In stating our final result, we have stated the manner in which only the philosopher views reli gion; not exactly as a transcendental philosopher, but generally as an abstract thinker, precisely as he seizes also the conceptions of duty, morality, etc., only in their abstraction. The command of duty can never appear in its generality to man in actual life, but only in concrete determinations of the will. In so far as a man truly and always de termines his will by that command of duty, (con science,) he is a moral man, and acts morally.
In the same way religion never appears to man in actual life in general, but only in so far as in each special case, when he determines his will by conscience, he is firmly convinced (and this convic tion is a result of that determination) that what he so wills and does is also outside of his individual will, absolute object of universal reason; that it THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE* 367 will occur and must occur simply because it is in volved in that absolute object of reason, and that his individual will, in determining itself by the command of duty, is but the tool of that absolute object. Only in having this conviction is man re ligious. Hence the man who, in all the conditions.of his life, acts and thinks in so acting, " I there by promote that which shall be, that is, the abso lute object of reason," is a perfectly virtuous and re ligious man, even though he might stop at that simple thought and never combine the manifold of what sJia.ll be into the unity of absolute reason.
But even the ordinary acting of life compels men to unite the similar of their experience, and thus to shape general rules out of general concep tions. As soon as this is done in any region of knowledge, it is done in all its regions, and hence certainly in the region of religion and morality, if morality and religion are dear to men.
But it is not necessary that they should rise to the highest abstraction, to a conception which unites all others of the same kind, and from the unity of which all others may be derived; for this would require a systematic, philosophical thinking. As a general rule, men are content to reduce the manifold to several forms and fundamental concep tions.
The basis of religious faith was the conviction .of an order or a law, by virtue of which from obe dience to the command of duty must certainly resuit the absolute object of reason, and hence the actual attainment and realization of which each in dividual in his moral acts can but strive to attain.
Let us analyze what is contained in this convic tion: Firstly, that which exclusively and abso lutely depends upon my own will, namely, to deter mine it by the voice of duty. Secondly, the reli gious faith that in thus determining my will some thing is achieved which lies beyond the province of my individual moral will The second is connected with the first by reli gious faith. The moral sentiment is completed in the first, but we shall soon see that it can only arrive at a rational and confident assertion in the second; and that thus morality can only be confi dently realized in religion. It is therefore an un just reproach to say that our theory utterly cancels religion and leaves it but its name, replacing it by morality.
Indeed, I can not will, except, by the law of my finity, (I must always will a determined, limited somewhat,) that is, except I divide my in itself in finite will into a series of finite will-determinations. Hence, in the demand that I should will as duty commands, is also involved the demand that I should will a determined somewhat That this de termining of the will through the voice of conscience (not through argumentation as regarding the possi ble result of my will) can never deceive is known through faith, is known immediately, not medi ately, through argumentation. Here, therefore, is THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE^ $69 the first connecting link between pure morality and religion.
From that determination of the will an act re sults, and from this act, again, other consequences result in the world of rational beings; for I see only this world, the sensuous world being simply a means for me— consequences which I can neither foresee nor calculate. In fact, these consequences are no longer in my control, and yet I have faith that they are good and conformable to the absolute object of reason. And this faith I hold with the same original certainty which impelled me to the first act; nay, I could even not act unless this faith always accompanied me. Now, this is reli gion. I believe in a principle by virtue of which every determination of the will through duty as suredly effects the promotion of the object of rea son in the universal connection of things. But this principle is utterly incomprehensible in regard to the mode and manner of its working; and yet it is absolutely posited with the same originality of faith which pertains to the voice of conscience. Both are not one, but both are absolutely insepa rable.
Let us proceed with our analysis. The deter mination of the will is always only the present, and contains what depends upon us alone. But for its own possibility it is at the same time accompanied by the presupposition of a something past, and by the postulate, that a future something, modified by it, will be its result It is accompanied by a presupposition. Not thtf fact that I have a duty by which to determine my will, for that is the result of pure reason; but the fact that I have this determined duty as mine is the result of my position in the whole world of reason. Did I not exist or were I another, which, of course, is an absurdity, or were I existing in an other community of rational beings, then such a determined duty would not enter at all as mine. But, occupying the position I do, I am bound to act according to the voice of my conscience; and this I can not do without presupposing at the same time that this very position of mine is taken into the account of the ultimate object of reason, and is the result of the causality of that absolute prin ciple. Hence, the faith in my conscience involves also the faith that the world of reason, which must be presupposed for the acts of all individuals, is equally produced and ordered by that principle.
Expressing this popularly, or illustrating it by the analogies of our finite consciousness, it means: the world of reason is created, maintained, and governed by that absolute principle. It is accompanied by a postulate, that is, by the postulate of a future something, which is the continued causality of that determination of our will to promote the final ob ject of reason, and hence the maintenance and equable development of all rational beings in the identity of their self-consciousness; everlasting progress of all toward the ultimate object of rea son. All rational beings must, therefore, be main- THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE. 37!
tained in their eternal existence, and their fates directed toward blessedness, that is, toward their liberation through pure morality.
It is clear that we here think only acts, events, a flow of action, but no being, no dead permanency; a creating, maintaining, governing, but by no means a creator, maintainer, governor. The faith we have spoken of does not enter upon these theo retical questions. It rests upon its own basis with firm conviction, and there is not the least ground for going beyond it The confession of faith now reads as follows: I, and all rational beings, and our relations to each other, in so far as we do distinguish ourselves, are created by a free and intelligent principle, which maintains them and leads them toward an ultimate object; and whatsoever does not depend upon our action to realize that object is done without our in terference by that world-governing principle itsel£ Still, the principle of which those many predi cates are asserted is to be but one. I can not, by the laws of my thinking, proceed from one of these predicates to the other, without presupposing a permanent substrate to which these predicates be long, or without generating that substrate by this my very thinking. I do not, however, look upon this substrate as my production, for -the simple rea son that I produce it necessarily by virtue of the laws of my thinking. Now, this thinking of the one principle which unites the manifoldness and the distinction of the predicates is itself the permanent; and hence, we have in the one act two deter minations which always accompany each other as opposites, but each of which is only through the other, and which only in this opposition form the act of thinking; namely, one thinking which is al ways the same, that of the unity of the principle; and one flowing and changeable thinking, that which proceeds from the one predicate of the prin ciple to its other predicates. These predicates have arisen in me immediately together with my moral resolve, and with the original certainty which ac companies that resolve. But the oneness of the principle arises in me only when, by abstracting from that moral requirement which contents itself with the certainty of the predicates, I proceed to reflect upon the separation of those predicates from their moral relation.
The oneness I get merely by mediation; the pre dicates themselves I have immediately.
The only fitting parallel to that immediateness and mediating thinking is furnished by the think ing of our soul, (mind, or what you will call it) My feeling, desires, thinking, willing, etc., I know of immediately by accomplishing those acts. They come into my consciousness by no act of media tion, but only by my positing them, by my being tu them; they are the immediate ML-? i^o^v. So long as I remain in this consciousness, as I am wholly practical, wholly life and deed, I only know tny feeling, desiring, willing, etc., as they occur one after the other, but I do not expressly know myself as the unity and as the principle of these various determinations. It is only when I elevate myself above the reality of these distinctive acts, and, ab stracting from their difference, gather them together in me only in their commonness, that the con sciousness of the unity arises in me as the principle of these manifold determinations; and this product of our abstracting and comprehending thinking is what we call our soul, mind, etc.
Now, if I am but ripe for that abstraction, that is, if I take it from out myself, and do not accept it traditionally, then that one principle can only be thought as a for itself existing and working prin ciple, but not as a mere quality or predicate, inhe rent to some substance or another. It will, there fore, have to be described not as spirituality per taining to some substance, which, being not spirit itself, could thus only be thought as matter, but as pure spirit; not as a substantiated world-soul, but as a pure, for itself existing being; not as a creat ing, maintaining, and governing, but as creator, maintains, and governor. And this very properly and in accordance with the laws of our thinking, if we are once resolved to rise from the immediateness of life and activity to the field of theoretical abstraction.
Let it not be forgotten both conceptions have arisen only through thinking and through an ab stract, not through a necessary or concrete, think ing. They are, therefore, not related to perception.
but are only logical subject. They are by no means real subject, or substance.
Only the predicates of both conceptions occur in perception, and hence contain a necessary, real thinking, that is, in sensuous perception various predicates occur in a sensuous, objective connec tion; and in this respect it may be said that the subject or substrate of these sensuous predicates belongs to the realm of real thinking. But this can not be said with reference to those supersensuous subjects, the soul or the creative spiritual principle.
What, then, may these conceptions involve? Evidently nothing but the predicates of the percep tion, from which they have arisen by an abstracting thinking. Thy soul is nothing but thy thinking, feeling, etc. God is nothing but the creating, gov erning, etc.
You may draw conclusions from the conception of the real substance, but never from that of the logical subject. Through the former our knowledge may be expanded, not through the latter. If some thing is real substance, it comes under the condi tions of sensuous perception; is somewhere and at some time, is accompanied by sensuous predicates. But none of these determinations can be applied to these conceptions.
Even the conception of pure spirit can not assist in such further conclusions. Even the determina tions, borrowed from our soul, do not suit that con ception. We ascribe them to our soul, not through mediating thinking, but through Immediate con sciousness. But concerning God immediate (mo ral) consciousness says only what has been stated. And to draw conclusions from this beyond it, we have no ground, and there is no possibility to do it.
What I have here stated is transcendental philo sophy, not life-philosophy. From it the regulatives for the construction of a life-wisdom must first be deduced. Only that which proceeds from life has a retroactive effect on life — mode of thinking, of acting, etc. Life gives birth only to the imme diate faith I have mentioned; but not to the logi cal subject, and its erroneous further determina tions.
That immediate faith is, therefore, to be pre eminently cultivated, and held as the main thing. The logical part will come of itself, and is correct, proper, and not dangerous.only in so far as it thus forms itself of itself. That faith, however, is not to be cultivated by argumentation, but by practice in life and moral development Only through the culture of this immediate faith do men arise to religious faith, though they may not know it; for it alone is the true and univer sally valid origin of the religious faith. This, of course, is only proved by the investigations of a thorough transcendental philosophy.
The pedagogical rules for a religious education of the people are, therefore, as follows: 3/6 THE SCIENCE OF KNOWLEDGE.
Religious culture can not be begun by teaching religion; for religion without morality is utterly incomprehensible; and, since people try at least to comprehend it, leads to superstition. It can only begin in a culture of the heart, and ingrafting in it pure virtue and morality.
Through virtuous sentiments religion creates it self; and all the teacher needs to do is to call atten tion to this faith of religion, which accompanies all moral consciousness, and neither needs proof, nor is capable of proof, because it announces itself as the most original part of our being. Religious cul ture, indeed, must not be regarded as something which is to be placed into a man — for whatever thereof you place into him is surely false — but as something, which is already in him, and needs only to be developed, of which he is only to be re minded.
Hence, there is to be no leaching of religion at all, but merely a developing of that original, reli gious consciousness.
But least of all should such teaching begin with pretended doctrines of the existctice of God. We are only immediately aware of his relations to us, and you must begin with these. The " existence " will then come of itself, and will be truly believed only when it has thus developed itself.
Nor is the being of God to be determined, cha racterized, and its specific mode of existence to be.pointed out; for this our thinking can not do, as we have abundantly shown. We are only to speak of his acts, and to vivify, strengthen, and keep in consciousness always the faith in them. TJie con ception of God can not be determined by categories of existence, but only by predicates of an activity.
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