 
 whereby they simply announce that they are bad observers . 16 
 
 What is revelation ? Every original and new communica¬ 
 tion of the Universe to man is a revelation, as, for example, 
 every such moment of conscious insight as I have just 
 referred to. Every intuition and every original feeling 
 proceeds from revelation. As revelation lies beyond con¬ 
 sciousness, demonstration is not possible, yet we are not 1 
 merely to assume it generally, but each one knows best 
 himself what is repeated and learned elsewhere, and what 
 is original and new. If nothing original has yet been 
 generated in you, when it does come it will be a revelation 
 for you also, and I counsel you to weigh it well. 
 
 What is inspiration ? It is simply the general expression 
 for the feeling of true morality and freedom. But do not 
 mistake me. It is not that marvellous and much-praised 
 morality and freedom that accompany and embellish actions 
 with deliberations. It is that action which springs from 
 the heart of man, despite of, or at least, regardless of, 
 all external occasion. In the same measure in which this 
 action is freed from all earthly entanglement, it is felt as. 
 divine and referred to God. 
 
 What is prophecy ? Every religious anticipation of the 
 other half of a religious event, one half being given, is 
 prophecy. It was very religious of the ancient Hebrews to 
 measure the divineness of a prophet, neither by the difficulty 
 of predicting, nor by the greatness of the subject, but, 
 quite simply, by the issue, for we cannot know from one 
 
90 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 thing how complete the feeling is in everything, till we see 
 whether the religious aspect of this one special circumstance 
 has been rightly comprehended. 
 
 What is operation of grace ? 17 Nothing else manifestly 
 than the common expression for revelation and inspira¬ 
 tion, for interchange between the entrance of the world 
 into man, through intuition and feeling, and the out¬ 
 going of man into the world, through action and culture. 
 It includes both, in their originality and in their divine 
 character, so that the whole life of the pious simply forms a 
 series of operations of divine grace. 
 
 You see f that all these ideas, in so far as religion requires, 
 or can adopt ideas, are the first and the most essential. 
 They indicate in the most characteristic manner a man’s 
 consciousness of his religion, because they indicate just 
 what necessarily and universally must be in it. The man 
 who does not see miracles of his own from the standpoint 
 from which he contemplates the world, the man in whose 
 heart no revelation of his own arises, when his soul longs 
 to draw in the beauty of the world, and to be permeated by 
 its spirit; the man who does not, in supreme moments, feel, 
 with the most lively assurance, that a divine spirit urges 
 him, and that he speaks and acts from holy inspiration, has 
 no religion. The religious man must, at least, be con¬ 
 scious of his feelings as the immediate product of the 
 Universe; for less would mean nothing. He must recog¬ 
 nize something individual in them, something that cannot 
 be imitated, something that guarantees the purity of their 
 origin from his own heart. To be assured of this possession 
 is the true belief. 
 
 Belief, on the contrary, usually so called, which is to 
 accept what another has said or done, or to wish to think 
 and feel as another has thought and felt, is a hard and base 
 service. So far is it from being the highest in religion, as 
 is asserted, that it must be rejected by all who would force 
 their way into the sanctuary of religion. To wish to have and 
 
THE NA TURK OF RELIGION '. 
 
 9i 
 
 hold a faith that is an echo, proves that a man is incapable 
 of religion; to demand it of others, shows that there is no 
 understanding of religion. You wish always to stand on 
 your own feet and go your own way, and this worthy intent 
 should not scare you from religion. Religion is no slavery, 
 no captivity, least of all for your reason. You must belong 
 to yourselves. Indeed, this is an indispensable condition 
 of having any part in religion. 
 
 Every man, a few choice souls excepted, does, to be sure, 
 require a guide to lead and stimulate, to wake his religious 
 sense from its first slumber, and to give it its first direction. 
 But this you accord to all powers and functions of the human 
 soul, and why not to this one ? For your satisfaction, be it 
 said, that here, if anywhere, this tutelage is only a passing . 
 state. Hereafter, shall each man see with his own eyes, 
 and shall produce some contribution to the treasures of 
 religion ; otherwise, he deserves no place in its kingdom, 
 and receives none. You are right in despising the wretched 
 echoes who derive their religion entirely from another, or 
 depend on a dead writing, swearing by it and proving out 
 of it. 
 
 Every sacred writing is in itself a glorious production, 
 a speaking monument from the heroic time of religion, but, 
 through servile reverence, it would become merely a mau¬ 
 soleum, a monument that a great spirit once was there, but 
 is now no more. Did this spirit still live and work, he 
 would look with love, and with a feeling of equality upon 
 his work which yet could only be a weaker impress of him¬ 
 self. Not every person has religion who believes in a sacred s/ 
 writing, but only the man who has a lively and immediate 
 understanding of it, and who, therefore, so far as he him¬ 
 self is concerned, could most easily do without «it. 
 
 Your very contempt for the poverty stricken and power¬ 
 less venerators of religion, in whom, from lack of nourish¬ 
 ment, religion died before ever it came to the birth, con¬ 
 vinces me that you have a talent for religion. The same 
 
92 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 thing appears from your regard for the persons of all true 
 heroes of religion. That you should treat them with 
 shallow scoffing or not acknowledge what is great or 
 powerful in them, I would hardly ascribe to you. This 
 regard for the persons confirms me in the thought that 
 your contempt for the thing rests merely on a misunder¬ 
 standing, and has for its object only the miserable figure 
 which religion takes in the great incapable mass, and the 
 abuses which presumptuous leaders carry on. 
 
 I have tried, as best I could, therefore, to show you 
 what religion really is. Have you found anything therein 
 unworthy of you, nay, of the highest human culture ? 
 Must you not rather long all the more for that universal 
 union with the world which is only possible through feeling, 
 the more you are separated and isolated by definite culture 
 and individuality ? Have you not often felt this holy 
 longing, as something unknown ? Become conscious of the 
 call of your deepest nature and follow it, I conjure you. 
 Banish the false shame of a century which should not 
 determine you but should be made and determined by you. 
 Return to what lies so near to you, yes, even to you, the 
 violent separation from which cannot fail to destroy the 
 most beautiful part of your nature. 
 
 It appears to me, however, that many among you do not 
 believe that I can here mean to end my present business. 
 How can I have spoken thoroughly of the nature of 
 religion, seeing I have not treated at all of immortality, and 
 of God only a little in passing ? Is it not incumbent upon 
 me, most of all, to speak of these two things and to repre¬ 
 sent to you how unhappy you would be without belief in 
 them? For are not these two things, for most pious 
 people, the very poles and first articles of religion ? 
 
 But I am not of your opinion. First of all, I do not 
 believe I have said nothing about immortality and so little 
 about God. Both, I believe, are in all and in everything 
 that I have adduced as an element of religion. Had I not 
 
THE NA TURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 93 
 
 presupposed God and immortality I could not Have said 
 what I have said, for, only what is divine and immortal has 
 room in which to speak of religion. 
 
 In the second place, just as little do I consider that I 
 have the right to hold the conceptions and doctrines of 
 God and of immortality, as they are usually understood, to 
 he the principal things in religion. Only what in either 
 is feeling and immediate consciousness, can belong to 
 religion. God and immortality, however, as they are 
 found in such doctrines, are ideas. How many among 
 you—possibly most of you—are firmly convinced of one 
 or other or both of those doctrines, without being on that 
 account pious or having religion. As ideas they can have 
 no greater value in religion than ideas generally. 
 
 But that you may not think I am afraid to speak a 
 straightforward word on this subject, because it would be 
 dangerous to speak, till some definition of Go dnnd existence 
 that has stood its trial, has been brought to light and has 
 been accepted in the German Empire as good and valid; 
 or lest you should, on the other hand, perhaps, believe that 
 I am playing on you a pious fraud and wish, in order to be 
 all things to all men, with seeming indifference to make 
 light of what must be of far greater importance to me than 
 I will confess—lest you should think these things, I shall 
 gladly be questioned and will endeavour to make clear to 
 you that, according to my best conviction, it really is, as I 
 have just now maintained. 
 
 Remember in the first place that any feeling is not an 
 emotion of piety because in it a single object as such 
 affects us, but only in so far as in it and along with it, it 
 affects us as revelation of God. It is, therefore, not an 
 individual or finite thing, but God, in whom alone the 
 particular thing is one and all, that enters our life. Nor 
 do we stand over against the World and in it at the 
 same time by any one faculty, but by our whole being. 
 The divine in us, therefore, is immediately affected and 
 
94 
 
 SECOND SPEECH, 
 
 called forth by the feeling. ls Seeing then that I have pre¬ 
 sented nothing but just this immediate and original 
 existence of God in us through feeling, how can anyone say 
 that I have depicted a religion without God ? Is not God 
 the highest, the only unity ? Is it not God alone before 
 whom and in whom all particular things disappear P And 
 if you see the world as a Whole, a Universe, can you do it 
 otherwise than in God ? If not, how could you dis¬ 
 tinguish the highest existence, the original and eternal 
 Being from a temporal and derived individual ? Other¬ 
 wise than by the emotions produced in us by the world 
 we do not claim to have God in our feeling, and conse¬ 
 quently I have not said more of Him. 
 
 If you will not admit that this is to have God, and to 
 be conscious of Him, I can neither teach nor direct you 
 farther. How much you may know I do not judge, for it 
 does not at' present concern me, but in respect of feeling and 
 sentiment, you would be for me godless. Science, it is true, 
 is extolled as giving an immediate knowledge about God, 
 that is the source of all other knowledge; only we are not 
 now speaking of science, but of religion. This way of 
 knowing about God which most praise and which I also 
 am to laud, is neither the idea of God as the undivided 
 unity and source of all, that is placed by you at the head of 
 all knowledge ; nor is it the feeling of God in the heart, of 
 which we boast ourselves. It lags far behind the demands 
 of science, and is for piety something quite subordinate. 
 It is an idea compounded from characteristics, from what 
 are called attributes of God. These attributes correspond 
 to the different ways in which the unity of the individual 
 and the Whole, expresses itself in feeling. Hence I can 
 only say of this idea, what I have said of ideas generally, 
 in reference to religion, that there can be much piety with¬ 
 out it, and that it is first formed when piety is made an 
 object of contemplation. 
 
 Yet this idea of God, as it is usually conceived, is dif- 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION. 
 
 95 
 
 ferent from the other ideas before- adduced, for though it 
 seeks to be the highest and to stand above all, God, being 
 thought of as too like us, as a thinking and willing Person, 
 is drawn down into the region of opposition. It therefore 
 appears natural that the more like man God is conceived, 
 the more easily another mode of presentation is set over 
 against it. Hence, we have an idea of the Highest Being, 
 not as personally thinking and willing, but exalted above 
 all personality, as the universal, productive, connecting 
 necessity of all thought and existence. 
 
 Nothing seems to me less fitting than for the adherents 
 of the former view to charge with godlessness those who, 
 in dread of this anthropomorphism, take refuge in the other, 
 or for the adherents of this latter view to make the human¬ 
 ness of the idea of God a ground for charging the adherents 
 of the former with idolatry, or for declaring their piety void. 
 
 It matters not what conceptions a man adheres to, he can y 
 still be pious. His piety, the divine in his feeling, may be 
 better than his conception, and his desire to place the 
 essence of piety in conception, only makes him misunder¬ 
 stand himselJA Consider how narrow is the presentation of 
 God in the one conception, and how dead and rigid in the 
 other. Neither corresponds to its object, and thus cannot be 
 aproof of piety, except in so far as it rests on something in the 
 mind, of which it has come far short. Rightly understood, 
 both present, at least, one element of feeling, but, without 
 feeling, neither is of any value. Many believe in and 
 accept a God presented in conception, and yet are nothing 
 less than pious , 19 and in no case is this conception the germ 
 from which their piety could ever spring, for it has no life 
 in itself. Neither conception is any sign of a perfect or of 
 an imperfect religion, but perfection and .imperfection 
 depend upon the degree of cultivation of the religious 
 sense. As I know of nothing more that could bring us to 
 an understanding on this subject of conceptions, let us now 
 go on to consider the development of the religious sense. 
 
96 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 As long as man’s whole relation to the world has not 
 arrived at clearness, this feeling is but a vague instinct, 
 the world can appear to him nothing but a confused unity. 
 Nothing of its complexity is definitely distinguishable. It 
 is to him a chaos, uniform in its confusion, without division, 
 order, or law. Apart from what most immediately concerns 
 the subsistence of man, he distinguishes nothing as indi¬ 
 vidual except by arbitrarily cutting it off in time and space. 
 Here you will find but few traces of any conceptions, and 
 you will scarcely discern to which side they incline. You 
 will not set much value on the difference, whether a blind 
 fate, only to be indicated by magic rites, exhibits the 
 character of the Whole, or a being, alive indeed, but with- 
 put definite characteristics, an idol, a fetich, one, or, if 
 many, only distinguishable by the arbitrarily appointed 
 limits of their sphere. 
 
 As we advance, the feeling becomes more conscious. 
 Circumstances display themselves in their complexity and 
 definiteness. The multiplicity of the heterogeneous ele¬ 
 ments and powers, by whose constant and determined 
 strife, phenomena are determined, becomes more prominent 
 in man's consciousness of the world. In the same degree 
 the result of the contemplation of this feeling changes. 
 The opposite forms of the idea stand more distinctly apart. 
 Blind fate changes into a higher necessity, in which, though 
 unattainable and unsearchable, reason and connection rest. 
 Similarly, the idea of a personal God becomes higher, but 
 at the same time divides and multiplies, each power and 
 element becomes animate, and gods arise in endless number. 
 They are now distinguishable by means of the different 
 objects of their activity, and different inclinations and dis¬ 
 positions. A stronger, fairer life of the Universe in feeling 
 you must acknowledge is here exhibited. It is most 
 beautiful when this new won complexity and this innate 
 highest unity are most intimately bound together in feeling, 
 as for example, among the Greeks, whom you so justly 
 
THE NA TURK OF RELIGION. 
 
 97 
 
 revere. Both forms then unite in reflection, one being of 
 more value for thought, the other for art, one showing more 
 of the complexity, the other of the unity. But this stage, 
 even without such a union is more perfect than the former, 
 especially if the idea of the Highest Being is placed rather 
 in the eternal unattainable necessity, than in single 
 gods. 
 
 Let us now mount higher where opposing elements are 
 again united, where existence, by exhibiting itself as totality, 
 as unity in variety, as system, first deserves its name. Is 
 not the man who perceives existence both as one and as all, 
 who stands over against the Whole, and yet is one with it 
 in feeling, to be accounted happier in his religion, let his 
 feeling mirror itself in idea as it may ? There as elsewhere 
 then, the manner in which the Deity is present to man in feel¬ 
 ing, is decisive of the worth of his religion, not the manner, 
 always inadequate, in which it is copied in idea. Suppose 
 there is someone arrived at this stage, who rejects the 
 idea of a personal God. I will not decide on the justice of 
 the names you are accustomed to apply to him, whether 
 Pantheist or Spinozist. This rejection of the idea of a 
 personal Deity does not decide against the presence of 
 the Deity in his feeling. The ground of such a rejection 
 might be a humble consciousness of the limitation of per¬ 
 sonal existence, and particularly of personality joined to 
 consciousness. He might stand as high above a worship¬ 
 per of the twelve gods whom you would rightly name after 
 Lucretius, as a pious person at that stage would be above 
 an idolater. 
 
 But we have here the old confusion, the unmistakable 
 sign of defective culture. Those who are at the same 
 stage, only not at the same point, are most strongly 
 repudiated. The proper standard of religiousness, that 
 which announces the stage to which a man has attained, is 
 his sense for the Deity. But to which idea he will attach 
 himself depends purely on what he requires it for, and 
 
 H 
 
9 8 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 whether his imagination chiefly inclines towards existence 
 and nature or consciousness and thought. 
 
 You will not, I trust, consider it blasphemy or incon¬ 
 gruity that such a matter should depend on the direction of 
 the imagination. By imagination I do not mean anything 
 ^ subordinate or confused, but the highest and most original 
 faculty in man. All else in the human mind is simply 
 reflection upon it, and is therefore dependent on it. 
 Imagination in this sense is the free generation of thoughts, 
 whereby you come to a conception of the world ; such a 
 conception you cannot receive from without, nor compound 
 from inferences. From this conception you are then im¬ 
 pressed with the feeling of omnipotence. The subsequent 
 translation into thought depends on whether one is williug 
 in the consciousness of his own weakness to be lost in the 
 mysterious obscurity, or whether, first of all, seeking 
 definiteness of thought, he cannot think of anything 
 except under the one form given to us, that of conscious¬ 
 ness or self-consciousness. Recoil from the obscurity of 
 indefinite thought is the one tendency of the imagination, 
 recoil from the appearance of contradiction in transferring 
 the forms of the finite to the Infinite is the other. 
 
 Now cannot the same inwardness of religion be combined 
 with both? Would not a closer consideration show that 
 the two ways of conceiving are not very wide apart? But 
 the pantheistic idea is not to be thought of as death, and 
 no effort is to be spared to surpass in thought the limits of 
 the personal idea. 
 
 So much I have thought it necessary to say, not so much 
 in explanation of my own position, as to prevent you from 
 thinking that all are despisers of religion who will not 
 accept the personality of the Highest Being as it is usually 
 set forth. And I am quite convinced that what has been 
 said will not make the idea of the personality of God more 
 uncertain for anyone who truly has it; nor will anyone 
 more easily rid himself of the almost absolute necessity to 
 
THE NATURE OF RELIGION 
 
 99 
 
 acquire it, for knowing whence this necessity comes. Among 
 truly religions men there have never been zealots, enthu¬ 
 siasts, or fanatics for this idea. Even when timidity and 
 hesitation about it is called atheism, truly pious persons 
 will leave it alone with great tranquillity. Not to have the 
 Deity immediately present in one’s feeling has always 
 seemed to them more irreligious. They would most un¬ 
 willingly believe that anyone could in point of fact be quite 
 without religion. They believe that only those who are 
 quite without feeling, and whose nature has become brutish, 
 can have no consciousness of the God that is in us and in the 
 world, and of the divine life and operation whereby all things 
 consist. But whosoever insists, it matters not how many 
 excellent men he excludes, that the highest piety consists 
 in confessing that the Highest Being thinks as a person and 
 wills outside the world, cannot be far travelled in the region 
 of piety. Nay, the profoundest words of the most zealous 
 defenders of his own faith must still be strange to him. 
 
 The number who would have something from this God, 
 that is alien to piety, is only too great. He is to give an 
 outward guarantee of their blessedness and incite them to 
 morality. They want to have it before their eyes. They 
 would not have God working on man by freedom, but in 
 the only way in which one free being can work on another, 
 by necessity, by making himself known either by pain or 
 by pleasure. But this cannot incite us to morality. Every 
 external incitement is alien to morality, whether it be 
 hope or fear. To follow it where it concerns morality is 
 unfree, therefore unmoral. But the Highest Being, par¬ 
 ticularly when he is thought of as free, cannot wish to 
 make freedom itself not free, and morality not moral . 20 
 
 This now brings me to the second point, to immortality. 
 
 I cannot conceal that in the usual manner of treating this 
 subject there is still more that seems to me inconsistent 
 with the nature of piety. I believe I have just shown you 
 in what way each one bears in himself an unchangeable and 
 
 h 2 
 
IOO 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 eternal nature. If our feeling nowhere attaches itself to 
 the individual, but if its content is our relation to God 
 wherein all that is individual and fleeting disappears, there 
 can be nothing fleeting in it, but all must be eternal. In 
 the religious life then we may well say we have already 
 offered up and disposed of all that is mortal, and that we 
 actually are enjoying immortality. But the immortality that 
 most men imagine and their longing for it, seem to me 
 irreligious, nay quite opposed to the spirit of piety. Dis¬ 
 like to the very aim of religion is the ground of their wish to 
 be immortal. Recall how religion earnestly strives to expand 
 the sharply cut outlines of personality. Gradually they are 
 to be lost in the Infinite that we, becoming conscious of the 
 Universe, may as much as possible be one with it. But men 
 struggle against this aim. They are anxious about their 
 personality, and do not wish to overstep the accustomed 
 limit or to be anything else but a manifestation of it. The 
 one opportunity that death gives them of transcending it, 
 they are very far from wishing to embrace. On the contrary, 
 they are concerned as to how they are to carry it with them 
 beyond this life, and their utmost endeavour is for longer 
 sight and better limbs. But God speaks to them as it stands 
 written, “ Whosoever loses his life for my sake, the same 
 shall keep it, and whosoever keeps it, the same shall lose 
 it.” The life that they would keep is one that cannot be 
 kept. If their concern is with the eternity of their single 
 person, why are they not as anxious about what it has been 
 as about what it is to be ? What does forwards avail when 
 they cannot go backwards ? They desire an immortality 
 that is no immortality. They are not even capable of com¬ 
 prehending it, for who can endure the effort to conceive an 
 endless temporal existence ? Thereby they lose the immor¬ 
 tality they could always have, and their mortal life in 
 addition, by thoughts that distress and torture them in vain. 
 Would they but attempt to surrender their lives from love 
 to God ! Would they but strive to annihilate their person- 
 
THE NA TU RE OF RELIGION. 
 
 IOI 
 
 ality and to live in the One and in the All ! Whosoever has 
 learned to be more than himself, knows that he loses little 
 when he loses himself. Only the man who denying himself 
 sinks himself in as much of the whole Universe as he can 
 attain, and in whose soul a greater and holier longing has 
 arisen,has aright to the hopes that death gives. With him 
 alone it is really possible to hold further converse about the 
 endlessness to which, through death, we infallibly soar . 21 
 
 This then is my view of these subjects. The usual con¬ 
 ception of God as one single being outside of the world 
 and behind the world is not the beginning and the end of 
 religion. It is only one manner of expressing God, seldom 
 entirely pure and always inadequate. Such an idea may be 
 formed from mixed motives, from the need for such a being 
 to console and help, and such a God may be believed in 
 without piety, at least in my sense, and I think in the true 
 and right sense. If, however, this idea is formed, not 
 arbitrarily, but somehow by the necessity of a man’s way 
 of thinking, if he needs it for the security of his piety, the 
 imperfections of his idea will not cumber him nor contami¬ 
 nate his piety. Yet the true nature of religion is neither this 
 idea nor any other, but immediate consciousness of the Deity 
 as He is found in ourselves and in the world. Similarly 
 the goal and the character of the religious life is not the 
 immortality desired and believed in by many—or what their 
 craving to be too wise about it would suggest—pretended 
 to be believed in by many. It is not the immortality that 
 is outside of time, behind it, or rather after it, and which still 
 is in time. It is the immortality which we can now have 
 in this temporal life ; it is the problem in the solution of 
 which we are for ever to be engaged. In the midst of 
 finitude to be one with the Infinite and in every moment 
 to be eternal is the immortality of religion. 
 
102 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 EXPLANATIONS OF THE SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 (1) Page 32.—The rhetorical character of this book and the im¬ 
 possibility of continuing the subject, had my opinion really been 
 that religion is this restored unity of knowledge, would have allowed 
 me to say so by a very slight suggestion of irony. My meaning 
 would then have been that I would not now press this truth upon 
 my opponents, but that elsewhere and in another form I would 
 carry it to a victorious issue. Wherefore it seems necessary to guard 
 myself against this interpretation, especially as so many theologians 
 seem to maintain at present that religion, and not religion generally, 
 but the Christian religion, is the highest knowledge. Not only in 
 dignity but in form is it identified with metaphysical speculations. 
 It is the most successful and pre-eminent, and all speculations that 
 do not reach the same results, as for example, if they cannot deduce 
 the Trinity, have failed. The assertion of others that the more im¬ 
 perfect, especially the Polytheistic religions have no kinship with 
 Christianity is similar. I reject both, and in respect of the latter I 
 have sought, in the further progress of this book, and in the Intro¬ 
 duction to my Glaubenslehre,” to show how all forms of religion, 
 even the most imperfect, are the same in kind. In respect of the 
 former position, if a philosopher as such will attempt to prove a 
 Trinity in the Highest Being, he does it at his risk, and I would 
 maintain that this is not a Christian Trinity because, being a 
 speculative idea, it has its origin in another part of the soul. 
 Were religion really the highest knowledge, the scientific method 
 alone would be suitable for its extension, and religion could be 
 acquired by study, a thing not hitherto asserted. Philosophy would 
 be the first round in the ladder, the religion of the Christian laity 
 would as 7 ticjtls be an imperfect way of having the highest know¬ 
 ledge, and theology as yvaxris would be the perfect way and stand 
 at the top, and no one of the three stages would be consistent with 
 the other two. This I cannot at all accept; therefore I cannot hold 
 religion the highest knowledge, or indeed knowledge at all. Where¬ 
 fore, what the Christian layman has in less perfection than the 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 103 
 
 theologian and which manifestly is a knowledge is not religion itself, 
 but something appended to it. 
 
 (2) Page 39.—In rhetorical exposition generally, strict definitions 
 are dispensed with, and descriptions are substituted. This whole 
 speech is simply an extended description, mixed with criticism of 
 other conceptions, which in my opinion are false. The chief points 
 being scattered are of necessity repeated in different places, under 
 different expressions. This change of expression presents different 
 sides of the matter, and I find it useful even in more scientific treatment 
 for avoiding the scrupulosity of too rigid a terminology. In this kind 
 of writing it seemed specially appropriate. Wherefore three different 
 expressions follow in rapid succession. It is said here of religion 
 that through it, the universal existence of all finite things in the 
 Infinite lives immediately in us. On page 39 it stands religion is 
 sense and taste for the Infinite. Sense may be capacity of perception 
 or capacity of sensibility. There it is the latter. In the former 
 editions, sensibility and taste stood not quite correctly for sense and 
 taste for the Infinite. What I am conscious of or feel, must be 
 imagined, and that is what I call the life of the object in me. But 
 the Infinite, meaning not something unconditioned, but the infinity 
 of existence generally, we cannot be conscious of immediately and 
 through itself. It can only be through a finite object, by means of 
 which our tendency to postulate and seek a world, leads us from detail 
 and part to the All and the Whole. Hence sense for the Infinite 
 and the immediate life of the finite in us as it is in the Infinite, are 
 one and the same. If then, in the first expression, taste be now 
 added to sense, and in the latter expression, the universal existence 
 of all finite things in the Infinite be made explicit, both become 
 essentially identical. Taste includes liking as well as mere faculty, 
 and it is by this liking, this desire to find not merely the finite thing, 
 but to be conscious through it of the Infinite, that the pious person 
 finds that the existence of the finite in the Infinite is universal. 
 There is a similar passage on page 36. The connection shows that 
 the expression contemplation is to be taken in the widest sense, not 
 as speculation proper, but as all movement of the spirit withdrawn 
 from outward activity. What, however, has struck most 
 
 readers is that the Infinite Existence does not appear to be the 
 Highest Being as cause of the World but the World iteelf. I do not 
 think that God can be placed in such a relation as cause, and I leave 
 you to say whether the World can be conceived as a true All and 
 Whole without God. Therefore I remained satisfied with that ex¬ 
 pression, that I might not decide on the various ways of conceiving 
 
104 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 God and the World as together or as outside of one another, which 
 did not fall to be considered here, and could only have limited the 
 horizon in a hurtful manner. 
 
 (3) Page 41.—This passage on the departed Novalis was first 
 inserted in the second edition. Many I believe will wonder at this 
 juxtaposition, not seeing that he is like Spinoza, or that he holds the 
 same conspicuous position in art as Spinoza in science. Without 
 destroying the balance of the Speech, I could only suggest my reason. 
 There is now another reason why I should say no more. During these 
 fifteen years the attention to Spinoza, awakened by Jacobi’s writings 
 and continued by many later influences, which was then somewhat 
 marked, has relaxed. Novalis also has again become unknown to 
 many. At that time, however, these examples seemed significant 
 and important. Many coquetted in insipid poetry with religion, 
 believing they were akin to the profound Novalis, just as there were 
 advocates enough of the All in the One taken for followers of 
 Spinoza who were equally distant from their original. Novalis was 
 cried down as an enthusiastic mystic by the prosaic, and Spinoza as 
 godless by the literalists. It was incumbent upon me to protest 
 against this view of SjDinoza, seeing I would review the whole sphere 
 of piety. Something essential would have been wanting in the ex¬ 
 position of my views if I had not in some way said that the mind and 
 heart of this great man seemed deeply influenced by piety, even 
 though it were not Christian piety. The result might have been 
 different, had not the Christianity of that time been so distorted and 
 obscured by dry formulas and vain subtilties that the divine form 
 could not be expected to win the regard of a stranger. This I said 
 in the first edition, somewhat youthfully indeed, yet so that I 
 have found nothing now needing to be altered, for there was no 
 reason to believe that I ascribed the Holy Spirit to Spinoza in the 
 special Christian sense of the word. As interpolation instead of 
 interpretation was not then so common or so honourable as at 
 present, I believed that a part of my work was well done. How was 
 I to expect that, becanse I ascribed piety to Spinoza, I would myself 
 be taken for a Spinozist ? Yet I had never defended his system, and 
 anything philosophic that was in my book was manifestly inconsis¬ 
 tent with the characteristics of his views and had quite a different 
 basis than the unity of substance. Even Jacobi has in his criticism 
 by no means hit upon what is most characteristic. When I recovered 
 my astonishment, in revising the second edition, this parallel occurred 
 to me. As it was known that Novalis in some points had a tendency 
 to Catholicism, I felt sure that, in praising his art, I should have his 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 105 
 
 religious aberrations ascribed me as Spinozism had been because I 
 praised Spinoza’s piety. Whether my expectation has deceived me 
 I do not yet very well know. 
 
 (4) Page 46.—Even among the few who admit that religion 
 originally is feeling stirred in the highest direction, there will be 
 many to whom it will appear that I assert too much when I say that 
 all healthy feelings are pious, or at least that, in order not to be 
 diseased, they should be pious. Even were this granted of all social 
 feelings, it must be shown how piety is to be found in all those feelings 
 that unite men for a higher or even a more sensuous enjoyment of life. 
 Yet I can retract nothing from the universality of the statement and 
 in no way admit that it was a rhetorical hyperbole. To take one 
 example, Protestantism can only completely and consistently defend 
 the domestic and paternal relations of the clergy against the 
 melancholy folly of the peculiar holiness of the celibate life, by 
 showing that wedded love and all foregoing natural attraction of 
 the sexes are not, in the nature of the case, absolutely inconsistent 
 with a pious state. This only happens when the feeling is diseased, 
 when there is a tendency in it to the rage of Bacchus or the folly of 
 Narcissus. In accordance with this analogy I believe that the same ♦ 
 could be shown of each department of feeling not inconsistent with 
 morality. But, if it be inferred from this passage that, as all true 
 human feelings belong to the religious sphere, all ideas and principles 
 of every sort are foreign to it, the connection seems to show my 
 meaning. Religion itself is to be rigidly distinguished from what 
 merely belongs to it. Yet, even those feelings which are usually 
 separated from the religious sphere, require ideas for their commu¬ 
 nication and representation, and principles to exhibit their due 
 measure. But these principles and ideas do not belong to the 
 feelings themselves, and it is similar with the dogmatic and ascetic 
 in respect of religion, as is shown more fully further on. 
 
 (5) Page 49.—For understanding my whole view I could desire 
 nothing better than that my readers should compare these Speeches 
 with my “ Christliche Glaubenslehre. In form they are very 
 different and their points of departure lie far apart, yet in matter 
 they are quite parallel. But to provide the Speeches for this 
 purpose with a complete commentary was impossible, and I must 
 content myself with single references to such passages as seem to 
 me capable of appearing contrary or at least of lacking agreement. 
 Thus every one perhaps might' not find the description here given 
 of an action of things upon us underlying all religious emotions, in 
 agreement with the declaration which goes through the whole 
 
io6 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 “ Glaubenslehre,” that the essence of the religious emotions consists 
 in the feeling of an absolute dependence. The matter stands thus. 
 Even there it is admitted that we cannot really have this feeling 
 except it is occasioned by the action of single things. But if the 
 single things are in their action only single, the sole result is 
 definiteness of the sensuous self-consciousness. In the “ Glaubens¬ 
 lehre,” likewise this is postulated as the substratum of religious 
 emotion. Yet, let the single thing be great or small, our single life 
 reacts against it, and there can be no feeling of dependence except 
 fortuitously in so far as the reaction is not equal to the action. If, 
 however, the single thing does not work upon us as a single thing, 
 but as part of the Whole, it will be, in acting upon us, an opening 
 for the Whole. This result will depend entirely on the mood and 
 attitude of the mind. But then our reaction will appear to us 
 determined by the same cause and in the same way as the action, 
 and being over against the Universe, our state must be the feeling of 
 entire dependence. And this also shows that however we exhibit the 
 World and God they cannot be divided. We do not feel ourselves 
 dependent on the Whole in so far as it is an aggregate of mutually 
 conditioned parts of which we ourselves are one, but only in so far 
 as underneath this coherence there is a unity conditioning all things 
 and conditioning our relations to the other parts of the Whole. 
 Only on this condition can the single thing be, as it is here put, an 
 exhibition of the Infinite, being so comprehended that its opposition 
 to all else entirely vanishes. 
 
 (6) Page 50.—By mythology I understand in general a purely ideal 
 subject enunciated in historical form. Exactly in accordance with 
 the analogy of Polytheistic Mythology, it seems to me that we have 
 a Monotheistic and a Christian. For this a dialogue of divine 
 persons, such as is found in Klopstock’s poems and elsewhere, is not 
 necessary. It is found in more rigid didactic form when something 
 is represented as happening in the Divine Being, as divine resolves 
 made in respect of something that has happened in the world, or 
 again to modify former resolves, not to speak of the special divine 
 resolves that give reality to the idea that prayer is heard. The 
 representations of many divine attributes also have this historical 
 form and are therefore mythological. The divine pity for example, 
 as the idea is mostly understood, is only something when the divine 
 will that lightens the evil is separated from the will that ordained 
 it. Are both regarded as one, then one cannot limit the other, but 
 the divine will that decrees the evil, decrees it only in a definite 
 measure, and the idea of pity is out of place. Similarly, in the idea 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 107 
 
 of the veracity of God, promise and fulfilment are separated, and 
 both together exhibit a historical transaction. But when the activity 
 that promises, is regarded as the same that accomplishes the fulfil¬ 
 ment, the conception of divine veracity is something only in so far 
 as many divine activities are linked or not to one expression of them. 
 In this distinction also a history is told, but if the activity that 
 brings to pass and its expression are regarded in general as one, 
 there is hardly place for a special idea of the divine veracity. The 
 same may be shown in other things. By applying this name to 
 them I in nowise blame these representations. Rather I acknow¬ 
 ledge them as indispensable, for otherwise the subject could not be 
 spoken of in such a way that any distinction could be drawn between 
 the more correct and less correct. Even in more scientific presenta¬ 
 tions of religion, the use of such mythology has no danger, for there 
 it is always incumbent to think away the historical and the time 
 form generally. In the sphere of religious poetry and oratory also 
 it is indispensable. There we have only to do with the like-minded, 
 and for them the chief worth of those presentations is that by them 
 they communicate and realize their own religious moods. They 
 naturally at once adjust the defective expression. But I blame it 
 as vain mythology when this, that is only a help in need, is regarded 
 as exact knowledge, and treated as the essence of religion. 
 
 (7) Page 53.—If here the system of marks or attributes which in 
 its completest form composes the theological outline is represented 
 rather as being determined by outward circumstances than as coming 
 forth of itself from the religious capacity, the oft-repeated assertion, 
 so contemptuous of all historical sense, that the religious movements 
 which in Christianity have determined a great body of the most 
 important ideas, were merely accidental and the fruit of entirely 
 alien interests, is not to be made. I only wished to recall what is 
 also expounded in my “ Kurze Darstellung” and in the Introduction 
 to the “ Glaubenslehre,” that the formation of the idea depends here, 
 as elsewhere, on the dominating language, the degree, manner, and 
 quality of its scientific development embracing of course the manner 
 and quality of the philosophizing. But in respect of religion in and 
 for itself, these are only external circumstances. Apart from the 
 universal, divine connection of all things, we can say, for example, 
 that if Christianity had had a great and preponderating Eastern 
 extension, the Hellenic and Western being, on the contrary, kept 
 back, without being essentially different, it might have been con¬ 
 tained in another type of doctrines. 
 
 (8) Page 54.—This passage also might occasion various miscon- 
 
io8 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 ceptions. First, in respect of the opposition between true and false 
 religion, I refer to my “ Glaubenslehre,” §§ 7 and 8 (2nd edit.). It 
 is there treated fully, and I would simply add that, in religion, error 
 only exists by truth and not merely so, but it can be said that every 
 man’s religion is his highest truth. Error therein would not only be 
 error, it would be hypocrisy. In religion then everything is imme¬ 
 diately true, as nothing is expressed at any moment of it, except the 
 state of mind of the religious person. Similarly, all types of religions 
 association are good, for the best in the existence of each man must 
 be stored up in them. But how little this prejudices the superiority 
 of one type of faith to another is in part plainly stated and in part 
 easy to infer. One may be the utterance of a superior state of mind, 
 or there may be in the religious communion a higher spiritual power 
 and love. Furthermore, the rejection here of the thought of the 
 universality of any one religion and the assertion that only in the 
 sum of all religions is the whole extent of this bias of the mind 
 comprehended, in no way expresses a doubt that Christianity will be 
 able to extend itself over the whole human race, though perhaps 
 among many races, this greatest of all religions may suffer im¬ 
 portant changes. Just as little did this passage express a wish that 
 other religions should always continue alongside of Christianity. 
 The influence of Judaism and Hellenic Heathenism on Christianity 
 was through a long period visible in hostile, raging commotions. 
 Thus both still appear in Christianity, and therefore in the his¬ 
 tory of Christianity have a place. The same thing would happen if 
 Christianity should annex the territory of all existing great religions. 
 Consequently the religious sphere would not be enclosed in 
 narrower borders, but all religions would in a historical way be 
 visible in Christianity. From the connection again it is clear that I 
 only deny that a religion is universally true in the sense that every¬ 
 thing that exists or has existed outside of it, is not to be called 
 religion at all. Similarly, what follows is to be understood, about 
 every truly pious person willingly acknowledging that to other types 
 of religion much belongs for which the sense fails him. Even if 
 Christianity had supplanted all other religions, he would not have 
 a sense for all that would thereby be historically mirrored in 
 Christianity, for just as little then as now would the Christianity of 
 all Christian people be quite the same. And if no one has an 
 adequate sense for all that is Christian, there can be none with the 
 sense for all there is in other religions that may be the germ of some 
 future Christian peculiarity. 
 
 (9) Page 55.—There are still Christian divines who reject the whole 
 
EXPLAN A TIONS . 
 
 109 
 
 purpose of Christian dogmatics, and there was a far greater number 
 when this passage was first written. They believe that Christianity 
 would have been a healthier development and would have shown a 
 freer, fairer form if no one had ever thought of presenting the 
 Christian conceptions in a finished connection. Hence they labour 
 to prune it, to abolish it, as much as possible, and to have it acknow¬ 
 ledged as merely a collection of monographs, as an accidental 
 aggregate of single theses of very unequal value. Their good in¬ 
 tentions I do not question, but even then, I was far removed from 
 agreeing with them. It would be a grave misunderstanding to 
 believe that this invective against the mania for system makes light 
 of the endeavour to present the Christian faith in the closest possible 
 connection. The mania for system is merely a morbid degeneration 
 of this praiseworthy and wholesome endeavour. That systematic 
 treatment of relig : ous conceptions is the best which, on the one 
 side, does not take the conception and the idea for original and con¬ 
 stitutive, and on the other, that the living mobility of the letter be 
 secured, that it may not die and the spirit be drawn to death with it. 
 Within the great conformity characteristic difference is not only to 
 be endured, it is to be assigned its place. If this were to be taken 
 for the chief aim in my presentation of the Christian faith, I would 
 fain believe that I am in perfect agreement with myself. 
 
 (10) Page 55.—I feel that this passage gives a two-fold, grave 
 offence. First I prefer Heathen Pome, on account of its boundless 
 mixture of religions, to Christian Pome which, in comparison, I call 
 godless, and that I condemn the expulsion of heretics, while I myself 
 declare certain views to be heretical, and even seek to systematize 
 heresy. I begin with the latter as the deeper and more important. 
 It does not appear to me possible that there can be a sound dogmafic 
 procedure without a formula of the character of what is Christian, 
 by the application of which it would be possible, from any point of 
 the line of cleavage, to cut off the ordinates, and so to describe the 
 extent of Christian conceptions by approximation. It naturally 
 follows that what lies outside of this extent, and would yet be con¬ 
 sidered Christian, is what has long been called in the Christian 
 Church heretical. In my dogmatics I could not avoid offering such 
 a formula, and I can only wish to attain my object as fully as 
 possible. But this definition of the subject has nothing to do with 
 the treatment of persons. That many, while contending for the 
 defence of their own opinion, may use a heretical expression without 
 meaning anything heretical, is apparent, and I have declared myself 
 fully on it in the “ Glaubenslehre,” § 22, 3 and note, and § 25, note. 
 
I IO 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 On many sides the wish has been expressed in the Evangelical 
 Church to renew church discipline in a judicious manner that a 
 Christian congregation may be in a position to withdraw a measure 
 of fellowship from persons disproving by their lives their Christian 
 disposition. This makes it specially necessary to obviate the con¬ 
 fusion between this proceeding and the right to pronounce the bann 
 on all we may choose to consider heretics. If heretics are not also 
 without a Christian disposition, the Evangelical Church will rather 
 acknowledge that its sole duty towards them is to maintain fellow¬ 
 ship with them that, by mutual understanding, they may the sooner 
 be led into the right way. If individuals or small societies employ a 
 contrary method and, regardless of disposition, exclude from their 
 fellowship all who do not agree with them in the same letter of 
 doctrine, they do not act in an Evangelical spirit, but assume an 
 authority our church grants to none. And now passing to the 
 second point, my preference of Heathen to Christian Rome, and my 
 statement that through tolerance the former was full of gods, and 
 that through persecution of heretics, the latter was godless. First, 
 the character of the expressions used shows that this passage bears 
 specially the rhetorical cast of the book. What, however, is to be 
 taken literally is that the dogmatizing love of system which scorns 
 to assign its place to difference, but rather excludes all difference, 
 plainly suppresses, as much as it can, the living knowledge of God, 
 and changes doctrine into a dead letter. A rule so rigid that it 
 condemns everything of another shade, crushes out productiveness. 
 As this alone contains living knowledge of God, the system itself 
 must become dead. This is the history of the Roman Catholic 
 system in contrast to the Protestant. From this point of view the 
 rise of the Evangelical Church was simply to rescue its own pro¬ 
 ductiveness from fellowship with such a rule. My praise of the 
 receptivity of ancient Rome for strange worships is also to be taken 
 seriously. It involved an acknowledgment of the narrowness and 
 one-sidedness of each individualized Polytheism, and the desire to 
 free the religious need from the limits of political forms. How these 
 two things were not only praiseworthy in themselves, but were much 
 more favourable to the spread of Christianity than heresy hunting, 
 however well meant, could ever be for its establishment and pre¬ 
 servation. 
 
 (11) Page 65.—In the “ Glaubenslehre,” also § 8, note 1, I have de¬ 
 clared myself against the opinion that idolatry, embracing, according 
 to the somewhat perspective usage of the Holy Scriptures, all kinds 
 of Polytheism, has arisen from fear. There, however, I wished to 
 
EXP LANA TIONS . 
 
 hi 
 
 show that, in essence, the lower and the higher stages of religion 
 were alike, which conld not be if the former arose from fear and 
 the latter did not. There I am dealing with the conception that 
 piety generally has had its source in fear. Despite the somewhat 
 variable use of Seio-iSat/romi, the proof here given in general would 
 apply to the particular instance, for it could not be said of the Greek 
 and Roman Polytheists that their faith in the gods would have been 
 extinct if, in the courageous use of life, they had shaken off all fear. 
 Similarly, what is said there may here be applied generally, for if fear 
 is not in some way a perversion of love, it can only regard its object as 
 malevolent. Where then higher beings are not worshipped or rather 
 entreated as bad, the motive cannot be fear entirely separated from 
 love. Hence it remains true that in all religions from the beginning 
 love is operative, and all growth towards perfection is simply a pro¬ 
 gressive purification of love. 
 
 (12) Page 65.—It should hardly be necessary to justify the use of 
 the expression World-Spirit where I wish to indicate the object of 
 pious adoration in a way that would include all different forms and 
 stages of religion. In particular, I do not believe it can be said with 
 justice that, by this choice of expression, I have sacrificed the interests 
 of the most perfect form of religion to the inferior. On the con¬ 
 trary, I believe, not only that it is a perfectly Christian name for 
 the Highest Being, but that the expression could only have arisen on 
 Monotheistic soil, and is as free from Jewish Particularism as from 
 the incompleteness of the Mohammedan Monotheism which I have 
 attempted to specify in the “ Glaubenslehre,” § 8, 4. Ho one will 
 confuse it with World-Soul. It neither expresses reciprocal action 
 between the World and the Highest Being, nor any kind of indepen¬ 
 dence of the World from Him. I believe therefore that Christian 
 authors are justified in using the term, even though it has not 
 directly proceeded from the special standpoint of Christianity. 
 
 (13) Page 71.—In my “ Glaubenslehre,” the Introduction of which 
 contains the outlines of what I take to be the philosophy of religion, 
 and therefore has many points of contact with this book, my chief 
 division was into what I have called the aesthetic and the teleological 
 form. Here another ground of classification seems to be assumed. 
 The peculiar world of religion seems to be the mind, regarded as an 
 individual thing having one or more things standing over against it 
 —the mind in our sphere and at our stage of culture. In the same 
 way on the other side, as thffre indicated, the world of religion may 
 be external nature. Two things there rigidly distinguished seem 
 here to be both ascribed to the religion of the mind, for whether the 
 
SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 I 12 
 
 active state be referred to the passive, or the passive to the active, 
 all religious emotions are states of mind. Hence the distinction that 
 is here regarded as the higher, is there quite overlooked. By a 
 natural religion, however, I do not mean that religious emotions 
 can come to man through contemplation of the external world. 
 This contemplation is exalted by speculative natural science, which, 
 however, always remains science, and only gives rise to religious 
 emotions in proportion as the soul is conscious of itself in the con¬ 
 templation, and therefore again by the mental state. In the same 
 way they arise from the immediate relation of nature to our life and 
 existence, only in proportion to its effect upon our mood at any 
 moment, and therefore, again from the mental state. The classifica¬ 
 tion given in the “ Glaubenslehre ” therefore remains. The religious 
 emotions, whether from nature or the historical life, have all this 
 two-fold form. If the influence of the contemplation of nature is re¬ 
 ferred to the soul and its activities and its laws, it has a teleological 
 or ethical character; if it is referred to nature, it has an aesthetic 
 character. 
 
 (14) Page 72.—This is only to be taken as an application of the 
 narrative, not as the author’s own opinion. I believe it can be shown 
 that the narrative necessarily implies that neither can man come to 
 a consciousness of God, nor can he form general ideas, until he has 
 gained a consciousness of the species, of his subordination as an in¬ 
 dividual in it and his difference from it. And, it appears as clearly, 
 that neither the consciousness of the Highest Being, nor the en¬ 
 deavour to order the world for itself can be quite lost to the soul till 
 the consciousness of the species has quite vanished. 
 
 I will here also explain two passages not specially marked in the 
 text. On page 79 humility , formerly given as a natural form of 
 religious emotion, is spoken of as if it were opposed to an exalted 
 feeling of personal existence, and contrition, similarly depicted as 
 natural and essential to piety, as if it must be changed to joyful self- 
 sufficiency. How, I do not consider that a contradiction, for I think 
 that all pious emotions both exalt and debase. Even in Christianity 
 that spreads itself only by awaking the emotions that debase, 
 penitence is quenched in the consciousness of the divine forgiveness. 
 The words “ satisfy thyself with my mercy,’’ express just that very 
 joyful self-sufficiency here meant. The opposite feeling to humility, 
 the feeling that in each one the whole of humanity lives and works 
 is just the consciousness to which the Christian of all men should 
 rise. He should feel that all believers form a living organic whole, 
 wherein not only is each member, as Paul puts it, indispensable to 
 
EXPLAN A TIONS. 
 
 ii 3 
 
 all the others. Bat each one presupposes the characteristic activity 
 of all the others. Further, when it is said that a man who 
 
 has thus combined both forms of emotion needs no mediator any 
 more, but can himself be a mediator for many, this statement is only 
 to be taken in the limited meaning indicated by earlier expositions, 
 namely, each man has not in himself the right key for understand¬ 
 ing all men. To almost everyone much is so alien that he can only 
 acknowledge it when he finds it in a form more akin to himself or 
 linked to something else that has a special value for him. In this 
 sense, therefore, those who unite the most alien elements with those 
 most acknowledged, mediate an understanding. Chiefly in that feel¬ 
 ing which is in contrast to humility, the self-consciousness advances 
 to such transparency and accuracy that the most distant ceases to 
 appear strange and ceases to repel. But this feeling will be purest 
 when all human limits are seen in Him from whom all limitation 
 was banished. Hence there is here no derogation from the higher 
 mediatorship of the Redeemer. 
 
 (15) Page 85.—Without wishing to retract anything from the 
 leading position in this Speech, which is that all higher feelings 
 belong to religion, or to deny that single actions should not proceed 
 directly from stimulus of single feelings, I would say that this passage 
 is specially applicable only to the ethics of that time, to Kant and 
 Fichte, and particularly Kant. So long as ethics adhered to the im¬ 
 perative method so rigidly followed in those systems, feelings could 
 find no place in morals, for there could not be a command, thou shalt 
 have this or that feeling. Such a system should logically say of 
 them all only what has been said of friendship, that man must have 
 no time to begin it or to cherish it. But ethics should not be re¬ 
 stricted to the narrow imperative form. It should assign to these 
 feelings their place in the human soul. It should also acknowledge 
 their ethical worth, not as something that can or ought to be made 
 for some purpose and for which guidance is given in morals, but as a 
 free, natural function of the higher life in close connection with the 
 higher maxims and modes of acting. Ethics would then so far 
 embrace religion, just as a presentation of religion would embrace 
 ethics, yet both would not be on that account one and the same. 
 
 (16) Page 89.—The expression here employed that miracle is only 
 the religious name for event, and that all that happens is miracle 
 might easily be suspected of being a practical denial of the miraculous, 
 for if everything is a miracle then nothing is. This stands in close 
 connection with the explanations given in the “ Glaubenslehre,’ 5 § 14 
 note, § 34, 2, 3 and § 47. If the reference of an event to the Divine 
 
 I 
 
SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 1 14 
 
 omnipotence and the contemplation of it in its natural connection 
 do not exclude one another but may be parallel, which view is first 
 taken depends upon the direction of the attention. Where the bear¬ 
 ing of an event on our aims most interests us, and the examination 
 of the connection goes too much into details, the divine provision 
 will be least observed and the course of nature best. But which of 
 the two views will most satisfy us depends on the one side, on how 
 certain we are that we have grasped the full meaning of the event, so 
 that we can say with some assurance that this is willed of God, and 
 on the other how deeply we can penetrate into the natural connec¬ 
 tion. All this is mere subjective difference. Hence it is plainly true 
 that all the events that most awake religious attention, and in which 
 at the same time the natural connection is most hidden, are most 
 regarded as miracle. Yet it is equally true that in themselves and 
 in respect of the divine causality all events alike are miracle. As in 
 the expositions of the “ Glaubenslehre,” though absolute miracle is 
 rejected, the religious interest in the miraculous is acknowledged and 
 guarded, so here I merely seek to exhibit miracle in its purity and to 
 remove all foreign ingredients which are more akin to stupid amaze¬ 
 ment than to the joyful anticipation of a higher meaning. 
 
 (17) Page 90.—It is difficult to treat an idea like the effects of grace, 
 which is scarcely at all current except in a peculiarly Christian form, 
 in such a general way as to embrace everything analogous to be 
 found in other religious forms. To it belongs all that distinguishes 
 a human being as a special favourite of the gods. Revelation is 
 more receptivity, inspiration more productivity. How both are 
 combined in the idea of grace, and pious persons are always 
 characterized by both. In what follows, however, the expression 
 entrance of the world into man is substituted for revelation, and the 
 original outgoing of man into the world for inspiration. The latter 
 will admit of little doubt, for every inspiration must go forth and 
 accomplish something in the world, and everything original must be 
 at least occasioned from without, and for the most part is regarded 
 as inspiration. The former also is in agreement with the preceding 
 explanation of revelation, and because here it was necessary to make 
 it general it could not otherwise be conceived. Yet it may easily be 
 charged to it that, for the sake of the less perfect forms of religion, 
 it puts the Christian in the background. But it is not to be over¬ 
 looked that the idea of the Deity does not enter our consciousness ex¬ 
 cept along with the idea of the World, and that this entrance is looked 
 upon religiously, not speculatively, is shown sufficiently further on. 
 
 (18) Page 94.—By what is said in my “ Glaubenslehre,’’ § 3-5, I 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 n$ 
 
 trust that what is here said, and especially the statement that all 
 pious emotions exhibit through feeling the immediate presence of God 
 in us, may be set in a clearer light. It is hardly necessary to remind 
 you that the existence of God generally can only be active, and as 
 there can be no passive existence of God, the divine activity upon 
 any object is the divine existence in respect of that object. It may, 
 however, require to be explained why I represent the unity of our 
 being in contrast to the multiplicity of function, as the divine in 
 us. And you may ask why I say of this unity that it appears in the 
 emotions of piety, seeing it can be shown from other manifestations 
 also that self-consciousness is but a single function. In respect of 
 the former the divine in us must be that in which the capacity to be 
 conscious of God has its seat. Even were the criticisms just, it 
 might still be the divine that is awakened in us in the pious emotions, ‘ 
 and that is here the main point. For the rest, the unity of our being 
 cannot, certainly, appear by itself, for it is absolutely inward. Most 
 immediately it appears in the self-consciousness, in so far as single 
 references are in the background. On the other hand, when 
 references to single things are most prominent, the self-conscious¬ 
 ness then most appears as a single function. 
 
 (19) Page 95.—This exposition also, it is hoped, will be made 
 clearer and at the same time be completed by what is said in the 
 “ Glaubenslehre,” especially in § 8, note 2. As everyone can compare 
 them, it is not necessary for me to enter on a defence of myself 
 against the supposition—I would not willingly call it accusation-— 
 which men whom I greatly honour, and some of whom have already 
 gone hence, have drawn from this Speech. For myself I am supposed 
 to prefer the impersonal form of thinking of the Highest Being, 
 and this has been called now my atheism and again my Spinozism. 
 
 I, however, thought that it is truly Christian to seek for piety every¬ 
 where, and to acknowledge it under every form. I find, at least, 
 that Christ enjoined this upon his disciples, and that Paul obeyed 
 not only among the Jews and the Proselytes, but among the 
 Heathen at Athens. When I had said in all simplicity, that it is 
 still not indifferent whether one does not acquire or quite rejects a 
 definite form of representing the Highest Being, and thereby obstructs 
 generally the growth of his piety, I did not think it necessary to 
 protest further against all consequences. I did not remember how 
 often a person going straightforward seems to be going to the left 
 to a person going to the right. But none who reflect on the little 
 that is said about pantheism will suspect me of any materialistic 
 pantheism. And if any one look at it rightly, he will find that, on 
 
 i 2 
 
ii6 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 the one side, every one must recognize it as an almost absolute 
 necessity for the highest stage of piety to acquire the conception of a 
 personal God, and on the other he will recognize the essential im¬ 
 perfection in the conception of a personality of the Highest Being, 
 nay, how hazardous it is, if it is not most carefully kept pure. The 
 conception is necessary whenever one would interpret to himself or 
 to others immediate religious emotions, or whenever the heart has 
 immediate intercourse with the Highest Being. Yet the profoundest 
 of the church fathers have ever sought to purify the idea. Were the 
 definite expressions they have used to clear away what is human 
 and limited in the form of personality put together, it would be as 
 easy to say that they denied personality to God as that they ascribed 
 it to Him. As it is so difficult to think of a personality as truly 
 infinite and incapable of suffering, a great distinction should be 
 drawn between a personal God and a living God. The latter idea 
 alone distinguishes from materialistic pantheism and atheistic blind 
 necessity. Within that limit any further wavering in respect of 
 personality must be left to the representative imagination and the 
 dialectic conscience, and where the pious sense exists, they will guard 
 each other. Does the former fashion a too human personality, the 
 latter restrains by exhibiting the doubtful consequences; does the 
 latter limit the representation too much by negative formulas, the 
 former knows how to suit it to its need. I was specially concerned 
 to show that, if one form of the conception does not in itself exclude 
 all piety, the other as little necessarily includes it. How many men 
 are there in whose lives piety has little weight and influence, for 
 whom this conception of personality is indispensable as a general 
 supplement to their chain of causality which on both sides is broken 
 off; and how many, on the other hand, show the deepest piety who, in 
 what they say of the Highest Being, have never rightly developed the 
 idea of personality 1 
 
 (20) Page 99.—This passage is different from the former edition. 
 Partly the statement that morality generally cannot be manipulated, 
 though right in the connection, seemed to require closer definition 
 if there was not to be misunderstanding; partly the whole view 
 seemed to me only rightly completed by the addition that freedom 
 and morality would be endangered by the prospect of divine recom¬ 
 pense. In the strife on this point, especially as it is carried on 
 between the Kantians and the Eudaimonists, the great difference 
 between presenting divine recompense as an inducement and using 
 it theoretically to explain the order of the world has very often been 
 overlooked. The former is an immoral and therefore specially an 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 ii 7 
 
 unchristian procedure, and is never employed by true heralds of 
 Christianity and has no place in the Scriptures ; the other is natural 
 and necessary, for it alone shows how the divine law extends over 
 the whole nature of man, and so far from causing a rift in human 
 nature, it most fully guards its unity. But this explanation will be 
 very different in, proportion as love of truth and desire of knowledge 
 are free from all foreign ingredients. It is hardly to be denied that 
 the demands of self-love will most claim arbitrariness for the divine 
 * recompense, and as arbitrariness can only have its seat in personality, 
 it will be accompanied by the narrowest conceptions of the divine 
 personality. 
 
 (21) Page 101.—This passage has met very much the same fate as 
 the passage which treated of the personality of God. It was also 
 directed against narrow and impure conceptions and it has raised 
 the same misunderstandings. I am supposed to disparage the hope 
 of immortality in the usual sense of the word, representing it as a 
 weakness and contending against it. But this was not the place to 
 declare myself in respect of the truth of the matter, or to offer the 
 view of it which I, as a Christian, hold. This will be found in the 
 second part of my “ Glaubenslehre, 5 ’ and both passages should 
 supplement each other. There I had only to answer the question 
 whether this hope was so essential to a pious direction of the mind 
 that the two stood or fell together. What could I do but answer in the 
 negative, seeing it is now usually accepted that the people of the old 
 Covenant did not, in earlier times, have this hope, and seeing also 
 that it is easy to show that, in the state of pious emotion, the soul is 
 rather absorbed in the present moment than directed towards the 
 future ? Only it appears hard that this Speech should deduce not 
 doubtfully the hope so widely diffused among the noblest men of a 
 restoration of the individual life not again to be interrupted, from 
 the lowest stage of self-love, seeing it might as well have been 
 ascribed to the interest of love in the beloved objects. All the 
 forms under which the hope of immortality can present itself 
 as the highest self-consciousness of the spirit being before me, 
 just in contrast to the opponents of the faith it seemed to me 
 natural and nece ssary to utter the warning that any particular way 
 of conceiving immortality and especially that which has unmistak¬ 
 able traces of a lower interest hidden behind it, is not to be confused 
 with the reality. I thus sought to prepare for grasping the question, 
 not as it is entirely limited to personality or to a self-consciousness 
 chained to single affinities, but as it is natural in one in whom 
 personal interest is purified by subordination to a self-consciousness 
 
118 
 
 SECOND SPEECH. 
 
 that is ennobled by the consciousness of the human race and of human 
 nature. On the other side, in order to avoid endless and wide- 
 spreading explanations, it was necessary to make the opponents of 
 religion observe that there could be no religious discussion of this 
 matter except among those who have already cultivated in them¬ 
 selves the higher life, given by true piety, whiqh is worthy to 
 conquer death. If I am somewhat severe on the self-deception of 
 a mean way of thinking and feeling, which is proud that it can 
 comprehend immortality and that it is guided by the accompanying’ 
 hope and fear, I can only say in self-defence that there is nothing of 
 mere rhetoric in it, but that it has always been with me a very strong 
 feeling. I desire no more than that each man, if he would test his 
 piety, should see, not merely, as Plato says, that souls appear before 
 the judges of the Underworld stripped of all alien ornament con¬ 
 ferred by the external relations of life, but, laying aside these claims 
 to endless existence and considering himself just as he is, that he 
 then decide whether these claims are anything more than the titles of 
 lands, never possessed and never to be possessed, wherewith the great 
 ones of the earth often think they must adorn themselves. If, thus 
 stripped, he still find that that eternal life is with him to which the 
 end of this Speech points, he will readily understand what I am aim¬ 
 ing at in my presentation of the Christian faith. Furthermore, the 
 parallel between the two ideas of God and immortality in respect of 
 the different ways of conception here indicated, is not to be over¬ 
 looked. The most anthropomorphic view of God usually presupposes 
 a morally corrupt consciousness, and the same holds of such a con¬ 
 ception of immortality as pictures the Elysian fields as just a more 
 beautiful and wider earth. As there is a great difference between 
 inability to think of God as in this way personal and the inability to 
 think of a living God at all, so there is between one who does not 
 hold such a sensuous conception of immortality and one who does 
 not hope for any immortality. As we call everyone pious who 
 believes in a living God, so without excluding any kind or manner we 
 would hold the same of those who believe in an eternal life of the 
 spirit. 
 
THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 ( 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 As I myself have willingly confessed, the endeavour to 
 make proselytes from unbelievers is deep rooted in the 
 character of religion. Yet that is not what now urges 
 me to speak to you of the cultivation of man for this 
 noble capacity. For this cultivation we believers know of 
 only one means—the free expression and communication 
 of religion. When religion moves in a man with all its 
 native force, when it carries every faculty of his spirit 
 imperiously along in the stream of its impulse, we expect 
 it to penetrate into the hearts of all who live and 
 breathe within its influence. Every corresponding element 
 being stirred by this life-giving power, they should attain 
 a consciousness of their existence, and the attentive ear 
 should be gladdened by an answering note of kindred 
 sound. Where the pious person fails to awake a life 
 like his by the natural expression of his own life, he will 
 despise nobly every strange charm, every exercise of force, 
 in the calm conviction that the time has not yet come 
 for anything congenial to appear. 
 
 The unsuccessful issue is not new to any of us. How 
 often have I struck up the music of my religion, seeking 
 to move the bystanders! Beginning with single soft 
 notes, I have soon been swept on by youthful impetuosity 
 to the fullest harmony of the religious feelings. But 
 nothing stirred, nothing answered in the hearers. I have 
 entrusted these words to a larger and more versatile 
 
120 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 circle, yet from how many, despite of those advantages, 
 will they return in sadness without having been under¬ 
 stood, yea, without having awaked the vaguest suspicion 
 of their purpose ! And how often, for all who proclaim 
 religion, and for me along with them, will this fate which 
 has been appointed us from the beginning, be renewed ! 
 Yet this shall never distress us. The difficulty we know 
 may not otherwise be met, and we shall never be moved 
 from our quiet equanimity to attempt in any other fashion 
 to force our way of thinking either upon this or the 
 future generation. 
 
 Everyone of us misses in himself not a little that 
 belongs to a complete humanity, and many lack much. 
 "What wonder, then, if the number in whom religion 
 refuses to develope should be great ! Necessarily it must 
 be great, else how could we come to see it in—if I 
 might so say—its incarnate, historical existence, or dis¬ 
 cern the bounds it sets on all sides to the other capacities 
 of man, or how by them again it is in mauifold ways 
 bounded. Or how should we know how far man can 
 anywhere succeed without it, and where it sustains him 
 and forwards him; or guess that, without his knowledge, 
 it is busy in him. 
 
 But especially in these times of universal confusion and 
 upheaval, it is natural that its slumbering spark should 
 not glow up in many, however lovingly or patiently we 
 tend it, and that, even in persons in whom under happier 
 circumstances it would have broken through all obstacles, 
 it is not brought to life. In all human things nothing 
 remains unshaken. Every man must continually face the 
 possibility of having to abandon the very belief that 
 determines his place in the world and binds him to the 
 earthly order of things. And he may find no other, but 
 may sink in the general whirlpool.' One class shun no 
 concentration of their own powers and shout also towards 
 every side for help, that they may hold fast what they take 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 121 
 
 to be the poles of the world and of society, of art and of 
 science, which by an indescribable destiny, as it were of 
 their own accord, suddenly leap from their sockets and 
 allow all that has so long revolved around them to fall ; 
 the other class, with a like restless zeal, are busy clearing 
 away the ruins of fallen centuries, seeking to be the first to 
 settle on the fruitful ground that is being formed beneath 
 from the quickly cooling lava of the dread volcano. 
 
 Even without leaving his place, every man is so mightily 
 affected by the vehement shaking of all things that, in the 
 universal giddiness, he must be glad to fix his eye steadily 
 enough on any one object, to be able to keep to it and con¬ 
 vince himself gradually that something still stands. In 
 such a state of things it would be foolish to expect that 
 many could be fit to cultivate and retain religious feelings 
 which prosper best in quiet. In the midst of this ferment, 
 indeed, the aspect of the moral world is more majestic and 
 noble than ever, and at moments there are hints of more 
 significant traits than ever before in the centuries. Yet 
 who can rescue himself from the universal turmoil ? Who 
 can escape the power of narrower interests ? Who has 
 calm enough to stand still and steadfastness enough for 
 undisturbed contemplation ? 
 
 9 
 
 But suppose the happiest times and suppose the best 
 will not only to arouse by communication the capacity for 
 religion where it does exist, but, by every possible way, 
 to ingraft and to impart it. Where, then, is there such a 
 way? All that the activity and art of one man can do for 
 another is to communicate conceptions to be the basis of 
 thoughts, and so far to associate them with his own ideas 
 that they may be remembered at fitting times. But no 
 one can arrive at the point of making others think what 
 thoughts he will. There is a contrariety that cannot be 
 eliminated from words, and much less can you get beyond 
 this means and freely produce what inner activity you 
 will. In short, on the mechanism of the spirit everyone 
 
122 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 can, in some measure, work, but into its organization, into 
 the sacred workshop of the Universe, no one can enter at 
 pleasure. No one can change or disarrange, take from 
 or add to. At the most he may, by means of this mechanism, 
 retard the development of the spirit. Part of the growth 
 may thus be violently mutilated, but nothing can be 
 moulded. Prom this sanctuary of his organization which 
 force cannot enter, all that pertains to the true life of man, 
 all that should be an ever alert, operative impulse in him, 
 proceeds. 
 
 And such is religion. In the spirit it inhabits it is un¬ 
 interruptedly active and strong, making everything an 
 object for itself and turning every thought and action into 
 a theme for its heavenly phantasy. Like everything 
 else, then, that should be ever present, ever active in the 
 human soul, it lies far beyond the domain of teaching and 
 imparting. Instruction in religion, meaning that piety 
 itself is teachable, is absurd and unmeaning. Our opinions 
 and doctrines we can indeed communicate, if we have 
 words and our hearers have the comprehending, imagining 
 power of the understanding. But we know very well that 
 those things are only the shadows of our religious emotions, 
 and if our pupils do not share our emotions, even though 
 they do understand the thought, they have no possession 
 that can truly repay their toil. This retreat into oneself, 
 there to perceive oneself, cannot be taught. Even the 
 most inspired person who can see, it matters not before 
 what object he finds himself, the original light of the 
 Universe, cannot by the word of instruction transfer this 
 power and dexterity to another. 
 
 There is, indeed, an imitative talent which in some 
 perhaps we can so far arouse as to make it easy for them, 
 when sacred feelings are represented in powerful tones, to 
 produce in themselves somewhat similar emotions. But 
 does that touch their deepest nature ? Is it, in the true 
 sense of the word, religion ? If you would compare the 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 123 
 
 sense for the Universe with the sense for art, you must not 
 compare the possessors of a passive religiousness—if you 
 care so to name it—with those who, without producing 
 works of art themselves, are responsive to everything that 
 has to do with viewing them. The works of art of religion 
 are always and everywhere exposed. The whole world is a 
 gallery of religious scenes, and every man finds himself in 
 the midst of them. Wherefore, you must liken them to 
 persons who cannot be made to feel till commentaries and 
 imaginings on works of art are brought as medicinal 
 charms for the deadened sense, and who even then only 
 lisp, in an ill-understood terminology, some inappropriate 
 words that are not their own. So much and no more you 
 can accomplish by mere teaching. This is the goal of all 
 conscious educating and exercising in such things. Show 
 me one man to whom you have imparted power of judg¬ 
 ment, the spirit of observation, feeling for art or morality, 
 then will I pledge myself to teach religion also. 
 
 Of course there is in religion a mastership and a 
 discipleship. But this attachment is no blind imitation. 
 It is not the master that makes disciples, but he is their 
 master because of their choice . 1 And if, by the utterance 
 of our own religion, religion is awakened in others, we 
 cannot retain it in our power or attach it to ourselves. 
 As soon as it lives, their religion also is free and goes its 
 own way. On blazing up in the soul, the sacred spark 
 spreads to a free and living flame, fed by its own atmo¬ 
 sphere. More or less it illumines for the soul the whole 
 circuit of the world, so that, following his own impulse, he 
 may settle far away from the place where first the new life 
 was lit. Compelled simply by the feeling of weakness and 
 fiuitude, by an original, inward determination to settle in 
 some definite quarter, without being ungrateful to his first 
 guide, he makes choice of that climate which suits him 
 best. There he seeks for himself a centre, and moving self¬ 
 limited in his new course, of his own choice and spontaneous 
 
124 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 liking, lie calls himself the disciple of him who first settled 
 in this dear spot and showed its splendour . 2 
 
 I do not, therefore, aim at training either you or others 
 to religion. Nor would I teach you by resolve or rule to 
 train yourselves. I would not leave the sphere of religion 
 —as by doing so I would—but a little longer I would 
 tarry with you within. The Universe itself trains its own 
 observers and admirers, and how that comes to pass we 
 shall now see, as far as it can be seen. 
 
 You know how each element of humanity discloses 
 itself by the place it maintains against the others. By 
 this universal strife everything in every man attains a 
 determinate form and size. Now this strife is only sus¬ 
 tained by the fellowship of the single elements, by the 
 movement of the Whole. Hence every man and every 
 thing in every man is a work of the Whole. This is the 
 only way in which the pious sense can conceive man. 
 Now I wish to return to the religious limitation of our 
 contemporaries which you praise and I bewail. I wish to 
 regard it in this aspect and to make it clear why we are 
 thus and not otherwise, and what must happen if our limits 
 are to be widened. Would that I could at the same time make 
 you conscious that you also by your being and doing are 
 tools of the Universe, and that your deed, towards quite 
 other things directed, has an influence upon the present 
 state of religion. 
 
 Man is born with the religious capacity as with every 
 other. If only his sense for the profoundest depths of his 
 own nature is not crushed out, if only all fellowship 
 between himself and the Primal Source is not quite shut 
 off, religion would, after its own fashion, infallibly 
 be developed. But in our time, alas ! that is exactly 
 what, in very large measure, does happen. With pain 
 I see daily how the rage for calculating and explaining 
 suppresses the sense. I see how all things unite to bind 
 man to the finite, and to a very small portion of the finite, 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 125 
 
 that the infinite may as far as possible vanish from his 
 eyes. 
 
 Who hinders the prosperity of religion ? Not you, not 
 the doubters and scoffers. Even though you were all of 
 one mind to have no religion, you would not disturb Nature 
 in her purpose of producing piety from the depths of the 
 soul, for your influence could only later find prepared soil. 
 Nor, as is supposed, do the immoral most hinder the pros¬ 
 perity of religion, for it is quite a different power to which 
 their endeavours are opposed. But the discreet and prac¬ 
 tical men of to-day are, in the present state of the world, 
 the foes of religion, and their great preponderance is the 
 cause why it plays such a poor and insignificant role , for 
 from tender childhood they maltreat man, crushing out his 
 higher aspirations. 
 
 With great reverence I regard the longing of young 
 minds for the marvellous and supernatural. Joyfully taking 
 in the motley show of things, they seek at the same time 
 something else to set over against it. They search every¬ 
 where for something surpassing the accustomed phenomena 
 and the light play of life. However many earthly objects 
 are presented for their knowing, there seems still another 
 sense unnourished. That is the first stirrings of religion. 
 A secret, inexplicable presentiment urges them past the 
 riches of this world. Every trace of another is welcome to 
 them, and they delight themselves in fictions of unearthly 
 beings. All that it is most evident to them cannot be 
 here, they embrace with that strong and jealous love 
 devoted to objects, the right to which is strongly felt, but 
 cannot be established. True, it is a delusion to seek the 
 Infinite immediately outside of the finite, but is it not 
 natural in those who know but the surface of even the finite 
 and sensuous ? Is it not the delusion of whole peoples and 
 whole schools of wisdom ? 
 
 Were there but guardians of religion among those who 
 care for the young, how easily could this natural error be 
 
126 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 corrected! And, in clearer times, how greedily would 
 young souls then abandon themselves to the impressions 
 of the Infinite in its omnipresence ! 
 
 It were even better if life were left quietly to take its 
 own course. Let it be supposed that the taste for gro¬ 
 tesque figures is as natural to the young imagination in 
 religion as in art, and let it be richly satisfied. Have no 
 anxiety when the earnest and sacred mythology, that is 
 considered the very essence of religion, is immediately 
 united with the careless games of childhood. Suppose that 
 the Heavenly Father, the Saviour, the angels are but 
 another kind of fairies and sylphs. In many, perhaps, the 
 foundation may be laid for an insufficient and dead letter. 
 While the images grow pale, the word, as the empty frame 
 in which they have been fixed, may remain hanging. But 
 man, thus treated, would be more left to himself, and a 
 right-thinking, uncorrupted soul that knew how to keep 
 himself free from the titillation of scraping and scheming, 
 would more easily find, in due time, the natural issue from 
 this labyrinth. 
 
 Now, on the contrary, that tendency is, from the begin¬ 
 ning, forcibly suppressed. Everything mysterious and 
 marvellous is proscribed. Imagination is not to be filled 
 with airy images ! It is just as easy to store the memory 
 with real objects and to be preparing for life ! Poor young 
 souls, desiring quite other fare, are wearied with moral tales 
 and have to learn how beautiful and necessary it is to be 
 genteel and discreet. The current conceptions of things 
 that they would of themselves have encountered soon 
 enough, are impressed upon them, as if it were an urgent 
 business that could never be too soon accomplished. 
 Without regard to their real want, there is given them that 
 of which far too soon there will be too much. 
 
 In proportion as man must busy himself in a narrow way 
 with a single object, to rescue the universality of the sense 
 an impulse awakes in everyone to allow the dominating 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 127 
 
 activity and all its kindred to rest, and to open all organs 
 to the influence of all impressions. By a secret and most 
 helpful sympathy this impulse is strongest when the general 
 life reveals itself most clearly in our own breasts and in the 
 surrounding world. But to yield to this impulse in com¬ 
 fortable inactivity cannot be permitted, for, from the 
 middle-class standpoint, it would be laziness and idling. 
 In everything there must be design and aim ; somewhat 
 has always to be performed, and if the spirit can no more 
 serve, the body must be exercised. Work and play, but no 
 quiet, submissive contemplation ! 
 
 But most of all, men are to be taught to analyze and 
 explain. By this explaining they are completely cheated 
 of their sense, for, as it is conducted, it is absolutely 
 opposed to any perceptive sense. Sense of its own accord 
 seeks objects for itself, it advances to meet them and it 
 offers to embrace them. It communicates something to 
 them which distinguishes them as its possession, its work. 
 
 It will find and be found. But this explaining knows 
 nothing of this living acquisition, of this illuminating truth, 
 of the true spirit of discovery in childlike intuition. But 
 from first to last, objects are to be transcribed accurately 
 in thought as something simply given. They are, God be 
 thanked, for all men ever the same, and who knows how long 
 already they have been docketed in good order with all 
 their qualities defined. Take them, then, only as life 
 brings them, and understand that and nothing more. But'to 
 seek for yourselves and to wish to have living intercourse 
 with things is eccentric and high-flown. It is a vain 
 endeavour, availing nothing in human life, where things 
 are only to be seen and handled as they have already pre¬ 
 sented themselves. 
 
 Fruitful in human life this endeavour is not, except that, 
 without it, an active life, resting on true inward culture, is 
 not to be found. The sense strives to comprehend the un¬ 
 divided impress of something whole ; it will perceive what 
 
128 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 each thing is and how it is ; it will know everything in its 
 peculiar character. But that is not what they mean by 
 understanding. What and how are too remote for them, 
 around whence and to what end, they eternally circle. 
 They seek to grasp nothing in and for itself, but only in 
 special aspects, and therefore, not as a whole, but only piece¬ 
 meal. To inquire or thoroughly examine whether the 
 object they would understand is a whole, would lead them 
 too far. Were this their desire, they could hardly escape 
 so utterly without religion. 
 
 But all must be used for some excellent purpose, where¬ 
 fore they dissever and anatomize. This is how they deal 
 with what exists chiefly for the highest satisfaction of 
 the sense, with what, in their despite, is a whole in itself, I 
 mean with all that is art in nature and in the works of 
 man. Before it can operate they annihilate it by explain¬ 
 ing it in detail. Having first by decomposition robbed 
 it of its character as art, they would teach and impress this 
 or that lesson from the fragments. 
 
 You must grant that this is the practice of our people of 
 understanding, and you must confess that a superabundance 
 of sense is necessary if anything is to escape this hostile 
 treatment. On that account alone the number must be 
 small who are capable of. such a contemplation of any 
 object as might awake in them religion. 
 
 But this development is still more checked. The utmost 
 is done to divert the remaining sense from the Universe. 
 Truth and all that in it is, must be confined in the limits 
 of the civil life. All actions must bear upon this life, 
 while, again, it is believed that the boasted inner harmony 
 of man means that everything bears upon his actions and 
 they never think that, if it is to be a true and free life, the 
 existence of an individual in the state, even as of the state 
 itself, must have arisen from the Whole. But they are 
 sunk in blind idolatry of the existing civil life, they are 
 convinced that it affords material enough for the sense and 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 129 
 
 displays rich enough pictures. Hence they have a right 
 to guard against discontented seeking for something else 
 and departure from the natural centre and axis. All 
 emotions and endeavours not so directed, are but useless 
 and exhausting exercises, from which, by purposeful 
 activity, the soul must as much as possible be restrained. 
 Pure love to arb, or even to nature itself, is for them an 
 extravagance, only to be endured because it is not quite 
 so bad as other tendencies, and because many find in it con¬ 
 solation and compensation in various ills. Knowledge is 
 sought with a wise and sober moderation and never with¬ 
 out regard to practical life. The smallest thing that has 
 influence in this sphere is not to be neglected, and the 
 greatest, just because it goes further, is decried, as if it 
 were mean and perverted. 
 
 That, nevertheless, there are things which, to some little» 
 depth must be explored, is for them a necessary evil, and 
 that a few are ever to be found who, from unconquerable 
 liking, undertake it, they thank the gods, and with sacred 
 pity regard them as willing sacrifices. They most sincerely 
 lament that there are feelings which cannot be tamed by 
 the external sway of their formulas and precepts, and that 
 in this way many men are rendered socially unhappy or 
 immoral. People for whom the moral side of civil life is 
 everything, and whom, though they may step a little 
 beyond their trade, I reckon also among this class, con¬ 
 sider this one of the profoundest evils of human nature, to be 
 got rid of with all possible speed. The good people believe 
 that their own activity is everything and exhausts the task 
 of humanity, and that, if all would do what they do, they 
 would require no sense for anything except for action. 
 Wherefore they dock everything with their shears, and 
 they will not suffer a single characteristic phenomenon that 
 might awake a religious interest to grow. What can be 
 seen and understood from their standpoint is all they allow, 
 and it is merely a small, barren circle, without science, with- 
 
 K 
 
130 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 out morals, without art, without love, without spirit, I might 
 almost say without letter . 3 In short, it is without any¬ 
 thing whereby the world might disclose itself, and yet 
 it has many lofty pretensions to the same. They think, 
 indeed, that they have the true and real world, and that 
 they are the people who grasp and treat all things in their 
 true connection. 
 
 Would .that they could but once see that, for anything to 
 be known as an element of the Whole, it must necessarily 
 be contemplated in its characteristic nature and in its fullest 
 completeness ! In the Universe it can be nothing except 
 by the totality of its effects and relations. That is the sum 
 and substance, and, to perceive it, every matter must be 
 considered, not from some outside point, but from its own 
 proper centre, which is to say, in its separate existence, its 
 own proper nature. This is to have all points of view 
 for everything, and the opposite is to have one point of 
 view for all, which is the most direct way to leave the 
 Universe behind, to sink in lamentable narrowness and 
 become a serf bound to the spot of earth on which we 
 happen to stand. 
 
 In the relations of man to this world there are certain 
 openings into the Infinite, prospects past which all are led 
 that their sense may find its way to the Whole. Immediate 
 feelings of definite content may not be produced by this 
 glimpse, but there may be a general susceptibility to all 
 religious feelings. Those prospects therefore, are wisely 
 blocked up, and in the opening some philosophical carica¬ 
 ture is placed as an ill-favoured place is at times covered 
 by some sorry picture. 
 
 And if, as happens at times, the omnipotence of the 
 Universe makes itself manifest in those people of under¬ 
 standing themselves, if some ray penetrating falls upon 
 their eyes and their soul cannot be shielded from some stir¬ 
 ring of those emotions, the Infinite is never a goal to which 
 they fly for rest. It is as d post at the end of a course, 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 131 
 
 simply a point to be rounded, without touching, at the 
 greatest speed, and the sooner they can return to their old 
 place the better. 
 
 Birth and death are such points. Before them it is im¬ 
 possible to forget that our own self is completely surrounded 
 by the Infinite. Despite of their frequency, so soon as they 
 touch us more nearly, they always stir a quiet longing and 
 a holy reverence. The measurelessness of sense perception 
 is also a hint at least of a still higher infinity. But nothing 
 would please better those persons of understanding than 
 to be able to use the greatest radius of the system of the 
 worlds, as men now use the meridian of the earth, for 
 measuring and reckoning in common life. And, if the 
 images of life and death do approach them, believe me, 
 however much they may speak of religion, it does not lie 
 so near their hearts as to use the occasion to win some few 
 young people for caution and economy in the use of their 
 powers and for the noble art of lengthening life. 
 
 Punished they certainly are. They reach no standpoint 
 from which they might themselves rear, from the founda¬ 
 tion, this worldly wisdom in which they trust, but move 
 slavishly and reverently in ancient forms or divert them¬ 
 selves with little improvements. This is the extreme of 
 utilitarianism to which the age with rapid strides is being 
 hurried by worthless scholastic word-wisdom. This new 
 barbarism is a fit counterpart of the old. It is the beau¬ 
 tiful fruit of the paternal eudaimonistic politics which has 
 supplanted rude despotism and permeates all departments of 
 life. We have all been affected, and the capacity for religion, 
 not being able to keep pace in its development with other 
 things, has suffered in the early bud. 
 
 These men, the crazy buttresses of a crumbling time, 
 
 I distinguish from you, even as you would not have your¬ 
 selves made equal with them, for they do not despise 
 religion, and they are not to be called cultured. But they 
 destroy religion as much as they can, and they train the age 
 
 k 2 
 
1 3 2 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 and enlighten men, even to transparency, if they had their 
 will. They are still the dominating party, and you and we 
 are but a very few. Whole towns and countries are 
 educated on their principles. Those again who have come 
 through this education, are found in society, in science, 
 and in philosophy. Nay, philosophy is their peculiar place 
 of abode. And now it is not merely ancient philosophy— 
 using the present highly historical classification into ancient 
 new and newest—but the new also they have annexed. 
 By their vast influence on every worldly interest and 
 the semblance of philanthropy which dazzles the social 
 inclination, this way of thinking ever holds religion in 
 subjection, and resists every movement whereby its life 
 might anywhere reveal itself with full power. 
 
 Religion at present can only be advanced by the strongest 
 resistance to this general tendency, and it cannot begin 
 except by radical opposition. As everything follows the 
 law of affinity, sense can only triumph by taking possession 
 of an object on which this kind of understanding so hostile 
 to it, hangs but loosely. This it will acquire most easily 
 and with superfluity of free power. Now this object is the 
 inner, not the outer world. The enlightening psychology, 
 the masterpiece of this kind of understanding, has at length 
 exhausted itself by extravagance and lost almost all good 
 name. The calculating understanding has here first va¬ 
 cated the field and left it open once more for pure obser¬ 
 vation. A religious man must be reflective, his sense must 
 be occupied in the contemplation of himself. Being occu¬ 
 pied with the profoundest depths, he abandons meanwhile 
 all external things, intellectual as well as physical, leaving 
 them to be the great aim of the researches of the people of 
 understanding. In accordance with this law, the feeling 
 for the Infinite is most readily developed in persons whose 
 nature keeps them far from that which is the central point 
 of all the opponents of the universal complete life. Hence 
 it comes that, from of old, all truly religious characters 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 133 
 
 have had a mystical trait, and that all imaginative natures, 
 which are too airy to occupy themselves with solid and 
 rigid worldly affairs, have at least some stirrings of piety. 
 This is the character of all the religious appearances of our 
 time ; from those two colours, imagination and mysticism, 
 though in various proportions, they are all composed. 
 Appearances I say, because, in this state of things, more is 
 scarcely to be expected. 
 
 Imaginative natures fail in penetrative spirit, in capacity 
 for mastering the essential. A light changing play of 
 beautiful, often charming, but merely fortuitous and entirely 
 subjective combinations, satisfies them and is the highest 
 they can conceive, and a deeper and inner connection pre¬ 
 sents itself in vain. They are really only seeking the 
 infinity and universality of charming appearances. Accord¬ 
 ing as it is viewed this may be less or very much more than 
 their sense can attain, but to appearance they have accommo¬ 
 dated themselves, and instead of a healthy and powerful life, 
 they have only disconnected and fleeting emotions. The 
 mind is easily kindled, but it is with a flame as unsteady 
 as it is ready. They have emotions of religion just as they 
 have of art, philosophy and all things great and beautiful 
 —they are attracted by the surface. 
 
 To the very nature of the other class, again, religion 
 pre-eminently belongs. But their sense always remains 
 turned towards themselves, for, in the present condition of 
 the world, they do not know how to attain anything beyond, 
 and they soon fail in material for cultivating their feeling 
 to an independent piety. There is a great and powerful 
 mysticism, not to be considered by the most frivolous man 
 without reverence and devotion, which, by its heroic 
 simplicity and proud scorn of the world, wrings admiration 
 from the most judicious. It does not arise from being sated 
 and overladen by external influences, but, on every occa¬ 
 sion, some secret power ever drives the man back upon 
 himself, and he finds himself to be the plan and key of the 
 
134 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 Whole. Convinced by a great analogy and a daring faith 
 that it is not necessary to forsake himself, but that the 
 spirit has enough in itself to be conscious of all that could 
 be given from without, by a free resolve, he shuts his eyes 
 for ever against all that is not himself. Yet this contempt 
 is no ignorance, this closing of the sense no incapacity. 
 
 Thus, alas ! it stands with our party at the present day. 
 They have not learned to open their souls to Nature. Their 
 living relation to it suffers from the clumsy way in which 
 objects are rather indicated than shown, and they have 
 neither sense nor light remaining from their self-con¬ 
 templation sufficient to penetrate this ancient darkness. 
 Wherefore, in scorn of this evil age, they would fain have 
 nothing to do with its work in them. Their higher feeling 
 is thus untrained and needy, and their true inwa,rd fellow¬ 
 ship with the world is both confined and sickly. Alone 
 with their sense, they are compelled to circulate eternally 
 in an all too narrow sphere, and, after a sickly life, their 
 religious sense dies, from want of attraction, of indirect 
 weakness. 
 
 Another end awaits those whose sense for the highest 
 turns boldly outwards, seeking there expansion and renova¬ 
 tion for its life. Their disharmony with the age only too 
 clearly appears, for they suffer a violent death, happy if 
 you will, yet fearful, the suicide of the spirit. Not knowing 
 how to comprehend the world, the essence and larger sense 
 of which remains strange to them among the paltry views 
 to which an outward constraint limits them, they are 
 deceived by confused phenomena, abandoned to unbridled 
 fancies, and seek the Universe and its traces where they 
 never were. Finally they unwillingly rend asunder utterly 
 the connection of the inner and the outer, chase the impo¬ 
 tent understanding and end in a holy madness, the source 
 of which almost no man knows. They are loud screaming but 
 not understood victims of the general contempt and mal¬ 
 treatment of the heart of man. Ouly victims, however, not 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 135 
 
 heroes, for whosoever succumbs, though it be in the final 
 test, cannot be reckoned among the recipients of the inmost 
 mysteries. 
 
 This complaint that there are no permanent, openly recog¬ 
 nized representatives of religion among us, is not to recall 
 my earlier assertions that our age is not less favourable to 
 religion than any other. The amount of religion in the 
 world is not diminished, but it is broken up and driven 
 apart by an oppressive force. It reveals itself in small and 
 fleeting though frequent manifestations that rather exalt 
 the variety of the Universe and delight the eye of the 
 observer, than produce for itself a great and sublime im¬ 
 pression. I abide by the conviction that there are many 
 who breathe out the sweetest fragrance of the young life in 
 sacred longing and love to the Eternal and the Changeless, 
 and who late at least, and perhaps never, are overcome by 
 the world; that there are none to whom once, at least, the 
 high World-Spirit has not appeared, casting on them, 
 while they were ashamed for themselves and blushed at 
 their unworthy limitation, one of those piercing glances 
 that the downcast eye feels without seeing. By this I abide, 
 and the conscience of everyone can judge of it. But heroes 
 of religion, holy souls, as they have been seen, who are 
 entirely permeated by religion which is all in all to th'em, 
 are wanting and must be wanting to this generation. And 
 as often as I reflect on what must happen and what direction 
 our culture must take, if religious men of a higher type are 
 again to appear as a natural if rare product of their age, 
 I think that your whole endeavour—whether consciously, 
 you may yourselves decide—is not a little helpful for a 
 palingenesis of religion. Partly your general working, 
 partly the endeavours of a narrower circle, partly the 
 sublime ideas of a few spirits notable among mankind, 
 shall serve this purpose . 4 
 
 The strength and compass, as well as the purity and clear¬ 
 ness of every perception, depend upon the keenness and 
 
THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 136 
 
 vigour of the sense. Suppose the wisest man without 
 opened senses. He would not be nearer religion than the 
 most thoughtless and wanton who only had an open and 
 true sense. Here then we must begin. An end must be 
 made to the slavery in which the sense of man is held, for the 
 benefit of exercisings of the understanding whereby nothing 
 is exercised, of those enlightenments that make nothing 
 dear, of those dissectings whereby nothing is resolved. 
 This is an end for which you will all labour with united 
 powers. It has happened to the improvements in education 
 as to all revolutions that have not been begun on the highest 
 principles : things have gradually glided back into the old 
 course, and only a few changes in externals preserve the 
 memory of what was at first considered a marvellously great 
 occurrence. Hence our judicious and practical education of 
 to-day is but little distinguished from the ancient mechanical 
 article, and that little is neither in spirit nor in working. 
 This has not escaped you. It begins to be as detestable to 
 all truly cultured people as it is to me. A juster idea of 
 the sacredness of childhood and the eternity of inviolable 
 liberty is spreading. Even in the first stages of develop¬ 
 ment, it is seen that the manifestations of liberty must be 
 expected and inquired for. Soon those barriers shall be 
 broken down; the intuitive power will take possession of 
 its whole domain, every organ will be opened, and ifc will 
 be possible for objects, in all ways, to affect man. 
 
 With this regained liberty of sense, however, a limitation 
 and firm direction of the activity may very well consist. 
 This is the great demand from contemporaries and posterity, 
 with which the best among you are coining forward. You 
 are tired of seeing barren, encyclopaedic versatility. Only 
 by this way of self-limitation have you become what you 
 are, and you know there is no other way to culture. You 
 insist, therefore, that everyone should seek to become some¬ 
 thing definite, and follow something with steadfastness and 
 concentration. No one can perceive the justice of this 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 137 
 
 counsel better than the man who has ripened to a certain 
 universality of sense, for he must know that, except by 
 separation and limitation, perception would have no objects. 
 I rejoice, therefore, at these efforts, and would they had had 
 more success. Religion would thereby receive excellent 
 help, for this very limitation of effort, if only the sense 
 itself is not limited, all the more surely prepares for the 
 sense the way to the Infinite and opens again the long 
 interrupted intercourse. Whosoever has seen and known 
 much and can then resolve, with his whole might, to do 
 and forward something for its own sake, must recognize, 
 if he is not to contradict himself, that other things have 
 been made and have a right to existence for their own 
 sakes. And when he has succeeded to the utmost in the 
 object of his choice, it will least of all escape him at the 
 summit of perfection that, without all the rest, this is 
 nothing. This recognition of the strange and annihilation 
 of the personal that urge themselves everywhere upon a 
 thoughtful man, this seasonably changing love and contempt 
 for all that is finite and limited are not possible without a 
 dim presentiment of the World and God, and they must call 
 forth a more definite longing for the One in the All. 
 
 Every man knows from his own consciousness three 
 spheres of the sense in which its different manifestations 
 are divided. First there is the interior of the Ego itself; 
 second, the outer world, in so far as it is indefinite and 
 incomplete—call it mass, matter, element, or what you will; 
 the third seems to unite both, the sense turning, in constant 
 change, within and without, and only finding peace in 
 perceiving the absolute unity of both sides, which is the 
 sphere of the individual, of what is complete in itself, of all 
 that is art in nature, and in the works of man. Everyone 
 is not equally at home in all those spheres, but from each 
 there is a way to pious exaltations of the soul which take 
 characteristic form simply according to the variety of the 
 ways in which they have been found. 
 
138 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 Study yourselves with unswerving attention, put aside 
 all that is not self, proceed with the sense ever more 
 closely directed to the purely inward. The more you pass 
 by all foreign elements, making your personality appear 
 diminished almost to the vanishing point, the clearer the 
 Universe stands before you, and the more gloriously 
 the terror of annihilating the fleeting is rewarded by the 
 feeling of the eternal. 
 
 Look outside again on one of the widely distributed 
 elements of the world. Seek to understand it in itself, and 
 seek it in particular objects, in yourself and everywhere. 
 Traverse again and again your way from centre to circum¬ 
 ference, going ever farther afield. You will rediscover 
 everything everywhere, and you will only be able to re¬ 
 cognize it in relation to its opposite. Soon everything 
 individual and distinct will have been lost and the Universe 
 be found. 
 
 What way now leads from the third sphere, from the 
 sense for art ? Its immediate object is by no means the 
 Universe itself. It is an individual thing complete in 
 itself and rounded off. There is satisfaction in each enjoy¬ 
 ment, and the mind, peacefully sunk in it, is not driven to 
 such a progress as would make the single thing gradually 
 disappear and be replaced by the Universe. Is there no¬ 
 where any way, but must this sphere for ever remain apart, 
 and artists be condemned to be irreligious ? Or is there 
 perhaps some other relation between art and religion ? I 
 could wish to leave the question for your own solution, for 
 to me the inquiry is too difficult and too strange. But you 
 have used your sense and love for art to good purpose, and 
 I would willingly leave you to yourselves on your native 
 soil. One of my thoughts on the matter, however, I would 
 have not to be wish and presentiment merely but insight 
 and prophecy. But judge for yourselves. If it is true 
 that there are sudden conversions whereby in men, thinking 
 of nothing less than of lifting themselves above the finite. 
 
I 
 
 THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 139 
 
 in a moment, as by an immediate, inward illumination, 
 the sense for the highest comes forth and surprises them 
 by its splendour, I believe that more than anything- else 
 the sight of a great and sublime work of art can accom¬ 
 plish this miracle. And I would believe that, without any 
 gradual approximation beforehand, you may perhaps be 
 met by such a beam of your own sun and turned to 
 religion. 
 
 By the first way of finding the Universe, the most ab¬ 
 stracted self-contemplation, the most ancient eastern 
 Mysticism, with marvellous boldness that resembled the 
 more recent Idealism among us, linked the infinitely great 
 to the infinitely little and found everything bordering on 
 nothing. 
 
 From the contemplation of the masses and their counter¬ 
 parts, again, every religion, the pattern of which is the 
 heavens or elemental nature, has manifestly proceeded. 
 The polytheistic Egypt was long the most perfect nurse of 
 this type of thought. In it we can at least guess that the 
 purest intuition of the original and real may have walked 
 in meek tolerance close beside the darkest superstitions and 
 the most .senseless mythology . 5 
 
 And if there is nothing to tell of a religion originating 
 in art that has ruled peoples and times, it is all the clearer 
 that the sense for art has never approached those two kinds 
 of religion without covering them with new beauty and 
 holiness and sweetly mitigating their original narrowness. 
 Thus the ancient sages and poets, and above all, the artists 
 of the Greeks, changed the natural religion into fairer, 
 more gladsome form. In all the mythical representations 
 of the divine Plato and his followers, which you would ac¬ 
 knowledge rather as religious than as scientific, we perceive 
 how beautifully that mystical self-contemplation mounts to 
 the highest pinnacle of divineness and humanness. Simply 
 by the ordinary life in the sphere of art and by a living 
 endeavour, sustained by indwelling power and especially by 
 
140 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 poetic art, he penetrates from one form of religion to the 
 opposite and unites both. One can only marvel, therefore, 
 at the beautiful self-forgetfulness with which in holy zeal, 
 as a just king that does not spare even his too soft-hearted 
 mother, he speaks against art, for, where there was no cor¬ 
 ruption and no misunderstanding produced by corruption, 
 the work of art was but a free-will service rendered to the 
 imperfect natural religions. 
 
 At present art serves no religion, and all is different and 
 worse. Religion and art stand together like kindred 
 beings, whose inner affinity, though mutually unrecognized 
 and unsuspected, appears in various ways . 6 Like the 
 opposite poles of two magnets, being mutually attracted, 
 they are violently agitated but cannot overcome their 
 gravity so as to touch and unite. Friendly words and out¬ 
 pourings of the heart are ever on their lips, but they are 
 always held back, as they cannot find again the right 
 manner and the last reason of their thinking and longing. 
 They await a fuller revelation and, suffering and sighing 
 under the same load, they see each other enduring, with 
 heartfelt liking and deep feeling perhaps, but without the 
 love that truly unites. Will this common burden bring 
 about the happy moment of their union, or from pure love 
 and joy is there to be as you desire a new day for art alone ? 
 However it comes, whichever is first set free will certainly 
 hasten, with at least a sister’s faithfulness, to aid the other. 
 
 But religion of both types not only is without the aid 
 of art, but is, in its own state, worse than of old. The 
 two sources . of perception and feeling of the Infinite 
 streamed forth magnificently upon an age when scientific 
 subtilties, without true principles, had not yet corrupted by 
 their commonness the purity of the sense, even though 
 neither may have been rich enough to produce the highest. 
 At present, they are troubled by the loss of simplicity and 
 the ruinous influence of a conceited and false insight. How 
 are they to be purified ? Whence are they to have power 
 
THE CULTIVATION OF RELIGION. 
 
 141 
 
 and fulness for enriching the soil with more than ephemeral 
 products ? To unite their waters in one channel, is the 
 sole means for bringing religion to completion by the way 
 we are now going. That would be an event, from the 
 bosom of which, in a new and glorious form, religion would 
 soon go to meet better times. 
 
 See then, whether you wish it or not, the goal of your 
 highest endeavours is just the resurrection of religion. 
 By your endeavours this event must be brought to pass, 
 and I celebrate you as, however unintentionally, the 
 rescuers and cherishers of religion. Do not abandon your 
 post and your work till you have unlocked the recesses of 
 knowledge, and, in priestlike humility, have opened the 
 sanctuary of true science. Then all who draw nigh, and 
 the sons of religion among them, will be compensated for 
 what half knowledge and arrogance have made them lose. 
 
 Philosophy, exalting man to the consciousness of his 
 reciprocity with the world, teaching him to know himself 
 not as a separate individual, but as a living, operative 
 member of the Whole, will no longer endure to see the man 
 who steadfastly turns his eye to his own spirit in search of 
 the Universe, pine in poverty and need. The anxious wall 
 of separation is broken down. The outer world is only 
 another inner world. Everything is the reflection of his 
 own spirit, as his spirit is the copy of all things. He can 
 seek himself in this reflection without losing himself or 
 going outside of himself. He can never exhaust himself in 
 contemplation of himself, for in himself everything lies. 
 
 Ethics, in its chaste and heavenly beauty, far from 
 jealousy and despotic pride, will hand him at the entrance 
 the heavenly lyre and the magic glass, that he may see in 
 countless forms the earnest quiet image of the spirit ever 
 the same and may accompany it with divine music. 
 
 Natural science sets the man who looks around him to 
 discover the Universe, in the centre of nature, and no 
 longer suffers him to dissipate himself fruitlessly in the 
 
142 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 study of small details. He can now pursue the play of 
 nature’s powers into their most secret recesses, from the 
 inaccessible storehouses of energized matter to the artistic 
 workshops of the organic life. He measures its might from 
 the bounds of world-filled space to the centre of his own 
 Ego, and finds himself everywhere in eternal strife and 
 in closest union. He is nature’s centre and circumference. 
 Delusion is gone and reality won. Sure is his glance and 
 clear is his view. Under all disguises he detects it and 
 nowhere rests except in the Infinite and the One. Already 
 I see some distinguished forms return from the sanctuary 
 after initiation into those mysteries, who, having purified 
 and adorned themselves, will come forth in priestly robes. 
 
 Can one goddess, then, still linger with her helpful 
 presence ? For this, also, time will make us great and rich 
 amends. The greatest work of art has for its material 
 humanity itself, and the Deity directly fashions it. For 
 this work the sense must soon awake in many, for at 
 present, He is working with bold and effective art. And 
 you will be the temple servants when the new forms are set 
 up in the temple of time. Expound the Artist then with 
 force and spirit; explain the earlier works from the later 
 and the later from the earlier. Let the past, the present, 
 and the future surround us with an endless gallery of the 
 sublimest works of art, eternally multiplied by a thousand 
 brilliant mirrors. Let the history of the worlds be ready 
 With rich gratitude to reward religion its first nurse, by 
 awaking true and holy worshippers for eternal might and 
 wisdom. See how, without your aid, the heavenly growth 
 flourishes in the midst of your plantings. It is a witness of 
 the approval of the gods and of the imperishableness of 
 your desert. Neither disturb it nor pluck it up ; it is an 
 ornament that adorns, a talisman that protects. 
 
EXPLANATIONS OF THE THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 (1) Page 123.—This expression appears to contradict the words of 
 Christ which He spoke to His disciples, “ Te have not chosen me, but I 
 have chosen you.” Yet the contradiction is only apparent, for on another 
 occasion He asked of His disciples whether they also were deceived a 9 
 others had been, whereby He acknowledged that their continuance 
 with Him was a free act. How this is all that is here asserted. In 
 their declaration of steadfastness, we can say, that they chose Him 
 anew as their Master, with a quicker sense and a riper judgment. 
 Also it would be wrong to interpret Christ’s words as if they had only 
 special reference to certain persons. This would be a particular sense 
 which I would not defend. It was not by an original divine impulse 
 common to Him and to them, that the kingdom of God was founded. 
 Of subordinate movements in religion, such as reform of the church, 
 this may very well be said, but it was not thus that Peter, as their 
 representative, recognized Him as the profoundest and mightiest. 
 Originally, the emotion was in Him alone ; in them there was only 
 the capacity for having it awakened. What is here said, therefore, 
 entirely agrees with the representation of Christ; indeed, his relation 
 to His disciples suggested it. Had not Christ set out from the view 
 that every living utterance, however individual, can only awake its 
 response in another in a universal way and that complete attachment 
 to the individuality of another is always a free act, He could not 
 have set His disciples on such a footing of equality as to call them 
 brethren and friends. 
 
 (2) Page 124.—What is here said follows naturally from the passage 
 just explained. The best example is found in the oldest Christian 
 history, in the Proselytes from Heathenism, who forsook the Jews who 
 first woke in them the sense of the one Highest Being and went over to 
 Christianity. In every time when the religious life is stirred, as un¬ 
 questionably it has begun to be among us since this was written, it 
 seems to me specially necessary that all who, either from profession 
 
144 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 or from inward call, exercise a marked religions influence, should rise 
 to this freer view, that they may not wonder why so many who have 
 received their first impulse from them, should only find their complete 
 rest in very different views and sentiments. Let everyone rejoice at 
 waking life, for he thereby approves himself an instrument of the 
 Divine Spirit, but let none believe that the fashioning of it continues 
 in his power. 
 
 (3) Page 130.—Only by this last trait is the picture of the way of 
 thinking here described made complete, for these men flee also theletter. 
 As they admit a moral, political or religious confession only, in so far 
 as everyone can still think what he will, so no practical rules are 
 valid except with the proviso of standing exceptions, that everything 
 following the principle of absolute utility, should stand completely 
 alone, as nothing through nothing for nothing. Some reader of 
 another stamp may look askance, however, on an expression that 
 ascribes a worth, and indeed no small worth, to the letter, for I 
 make it equal with the other qualities here named, and misunderstand¬ 
 ings, specially struggled against at the present day are thus favoured. 
 I would warn him that such a conscious depreciation of what has 
 been set too high does not serve truth, but in part produces obstinacy 
 and in part it favours reaction. Therefore, we would at all times 
 ascribe a high degree of worth to the letter in all earnest things, in 
 so far. as it is not separate from the spirit and dead. The imme¬ 
 diate life in the great unities is too closely shut to be entered by the 
 letter, for what letter could comprehend, say, the existence of a 
 people ? and in the individual there are elements too fleeting to be 
 embraced in it, for what letter could express the nature of a single 
 individual ? But the letter is the indispensable selecting discretion, 
 without which we could only vibrate giddily between the individual and 
 the great classes. By it the chaotic indeterminate crowd is changed 
 into the determinate multitude. Nay, in the largest sense the ages 
 are distinguished by the letter, and it is the master-piece of the 
 highest wisdom to estimate rightly when human things require a new 
 letter. Does it appear too early the love for what it is to supplant 
 rejects it ? is it too late, that giddiness has already begun which it 
 can no more exorcise P 
 
 (4) Page 135.—No one will suppose that I regard the manifestations 
 of an awakened religious life so frequent, especially in Germany at the 
 present time, as the fulfilment of the hope here uttered. That I do 
 not regard it in this way, appears clearly enough from what follows, 
 for a piety revived by greater openness of sense would be of a differ¬ 
 ent type from what we see among us. The impatient uncharitable- 
 
EXP LANA TIONS . 
 
 145 
 
 ness of our new Pietists that is not content to withdraw from what it 
 dislikes, but uses every social relation for defamation to the danger 
 of all free spiritual life; their painful listening for special expres¬ 
 sions, in accordance with which they make one man white and another 
 black ; the indifference of most of them to all great historical events ; 
 the aristocratic narrow-mindedness of others ; the general dislike of 
 all science are not signs of an open sense. Rather they are signs of 
 a deep-rooted, morbid state which must be treated with love and also 
 with great firmness, if there is not to be more loss to society in 
 general than gain to individuals. We will not deny that many of 
 the lower class can only be awaked from their stupidity, and of the 
 higher from their worldliness, by this acerb kind of piety, yet we 
 would wish and earnestly labour that this stage should be for most 
 but a transition to a worthier freedom of the spiritual life. This 
 should the more easily be accomplished as it is patent enough how 
 easily men who are concerned with something quite different from 
 true piety, master this form, and how visibly the spirit decays that 
 is long shut up in it. 
 
 (5) Page 139.—In the “ Glaubenslehre ” religion is divided as pre¬ 
 dominantly active or passive, as concerned with the problem of duty, or 
 absolutely dependent on the Whole, as teleological or assthetical. With 
 this division the forms of religion here mentioned would not seem 
 to agree, for the most abstracted self-contemplation, or the most 
 objective contemplation of the world may be either active or passive. 
 But I am not seeking to distinguish here the chief forms of religion, 
 I am treating of cultivation of religion by opening of the sense. By 
 this cultivation individuals are not introduced into a definite form of 
 religion, but everyone is rendered capable of discerning the form that 
 best suits him and of determining himself accordingly. Being more 
 concerned to show the chief aspects of sense, I naturally make most 
 prominent those forms in which one or other is most conspicuous. 
 Yet even here it is not meant that subjective reflection has not to 
 do with the objectively observing Ego, or objective observation with 
 a world that awakes and sustains the spiritual life. Hence it would 
 be vain to expect that Christianity be here assigned its place as in 
 the “ Glaubenslehre ” it is placed under the ethical or teleological. 
 Even in the Speech itself, it is hinted that that historical sense 
 which is the completest union of both directions leads most perfectly 
 to piety. That this sense lies quite specially at the foundation of 
 Christianity, in which everything comes back to the relation of man 
 to the Kingdom of God, requires no proof. It therefore naturally 
 follows that Christianity presents a piety nourished as much by con- 
 
 L . 
 
146 
 
 THIRD SPEECH. 
 
 templation of the world, as by self-contemplation, and is best 
 nourished when both are most joined. Of course these are subordi¬ 
 nate distinctions of receptivity and are naturally quite subjective and 
 incapable of determining the different forms of Christianity. 
 
 (6) Page 140.—This affinity will hardly be denied now by anyone. 
 Nothing but attention to the subject is required to find that, on the 
 one hand, in all arts, all great works are religious representations, and 
 that on the other, in all religions, Christianity not excepted, hostility 
 to art involves barrenness and coldness. In all arts there is a severer» 
 more sustained style and a freer and easier. Religious art mostly 
 upholds the severer style. When religious objects are handled in 
 the light style, the decay of religion is decided and the decay of art 
 quickly follows. The lighter style only maintains its true character 
 as art so long as it finds its mass and harmony in the severer. The 
 more it renounces its connection with the severer style, and there¬ 
 fore with religion, the more certainly and irresistibly it degenerates 
 into over refinement and the art of flattery. Already this has been 
 often repeated in the history of the arts, and in individuals it is 
 being repeated at the present day. 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION, OR CHURCH AND PRIESTHOOD. 
 
 Those of you who are accustomed to regard religion simply 
 as a malady of the soul, usually cherish the idea that if 
 the evil is not to be quite subdued, it is at least more 
 endurable, so long as it only infects individuals here and 
 there. On the other hand, the common danger is increased 
 and everything put in jeopardy by too close association 
 among the patients. So long as they are isolated, judicious 
 treatment, due precautions against infection and a healthy 
 spiritual atmosphere may allay the paroxysms and weaken, 
 if they do not destroy, the virus, but in the other case the 
 only remedy to be relied on is the curative influence of 
 nature. The evil would be accompanied by the most 
 dangerous symptoms and be far more deadly being nursed 
 and heightened by the proximity of the infected. Even a 
 few would then poison the whole atmosphere; the soundest 
 bodies would be infected; all the canals in which the processes 
 of life are carried on would be destroyed; all juices would 
 be decomposed; and, after undergoing such a feverish 
 delirium, the healthy spiritual life and working of whole 
 generations and peoples would be irrecoverably ruined. 
 Hence your opposition to the church, to every institution 
 meant for the communication of religion is always more 
 violent than your opposition to religion itself, and priests, 
 as the supports and specially active members of such insti¬ 
 tutions are for you the most hated among men. 
 
 l 2 
 
148 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 But those of you who have a somewhat milder view of 
 religion, regarding it rather as an absurdity than as an 
 absolute distraction, have an equally unfavourable idea of 
 all organizations for fellowship. Slavish surrender of every¬ 
 thing characteristic and free, spiritless mechanism and vain 
 usages are, you consider, the inseparable consequences of 
 every such institution. It is the skilful work of persons 
 who with incredible success make great gain from things 
 that are nothing, or which at least every other person could 
 have done equally well. 
 
 Were it not that I strive to bring you in this matter to 
 the right standpoint, I would very unwillingly expose my 
 heart to you on such a weighty matter. How many of the 
 perverse efforts and the sad destinies of mankind you 
 ascribe to religion, I do not need to recount. In a thousand 
 utterances of the most esteemed among you it is clear as 
 day. And I will not pause to refute those charges in 
 detail and derive them from other causes. Rather let us 
 subject the whole idea of the church to a new consideration, 
 reconstructing it from the centre outwards, unconcerned 
 about how much is fact and experience. 
 
 If there is religion at all, it must be social, for that is the 
 nature of man, and it is quite peculiarly the nature of 
 religion. You must confess that when an individual has 
 produced and wrought out something in his own mind, it is 
 morbid and in the highest degree unnatural to wish to 
 reserve it to himself. He should express it in the indis¬ 
 pensable fellowship and mutual dependence of action. And 
 there is also a spiritual nature which he has in common 
 with the rest of his species which demands that he express 
 and communicate all that is in him. The more violently he 
 is moved and the more deeply he is impressed, the stronger 
 that social impulse works. And this is true even if we 
 regard it only as the endeavour to find the feeling in 
 others, and so to be sure that nothing has been encountered 
 that is not human. 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 149 
 
 You see that this is not a case of endeavouring to make 
 others like ourselves, nor of believing that what is in one 
 man is indispensable for all. It is only the endeavour to 
 become conscious of and to exhibit the true relation of our 
 own life to the common nature of man. 
 
 But indisputably the proper subjects for this impulse to 
 communicate are the conscious states and feelings in which 
 originally man feels himself passive. He is urged on to 
 learn whether it may not be an alien and unworthy power that 
 has produced them. Those are the things which mankind 
 from childhood are chiefly engaged in communicating. 
 His ideas, about the origin of which he can have no doubts, 
 he would rather leave in quiet. Still more easily he resolves 
 to reserve his judgments. But of all that enters by the 
 senses and stirs the feelings he will have witnesses and 
 participators. How could he keep to himself the most 
 comprehensive and general influences of the world when 
 they appear to him the greatest and most irresistible ? How 
 should he wish to reserve what most strongly drives him 
 out of himself and makes him conscious that he cannot 
 know himself from himself alone ? If a religious view 
 become clear to him, or a pious feeling stir his soul, it is 
 rather his first endeavour to direct others to the same 
 subject and if possible transmit the impulse. 
 
 The same nature that makes it necessary for the pious 
 person to speak, provides him also with an audience. No 
 element of life, so much as religion, has implanted along 
 with it so vivid a feeling of man’s utter incapacity ever 
 to exhaust it for himself alone. No sooner has he any 
 sense for it than he feels its infinity and his own limits. 
 He is conscious that he grasps but a small part of it, 
 and what he cannot himself reach he will, at least, so far 
 as he is able, know and enjoy from the representations of 
 those who have obtained it. This urges him to give his 
 religion full expression, and, seeking his own perfection, to 
 listen to every note that he can recognize as religious. 
 
i5o 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 Thus mutual communication organizes itself, and speech 
 and hearing are to all alike indispensable. 
 
 But the communication of religion is not like the com¬ 
 munication of ideas and perceptions to be sought in books . 1 
 In this medium, too much of the pure impression of the 
 original production is lost. Like dark stuffs that absorb 
 the greater part of the rays of light, so everything of the 
 pious emotion that the inadequate signs do not embrace 
 and give out again, is swallowed up. In the written com¬ 
 munication of piety, everything needs to be twice or thrice 
 repeated, the original medium requiring to be again ex¬ 
 hibited, and still its effect on men in general in their great 
 unity can only be badly copied by multiplied reflection. 
 Only when it is chased from the society of the living, 
 religion must hide its varied life in the dead letter. 
 
 Nor can this intercourse with the heart of man be carried 
 on in common conversation. Many who have a regard for 
 religion have upbraided our times, because our manners 
 are such that in conversation in society and in friendly 
 intercourse, we talk of all weighty subjects except of God 
 and divine things. In our defence I would say, this is 
 neither contempt nor indifference, but a very correct 
 instinct. Where mirth and laughing dwell, and even 
 earnestness must pliantly associate with joke and witticism, 
 there can be no room for what must ever be attended by 
 holy reserve and awe. Religious views, pious feelings, and 
 earnest reflections, are not to be tossed from one to another 
 in such small morsels as the materials of a light conver¬ 
 sation. On sacred subjects it would be rather sacrilegious 
 than fitting to be ready with an answer to every question 
 and a response to every address . 2 Religion, therefore, 
 withdraws itself from too wide circles to the more familiar 
 conversation of friendship or the dialogue - of love, where 
 glance and action are clearer than words, and where a 
 solemn silence also is understood. 
 
 By way of the light and rapid exchange of retorts 
 
ASSOC/A TION IN RELIGION. 
 
 I5I 
 
 common in society divine things cannot be treated, but 
 there must be a higher style and another kind of society 
 entirely consecrated to religion. On the highest subject 
 with which language has to deal, it is fitting that the ful¬ 
 ness and splendour of human speech be expended. It is 
 not as if there were any ornament that religion could not do 
 without, but it would be impious and frivolous of its heralds, 
 if they would not consecrate everything to it, if they would 
 not collect all they possess that is glorious, that religion 
 may, if possible, be presented in all power and dignity. 
 Without poetic skill, therefore, religion can only be ex¬ 
 pressed and communicated rhetorically, in all power and 
 skill of speech , 3 and in its swiftness and inconstancy the 
 service of every art that could aid, is willingly accepted. 
 Hence a person whose heart is full of religion, only opens 
 his mouth before an assembly where speech so richly 
 equipped might have manifold working. 
 
 Would that I could depict to you the rich, the super¬ 
 abundant life in this city of God, when the citizens assemble, 
 each full of native force seeking liberty of utterance and full 
 at the same time of holy desire to apprehend and appro¬ 
 priate what others offer. When one stands out before the 
 others he is neither justified by office nor by compact; nor 
 is it pride or ignorance that inspires him with assurance. 
 It is the free impulse of his spirit, the feeling of heart-felt 
 unanimity and completest equality, the common abolition of 
 all first and last, of all earthly order . 4 He comes forward 
 to present to the sympathetic contemplation of others his 
 own heart as stirred by God, and, by leading them into 
 the region of religion where he is at home, he would infect 
 them with his own feeling. He utters divine things and 
 in solemn silence the congregation follow his inspired 
 speech. If he unveils a hidden wonder, or links with pro¬ 
 phetic assurance the future to the present, or by new 
 examples confirms old truths, or if his fiery imagination 
 enchants him in visions into another part of the world 
 
152 
 
 FO UR TH SPEECH. 
 
 and into another order of things, the trained sense of the 
 congregation accompanies him throughout. On returning 
 from his wanderings through the Kingdom of God into 
 himself, his heart and the hearts of all are but the common 
 seat of the same feeling. Let this harmony of view 
 announce itself, however softly, then there are sacred 
 mysteries discovered and solemnized that are not mere 
 insignificant emblems, but, rightly considered, are natural 
 indications of a certain kind of consciousness and certain 
 feelings. It is like a loftier choir that in its own noble tone 
 answers the voice that calls. 
 
 And this is not a mere simile, but, as such a speech is 
 music without song or melody, there may be a music 
 among the saints that is speech without words, giving most 
 definite and comprehensible expression to the heart. 
 
 The muse of harmony, the intimate relation of which to 
 religion has been long known, though acknowledged by 
 few, has from of old laid on the altars of religion the most 
 gorgeous and perfect works of her most devoted scholars. 
 In sacred hymns and choruses to which the words of the 
 poet are but loosely and airily appended, there are breathed 
 out things that definite speech cannot grasp. The 
 melodies of thought and feeling interchange and give 
 mutual support, till all is satiated and full of the sacred and 
 the infinite. 
 
 Of such a nature is the influence of religious men upon 
 each other. Thus their natural and eternal union is pro¬ 
 duced. It is a heavenly bond, the most perfect production 
 of the spiritual nature of man, not to be attained till man, 
 in the highest sense, knows himself. Do not blame them if 
 they value it more highly than the civil union which you 
 place so far above all else, but which nevertheless will not 
 ripen to manly beauty. Compared with that other union, it 
 appears far more forced than free, far more transient than 
 eternal. 
 
 But where, in all that I have said of the congregation of 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 153 
 
 the pious, is that distinction between priests and laity to which 
 you are accustomed to point as the source of so many evils ? 
 You have been deluded; this is no distinction of persons, 
 but only of office and function. Every man is a priest, in 
 so far as he draws others to himself in the field he has 
 made his own and can show himself master in ; every man 
 is a layman, in so far as he follows the skill and direction 
 of another in the religious matters with which he is less 
 familiar. That tyrannical aristocracy which you describe 
 as so hateful does not exist, but this society is a priestly 
 nation/ a complete republic, where each in turn is leader 
 and people, following in others the same power that he 
 feels in himself and uses for governing others. 
 
 How then can this be the home of the envy and strife 
 that you consider the natural consequences of all religious 
 associations ? I see nothing but unity and, just by means of 
 the social union of the pious, the gentle mingling of all the 
 differences found in religion. I have called your attention 
 to two different types of mind and two different directions 
 in which specially the soul seeks its highest object. Do 
 you mean that from them sects must of necessity arise, and 
 unconstrained fellowship in religion be hindered ? In con¬ 
 templation, where there is severance because we compre¬ 
 hend only in sections, there must be opposition and 
 contradiction, but reflect that life is quite different. In 
 it opposites seek each other and all that is separated in 
 contemplation is mingled. Doubtless persons who most 
 resemble will most strongly attract each other, but they 
 cannot on that account make up a whole by themselves, 
 for there are all degrees of affinity, and with so many 
 transitions there can be no absolute repulsion, no entire 
 separation, even between the remotest elements. 
 
 Take any body that by characteristic power has its own 
 organic structure. Unless you forcibly isolate it by some 
 mechanical means, it will not be homogeneous and distinct , 6 
 but it will show at the extremities transition to the qualities 
 
154 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH . 
 
 of another body. Pious persons at the lower stage have a 
 closer union, yet there are always some among them who 
 have a guess of something higher, who, even better than they 
 understand themselves, will be understood by a person 
 belonging to a more advanced society. There is thus a 
 point of union, though it may yet be hidden from them. 
 Again, if persons in whom the one type of mind is dominant, 
 draw together, there will be some among them who at least 
 understand the two types and, belonging in a certain sense 
 to both, are connecting links between two otherwise divided 
 spheres. Thus a person better fitted to put himself in 
 religious communion with nature is not, in the essentials 
 of religion, opposed to a person who rather finds the traces 
 of the Deity in history, and there will never be a dearth of 
 those who walk with equal ease on both ways. And if 
 you divide the great domain of religion otherwise, you will 
 still return to the same point. If unconstrained univer¬ 
 sality of the sense is the first and original condition of 
 religion, and also, as is natural, its ripest fruit, you can 
 surely see that, as religion advances and piety is purified, 
 the whole religious world must appear as an indivisible 
 whole. 
 
 The impulse to abstract, in so far as it proceeds to rigid 
 separation, is a proof of imperfection. The highest and 
 most cultured always see a universal union, and, in seeing 
 it, establish it. Every man is only in contact with his 
 neighbour; but on every side and in every direction he 
 has neighbours and is thus inseparably bound up with the 
 whole. Mystics and physicists in religion ; those to whom 
 the Deity is personal and those to whom He is not; those who 
 have risen to a systematic view of the Universe, or those who 
 only see it in its elements or as dim chaos should all be 
 united. A band encloses them all and they cannot be quite 
 separated, except forcibly and arbitrarily. Each separate 
 association is a mobile, integrate part of the whole, losing 
 itself in vague outlines in the whole, and it must ever be 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION 
 
 155 
 
 the better class of members who feel this truth. Whence 
 then, if not from pure misunderstanding, is the wild mania 
 for converting to single definite forms of religion that you 
 denounce, and the awful watchword, “ No salvation save with 
 us ”? 7 
 
 The society of the pious, as I have exhibited it and as 
 from its nature it must be, is occupied purely with mutual 
 communication, and subsists only among persons already 
 having religion of some kind. How can it be their business 
 to change the minds of those who already profess to have a 
 definite religion, or to introduce and initiate persons who 
 have none at all ? The religion of this society as such is 
 simply the collective religion of all the pious. As each one 
 sees it in others it is infinite, and no single person can fully 
 grasp it, for it is in no one instance a unity, not even when 
 highest and most cultivated. If a man, therefore, has any 
 share in religion, it matters not what, would it not be a 
 mad proceeding for the society to rend from him that 
 which suits his nature, for this element also it should 
 embrace and therefore someone must possess it? And 
 how would they cultivate persons to whom religion 
 generally is still strange ? Their heritage, the infinite 
 Whole they cannot communicate to them, and any parti¬ 
 cular communication must proceed from an individual and 
 not the society. Is there something general, indefinite, 
 something common to all the members that a non-religious 
 person might receive ? But you know that nothing in a 
 general and indefinite form can actually be communicated. 
 It must be individual and thoroughly definite, or it is 
 nothing. This undertaking would have no measure and no 
 rule. Besideö, how would the society ever think of going 
 beyond itself, seeing the need which gave it birth, the 
 principle of religious association, has no such bearing ? 
 Individuals join and become a whole ; the whole being satis¬ 
 fied with itself, abides in itself, and has no further endeavour. 
 
 Religious effort of this kind, therefore, is never more 
 
156 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH . 
 
 than a private business of individuals, and is, if I might so 
 say, rather in so far as a man is outside the church than 
 as he is within. When, impelled by sacred feelings, he 
 must withdraw from the circle of religious association where 
 the common existence and life in God affords the noblest 
 enjoyment, into the lower regions of life, he can still bring 
 all that there occupies him into relation with what to his 
 spirit must ever remain the highest . 7 On descending among 
 persons limited to one earthly aim and effort, he is apt to 
 believe—and let it be forgiven him—that, from intercourse 
 with gods and muses, he has been transported among a 
 race of rude barbarians. He feels himself a steward of 
 religion among unbelievers, a missionary among savages. 
 As an Orpheus or Amphion he hopes to win many by 
 heavenly melody. He presents himself among them as a 
 priestly figure, expressing clearly and vividly his higher 
 sense in all his doings and in his whole nature. And if there 
 be any response, how willingly he nurses those first pre¬ 
 sentiments of religion in a new soul, believing it to be a 
 beautiful pledge of its growth, even under an alien and 
 inclement sky, and how triumphantly he conducts the 
 novice to the exalted assembly ! This activity for the 
 extension of religion is only the pious longiug of the 
 stranger for his home, the endeavour to carry his Father- 
 land with him, and find again everywhere its laws and 
 customs which are his higher, more beauteous life. The 
 Fatherland itself, blessed and complete in itself, knows 
 no such endeavour. 
 
 After all this, you will possibly say that I seem to be 
 quite at one with you. I have shown what the church 
 ought to be. Now, by not ascribing to the ideal church 
 any of the qualities which distinguish the real, I have, almost 
 as strongly as you, condemned its present form. I assure 
 you, however, I have not spoken of what should be, but of 
 what is , 7 unless, indeed, you deny the existence of what is 
 only hindered by the limits of space from appearing to the 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION . 
 
 157 
 
 coarser vision. The true church has, in fact, always been 
 thus, and still is, and if you cannot see it, the blame is your 
 own, and lies in a tolerably palpable misunderstanding. 
 Remember only—to use an old but weighty expression— 
 that I have not spoken of the church militant, but of the 
 church triumphant, not of the church that fights against 
 what the age and the state of man place in its way, 
 but of the church that has vanquished all opposition, whose 
 training is complete. I have exhibited a society of men 
 who have reached consciousness with their piety, and in 
 whom the religious view of life is dominant. As I trust I 
 have convinced you that they must be men of some culture 
 and much power, and that there can never be but very few 
 of them, you need not seek their union where many hun¬ 
 dreds, whose song strikes the ear from afar, are assembled 
 in great temples. So close together, you well know, men 
 of this kind do not stand. Possibly anything of the sort 
 collected in one place is only to be found in single, 
 separate communities, excluded from the great church. This 
 at least is certain, that all truly religious men, as many as 
 there have ever been, have not only had a belief, or rather 
 a living feeling of such a union, but have actually lived in 
 it, and, at the same time, they have all known how to 
 estimate the church, commonly so-called, at about its true 
 value, which is to say, not particularly high. 
 
 The great association to which your strictures properly 
 apply, is very far from being a society of religious men. 
 It is only an association of persons who are but seeking 
 religion, and it seems to me natural that, in almost every 
 respect, it should be the counterpart of the true church . 8 
 To make this as clear to you as it is to myself, I must, 
 alas! condescend upon a mass of earthly and worldly 
 things, and wind my way through a labyrinth of marvellous 
 confusions. It is not done without repugnance, but it is 
 necessary, if you are to agree with me. Perhaps if I draw 
 your attention to the different forms of religious association 
 
158 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 in the visible and in the true church, you will be convinced 
 of my opinion in essentials. After what has been said, you 
 will, I hope, agree that in the true religious society all 
 communication is mutual. The principle that urges us to 
 give utterance to our own experience, is closely connected 
 with what draws us to that which is strange, and thus 
 action and reaction are indivisibly united. Here, on the 
 contrary, it is quite different. All wish to receive, and 
 there is only one who ought to give. In entire passivity, 
 they simply suffer the impressions on their organs. So 
 far as they have power over themselves, they may aid in 
 receiving, but of reaction on others they do not so much as 
 tbink . 9 Does that »not show clearly enough the difference 
 in the principles of association ? They cannot be spoken 
 of as wishing to complete their religion through others, for 
 if they had any religion of their own, it would, from the 
 necessity of its nature, show itself in some way operative 
 on others. They exercise no reaction because they are 
 capable of none; and they can only be incapable because 
 they have no religion. Were I to use a figure from science 
 —from which, in matters of religion, I most willingly 
 borrow expressions—I would say that they are negatively 
 religious, and press in great crowds to the few points 
 where they suspect the positive principle of religion. 
 Having been charged, however, the}' again fail in capacity 
 to retain. The emotion which could but play around the 
 surface very soon disappears. Then they go about in a 
 certain feeling of emptiness, till longing awakes once more, 
 and they gradually become again negatively electrified. 
 
 In few words, this is the history of their religious life 
 and the character of the social inclination that runs 
 through it. Not religion, but a little sense for it, and a 
 painful, lamentably fruitless endeavour to reach it, are all 
 that can be ascribed even to the best of them, even to those 
 who show both spirit and zeal. In the course of their 
 domestic and civil life, and on the larger scene of which 
 
ASSOCIA TION IN RELIGION. 
 
 159 
 
 they are spectators, there is much to stir persons with even a 
 small share of religions sense. But those emotions remain 
 only a dim presentiment, a weak impression on a soft mass, 
 the outlines of which at once become vague. Soon every¬ 
 thing is swept away by the waves of the active life, and is 
 left stranded in the most unfrequented region of the memory, 
 where it will soon be entirely overlaid by worldly things. 
 
 From frequent repetition, however, of this little shock, 
 a necessity at length arises. The dim something in the 
 mind, always recurring, must finally be made clear. The 
 best means, one would think, would be to take time to 
 observe leisurely and attentively the cause. But it is not a 
 single thing which they might abstract from all else, that 
 works on them. It is all human things, and among them 
 the different relations of their life in other departments. 
 Then, from old habit, their sense will spontaneously turn 
 to those relations and once more the sublime and infinite 
 will, in their eyes, be broken up into single, miserable 
 details. Feeling this, they do not trust themselves, but 
 seek outside help. They would behold in the mirror of 
 another person’s representation that which in direct per¬ 
 ception would soon dissolve. 
 
 In this way they seek to reach some higher, more defined 
 consciousness, yet at the end they misunderstand this whole 
 endeavour. If the utterances of a truly religious man awake 
 all those memories, if they have received the combined 
 impression of them, and go away deeply moved, they 
 believe that their need is stilled, that the leading of 
 their nature has been satisfied, and that they have in them 
 the power and essence of all those feelings. Yet they have 
 now as formerly, though it may be in a higher degree, but 
 a fleeting, extraneous manifestation. Being without know¬ 
 ledge or guess of true religion, they remain subject to this 
 delusion, and in the vain hope of at length attaining, they 
 repeat a thousand times the same endeavour, and yet remain 
 where and what they were . 10 
 
i6o 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 If they advanced, and a spontaneous and living religion 
 were implanted in them, they would soon not wish any 
 more to be among those whose one-sidedness and passivity 
 would no longer accord with their own state. They would 
 at least seek beside them another sphere, where piety could 
 show itself to others both living and life-giving, and soon 
 they would wish to live altogether in it and devote to it 
 their exclusive love. Thus in point of fact the church, as 
 it exists among us, becomes of less consequence to men 
 the more they increase in religion, and the most pious sever 
 themselves coldly and proudly. Hardly anything could be 
 clearer than that man is in this association merely because 
 he is but seeking to be religious, and continues in it only 
 so long as he has not yet attained . 11 
 
 But this proceeds from the way in which the members of 
 the church deal with religion, for suppose it were possible 
 to think of a one-sided communication and a state of willing 
 passivity and abnegation in truly religious men, there could 
 not possibly be in their combined action the utter perversity 
 and ignorance you find in the visible church. If the members 
 of the church had any understanding of religion, the chief 
 matter for them would be that the person whom they have 
 made the organ of religion communicate his clearest, most 
 characteristic views and feelings. But that is what they 
 would not have, and they rather set limits on all sides to 
 the utterances of individuality. They desire that he 
 expound to them chiefly ideas, opinions, dogmas, in short, 
 not the characteristic elements of religion, but the current 
 reflections about them. Had they any understanding of 
 religion, they would know from their own feeling that 
 those matters of creeds, though, as I said, essential to true 
 religious union, can by their nature be nothing but signs 
 that the previously attained results agree, signs of the 
 return from the most personal impressiveness to the com¬ 
 mon centre, the full-voiced refrain after everything has 
 been uttered with purely individual skill. But of this they 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION . 
 
 161 
 
 know nothing. Those matters for them exist for them¬ 
 selves and dominate special times . 12 
 
 The conclusion is, that their united action has nothing of 
 the character of the higher and freer inspiration that is 
 proper to religion, but has a school-mastering, mechanical 
 nature, which indicates that they merely seek to import 
 religion from without. This they attempt by every means. 
 To that end they are so attached to dead notions, to the 
 results of reflection about religion, and drink them in 
 greedily, that the process that gave them birth may be re¬ 
 versed, and that the ideas may change again to the living 
 emotions and feelings from which they were originally 
 deduced. Thus they employ creeds which are naturally 
 last in religious communication, to stimulate what should 
 properly precede them. 
 
 In comparison with the more glorious association which, 
 in my view, is the only true church, I have spoken of this 
 larger and widely extended association very disparagingly, 
 as of something common and mean. This follows from the 
 nature of the case, and I could not conceal my mind on the 
 subject. I guard myself, however, most solemnly against 
 any assumption you may cherish, that I agree with the 
 growing wish that this institution should be utterly de¬ 
 stroyed. Though the true church is always to stand open 
 only to those who already have ripened to a piety of their 
 own, there must be some bond of union with those who 
 are still seeking. As that is what this institution should 
 be, it ought, from the nature of the case, to take its leaders 
 and priests always from the true church . 13 Or is religion 
 to be the single human concern in which there are to be no 
 institutions for scholars and beginners ? 
 
 But indeed the whole pattern of this institution must be 
 different, and its relation to the true church must take an 
 entirely different aspect. On this matter I may not be 
 silent. Those wishes and views of mine are too closely 
 connected with the nature of religious association, and the 
 
 M 
 
162 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 better state of things that I imagine, conduces too much 
 to its glorification for me to reserve my notions. By the 
 clear-cut distinction we have established, this at least has 
 been gained, that we can reflect very calmly on all the 
 abuses that prevail in the ecclesiastical society. You must 
 admit that religion, not having produced such a church and 
 not exhibiting itself in such a church, must be acquitted of 
 every ill it may have wrought and of all participation in 
 its evil state. So entirely should it be acquitted that the 
 reproach that it might degenerate into it, should not once 
 be made, seeing it cannot possibly degenerate where it has 
 never been. 
 
 I grant that in this society a disastrous sectarian spirit 
 exists and must exist. Where religious opinions are used 
 as methods for attaining religion, they must, seeing a 
 method requires to be thoroughly definite and finished, be 
 formed into a definite whole . 14 And where they are some¬ 
 thing that can only be given from without, being accepted 
 on the authority of the giver, everyone whose religious 
 speech is of a different cast, must be regarded as a dis¬ 
 turber of quiet and sure progress, for by his very existence 
 and the claims involved, he weakens this authority. Nay, 
 I even grant that in the old Polytheism, where naturally 
 religion could not be summed up as one, but willingly sub¬ 
 mitted to all division and severance, this sectarian spirit 
 was much milder and more peaceable, and that in the other¬ 
 wise better times of systematic religion it first organized 
 itself and displayed its full power. Where all believe they 
 have a complete system with a centre, the value of details 
 must be vastly greater. 
 
 I grant both; but you will admit that there is no reproach 
 to religion in general, and there is no proof that the view 
 of the Universe as system is not the highest stage of 
 religion. I grant that in this society there is more regard 
 to understanding and believing, to acting and to perfect¬ 
 ing customs than is favourable to a free development of 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION . 
 
 163 
 
 religious perceptions and feelings, and that in consequence, 
 however enlightened its teaching he, it borders on some 
 superstition and depends on some mythology ; but you 
 will admit, that, in that degree, its whole nature is distant 
 from true religion. I grant that this association can hardly 
 exist without a standing distinction between priests and 
 laity as two different religious orders. Whosoever has 
 cultivated in himself his feeling to dexterity in some kind 
 of presentation, characteristically and completely, cannot 
 possibly continue a layman, or conduct himself as if all 
 this were wanting. He would be free, nay, bound, either 
 to forsake this society and seek the true church, or to allow 
 himself to be sent back by the true church to lead as 
 a priest. This, however, remains certain, that this spirit 
 of division with all that is unworthy in it and all its evil 
 consequences, is not brought about by religion but by the 
 want of religiousness in the multitude. 
 
 But here you raise a new objection, which seems once 
 more to roll back those reproaches upon religion. You 
 would remind me that I myself have said that the great 
 ecclesiastical society, I mean this institution for pupils in 
 religion, must take its priests only from the members of 
 the true church, because in itself the true principle of 
 religiousness is wanting. How then can those who are 
 perfect in religion, endure so much that is utterly contrary 
 to the spirit of religion where they have to rule, where all 
 things obey their voice, and they obey only the voice of 
 religion ! Nay, how do they produce so much that is evil, 
 for to whom does the church owe its regulations, if not to 
 the priests ? Or if things are not as they should be, and the 
 government of the dependent society has been rent from 
 the members of the true church, where then is the high 
 spirit that is justly to be expected in them ? Why have 
 they administered so badly their most important province ? 
 Why have they allowed base passions to make that a 
 
 scourge of humanity, which in the hands of religion would 
 
 m 2 
 
164 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 have remained a blessing ? And yet they are the persons 
 whose most joyful and sacred duty, as you. confess, is to guide 
 those who need their help ! 
 
 Truly, alas ! things are not as I maintained they should 
 be. Who would venture to say that all, that even the 
 majority, that even the foremost and notablest of those 
 who for many a day have ruled the great ecclesiastical 
 assembly, have been accomplished in religion or even 
 members of the true church ? 
 
 Yet do not take what I say in excuse as mere subterfuge. 
 When you attack religion, it is usually in the name of 
 philosophy, and when you upbraid the church, it is usually 
 in the name of the state. You would defend the politicians 
 of every age on the ground that the interference of the 
 church has made so much of their handiwork imperfect and 
 ill-advised. If now, speaking in the name of the religious, 
 I attribute their failure to conduct their business with 
 better success, to the state and to statesmen, will you 
 suspect me of artifice ? Yet if you will but hear what I 
 have to say of the true source of this evil, you will not, I 
 hope, be able to den)^ that I am right. 
 
 Every fresh doctrine and revelation, every fresh view of 
 the Universe that awakes the sense for it on some new side, 
 may win some minds for religion who by no other way 
 could be introduced into a higher world. To most of them 
 naturally this particular aspect then remains for them the 
 centre of religion. They form around their master a school 
 of their own, a self-existent, distinct part of the true and 
 universal church which yet only ripens slowly and quietly 
 towards union in spirit with the great whole. But before 
 this is accomplished, as soon as the new feelings have per¬ 
 meated and satisfied all their soul, they are usually violently 
 urged by the need to utter what is in them that they be 
 not consumed of the fire within. Thus everyone proclaims 
 the new salvation that has arisen for him. Every object 
 suggests the newly discovered Infinite; every speech turns 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 165 
 
 into a sketch of their peculiar religious views; every counsel, 
 every wish, every friendly word is an inspired commenda¬ 
 tion of the sole way they know to salvation. Whosoever 
 knows how religion operates, finds it natural that they all 
 speak, for otherwise they would fear that the stones should 
 surpass them. And whosoever knows how a new enthusiasm 
 works, finds it natural that this living fire should kindle 
 violently around, consume some and warm many, and give to 
 thousands the surface imitation merely of a heart-felt glow. 
 
 And it is those thousands that work the mischief. The 
 youthful zeal of the new saints accepts them as true brethren. 
 What hinders, they say all too rashly, that these also should 
 receive the Holy Ghost ? Nay, they themselves believe 
 that they have received, and, in joyous triumph, allow 
 themselves to be conducted into the bosom of the pious 
 society. But the intoxication of the first enthusiasm past, 
 the glowing surface burnt out, they show themselves in¬ 
 capable of enduring and sharing the state allotted to the 
 true believers. Compassionately the saints condescend to 
 them, and, to go to their help, relinquish their own higher 
 and deeper enjoyment. Thus everything takes that im¬ 
 perfect form. This comes to pass without outward causes 
 through the corruption common to all human things. In 
 accordance with that eternal order, the corruption most 
 quickly seizes upon the most fiery and active life, that any 
 section of the true church which might arise iu isolation 
 anywhere in the world, might not remain apart from all cor¬ 
 ruption, but be compelled to participate in it and form a false 
 and degenerate church. In all times, among all peoples, in 
 every religion this has happened. 
 
 Yet if things were only left quietly to themselves, this 
 state could not anywhere long endure. Pour liquids of 
 various gravities and densities, having small power of 
 mutual attraction, into a vessel; shake them violently 
 together till they seem to form one liquid, and you will see, 
 if only you leave it quietly standing, how they will divide 
 
j66 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 and only like associate itself to like. So would it have 
 happened here, for it is the natural course of things. The 
 true church would quietly have separated itself again to 
 enjoy the higher, more intimate fellowship of which the 
 rest are not capable. The bond among those that remained 
 would then have been as good as loosed, and their natural 
 dulness would then have had to look for something from 
 without to determine what should become of them. And 
 they would not have been forsaken by the members of the 
 true church. Besides them, who would have had the 
 smallest call to care for their state ? What attraction 
 would be offered to the regard of other men ? What were 
 to be won or what fame to be obtained from them ? 
 
 The members of the true church could, therefore, have 
 remained in undisturbed possession and might have 
 entered upon their priestly office among them in a new and 
 better appointed form. Every man would then have 
 gathered around him those who best understood him, who 
 by his method could be most strongly stirred. Instead of the 
 vast association, the existence of which you now bewail, a 
 great crowd of smaller, less definite societies would have 
 arisen. In them men would in all kinds of ways, now here, 
 now there, have tested religion. They would have been only 
 states to be passed, preparatory for the time when the sense 
 for religion should awake, and decisive for those who should 
 be found incapable of being taken hold of in any way . 15 
 
 Hail to those who shall first be called when, the simple 
 way of nature havmg failed, the revolutions of human 
 affairs shall, by a longer, more artificial way, lead in the 
 golden age of religion ! May the gods be propitious to them, 
 and may a rich blessing follow their labours in their mission 
 to help beginners, and to smooth the way for the babes to 
 the temple of the Eternal—labours that in our present un¬ 
 favourable circumstances yield us such scanty fruit . 16 
 
 Listen to what may possibly seem an unholy wish that I 
 can hardly suppress. Would that the most distant pre- 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 167 
 
 sentiment of religion had forever remained unknown to 
 all heads of states, to all successful and skilful politicians ! 
 Would that not one of them had ever been seized by the 
 power of that infectious enthusiasm! The source of all 
 corruption has been, that they did not know how to separate 
 their deepest, most personal life from their office and 
 public character. Why must they bring their petty vanity 
 and marvellous presumption into the assembly of the saints, 
 as if the advantages they have to give were valid every¬ 
 where without exception ? Why must they take back 
 with them into their palaces and judg’ment-halls the 
 reverence due to the servants of the sanctuary ? Probably 
 you are right in wishing that the hem of a priestly garment 
 had never touched the floor of a royal chamber : but let us 
 wish that the purple had never kissed the dust on the altar, 
 for had this not happened the other would not have 
 followed. Had but no prince ever been allowed to enter 
 the temple, till he had put off at the gate the most beautiful 
 of his royal ornaments, the rich cornucopia of all his 
 favours and tokens of honour ! But they have employed it 
 here as elsewhere. They have presumed to decorate the 
 simple grandeur of the heavenly structure with rags from 
 their earthly splendour, and instead of fulfilling holy vows, 
 they have left worldly gifts as offerings to the Highest. 
 
 As soon as a prince declared a church to be a community 
 with special privileges, a distinguished member of the civil 
 world, the corruption of that church was begun and almost 
 irrevocably decided. And if the society of believing 
 persons, and of persons desiring belief, had not been mixed 
 after a wrong manner, that is always to the detriment of 
 the former, this could not have happened, for otherwise no 
 religious society could ever be large enough to draw the 
 attention of the governor. 
 
 Such a constitutional act of political preponderance 
 works on the religious society like the terrible head of 
 Medusa. As soon as it appears everything turns to stone* 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 168 
 
 Though without connection, everything that is for a 
 moment combined, is now inseparably welded together; 
 accidental elements that might easily have been ejected 
 are now established for ever; drapery and body are made 
 from one block and every unseemly fold is eternal. The 
 greater and spurious society can no more be separated from 
 the higher and smaller. It can neither be divided nor dis¬ 
 solved. It can neither alter its form nor its articles of faith. 
 Its views and usages are all condemned to abide in their 
 existiug state. 
 
 But that is not all. The members of the true church 
 the visible church may contain, are forcibly excluded from 
 all share in its government, and are not in a position to do 
 for it even the little that might still be done. There is 
 more to govern than they either could or would do. There 
 are worldly things now to order and manage, and privileges 
 to maintain and make good. And even though in their 
 domestic and civil affairs, they did know how to deal with 
 such things, yet cannot they treat matters of this sort as 
 a concern of their priestly office. That is an incongruity 
 that their sense will not see into and to which they cannot 
 reconcile themselves. It does not accord with their high 
 and pure idea of religion and religious fellowship. They 
 cannot understand what they are to make out of houses and 
 lands and riches, either for tbe true church to which they 
 belong, or for the larger s'ociety which they should conduct . 17 
 By this unnatural state of affairs the members of the true 
 church are distracted and perplexed. 
 
 But besides all this, persons are attracted who otherwise 
 would for ever have remained without. If it is the interest 
 of the proud, the ambitious, the covetous, the intriguing to 
 press into the church, where otherwise they would have felt 
 only the bitterest ennui, and if they begin to pretend 
 interest and intelligence in holy things to gain the earthly 
 reward, how can the truly religious escape subjection ? 
 And who bears the blame if unworthy men replace ripe 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 169 
 
 saints, and if, under their supervision, everything creeps 
 in and establishes itself that is most contrary to the spirit 
 of religion? Who but the state with its ill-considered 
 magnanimity ? 
 
 But in a still more direct way, the state is the cause 
 why the bond between the true church and the visible 
 religious society has been loosened. After showing to the 
 church this fatal kindness, it believed it had a right to its 
 active gratitude, and transferred to it three of its weightiest 
 commissions . 18 More or less it has committed to the church 
 the care and oversight of education. Under the auspices 
 of religion and in the form of a congregation, it demands 
 that the people be instructed in those duties that cannot 
 be set forth in the form of law, that they be stirred up to 
 a truly citizenlike way of thinking, and that, by the power 
 of religion, they be made truthful in their utterances. As 
 a recompense for those services, it robs it of its freedom, as 
 is now to be seen in all parts of the civilized world where 
 there is a state and a church. It treats the church as an 
 institution of its own appointment and invention—and 
 indeed its faults and abuses are almost all its own invent¬ 
 ing; and it alone presumes to decide who is fit to come 
 forward in this society as exemplar and as priest. And do 
 you still charge it to religion that the visible church does 
 not consist entirely of pious souls ? 
 
 But I am not yet done with my indictment. The state 
 pollutes religious fellowship by introducing into its deepest 
 mysteries its own interests. When the church, in pro¬ 
 phetic devoutness, consecrates the new-born babe to the 
 Deity and to the struggle for the highest, the state will 
 take the occasion to receive it from the hands of the church 
 into the list of its proteges. When it gives the stripling 
 its first kiss of brotherhood, as one who has taken his first 
 glance into the sacred things of religion, this must also be 
 for the state the evidence of the first stage of civil indepen¬ 
 dence ; 19 if with pious wishes, it consecrates the union of 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 T 70 
 
 two persons who, as emblems and instruments of creative 
 nature, would at the same time consecrate themselves as 
 bearers of the higher life, it must also be the state’s sanc¬ 
 tion for the civil bond. The state will not even believe 
 that a man has vanished from this earthly scene, till the 
 church assures it that it has restored his soul to the Infinite 
 and enclosed his dust in the sacred bosom of the earth. It 
 shows reverence for religion and an endeavour to keep 
 itself perpetually conscious of its own limits, that the state 
 bows before religion and before its worshippers when it 
 receives anything from the hands of the Infinite, or returns 
 it again, but how all this works for the corruption of the 
 religious society is clear enough. In all its regulations 
 there is nothing directed to religion alone, nothing even in 
 which religion is the chief matter. In the sacred speeches 
 and instructions, as well as in the most mysterious and 
 symbolical doings, everything has a legal and civil reference , 20 
 everything is perverted from its original form and nature. 
 Hence there are many among the leaders of the church 
 who understand nothing of religion, but who yet, as servants 
 of the state, are in a position to earn great official merit, and 
 there are many among its members who do not even wish 
 to seek religion, and who yet have interest enough to 
 remain in the church and bear a part in it. 
 
 It is very apparent that a society to which such a thing 
 can happen, which with false humility accepts favours that 
 can profit it nothing and with cringing readiness takes on 
 burdens that send it headlong to destruction; which allows 
 itself to be abused by an alien power, and parts with the 
 liberty and independence which are its birthright, for a 
 delusion; which abandons its own high and noble aim to 
 follow things that lie quite outside of its path, cannot be a 
 society of men who have a definite aim and know exactly 
 what they wish. This glance at the history of the ecclesi¬ 
 astical society is, I think, the best proof that it is not strictly 
 a society of religious men. At most it appears that some 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 171 
 
 particles of such, a society are mixed in it and are overlaid 
 with foreign ingredients. Before the first matter of this 
 boundless corruption could have been admitted, the whole 
 must have been in a state of morbid fermentation in which 
 the few sound portions soon utterly disappeared. 
 
 Full of sacred pride, the true church would have refused 
 gifts it could not use, well knowing that those who have 
 found the Deity and have a common joy in knowing Him, 
 have in the pure fellowship in which alone they would ex¬ 
 hibit and communicate their inmost nature, really nothing 
 in common the possession of which could be protected by 
 worldly power. On earth they require nothing but a 
 speech by which to make themselves understood and a 
 space in which to be together, things requiring no prince's 
 favour. 
 
 But if the true church have nothing to do directly with 
 the profane world, and if there must be a mediating institu¬ 
 tion whereby to come into a certain contact with it, as it 
 were an atmosphere, both as a medium for purification and 
 for attracting new material, what form must this institution 
 take and how is it to be freed from the corruption it has 
 imbibed ? This last question time must answer. Some¬ 
 time it will certainly be done, but it may be done in a 
 thousand different ways, for, of all sicknesses of man there 
 are various ways of cure. Everything in its place will be 
 tried and have its effect. The goal only I can indicate in 
 order to show you more clearly that here also it has not 
 been religion and its endeavour to which you should have 
 manifested your repugnance. 
 
 The fundamental idea of such an auxiliary institution 
 is to exhibit to persons who in any degree have a sense for 
 religion, though because it is not yet apparent and conscious, 
 they are not fit for incorporation into the true church, 
 so much religion as such that their capacity must neces¬ 
 sarily be developed. Let us now see what there is in 
 the present state of things that hinders this from taking 
 
172 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 place. I will not repeat that the state chooses accord¬ 
 ing to its own wishes which are more directed to the 
 extraneous matters in the institution, persons to be leaders 
 and teachers, and that in the view of the state a man 
 can be a highly intelligent educator and a single-minded 
 effective teacher of duties to the people without, in the 
 strict sense of the word, being religiously affected at all, 
 and that therefore persons whom it reckons among its 
 worthiest servants, may easily fail utterly. I will grant 
 that everyone it appoints is truly influenced and inspired 
 by piety, if you will grant that no artist can communicate 
 his art to a school with any success, if there is not among 
 big pupils some equality of preliminary knowledge. This 
 is more necessary in respect of our subject where the master 
 can do nothing but point out and exhibit, than in art where 
 the scholar progresses by exercise and the teacher is chiefly 
 useful by criticisms. All his work will be in vain if the 
 same thing is not only intelligible to all, but suitable and 
 wholesome. The sacred orator must obtain his hearers by 
 a certain similarity of talents and cast of mind, and not 
 by rank and file, not as they are counted out to him by 
 some ancient distribution, not as their houses adjoin, or as 
 they are set down in the police list . 21 
 
 And assuming that only persons equally near religion 
 assemble round one master, they may not all be near m 
 the same way. It is, therefore, most preposterous to wish 
 to limit any pupil to a single master. There is no one so 
 universally cultured in religion, nor anyone who can exer¬ 
 cise all kinds of influence. No man is in a position to 
 draw by his representation and speech from all who come 
 before him the hidden gems of religion to light, for the 
 sphere of religion is far too comprehensive. Remember 
 the different ways by which men pass from consciousness 
 of the individual and particular to the Whole and the 
 Infinite : remember that, by this very mode of transition, 
 a man’s religion assumes its own distinct character. Think 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 173 
 
 of the various influences whereby the Universe affects man, 
 of the thousand single perceptions and of the thousand 
 ways of combiniDg them and showing one in the light of the 
 other. Reflect, that if religion is actually to stir a man’s 
 own feeling, he must meet it in the definite form that suits 
 his capacity and his point of view. It is, therefore, im¬ 
 possible for any master to be all things to all, and to become 
 to every man what he needs. No one can be a mystic and 
 a scientist at the same time. He cannot be a master in 
 every sacred art whereby religion is expressed, initiated 
 at once into prophecies, visions and prayers, into presenta¬ 
 tions from history and from experience and into many 
 other things too numerous to mention, all the glorious 
 branches into which the crown of the heavenly tree of 
 priestly art is divided. Master and disciples, therefore, 
 must, in perfect freedom, be allowed to seek and choose 
 what profits them, and no one must in any way be obliged 
 to give except that which he possesses and understands. 
 
 But it is not possible for a man to limit his teaching to 
 what he understands as soon as, in the very same trans¬ 
 action, he must have something else in view. Without 
 question, a priestly man can present his religion with zeal 
 and skill as is fitting, and at the same time remain faithful 
 to some civil business and accomplish it effectively. Why 
 then, if it suits, should not a person, having a call to the 
 priesthood, be at the same time a moral teacher in the 
 service of the state ? There is nothing against it. He 
 may do both, only not the one in and through the other; 
 he must not wear both natures at the same time, not 
 accomplish the two concerns by the one action. The 
 state may be satisfied, if it so pleases, with a religious 
 morality, but religion rejects consciously and individually 
 every prophet and priest that moralizes from this point of 
 view. Whosoever would proclaim religion must do it 
 unadulterated. 
 
 It is opposed to every sentiment of honour of a master in 
 
174 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 liis business, and more particularly of a master in religious 
 purity, if a true priest has to do with the state on such 
 unworthy and impossible conditions. When the state takes 
 other workmen into its pay, whether for the better cultiva¬ 
 tion of their own talents or to attract pupils, it removes 
 from them all extraneous business, nay, it makes it incum¬ 
 bent upon them to refrain. It recommends them to give 
 themselves chiefly to the special section of their art, in 
 which they believe they can accomplish most, and then it 
 allows their nature full scope. With the artists of religion 
 alone, it does exactly the contrary. They must embrace 
 the whole compass of their subject, and it prescribes to 
 them what school they shall be of and lays upon them un¬ 
 seemly burdens. It will not even, along with attention to 
 its business, grant them leisure for special cultivation of 
 some kind of religious presentation which yet is for them 
 the chief matter, nor free them from burdensome con¬ 
 straints. Even after it has, as in every case it must, set 
 up for itself a school of civil duties , 22 it still will not allow 
 them to follow their own ways. And yet, though it cannot 
 be unconcerned about the priestly works, it employs them 
 neither for use nor for show like other arts and sciences ! 
 Away then with every such union between church and 
 state ! 23 That remains my Cato’s utterance to the end, or 
 till I see the union actually destroyed. 
 
 Away too with all that has even a semblance to rigid 
 union of priest and laity, whether among themselves or 
 with each other ! 24 Learners shall not form bodies, for, 
 even in mechanical trades, it can be seen how little that 
 profits. And the priests, I mean as such, shall form no 
 brotherhood among themselves. They shall neither divide 
 their work nor their knowledge according to corporations, 
 but let each man do his own duty without concerning him¬ 
 self about others, or having in this matter closer connection 
 with one than with another. Between teacher and congre¬ 
 gation also, there shall be no firm outward band. Accord- 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 175 
 
 ing to tlie principles of the true church, the mission of a 
 priest in the world is a private business, and the temple 
 should also be a private chamber where he lifts up his voice 
 to give utterance to religion. Let there be an assembly 
 before him and not a congregation. Let him be a speaker 
 for all who will hear, but not a shepherd for a definite 
 flock. 
 
 Only under such conditions, can truly priestly souls take 
 charge of seekers for religion. Thus only can this pre¬ 
 paratory association actually lead to religion and make 
 itself worthy to be regarded as an adjunct and vestibule of 
 the true church, for thus only it can lose all that in its pre¬ 
 sent state is unholy and irreligious. By universal freedom 
 of choice, recognition and criticism, the hard and pro¬ 
 nounced distinction between priest and laity will be 
 softened, till the best of the laity come to stand where the 
 priests are. All that is now held together by the unholy 
 bond of creeds will be severed . 25 Let there be no point of 
 union of this kind, and let none offer the seekers a system 
 making exclusive claim to truth, but let each man offer his 
 characteristic, individual presentation. This appears the 
 sole means for putting an end to the mischief. It is a 
 poor, if old device, capable only of alleviating the evil for 
 a moment, when ancient formulas were too oppressive or 
 were too varied to consort in the same bonds, to cut up the 
 church by partition of the creed. Like a polypus, each 
 piece grows again into a whole, and if the character is con¬ 
 trary to the spirit of religion, it is no improvement that 
 several societies should bear it. The visible religious 
 society can only be brought nearer the universal freedom 
 and majestic unity of the true church by becoming a mobile 
 mass, having no distinct outlines, but each part being now 
 here, now there, and all peacefully mingling together. The 
 hateful sectarian and proselytizing spirit which leads ever 
 farther astray from the essentials of religion, can only be 
 extinguished when no one, any more, is informed that he 
 
176 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 belongs to a distinct circle, and is for other circles of a 
 different faith. 
 
 In regard to this society, you see, our wishes are iden¬ 
 tical. What is obnoxious to you opposes us also. Permit 
 me, however, always to add that this would not have been 
 as it is, if we had only been left alone to occupy ourselves 
 in our own proper work. Our common interest is to have 
 the evil removed, but there is little we can do except to 
 wish and hope. How such a change will take place among 
 us Germans I do not know. Will it be, as in neighbouring 
 countries, only after a great commotion and then every¬ 
 where at once ? Will the state, by an amicable arrange¬ 
 ment and without the death and resurrection of both 
 church and state, break off its unhappy marriage with the 
 church ? Or will it endure that another, more virginal 
 institution arise alongside of the one that is for ever sold to 
 it ? 26 I do not know. 
 
 But till something of this kind do happen, a heavy fate 
 must lie upon all holy souls, who, glowing with religion, 
 would seek to exhibit their most holy things even in the 
 profane world, that something might thereby be accom¬ 
 plished. I will not delude the members of the state 
 privileged order into making much account of what in 
 these circumstances they can accomplish by speech for the 
 dearest wish of their heart. And if many of them believe 
 themselves bound not to be always speaking ouly of piety, 
 nay, not even frequently to speak chiefly of it and to speak 
 of it alone only on solemn occasions, if they are not to be un¬ 
 true to their political calling, I know little to say against it. 
 
 But this cannot be taken from them, that they can pro¬ 
 claim by a priestlike life the spirit of religion, and this may 
 be their consolation and their best reward. In a holy 
 person everything is significant; in an acknowledged priest 
 of religion everything has a canonical meaning. They 
 may, therefore, in all their movements exhibit the nature 
 of religion. Even in the common relations of life nothing 
 
ASSOCIATION IN RELIGION. 
 
 177 
 
 may be lost of the expression of a pious mind. The holy 
 ardour with which they treat everything shows that even in 
 trifles that a profane spirit skims over thoughtlessly, the 
 music of noble feelings resounds in them. The majestic 
 calm with which they equalize small and great, shows that 
 they refer everything to the Unchangeable and in all 
 things alike perceive the Deity. The bright serenity with 
 which they pass every trace of decay, reveals to all how 
 they live above time and above the world. The utmost 
 ease of self-denial indicates how much of the limits of 
 personality they have already abolished. The constantly 
 open and active sense that neither the rarest nor the 
 commonest escapes, shows how unweariedly they seek the 
 Deity and listen for His voice. If in this way the whole 
 life and every movement of soul and body is a priestlike 
 work of art, the sense for what dwells in them may by this 
 dumb speech be awakened in many. 
 
 And not content to express the nature of religion, they 
 must also in a similar way destroy the false appearance of 
 it. With childlike ingenuousness, and in the high simplicity 
 of utter unconsciousness, seeing no danger, and feeling 
 no need of courage, they disregard what base prejudices 
 and subtle superstition have surrounded with a spurious 
 glory of sanctity. Unconcerned as the infant Hercules, 
 they let themselves be hissed at from all quarters by the 
 snakes of solemn calumny, being able to crush them quietly 
 in a moment. To this holy service they may devote them¬ 
 selves till better times, and I think that you also will have 
 reverence for this unassuming worth, and will augur well 
 for its influence on men. 
 
 But what am Lto say to those to whom you refuse the 
 priestly robe because they have not gone through a definite 
 course of science in a definite way ? Whither shall I direct 
 them with the social bent of their religion not directed 
 alone to the true church, but also outward to the world? 
 Having no greater scene in which, in any striking way, 
 
 N 
 
178 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 they might appear, they may rest satisfied with the priestly 
 service of their household gods . 27 One family can be the 
 most cultured element and the truest picture of the Uni¬ 
 verse. When quietly and securely all things work together, 
 all the powers that animate the Infinite are thus operative; 
 when all advances in quiet joyousness, the high World- 
 Spirit rules in it; when the music of love accompanies all 
 movements, the harmony of the spheres resounds, resounds 
 in the smallest space. They may construct this sanctuary, 
 order it and cherish it. In pious might they may set it up 
 clearly and evidently; with love and spirit they may dis¬ 
 pose it. By this means many will learn to contemplate 
 the Universe in the small, obscure dwelling. It will be a 
 Holy of Holies in which many will receive the consecration 
 of religion. This priesthood was the first in the holy and 
 infant world, and it will be the last when no other is any 
 longer necessary. 
 
 Nay, at the end of our future culture we expect a time 
 when no other society preparatory for religion except the 
 pious family life will be required. At present, millions of 
 men and women of all ranks sigh under a load of mechani¬ 
 cal and unworthy labours. The older generation succumbs 
 discouraged, and, with pardonable inertness, abandons the 
 younger generation to accident in almost everything, except 
 the necessity straightway to imitate and learn the same 
 degradation. That is the cause why the youth of the people 
 do not acquire the free and open glance whereby alone the 
 object of piety is found. There is no greater hindrance to 
 religion than that we must be our own slaves, and everyone 
 is a slave who must execute something it ought to be 
 possible to do by dead force. We hope that by the perfect¬ 
 ing of sciences and arts, those dead forces will be made 
 serviceable to us, and the corporeal world, and everything 
 of the spiritual that can be regulated, be turned into an 
 enchanted castle where the god of the earth only needs to 
 utter a magic word or press a spring, and what he requires 
 
A SSO C/A TI ON IN RELIGION. 
 
 179 
 
 will be done. Then for the first time, every man will be 
 free-born ; then every life will be at once practical and con¬ 
 templative; the lash of the task-master will be lifted over 
 no man; and everyone will have peace and leisure for con¬ 
 templating the world in himself. It is only the unfortunate 
 to whom this is wanting, from whose spiritual organs all 
 nourishing forces are withdrawn, because their whole being 
 must be spent untiringly in mechanical service that need 
 individual, fortunate souls to come forward and assemble 
 them about them, to be their eye for them, and in a few 
 swift minutes communicate to them the highest content of 
 a life. But when the happy time comes and everyone can 
 freely exercise and use his sense, at the very first awaking 
 of the higher powers, in sacred youth, under the care of 
 paternal wisdom, all who are capable will participate in 
 religion. All communication that is not mutual will then 
 cease, and the father, well repaid, will lead the stout son, 
 not only into a more joyful world and a lighter life, but 
 straightway into the sacred assembly also of the wor¬ 
 shippers of the Eternal, now increased in number and 
 
 activitv. 
 
 %> 
 
 In the grateful feeling that, when this better time has 
 come, however far off it may still be, the efforts to which 
 you have devoted your days, shall have contributed some¬ 
 what to its coming, permit me once more to direct your 
 attention to the fair fruit of your labour. Allow yourselves 
 to be led once more to the exalted fellowship of truly 
 religious souls. It is dispersed and almost invisible, but 
 its spirit rules everywhere, even where but few are gathered 
 in the name of the Deity. What is there in it that should 
 not fill you with admiration and esteem, ye friends and 
 admirers of the good and beautiful ? They are among 
 themselves an academy of priests. The exhibition of the 
 holy life, which for them is the highest, is treated by every¬ 
 one as his art and study, and the Deity out of His endless 
 riches apportions to each one his own lot. To a universal 
 
 n 2 
 
i8o 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 sense for everything belonging to the sacred sphere of 
 religion, every man joins as artists should, the endeavour 
 to perfect himself in some one department. A noble 
 rivalry prevails, and a longing to produce something worthy 
 of such an assembly makes everyone with faithfulness and 
 diligence master all that belongs to his special section. In 
 a pure heart it is preserved, with concentrated mind it is 
 arranged, by heavenly art it is moulded and perfected. 
 Thus in every way and from every source, acknowledgment 
 and praise of the Infinite resound, everyone bringing, with 
 joyous heart, the ripest fruit of his thinking and examining, 
 of his comprehending and feeling. They are also among 
 themselves a choir of friends. Everyone knows that he is 
 both a part and a work of the Universe, in him also its 
 divine life and working being revealed. He, therefore, 
 regards himself as an object worthy of the attention of 
 others. With sacred reserve, yet with a ready openness 
 that all may enter and behold, he lays bare everything of 
 the relations of the Universe of which he is conscious and 
 what of the elements of humanity takes individual shape in 
 him. Why should they hide anything from one another ? 
 All that is human is holy, for all is divine. Again, they 
 are among themselves a band of brothers—or have you 
 perhaps an intenser expression for the entire blending of 
 their natures, not in respect of existence and working, but 
 in respect of sense and understanding ? The more every¬ 
 one approaches the Universe and the more they communicate 
 to one another, the more perfectly they all become one. No 
 one has a consciousness for himself, each has also that of his 
 neighbour. They are no longer men, but mankind also. 
 Going out of themselves and triumphing over themselves, 
 they are on the way to true immortality and eternity. 
 
 If in any other department of life, or in any other school 
 of wisdom, you have found anything nobler than this, impart 
 it to me; mine I have given you. 
 
EXPLANATIONS OF THE FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 (1) Page 150.—The assertion that scripture alone is sufficent to 
 awake piety, seems to have experience against it, from the sacred 
 writings of all religions down to our books for edification so widely 
 distributed among a certain class, and the small religious pamphlets 
 which are the means chiefly used at present for reaching the people. 
 First, in respect of the sacred writings, only those of monotheistic 
 religions need detain us. The Koran alone has arisen purely as a 
 writing, and it is indisputably to be looked upon mostly as a manual 
 and repertorium of themes for religious compositions, a fact quite 
 in accordance with the unoriginal character of this religion. And 
 the direct, strictly religious influence of the Koran is not to be 
 esteemed very highly. In the very various Jewish codex, the gnomic 
 books especially have something of this purely literary character. 
 The historical section, strictly speaking, has none. The poetical section 
 again in part, as for example a large number of the Psalms, deals 
 immediately with definite occasions and was not produced simply 
 for indefinite use, and is, therefore, not scripture in the strict sense. 
 And who will deny that they produced the effect in this connection 
 of which their present influence as mere scripture is but a shadow ? 
 The prophetic poetry of the earlier period, was for the most part 
 actually spoken, and a not insignificant part has been handed down 
 imbedded in history. As this living traditional power was lost, and 
 the Scriptures became to the Jewish people a learned study, its direct 
 influence was lost, and it became simply the bearer of the living 
 utterances linked to it. The New Testament Scriptures also are, as 
 little as possible, writing in the strict sense of the word. In the 
 historical books the speeches are the most essential, the history being 
 chiefly to give them the movement of life. Even in the history of 
 the Passion the words of Christ are the most sublime and deeply 
 moving parts, and the narrative of pains and agonies might easily 
 produce only a wrong effect. The Acts of the Apostles alone seam3 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 182 
 
 to be an exception, and to have its place in the canon chiefly because 
 it is the root of all church history. But just because it would quite 
 limit the book to this subordinate use, it is repugnant to our feeling 
 when the speeches are regarded as subsequently concocted, as is the 
 fashion of other historical books. Our didactic books, being letters, 
 are as little as possible mere literature, and no one can deny that the 
 influence on the immediate recipients to whom the whole movement 
 of the time was present, must have been much greater. We can only 
 dimly, and then only by learned help, transport ourselves back to 
 those times. Even then, the most vital influence of those writings 
 for our time is that which was borrowed from the synagogue that 
 all living religious utterance is linked to tbem. 
 
 For that reason only, the reading of the Scriptures by the laity 
 continues ; otherwise, its influence would not entirely vanish, but it 
 would degenerate into utter vagueness. So vast was the original 
 power of these productions that even now, after they have become 
 entirely literature, a fulness of quickening spirit dwells in them, 
 which is the highest testimony to their divine power; yet the objective 
 side of this influence, the clear understanding, would soon be null 
 for the private use of the laity, but for that connection with the 
 learned exposition. It is, therefore, natural that the Catholic Church, 
 setting little store on preaching, should limit the use of Scripture 
 by the laity. On the other hand, we, believing we dare not so limit 
 it, must make the public exposition of Scripture much more prominent 
 in preaching, and it must always be hurtful to the whole religious 
 life when Scripture is generally made use of for preaching simply as 
 a motto. The reality of the endeavour to rescue the contents of the 
 sacred books from the state of being mere literature, appears from 
 the ready adoption by the most pious Christians of a method that 
 would be in the highest degree unnatural in a work made throughout 
 purely as a book. Single detached passages of Scripture, neither 
 chosen by selection nor by memory, but simply by chance, are used 
 on every occasion, when religious enlightenment or stimulus is needed. 
 This cannot be defended, as it too easily degenerates into magical 
 frivolity, yet it is an endeavour to restore to the religious utterances 
 of holy men a living influence which shall be direct and independent 
 of their effects as a book. 
 
 As regards our literature for edification again, which arises for the 
 most part expressly as books, its great influence is not to be denied. 
 The countless editions and the continuance of many of them through 
 a long series of generations speak too clearly. And who does not 
 feel respect for works that, in addition to their vitality, help to guard 
 
EXP LAN A TIONS . 
 
 183 
 
 a great mass of men from the dangerous whirlwind of changing 
 doctrine ? Yet it will not be denied that the living word and the 
 religious emotion in a community, have a far higher power than the 
 written letter. On closer consideration also it will be found that the 
 chief influence of practical writings rests less in their completeness 
 than in the multitude of forceful, noble formulas contained, which may 
 embrace many religious moments, and therefore refresh the memory 
 of many things. They also offer a certain assurance that one’s own 
 religious emotions are not at variance with the common religious life. 
 Hence the individual, clever work of this kind seldom rejoices in much 
 success. This good witness is only given to able and comprehensive 
 practical works. But the present endeavour of so many well-meaning 
 societies to scatter a multitude of small religious leaflets among the 
 people, that have no right objective character, but utter the most 
 subjective inner experiences in the dead letter of a terminology that 
 neither accords with literary nor religious usage, rests on a deep 
 misunderstanding, and can scarcely have any other result than to bring 
 church matters, the evil of which it presupposes, into still deeper 
 degradation. A multitude of men will be reared who will have 
 manifold hypocrisies, without any actual experience, or who will fall 
 into sad perplexity because their own religious experiences do not 
 accord with the pattern set before them. Is the public church life 
 sick or weak, let each man do his utmost to heal it, but let no man 
 believe it is to be replaced by a dead letter. That the religious life 
 should issue from the circulating library seems to me like handing 
 over the great acts of legislation and executive to irresponsible 
 journals, of which the more numbers and improved editions the 
 better. 
 
 (2) Pagel 50.—Many perhaps, who formerly cherished the well-meant 
 wish that the sociality which had become vain and frivolous should 
 have new life put into it by an admixture of the religious element, 
 have already applied the proverb to themselves that with time we 
 may easily have too much of what earlier we zealously desired. 
 Confusion and trouble enough have arisen from treating religious 
 subjects in brilliant circles in the form of conversation, in which 
 the personal element too easily preponderates. I wrote then from 
 my youthful experiences among the Moravians. They had special 
 meetings for the distinct object of religious conversation. An absent 
 person of a different mind could not there readily be discussed, yet I 
 have never heard anything of real life and worth, and I believe I have 
 here quite rightly grasped the general principle. Our wish should» 
 therefore, be not so much that in our free sociality religious subjects 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 184 
 
 should be treated, as that a religious spirit should rule. And this 
 wish will certainly not fail as soon as a considerable part of society 
 consists of religious men. 
 
 (3) Page 151.—Since this was written I have had almost thirty 
 years’ conduct of office, a period within which every man must come 
 as near hi:, ideal as he can. A greater contrast between that 
 description, and what I myself have accomplished in that time in 
 the domain of religious speech would be hard to imagine. Were 
 there really such a difference of theory and practice, my only apology 
 would be that, as it was given to Socrates, other wisdom being denied, 
 to know that he knew nothing, the higher not being granted me, I 
 was content with plain speech rather than strive for false orna¬ 
 mentation. Yet it is not quite so. My practice has been based on 
 the distinction that is drawn later ip. this Speech between the existing 
 church and the true church. In the former all discourse, whatever 
 be its subject-matter, must have a didactic character. The speaker 
 would bring something to consciousness in his hearers, which indeed 
 he assumes to exist in them, but does not suppose would develop 
 of itself in this exact way. Now the more the didactic character 
 appears, the less room there is for ornament, and for this purpose 
 a blessing undoubtedly rests on unadorned speech. In another 
 religious art, the same thing appears. Who would think of taking 
 the pious poetry, in all its power and magnificence, that is suited 
 for glorifying God in a circle of thoroughly cultured religious men, 
 of which we have many splendid examples in our Klopstock and our 
 Hardenberg, and making it the standard in collecting a church 
 hymn-book ? 
 
 (4) Page 151.—It can hardly be necessary for me here to guard 
 myself against being misinterpreted, as wishing to banish all order 
 from the assembly of the truly pious, and make them like many 
 fanatical sects that arrange nothing beforehand for their meetings, 
 but leave everything to the moment. On the contrary, the higher 
 the style of religious utterance, the more it exhibits an artistically 
 organized unity, the more it requires a rigid order. This only is 
 meant that everything belonging to civil order must be left outside, 
 and all things must be fashioned on the foundation of an original, 
 universal equality. I hold this the essential condition of all prosperity 
 in such a fellowship, not less in the actually existing church than 
 in the ideal. Every fellowship is destroyed by disorder, and an order 
 that is made for another society is disorder. If the distinction 
 between priest and laity is not to be sharply drawn, how much less 
 is a difference to apply among the laity themselves that belongs to a 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 185 
 
 quite different sphere. If a member of the congregation, even though 
 outwardly he may stand in some relation of guardian to it, assumes 
 the right, because he is distinguished in the civil society, to interfere 
 and have priestly functions in directing the body and arranging the 
 meetings, any other member, however low his station in the civil 
 society, would have the same right, and true and fitting order would 
 be at an end. 
 
 (5) Page 153.—Every reader familiar witji Scripture, will here think 
 of the Apostle Peter, who exhorts all Christians to train themselves 
 into a holy priesthood, and assures them all that they are a royal 
 priesthood. This is, therefore, a truly Christian expression. The 
 view here set forth of the equality of all true members of the religious 
 community, so that none are to be made merely recipient and the 
 exclusive right of utterance given to one, is also a truly Christian 
 view. Christianity has recognized its true goal in that prophetic 
 saying that all should be taught of God. Suppose this goal attained 
 by the whole community, so that there was no more need to awake 
 religion in others, then, leaving out of sight the education of the 
 young, there could be no distinction among members, save such as 
 the passing occasion required. If then we find in all religious forms, 
 from the earliest antiquity, the distinction between priest and laity 
 in force, we are driven to assume, either that there was an original 
 difference, a religiously developed stock that had joined a rude race 
 and had never succeeded in raising it to its own fulness of religious 
 life, or that the religious life had developed so unequally in a people 
 that it had become necessary, if it were not again to be scattered, 
 to organize the more advanced for more effective operation on the 
 rest. In this latter case the more it succeeds the more superfluous 
 this organization will become. The Christian priesthood is manifestly 
 of this kind. This narrower use of the word I never quite justify 
 to myself, for we in the Protestant community are quite agreed how 
 far the expression generally can have no validity in Christianity. 
 The need for this narrower priesthood only gradually made itself 
 felt. This is the more apparent that, at the beginning, the apjostolic 
 character itself involved no special pre-eminence in the community. 
 But this smaller body, chosen from the community, came to acquire 
 a position apart from the religious enthusiasm of the others, because 
 the history of Christianity and in particular the intimate knowledge 
 of original Christianity necessarily became an object of science. In 
 this scientific information all had to have some share, if their 
 communications were to be in conscious agreement with history. 
 This distinction could never disappear till all Christians were 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 186 
 
 familiar with this science. Even though this is not to be looked for, 
 the validity of this distinction must ever more and more be limited 
 to the sphere in which finally alone it can have a reason. 
 
 (6) Page 153.—This assertion, from which I afterwards draw the 
 conclusion that the external religious society should he as mobile a 
 body as possible, seems to contradict what I have exhaustively 
 developed in the Introduction to the “ Glaubenslehre,” §§ 7-10. 
 Here I say that in religious communication there are no entire 
 separations and definite boundaries except by a mechanical procedure, 
 that is a procedure which is in a certain sense arbitrary and not 
 founded in the nature of the matter. There I say that the different 
 pious communions that appear in history stand to one another, 
 partly, as stages of development, the monotheistic being the highest, 
 and, partly, as different in kind, according as the natural or the 
 ethical in human life predominated. Further, I distinguish the 
 individual type of common piety, partly externally, by its historical 
 origin, and partly internally, as characteristic variation of any faith 
 of one stage and one kind. It will not suffice to say that in the 
 “ Glaubenslehre ” communion is secondary, and that the primary aim 
 was to discover from their contents the characteristic features of the 
 different types of faith, particularly of Christianity, for this involves 
 dealing with the Christian church as a definitely bounded society. 
 The two passages are rather to be harmonized as follows : On the 
 one side, I grant here that certain bodies of communion are formed 
 organically, which agrees with the assertion in the “ Glaubenslehre ” 
 that every distinct communion has a historical point of departure 
 which dominates the organic development. Did this point of 
 departure not also presuppose an inner difference, these bodies 
 would only be distinguished by number or by size, and the superiority 
 given by favouring circumstances, like the fruits of one stem. Were 
 their boundaries to touch they would naturally grow together, and 
 could only be again mechanically divided. On the other side, in the 
 “ Glaubenslehre,” an inner difference in the types of faith, whereby 
 the communions are divided, is maintained. But it is only difference 
 in the subordination and mutual relations of the separate parts, 
 which does not involve any greater degree of communion than is 
 here represented. The whole attempt there made would be in vain, 
 if from one type of faith it were not possible to understand another. 
 But if it is understood in its inner nature, its modes of externalizing 
 itself, its services must be capable not only of being understood by 
 a spectator, but in some degree of being appropriated. Persons to 
 whom this is impossible, can in any communion be only the un- 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 187 
 
 cultured. Now that is simply what is here maintained, that the 
 separating impulse, when it makes a hard and fast cleavage, is a 
 proof of imperfection. Again, as the uncultured do not alone, hut 
 only along with the cultured, form the communion, the assertions 
 there made also agree with this that the religious communion, though 
 divided and organized, would yet in another respect be only one but 
 for mechanical interference either of sword or letter. Does it not 
 appear to us violent and irreligious, when the members of one 
 communion are forbidden to frequent, with a view to edification, 
 the services of another ? Yet only by such an utterly mechanical 
 procedure could the communions be quite separated. 
 
 (7) Pages 155 and 156.—It was doubtless serviceable to establish that 
 the wild mania for proselytizing is nowhere founded in religion itself. 
 But there seems to be too much here, for mild proselytizing also, 
 every endeavour to draw from another form to one’s own, every 
 endeavour to implant religion in souls still without piety, seems to 
 be rejected. Against the witness of all history, against the clear 
 words of the Founder Himself, no less than against my own state¬ 
 ments in the “ Glaubenslehre,” about the relation of Christianity to 
 other forms of religion, it appears to be maintained that the spread 
 of Christianity in the world did not proceed from the pious Christian 
 sense. But this good endeavour is always in someway connected 
 with the notion, here uniformly rejected, that salvation, either 
 altogether or in a much higher degree, is not to be found outside a 
 definite religious communion as it is found inside. True and false do 
 not seem to be here sufficiently distinguished. If the assertion that 
 proselytizing work is entirely inadmissible, is a just consequence of 
 the previously accepted theory of the religious communion, the error 
 must be sought in the theory. On going back upon it we find what 
 solves the difficulties, that the spread of our own form of religion 
 is a natural and permissible private business of the individual. 
 Though there is in the strict sense only one universal religious com¬ 
 munion, in which all the different forms of religion mutually recog¬ 
 nize each other, in which transference of a follower of one form to 
 another seems to be a wish to impair the whole by destroying its 
 manifoldness, it is manifest that here also much is naturally 
 destroyed, which can only happen in an inferior stage of development. 
 Hence it is regarded by the experienced as simply a point of transi¬ 
 tion, and it cannot be wrong to accelerate and guide the progress. 
 Wherefore, the more the adherents of one form of religion are com¬ 
 pelled to regard many other forms simply as such transitions, the more 
 powerfully will the work of proselytizing organize itself among them. 
 
188 
 
 FO UR TH SPEECH. 
 
 This should most apply to the monotheistic religions in general, and 
 in the broadest sense to Christianity. And this holds from the 
 present standpoint, as it is more fully dealt with in the “ Glaubens¬ 
 lehre,” as the issue of a more scientific course of thought. The 
 work of proselytizing presupposes the one graduated communion. 
 As Paul did in Athens, regarding the Hellenic idolatry, to assign it 
 a value and obtain a link of connection for the communication of his 
 own piety, it must always be done. This community of two forms 
 of religion shows itself at all points wheresoever a like effort at 
 assimilation is developed. We can therefore say that this is the 
 true distinction between praiseworthy zeal for conversion that would 
 recognize the faintest traces of religion and purify and build up a piety 
 already begun, and that wild irreligious mania for conversion which 
 easily degenerates into persecution. The former begins with un¬ 
 prejudiced and loving comprehension even of the most imperfect kind 
 of faith, the latter believes it is exalted above any such endeavour. 
 Further, it is not to be understood with too painful accuracy that 
 proselytizing can only be the private business of the individual. 
 The individual stands here opposed to the all-embracing communion. 
 Hence associations of individuals, nay, a whole mode of faith can 
 be regarded as individuals. The maxim “ nulla salus,” again has 
 for the great communion of the pious an absolute verity, for without 
 any piety it can acknowledge no salvation. Only in so far as one 
 religious party utters it against another, does it work destructively, 
 which is to say, in so far as a universal communion is denied. 
 Hence it clearly goes along with the wild mania for conversion. 
 The special truth of this in Christianity is dealt with in the 
 “ Glaubenslehre,” in full agreement with these views. 
 
 (8) Page 157.—The propensity, found in all great forms of religion, 
 at all times, in varying degree and under the most different shapes, 
 to form smaller and warmer societies within the great one, rests 
 undeniably on the presumption that the great society has fallen into 
 deep corruption. This expresses itself in separatism which accepts 
 generally the type of doctrine, but will have nothing to do with the 
 regulations of the religious society. Manifestly therefore, it must 
 maintain that the regulations of the society are independent of its 
 doctrine, and determined by something alien, and that in conse¬ 
 quence the members of the religious society are in a state of sickness. 
 After what is said above about the social nature of piety, no one will 
 believe that I am here speaking of separatist piety. On the contrary, 
 it is rather of the endeavour to found closer associations more 
 accordant with the idea of the true church. But this praise associa- 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 189 
 
 tions only deserve when they unfold a rich productiveness in 
 religious communication, not when they are founded on a narrow and 
 exclusive letter, and reject the idea of one all-embracing com¬ 
 munion. Is this the case and productiveness is weak or quite fails, 
 the state of sickness is not to be denied. Hence among all similar 
 societies the Moravian Brethren, who have at least produced a 
 characteristic type of poetry, are always pre-eminent. Religious 
 speech also among them has more scope and variety, for, besides the 
 general assembly, the community is divided up in various ways. A 
 very beautiful scheme at least is not to be denied, and if the result 
 is less rich, a deficiency in the cultivation of talent may be to blame. 
 In other directions also this society has taken a good and praise¬ 
 worthy course. It has rejected that exclusiveness of the letter which 
 keeps the two chief branches of the Protestant Church apart, and 
 stands in manifold relations to the whole of this church according 
 as occasion offers. In its missionary efforts, moreover, in which it 
 must be acknowledged to excel, it has displayed a pure and right 
 tact and a happy readiness in reaching the most imperfect states of 
 religion and awaking receptiveness for the high spirit of Christianity. 
 Where the sense for such closer union is awakened, the contempt of 
 the recognized church, in its existing state, is natural. But this 
 contempt is here ascribed to all who, in a higher sense, are religious 
 and the next step is, that from this state the endeavour must go 
 forth to improve the great outward society itself aud bring it nearer 
 its natural union with the true church. 
 
 (9) Page 158.—This description may very well be quite .in accord¬ 
 ance with the form which our assemblies for divine service, broadly 
 considered, showed at that time. In any case it was the result of an 
 immediate impression. Yet the consequence that the principle of 
 communion in these assemblies is entirely different from what has 
 actually been developed, is not to be drawn straightway, but only 
 under the following limitations. Further on, page 178, family 
 worship is assigned to members of the true church, who do not have 
 the requisite endowments for coming forward in personal activity 
 and priestly function in the outward religious society, that they may 
 there satisfy their impulse to communicate. How persons who are 
 in this position cannot, despite outward appearance, be merely 
 passive and receptive in the assemblies of the church. They carry 
 the work of the church further, and their activity is actually in 
 the assembly. Thus when public and family worship are 
 regarded as one, the whole of the larger assembly appears as an 
 active organism. This activity would also have its influence in the 
 
FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 190 
 
 assembly if several families were to join for a pious purpose, if tbe 
 leader of the assembly had this inner productiveness of its members 
 before his mind. Wherefore, the consequence would only be rightly 
 drawn where no religious communication had developed itself in 
 domestic life and family intercourse, a thing seldom found at that 
 time in our country. Further, religious communication is also an 
 art, not determined by piety only, but by training also. Hence 
 eutire equality and reciprocity are not possible. Compare great re¬ 
 presentations in any art. In music, for example, the composer is 
 not the only person, but the performers also, from the leading 
 instrument to the most subordinate accompanyist. Then there 
 must be the maker of the musical instruments, and the audience too, 
 if they are connoisseurs, do not merely receive, but each one in his 
 own way also has his work. Similarly we must acknowledge that in 
 the assemblies of the church the greatest number can only contribute 
 to the representation of the whole as accompanying artists. Thus one¬ 
 sidedness only fully appears when such co-operation entirely fails, either 
 the piety doing nothing but absorb, or the speaking and working being 
 offered simply from a profane artistic sense without religious spirit. 
 
 (10) Page 159.—If this were taken quite exactly, the result would 
 certainly be that the visible church would exist only through its own 
 nullity, through its incapacity to bring the religions feeling to any 
 high degree of keenness. But that it is not to be taken exactly is 
 manifest, because otherwise this cold and proud withdrawal from the 
 visible church would be praised, in direct contradiction to the previous 
 contention that this great religious society is by no means to be dis¬ 
 solved. Yet here, as in all similar human things, there are grada¬ 
 tions, founded in the original constitution of the individual. Persons 
 of different grades are directed by nature to one another, but it is 
 only a shallow view that one simply affects the other, as if one could 
 simply by working on another implant religion in him. Religion 
 is original in every man, and stirs in every man. Tn some, however, 
 it keeps pace with the whole individuality of the person, so that, in 
 every manifestation of the pious consciousness, this individuality 
 appears; in others, again, religion only appears under the form of the 
 common feeling. And this may be so even in persons otherwise of 
 marked individuality. The religious emotions are linked to the 
 common states of things, and find in the common presentation their 
 satisfaction. Were persons of more individual emotion now to with¬ 
 draw from those common forms of presentation, both parties would 
 «mffer loss. What would become of the common presentations un¬ 
 fertilized by individual emotions we can see in the ecclesiastical 
 
EXP LAN A TIONS. 
 
 191 
 
 societies in which individuality generally is in the background, and 
 all rests on steadfast formulas. The Armenian and Greek churches, 
 unless, indeed, the latter be now receiving a new impulse, appear to 
 be quite dead, and only to be moved mechanically. The individual 
 again, however strong and characteristic his life may be, who leaves 
 the common ground, gives over the largest range of his conscious¬ 
 ness, and, if the true church nowhere shows itself in actuality, 
 nothing remains for him but an isolated, separatist existence, always 
 decaying from want of a larger circulation. 
 
 (11) Page 160.—Seeing that in this passage the view that dominates 
 this whole Speech is here presented most decisively and compactly, 
 it may be best to say what remains to be said in explanation and 
 justification of it. The whole matter resolves itself into the right 
 representation of the relation between the perfectly mutual com¬ 
 munication, here regarded as the true church, and the actually 
 existing religious communion. The state of this communion is 
 acknowledged to be capable of such an improvement as is described 
 further on p. 166. This being assumed, the question stands thus : 
 Should there be in this educational society, besides the priestly work 
 which only those fully cultured religiously should exercise, a special 
 communion of such persons corresponding to the idea of the church 
 to which the members of the visible religious society might, in the 
 measure of their progress, go over? Now the greatest masters are 
 required for the greatest representations. We have seen every 
 master, who would have his full effect, requires 'subordinate artists 
 and a worthy, an informed, a responsive audience. Further, great 
 masters are too rare, and too much dispersed to fashion alone this 
 twofold sphere. What remains for us then but to say that, in 
 corporeal and visible form, such a society is nowhere to be found on 
 earth. The best of this kind to be actually discovered, is that 
 improved type of the existing church, those societies in which a 
 skilful master gathers around him a number of kindred souls whom 
 he fires and fashions. The more the members of this circle advance 
 and fashion that twofold sphere, the more such a company is a great 
 presentation of religion. For those who are the soul of such a 
 presentation, there is the higher fellowship which consists in mutual 
 intercourse and insight. The other members share in so far as they 
 succeed in raising themselves to the possibility of such enjoyment 
 of forms strange to them. The idea of the true church here given 
 is not realized therefore in one single instance, but, as has been 
 indicated on p. 154, by the peaceful cosmopolitan union of all existing 
 communions, each being as perfect as possible after its own manner. 
 
192 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 This idea, belonging as it does to the completion of human nature, 
 must be developed more fully in the science of ethics. Two objections 
 to it, however, may be easily set aside. First, how does this agree 
 with the call attributed to Christianity in the “ Glaubenslehre” to 
 absorb all other kinds of faith, for were all one, that cosmopolitan 
 union for communicating and for understanding different faiths would 
 not exist. But this has already been answered. All naturally 
 existing different characteristics in Christianity would not disappear, 
 but would always develope itself in a subordinate way, without 
 injury to its higher unity. At present Christianity exhibits no 
 outward unity, and the highest we can wish to see is just such a 
 peaceful union of its various types. We have no reason to believe 
 that it will ever exhibit an outward unity, but, even if it did, it would 
 still be such a cosmopolitan union. But, secondly, can it be said that 
 what is here called the true church has ever actually existed in any 
 one instance ? When the Apostles of Christ scattered to preach the 
 Gospel and break bread in the houses and the schools, they exercised 
 the priestly office among the laity in the visible church, and when 
 they were by themselves in the upper-room to praise God and the 
 Lord, what were they but that true church ? In this Speech also it 
 is pointed out not indistinctly (p. 165), that this kind of existence has 
 been always renewed and has never quite vanished from the true 
 church. And, certainly, if there has ever been any one instance of 
 the true church it was then. But something was wanting, something 
 held in this Speech to be essential to the true church, greatness and 
 majesty of presentation. This consciousness of inadequacy was, 
 humanly speaking, among the motives for the wider expansion of 
 Christianity. Yet this instance, despite its short continuance, 
 showed that the imperfect church only springs from the perfect. 
 But having once disappeared, the enormous expansive power of 
 Christianity made its reappearance impossible, and the true church 
 can never again be found except in that cosmopolitan union. 
 
 The highest spiritual communion of the most perfect saints is 
 thus conditioned by the communion of the more perfect with the 
 less perfect. But if this latter communion is of a better type, and 
 can be the only foundation for the former, does it deserve the re¬ 
 proach that only inquirers enter it, and only those who are not yet 
 pious stay in it P This may still be said, only not as a reproach. 
 All who enter, and not only the more receptive and imperfect, seek 
 some one to inspire and encourage them, but the more advanced 
 also seek helpers for such a presentation as can be recognized as 
 proceeding from the spirit of the true church. Through this common 
 
EXPLANATIONS . 
 
 193 
 
 work they seek advancement in ontward mastery as well as inward 
 power and truth. Hence none of the members of the church have 
 attained, they are only attaining. But if to this combination in its 
 best form, a combination of the perfect be opposed who seek nothing 
 beyond the joy of contemplation, because everyone is already what 
 he can be, this can be nothing but just that cosmopolitan union. 
 In it everyone is valued simply according to his present state and 
 attainments, and cannot expect to be immediately forwarded in his 
 own peculiar sphere by contemplating extraneous things. But if 
 the description of the true church were the immediate association of 
 the more perfect, it would need to be understood literally of the 
 church triumphant, for only in it can an absolutely mutual com¬ 
 munion that is without inequality and without progress, be thought 
 of. There, on the contrary, there is only so much of the true church 
 as there is true life and reproductive development in the existing 
 religious communions. 
 
 (12) Page 160.—Two reproaches are made here against the present 
 regulation of the church. The former evil has doubtless caused far 
 more confusion at various times, but the latter has always given me 
 a painful feeling of the undeveloped state of the society. I mean 
 the regulation, that for our holiest symbol, the Lord’s supper, though 
 it is, in most larger communions at least, in the most natural way, 
 the crown of each service, previous meditation and preparation are 
 required on each occasion from the participants. Clearly no one 
 will deny that it would be the finest effect of the whole service, if 
 very many present were attuned for celebrating this sacred meal. 
 But this fairest blossom of devoutness is lost. How often, on the 
 other hand, with all previous meditation and preparation, inward 
 and outward disturbance may enter, and diminish the full blessing. 
 How just because of the previous preparation it may not be easy to 
 put off the participation. Is not this way of doing a speaking proof 
 of how little influence upon the heart we believe the matter itself 
 to be capable, and how we treat all Christians, without exception, as 
 unreliable novices ? It will be a happy time when we dare to cast 
 aside this caution and welcome to the table of the Lord everyone 
 whom a momentary impulse conducts thither. . . . Still more 
 confusion, however, arises from the other misunderstanding here 
 mentioned, which is that not only do the clergy among themselves 
 estimate themselves by the standard of a creed, but the laity also 
 presume to deliver judgment on the clergy by the same standard. 
 Hay, a right is acknowledged in the congregation to require that 
 their clergy shall teach them according to the letter of the creed. 
 
 O 
 
194 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 In other matters, if anything is prepared for my use I must be 
 allowed, if I will, to determine myself how it shall be prepared, seeing 
 I alone can rightly judge of my necessity. It is, however, quite 
 otherwise with doctrine, for, if I am in a position to judge how a 
 doctrine on any subject is to be set forth if it is to be useful to me, 
 I do not require teaching, but can myself give it, or at most I require 
 to be reminded. This claim, therefore, is the more preposterous the 
 sharper the line is drawn between clergy and laity. Were all on the 
 same level, indeed, it might be easier to suppose an agreement to 
 abide by a common type. It is also the more absurd the more the 
 teaching of the clergy is, as, God be thanked, it still is everywhere 
 in the Evangelical Church a free outpouring of the heart, and the 
 chief worth is not set on the repetition of fixed formularies as 
 in the Romish or Greek Churches. If the laity, whether singly as 
 patrons of a church or congregation, or combined as state officials, 
 or as a congregation, decide what accords with the letter of the creed, 
 and how far its authority is to apply to the teaching, it is peculiarly 
 preposterous. The letter of the creed has had its sole origin with 
 the clergy, who certainly did not wish to be themselves limited by it 
 in their dealings with the laity. The laity are only through the 
 instruction of the clergy even in a position to understand the letter 
 of the creed. This preposterousness appears at its height when the 
 head of a state personally believes he has by his position justification 
 and qualification for deciding on the creed of another communion, 
 when he believes he can judge of the relation of the clergy to it and 
 what religious communications, the religiousness of which is quite 
 strange to him, may tend to forward its interests. The Chinese 
 Emperor, for example, tolerates Christianity, but provides through 
 his mandarins that no party swerve from its own creed. There is, 
 however, one consolation, that on this point there can be nothing but 
 improvement. 
 
 (13) Page 161.—This state of things is, in many respects, most pro¬ 
 minent in the Romish and Greek Churches. Nor is it merely because 
 the distinction between priest and laity is there most pronounced. 
 The clergy are not limited to the duty in the congregations ; only 
 for the secular clergy is this the chief concern. For the others it is 
 only secondary. First of all they are to live in high religious con¬ 
 templation. The clergy thus in their inward association form the true 
 church. The laity are simply those who by them have been formed 
 to piety, and who therefore stand under continual spiritual guidance, 
 while the highest triumph is for some to become capable of reception 
 into that closer sphere of the religious life. That the principle of 
 
EXPLANA PIONS. 
 
 195 
 
 this theory exists in the Catholic Church we should have to acknow¬ 
 ledge, even though, in other respects, the most glaring opposition 
 between the two classes had not again appeared. And I do not rest 
 on the imperfect result, on the bad state of the clergy, on the irreli¬ 
 gious vacuity of the cloister life. In that case we could only say at 
 most that the attempt to present the true church, separate from 
 those who are only being taught in religion, has not succeeded. The 
 chief point is that the failure is based in the principle. In practice 
 the clergy and monastics are often deeply involved in all worldly 
 matters, but, according to the idea, the contemplative life is quite 
 separated from the active, the latter being declared quite incom¬ 
 patible with the higher religious stage. Judging the consequences 
 from all that has hitherto taken place, it is not to be doubted that 
 Protestantism is, in this regard, a return to the right way of pre¬ 
 senting the true church, and that it bears more also of its image. 
 
 (14) Page 161.—A misunderstanding is here easily possible, as if 
 systematic theology had its only source in the corruption of religion. 
 Elsewhere I have plainly enough declared that, so soon as any religion 
 attains any greatness, it must construct for itself a theology, of which 
 system—an exhibition of the closest connection of the religious princi¬ 
 ples and dogmas—has been and must remain a natural and essential 
 part. But here I speak only of the false interest taken often by the 
 whole church in the connection of doctrine. Clearly this is based 
 only on that corruption. The system as a whole and in its sections, 
 which can only be fully understood in connection with the whole, 
 should remain the exclusive possession of those who in this parti¬ 
 cular respect have had a scientific training. It is their concern, 
 because on the one side it enables them to scan the whole circum¬ 
 ference of possible subjects of religious communication and presenta¬ 
 tion, and to assign each its place, and on the other it serves as a 
 critical norm for testing all religious utterances by the precise 
 expression, whereby it is easier to discover whether anything that 
 cannot be reduced to this expression is mere confusion or conceals 
 something contrary to the spirit of the whole. As both interests lie 
 quite outside the horizon of all the other members of the church, they 
 should not be affected by anything exclusively bearing on them. If 
 there is anything in the public or social utterance that immediately 
 injures their pious consciousness, they have no need of further 
 witness from any system. But if they can be injured by what is 
 contained only in scientific terminology, then this is just that cor¬ 
 ruption here shown, whether they have lost themselves in unseemly 
 conceit of wisdom, or are called in blind zeal by theological dispu- 
 
 0 2 
 
196 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 tants to help in crushing some dangerous man. How beautiful 
 would it be if theologians would begin the change and warn the laity 
 of all kinds against all participation in dogmatic strifes, and point 
 them to the good belief that there are pious theologians enough to 
 arrange the matter. 
 
 (15) Page 162.—This is easy to correct from the preceding explana¬ 
 tions. If what is here called the true church has no separate 
 manifestation, neither is there, in a literal sense, a passing sojourn 
 in the actually existing communion. Exclusiveness alone is 
 passing, so that outside of his own communion everyone advanced in 
 piety may be also capable in a certain sense of sharing in the cosmo¬ 
 politan union of all. Similarly the word decisive is not to be taken 
 literally as if the incapable should be quite outside of all religious 
 fellowship, either being put out or keeping out. This the pious 
 neither could nor should do, nor even suffer to be done. Since they 
 seek to give their presentations of religion the widest and deepest 
 influence, they can let no one depart. Still less can they exclude, 
 for an absolute incapacity can never be acknowledged. They must 
 always look for a time when an element common to all men shall be 
 developed, and for some yet untried art that may favour its develop¬ 
 ment. Yet it remains true that the person in whom religiousness, 
 in the form nearest and most congenial to him, is awakened only 
 after such long and painful effort can hardly attain that higher 
 development and free enjoyment. 
 
 (16) Page 166.—A great preference is here exhibited for the smaller 
 communions as against the great ecclesiastical institutions. One side 
 only doubtless is brought into prominence. This is difficult to avoid, 
 at least in an oratorical connection, when attention has to be drawn to 
 an utterly neglected or greatly depreciated subject. The preference, 
 however, rests on the following reasons. First, on the greater 
 variety that can be manifested in the same time and space. In the 
 great bodies either no variety is allowed to grow, or it is hidden, or 
 discoverable only by close observers. In the religious sphere, more¬ 
 over, more than anywhere else, points of union arise which cannot 
 long continue, but which, though fleeting, may produce something 
 strong and characteristic. If now only great church institutions 
 exist, these germs are all lost, or at least reach no clear and com¬ 
 plete organization. The other leading reason is, that the smaller 
 ecclesiastical societies, because they awake less apprehension, are 
 freer, and are less seldom put in wardship by the civil authority. 
 When I first wrote this, America seemed to me a marvellously active 
 theatre, where everything took this shape, and where, in conse- 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 197 
 
 quence, I thought that, more than anywhere else, our own beloved 
 Fatherland not excepted, the freedom of the religious life and of 
 the religious society was assured. Since then the development has 
 confirmed the anticipation. Unions are freely made and dissolved. 
 They divide themselves. Smaller parts separate from a greater 
 whole, and smaller wholes draw together. Thus they seek a 
 centre around which to form a greater unity. The freedom of 
 Christian development is so great that many communions, as the 
 Unitarian, would appear to us, I believe wrongly, outside of 
 Christianity. In such a breaking np of Christianity there might be 
 a fear that it would gradually lose its great historical form, and its 
 scientific stability come to be quite forgotten. But the prospect is 
 better since science has advanced and institutions have been founded 
 for the propagation of Christian learning. Only one thing is to be 
 lamented—at least so it appears to us from the distance—the 
 British spirit has so much taken the upper hand and the German 
 keeps on receding. For those free states, therefore, such a German 
 immigration as would establish an abiding influence, were to be 
 wished. . . . Now, however, that I have been more weaned from the 
 smaller society and have grown more into the larger institution I 
 would not speak so decisively. In England, for example, it is most 
 evident that it would stand ill with Christianity, either if the Epis¬ 
 copal Church were quite dissolved and scattered among the smaller 
 societies, or if it absorbed them all and existed alone. Similarly we 
 must conclude that if the religious life in its whole variety and ful¬ 
 ness would develope in the broad compass of Christianity, both great 
 institutions and small societies must exist together as they have 
 almost always done, so that the institution must be resolved into 
 small societies and from them be again produced. Disorganizing 
 elements it must surrender to them, and from them again it must be 
 enriched and strengthened. After this exposition of the matter, no 
 one will ask how this preference for smaller religious societies is con¬ 
 sistent with a lively participation in the union of the two Protestant 
 ecclesiastical societies, that would not only make one greater out of 
 two smaller, but manifestly cause the smaller at least to disappear. 
 The following alone I would add. The difference of doctrine has 
 always appeared to me insignificant, but there has manifestly been 
 a difference of spirit between the two communions. Without that, 
 such a division could not have arisen from motives otherwise so in¬ 
 significant. This difference has not yet by any means quite disap¬ 
 peared. Now this involves onesidedness on the part of both, and the 
 time now appears to be come for a more vigorous effort to diminish 
 
198 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 these limitations by complete combination of differences and by 
 friendly proximity. This could better be accomplished by union, by 
 a life in freedom more bound and in the bonds more free. Besides, it 
 seemed high time to provide that a recurrence of envy between the 
 two might not render impossible the strong resistance which is 
 becoming necessary against the manifold suspicious endeavours of 
 the Romish Church. 
 
 (17) Page 166.—A person who has spoken as urgently as I have done 
 in the fourth collection of my sermons for once moremakingthe whole 
 care of the poor a business of the ecclesiastical association, appears to 
 know quite well to what all property and money endowments might 
 be devoted. But even the most extensive care of the poor requires 
 only a secure yearly income. Wherefore, if the congregational tie is 
 secure, and the spirit that rules in it embraces an active goodwill for 
 this subject, this business also can be carried on satisfactorily without 
 any such possession. Other things being equal, it will, indeed, be 
 carried on better. On the one side all capital can be better used by 
 private people, and on the other this possession adds a foreign element 
 to the pure character of a congregation and introduces an estimate 
 of its members other than the purely religious. 
 
 (18) Page 169.—By this complaint I in nowise meant that the state 
 should not in many and in most important things rely chiefly on 
 the power of the religious sentiments and on the agreement of its 
 own interests with their natural working. But I meant that in so 
 far as it believes it must so rely, it is to be desired that the state 
 do not interfere in a manner hurtful to the pure effect of these 
 sentiments. Now this happens without fail, when there is any 
 positive intermeddling. The state may on the one side assume the 
 religious sentiment of its members and rejoice confidingly in its 
 working. It then reserves the right to withdraw this assumption in 
 respect of an individual who does not manifest this working, or when 
 this deficiency shows itself in a decisive majority of a religious 
 society, it inquires how far the defect has its root in the principles 
 of the society and modifies its assumption accordingly. But so long 
 as it has no ground for withdrawing its trust, it must know that the 
 organization of the society proceeds from the very sentiment, from 
 which it expects good result, and that in the nature of the case 
 only those in whom this sentiment is strongest will have most 
 influence in forming and guiding the society. It must, therefore, 
 leave the sentiment free to operate, allowing the organization of 
 the society to take its own course without its guidance. This must 
 continue till the result gives ground for lessening the state’s confi- 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 l 99 
 
 dence. If a state has this confidence only in one particular form of 
 religiousness, it follows this course with the society in which it exists, 
 and regulates its conduct towards the ,others by the greatness of its 
 distrust, varying up to complete intolerance. A state relies on one 
 religious society and accords it a high degree of independence; 
 another it watches more closely, and itself decides on its organization. 
 How in reason this can have no other ground than that the state 
 gives the latter society less confidence. A marvellous phenomenon 
 cannot be thought of, as if a state would watch more closely the 
 religious society to which the sovereign himself belonged and limit it 
 in its free activity more than any other. This case of confidence 
 in the religious sentiment is, for our present inquiry, the first 
 point. The second is the opposite case, when the state looks 
 for no good effect in respect of anything falling within its own 
 sphere from the religious sentiment of its members. Even then 
 there seems to be no consistent course, except to allow religion to 
 manifest itself as an amusement to which the state is indifferent, 
 taking care, as with other private associations, that no harm arises 
 to the civil community. Applying this now to education, the matter 
 here in discussion and the matter to which everything comes back, 
 there seem to be the following consequences. The religious edu¬ 
 cation of man will never, as such, be the whole education of man 
 All training in which the religious society does not, as such, interest 
 itself, as for example the academic and higher scientific, lies outside 
 of its domain. Perhaps the church has earlier thought of education 
 than the state. The state will then say, “I see that you have the 
 institutions for educating the youth, but they do not suffice me. I 
 will add what fails but will then take them under my guidance.” If 
 the church dares to speak and understands its own good, it will 
 reply, “ Hot so, but for all deficiency make your own institutions and 
 we, as citizens, will honourably contribute our utmost to their suc¬ 
 cess. Within our special limits, however, leave us our own to care 
 for ourselves, and only omit from yours that for which you think 
 ours will suffice.” Does the state, nevertheless, do by force the 
 contrary, there will be an element in the highest degree undesirable 
 to the church, and it will feel it an injury even when this gives the 
 doubtful privilege of a certain influence on many things whereon, by 
 the natural course of things, it would have none. . . With the teaching 
 of human duties in civil life, which is nothing but a continuous 
 education of grown-up people, it is the same. That this is needed 
 by the state admits of no doubt, all the more if it does not proceed 
 naturally from the public life. The state finds now that there is 
 
200 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 teaching of this kind in the exercises and utterances of the religious 
 society existing in its midst. It willingly resolves to spare an 
 institution of its own for this object. The religious society is 
 pleased to render this service to the common good. But the 
 
 state says, I will make use of your teaching, but to make 
 sure that it completely reaches my purpose, I must prescribe to 
 you what you are not to forget to speak of, and what you shall recall 
 from history at fixed times, and I must make arrangements to know 
 that this is actually done.” The church will then, if it dare, 
 certainly say, “ By no means, for there would then be much teaching 
 not belonging to our department, and in respect of history it is 
 repugnant to us, for example, to recall joyfully certain days when you 
 were victorious over another state, while our society in that state 
 must observe a discreet silence, and should rejoice on other days 
 when you were defeated, and which we again must pass over. Both 
 days are alike to us, and we must, in our own way, make the same 
 use both of what is to your honour and to your shame. With this use 
 you may well be content,, but for that special purpose make another 
 arrangement, for we cannot assist.” And if the state gives no heed 
 to these representations, it injures the personal freedom of its 
 members where it is holiest and most inviolable. . . . The third 
 matter here mentioned, the taking of oaths, properly belongs to the 
 second, but is specially mentioned because of the special manner in 
 which the state brings the church to its aid. An injury has here 
 also been inflicted. The different small societies of non-swearers are 
 allowed a simple affirmation instead of an oath, but the great 
 church, specially favoured by the state, is exhorted to preach on the 
 sacredness of oaths, and its members must take them in the pre¬ 
 scribed manner or lose all the privileges involved. There may, 
 however, be many among them who, fearing the plain prohibition of 
 Christ, are troubled in conscience about swearing, and among the 
 teachers there may also be many who cannot get over the literal inter¬ 
 pretation of those words, and who think it irreligious to come to the 
 help of the state in such a manner. How can it be that such an injury 
 to religious freedom should not be felt very painfully ? These fuller 
 explanations, it is to be hoped, will justify the wish expressed in the 
 text, that the state should employ what is useful to it in the ar¬ 
 rangements of the church only in so far as consists with uninjured 
 freedom. 
 
 (19) Page 269.—Of the three points here lamented, two are only 
 burdensome because they witness to the dependence of the church 
 or the state. The sacred acts of baptism and solemnization 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 201 
 
 of marriage are made to appear as done by the clergy, first of all, as 
 servants of the state, in the name of the state. Without question 
 this is one reason why the way they are carried out betrays so little 
 of a Christian or indeed of a religious character. If inscription in 
 the civil register were a purely civil act, no one could regard 
 baptism as merely a legal formality, accompanied occasionally by a 
 stately speech. And if the marriage contract were first concluded 
 purely civilly, and the blessing of the church were purely an act of 
 the members of a congregation, it would soon appear that marriages 
 are best where a special value is set on this additional outward con¬ 
 secration. But the worst is, the point between. An Evangelical 
 Christian state unites many civil qualifications with admission to 
 the sacrament. In many instances it demands attestations of this 
 act. It acts with the best intention towards the youth, seeking to 
 guard them against the religious negligence of their parents or 
 guardians. But how much are the consciences of pious clergymen 
 burdened; how often must they, quite against their conviction, 
 declare religious instruction and closer supervision at an end. Even 
 were a great number of baptized Christians to remain all their lives 
 without participation in the other sacrament, as is the case in North 
 America, it does not appear that this would be a misfortune. 
 Rather it would have the advantage that the Christian church 
 would not appear responsible for the lives of the grossest men, while 
 the strife about the right of exclusion from the congregation would 
 be spared. In Protestant Europe only the grossest would be outside, 
 for the continued participation in divine service would sooner or 
 later supply what they had lost at that time when confirmation 
 usually takes place. As in the American free states it might 
 furthermore happen with us that the children of Christian parents, 
 who set no great store on the fellowship of the church, would remain 
 unbaptized. They would then have no link with the church. This 
 might well happen, though with us such an anti-Christian zealotism 
 would be very rare. But to hinder the real loss that would hence 
 arise, the state should not be required to impose baptism by force, 
 but it should begin early to protect the freedom of conscience of the 
 children even against the parents. These complaints appear plainly 
 capable of remedy, but only by a great difference of form in all those 
 concerns that relate to the connection of church and state. If the 
 example of the free states in the other hemisphere alone were 
 considered, and everything in the condition of the church charged 
 as consequences of what is here postulated, it would unquestionably 
 be unfair. There are these imperfections inseparable from a young 
 
202 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 and very dissimilar population that have been gathered from all 
 quarters, which will be thrown off without the necessity of essential 
 change in these matters. 
 
 (20) Page 170.—That in all religious doings the predominance of 
 legal or civil relations is a departure from the original nature of the 
 matter, especially if it occasions pecuniary transactions between the 
 clergy and the members of the congregation, requires no further 
 discussion. Yet it appears as if this complaint would never be 
 removed so long as a state, as such, confesses its adherence to any one 
 religious society, or even if it believes it can require all its members 
 to belong to some society. In the former case, if a law declares that 
 only in one church is there the greatest fulness of that sentiment 
 which can maintain this state and be the fullest security against all 
 its possible foes, it would follow that the whole maintenance of the 
 state would be entrusted only to the members of this society. In the 
 present state of social relations this can only continue as a law where 
 the great body of the people belong to that society, the rest being only 
 clients and strangers. But even in Catholic countries such a state 
 of matters no longer exists, and it does not seem as if, in the present 
 position of affairs, a state would easily be able to confess absolute 
 and undivided adherence to one religious society. The south Euro¬ 
 pean states, which have anew proclaimed the Catholic religion to be 
 the religion of the state, will not, even though their position is 
 favourable and Protestants are only found scattered as clients, be 
 able for many generations of tranquillity to adhere without harshness 
 and injustice to this system. It is quite different when, without 
 law and in consequence of the natural effect of public opinion, all 
 that is essential in the government of the state falls to the adherents 
 of one society. Such a transaction is not a state’s confession, and 
 we must wish that it may long continue. But if adherence to one 
 society is now a passing state of things, is it a right maxim for the 
 state, without deciding which, to require that its citizens belong to 
 some one ? Let it be granted that irreligious men are neither 
 profitable for the civil union, nor to be relied upon. But would they 
 be made religious by being compelled to confess adherence to any 
 one religious society ? Manifestly the only way to make irreligious 
 men really religious is to strengthen the influence of religious men 
 upon them as much as possible. For this end the state cannot work 
 more effectively than by allowing all the religious societies within its 
 domain to operate with the fullest freedom. This freedom they will 
 never feel till those intermeddlings cease. 
 
 (21) Page 172.—With this exposition, which rests on a very meagre 
 
EXPLANA T/0 NS. 
 
 203 
 
 experience, I can no longer agree. And first, in respect of capabili¬ 
 ties, it appears as if the people and the cultured would have a very 
 unequal enjoyment of a religious utterance on which, according to 
 the demands made above, all the flowers of speech are to be expended. 
 But all true eloquence must be popular throughout. It is affecta¬ 
 tion that chooses either expressions or combinations of thought 
 unsuited to the majority, and the cultured also must be capable of 
 guidance by a thoroughly popular diction. A division of hearers in 
 respect of capacity is not required by the nature of the subject, but 
 by the consciousness of imperfection in the artists. It is only a 
 different kind of imperfection when one man speaks better for the 
 people and another for the higher ranks. But in the second 
 place, in respect of mental type, it is indeed not to be denied that 
 the differences of the audience must be contained in very narrow 
 limits, if a religious utterance is to have a large and happy result. 
 But it must be a wrong assumption, that in a multitude united in 
 other matters and woven together in a common life, we must have 
 very different religious peculiarities, and indeed so marvellously 
 different that on the one side they are not strong enough to form a 
 religious society of their own, and on the other they are so markedly 
 singular that they cannot appropriate a religious utterance of 
 another type. Only in great cities could elements so different be 
 brought into a small compass, and here every one has an easy choice, 
 selecting the presentations of religion that can strengthen and 
 quicken him. But suppose the people are considered in relation to 
 the different forms of religion afterwards mentioned. It will always 
 be found that in whole districts, through many generations, the 
 religious life has been prevailingly mystic, or more linked to history, 
 or influenced by understanding and reflection. Exceptions are rare, 
 and those who are not religious according to the dominant type are 
 less religious altogether. If, therefore, the easy selection of the gay 
 world in great cities were not troubled by narrow partiality for the 
 ministrants, and on the other hand all religious orators strove only 
 after true popularity, on this point, at least, our present state would 
 be tolerable enough. 
 
 (22) Page 174.—That the state, besides what it confides to the 
 church, must provide an educational institution of its own, be it for 
 the younger generation or for the less educated portion of the people, 
 is here regarded as absolutely necessary. This contention shows the 
 speaker’s decision on the much discussed question of therelationof state 
 and church to what in the widest sense of the word is called school. 
 In part the state may continue to rely on the religious associations. 
 
204 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH . 
 
 Yet it must be content to exercise only a negative supervision over 
 their institutions. For the rest it is the duty of the state to arrange 
 and care. Where there is any kind of religious association, that the 
 awaking of the higher spiritual be not hindered, there is also in the 
 homes a uniform discipline for taming sensuality, which is in every 
 way useful for the civil life. But ft the state requires a special dis¬ 
 cipline to produce certain habits in its citizens suited to the time, it 
 must not come from the church. The proper feeling of its necessity 
 being universally diffused, the state may rely on the work of the 
 families, not as elements of the religious but of the civil society. If 
 this feeling is not sufficiently diffused, the state must make public 
 provision. All that is academic in education is of this kind, for it 
 cannot and, being quite foreign to it, should not even appear to pro¬ 
 ceed from the church. Further, wherever a system of religious 
 communication exists, there must be common instruction of the youth 
 in all that bears upon understanding the religious speech and the 
 creed. This is properly the church parish school. In Christendom 
 it is for transmitting religious ideas, and among Protestants for 
 some small understanding at least of the Scriptures. Has the state 
 confidence that an effective communication of moral ideas and the 
 germs of mental development will be given at the same time, it may 
 rely on the church school for those objects. But everything statis¬ 
 tical, mathematical, technical and such like is foreign to the church 
 school. If the ecclesiastical and the civil community are identical, the 
 ecclesiastical and the civil school may for some good reason be 
 united in one institution. But the state no more acquires the right 
 thereby to conduct the ecclesiastical school, than the church to con¬ 
 duct the civil. Finally, every religious fellowship that has a history 
 requiring, for comprehending its development, attainments that 
 belong to the sphere of science and learning, needs an institution to 
 maintain and encourage such attainments. This is the church 
 academy. All other sciences are foreign to the church. Suppose 
 there exist in the state, either being maintained by the state or 
 being independent bodies, academies for general science, and suppose 
 the church has confidence that their methods are suited to its re¬ 
 quirements, it may find it expedient to unite with them its own 
 special academy. But the expediency must be determined by the 
 church, and neither by the state nor by the scientific bodies. The 
 church may neither found a claim on this union to general super¬ 
 intendence of scientific institutions, nor give up its right to 
 manage its own academy. These are the principles then on which 
 church and state are to act together or act apart. But to acknow- 
 
EX PLANA TIONS. 
 
 205 
 
 ledge these principles towards one church and not towards another 
 is the worst possible inconsistency. It must necessarily pain the 
 slighted chnrch that incurable disagreement should arise between 
 their religious and their political feeling. 
 
 (23) Page 174.—Well said of every such relation ! and in this view I 
 still stand firm. Nay, I stand firmer, the more lamentable complica¬ 
 tions I see arising from this dependence of the church on the state. 
 These complications were less thought of then, for the only thing of 
 the kind so rapidly came to grief on the dominant tendency of the time. 
 Yet it is impossible that the church should be without any union 
 with the state. That appears even where the church is freest. The 
 least is that the state treat the religious societies like any other 
 private society. As a general principle of association it takes know¬ 
 ledge of them and puts itself in a position to interfere in case they 
 should cherish anything prejudicial to the common freedom and 
 safety. With this least, however, it is seldom possible to escape, as 
 appears even in North America where the church is freest. The 
 freer the churches are the easier it happens that some dissolve and 
 some combine. Now even though they may have no possessions except 
 the most absolutely necessary means for meeting together, there.are 
 difficulties of settlement in which the state is the natural arranger 
 and umpire. Had this and no other relation existed between church 
 and state at the time of the Reformation, the present curious position 
 of affairs would not have come to pass, that in lands almost entirely 
 Protestant the Catholic Church is well endowed and secured, while 
 the Evangelical Church is referred to a changeable and often doubt¬ 
 ful good will. Every further union of church and state should be 
 regarded as a private agreement for the time being. The more 
 of these transactions there are the more it will seem that a church- 
 communion in one state becomes the church of the’ land, and 
 becomes more divided from its brethren in the faith in other states. 
 The less there are, the more a communion, though spread over many 
 states, may appear an undivided whole, and the more marked is 
 the independence of the church from the state. Within these 
 limits, all existing relations are permissible, and it belongs to com¬ 
 pleteness that at some time and place they have all had historical 
 existence. On the contrary, what transcends these limits is of evil. 
 
 (24) Page 174.—This rejection of all closer connection among the 
 congregations of the same faith and of all religious associations, rests 
 solely on the presupposition that every existing church is only a 
 visible appendage of the true church. It is, therefore, right, only in 
 so far as the presupposition is right. Since I wrote this I have 
 
206 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH. 
 
 shown myself a zealous defender of synodal government which is 
 manifestly included in this rejection. In part I have abandoned 
 the presupposition. By observation and joyful experience I have 
 reached the conviction that truly believing and pious persons exist 
 in adequate number in our congregations, and that it is good to 
 strengthen as much as possible their influence on the rest. This 
 result naturally flows from well-ordered combinations. In part 
 also, life in our time soon conducts to the view that every improve¬ 
 ment that is to succeed must be ushered in from all sides at once. 
 This involves that men should in many respects be treated as if 
 they already were what they ought to be. Otherwise it would be 
 necessary to wait on and t on and no beginning would be possible. 
 But according to my view the sole warrant for such closer combina¬ 
 tions is that the participators are members of the true church, in 
 which the distinction between priests and laity is only to serve the 
 occasion and cannot be permanent. Wherefore, I could only defend 
 a constitution that rested on this equality and any other in the 
 Evangelical Church there could never be. Where synodal unions 
 consist purely of the clergy, they seem either by the state commis¬ 
 sion and purely consultative, or literary and friendly, rather than 
 ecclesiastical, and constitutional. A constitutional priestly govern¬ 
 ment becomes only the Catholic Church. The foundation stone of 
 that church is the higher personal religious worth of the priests, and 
 its first principle that the laity, only by their mediation, enjoy 
 their share in the blessings of the church. The last assertion 
 ventured in this passage, that there should be no outward bond 
 between teachers and congregation, depends still more on the 
 presupposition that the congregation still require to be led to 
 religion. This could only be done on condition of the most complete 
 spontaneousness. Who is then to impose this outward bond V 
 Neither the state nor a corporation of the clergy, if this spontaneous¬ 
 ness is to exist. The congregations cannot, for they cannot judge of 
 those who must first communicate to them the ability to judge the 
 worth in question. Hence this bond can only be entered on and 
 upheld where the spirit of piety in the congregations can be assumed, 
 and where those who can guide and limit this judgment are re- 
 * garded as having come forth from the congregation. Herein are 
 contained the principles for determining in different circumstances 
 the firmness or the freedom of the bond.’ 
 
 (25) Page 175.—On the limits of the binding power 'exercised by 
 creeds, I have lately declared myself more fully, though with special 
 reference to the Evangelical Church. I here call this bond unholy 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 20 7 
 
 when it is regarded in the ordinary way, and I am still of this 
 opinion. Than unbelief nothing is more unholy to the pious. Of 
 unbelief an abundance underlies the maxim that teachers of 
 religion, and even teachers of theology, should be bound by the letter 
 of a written confession. It is unbelief in the power of the common 
 spirit in the church, when men are not convinced that alien elements 
 in individuals will not, by the living power of the whole, be either 
 assimilated or enveloped and made harmless, but believe external 
 force is required to cast it out. It is unbelief in the power of the 
 word of Christ and of the Spirit that declares Him, when men do not 
 believe that every time has naturally its own fitting interpretation 
 and application of it, when they believe we must adhere to the pro¬ 
 duction of another age. It can never again befall us that the spirit 
 of prophesy should become dumb. The Sacred Scripture itself has 
 obtained its position, and will retain it only by the power of free 
 belief and not by outward sanction. 
 
 (26) Page 176.—The feeling that ecclesiastical matters as they then 
 existed in the greater part of Germany, and still exist, little altered, 
 could not continue as they were, has since become much more general 
 and definite. Yet how the matter will turn is still not much clearer. 
 This alone can be foreseen, that if an Evangelical Church is not soon 
 putin a position in which a fresher public spirit can be developed in it, 
 and if the restrictive treatment of our universities and our open 
 spiritual intercourse is longer continued, the hopes we cherished will 
 be fruitless blossom, and the fair dawn of the recent time has only 
 betokened storm. Living piety and liberal courage will ever more 
 and more disappear from the clerical order. Dominion of the dead 
 letter from above and uneasy spiritless sectarianism from below will 
 approach. From their collision a whirlwind will arise that will drive 
 many helpless souls into the outstretched net of Jesuitism, and 
 deaden and weary the great masses to utter indifference. The signs 
 that proclaim this are clear enough ; but everyone should on every 
 occasion declare that he sees them as a testimony against those who 
 heed them not. 
 
 (27) Page 178.—This limitation will seem to many too narrow. A 
 profound and extensive cultivation of the mind, and a rich inward ex¬ 
 perience may very well exist where the theological erudition, that is the 
 essential condition of the office of church teacher, is wanting. Should 
 such gifts be limited in their religious working to the narrow circle of 
 the domestic life? Could not and should not such men, even when 
 they cannot lead in public religious assemblies, yet work by the living 
 word in freer, wider circles ? Should not the enormous influence 
 
208 
 
 FOURTH SPEECH . 
 
 which they can obtain through the written word be pointed out to 
 them ? To this I have a twofold answer. First, all that, as free 
 sociableness, most resembles the family connection, links itself 
 naturally to the domestic life. The work of exhibiting there the 
 character of a liberal-minded religious life is not insignificant. It 
 is a duty hitherto neither sufficiently understood nor sufficiently 
 exercised. If it were, there could not possibly be such a marked 
 contrast in a great part of Germany, particularly among the higher 
 and more refined circles, between the interest taken in religious 
 formulas and theological disputes, and the domestic and social life 
 in which no trace of a decisive religious character appears. Here, 
 then, is a great sphere for the pious sense. But larger assemblies, 
 exceeding the limits and the nature of the social life, yet not aiming 
 at forming a congregation, in short conventicles, are always miserable 
 half and between affairs, that have never contributed much to the 
 advancement of religion, but have rather produced and cherished 
 what is morbid. Secondly, in respect of religious influence by the 
 written word, it would certainly be a great evil if the clerical order 
 were to possess a monopoly. Nay, it does not seem to me consistent 
 with the spirit of the Evangelical Church, that they should exercise 
 a general censorship. But while there should be the greatest freedom, 
 it is an entirely different question whether everyone should vent are 
 to communicate his religious views and sentiments in this way; and 
 whether it would be expedient that it should happen often is very 
 much to be doubted. The harm from the flood of mediocre romances 
 and children’s books may very well be compared with the harm from 
 the mass of mediocre religious writings. Nay, they are manifestly a 
 desecration, which the former are not. Even superior talent falls 
 more easily into mediocrity, for what is to have attraction and effect 
 is the subjective apprehension of universally known objects and 
 relations. Only a high degree of unaffected originality, or a true 
 inspiration, coming from the inmost depths of a reflective mind, 
 or from the stimulating power of a life, nobly active, can succeed. 
 Otherwise there can be nothing but mediocrity. With religious 
 songs, indeed, it is different. Among us a large proportion of them 
 has been composed by laymen of all classes. Many that a severe 
 judge would call only mediocre, have passed into church use, and 
 have attained thereby a kind of immortality. Two circumstances 
 assist. First, every hymn book has only a very limited sphere, and 
 here much may be good that has not all the qualities demanded by 
 absolute publicity. Many of those productions would doubtless have 
 long perished, and been forgotten, had they required to maintain 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 209 
 
 themselves as pure literary works. Secondly, in the public use of 
 hymns so many other things assist. The author does not produce 
 the effect alone. He is supported by the composer by whom, more 
 or less, everything that has the same metre and is known to all 
 has harmony and effect; he is supported by the congregation who 
 put their piety into the execution, and by the liturgies that assign 
 the work of the poet its right place in a larger connection. 
 
 P 
 
FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 Man in closest fellowship with the highest must be for you 
 all an object of esteem, nay, of reverence. Ho one capable 
 of understanding such a state can, when he sees it, with¬ 
 hold this feeling. That is past all doubt. You may 
 despise all whose minds are easily and entirely filled with 
 trivial things, but in vain you attempt to depreciate one 
 who drinks in the greatest for his nourishment. You may 
 love him or hate him, according as he goes with you or 
 against you in the narrow path of activity and culture, but 
 even the most beautiful feeling of equality you cannot 
 entertain towards a person so far exalted above you. The 
 seeker for the Highest Existence in the world stands above 
 all who have not a like purpose. Your wisest men say 
 that, even against your will, you must honour the virtuous 
 who, in accordance with the laws of the moral nature, 
 endeavour to determine finite concerns by infinite require¬ 
 ments. And were it even possible for you to find some¬ 
 thing ridiculous in virtue itself, because of the contrast 
 between the limited powers and the infinite undertaking, 
 you still could not deny esteem to one whose organs are 
 open to the Universe, who is far from strife and opposition, 
 exalted above all imperfect endeavour, responsive to the 
 Universe and one with it. You cannot despise when you 
 see man in this supreme moment of human existence and 
 the clear beam is reflected in its purity upon you. 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 211 
 
 But whether the picture of the nature and of the life of 
 religion I have drawn has claimed your esteem I do not 
 inquire. Because of false conceptions and devotion to non- 
 essentials esteem is too often refused, but I am sure of the 
 power of the subject, as soon as it is freed from its distort¬ 
 ing drapery. Nor do I ask whether my thoughts on the 
 coherence of this indwelling capacity with all that is sublime 
 and godlike in our nature, have stimulated you to an 
 intenser study of our nature and possibilities. I also pass 
 the question, whether you have taken the higher stand¬ 
 point I showed you, and have recognized from thence, in 
 that nobler fellowship of spirits, so much misjudged, 
 wherein everyone freely surrenders himself, not regarding 
 the glory of his self-will, nor the exclusive possession of his 
 deepest, most secret individuality, that he may regard 
 himself as a work of the eternal, the all-fashioniug World- 
 Spirit, even the holy of holies of fellowship, higher far than 
 any earthly fellowship, holier than the tenderest tie of 
 friendship. In short, I do not ask whether all religion, in 
 its infinity, its divine power, has compelled you to adoration, 
 for I leave the matter itself to work upon you. 
 
 At present I have something else to deal with, a new 
 opposition to vanquish. I would, as it were, conduct you 
 to the God that has become flesh; I would show you 
 religion when it has' resigned its infinity and appeared, 
 often in sorry form, among men; I would have you dis¬ 
 cover religion in the religions. Though they are always 
 earthly and impure, the same form of heavenly beauty that 
 I have tried to depict is to be sought in them. 
 
 The divisions of the church and the difference of re¬ 
 ligion are almost always found together. The connection 
 seems inseparable. There are as many creeds and con¬ 
 fessions as churches and religious communions. Glancing 
 at this state of things, you might easily believe that my 
 judgment on the plurality of the church must also be my 
 judgment on the plurality of religion. Yuu would, how- 
 
 p 2 
 
212 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH . 
 
 ever, entirely mistake my opinion. I condemned tlie 
 plurality of the church, but my argument presupposed the 
 plurality of religion. I showed from the nature of the case 
 that in the church all rigid outline should be lost, that all 
 distinct partition should disappear. Not only did I hold 
 that all should be one indivisible whole in spirit and sym¬ 
 pathy, but that the actual connection should have larger 
 development and ever approach the highest, the universal 
 unity. Now if there is not everywhere plurality of religion, 
 if the most marked difference is not necessary and un¬ 
 avoidable, why should the true church need to be one ? Is 
 it not that everyone in the religion of others may see and 
 share what he cannot find in his own ? And why should 
 the visible church be only one, if it is not that everyone 
 may seek in it religion in the form best fitted to awake 
 the germ that lies asleep in him ? And if this germ can 
 only be fertilized and made to grow by one definite kind of 
 influence, if must itself be of a definite kind. 
 
 Nor can these different manifestations of religion be 
 mere component parts, differing only in number and size, 
 and forming, when combined, a uniform whole. In that 
 case every one would by natural'progresc come to be like his 
 neighbour. Such religion as he acquired would change 
 into his own, and become identical with it. The church, 
 this fellowship with all believers which I consider indis¬ 
 pensable for every religious man, would be merely pro¬ 
 visional. The more successful its work, the quicker would 
 it end—a view of the institution I have never contemplated. 
 I therefore find that multiplicity of the religions is based in 
 the nature of religion. 
 
 That no man can perfectly possess all religion is easy to 
 see. Men are determined in one special way, religion is 
 endlessly determinable. But it must be equally evident 
 that religion is not dismembered and scattered in parts by 
 random among men, but that it must organize itself in 
 manifestations of varying degrees of resemblance. Recall 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 213 
 
 the several stages of religion to which I drew your attention. 
 I said that the religion of a person, to whom the world 
 reveals itself as a living whole, is not a mere continuation 
 of the view of the person who only sees the world in its 
 apparently hostile elements. By no amount of regarding 
 the Universe as chaotic and discrete can the higher view be 
 attained. These differences you may call kinds or degrees 
 of religion, but in either case you will have to admit that, 
 as in every similar case, the forms in which an infinite force 
 divides itself is usually characteristic and different. 
 
 Wherefore, plurality of religions is another thing thau 
 plurality of the church. The essence of the church is 
 fellowship. Its limit, therefore, cannot be the uniformity of 
 religious persons. It is just difference that should be 
 brought into fellowship . 1 You are manifestly right when you 
 believe that the church can never in actuality be completely 
 and uniformly one. The only reason, however, is that 
 every society existing in space and time is thereby limited 
 and losing in depth what it gains in breadth, falls to pieces. 
 But religion, exactly by its multiplicity, assumes the utmost 
 unity of the church. This multiplicity is necessary for the 
 complete manifestation of religion. It must seek for a 
 definite character, not only in the individual but also in the 
 society. Did the society not contain a principle to indi¬ 
 vidualize itself, it could have no existence. Hence we 
 must assume and we must search for an endless mass of 
 distinct forms. Each separate religion claims to be such a 
 distinct form revealing religion, and we must see whether 
 it is agreeable to this principle. We must make clear to 
 ourselves wherein it is peculiar. Though the difference be 
 hidden under strange disguises, though it be distorted, not 
 only by the unavoidable influence of the transitory to which 
 the enduring has condescended, but also by the unholy 
 hand of sacrilegious men, we must find it. 
 
 To be satisfied with a mere general idea of religion would 
 not be worthy of you. Would you then understand it as 
 
214 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 it really exists and' displays itself, would you comprehend 
 it as an endlessly progressive work of the Spirit that 
 reveals Himself in all human history, you must abandon 
 the vain and foolish wish that there should only be one 
 religion ; you must lay aside all repugnance to its multi¬ 
 plicity ; as candidly as possible you must approach every¬ 
 thing that has ever, in the changing shapes of humanity, 
 been developed in its advancing career, from the ever 
 fruitful bosom of the spiritual life. 
 
 The different existing manifestations of religion you call 
 positive religions. Under this name they have long been 
 the object of a quite pre-eminent hate. Despite of your re¬ 
 pugnance to religion generally, you have always borne more 
 easily with what for distinction is called natural religion. 
 You have almost spoken of it with esteem. 
 
 I do not hesitate to say at once that from the heart I en¬ 
 tirely deny this superiority. For all who have religion at 
 all and profess to love it, it would be the vilest inconse¬ 
 quence to admit it. They would thereby fall into the 
 openest self-contradiction. For my own part, if I only 
 succeeded in recommending to you this natural religion, 
 I would consider that I had lost my pains. 
 
 For you, indeed, to whom religion generally is offensive, 
 I have always considered this preference natural. The so- 
 called natural religion is usually so much refined away, and 
 has such metaphysical and moral graces, that little of the 
 peculiar character of religion appears. It understands so 
 well to live in reserve, to restrain and to accommodate 
 itself that it can be put up with anywhere. Every positive 
 religion, on the contrary, has certain strong traits and a 
 very marked physiognomy, so that its every movement, 
 even to the careless glance, proclaims what it really is. 
 
 If this is the true ground of your dislike, you must now 
 rid yourself of it. If you have now, as I hope, a better 
 estimate of religion, it should be no longer necessary for 
 me to contend against it. If you see that a peculiar and 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 215 
 
 noble capacity of roan underlies religion, a capacity which, 
 of course, must be educated, it cannot be offensive to’ you 
 to regard it in the most definite forms in which it has yet 
 appeared. Rather you must the more willingly grant a 
 form your attention the more there is developed in it 
 the characteristic and distinctive elements of religion. 
 
 But you may not admit this argument. You may 
 transfer all the reproaches you have formerly been accus¬ 
 tomed to bestow on religion in general to the single 
 religions. You may maintain that there are always, just in 
 this element that you call positive, the occasion and the 
 justification of those reproaches, and that in consequence 
 the positive religions cannot be as I have sought to repre¬ 
 sent, the natural manifestations of the true religion. You 
 would show me how, without exception, they are full of 
 what, according to my own statement, is not religion. Con¬ 
 sequently, must not a principle of corruption lie deep in their 
 constitution ? You will remind me that each one proclaims 
 that it alone is true, and that what is peculiar to it is absolutely 
 the highest. Are they not distinguished from one another 
 by elements they should as much as possible eliminate ? 
 In disproving and contending, be it with art and under¬ 
 standing, or with weapons stranger and more unworthy, do 
 they not show themselves quite contrary to the nature of 
 true religion ? You would add that, exactly in proportion 
 as you esteem religion and acknowledge its importance, 
 you must take a lively interest in seeing that it everywhere 
 enjoys the greatest freedom to cultivate itself on all sides. 
 You must, therefore, hate keenly those definite religious 
 forms, that hold all their adherents to the same type and 
 the same word, withdraw the freedom to follow their own 
 nature and compress them in unnatural limits. In contrast, 
 you would praise mightily the superiority in all these 
 points of the natural to the positive religions. 
 
 Once more I say, I do not deny that misunderstandings 
 and perversions exist in all religions, and I raise no objec- 
 
 
2IÖ 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH . 
 
 tions to the dislike with which they inspire you. Nay, I 
 acknowledge there is in them all this much bewailed de¬ 
 generation, this divergence into alien territory. The 
 diviner religion itself is, the less would I embellish its cor¬ 
 ruptions, or admiringly cherish its excrescences. But forget 
 for once this one-sided view and follow me to another. 
 Consider how much of this corruption is due to those who 
 have dragged forth religion from the depths of the heart 
 into the civil world. Acknowledge that much of it is un¬ 
 avoidable as soon as the Infinite, by descending into the 
 sphere of time and submitting to the general influence of 
 finite things, takes to itself a narrow shell. And however 
 deep-rooted this corruption may be, and however much the 
 religions may have suffered thereby, consider this also : if 
 the proper religious view of all »things is to seek even in 
 things apparently common and base every trace of the 
 divine, the true and the eternal, and to reverence even the 
 faintest, you cannot omit what has the justest claims to be 
 judged religiously. 
 
 And you would find more than remote traces of the Deity. 
 I invite you to study every faith professed by man, every 
 religion that has a name and a character. Though it may 
 long ago have degenerated into a long series of empty 
 customs, into a system of abstract ideas and theories, will 
 you not, when you examine the original elements at the 
 source, find that this dead dross was once the molten out¬ 
 pourings of the inner fire ? Is there not in all religions 
 more or less of the true nature of religion, as I have pre¬ 
 sented it to you ? Must not, therefore, each religion be 
 one of the special forms which mankind, in some region 
 of the earth and at some stage of development, has to 
 accept ? 
 
 I must take care not to attempt anything systematic or 
 complete, for that would be the study of a life, and not the 
 business of a discourse. Yet you must not be allowed to 
 wander at hazard in this endless chaos. That you may not 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 21 7 
 
 be misled by the false ideas that prevail; that you may 
 estimate by a right standard the true content and essence 
 of any religion; that you may have some definite and sure 
 procedure for separating the inner from the outer, the 
 native from the borrowed and extraneous, and the sacred 
 from the profane, forget the characteristic attributes of 
 single religions and seek, from the centre outwards, a 
 general view of how the essence of a positive religion is to 
 be comprehended and determined. 
 
 You will then find that the positive religions are just 
 the definite forms in which religion must exhibit itself— 
 a thing to which your so-called natural religions have no 
 claim. They are only a vague, sorry, poor thought that 
 corresponds to no reality, and you will find that in the 
 positive religions alone a true individual cultivation of the 
 religious capacity is possible. Nor do they, by their nature, 
 injure the freedom of their adherents. 
 
 Why have I assumed that religion can only be given 
 fully in a great multitude of forms of the utmost definite¬ 
 ness ? Only on grounds that naturally follow from what 
 has been said of the nature of religion. The whole of 
 religion is nothing but the sum of all relations of man to 
 God, apprehended in all the possible ways in which any 
 man can be immediately conscious in his life. In this sense 
 there is but • one religion, for it would be but a poverty- 
 stricken and halting life, if all these relations did not exist 
 wherever religion ought to be. Yet all men will not by 
 any means apprehend them in the same way, but quite 
 differently. Now this difference alone is felt and alone 
 can be exhibited while the reduction of all differences is 
 only thought. 
 
 You are wrong, therefore, with your universal religion 
 that is natural to all, for no one will have his own true and 
 right religion, if it is the same for all. As long as we 
 occupy a place there must be in these relations of man to 
 the whole a nearer and a farther, which will necessarily 
 
218 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH . 
 
 determine eacli feeling differently in each life. Again, as 
 long as we are individuals, every man has greater recep¬ 
 tiveness for some religions experiences and feelings than 
 for others. In this way everything is different. Mani¬ 
 festly then, no single relation can accord to every feeling 
 its due. It requires the sum of them. Hence, the whole 
 of religion can be present only, when all those different views 
 of every relation are actually given. This is not possible, 
 except in an endless number of different forms. They must 
 be determined adequately by a different principle of re¬ 
 ference to the others, and in each the same religious element 
 must be characteristically modified. In short, they must 
 be true individuals. 
 
 What determines and distinguishes these individuals, and 
 what, on the other hand, is common to all their component 
 parts, holds them together, and is their principle of adhesion, 
 whereby any given detail is to be adjudged to its own type 
 of religion, are implied in what has been already said. But 
 this view can only be verified by the existing historical 
 religions, and of them it is maintained that all this is 
 different, and that such is not their relation to one another. 
 This we must now examine. 
 
 First, a definite quantity of religious matter is not neces¬ 
 sarily, in the same degree, a definite form of religion. 
 
 This is an entire misunderstanding of the nature of the 
 different religions. Even among their adherents it is 
 general, and causes manifold opposite and false judgments. 
 They suppose that because so many men acknowledge the 
 same religion, they must have the same body of religious 
 views and feelings. Their fellow-believers must have the 
 same opinions and the same faith as they have, and this 
 common possession must be the essence of their religion. 
 The peculiarly characteristic and individual element in a 
 religion is not easy to find with certainty from instances, 
 but, however general the idea may be, if you believe that 
 it consists in including a definite sum of religious intuitions 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 219 
 
 and feelings, and that as a consequence the positive religions 
 are prejudicial to the freedom of the individual in the de¬ 
 velopment of his own religion, you are in error. Single 
 perceptions and feelings are, as you know, the elements of 
 religion, and it can never lead to the character of any one 
 religion to regard them as a mere heap, tossed together 
 without regard to number, kind or purpose. 
 
 If now, as I have sought to show, religion needs to be 
 of many types because, of every relation different views 
 are possible, according as it stands related to the rest, how 
 would we be helped by such a compendium of some of them 
 that could define none ? If the positive religions were only 
 distinguished by what they exclude, they could certainly 
 not be the individual manifestations we seek. That this is 
 not their character, however, appears from the impossibility 
 of arriving from this point of view at a distinct idea of 
 them. 
 
 As they continue to exist apart, such an idea must be 
 possible, for only what commingles in fact is inseparable in 
 idea. It is evident that the different religious perceptions 
 and feelings are not, in a determinate way, awakened by 
 one another or interdependent. Now, as each exists for 
 itself, each can lead, by the most various combinations, to 
 every other. Hence, different religions could not continue 
 long beside one another, if they were not otherwise dis¬ 
 tinguished. Yery soon each would supplement itself into 
 uniformity with all others. 
 
 Even in the religion of any one man, as it is fashioned 
 in the course of life, nothing is more accidental than the 
 quantity of religious matter that may arrive at conscious¬ 
 ness. Some views may set aud others may rise and come to 
 clearness, and his religion in this respect is ever in flux. 
 Much less can the boundary, which in the individual is so 
 changeable, be permanent and essential in the religion of 
 several associated individuals. In the highest degree it 
 must be an unusual and accidental occurrence that, even 
 
220 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 for a little time, several men remain in the same circle of 
 perceptions and advance along the same path of feeling . 2 
 
 Hence, among those who determine their religion in this 
 way, there is a standing quarrel about essentials and non- 
 essentials. They do not know what is to be laid down as 
 characteristic and necessary, and what to separate as free 
 and accidental; they do not find the point from which the 
 whole can be surveyed; they do not understand the 
 religion in which they live and for which they presume to 
 fight; and they contribute to its degeneration, for, while 
 they are influenced by the whole, they consciously grasp 
 only the detail. Fortunately the instinct they do not 
 understand, guides them better than their understandings, 
 and nature sustains what their false reflections and the 
 doing and striving that flow from them would destroy. 
 
 If the character of any special religion is found in a defi¬ 
 nite quantity of perceptions and feelings, some subjective 
 and objective connection, binding exactly these elements 
 together and excluding all others, must be assumed. This 
 false notion agrees well enough with the way of comparing 
 religious conceptions that is common but is not agreeable 
 to the spirit of religion. A whole of this type would not 
 be what we seek to give religion in its whole compass a de¬ 
 terminate shape. It would not be a whole, but an arbitrary 
 section of the whole ; it would not be a religion, it would 
 be a sect. Except by taking the religious experiences of 
 one single person, and necessarily of only one short period 
 of his life, as the norm for a society, it could hardly arise. 
 But the forms which history has produced and which are 
 now actually existing are not wholes of this sort. All sec¬ 
 tarianism, be it speculative, for bringing single intuitions 
 into a philosophical coherence, or ascetic, for reaching a 
 system and determinate series of feelings, labours for the 
 utmost uniformity among all who would share the same 
 fragment of religion. Those who are infected with this 
 mania certainly do not lack activity, and if they have never 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 221 
 
 succeeded in reducing any one positive religion to a sect , 3 
 you will have to acknowledge that the positive religions 
 must be formed on another principle and must have another 
 character. 
 
 You will see this even more clearly by thinking of the 
 times that gave them birth. You will recall how every 
 positive religion, in its growth and bloom, when its peculiar 
 vigour was most youthful, fresb and evident, did not con¬ 
 centrate and exclude, but expanded and pushed fresh shoots 
 and acquired more religious matter to be wrought up in 
 accordance with its own peculiar nature. 
 
 Therefore religions are not fashioned on this false prin¬ 
 ciple. It is not one with their nature, it is a corruption 
 that has crept in from the outside, as hostile to them as to 
 the spirit of religion generally. Their relation to it which 
 is a standing warfare, is another proof that they actually 
 are constituted as individual manifestations of religion 
 should be. 
 
 Just as little could the general differences of religion 
 suffice to produce a thoroughly definite individual form. 
 The three ways of being conscious of existence and of its 
 totality, as chaos, system and elemental diversity, so often 
 mentioned, are very far from being so many single and 
 distinct religions. Divide an idea to infinity if you will, 
 you cannot thereby reach an individual. You only get less 
 general ideas which may, as genus and species, embrace a 
 mass of very different individuals. To find the character 
 of individual beings, there must be more than the idea 
 and its attributes. But those three differences in religion 
 are only the usual division according to the current scheme 
 of unity, diversity and totality. They are types of religion 
 but not religious individualities, and the need to seek for 
 this individuality is by no means satisfied by the existence 
 of religion in this threefold way. It is clear as day that 
 there are many distinct manifestations of religion belonging 
 to each type. 
 
222 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 Just as little are the personal and the opposing panthe¬ 
 istic modes of conception two such individual forms . 4 They 
 go through all three types of religion and, for that reason 
 alone, cannot be individualities. They are simply another 
 principle of division. Only recently we agreed that this 
 antithesis rests simply on a way of regarding the religious 
 feeling, and of ascribing to its phenomena a common object. 
 Hence the fact that any particular religion inclines more 
 to one form of representation and expression than to the 
 other, no more determines its individuality than it would 
 its worth and the stage of its development. The individual 
 elements of religion are as indefinite, and’none of the various 
 ways of regarding them are realized, because either the one 
 or the other thought accompanies them. This may be seen 
 in all purely deistic manifestations of religion. Though 
 they desire to be considered quite definite, you will find 
 everywhere that all religious feelings, and especially what 
 is most dwelt on—all views of the movements of humanity 
 in the individual, of the highest unity of mankind, of every¬ 
 thing in the mutual relations of men that lies beyond each 
 man^s good pleasure, are utterly indefinite and ambiguous. 
 The personal and the pantheistic conceptions, .therefore, 
 are only very general forms that may be further determined 
 and individualized in various ways. 
 
 Perhaps you may seek this further determination by 
 uniting the two modes of conception with the three modes 
 of intuition. You would reach narrower sub-divisions, but 
 not a thoroughly definite and individual whole. Neither 
 naturalism 5 —meaning perception of the world limited to 
 elemental diversity, without the conception of a personal 
 consciousness and will in the various elements—nor pan¬ 
 theism, nor polytheism, nor deism are single and definite 
 religions, such as we seek. They are simply types within 
 which there have been, and there will still be, very many 
 genuine individualities developed . 6 
 
 Let me say then at once, that the only remaining way 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 223 
 
 for a truly individual religion to arise is to select some one 
 of the great relations of mankind in the world to the Highest 
 Being, and, in a definite way, make it the centre and refer 
 to it all the others. In respect of the idea of religion, this 
 may appear a merely arbitrary proceeding, but, in respect 
 of the peculiarity of the adherents, being the natural ex¬ 
 pression of their character, it is the purest necessity. 
 Hereby a distinctive spirit and a common character enter 
 the whole at the same time, and the ambiguous and vague 
 reach firm ground. By every formation of this kind one 
 of the endless number of different views and different 
 arrangements of the single elements, which are all possible 
 and all require to be exhibited, is fully realized. Single 
 elements are all seen on the one side that is turned towards 
 this central point, which makes all-the feelings have a com¬ 
 mon tone and a livelier closer interaction. 
 
 The whole of religion can only be actually given in the 
 sum of all the forms possible in this sense. It can, there¬ 
 fore, be exhibted only in an endless series of shapes that are 
 gradually developed in different points of time and space, 
 and nothing adds to its complete manifestation that is not 
 found in one of those forms. Where religion is so moulded 
 that everything is seen and felt in connection with one 
 relation to the Deity that mediates it or embraces it, it 
 matters not in what place or in what man it is formed or 
 what relation is selected, it is a strictly positive religion. 
 In respect of the sum of the religious elements—to use a 
 word that should again be brought to honour—it is a heresy , 7 
 for from many equals one is chosen to be head of the rest. 
 In respect, however, of the fellowship of all participants and 
 their relation to the founder of their religion who first 
 raised this central point to clear consciousness, it is a school 
 and a discipleship. 
 
 But if, as is to be hoped, we are agreed that religion 
 can only be exhibited in and by such definite forms, only 
 those who with their own religion pitch their camp in some 
 
224 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 such positive form, have any fixed abode, and, if I might so 
 say, any well-earned right of citizenship in the religious 
 world. They alone can boast of contributing to the ex¬ 
 istence and the progress of the whole, and they alone are 
 in the full sense religious persons, on one side belonging 
 by community of type to a kindred, on the other being 
 distinguished by persistent and definite traits from everyone 
 else. 
 
 But many perhaps who take an interest in the affairs of 
 religion may ask with consternation, or some evil-disposed 
 person may ask with guile, whether every pious person must 
 connect himself with one of the existing forms of religion. 
 Provisionally, I would say, by no means. It is only necessary 
 that his religion be developed in himself characteristically 
 and definitely. That it should resemble any great, largely 
 accepted, existing form is not equally necessary. I would 
 remind him that I have never spoken of two or three definite 
 forms, and said that they are to be the only ones. Rather, 
 they may evermore develope in countless numbers from all 
 points. Whosoever does not find himself at home in an 
 existing religion, I might almost say whosoever is not in a 
 position to make it if he had not found it , 8 must belong to 
 none but should be held bound to produce a new one for 
 himself. Is he alone in it and without disciples, it does not 
 matter. Everywhere there are germs that cannot arrive at 
 any more extended existence, and the religion of one person 
 may have a definite form and organization, and be quite as 
 genuinely a positive religion as if he had founded the 
 greatest school. 
 
 In my opinion, then, you will see that the existing forms 
 should not in themselves hinder any man from developing 
 a religion suitable to his own nature and his own religious 
 sense. The question of abiding in one of them or of con¬ 
 structing a religion of one’s own, depends entirely on what 
 relation developes in a man as fundamental feeling and 
 middle-point of all religions. 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 225 
 
 This is my provisional answer, bat if he will hear more 
 I would add that, except by misunderstanding, it would be 
 very difficult to find oneself in such a position. A new re¬ 
 velation is never trivial, and merelypersonal, but always rests 
 on something great and common. Hence adherents and 
 fellow-believers have never failed the man really called to 
 institute a new religion. Most men, following their nature, 
 will belong to an existing form, and there will be only few 
 whom none suffices. 
 
 Yet—and this is my chief point—the authority being 
 the same for all, the many are no less free than the few, 
 and do no less fashion something of their own. If 
 we follow any man’s religious history, we find first dim 
 presentiments which never quite stir the depths of the heart, 
 and, being unrecognized, again disappear. Around every 
 man, especially in earlier days, they doubtless hover. Some 
 hint may awaken them, and they may again vanish without 
 reaching any definite form and betraying aught characteristic. 
 Afterwards it first comes to pass that the sense for the 
 Universe rises once for all into clear consciousness. One 
 man discovers it in one relation, another in another. Here¬ 
 after all things are referred to this relation, and so group 
 themselves around it. Such a moment, therefore, in the 
 strictest sense, determines every man’s religion. Now I 
 hope you will not consider a man’s religion less charac¬ 
 teristic, less his own, because it lies in a region where 
 already several are collected. In this similarity you are 
 not to find a mechanical influence of custom or birth, but, 
 as you do in other cases, you are to recognize a common 
 determination by higher causes. This agreement is a 
 guarantee of naturalness and truth, and cannot, whether 
 one is first or last, be hurtful to individuality. Though 
 thousands before him and after him referred their religious 
 life to one relation, would it, therefore, be the same in all ? 
 
 Remember that every definite form of religion is 
 exhaustless for any one man. In its own way it should 
 
 Q 
 
22 Ö 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 embrace the whole, a thing too great for any man. And 
 not only so, but in itself there exist endless varieties of 
 cultivation which are, as it were, subordinate types of 
 religion. Is there not here work and scope enough for all ? 
 I, at least, am not aware that any religion had succeeded 
 in so taking possession of its territory, and had so determined 
 and exhibited everything therein, according to its own 
 spirit, that, in any one professor of distinguished gifts and 
 individuality of mind, nothing is wanting to perfection. 
 Only to few of our historical religion has it been granted, 
 even in the time of their freedom and higher life, to develope 
 rightly and perfectly the neighbourhood of the middle-point, 
 and, in even a few forms, to give individual impress to the 
 common character. The harvest is great but the labourers 
 are few. An infinite field is opened in each of those 
 religions, wherein thousands may scatter themselves. 
 Uncultivated regions enough present themselves to every 
 one who is capable of making and producing something of 
 his own . 9 
 
 The charge that everyone who allows himself to be 
 embraced in a positive religion, can only be an imitator of 
 those who have given it currency and cannot develope 
 himself individually, is baseless. This judgment no more 
 applies here, than it would to the state or to society. 
 It seems to us morbid or quixotic for any one to maintain 
 that he has no room in any existing institution, and that 
 he must exclude himself from society. We are convinced 
 that every healthy person will, in common with many, have 
 a great national character. Just because he is rooted in it 
 and influenced by it, he can develope his individuality with 
 the greatest precision and beauty. Similarly, in religion 
 only morbid aberration so cuts off a man from a life in 
 fellowship with those among whom nature has placed him, 
 that he belongs to no great whole. Somewhere, on a great 
 scale, everyone will find exhibited or will himself exhibit 
 what for him is the middle-point of religion. To every such 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 227 
 
 common sphere we asciibe a boundless activity that goes 
 into detail, in virtue of which all individual characteristics 
 issue from its bosom. Thus understood, the church is with 
 right called the common mother of us all. 
 
 To take the nearest example, think of Christianity as a 
 definite individual form of the highest order. First there is 
 in our time the well known outward division, so definite and 
 pronounced. Under each section there is then a mass of 
 different views and schools. Each exhibits a characteristic 
 development, and has a founder and adherents, yet the last 
 and most personal development of religiousness remains for 
 each individual, and so much is it one with his nature that 
 no one can fully acquire it but himself. And the more a 
 man, by his whole nature, has a claim to belong to you, ye 
 cultured, the more religion must reach this stage in him, for 
 his higher feeling, gradually developing and uniting with 
 other educated capacities, must be a characteristic product. 
 
 Or if, after unknown conception and rapid birth-pangs of 
 the spirit, the higher feelings develope, to all appearance 
 suddenly, is not then a characteristic personality born with 
 the religious life ? There is a definite connection with a past, 
 a present and a future. The whole subsequent religious 
 life is linked in this way to that moment and that state in 
 which this feeling surprised the soul. It thus maintains its 
 connection with the earlier, poorer life, and has a natural 
 uniform development. Nay more, in this initial consciousness 
 there must already be a distinctive character. Only in a shape 
 and only under circumstances thoroughly definite, could it 
 so suddenly enter a life already developed. This distinctive 
 character, then, every subsequent moment displays and is 
 thus the purest expression of the whole nature. The living 
 spirit of the earth, rending itself from itself as it were, links 
 himself as a finite thing to one definite moment in the series 
 of organic evolutions and a new man arises, a peculiar 
 nature. His separate existence is independent of the mass 
 and objective quality either of his circumstances or his 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 actions. It consists in the peculiar unity of the abiding 
 consciousness that is linked to that first moment, and in the 
 peculiar relation to it which every later moment preserves. 
 Wherefore, in that moment in which in any man a definite 
 consciousness of his relation to the highest Being has, as it 
 were, original birth, an individual religious life originates. 
 
 It is individual, not by an irreversible limitation to a 
 particular number and selection of feelings and intuitions, 
 not by the quality of the religious matter. This matter all 
 who have the spiritual birth at the same time and in the 
 same religious surroundings have in common. But it is 
 individual by what he can have in common with no man, by 
 the abiding influence of the peculiar circumstances in which 
 his spirit was first greeted and embraced by the Universe, 
 and by the peculiar way in which he conducts his observa¬ 
 tion and reflection on the same. This character and tone 
 of the first childhood of his religion are borne by the whole 
 subsequent course of his views and feelings, and are never 
 lost, however far he may advance in fellowship with the 
 Eternal Fountainhead. 
 
 Every intelligent finite being announces its spiritual 
 nature and individuality by taking you back to what I may 
 call a previous marriage in him of the Infinite with the finite, 
 and your imagination refuses to explain it from any single 
 prior factor, whether caprice or nature. In the same way 
 you must regard as an individual everyone who can point 
 to the birthday of his spiritual life and relate a wondrous 
 tale of the rise of his religion as an immediate operation of 
 the Deity, an influence of His spirit. He must be charac¬ 
 teristic and special, for such an event does not happen to 
 produce in the kingdom of religion vain repetition. 10 Every¬ 
 thing that originates organically and is self-contained can 
 only be explained from itself. If its origin and individuality 
 are not regarded as mutually explanatory and identical, it 
 can never be quite understood. Thus you can only under¬ 
 stand the religious person in so far as you know how to 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 229 
 
 discover the whole in the notable moment that began his 
 higher life, or from the developed manifestation can trace 
 back tbis uniform character to the first, dimmest times of 
 life. 
 
 All this being well considered, it will not be possible for 
 you, I believe, to be in earnest with this complaint against 
 the positive religions. If you still persist in it, it can only 
 be from prejudice, for you are far too careless about the 
 matter to be justified by your own observation. You have 
 never felt the call to attach yourselves to the few religious 
 men you might be able to discover. Though they are ever 
 attractive and worthy enough of love, you have never tried 
 by the microscope of friendship, or even of closer sympathy, 
 to examine more accurately how they are organized both by 
 and for the Universe. 
 
 For myself I have, diligently considered them, I have 
 sought out as patiently and studied them with the same 
 reverent care that you devote to the curiosities of nature, 
 and it has often occurred to me whether you would not be 
 led to religion simply by giving heed to the almighty way 
 in which the Deity builds up, from all that has otherwise 
 been developed in man, that part of the soul in which He 
 specially dwells, manifests His immediate operation, and 
 mirrors Himself, and thus makes His sanctuary quite 
 peculiar and distinct, and if you only noticed how He glori¬ 
 fies Himself in it by the exhaustless variety and opulence of 
 forms. I, at least, am ever anew astonished at the many 
 notable developments in a region so sparsely peopled as 
 religion. Men are distinguished by all degrees of receptivity 
 for the charm of the same object and by the greatest differ¬ 
 ence of effect, by the variety of tone produced by the prepon¬ 
 derance of one or other type of feeling, by all sorts of idiosyn¬ 
 crasies of sensitiveness and peculiarity of temperament, 
 and the religious view of things nevertheless is perpetually 
 prominent. Again I see how the religious character of a man 
 is often something quite peculiar in him, strongly marked 
 
FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 230 
 
 off to the common eye from everything else shown in his 
 other endowments. The most quiet and sober mind may be 
 capable of the strongest, most passionate emotions ; a sense 
 most dull to common and earthly things feels deeply even 
 to sadness, and sees clearly even to rapture and prophecy ; 
 a heart most timid in all worldly matters testifies even by 
 martyrdom to the world and to the age. And how wonder¬ 
 fully is this religious character itself fashioned and composed. 
 Culture and crudeness, capacity and limitation, tenderness 
 and hardness are in each, in a peculiar way, mixed and inter¬ 
 woven. 
 
 Where have I seen all this? In the peculiar sphere of 
 religion, in its individual forms, in the positive religions 
 which you decry as utterly wanting in variety. I have seen 
 it among the heroes and martyrs of a definite faith in a way 
 for which the friends of natural religiQn are too cold, among 
 enthusiasts for living feeling, in a way they hold as too 
 dangerous, among the worshippers of some new sprung 
 light and individual revelation. There I will show you them, 
 there at all times and among all peoples. Nowhere else are 
 they to be met. No man as a mere single being can come 
 to actual existence. By the very fact of existence he is set 
 in a world, in a definite order of things, and becomes an object 
 among other objects, and a religious man, by attaining his 
 individual life, enters by this very fact into a common life, 
 which is to say into some definite form of religion. The two 
 things are simply one and the same divine act, and cannot 
 be separated. If the original capacity of a man is too weak 
 to reach this highest stage of consciousness, by fashioning 
 itself in a definite way, the stimulus must also be too weak 
 to initiate the process of a characteristic and robust religious 
 life. 
 
 And now I have rendered you my account. It is for you 
 now to tell me how, in respect of development and indi¬ 
 viduality, it stands with your boasted natural religions. 
 Show me among its professors an equally great variety of 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 231 
 
 strongly marked characters. For myself I must confess 
 that I have never found among them anything of the sort. 
 Your boast of the freedom that this kind of religion gives 
 its adherents to develope themselves religiously according 
 to their own sense, seems merely of freedom to remain un¬ 
 developed, freedom neither to be, nor to see, nor to feel 
 anything at all that is definite. Religion plays in their 
 mind far too wretched a role. It is as if religion had no 
 pulse, no vasculary system, no circulation, and so had no 
 heat, no assimilative power. It has no character of its 
 own, no peculiar presentation. Everywhere it shows itself 
 dependent upon the cast of a man’s morals and sensibility. 
 In union with them, or rather meekly following them, it 
 moves idly and sparingly, and is only perceptible when it is 
 patiently, and, as it were by drops, separated from them. 
 
 Many estimable and strong religious characters, indeed, I 
 have met, whom the adherents of the positive religions, 
 not without wondering at the phenomenon, regard as ad¬ 
 herents of natural religion. But on closer view they 
 recognized them as their confreres. Such persons have 
 always swerved somewhat from the original purity of the 
 religion of reason, and have accepted something arbitrary, 
 as it is called, something positive. 
 
 But why do those who respect natural religion at once 
 distrust everyone who introduces any characteristic feature 
 into his religion ? They also would have uniformity, 
 though at the opposite extreme from sectarianism, the 
 uniformity of indefiniteness. So little is any special per¬ 
 sonal cultivation through the positive religions to be thought 
 of, that its most genuine adherents do not even wish the 
 religion of man to have any history of its own at all or to 
 commence with any notable event. Too much there has 
 been already for their taste, moderation being for them 
 the chief matter in religion, and all who can boast of 
 religious emotions issuing suddenly from the depths of 
 the heart, come at once into the evil repute of being in- 
 
232 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 fected by baleful enthusiasm. By little and little men are 
 to become religious, just as they become wise and prudent 
 and everything else they should be. All must come to 
 them by instruction and education. There must be 
 nothing that could be regarded as supernatural or even as 
 singular. 
 
 I would not say that in making instruction and education 
 everything, natural religion has pre-eminently fallen into 
 the evil of being mixed with metaphysics and morals, nay, 
 of being changed into them : but this at least is clear, that 
 its adherents have not started from any living self-contem¬ 
 plation and allowing nothing to mark their cast of thought, 
 whereby in any characteristic way men might be affected, 
 they have no sure middle-point. The belief in a personal 
 God, more or less anthropomorphic, and in a personal im¬ 
 mortality, more or less dematerialized and sublimated—the 
 two dogmas to which they reduce everything—depends, as 
 they know themselves, on no special way of viewing or 
 comprehending. Hence, any one who joins them is not 
 asked how he came to his faith, but how he can demonstrate 
 it. Thus they assume that he must have reached every¬ 
 thing by demonstration. Any other and more definite 
 middle-point you would have difficulty in indicating. The 
 little that their meagre and attenuated religion does con¬ 
 tain is of great ambiguity. They have a providence in 
 general, a righteousness in general, a divine education in 
 general. Now it is in this perspective and fore-shortening, 
 now in that, so that the value of everything is perpetually 
 changing. Or if there is auy common reference to one 
 point, it is to something alien to religion, such as how to 
 remove obstacles from morality, or sustain the desire for 
 happiness, or something else about which, in ordering the 
 elements of their religion, truly religious men have never 
 asked. Their scanty religious possessions are thereby still 
 more scattered and dispersed. 
 
 This natural religion, then, does not unite its religious 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 233 
 
 elements by one definite view and is no definite religious 
 form, no proper individual representation. of religion. 
 Those who profess it have in its territory no definite 
 dwelling, but are strangers whose home, if indeed they 
 have any, must be elsewhere. They remind one of the 
 thin and dispersed mass said to float between the worlds, 
 which is here attracted by one and there by another, but 
 not enough by any to be swept into its rotation. Why it 
 exists the gods may know. It must be to show that the 
 indefinite also can have a certain existence. Yet it is 
 properly only a waiting for existence, to which they can 
 only attain by the power of some force stronger and of a 
 different kind from any they have been subjected to here¬ 
 tofore. More I cannot ascribe to them than the dim pre¬ 
 sentiments that precede that living consciousness in which 
 religious life comes to visibility for man. There are certain 
 dim impulses and conceptions that have no coherence with 
 a man’s individuality and only, as it were, fill up the vacant 
 spaces. They originate only in the collective life, and are 
 uniformly the same in all. The religion of men of this 
 kind is thus the inarticulate echo of the piety around 
 them. 
 
 At the highest it is natural religion in the sense in 
 which men used to speak of natural philosophy and natural 
 poetry. The name was applied to such productions as 
 lacked originality, and which, without being clumsy, con¬ 
 scious imitations, were but crude utterances of superficial 
 endowments. The epithet was meant to distinguish them 
 from the works of living, plastic science and art. 
 
 The better part found only in the productions of the 
 religious societies, they do not wait for with longing, they 
 do not esteem it more highly because they cannot reach it, 
 but they oppose it with all their might. The essence of 
 natural religion consists almost entirely in denying every¬ 
 thing positive and characteristic in religion and in violent 
 polemics. It is the worthy product of an age, the hobby of 
 
234 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 which was that wretched generality and vain soberness 
 which in everything was most hostile to true culture. Two 
 things are hated supremely, a commencement in anything 
 extraordinary and incomprehensible, and subsequently any 
 suggestion of a school. This same corruption you will find 
 in all arts and sciences. Into religion also it has forced 
 its way, and its product is this empty formless thing. Men 
 would be self-produced and self-taught in religion, and they 
 are rude and uncultured, as is common with such persons. 
 For characteristic production they have neither power nor 
 will. Every definite religion they resist because it is a 
 school, and if they should light on anything whereby a 
 religion of their own might be fashioned, they would be as 
 violent against it, seeing that from it also a school might 
 arise. 
 
 Hence their resistance to the positive and arbitrary is 
 resistance to the definite and real. If a definite religion 
 may not begin with an original fact, it cannot begin at all. 
 There must be a common ground for selecting some one 
 religious element and placing it at the centre, and this 
 ground can only be a fact. And if a religion is not to be 
 definite it is not a religion at all, for religion is not a name 
 to be applied to loose, unconnected impulses. Recall what 
 the poet says of a state of souls before birth. Suppose 
 someone were to object to come into the world because he 
 would not be this man or that, but a man in general! The 
 polemic of natural religion against the positive is this 
 polemic against life and it is the permanent state of its 
 adherents. 
 
 Go back then, if you are in earnest about beholding 
 religion in its definiteness, from this enlightened natural 
 religion to those despised positive religions. There every¬ 
 thing appears active, strong and secure, every single 
 intuition has its definite content and its own relation to the 
 rest, and every feeling has its proper sphere and its peculiar 
 reference. You find somewhere every modification of 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 235 
 
 religiousness and every mental state in which religion can 
 place men, with each of its effects somewhere complete. 
 Common institutions and single utterances alike testify that 
 religion is valued almost to forgetfulness of all else. The 
 holy zeal with which it is contemplated, communicated and 
 enjoyed, and the child-like longing with which new reve¬ 
 lations of heavenly power are expected, 11 guarantee that no 
 element visible from this standpoint shall be overlooked, 
 and that nothing has disappeared without leaving a monu¬ 
 ment. Consider the variety of forms in which every single 
 kind of fellowship with the Universe has already appeared. 
 Do not be scared either by mysterious darkness or by 
 wonderful dazzling grotesque traits. Do not admit the 
 delusion that it may all be imagination and romance. Dig 
 ever deeper where your magic rod has once pointed, and 
 without fail you will bring forth the heavenly stream to the 
 light of day. 
 
 But regard also the human which is to receive the 
 divine. Do not forget that religion bears traces of the 
 culture of every age and of the history of every race of men. 
 Often it must go about in the form of a servant, displaying 
 in its surroundings and in its adorning the poverty of its 
 home and its disciples. You must not overlook how it has 
 often been stunted in its growth from want of room to 
 exercise its powers, and how from childhood it has pined 
 miserably from bad treatment and ill-chosen nourishment. 
 
 And if you would comprehend the whole, do not abide by 
 the various forms of religion that for centuries have shone 
 and have dominated great peoples, and have been glorified 
 in many ways by poets and sages. Recollect that what is 
 historically and religiously most noteworthy is often dis¬ 
 tributed among but few, and remains hidden to the common 
 eye. 12 
 
 But when, in this way, you have wholly and completely 
 within your vision the right object, it will ever remain a diffi¬ 
 cult business to discover the spirit of the religions and from 
 
FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 236 
 
 it to interpret them. Once more I warn you not to try to 
 deduce it as an abstraction from the elements common to 
 all the adherents. You will wander into a thousand vain 
 researches, and come in the end not to the spirit of the reli¬ 
 gion but to a definite quantity of matter. You will remem¬ 
 ber that no religion has quite reached actuality, and that 
 you cannot know it until, far removed from seeking it in 
 a narrow space, you are able to complete and define it in 
 the way it would develope if its scope had been large enough. 
 And as this applies to every positive religion, it applies to 
 every period of it and to every subordinate form of it. You 
 cannot enough impress it upon yourselves that it all resolves 
 itself into finding the fundamental relation. Without that, 
 knowledge of details is unavailing, and you have not found 
 it till all details are fast bound in one. 
 
 Even with this principle of research as a touchstone, you 
 will be exposed to a thousand errors, for much will meet 
 you to withdraw your eyes from the true path. Above all, 
 I beseech you, never forget the difference between the 
 essence of a religion, in so far as it is a definite form and 
 representation of religion in general and its unity as a 
 school. 
 
 Religious men are throughout historical. That is not 
 their smallest praise, but it is also the source of great mis¬ 
 understandings. The moment when they were first filled 
 with that consciousness which they have made the centre 
 of their religion is always sacred for them. Without refer¬ 
 ence to it, they never speak of what for them is character¬ 
 istic in religion and of the form to which in themselves it 
 has attained. You can easily imagine, then, how much more 
 sacred still the moment must be in which this infinite 
 intuition was first of all set up in the world as the founda¬ 
 tion and centre of one peculiar religion. To it the whole 
 development of this religion in all generations and indi¬ 
 viduals is historically linked. Now this sum of the religion, 
 and the religious culture of a great body of mankind, is 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 2 37 
 
 something infinitely greater than a man’s own religious 
 life, and the little mirror of this religion which he person¬ 
 ally exhibits. This fact then is glorified in all ways ; every 
 ornament of religious art is heaped upon it. It is wor¬ 
 shipped as the greatest and most blessed miracle of the 
 Highest. Men never speak of their religion, nor ever exhibit 
 any of its elements except in connection with this fact. 
 
 As a consequence nothing is more natural than that this 
 fact should be confused with the fundamental intuition of 
 the religion. This has misled almost everyone and dis¬ 
 torted the view of almost all religions. Never forget that 
 the fundamental intuition of a religion must be some 
 intuition of the Infinite in the finite, some one universal 
 religious relation, found in every other religion that would 
 be complete, but in this one only placed in the centre. 
 
 I beg you also not to regard everything found in the 
 heroes of religion or in the sacred sources as religion. Do 
 not seek in everything the decisive spirit of that religion. 
 Nor do I exclude trifles merely, or things that on any 
 estimate are foreign to religion, but things often mistaken 
 for it. Recollect how undesignedly those sources were pre¬ 
 pared, so that it was impossible to provide for the ex¬ 
 clusion of everything not religion. And recall how the 
 authors lived in all sorts of circumstances in the world, and 
 could not say at every word they wrote, this does not 
 belong to the faith. When they speak worldly wisdom 
 and morality, or metaphysics and poetry, therefore, do not 
 at once conclude that it must be forced into religion, or 
 that in it the character of religion is to be sought. Morality, 
 at least, should be everywhere only one, and religion which 
 should not be anywhere one, cannot be distinguished by 
 the differences of morality, which are always something to 
 be got rid of. 13 
 
 Above all I beg you not to be misled by the two hostile 
 principles that everywhere, and almost from the earliest 
 times, have sought to distort and obscure the spirit of 
 
238 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 religion. Some would circumscribe it to a single dogma, 
 and exclude everything not fashioned in agreement with it, 
 others, from hatred to polemics, or to make religion more 
 agreeable to the irreligious, or from misunderstanding and 
 ignorance of the matter, or from lack of religious sense, 
 decry everything characteristic as dead letter. Guard your¬ 
 selves from both. With rigid systematizers or shallow 
 indifferentists you will not find the spirit of a religion. It 
 is found only among those who live in it as their element, 
 and ever advance in it without cherishing the folly that 
 they embrace it all. 
 
 Whether with these precautions you will succeed in dis¬ 
 covering the spirit of the religions I do not know. I fear 
 religion is only comprehensible through itself, and that its 
 special architecture and characteristic difference will not 
 become clear till you yourselves belong to some one 
 religion. 
 
 How you may succeed in deciphering the rude and un¬ 
 developed religions of remote peoples, or in unravelling 
 the manifold, varied religious phenomena lying wrapped up 
 in the beautiful mythologies of Greece and Rome, I care 
 very little. May your gods guide you! But when you 
 approach the holiest in which the Universe in its highest 
 unity and comprehensiveness is to be perceived, when you 
 would contemplate the different forms of the highest stage 
 of religion which is not foreign or strange, but more or 
 less existent among ourselves, I cannot be indifferent 
 as to whether or not you find the right point of view. 
 
 Of one form only I should speak, for Judaism is long 
 since dead. Those who yet wear its livery are only sitting 
 lamenting beside the imperishable mummy, bewailing its 
 departure and its sad legacy. Yet I could still wish to say 
 a word on this type of religion. My reason is not that 
 it was the forerunner of Christianity. I hate that kind of 
 historical reference. Each religion has in itself its own 
 eternal necessity, and its beginning is original. Bu the 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 239 
 
 beautiful childlike character of Judaism charms me. This 
 is so entirely overlaid, and we have here such a notable 
 example of the corruption and utter extinction of religion 
 in a great body in which it formerly existed, that it will 
 well repay a few words. Remove everything political and 
 moral as well, so God will, whereby this phenomenon is 
 supposed to be characterized. Forget the experiment of 
 joining the state to religion, if I should not say to the 
 church; forget that Judaism was, in a certain sense, an 
 order founded on an ancient family history and sustained 
 by priests. Regard only its strictly religious elements, and 
 then say what is the human consciousness of man's position 
 in the Universe and his relation to the Eternal that every¬ 
 where shines through. Is it anything but a relation of 
 universal immediate retribution, of a peculiar reaction of 
 the Infinite against every finite thing that can be regarded 
 as proceeding from caprice ? In this way everything is 
 regarded, growth and decay, fortune and misfortune. Even 
 in the human soul freedom and caprice interchange with 
 immediate operation of the Deity. A1J other recognized 
 attributes of God express themselves in accordance with 
 this principle, and are always regarded in their bearing 
 upon it. The Deity is throughout represented as rewarding, 
 punishing, disciplining single things in single persons. 
 When the disciples asked Christ, Who has sinned, this 
 man or his parents?" the religious spirit of Judaism ap¬ 
 peared in its most pronounced form, and his answer : “ Think 
 ye that these have sinned more than others ? " was his 
 polemic against it. 
 
 The universal interweaving of parallelism, therefore, is 
 not an accident, nor the value set on dialogue. All history, 
 being an abiding interchange between this attraction and 
 this repulsion, is presented as a colloquy in word and deed 
 between God and man, and what unity there is, is only from 
 the uniformity of this dealing, and hence the sacredness of 
 the tradition in which the connection of this great dialogue 
 
240 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 was contained, the impossibility of attaining religion, except 
 through initiation into this connection, and hence also, 
 in later times, the strife among the sects about the pos¬ 
 session of this intercourse. 
 
 Just because of this view, it came to pass that the gift 
 of prophecy was developed in Judaism as in no other re¬ 
 ligion. Even Christians are, in comparison, mere learners. 
 The whole idea of the religion is in the highest degree 
 childlike. It could only work on a narrow scene, without 
 complications, where the whole being simple, the natural 
 consequences of actions would not be disturbed or hindered. 
 The more the adherents of this religion advanced on the 
 scene of the world and had relations with other peoples, 
 the more difficult did the exhibition of this idea become. 
 Imagination had to anticipate the word which the Almighty 
 would speak, and, abolishing intervening time and space, 
 bring the second part of the same transaction immediately 
 before the eyes. That is the essence of prophecy, and the 
 effort after it was necessarily a prominent feature of 
 Judaism, so long as it was possible to hold fast the fun¬ 
 damental idea and original form of the Jewish religion. 
 
 The belief in the Messiah was its highest product, its 
 noblest fruit, but also its last effort. A new sovereign 
 must come to restore Zion, wherein the voice of the Lord 
 was dumb, to its original splendour. By the subjection of 
 the peoples to the old law, the simple course of patriarchal 
 times, broken by the unpeaceful association of peoples, the 
 opposition of their forces, and the difference of their 
 customs, should again become general. This faith has long 
 persisted, and, like a solitary fruit, after all life has vanished, 
 hangs and dries on the withered stem till the rudest season 
 of the year. 
 
 The limited point of view allowed this religion, as a 
 religion, but a short duration. It died, and as its sacred 
 books were closed, the intercourse of Jehovah with His 
 people was looked upon as ended. The political associa- 
 
THE RELIGTONS. 
 
 2 J r 
 
 tion linked with it dragged on still longer a feeble existence. 
 Till very much later its external part endured, and was 
 that unpleasant phenomenon, a mechanical motion from 
 which life and spirit have long vanished. 
 
 The original intuition of Christianity is more glorious, 
 more sublime, more worthy of adult humanity, penetrates 
 deeper into the spirit of systematic religion and extends 
 itself further over the whole Universe. It is just the 
 intuition of the Universal resistance of finite things to the 
 unity of the Whole, and of the way the Deity treats this 
 resistance. Christianity sees how He reconciles the 
 hostility to Himself, and sets bounds to the ever-increasing 
 alienation by scattering points here and there over the 
 whole that are at once finite and infinite, human and 
 divine. Corruption and redemption, hostility and media¬ 
 tion, are the two indivisibly united, fundamental elements 
 of this type of feeling, and by them the whole form of 
 Christianity and the cast of all the religious matter con¬ 
 tained in it are determined. With ever-increasing speed 
 the spiritual world has departed from its perfection and 
 imperishable beauty. All evil, even this that the finite 
 must decay before it has completed the circuit of its 
 existence, is a consequence of the will, of the self-seeking 
 endeavour of the isolated nature that, everywhere rending 
 itself from its connection, with the Whole, seeks to be 
 something by itself. Death itself has come on account of 
 sin. The spiritual world, going from bad to worse, is 
 incapable of any production in which the Divine Spirit 
 actually lives. The understanding being darkened has 
 swerved from the truth ; the heart is corrupt and has no 
 praise before God; the image of the Infinite in every part 
 of finite nature has gone extinct. 
 
 In accordance with this state of the spiritual world, all 
 dealings of Divine Providence are calculated. They are 
 never directed to the immediate results for feeling; they 
 do not consider the happiness or suffering which they pro- 
 
 E 
 
242 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 dace; they are not even for hindering or forwarding 
 certain actions. They are simply calculated to check 
 corruption in the great masses, to destroy, without mercy, 
 what can no more he restored, and with new powers to 
 give birth to new creations. Wherefore He does signs 
 and wonders that interrupt and shake the course of things, 
 and sends ambassadors, with more or less of divine spirit 
 indwelling, to pour out divine powers upon men. 
 
 And when man does seek through self-consciousness to 
 enter into fellowship with the unity of the Whole, the finite 
 resists him, and he seeks and does not find and loses what 
 he has found. He is defective, variable and attached to 
 details and non-essentials. He wills rather than gives heed, 
 and his aim vanishes from his eyes. In vain is every 
 revelation. Everything is swallowed up by the earthly 
 sense, everything is swept away by the innate irreligious 
 principle. The Deity finds ever new devices. By His 
 power alone, ever more glorious revelations issue from the 
 bosom of the old. He sets up ever more exalted mediators 
 between Himself and men. In every later ambassador the 
 Deity unites with humanity ever more closely, that men 
 may learn to know the Eternal Being. Yet the ancient 
 complaint that man cannot comprehend what is from the 
 Spirit of God is never taken away. 
 
 This is how Christianity most and best is conscious of 
 God, and of the divine order in religion and history. It 
 manipulates religion itself as matter for religion. It is 
 thus a higher power of religion, and this most distinguishes 
 its character and determines its whole form. Because it 
 presupposes a widely-extended godlessness it is through 
 and through polemical. It is polemical in its outward com¬ 
 munication, for, to make its deepest nature evident, every 
 corruption must be laid bare, be it in morals or in thinking. 
 Above all it must expose the hostility to the consciousness 
 of the Highest Being, which is the irreligious principle 
 itself. Relentlessly it unmasks every false morality, every 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 243 
 
 bad religion, every unhappy union of both for mutual 
 covering of nakedness. Into the inmost secrets of the 
 corrupt heart it presses and illumines, with the sacred 
 torch of personal experience, every evil that creeps in dark¬ 
 ness. Almost its first work on appearing was to destroy 
 the last expectation of its pious contemporaries, saying it 
 was irreligious and godless to expect any other restoration 
 than restoration to purer faiths, to the higher view of 
 things and to eternal life in God. Boldly it led the heathen 
 beyond the separation they had made between the world 
 of the gods and the world of men. Not to live and move 
 and have the being in God is to be entirely ignorant of 
 Him. If this natural feeling, this inner consciousness is 
 lost amid a mass of sense impressions and desires, no 
 religion has yet entered the narrow sense. Everywhere, 
 then, its heralds tore open the whited sepulchres and 
 brought the dead bones to light. Had these first heroes of 
 Christianity been philosophers, they would have spoken as 
 strongly against the corruption of philosophy. They never 
 failed to recognize the outlines of the divine image. 
 Behind all distortions and degradations they saw hidden 
 the heavenly germ of religion. But as Christians they 
 were chiefly concerned with the individual who was far 
 from God and needed a mediator. 
 
 Christianity, moreover, is as sharply and strongly po¬ 
 lemical within its own borders, and in the inmost fellow¬ 
 ship of the saints. Just because religion is nowhere so 
 fully idealized as in Christianity, through its original pos¬ 
 tulate, perpetual warfare against all that is actual in religion 
 is presented as a duty that can never be sufficiently fulfilled. 
 And just because the ungodly is everywhere operative, 
 because all actuality together appears unholy, an infinite 
 holiness is the aim of Christianity. Never content with its 
 attainments, it seeks, even in its purest productions, even 
 in its holiest feelings, traces of irreligion and of the ten¬ 
 dency of all finite things to turn away from the unity of the 
 
 e 2 
 
244 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 Whole. In the tone of the highest inspiration an ancient 
 writer criticizes the religious state of the community ; in 
 simple openness the great apostles speak of themselves. 
 And this is how every man is to walk in the sacred circle. 
 He is not only to be an inspired man and a teacher, but in 
 humility he is to present himself also to the universal 
 testing. Nor shall anything be spared, not even what is 
 most loved and dear; nor shall anything be indolently put 
 aside, not even what is most generally acknowledged. 
 Though without it be praised as holy and be set up before 
 the world as the essence of religion, within it must be sub¬ 
 jected to a severe and repeated test. Thus impurities are 
 to be removed, and the splendour of the heavenly colours 
 to shine more clearly in every pious impulse of the spirit. 
 
 In nature you often see a compound mass, as soon as its 
 chemical powers have overcome outside resistance or reduced 
 it to equilibrium, take to fermenting, and eject one and 
 another element. So it is with Christianity, it turns at last 
 its polemical power against itself. Ever anxious, lest in its 
 struggle with external irreligion it has admitted something 
 alien, or may yet have in itself some principle of corruption, 
 it does not avoid even the fiercest inward commotions to 
 eject the evil. 
 
 This is the history of Christianity that is rooted in its 
 very nature. “ I am not come to bring peace, but a sword,” 
 the Founder Himself said. His gentle soul could not pos¬ 
 sibly have meant that He was come to occasion those bloody 
 commotions, so utterly contrary to the spirit of religion, or 
 that wretched strife of words that deals with dead matter 
 which living religion does not admit. But what He did 
 foresee, and in foreseeing command, were those holy wars 
 that spring necessarily from the essence of His teaching, and 
 which, as bitterly as He describes, rend hearts asunder and 
 dissolve the most intimate relations of life. 
 
 But not only are the elements of Christianity themselves 
 subjected to this perpetual sifting; in their unbroken 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 245 
 
 existence and life in the spirit there is an insatiable longing 
 for ever stricter purification, ever richer fulness. Irreligion 
 is thought to dominate every moment in which the religious 
 principle is not evident in the mind. Religion has no other 
 opposite than just the absence of religious purpose : every 
 interruption of religion is irreligion. If the mind is for a 
 moment without intuition and feeling of the Infinite, it at 
 once becomes conscious of hostility and remoteness. Chris¬ 
 tianity then demands as first and essential that piety be a 
 constant state. It scorns to be satisfied, even with the 
 strongest displays of it, as soon as it only rules certain por¬ 
 tions of the life. Piety should never rest, and there should 
 never be anything so absolutely opposed as to be incon¬ 
 sistent with it. From all finite things we should see the 
 Infinite. We should be in a position to associate religious 
 feelings and views with ail sentiments, however they may 
 have arisen, and with all actions, whatever be their object. 
 That is the true highest aim of mastery in Christianity. 
 
 How the fundamental view in Christianity, the view 
 to which all others are referred, determines the charac¬ 
 ter of its feelings is easy to discover. What do you call 
 that feeling of an unsatisfied louging which is directed 
 towards a great object, and which you are conscious is 
 infinite? What impresses you on finding the sacred and 
 the profane, the noble with the common and the mean 
 intimately united ? And what is the mood that urges 
 you at times to assume the universality of this combination, 
 and to search for it everywhere ? With Christians this 
 holy sadness is not occasional, but is the dominant tone of 
 all their religious feelings. That is the only name which 
 the language affords me. It accompanies every joy and 
 every pain, every love and every fear. Nay, in its pride 
 and in its humility it is the ground tone. If you can re¬ 
 construct the depths of a spirit from, single features, undis¬ 
 turbed by foreign elements that have come from who knows . 
 where, you will find this feeling throughout dominant in the 
 
246 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 Founder of Christianity. If a writer, who has left but a 
 few leaves in a simple speech is not too unimportant for 
 your attention, you will discover this tone in every word 
 remaining to us from his bosom friend. 14 And if ever a 
 Christian has allowed you to listen in the sanctuary of his 
 soul, you have certainly caught just the same tone. 
 
 Such is Christianity. Its distortions and manifold cor¬ 
 ruptions 1 will not spare, for the corruptibility of every holy 
 thing, as soon as it becomes human, is part of its funda¬ 
 mental view of the world. And 1 will not go farther into 
 the details of it. Its doings are before you, and I believe I 
 have given you the thread that, guiding you through all 
 anomalies, will make the closest scrutiny possible. From 
 first to last look only at the clearness, the variety, and the 
 richness with which that first idea has been developed. 
 
 When, in the mutilated delineations of His life I con¬ 
 template the sacred image of Him who has been the author 
 of the noblest that there has yet been in religion, it is not 
 the purity of His moral teaching, which but expressed what 
 all men who have come to consciousness of their spiritual 
 nature, have with Him in common, and which, neither from 
 its expression nor its beginning, can have greater value, 
 that I admire; and it is not the individuality of His cha¬ 
 racter, the close union of high power with touching gentle¬ 
 ness, for every noble, simple spirit must in a special situa¬ 
 tion display some traces of a great character. All those 
 things are merely human. But the truly divine element 
 is the glorious clearness to which the great idea He 
 came to exhibit attained in His soul. This idea was, that 
 all that is finite requires a higher mediation to be in 
 accord with the Deity, and that for man under the power of 
 the finite and particular, and too ready to imagine the 
 divine itself in this form, salvation is only to be found in 
 redemption. Yain folly it is to wish to remove the veil 
 that hides the rise of this idea in Him, for every begin¬ 
 ning in religion, as elsewhere, is mysterious. The prying 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 247 
 
 sacrilege that has attempted it can only distort the divine. 
 He is supposed to have taken His departure from the 
 ancient idea of His people, and He only wished to utter its 
 abolition which, by declaring Himself to be the Person 
 they expected, He did most gloriously accomplish. Let us 
 consider the living sympathy for the spiritual world that 
 filled His soul, simply as we find it complete in Him. 
 
 If all finite things require the mediation of a higher 
 being, if it is not to be ever further removed from the 
 Eternal and be dispersed into the void and transitory, if its 
 union with the Whole is to be sustained and come to cou- 
 sciousness, what mediates must not again require mediation, 
 and cannot be purely finite. It must belong to both sides, 
 participating in the Divine Essence in the same way and 
 in the same sense in which it participates in human nature. 
 But what did He see arouud Him that was not finite and in 
 need of mediation, and where was aught that could mediate 
 but Himself P “ No man knoweth the Father but the Son, 
 and He to whom the Son shall reveal Him.” This con¬ 
 sciousness of the singularity of His knowledge of God and 
 of His existence in God, of the original way in which this 
 knowledge was in Him, and of the power thereof to com¬ 
 municate itself and awake religion, was at once the con¬ 
 sciousness of His office as mediator and of His divinity. 
 
 I would not speak of Him as standing opposed to the 
 rude power of His foes without hope of longer life, for 
 that is unspeakably unimportant. But when, forsaken in 
 the thought of being silenced for ever, without seeing any 
 outward institution for fellowship among His own actually 
 set up, when in the face of the solemn splendour of the old 
 corrupt system that had so mightily resisted Him, when 
 surrounded by all that could inspire awe and demand sub¬ 
 jection, by all that, from childhood, He had been taught to 
 honour, sustained by nothing but that feeling, He uttered 
 without delay that Yea, the greatest word mortal ever 
 spake, it was the most glorious apotheosis, and no divinity 
 
248 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 can be more certain than that which He Himself thus 
 proclaimed. 15 
 
 With this faith in Himself, who can wonder at His 
 assurance that He was not only a mediator for many, but 
 would leave behind a great school that would derive their 
 religion from His ? So certain was He that before it yet 
 existed He appointed symbols for it. This He did in the 
 conviction that they would suffice to bring the band of His 
 disciples to a secure existence. Nay, so sure was He that 
 already He had spoken among His own, with prophetic 
 enthusiasm, of the immortalization of His memory. 
 
 Yet He never maintained He was the only mediator, 
 the only one in whom His idea actualized itself. All 
 who attach themselves to Him and form His Church 
 should also be mediators with Him and through Him. 
 And He never made His school equivalent to His religion, 
 as if His idea were to be accepted on account of His 
 person, and not His person on account of His idea. Nay, 
 He would even suffer His mediatorship to be undecided, if 
 only the spirit, the principle from which His religion de¬ 
 veloped in Himself and others were not blasphemed. 
 
 His disciples also were far from confusing this school 
 with His religion. Pupils of the Baptist, still only very im¬ 
 perfectly initiated into the nature of Christianity, were, 
 without anything further, regarded and treated by the 
 apostles as Christians and reckoned genuine members of 
 the community. And it should be so still. Everyone who, 
 in his religion, sets out from the same cardinal point, 
 whether his religion originates from himself or from another, 
 is, without respect of school, a Christian. It will naturally 
 follow that when Christ with His whole efficacy is shown 
 him he must acknowledge Him, who has become historically 
 the centre of all mediation, the true Founder of redemption 
 and reconciliation. 16 
 
 Nor did Christ say that the religious views and feelings % 
 He Himself could communicate, were the whole extent of 
 
THE RELIGIONS. 
 
 249 
 
 the religion that should proceed from this ground-feeling. 
 He always pointed to the living truth which, though only 
 “taking of His,” would come after Him. Similarly with 
 His disciples. They never set limits to the Holy Spirit. 
 His unbounded freedom and the absolute unity of His 
 revelations are everywhere acknowledged by them. 
 
 And when, the first bloom of Christianity being past 
 and it was appearing to rest from its works, those works, 
 so far as they were contained in the sacred scriptures, were 
 regarded as a finished codex of religion, it was only brought 
 about by those who took'the slumber of the Spirit for death 
 —religion, as far as they were concerned, being dead. All 
 who still feel the life of religion in themselves or perceive 
 it in others, have ever protested against this unchristian 
 proceeding. The sacred scriptures have, by their native 
 power, become a bible, and forbid no other book to be or 
 to become a bible. Anything written with like power they 
 would willingly allow to be associated with themselves. Nay, 
 should not every later utterance of the whole church, 
 and therefore of the Divine Spirit, append itself confidently, 
 even though there be ineffaceably in the first fruits of the 
 Spirit a special holiness and worth ? 17 
 
 In accordance with this unlimited freedom, this essential 
 infinity, then, this leading idea of Christianity of divine 
 mediating powers has in many ways been developed, and 
 all intuitions and feelings of the indwelling of the Divine 
 Being in finite nature have within Christianity been 
 brought to perfection. Thus very soon Holy Scripture in 
 which, in its own way, divine essence and heavenly power 
 dwelt, was held as a logical mediator to open for the know¬ 
 ledge of God the finite and corrupt nature of the under¬ 
 standing, while the Holy Spirit, in a later acceptation of 
 the word, was an ethical mediator, whereby to draw near 
 to the Deity in action. Nay, a numerous party of Christians 
 declare themselves ready to acknowledge everyone as a 
 mediating and divine being who can prove, by a divine life 
 
250 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 or any impress of divineness, that he has been, for even a 
 small circle, the first quickening of the higher sense. To 
 others Christ has remained one and all, while others have 
 declared that their mediators have been their own selves 
 or some particular thing. Whatever failure there may 
 have been in form and matter, the principle is genuinely 
 Christian, so long as it is free. Other human situations 
 have, in their relation to the central point of Christianity, 
 been expressed by feelings and represented by images, of 
 which there is no hint in the speeches of Christ or elsewhere 
 in the sacred books. Hereafter there will be more, for 
 the whole being of man is not yet by any means embodied 
 in the peculiar form of Christianity, but, despite of what 
 is said of its speedy, its already accomplished overthrow, 
 Christianity will yet have a long history. 
 
 For why should it be overthrown ? The living spirit of 
 it, indeed, slumbers oft and long. It withdraws itself into 
 a torpid state, into the dead shell of the letter, but it ever 
 awakes again as soon as the season in the spiritual world 
 is favourable for its revival and sets its sap in motion. 
 Thus in oft repeated cycle it renews itself in various ways. 
 The fundamental idea of every positive religion, being a com¬ 
 ponent part of the infinite Whole in which all things must 
 be eternal, is in itself eternal and universal, but its whole 
 development, its temporal existence may not, in the same 
 sense, be either universal or eternal. For to put the centre 
 of religion just in that idea, it requires not only a certain 
 mental attitude, but a certain state of mankind. Is this 
 state, in the free play of the universal life, gone, never to 
 return, that relation which, by its worth, made all others 
 dependent on it, can no longer maintain itself in the feeling, 
 and this type of religion can no more endure. This is the 
 case with all childlike religions, as soon as men lose the 
 consciousness of their essential power. They should be 
 collected as monuments of the past and deposited in the 
 magazine of history, for their life is gone, never to return. 
 
THE RELIGIONS . 
 
 251 
 
 Christianity, exalted above them all, more historical and 
 more humble in its glory, has expressly acknowledged this 
 transitoriness of its temporal existence. A time will come, 
 it says, when there shall no more be any mediator, but the 
 Father shall be all in all. But when shall this time come ? 
 I, at least, can only believe that it lies beyond all time. 
 
 One half of the original intuition of Christianity is the 
 corruptibleness of all that is great and divine in human 
 things. If a time should come when this—I will not say 
 can no more be discovered, but no more obtrudes, when 
 humanity advances so uniformly and peacefully, that only 
 the navigator who calculates its course by the stars knows 
 when it is somewhat driven back on the great ocean it 
 traverses by a passing contrary wind, and the unarmed eye, 
 looking only at what is taking place, can no more directly 
 observe the retrogression of human affairs, I would gladly 
 stand on the ruins of the religion I honour. 
 
 The other half of the original Christian faith is that 
 certain brilliant and divine points are the source of every 
 improvement in this corruption and of every new and closer 
 union of the finite with the Deity. Should a time ever 
 come, when the power that draws us to the Highest was so 
 equally distributed among the great body of mankind, that 
 persons more strongly moved should cease to mediate for 
 others, I would fain see it, I would willingly help to level 
 all that exalteth itself. But this equality of all equalities 
 is least possible. Times of corruption await all human 
 things, even though of divine origin. New ambassadors 
 from God will be required with exalted power to draw the 
 recreant to itself and purify the corrupt with heavenly fire, 
 and every such epoch of humanity is a palingenesis of 
 Christianity, and awakes its spirit in a new and more 
 beautiful form. 
 
 And if there are always to be Christians, is Christianity, 
 therefore, to be universal and, as the sole type of religion, 
 to rule alone in humanity ? It scorns this autocracy. 
 
2$2 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 Every one of its elements it honours enough to be willing 
 to see it the centre of a whole of its own. Not only would 
 it produce in itself variety to infinity, but would willingly 
 see even outside all that it cannot produce from itself. 
 Never forgetting that it has the best proof of its immor¬ 
 tality in its own corruptibleness, in its own often sad 
 history, and ever expecting a redemption from the imper¬ 
 fection that now oppresses it, it willingly sees other and 
 younger, and, if possible, stronger and more beautiful types 
 of religion arise outside of this corruption. It could see 
 them arise close beside it, and issue from all points even 
 from such as appear to it the utmost and most doubtful 
 limits of religion. The religion of religions ‘cannot collect 
 material enough for its pure interest in all things human. 
 As nothing is more irreligious than to demand general uni¬ 
 formity in mankind, so nothing is more unchristian than 
 to seek uniformity in religion. 
 
 In all ways the Deity is to be contemplated and wor¬ 
 shipped. Varied types of religion are possible, both in 
 proximity and in combination, and if it is necessary that 
 every type be actualized at one time or another, it is to be 
 desired that, at all times, there should be a dim sense of 
 many religions. The great moments must be few in which 
 all things agree to ensure to one among them a wide- 
 extended and enduring life, in which the same view is 
 developed unanimously and irresistibly in a great body, and 
 many persons are deeply affected by the same impression 
 of the divine. Yet what may not be looked for from a 
 time that is so manifestly the border land between two 
 different orders of things ? If only, the intense crisis were 
 past, such a moment might arrive. Even now a prophetic 
 soul, such as the fiery spirits of our time have, 18 turning its 
 thoughts to creative genius, might perhaps indicate the 
 point that is to be for the future generations the centre for 
 their fellowship with the Deity. But however it be, and 
 however long such a moment may still linger, new develop- 
 
THE RELIGIONS . 
 
 253 
 
 ments of religion, whether under Christianity or alongside 
 of it. must come and that soon, even though for a long 
 time they are only discernible in isolated and fleeting mani¬ 
 festations. Out of nothing a new creation always comes 
 forth, and in all living men in whom the intellectual life 
 has power and fulness, religion is almost nothing. From 
 some one of the countless occasions it will be developed in 
 many and take new shape in new ground. Were but the 
 time of caution and timidity past! Religion hates loneli¬ 
 ness, and in youth especially, which for all things is the time 
 of love, it wastes away in a consuming longing. When it 
 is developed in you, when you are conscious of the first 
 traces of its life, enter at once into the one indivisible 
 fellowship of the saints, which embraces all religions and in 
 which alone any can prosper. Do you think that because 
 the saints are scattered and far apart, you must speak to 
 unsanctified ears ? You ask what language is secret 
 enough—is it speech, writing, deed, or quiet copying of the 
 Spirit ? All ways, I answer, and you see that I have not 
 shunned the loudest. In them all sacred things remain 
 secret and hidden from the profane. They may gnaw at 
 the shell as they are able, but to worship the God that is in 
 you, do you not refuse us. 
 
. 
 
 
 EXPLANATIONS OF THE FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 (1) Page 213.—As the question of the multiplicity of religion and 
 unity of the church, treated in earlier passages, is here expressed in 
 short compass, I would take the occasion to add something to the ex¬ 
 planations of this seemingly paradoxical statement. First, in every 
 type of faith it is the narrower brethren who would make the society 
 so exclusive, that on the one hand they would absolutely take no part 
 in the religious exercises of other types of faith, and would remain in 
 entire ignorance of their nature and spirit; and on the other, for the 
 slightest deviation, they are ready to found a distinct society. The 
 more liberal and noble again seek to have an affectionate apprecia¬ 
 tion of the mind of strange fellow believers, not only as spectators, 
 but as far as may be by active participation in the divine services 
 that have as their chief purpose the exhibition of this mind. Had 
 this not taken place among the members of the two Evangelical 
 churches, there could not Be, even where they most mingle, any 
 thought now, more than three hundred years ago, of union. A 
 Catholic could more easily be edified by the whole Evangelical service, 
 in which he would only miss much that in another way is made up to 
 him, than a Protestant with the Catholic service which, as it exhibits 
 in the most positive way the difference between the two types of faith, 
 cannot be the expression of his own. Even for a Protestant, however, 
 there is a way of taking part in much, by recasting, adjusting, trans¬ 
 lating in one’s own heart, that is not indifferentism. Only the Pro¬ 
 testant who has done this can boast of understanding the Catholic 
 type, and of having guarded his own faith when put to the touch-stone 
 of contrast. This leads us to the second point. The endeavour to 
 found an all-embracing society is the true and blameless principle of 
 tolerance. Though the possibility of such a society may be remote 
 if you take it quite away, nothing would remain but to regard the 
 different types of religion as an unavoidable evil. It is just like the 
 mutual toleration between differently constituted states. It continues 
 
EXP LAN A TIONS . 
 
 .255 
 
 because intercourse is still possible. When this ceases intolerance 
 enters, and a supposed right is-assumed to interfere in the affairs 
 of other people. This can only be done by an act, by a government, 
 taking outward destructive action, and never by reasoning or even 
 by plausibility. Only the narrow-minded, however, assume such a 
 right. The more liberal seek everywhere to open up intercourse, and 
 to make manifest thereby the unity of the human race. Their love 
 to the constitution of their Fatherland does not in the least suffer, 
 and in religion also true tolerance is far removed from all in- 
 differentism. 
 
 (2) Page 220.—This expression savours strongly of the time when this 
 book was written. There was then no great common interest: every man 
 estimated his own condition according to his individual circumstances, 
 without the smallest trace of public spirit; and the French Revolu¬ 
 tion itself, though already it had largely developed as a historical 
 event, was regarded by us in a way thoroughly selfish and in the 
 highest degree different and vacillating. Only at a later time, in 
 the days of calamity which were the days of glory, did we again learn 
 the power of common sentiments, and then the consciousness and 
 the consolation of common piety returned. At present the patriotic 
 and the religious sentiment may easily be measured by each other. 
 Where empty words, instead of the deed looked for, are given in the 
 concerns of the Fatherland, piety is also empty, however zealous its 
 pretence; and where the interest in the improvement of our condi¬ 
 tion breaks up into morbid factions, piety again degenerates into 
 sectarianism. It appears then that a quickening of natural, healthy 
 public spirit contributes more to clearness in religion than all critical 
 analysis. As is indicated by what follows in the Speech, analysis, 
 wanting this impulse, is too apt to become sceptical. When the 
 great social interests are weakened, piety is lamed and perplexed. 
 Hence the religious societies that have a tendency to obscurity, do 
 well to keep clear of all contact with other forms of religion. 
 
 (3) Page 221.—I have made slight changes here, rejecting a capri¬ 
 cious play on words that I might be more historical. The manifold 
 divisions of one and the same type of faith are manifestly not all of 
 equal worth. Such as recast the whole in a characteristic way have 
 a natural worth, and have a good right to exist. All splits, however, 
 about single points of small importance, as most of the separations 
 from the great body of the church in the first centuries, owe their 
 existence simply to the obstinacy of the minority. While they 
 deviate in one point they may not, however, unless kept in breath 
 by persistent polemies, neglect the rest. Those only are most called 
 
FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 256 
 
 sects, and deserve only a name that indicates willing exclusion who 
 absorb themselves in a few devious views and allow all the rest to 
 grow strange. Such sects always rest on one narrow but forcible 
 personality. 
 
 (4) Page 222.—On the position assigned to this difference I hope 
 I have already sufficiently declared myself. This representation, how- 
 ever, of the antithesis between the personal and the pantheistic, as 
 going through all three stages, gives me an opportunity to explain the 
 matter from another side. In the polytheistic stage this antithesis is 
 undeniable, only it is less clear as in everything imperfect antitheses are 
 less pronounced. Even when all that is known of their history is put 
 together, most of the gods of Hellenic mythology have little unity. 
 For explanation it is necessary to go back to the rise of their service 
 to their different countries and the character of. the myths there pre¬ 
 valent. The personality being slight, the forms readily become 
 symbolical. Many of foreign origin have received native names and 
 are quite symbolical, such as the Ephesian Diana, which is a pure 
 representation of the universal life, natura naturans, the direct 
 opposite of the idea of personality. In the Egyptian and Indian 
 systems the basis is either symbolic or hieroglyphic, and there is no 
 personality underneath. Such a purely symbolical representation of 
 first causes has properly no conscious gods, but is really pantheistic. 
 The dramatic or epic representation of the relation of the symbolic 
 or hieroglyphic being, however, produces an appearance of personality. 
 The two forms of polytheism, the personal and pantheistic, thus 
 appear to mingle, but in principle they are easy to distinguish. 
 Analogy would show that the same antithesis exists in the chaotic 
 stage or fetichism. Here, however, it is more difficult to recognize 
 and exhibit, there being but larvae of the gods which only by a later 
 development become psychic. 
 
 (5) Page 222.—I include in naturalism all the forms of religion 
 usually known as worship of nature. They are all, in the sense given 
 above, impersonally polytheistic. The worship of the stars is not an 
 exception. Even the worship of the sun is only apparently mono¬ 
 theistic, for a wider knowledge of the system of the world must at 
 once reduce it to worship of the stars, and, therefore, to polytheism. 
 This departure from common usage has the disadvantage that the 
 words naturalist and naturalism are employed among us for some¬ 
 thing quite different. I can only defend m} T self by hoping that 
 every reader who does not think of the ancient usage, but of the 
 present connection, will easily understand the expression employed 
 and find it appropriate. Still I would have refrained, if the manner 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 25'/ 
 
 in which naturalism and ratfonalism were used almost synonymously 
 as the opposite of supernaturalism had not even then so much dis¬ 
 pleased me. Even at that time I had the opinion, to which I have since 
 given expression on different occasions, that it caused confusion. 
 There is some sense, and more perhaps than is usually thought, in 
 opposing reason to revelation, but there is no ground for a contrast 
 between nature and revelation. For this antithesis the biblical 
 foundation, to which a Christian will always return, entirely fails, 
 and the more a matter is discussed from such a standpoint the more 
 perplexed it will become. 
 
 (6) Page 222.—Tne expectation that some polytheistic religions 
 would yet develope was not expressed at random. It rested on the 
 view also hinted at in the Introduction to my “ Glaubenslehre,” that 
 many polytheistic systems have manifestly arisen from smelting to¬ 
 gether small idolatrous clan religions, and that they are of higher 
 value than their elements. As long as racjs exist that have only a 
 fetich worship such an occurrence is possible, and at a time when 
 Christian missions had almost gone to sleep, I regarded this as the 
 natural road to improvement for the most rude societies. This pro¬ 
 bability has since greatly diminished, and it has grown more likely 
 that they also can be taken hold of directly by Christianity. 
 
 (7) Page 223.—At one time the expression heretic was honourable 
 Among the Greeks the schools of the philosophers and physicians, 
 the home of all the science and art of the time, were so called. 
 And to come nearer to our subject the different dogmatic schools 
 of the Jews also bore among the Hellenists the same name. In 
 ecclesiastical language the established faith of the church is no longer 
 the orthodox or catholic heresy. Yet the exclusive use of the word 
 for what is to be rejected does not rest on etymology. Probably it 
 has arisen because with a different reference it is used in this bad 
 sense in scripture. Here I use it of the positive religions in the 
 sense in which it was used of the Hellenic schools, which together 
 contained the whole national philosophy. It must be a bad philo¬ 
 sophical system indeed that has not caught some truly philosophic 
 element, and in some way sought to refer to it all other elements. The 
 same holds of the positive religions, and we may conclude that if 
 they were all developed there would be contained in the sum of them 
 the whole religion of the human race. 
 
 (8) Page 224.—This make is, of course, to be understood with a certain 
 limitation. In writing it I lived in the good confidence that every 
 one would complete it for himself. For example, it could not be my 
 meaning that he alone is a true Christian who could himself have 
 
 S 
 
258 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH . 
 
 been Christ had not Christ already been before him. But this must 
 be admitted, that any man is a Christian only in so far as in pre- 
 christian times he would among the Jews have held and transmitted 
 the messianic idea, and among the heathen been convinced of the in¬ 
 sufficiency of sensuous idolatry, only in so far as, by the feeling of 
 his need for redemption, Christianity had attracted him and drawn 
 him to itself. What follows shows clearly enough how little I was 
 serious with the statement that some or perhaps many could have 
 the germs of quite new types of religion outside of the historical 
 forms, and that it should be their duty to bring them to the light. 
 
 (9) Page 226.—Though I hope this passage, in its connection, could 
 not easily be misunderstood, I would not leave it without a slight 
 correction of both sense and expression. The expression has a 
 certain appearance of giving countenance to the idea that it is 
 possible, in the sphere of religion to proceed to discovery or by set 
 purpose to produce something. Everything that is new, in particular 
 if it is to be true and unadulterated, must issue spontaneously, as 
 by inspiration, from the heart. This appearance, however, will not 
 deceive those who hold fast the expression and the connection of the 
 whole. In the second place, the sense appears to be presented too 
 broadly and with too little regard to the great difference in various 
 forms of religion. Every religion of the highest stage, and especially 
 one that has constructed for itself a complete theology, must be in 
 a position to review its whole domain. It is the business of systematic 
 theology to draw such a map of it, that not only everything that has 
 come to actuality in that form of religion finds its place, but that 
 every possible place be indicated. And when such a map is looked 
 at, we will not easily find any place empty, only some parts better 
 filled, some less. JSTone but subordinate forms of religion and 
 smaller sects fail to aim at completeness. I have already shown 
 why these sects have a natural inclination not to deal with the 
 whole mass of religious matter, and in the smaller religious forms 
 individuals may differ too little to be able fully to complete one 
 another. 
 
 (10) Page 228.—This book bears throughout the marks of opposition, 
 and those who can call up that time will easily see that I am here 
 chiefly defending the cause of those who refer the beginning of their 
 religious life to one definite moment. Yet this is by no means a 
 mere attempt to reduce the opponents of this view to silence, in the 
 good assurance that they could not defend themselves. Singularly 
 I have had to defend this position against an able man, now long 
 departed, who was a distinguished teacher in a religious society I 
 
EXPLANATIONS . 
 
 259 
 
 greatly value, and whose whole practice really rested on this assump¬ 
 tion of definite moments of grace. He asked me if I actually believed 
 in such moments and considered them necessary, so that a gradual 
 imperceptible growth of religious life would not suffice me. He raised 
 an objection from an experience that must have struck all attentive 
 readers of the lives of men who have been awakened. They have 
 moments when they receive the assurance of divine grace, when 
 they are born to a personal, individual religious life. But, sooner 
 or later, to most of them times of relaxation come, when this cer¬ 
 tainty is again lost. Moments of confirmation must follow, and it 
 may be easily doubted whether the first or the second experience 
 is the true commencement. From this doubt it follows that the 
 truth is only in the gradual progress which the first moment pre¬ 
 pared for, and the second and third confirmed. I reminded him of what 
 I would here again recall, that I did not consider this the only form, 
 but acknowledged also the imperceptible rise and growth. The inner 
 truth, however, I held to be the union of both, one being more promi¬ 
 nent in one case and the other in another. It was, however, one 
 thing to postulate such moments and another to require that every¬ 
 one should be able to specify it and have consciousness of the time. 
 This idea I have further developed in a sermon. Thus we came to 
 agree. To the way, however, in which the matter is here presented 
 as an extraordinary moment with each life produced from it neces¬ 
 sarily quite individual, two objections may be raised. First, even in 
 the early times of the church, by the preaching of the apostles, there 
 were Christian awakenings in large numbers together, and even yet, 
 at times, not only among members of other faiths, but particularly 
 among Christians whose piety has succumbed to worldly cares and 
 occupation, such awakenings are, as it were, epidemic, and cannot, 
 therefore, be regarded as extraordinary. Wherefore, secondly, it 
 is probable that all it produces is not extraordinary and individual, 
 more especially as these awakenings often appear as reactions 
 against uniform, extensive indifference and licentiousness. This con¬ 
 clusion is supported by experience. At different times we find, just 
 among those who hold by such authentic decisive moments, only one 
 wearisomely uniform type of piety and the same, somewhat confused 
 phraseology about the state of the soul that is conjoined with it. But 
 this is connected with the uncertainty of those moments, and it is 
 not in this sense that I contrast a life suddenly awaked with a life 
 gradually developed. In a gradual development, the common 
 elements dominate. By their power the individual elements are 
 moulded and subordinated. Characteristic features are rarer and 
 
 s 2 
 
26 o 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 less pronounced. But the religiousness that rests apparently on a 
 moment of awakening has the same character. Even those who effect 
 the conversions have usually only one traditional type, which, from 
 its very limitation to a few strong formulas, is fitted to arouse the 
 indifferent, whether they are callous or have suffered defeat. Just 
 because their view requires such a moment, their persistent demand 
 actually prepares for it. By the repetition of such moments, though 
 only in a quite general and originally passing manner, consciousness 
 of personal worthlessness and of divine grace increase together, 
 and a religious life is gradually established. This is the undeniable 
 blessing that rests on this method. Yet the life adheres rigidly to 
 that type, and is consequently careful and troubled and but sparingly 
 equipped. If persons having such a history remain modestly in their 
 own circle, they are for us worthy comrades. When they are highly 
 cultured in an earthly sense and find themselves happy in this stage 
 of religion, it is a phenomenon both elevating and humbling. But 
 it is to none of those persons I refer here, for they have not developed 
 an individual life. The moments I refer to are of quite a different 
 stamp. They come to pass only where a religious tendency exists, 
 though chaotic and indefinite. They are not the result of external 
 influences, rather they are prepared for by the ever renewed feeling 
 that everything offered from without is precarious and inadequate. 
 By quiet thought and aspiration the positive is fashioned from that 
 negative, ehe inmost self is taken hold of by the divine, and then, 
 comprehending itself, it more or less suddenly comes forth. These 
 are rare occurrences, but even the most careless observer cannot 
 deceive himself into believing that he can exhaustively describe them 
 by one general name. 
 
 (11) Page 235.—Of course it is not new revelations outside the 
 circuit of any given religion that are here meant. A longing for such 
 revelations could not exist in any positive religion, for even its long¬ 
 ing must naturally bear its own characteristic form. Even the 
 messianic hopes of the Jews were not a longing for something beyond 
 Judaism, though they were afterwards fulfilled by the appearing of 
 Christ. In the measure of its vitality every religion has a desire to 
 find in itself something divine yet unknown. Hence the historical 
 consistency of any faith that is to have an extended influence for a 
 long time is determined by its possession of some principle to which 
 everything new may be referred. Where this fails unity tends to 
 dissolution. Even if despite this principle there should still be 
 divisions the largest sections will abide by it. In this sense we can 
 say the strife between the Greek and Homan Churches is between 
 
EXPLANATIONS 
 
 261 
 
 the original and the translation, and that the strife between them 
 both and the Evangelical Church is between scripture and tradi¬ 
 tion. 
 
 (12) Page 235.—On similar grounds this passage requires a slight 
 explanation. It might appear as if the great historical religions 
 were put in the shade and the noteworthy sought only in smaller 
 modifications. In the political sphere, indeed, we are somewhat 
 accustomed to such a procedure. Many constitutions of great 
 peoples appear to us clumsy or insignificant, while the form of govern¬ 
 ment of single towns with small dominion are admired and studied 
 by historians as masterpieces of political art. But it is otherwise 
 in the religious sphere. A strong religious life, even if hedged in by 
 narrow forms, sooner or later breaks through the limits of nationality. 
 This even Judaism did, and nothing in this sphere with character 
 and strength can remain small for ever. But I am speaking here 
 especially of what takes place within the great forms of religion, 
 particularly Christianity. Here it is quite otherwise. What most 
 easily finds an entrance with the multitude becomes great and 
 extended, which is usually that mean between extremes which 
 is only to be reached by active attention on every side. Now 
 this involves to some extent a direction of the attention without, 
 that does not encourage an inward and characteristic develop¬ 
 ment. This is the dominant character of what in the ancient sense 
 of the word we call catholic. As this is chiefly thought of when 
 the character and development of Christianity are under discussion, * 
 it seemed to me right to direct the attention of earnest inquirers 
 away from what impresses by its size to what was smaller. But it 
 was less to heretical parties that are marked by special partialities 
 than to individuals in the greater church who cannot manage to 
 adhere to mediocrity, or if you will to circumspection, whereby alone 
 the individual retains a distinguished place among the catholic, but 
 who prefer their inward freedom, and are not vexed by obscurity. 
 
 (13) Page 237.—It has never seriously been my opinion that the 
 doctrine of ethics should everywhere be one and the same. It will 
 suffice, if I here adduce what is universally accepted. It appears 
 to me that morality never can be everywhere the same, as all times 
 witness that it never has been. Its form is essentially speculative, 
 and never can be the same till speculation in general is everywhere 
 the same. Of this, despite the great fruitfulness of the last centuries 
 in philosophy of universal validity, there is not yet any appearance. 
 Nor can its content be the same, even if everyone who dealt with 
 ethics set out from pure humanity, for he only sees it through the 
 
2 Ö2 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 medium of his age and his personality. Wherefore, any doctrine of 
 morals of universal application can contain only the most general 
 truths in formulas of varying worth. Hence the universal application 
 is always rather apparent than real. Still the position here main¬ 
 tained is so far right, in that ethic3 applies another standard to 
 these differences than religion. It begins by subordinating the 
 individual and therefore the characteristic to the general. Only 
 by this subordination does the characteristic gain a right to make 
 itself valid. Suppose it possible to have as correct or even exactly the 
 same system built on the opposite mode of procedure, it would never 
 reach the universal feeling and anywhere give it effect. In religion 
 on the contrary, everything issues from the individual life, and the 
 more individual the more effective, and all common elements arise 
 simply from observing affinity and connection. Hence many who 
 are not yet conscious of their difference can adhere to one kind 
 of religion. Many, even when they are conscious of their difference, if 
 only their apprehension of human relations is the same, may, it is true, 
 accept one doctrine of morals, yet there may be found among the 
 adherents of one religion such marked difference that it is impossible 
 for them to have even a common moral doctrine. 
 
 (14) Page 246.—.Nothing betrays less sense of the nature of Chris¬ 
 tianity and of the person of Christ Himself than the view that John has 
 mixed much of his own with the speeches of Jesus. It even betrays 
 small historical sense and understanding of what brings great events 
 in general to pass, and of the nature the men must have on whom they 
 are founded. This assertion was formerly but a whisper, but after 
 strengthening itself in quiet, and providing itself with critical weapons, 
 it makes a bolder venture, and now John did not write the gospel at 
 all, but a later writer invented this mystic Christ. But we are left 
 to find out for ourselves how a Jewish rabbi of philanthropic dis¬ 
 position, somewhat Socratic morals, a few miracles, or what others 
 took for miracles, and a talent for striking apothegms and parables, 
 a man to whom, according to the other evangelists, some follies will 
 have to be forgiven, a man who could not have held water to Moses 
 and Mahommed, could have had such an effect as to produce a new 
 religion and a new church. But this must be fought out in a learned 
 manner, and the friends and adorers of the Johannine Son of God are 
 doubtless already girding themselves. The sadness of the Christians 
 of which I have spoken can be traced in Christ in the other evange¬ 
 lists also, as soon we learn to understand them rightly through 
 John. I have said that this sadness is the ground-tone in the pride 
 as in the humility of the Christian. It may appear that, though it 
 
EXP LANA TIONS. 
 
 263 
 
 is generally agreed that something exists which may be described as 
 pride which is not to be blamed, it is somewhat venturesome to call it 
 a Christian state of mind. In the Christian disposition, humility 
 is so essential and so predominant, that in this sphere it does not 
 appear as if there could be anything resembling pride, even though 
 in civil morals we would not blame it. I will not shield myself by 
 saying that I have also put fear and love together. As love is the 
 mark of the Christian, and perfect love casts out fear, I might say 
 that I was thinking of a human, that is an imperfect state of things. 
 But my meaning was this. There must be distinguished in the 
 Christian his personal consciousness over against Christ from his 
 personal consciousness in fellowship with Christ. The former, even 
 after the divine spirit of goodness has accomplished much in. him, 
 can be nothing but humility, but the later, consisting in the acquisi¬ 
 tion of all Christ’s perfections, must be of quite the opposite nature. 
 Now I know no other term that would express the contrast more 
 strongly. To point out this feeling I only need to recall all the 
 glorification of the Christian church in our New Testament books- 
 But that even in this pride there should be sadness about the still 
 narrow limits in which fellowship with Christ is actually felt, is a 
 matter of course. 
 
 (15) Page 248.—It is always dangerous, especially as here before un¬ 
 believers, to rest faith in Christ on any one thing in Him. Something 
 apparently similar may only too readily be compared with it, and its 
 inner and essential difference may not be easy to detect. Many an 
 enthusiast has thought greatly of himself and died in that faith. 
 How often has an error been defended with the firmest conviction 
 at the risk of life ! Such a rooted error, if indeed the proper object 
 of the faith is not the truth to which the error has attached itself, 
 rests only on an idiosyncrasy which cannot extend far. But of this 
 self-consciousness of Christ, the faith of the whole company of His 
 disciples and the joy of all the martyrs of this faith are the reflection. 
 Such a power the self-deception of any one soul never exercised. 
 Consider also that this claim did not have to do merely with inner 
 phenomena of the consciousness about which men could easily deceive 
 themselves, nor with some prospect in the distant future, which offers 
 free play to fancy. Christ had to believe that, under unfavourable 
 circumstances, open and easily surveyed, the divine power of this 
 abiding consciousness would approve itself. Still the vindication of 
 faith by any one thing is always incomplete, and to attempt to plant 
 it thereby in another is always hazardous. 
 
 (16) Page 248.—The conclusion of this exposition that, Christ is the 
 
264 
 
 FIFTH SPEECH. 
 
 centre of all mediation, should connect all the details in it and com¬ 
 plete what appears insufficient. Still I would not have the reader 
 overlook what I wish to make prominent. At that time the distinc¬ 
 tion between the teaching of Christ and the teaching about Christ 
 was hailed as a great discovery. Even allowing its validity to some 
 extent, the idea of mediation must in every way be reckoned the 
 teaching of Christ. Our teaching about Christ is nothing but the 
 ratification and application of that teaching of Christ as it is 
 fashioned by faith and sealed by history. And if I distinguish His 
 school from His religion it is only, as the conclusion shows quite 
 clearly, a different consideration of the same matter from different 
 points of view. The religion of Christ is that the idea of redemption 
 and mediation is the centre of religion. The application, so far, 
 however, as the reference of this idea to a person was a historical 
 process—and on this reference the whole historical existence of the 
 doctrine as well as of the society rests—I call, by an expression 
 now generally used, His school. That this was for Christ only 
 secqndary appears from what is here adduced, and also from the fact 
 that at first the kingdom of God, and He who was to come was an¬ 
 nounced, and only afterwards He is spoken of as having come. Again, 
 when it is said further back that Christ has become a mediator for 
 many, it is to be remembered that Christ Himself said that “ He 
 would give his life a ransom for many.” A particularist meaning is 
 not to be drawn from my words, or at least only in accordance with 
 my view set forth elsewhere. This is, that the actually experienced 
 relation of man to Christ is limited, and ever will be, even when 
 Christianity spreads over the whole earth. On the other hand, I 
 acknowledge a purely inward and mysterious relation of Christ 
 to human nature generally, which is absolutely general and un¬ 
 limited. 
 
 (17) Page 249.—Many of the members of our church will perhaps 
 consider what is here said of the Scriptures to be Catholic, and 
 Catholics will consider it hyper-protestant; the constitution of the 
 Scriptures by the church not being acknowledged, but the volume 
 being declared not yet finished. This is said only in a tentative 
 way, to distinguish clearly the shell of the matter from the kernel. 
 If there could be a book from an author like Mark or Luke or Jude, 
 with all the marks of authenticity, we would hardly agree unani¬ 
 mously to receive it into the canon. Yet it would show its native 
 biblical power and be bible in fact. Just this power has been the 
 ground for determining the practice of the church, and the ecclesias¬ 
 tical deliverance only confirmed it. How imperceptible the transition 
 
EXPLANATIONS. 
 
 265 
 
 from the canonical to the apocryphal, and both in power and purity, 
 how in strength and beauty many productions of the church 
 approach the canonical, no Protestant with experience and love of 
 history will deny, 
 
 (18) Page 252.—This is not an addition which I now make for the 
 first time. It was meant for the second edition, but as it seemed to 
 me too much of a challenge I again erased it. Now that those times 
 are past, it can stand as a monument of the impression made on 
 me and doubtless on many. It was not that the surfeit of a sense¬ 
 less Christianity at that time appeared in many as irreligion, for it 
 was to the honour of Christianity that they believed that where 
 Christianity was nothing religion generally was nothing. But 
 among not a few there was an endeavour to provide for natural 
 religion, an external existence, a thing already shown in England 
 and France to be a vain endeavour. There was also an itch for 
 innovation that, dreaming of a symbolized or gnostic Heathenism, 
 of a return to ancient mythologies as of a new salvation, rejoiced at 
 the thought of seeing the fanatical Christ vanquished by the calm 
 and cheerful Zeus. 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 Before parting with you, let me add a word about the con¬ 
 clusion of my Speech. Perhaps you think that it had 
 been better suppressed, because now, after several years, it 
 is apparent that I was wrong in adducing as a proof of 
 the power of the religious sentiment that it was in the act 
 of producing new forms. As nothing of the sort has any¬ 
 where come to pass, did I not wrongly presume to guess 
 what they would be ? If you think so, you have forgotten 
 that prophecy only deserves its name, in so far, as it is the 
 first fore-runner of the future. It is an indication of what 
 is to be, and in it, to the eyes of the prophet's kindred, the 
 future is already contained. But the more the thing pro¬ 
 phesied is great and comprehensive, and the more the pro¬ 
 phesying itself is in the genuine lofty style, the less can 
 the fulfilment be near. As in the far distance the setting 
 sun makes, from the shadows of great objects, vast magic 
 shapes on the grey east, prophecy sets up only in the far 
 distance the shapes of the future which it has fashioned 
 from the past and the present. Wherefore, what I said was 
 in no sense to be to you a sign to prove the truth of my 
 Speech, which should rather be clear to you by itself. I 
 had no wish to prophesy, even if the gift had not been 
 wanting, for it would have availed me nothing to point you 
 to a distant future. 
 
 All I wished was partly to demand, not of you, but of 
 some others, half in irony, whether they could perhaps pro¬ 
 duce that of which they appear to boast, and partly I hoped to 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 .267 
 
 lead yon to trace for yourselves tlie course of the fulfilment. 
 I was sure you would there find, what I would willingly 
 show you, that, in the very type of religion, which in 
 Christianity you so often despise, you are rooted with your 
 whole knowing, doing and being. You would see that 
 you cannot get away from it, and that you seek in vain to 
 imagine its destruction without the annihilation of all that 
 you hold dearest and holiest in the world—your whole 
 culture and mode of life, your art and science. 
 
 From this it follows that, as long as our age endures, 
 nothing disadvantageous to Christianity can come forth, 
 either from the age or from Christianity itself, and from 
 all strife and battle it must issue renewed and glorified. 
 This was my chief purpose, and you can see that I could not 
 have meant to attach myself to some expressions of able 
 and superior men, from which you understand that they 
 wish to re-introduce the Heathenism of Antiquity, or even 
 to create a new mythology, and by it to manufacture a new 
 religion. In my opinion, rather, you can recognize, in the 
 way that everything connected with such an endeavour is 
 void and without result, the power of Christianity. 
 
 Above all, it is necessary that you understand what I 
 have said of the fortunes of Christianity. This is not the 
 place to expound and defend or even largely indicate my 
 views, but I shall make a simple explanation that may 
 prevent me from being classed, in the usual way of refer¬ 
 ring everything to schools and parties, with persons with 
 whom, in this respect at least, I have nothing in common. 
 
 From the first there has almost always been some pro¬ 
 nounced antithesis in Christianity. As is natural, it always 
 has a beginning, a middle, and an end. The hostile ele¬ 
 ments gradually separate, the division reaches a climax, and 
 then gradually subsides until it fully disappears in another 
 antithesis that has meantime been developing. This has 
 marked the whole history of Christianity, and at present 
 Protestant and Catholic are the dominant antithesis in 
 
268 
 
 EPILOGUE . 
 
 Western Christendom. In each the idea of Christianity 
 has characteristic expression, so that, only by conjoining 
 both, can the historical phenomenon of Christianity corre¬ 
 spond to the idea of Christianity. This antithesis, I say, is 
 still in operation and persists. Were I to interpret for 
 you the signs of the time, I would say it has reached the 
 turn of the tide, but has not appreciably diminished or disap¬ 
 peared . 1 Let no one, therefore, be indifferent, but let every 
 man consider to what side he and his Christianity belong, 
 and in which church he can lead a religious and edifying 
 life. And none who are happy in having a healthy, strong 
 nature, and who follow it, can go astray . 2 
 
 At present there are some who appear to rescue them¬ 
 selves from the Protestant into the Catholic Church. I am 
 not speaking of those who in themselves are nothing and 
 are dazzled like children by glitter and show, or are talked 
 over by monks. But there are some to whom I myself 
 have formerly drawn your attention who are somewhat- 
 able poets and artists who are worthy of honour ; and a 
 host of followers, as is the fashion nowadays, has followed 
 them. The reason given is that in Catholicism alone there 
 is religion, and in Protestantism only irreligiousness, a 
 godlessness growing out of Christianity itself. Let that 
 man be honoured by me who ventures on such a step solely 
 on the conviction that he is following his nature. But if 
 his nature is only at home in that form of Christianity, 
 surely traces of this natural constitution will appear in his 
 whole life. It must be capable of proof that his act has 
 only completed outwardly what inwardly and spontaneously 
 was strictly contemporaneous and anterior. 
 
 There is another class also which I would pity and 
 excuse if I cannot honour. With the instinct of the sick, 
 which at times indeed is marvellously successful but may 
 also be dangerous, they take this step. Manifestly they 
 are in a state of dismay and weakness. Avowedly they 
 require external support for a bewildered feeling or some 
 
EPILOGUE. 
 
 269 
 
 incantations to allay anxious dread and bad headache, or 
 they seek an atmosphere in which weak organs, being less 
 stimulated, would feel better, as many sick people must not 
 seek the free mountain air but the exhalations of animals. 
 
 But the persons to whom I now refer, are neither one 
 nor other, but, appear to me simply despicable, for they know 
 not what they wish nor what they do. Is there any sense 
 in what they say ? Do the heroes of the Reformation 
 impress any uncorrupted mind with godlessness and not 
 with a truly Christian piety ? Is Leo X. actually more pious 
 than Luther, and Loyola’s enthusiasm holier than Zinzen- 
 dorf’s ? And where are we to assign the greatest produc¬ 
 tions of modern times in every department of science, if 
 Protestantism is godlessness and hell ? And in the same way 
 that Protestantism is for them only irreligion, they love in 
 the Roman church not what is in any way characteristic 
 and essential, but only its corruption—a clear proof that 
 they know not what they wish. Consider this purely his¬ 
 torically, that the papacy is in no way the essence of the 
 Catholic Church, but its corruption . 3 
 
 What they are really in search of is idolatry. The Pro¬ 
 testant Church, alas ! has also to contend with idolatry, but 
 in a less gorgeous, and therefore less seductive form. And 
 because it is not pronounced and colossal enough here, 
 they seek it beyond the Alps. For what is an idol, if not 
 what can be made, touched, and broken with hands, aud 
 which yet, in its perishableness and fragility, is foolishly and 
 perversely set up to represent the Eternal, not merely in 
 its own place, and according to its indwelling power and 
 beauty, but as if a temporal thing, could be the Eternal, 
 as if the Eternal could be handled and magically weighed 
 and measured at pleasure. The highest they seek is this 
 superstition in church and priesthood, sacrament, absolu¬ 
 tion, and salvation. But they will accomplish nothing 
 thereby, for it is a perverse state of things and will show 
 itself in them through increased perversity. Leaving the 
 
270 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 common sphere of culture, they will rush into a vain and 
 fruitless activity, and the portion of art that God has lent 
 them will turn to foolishness. This, if you will, is a pro¬ 
 phecy, the fufilment of which lies near enough to be 
 expected. 
 
 And now one more prophecy of a different sort, and may 
 you, as I hope, also see its fulfilment. It refers to the 
 second point I have just touched upon, the persistence 
 of the opposition of the two parties. Unquestionably many 
 in the Romish Church have rid themselves of her corrup¬ 
 tions. Now it might happen that outwardly also this 
 should take place, if not everywhere, and in all things, yet in 
 a large measure. Seducers might then come, threatening the 
 strong, and flattering the weak, persuading the Protestants 
 that, as this corruption is held by many to be the sole ground 
 of separation, they should return to the one, indivisible, 
 original church. Even that is a foolish and perverse pro¬ 
 ject. It may attract and terrify many, but it will not suc¬ 
 ceed, for the abolition of this opposition at present would 
 be the destruction of Christianity. I might challenge the 
 mightiest of the earth to attempt it. For him everything 
 is a game, and I would allow all power and guile. Yet I 
 prophesy he would fail and be put to shame, for Germany 
 still exists, and its invisible power is not weakened. Once 
 more it would take up its calling with unsuspected power 
 and would be worthy of its ancient heroes and its renowned 
 descent. It was chiefly appointed to develope this pheno¬ 
 menon, and, to maintain it, it would rise again with giant 
 force . 4 
 
 Here you have a sign if you require it, and when this 
 miracle comes to pass you will perhaps believe in the living 
 power of religion and of Christianity. But blessed are they 
 by whom it comes to pass, who do not see and yet believe. 
 
NOTES TO THE EPILOGUE. 
 
 (1) Page 268.—This deliverance will now appear less strange than it 
 did at first. At that time, looking from one side, it was easy to 
 believe that both churches would unite in unbelief, in indifferentism ; 
 from the other, that they would soon be two forms of superstition, only 
 outwardly and accidentally different. Lately, however, many events 
 have not only quickened the consciousness that the opposition still 
 actually exists, but have made it very clear what holds the two sections 
 apart. We cannot deny that the chief seat of the opposition is in 
 Germany. In England, indeed, it is strong enough, but it is more 
 political, in France again it plays a very subordinate part. It be¬ 
 comes us Germans above all to comprehend it both historically and 
 speculatively. This happens, alas ! too seldom. We have fallen sadly 
 into impassioned ways. If anyone among us would speak of the 
 matter impartially, he will certainly be suspected by his brethren as 
 a crypto-catholic, and he would be exposed to many importunate and 
 flattering advances from the Romanists. Praiseworthy exceptions, 
 when truly thorough-going moderation is acknowledged, are very 
 rare. Leaving quite aside, therefore, the present state of things, 
 I will indicate, in few words, wherein this opposition, regarded 
 from the point of view of its historical development, seems to me 
 still to exist. There is in both churches an evident disposition to be 
 exclusive, and as far as possible to ignore each other. Of this the 
 almost inconceivable ignorance of one another’s doctrine and usages 
 gives sufficient proof. This disposition is natural enough in the mass 
 of men, for each section finds religious stimulus and nourishment 
 enough in its own narrow circle, and the other section, though but 
 little may be wanting to it, appears, if not as impure as members of 
 alien religions to the Jews, at least utterly strange. This tendency 
 rules in quiet times. It is only interrupted in the mass of men by 
 outbreaks of passion, when one section gains some decisive advantage 
 in political matters or, in a large number of single cases in private 
 
272 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 life. As the educated, however, in whom a historical consciousness 
 should dwell, ought not to share this lazy exclusiveness, neither should 
 they share this hurtful passionateness. Between both churches there 
 should be a living influence, even though it should not be direct. Quiet 
 contemplation should stir up a keen rivalry in whatever in the other 
 section is acknowledged to be good. The contrast in the character 
 of both churches involves at least that one is receptive of the imper¬ 
 fections that the other more suppresses. May the Catholics be edified 
 by seeing that the more prominently the religious tendency appears 
 among us, the more any return to any kind of barbarity is hindered. 
 And if they would not deceive themselves as though there were no 
 difference in this respect between us, let them see how far they can 
 advance in the demand for individual freedom. And we should, as 
 passionlessly as possible, observe the secure position which in all out¬ 
 ward matters the Catholic Church knows how to secure by strong 
 organization. Let us then try how far we can attain to unity and 
 coherence, yet it must be done in our own spirit and not by setting 
 the spiritual order over against the laity in a way quite opposed to 
 this spirit. Such healthy influences appear, and the results are seen 
 from time to time. But the lazy exclusiveness of the mass checks 
 them and all passionate moments interrupt them. It may there¬ 
 fore be long before the purpose of the disagreement is attained. Till 
 then, we cannot say that the variance has reached its climax and 
 has begun to diminish. When that comes to pass, there will be a 
 common duty to exercise a vitalizing influence on the Greek Church. 
 As it is almost quite defunct, both churches will need for along time 
 to employ all their powers and all their remedies. But, until they have 
 succeeded in waking the dead, they cannot have fulfilled the destiny 
 of their division. 
 
 (2) Page 268.—How seldom anyone in lands belonging entirely to 
 one church, without interested views or artful suasion, but by a true 
 inward impulse, is driven to the other church is apparent. In regions 
 where the two sects commingle, how calmly we educate the children 
 of parents of one faith in the paternal religion, and it does not in the 
 least occur to us that they may have an inward destination for the 
 other. As the different national character of Christian peoples was 
 not without influence on the course the Reformation took, should it 
 not be thought that this spiritual attitude is a matter of inheritance 
 or birth P And is not this confirmed by the fact that when the adhe¬ 
 rents of another faith come over to Christianity, we do not consider 
 the Christian sense pure and steadfast till after two generations. 
 For children of mixed marriages, therefore, the natural rule would 
 
NOTES. 
 
 ■273 
 
 not be for tbe sons to follow the father and the daughter the mother, 
 but for each to follow the parent with whom there is more in¬ 
 herited resemblance. On the other side, however, it is not to be 
 denied that the original relation of the two churches is not favourable 
 to the hypothesis of a strictly innate inclination. It would rather 
 lead us to expect a self-determination for one or other form, according 
 to personal character. From this view the natural principle for 
 mixed marriages and the principle that without extraneous inter¬ 
 ference would have effect, would be for the children to follow the 
 more strongly religious parent. Under the special influence of this 
 parent, the religious element would be most strongly developed, 
 and then the child’s own choice could be calmly and hope¬ 
 fully waited for. Were there no foreign motives, no influences 
 that are almost violence, and were this natural course generally 
 followed, change in the prime of life would be rarer. After 
 a faith has been apprehended with love, and has for a long time 
 guided the life, this step is always the result and the cause of con¬ 
 fusion. It would be only taken by individuals who are in other 
 respects exceptions, as it were capricious sallies of nature, or by 
 persons who, from perverse guidance, have been made to see very 
 clearly the imperfection and narrowness of the accepted faith, and 
 are thereby driven to the opposite faith—a thing not rare at present 
 in both churches. 
 
 (3) Page 269.—Only a few will require a defence of this position, 
 that the Catholic Church, not merely in the old sense, but in the sense 
 we understand when we contrast it with the Evangelical Church, might 
 shake off the papal authority and return from the monarchical to the 
 aristocratic form of the episcopal system, without removing the differ¬ 
 ence between the churches, or, in any marked degree, facilitating their 
 union. Nor does it need much proof that the papal authority, whether 
 considered in its rise or in its prevailing tendency, has striven for aims 
 almost always false and beyond the church’s sphere. It is noteworthy, 
 however, that almost all who fall away from our church become 
 strong papists. It is hardly possible to avoid the conclusion that 
 they have not apprehended the true character of the Catholic Church, 
 and are only destined to display their religious incapacity in two 
 different forms. 
 
 (4) Page 270.—It would be bad if the very conclusion of a work could 
 cause a smile that might efface any earlier good impressions. Yet this 
 may do it in two respects. First, there is the dread that Bonaparte could 
 have some design against Protestantism, for did he not afterwards 
 threaten to go over with a large part of France to Protestantism, 
 
 T 
 
274 
 
 EPILOGUE. 
 
 and, quite recently, were not the Protestants in the south of France 
 persecuted as his most attached followers ? Then, again, I 
 almost always speak as if all Germany were Protestant, and now 
 many are hoping that sooner or later it will be once more altogether 
 or almost Catholic. In respect of the former possibility, what I said 
 expressed too accurately our feelings in the years of ignominy that I 
 should not let it Stand as I then wrote it. So much had been taken 
 from us that we might well fear that all was threatened. Undeniably 
 Napoleon acted in a quite different way in Protestant and in Catholic 
 Germany, and it could not remain hidden from him that our religious 
 sentiment and our political were intimately connected. On the 
 other point let everyone take heed not to laugh too soon. However 
 firmly he holds his hope, I hold mine as firmly. Further progress of 
 a Papistical Catholicism in Germany on many grounds necessarily 
 involves a return to every kind of barbarity. As the freedom of the 
 Evangelical Church will remain the surest support of every noble 
 endeavour, it cannot lie in the ways of Providence to weaken it and, 
 at its expense, to allow Catholicism to prevail. 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 In the first chapter there are many changes, but for the 
 most part merely of single words and phrases. The com¬ 
 plimentary passage on us proud Islanders is even stronger 
 in its original form. ‘ Religion can only be for us a dead 
 letter, a sacred article in the constitution without any 
 reality, for we are only occupied with fierce defence of 
 national orthodoxy and the maintenance of superstitious 
 attachment to ancient usages, while our pursuit of know¬ 
 ledge is limited to a miserable empiricism/ 
 
 P. 16, last par., has lost something of the irony of the 
 Romanticist. “We have systems from all schools, yea, 
 even from schools that are mere habitations and nurseries 
 of the dead letter. The spirit is neither to be confined in 
 academies nor to be poured out into a row of ready heads. 
 It evaporates usually between the first mouth and the first 
 ear.” 
 
 On p. 17, foot, beginning “In isolation,” a somewhat 
 mighty figure has been weakened, doubtless as too youth¬ 
 fully daring. He is speaking of the work of the true 
 heroes of religion. Only single noble thoughts flash 
 through their soul, kindled with celestial fire. The magic 
 thunder of an enchanting speech accompanied the high 
 phenomenon, and announced to adoring mortals that the 
 Deity had spoken. An atom impregnated with heavenly 
 power, fell into their soul, and there assimilated all, and 
 gradually expanded till it burst like a divine fate in a world 
 whose atmosphere offers too little resistance, and produced in 
 its last moments one of those heavenly meteors, one of 
 
 t 2 
 
276 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION . 
 
 those significant signs of the time, of the origin of which 
 none was ignorant, and with awe of which all mortals were 
 filled. You must seek this heavenly spark which is pro¬ 
 duced when a holy soul is stirred by the Universe, and you 
 must attend to it in the incomprehensible moment of its 
 formation.” 
 
 The earlier portion of the Second Chapter (pp. 26-66), 
 has been materially altered, a large part of it having been 
 entirely re-cast. The opening passage is little altered, the 
 parallel drawn between the sociality of states and the com¬ 
 bining of the mental activities is only verbally different, 
 but it is used to explain that he frequently returns to more 
 childlike times, not from depreciation of the present but in 
 order to discover religion more by itself. 
 
 f Ultimately, metaphysics, morals and religion have the 
 same object, the Universe. This has led to confusion. 
 Yet your instinct and opinions are against making religion 
 one with metaphysics, for you do not admit that it can 
 tread with the same firm step, or with morals, for there are 
 foully immoral parts in its history. It must, therefore, 
 deal with the same matter in a different way. “What 
 does your metaphysics do, or, if you will not have that 
 antiquated, too historical name, your transcendental philo¬ 
 sophy ? It classifies the Universe, gives the grounds for 
 what exists, deduces the necessity of the actual, and spins 
 from itself the reality and the laws of the world.” Keligion, 
 however, has nothing to do with grounds and deductions 
 and first causes. “ And what does your ethics do ? It 
 developes from the nature of man and his relation to the 
 Universe a system of duties, it commands and prohibits 
 actions with absolute authority. But religion cannot 
 venture to use the Universe for the deduction of duties, or 
 to contain a code of laws.” The common idea of religion 
 is that it is a mixture of fragments of metaphysics and 
 ethics, but it is time this idea was quite annihilated. 
 “ The theorists in religion who seek to know the nature of 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 2 17 
 
 the Universe and of a Highest Being whose work it is, are 
 metaphysicians, but discreet enough not to despise a little 
 morals ; the practical persons, to whom the will of God is 
 the chief matter, are moralists, but a little in the meta¬ 
 physical style. They import the idea of the good into 
 metaphysics as the natural law of a Being without limits 
 and without wants, and they import the idea of an Original 
 Being from metaphysics into morals that the great work 
 should not be anonymous, but that such a glorious code 
 might be prefaced by a picture of the law-giver.” Were 
 this mixture anything more than a selection for beginners, 
 and had a principle of union of its own, religion must be 
 the highest in philosophy, and metaphysics and ethics only 
 sub-divisions. All these are found together even in the 
 sacred books, unavoidably and also of high design. But 
 religion is like the diamond in the clay, enclosed not to 
 remain hidden, but to be all the more surely found. It is 
 simply a device for subtle winning of the hearer, but it has 
 overstepped the mark when the shell conceals the kernel. 
 “ I have been put out by your common idea, it is taken out 
 of the way I trust. Interrupt me now no more/’ 
 
 “ Religion neither seeks like metaphysics to determine 
 and explain the nature of the Universe, nor like morals to 
 advance and perfect the Universe by the power of freedom 
 and the divine will of man. It is neither thinking nor act¬ 
 ing, but intuition and feeling. It will regard the Universe 
 as it is. It is reverent attention and submission, in child¬ 
 like passivity, to be stirred and filled by the Universe’s im¬ 
 mediate influences.” To metaphysics, man is the centre of 
 all, the condition of all existence ; to religion, he is, like 
 every other finite thing, but a manifestation of the 
 Universe. Morals proceeds from the consciousness of free¬ 
 dom and seeks to expand the realm of freedom to infinity ; 
 religion regards man as needing to be what he is, whether 
 he will or not. Religion, morals and metaphysics are 
 equals, different but complementary. " To have specula- 
 
278 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 tion and practice without religion is mad presumption, 
 audacious hostility to the gods, the unholy sense of 
 Prometheus, who faintheartedly stole what he might have 
 asked for in safety. Man has but stolen the feeling of his 
 infinity and likeness to God, and as unjust goods he cannot 
 prosper with it, for he must also be conscious of his 
 limits.” 
 
 “ Practice is art, speculation is science, religion is sense 
 and taste for the Infinite.” Without religion, practice 
 cannot get beyond venturesome or traditional forms, and 
 speculation is only a stiff and lean skeleton. “ Practice 
 opposes man to the Universe, not having received him as a 
 part of it from the hand of religion. It has, in consequence, 
 a miserable uniformity, knows only one ideal and forgets 
 to cultivate man himself. The feeling for infinite and 
 living nature is wanting, whereof the symbol is variety and 
 individuality.” And why has speculation so long given 
 delusions for a system and words for thoughts ? From 
 want of religion. “ All beginning must be from intuition 
 of the Universe, and if the desire to have, intuition of the 
 Infinite is wanting, there is no touchstone and there is 
 need of none, to know whether anything has been rightly 
 thought. Modern Idealism is in need of religion, p. 40. 
 
 On intuition of the Universe my whole Speech hinges. 
 It is the highest formula of religion, determining its nature 
 and fixing its boundaries. “ All intuition proceeds from 
 the influence of the thing perceived on the person perceiv¬ 
 ing. The former acts originally and independently, and the 
 latter receives, combines and apprehends in accordance with 
 its nature.” Without mechanical or chemical affection of 
 the organs, there is no perception. “ What is perceived is 
 not the nature of things, but their action upon us, and what 
 is known or believed of this nature is beyond the range 
 of intuition. The Universe is in unbroken activity, and 
 reveals itself to us at every moment. Every form, every 
 creature, every occurrence is an action of the Universe upon 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 279 
 
 us, and religion is just the acceptance of each separate thing 
 as a part of the Whole, of each limited thing as an 
 exhibition of the Infinite. What would go further and 
 penetrate deeper into the nature and substance of the 
 Whole, is no more religion, and if it will nevertheless be 
 taken for religion, it invariably sinks into vain mythology/ 5 
 Then follows, almost unchanged, the passage on p. 49, about 
 what in the ancient world was religion, and what was 
 mythology. 
 
 Intuition is always single and distinct. Union and 
 arrangement into a whole are not the business of sense but 
 of abstract thinking. For religion, each intuition and 
 feeling is unconnected and independent, immediate and 
 true by itself. As the Universe can be viewed from an. 
 infinite number of points of view, there can be no system. 
 There can no more be a system of intuitions than of the 
 stars. The only system among them is the primitive en¬ 
 deavour to group them in definite but wretched and in¬ 
 appropriate figures. You may sketch the wain on the blue 
 scroll of the worlds, but your neighbour is free to enclose 
 them in quite other outlines. “ This infinite chaos, where 
 each point is a world, is the best and highest emblem of 
 religion.” At each different point of the material world 
 you see a new arrangement that leaves no trace of your 
 arbitrary figures, and there are new objects within your ken. 
 No horizon could embrace all, and there could be no eye 
 which nothing could escape. In religion, from each different 
 point of view you will see new intuitions and different 
 groupings of the old. The infinity of speculation is in the 
 endless variety of action and passion between the same 
 limited matter and the mind; the infinity of morals is the 
 impossibility of inward completeness; but religion is not 
 only infinite in these respects, it is infinite on every side, in 
 matter and in form and in way of perception. 
 
 The passage (pp. 54-56) follows little altered. 
 
 “ But to complete the general sketch of religion, recol- 
 
28 o 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 lect that each intuition, from its very nature, is linked to a 
 feeling. Your organs mediate the connection between the 
 object and yourselves. The influence of the object that 
 reveals its existence to you, must stimulate them in various 
 ways, and produce a change in your inner consciousness. 
 Frequently it is hardly perceived. In other circumstances it 
 becomes so violent that you forget both the object and your¬ 
 selves.” Yet, even then, you will not ascribe the activity 
 of your spirit that has been set in motion, to the influence 
 of external objects. “ Thus also in religion the same opera¬ 
 tion of the Universe, whereby it reveals itself in the finite, 
 brings it also into a new relation to your mind and to your 
 state.” With the intuition you must necessarily have many 
 feelings. The intuition does not, indeed, as in perception, 
 preponderate so much over the feeling, but the eterual world 
 may, like the sun, dazzle the eyes, casting its image and its 
 splendour long after on all objects. 
 
 The kind of intuition of the Universe determines the type 
 of your religion, the strength of feeling, its degree. The 
 sounder the sense, the more clearly and definitely will each 
 impression be apprehended ; the more ardent the thirst, 
 the more persistent the impulse to be always and every¬ 
 where impressed by the Universe, the more easy, perfect 
 and dominant will the impressions be. The feelings of reli¬ 
 gion should possess us and we should give them expression, 
 but if they urge us to action, we are in another sphere. 
 If you will still consider it religion, however good the 
 action, it is only superstition. All actions must be moral, 
 religion accompanying as a sacred music, “ all should be 
 done with religion, nothing from it.” And even though 
 you do not admit that all actions are moral, the same is 
 true of those you exclude. The moralist, the politician, 
 the artist must all act with calmness and discretion, not a 
 possible thing if man is impelled to action by the violent 
 feelings of religion. Religion, without any other impulse 
 to activity, rather tends to inactive contemplation. To act 
 
THE FIRST EDITION . 
 
 281 
 
 on the Whole by feeling direct from the Whole, would be 
 like acting towards a man according to the immediate 
 impression he makes upon us. Morals condemns it 
 because it gives room for alien motives, and religion 
 because it makes man cease to be what gives him religious 
 value—a part of the Whole acting by its own free power. 
 Action proceeding from its own proper source with the 
 soul full of religion, is the aim of the pious. Action from 
 religion is the impulsion of bad spirits not good. The 
 legion of angels with which the Father provided the Son 
 were around Him not in Him. 
 
 The next matter to understand is intuitions and feelings. 
 For clear consciousness, reflection and utterance they must 
 be considered apart, but the finest spirit of religion is there¬ 
 by lost. In our original consciousness there are two activi¬ 
 ties, one controlling and working outwards, and another 
 subservient, sketching and copying. Straightway in the 
 simplest matter the elements divide, one set combines into 
 an image of the object and the other penetrating to the cen¬ 
 tre of our being, dashes itself upon our original impulses 
 and developes a fleeting feeling. In the same way no 
 creation of the religious sense can escape this fate of divi¬ 
 sion. Yet intuition without feeling is nothing, and feeling 
 without intuition is nothing. There is a mysterious moment 
 in every sense perception, before intuition and feeling 
 divide, when sense and object mingle and are one. u It 
 is fleeting and indescribable, but I wish you could seize it 
 and recognize it again in the higher, the divine religious 
 activity of the spirit.” 
 
 This moment is a kiss, an embrace, pp. 43, 44. Without 
 it religion is but a spinning of formulas, pp. 47, 48. 
 
 The divine life is like a tender plant, the flowers of which 
 are fertilized in the bud. The holy intuitions and feelings 
 that you can dry and preserve are but the calixes and 
 corollas that soon open and soon fall. But out of them I 
 would now wind a sacred wreath. 
 
282 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 First I conduct you to Nature as tlie outer court. The 
 first intuition of the world and its Spirit is neither from fear 
 of material forces nor from joy at physical beauty. Both 
 had their place in preparing rude peoples, and may yet 
 through art have a higher influence, but these influences 
 naturally diminish with civilization, (p. 64) one god being 
 made to conquer another, and the beauties of the globe 
 being seen to be for universal matter pure delusion. 
 " At a higher stage, perhaps, we shall see that to which 
 here we must submit, ruling universally in all the vault of 
 heaven, and a sacred awe will fill us at the unity and 
 universality of material forces, and we may some time 
 discover with astonishment in this delusion the same 
 Spirit that quickens the Whole.'” 
 
 After p. 66 the alterations are less extensive. 
 
 On p. 93 the section on the idea of God has been re-cast, 
 and some think entirely changed. 
 
 ‘ For me the Deity is only one kind of religious intui¬ 
 tion, of which any others there may be, are independent. 
 I do not accept the position, ‘ No God, no religion/ 
 
 The idea of God may be very different. To most men 
 God is merely the genius of humanity, man being the 
 prototype. To this God mankind is everything, and 
 His disposition and nature are determined by what man 
 takes to be His doings and dealings. But to me mankind is 
 not everything, but an infinitely small part, a fleeting form 
 of the 'Universe. There may be many beings above hu¬ 
 manity, but every race and individual is subordinated to 
 the Universe. Can God in this sense then be anything for 
 me but one type of intuition ? 
 
 Let us proceed to the highest idea, a Highest Being, a 
 Spirit of the Universe who rules with freedom and under¬ 
 standing. On this idea also religion is not dependent. To 
 have religion is to have an intuition of the Universe, and 
 while this idea of God suits every intuition, a religion 
 without God might still be better than another with God. 
 
THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 283 
 
 The stages of religion depend on the sense, the idea of God 
 on the direction of the imagination. “ If your imagination 
 attach itself to the consciousness of freedom so that it 
 cannot think of what originally operates on it, except as a 
 free being, you will personify the Spirit of the Universe and 
 have a God. If it attach itself to understanding, so that 
 you always clearly perceive that freedom has only meaning 
 in the individual and for individuals, then you have a World 
 and no God. You will not I trust consider it blasphemy 
 that the belief in God should depend on the direction of the 
 imagination. You will know that imagination is the 
 highest and most original activity in man, and that all 
 besides is only reflection upon it.” Your imagination 
 creates the world, and you could have no God without the 
 world. “ The knowledge of the source of this necessity 
 will not make anyone less certain, nor enable him to 
 escape the almost absolute necessity to have this idea of 
 God. Only as operative can God be in religion, and no one 
 has denied the divine life and action of the Universe. 
 With the God of existence and command religion has 
 nothing to do.” 
 
 In the Third Speech, p. 120, te Everyone misses in him¬ 
 self, etc.,” was, till the third edition, “ Seeing I myself miss 
 not a little in myself.” 
 
 On p. 138 another interesting personal reference has been 
 toned down. “Were it not impious to wish to be more 
 than one is, I would wish that I could see as clearly how 
 the sense for art by itself passes into religion, how despite 
 the rest into which through each separate enjoyment the 
 spirit sinks, it yet feels itself urged to that progress which 
 might lead to the Universe. Why are those who have 
 gone this way, such silent natures ? I do not know this 
 sense, it is my most marked limitation, it is the defect in 
 my nature that I feel most deeply. But I treat it with 
 esteem. I do not presume to see, but I believe. The 
 possibility of the matter stands clear before my eyes, only 
 
284 
 
 THE FIRST EDITION. 
 
 it must remain a secret for me.” Again, p. 139, By the sense 
 for art the “ divine Plato raised the holiest mysticism on the 
 summit of divineness and humanness. Let me do homage to 
 the goddess to me unknown, that she cherished him and his 
 religion so carefully and disinterestedly.” 
 
 In the Fourth Speech there are no changes of any 
 consequence. 
 
 In the Fifth Speech, the first clause, i( Man in closest 
 fellowship with the Highest,” was, " Man in the intuition of 
 the Universe.” That is the key-note of the changes. 
 Intuition of the Universe gives place to relation to God. 
 Thus p. 217, “ The whole of all religions is nothing but the 
 sum of all relations of man to God,” replaces a passage that 
 derives the need of an endless mass of religious forms 
 from the number, variety, and independence of intuitions 
 of the Infinite. 
 
 Later the additions are more striking than the changes. 
 On p. 224, when he asks whether it is necessary to belong 
 to an existing religion, he replies “ By no means/’ without 
 any “ Provisionally ” or any modification as in the para¬ 
 graph at the top of p. 225. Further additions are, on 
 p. 246 foot, “ and that for man under the power of the finite, 
 and particular, and too ready to imagine the divine itself 
 in this form, salvation is only to be found in the redemp¬ 
 tion ”; p. 248, after “ Yet He never maintained He 
 was the only mediator,” “ the only one in whom His idea 
 actualized itself. All who attach themselves to Him and form 
 His Church should also be mediators with Him and through 
 Him ”; further on, on the same page, the reason given why 
 the person who sets out from the same point as Christ is a 
 Christian, “ It will naturally follow that they will acknow¬ 
 ledge Him,” and p. 249 the last clause in the second para¬ 
 graph about the first-fruits of the Spirit having special 
 holiness and worth. Page 251, first paragraph. “ I at 
 least can only believe,” was “ I at least fear.” 
 
INDEX. 
 
 Acts of Apostles, 181. 
 
 America, 196, 197, 201, 205. 
 
 Ancients, religion of, 49, 65, 69. 
 
 Antithesis, xxix., lii., 3, 51, 256, 
 
 267. 
 
 Aristotle, xxiii. 
 
 Art, xxxiii., xlii., lvii., 29, 37, 68, 129, 
 138-141, 142, 146, 180, 283, 284. 
 
 Asceticism, 62. 
 
 Baptism, 160, 200-201. 
 
 Berkeley, xxx. 
 
 Berlin, xvii., xxi., xxxvii., xlvii., 
 151. 
 
 Birth and death, 131. 
 
 Braasch, ix., xl. 
 
 Brinkmann, xvi., xvii., xli. 
 
 Butler, xxii. 
 
 Catholicism, liv., 51, 254, 267-274. 
 
 Celibacy, 105. 
 
 Charite, the, xxiv. 
 
 Chinese Emperor, 194. 
 
 Christ, historical, xx., xxxv., liii., 17, 
 143, 187, 245, 262-263; as media¬ 
 tor, xl., liv., 246, 248-249, 258, 263- 
 264, 284; School of, 248. 
 
 Christianity, description of, xlv.- 
 xlvi., lii.-liii., 241-253,262 ; priest¬ 
 hood of, 185 ; spread of, 108, 187, 
 188, 272 ; polemical, 243 ; catholic 
 in, 261; future of, xl., 265, 267- 
 
 268, 270. 
 
 Church, Apostolic, 192; Catholic, 
 23, 110, 182, 194, 195, 198, 205, 
 206, 260, 268; Evangelical or Pro¬ 
 testant, 110, 194, 261, 273, 274; 
 Greek, 23, 191, 194, 260, 272; 
 order in, 184; Reformed, xiii., 
 xlix., 1., 189; and State, xlix., 
 lviii., 164-176, 198-205; unity of, 
 xxxiii.; Visible and Invisible, 
 157-180, 190-193. 
 
 Communions, smaller, 196-197, 235, 
 261. 
 
 Conversation, religion in, 150-151, 
 183. 
 
 Conversion, 260. 
 
 Clergy, 153, 194, 206. 
 
 Creeds, 193-194, 206-207. 
 
 Culture, 92. 
 
 Deism, xxi., 14. 
 
 Dilthey, ix., xxvii., xxxvi. 
 
 Divorce, xxxviii. 
 
 Dogma, xlii., 87, 195, 238. 
 
 Dogmatics, liv., 109, 258. 
 
 Drossen, xvii., xx. 
 
 Editions of “Speeches,” ix., xxxv., 
 xxxix.-xlvi., 1L, 275-284. 
 
 Education and the church, 199-200, 
 203-204 ; of to-day, 136. 
 
 Ego, xxvii., 77, 78, 79, 84, 137, 138, 
 142, 145. 
 
 Emotions, 18. 
 
 England, religious life in, 9, 23, 197, 
 271, 275; Episcopal Church of, 
 197. 
 
 Eudaimonists, 116, 117. 
 
 Explanations, li. 
 
 Faith implicit, 23. 
 
 Fichte, xxvii., xxviii., xxxvii., xlvii., 
 113. 
 
 French, the, 10, 23. 
 
 French Bevolution, xix., 10, 255. 
 
 Germany, religious life in, 9, 197, 
 207, 208, 270, 271, 274. 
 
 Glaubenslehre, xliii., li., 105-9, 101- 
 2, 114-5, 117, 145, 186-8, 192. 
 
 God, existence of, xxvii., 22, 93-99, 
 101, 115, 137; Kingdom of, 17, 
 145 ; personality of, xl., xliii., 95- 
 99, 116, 222, 256. 
 
286 
 
 INDEX. 
 
 Goethe, x., xv., xxiv., xxv. 
 
 Grace, 90, 114; moments of, 228, 
 
 259. 
 
 Greeks, 96, 139. 
 
 Halle, xv.-xvii., xxxix., xlvi., xlvii/ 
 Harms, xii., 1. 
 
 Heathenism, 108, 267. 
 
 Hegel, x., xi., lii., liv. 
 
 TTorrlor yyv 
 
 Heresy’ liv.,* 109-110, 223, 257. 
 Hierarchists, Iviii. 
 
 History, xliv., xlvii. 
 
 Humanity, 71-78. 
 
 Humility, 79, 112. 
 
 Hypocrisy, 19. 
 
 Idealism, 40. 
 
 Illumination, The, x., xvi., xix., xxi., 
 xxii., xxxiv., xlii. 
 
 Imagination, xxvi., 98, 283. 
 Imaginative natures , 133-134. 
 Immortality, 92, 93, 99-101,117, 118. 
 Individuality, xxx. 
 
 Infinite, seers of, 55. 
 
 Inspiration, 89. 
 
 Intuition, xliii., 44, 280, 284. 
 
 Jacobi, xxiii., xxx. 
 
 John, 262. 
 
 Judaism, xxxv., liii., 108, 238-241, 
 
 260, 261. 
 
 Kant and the Illumination, xxi., 
 xxii.; influence of, x., xxii.; study 
 of, xv., xvi., xxiii. ; system of, xx., 
 xxvii.-xxviii., 113. 
 
 Kantians, 116. 
 
 Klopstock, 106, 184. 
 
 Koran, 181. 
 
 Kurze Darstellung, lii., 107. 
 
 Landsberg, xx. 
 
 Leibnitz, xxviii. 
 
 Leo X., 269. 
 
 Lessing, xxiv. 
 
 Letter, the, 130, 144, 207. 
 
 Lipsius, ix., xi., xxxix.-xl., xliii. 
 Literature of edification, 182-183; 
 
 mediocre religious, 208. 
 
 Liturgy, xlix.-li. 
 
 Lord's Supper, 193. 
 
 Loyola, 269. 
 
 Lncinde, Confidential Letters on, 
 xxxvi. 
 
 Luther, 269. 
 
 Mahommedanism, liii. 
 
 Marriage, 169, 170, 200-202; mixed, 
 
 273. 
 
 Mediators, 6, 79, 113. 
 
 Messiah, 240. 
 
 Methodism, xiv., lvii. 
 
 Mind, predominating power in, 
 xxxiii., 27. 
 
 Miracle, 88, 89, 113, 114. 
 
 Missions, 23, 257. 
 
 Monotheism, liii., Ill, 186. 
 
 Morals, aim of,’xxxi., 261. 
 
 Moravians, xiii.-xv., xx., xxvi.,xxxiv., 
 xxxv., lvii., 151, 183, 189, 197. 
 Music, 51, 59, 119, 152, 190. 
 
 Musical temperament, Iviii. 
 
 Mystics, 17, 154. 
 
 Mysticism, 133, 139. 
 
 Mythology, Heathen, 238, 256, 267; 
 senseless, 139, 163 ; use of, 106- 
 107, 126. 
 
 Napoleon, xi., xx., xlvi.,xlvii., xlviii., 
 xlix., 270, 273. 
 
 Nature, 65-67, 282. 
 
 -laws of, 67-71. 
 
 Neander, xi., lvi. 
 
 Novalis, xxv., xxvi., 41, 104, 184. 
 
 Oaths, 200. 
 
 Oratory, Sacred, 172, 203. 
 
 Pantheism, xl., 24, 97, 115, 116, 222, 
 256. 
 
 Papacy, xxxvi., 269, 273. 
 
 Patriotism, xi., xlv., xlvi., 255. 
 
 Paul, 112, 115, 186. 
 
 Personality, 77. 
 
 Peter, 143, 185. 
 
 Pietism, lvii., 144-145. 
 
 Piety. See “ Keligion.” 
 
 Pious, Society of, 155. 
 
 Plato, xxiii., xxviii., xxxii., 118, 139, 
 284. 
 
 Polytheism, xlvi., 102, 110, 111, 139, 
 256, 257. 
 
 Poor, care of, 198. 
 
 Presentiment, 83, 225. 
 
 Priesthood of Humanity, 8 ; of Be¬ 
 lievers, 151, 153, 185. 
 
 Priests, 2, 141, 153. 
 
 Prophecy, 89, 266. 
 
 Proselytes, Jewish, 143, 
 Proselytizing, 187-188. 
 
 Protestantism, liv., 51, 195, 254, 267- 
 
 274. 
 
INDEX . 
 
 287 
 
 Pünjer, ix., xxxix. 
 
 Purism, xliv. 
 
 Rationalism, xxi., 257. 
 
 Reason, xxviii. 
 
 Reformation, 1., liv., 268, 272. 
 
 Religion as activity, 27-29; aim of, 
 xxxi.; artistic conception of, 
 xxxiii.; communication of, 149- 
 152, 158, 190 ; corruption of, 215- 
 216; definition of, lii., 103; en¬ 
 dowments of, 198; and ethics, 
 xxxiii., xliii., 14, 36-42, 141, 261, 
 262 ; in the family, 178, 189; as 
 feeling, xxxiii., xxxvi., xlii., 45- 
 50 ; heroes of, 60, 135, 230, 237, 
 275 ; and history, 80-82 ; impelling 
 to action, 56-59 ; individuality in, 
 225, 232, 259 ; imitation of, 122 ; 
 its infinity, 54, 82 ; as knowledge, 
 xxxiii., xliii., 29-31, 35, 36,38-40 ; 
 a malady, 147; mastership in, 
 lvii., 123, 172-175; and metaphy¬ 
 sics, xxii., xxxii., 14, 34, 102, 141, 
 276; and morality, xxii., 18, 34, 
 56-62, 84; representatives of, 135 ; 
 its rise, 12 ; and sensuous self- 
 consciousness, 106; social, 148; 
 and the state, xxxiv., 19-21, 24, 
 37 ; as a system, 50-56 ; not teach¬ 
 able, 122 ; teleological, liii., 145 ; 
 true and false in, 108, 187; types 
 of, 221. 
 
 Religions. Natural, 214, 217, 230, 
 232, 233, 234, 265; nature of, 
 xxxiv.-xxxv., lviii., 218, 223 ; 
 
 plurality of, 212-214, 254; posi¬ 
 tive, 214-218, 234. 
 
 Religious life, rise of, 225-228, 258- 
 260. 
 
 Revelation, 89-90. 
 
 Ritschl, ix., xl., lvii. 
 
 Romantic School, xxiii., xxiv., xxvi., 
 xli., lvii., 275. 
 
 Rome, 55, 109-110. 
 
 Rule of religious, lviii., 163. 
 
 Sack:, xx., xxxv., xliii. 
 
 Schelling, xxvi., xxix. 
 
 Schiller, xxxvi. 
 
 Schlegel Friedrich, xii., xxv., xxvi., 
 xxxvi., xxxvii., xxxix., xlv., xlviii. 
 
 Schleiermacher, birth, xiv.; death, 
 
 lv.-lvi.; doubts, xv., 23 ; estimates 
 of, x.-xii., lvi.-lviii.; marriage, 
 xlviii.; parentage, xiii.-xiv.; per¬ 
 sonal references, xlii., 8, 9, 283, • 
 284 ; uncle, xvii.; works of, xii., 
 xix., xxxvii., xxxviii., xxxix., xlvi., 
 xlvii., li., lii.; works on, ix. 
 
 Schlobitten, xviii. 
 
 Science, aim of, xxxi., 94,141. 
 
 Scriptures, canon of, 249, 264 ; 
 exposition of, xvi., xxi., xlvii., 182 ; 
 a logical mediator, 237 ; monument 
 of heroic time, 91; and piety, 150, 
 181; not unmixed, 33-34, 237, 277. 
 
 Sectarianism, 22, 153, 162, 220, 255. 
 
 Sense, 127, 136, 154, 159, 164; per¬ 
 ception, 42-45. 
 
 Socrates, 38, 184. 
 
 Spinoza, x., xxiii., xxviii., xliii., 40- 
 41, 104-105. 
 
 Spinozism, xxviii., xl., 97, 115. 
 
 Steffens, xxvi., xlvi. 
 
 Stein, xlviii. 
 
 Stourdza, 23. 
 
 Strauss, xxxiv., li., lviii. 
 
 Supernatural, liii., 125, 257. 
 
 Synodal government, xlix., 206, 
 
 System, 55, 109, 161, 195, 258. 
 
 Taskmaster, 178-179. 
 
 Theology, lii.,liv., lviii.; systems of, 
 15-18, 40. 
 
 Uncultured, the, 11. 
 
 Understanding, people of, 125, 128- 
 132. 
 
 Uniformity, xlix., 74, 231, 278. 
 
 Unitarianism, 197. 
 
 Universal Lawgiver, 35. 
 
 Universe, active, xxix. 
 
 Upheaval, times of, 120-121. 
 
 Utilitarianism, xxi., 131. 
 
 Versatility, 136. 
 
 Virtuosos, 86. 
 
 Wilhelm Meister, x., xxv. 
 
 Women, piety of, 37, 47. 
 
 World-Spirit, xxviii., 49, 70, 71, 81, 
 84, 111, 135, 211; Soul, 111. 
 
 Zeus, 64, 265. 
 
 Zinzendorf, 269. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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