Chapter 50 1. Natural Religion①

① Mainly refers to Eastern religions. - translator The spirit that knows the spirit is the spirit that is aware of itself, and presents itself to itself in the form of an object; the spirit exists and is at the same time a being for itself.The spirit exists for itself, it belongs to the self-conscious side, so it is in the opposite relationship with its conscious side, in other words, it takes itself as the object.In the mind's consciousness of itself there are antitheses, and thus the formal determinations in which the mind expresses itself and through which it knows itself.It is these particular forms that we are concerned with in considering religion.For the unformed nature of the mind, or its pure conception, has been stated before.And the distinction between consciousness and self-consciousness occurs simultaneously within the sphere of self-consciousness.The form of religion does not include nature detached from thought, nor does it include the specific existence of spirit in the sense of thought detached from being.On the contrary, the form of religion is a kind of existence contained in thinking, and at the same time it is also a kind of thought content existing there. —One religion can be distinguished from another according to the different determinations of the forms by which the mind knows its own religion.

It must be pointed out, however, that in expressing the knowledge of the spirit itself in terms of individual stipulations, it does not in fact exhaust the entirety of actual religion.The series of different religions that will be stated are likewise only re-expressions of different aspects of a single religion, or even of each individual religion.And those ideas which seem to distinguish one actual religion from another are present in every religion.But this difference (Ver Bschiedenheit) must also be regarded as religious difference.For when the mind is in a state in which its consciousness and its self-consciousness are differentiated (Unterschied), then the object of its movement is to abolish this main difference and to give the form of self-consciousness to any shape of the object of consciousness.But this difference is not only due to the forms contained in consciousness, but also has the link of self and God is represented as self-consciousness even if it has been sublated.The represented self is not the real self; in order for the represented self to belong to this form as well as any other more definite determination of the form, it must, on the one hand, throw itself into this form through an act of self-consciousness. On the other hand, the lower rules must show that they have been sublated and grasped by the higher rules.Since the represented ceases to be represented and ungraspable to knowledge only because the ego has produced it, and the ego therefore regards the determination of the object as its own determination, so intuiting in the object to myself. – Through this activity the lower determination (i.e., what is represented) disappears at the same time.

Because this (conscious) activity is negative, and this negation process is realized by negating the other.If there are still low-level regulations, it has already retreated to a non-essential position.Just as in the reverse case, when the lower determination is still dominant and the higher determination has emerged, the higher exists side by side with the lower determination as something without self. Thus, while the different representations within a particular religion express the whole movement of its forms, the character of each religion is determined by a particular unity of consciousness and self-consciousness, that is to say, by the fact that the self Consciousness has assimilated into itself the determination of the object of consciousness, has fully made this determination its own through its own actions, and knows that this determination is an essential determination compared with other determinations. —The truth of the belief in a definite belief in the religious spirit is shown in the fact that the real spirit has the same properties as the form in which it contemplates itself in religion, so that, for example, the The belief in the incarnation of God in Eastern religions has no truth, because the spirit of reality in Eastern religions does not have the principle of reconciliation between God and man contained in the concept of God incarnation. —It is not intended here to return from the totality of [religious] determinations to the individual determination, and to show in what form the whole of the remaining determinations is contained in it [the individual determination] and in its particular religion.If the higher form were placed back under the lower form, it would have no meaning for the self-conscious mind, but belonged only apparently to the mind and only to its sphere of representation.The higher form must be considered in its own proper sense, as a principle of this particular religion, as confirmed by its real spirit, and so on.

(a) God of Light① ① Refers to the Persian Taoism or Zoroastrianism.The German is Lichtwesen, which means "God of Light", and the English translation is "Godas Light".Literally translated as "bright essence".In religious texts, "essence" generally refers to God. - translator Spirit as essence, self-conscious, or self-conscious essence, which is all truth and knows all reality as itself, acquires reality in the movement of its consciousness, first of all only its the concept of.And this concept is to the day of the movement and development of this consciousness itself, the night of its inner essence, and to the specific existence of its moments as independent forms. The creative secret of birth.The secret reveals itself in itself; since the particular existence of these moments has its necessity in the concept (since the concept is the mind that knows itself), so in the essence of the concept there is the moment of becoming conscious and bringing itself into being. The ability to represent objects as themselves. —This is the pure self which, in the process of externalizing itself, has its own certainty when it sees itself as the universal object, that is to say, the object is for this pure self all thinking and The penetration of all reality.

In this first immediate bisecting (Entzweiung) of the absolute spirit that knows itself, its form has the determination that belongs to immediate consciousness or sensuous certainty.Absolute Spirit sees itself in the form of Being (Sein), but not in the spiritless, contingent determination of the senses that belongs to the stage of sensuous certainty, but in Being full of spirit. Inside.The Absolute Spirit also contains the form that was present at the stage of immediate self-consciousness: the form of master versus slave, master as immediate self-consciousness opposed to the self-consciousness of the spirit returning itself from its object. of. —This being, which is imbued with the concept of the spirit, is thus the form, or formlessness, of the spirit itself in relation to itself.

Because of this characteristic, this form is the god of the Eastern religions to the pure all-encompassing, all-pervading light that retains itself in its formless substance.The opposite of light is likewise its simple negate, darkness; the process of its own externalization, its creative activity in the non-resisting element of its counterpart, is the radiance of light; this simple radiance of light, Simultaneously is the flow of fire from its specific being and the process of returning to itself and burning its concrete form.The distinction that light makes to itself undoubtedly propagates in the real substance of its particular existence, and forms the forms of nature.But the essential simplicity of the luminous mind, which floats erratically and inexplicably in every form, expands its bounds infinitely, and raises it to splendor, and beauty disappears in it too. of sublime.

The developed content of this pure being (light) or its perceptual activity is thus an insubstantial grasp of an entity which simply rises there without penetrating into itself to become a subject, And fixes its differences by the ego.The determinations of this entity are but attributes, which cannot achieve independence, but are still only names of the One with multiples.The One is clothed with the multiplicity of powers and the many forms of reality of a particular being like a soulless ornament.They are only some apostles who proclaim its power, show its glorious appearance, and convey its praise, without their own will.

But this trance-like life [of the One] must define itself as being-for-itself, and give a lasting existence to its fading form.Immediate existence, in which the One confronts itself with its consciousness, is itself a negative force that eliminates its differences.So really speaking, it is the ego.The mind thus makes the transition towards knowing itself in the form of the ego.Pure Light disperses its simplicity into an infinite number of forms, it sacrifices itself to being-for-itself, so that the individual may have the permanence of its substance. (b) Plants and animals [worship]① ① mainly refers to the primitive religion of India. - translator

The self-conscious spirit goes beyond the formless essence back to itself, or raises its immediacy to the level of the ego, whereupon it makes its simplicity the multiplicity of being-for-itself and the essence of spiritual perception. Religion in which the spirit is dispersed into an infinite number of spirits who are weaker or stronger, richer or poorer.This pantheism, that is to say, these atomic spirits pass from an initial state of quiet existence to a hostile movement of their own.The naive flower religion [or plant religion] is nothing but the ego without the concept of self, the sinful animal religion of a life of struggle through seriousness, that is, the transition from impotent, contemplative individuality to destructive Existence for itself. —It is not helpful to exclude abstract death from sentient beings and raise them to spiritual conscious existence; Sex and negativity disturb the naive indifference of the various plants.Because of this determination and negativity, the process of [spiritual] dispersion into a multitude of static vegetative forms becomes a hostile movement in which the hatred between these vegetative forms of being-for-itself is stirred up, Thus destroying their existence for themselves. —The real self-consciousness of this dispersed spirit is a multitude of individuated hostile national spirits, which, out of hatred among themselves, fight each other to the death, and consciously recognize certain forms of animals as Their essences [or gods], for they are nothing but animal spirits of animal life separated from one another, unaware of their universality.

But this purely negative determination of being-for-itself is canceled out or sublated in this mutual hatred.Sportsmanship through this concept enters another form.The being-for-itself which is superseded is the form of the object, which is what is produced by the self, or rather the self which produces itself, the self which sublates itself, that is to say, the self which becomes the thing.Thus the working ego has the upper hand over the animal spirits who are only destroying each other, and its actions are not only passive, but stable and active.Spiritual consciousness is thus now a movement beyond both immediate being-in-itself and abstract being-for-itself.Since being-in-itself is reduced to a definite form by being negated by the opposite, it ceases to be the proper form of the Absolute Spirit, but is only one found there by its own consciousness as an ordinary definite being, with itself reality opposed to it and superseded by itself, and at the same time this consciousness is not only this superseded being-for-itself but also produces its own representation, the presence of being developed by being-for-itself into the form of an object. appearance.But this coming into being is not yet a perfect activity, but a conditioned activity, a shaping of ready-made materials.

(c) Craftsman① ① Refers to the religion of ancient Egypt. - translator At this stage, then, the spirit appears as a craftsman, and by its actions it makes itself an object, but it has not yet grasped its own thoughts, so its action is an instinctive labor, Just like bees build their hives. The first form is intellectually abstract because it is the direct form. And the work it accomplishes is not yet imbued with spiritual significance.The crystallization of pyramids and obelisks, the simple combination of straight lines and even planes and equally well-proportioned parts (this structure loses the unevenness of arched buildings), is the workman's work according to strict [geometric] forms. come out works.Because of this purely intellectual form, it cannot express the true meaning of the form itself, it is not the subject or self of the spirit.Hence the reception of spirit in these works: or simply as an alien, dead spirit which has renounced its living penetration with reality and which is itself dead into these inanimate Crystals, or they [these works] have only an external relation to the spirit, which [works] there as something external to itself and not as spirit,—they are to the spirit as they are to the rising of the East. like the sunlight that radiates its meaning to them. This spirit as a craftsman starts from the separation of being-in-itself (which is the material the craftsman processes) and being-for-itself (which belongs to the aspect of the craftsman's self-consciousness), and this separation is objectified in its works.Its further efforts must tend towards abrogating this separation of soul and body, giving to the soul itself a material cloak and shape, and to the body soul.These two aspects, being brought closer to each other, retain each other's determination of the spirit in the appearance as opposed to the outer shell around it.The unity of spirit and itself contains this opposition of individuality and universality.Since the two aspects of the work [of the craftsman] come closer to each other, another thing happens at the same time, that the work comes closer to the self-consciousness of the working craftsman, and the more self-consciousness in this work reaches its own self-consciousness. Knowledge of what it really is.But in this way the work first constitutes only the abstract aspect of mental activity, which does not yet know the content of its own activity.The craftsman himself, the whole spirit, has not yet appeared, but is still a latent inner essence, which as a whole only appears in the split into active self-consciousness and the objects it produces. The surrounding dwelling, the external reality, is thus only what was first raised to an abstract form of the intellect, embellished by the craftsman into a form with a soul.To this end he makes use of plants, which are no longer sacred, as they were in the previous feeble pantheism, but are regarded as something usable by him, the craftsman who knows himself to be-for-itself. , and reduce it to an aspect and ornament of appearance.But his use of plants is not unchanged, and the artisan of self-aware forms simultaneously negates the temporality of plant life itself as immediate existence and brings its organic forms closer to those of the stricter, more universal form of thought.The organic form, left free to elongate in particularity, is on the one hand constrained by the form of thought, and on the other hand raises these rectilinear and planar figures to the soulful circle. - This is a mixture, which is the root of Liberty Architecture. This architecture (which expresses the inanimate, natural aspect of the universal element or spirit) now includes within itself an individual form.This form of individuality brings closer to reality the spirit which was formerly separate from being, external or inward, and thus makes the work of art more compatible with active self-consciousness.The craftsman first grasped the general form of being-for-itself, the form of animals.That he is no longer directly conscious of himself in animal life is shown by the fact that he considers himself to be the producing power of animal life, and that he knows that in animal life, that is, in his own writings, In this way, the animal form is at the same time a sublated form, and becomes a hieroglyph with another meaning, a concrete symbol of a thought.Therefore, the animal form is no longer used solely and completely by the craftsman, but mixed with the form of thought and the form of man.But this work still lacks the form and embodiment of self in it.Such a work also lacks that which expresses in itself an inner meaning; that is to say, it lacks language, which is an element sufficient to express the meaning it contains.Therefore, such a work, even if the animal form is completely eliminated, and the form that has self-consciousness alone, is still a silent form, and still needs the light of the rising red sun to cause the sound, which is caused by the light. It is also only sound rather than language, and what it expresses is only an outer self, not an inner self. ② ① Refers to many half-human, half-animal gods in ancient Egypt. - translator ②Refers to a statue called Memnon in ancient Egypt, which can make a musical sound at sunrise. - translator Opposed to this form of the external self, there is another form that manifests itself as having an inner meaning.Nature returning to its essence reduces its living multiplicity, individuating itself, bewildered in motion, to a non-essential shell which is the veil of its inner essence. And this inner essence is still nothing but simple darkness, motionless, black formless stone. ① ① Refers to a black stone in Mecca, the holy place of Islam, which is still worshiped by believers today. - translator These two modes of expression contain inner meaning and outer manifestation—these are the two links of the spirit, and the two modes of expression contain two links at the same time in the opposite relationship: the self as the inner and the outer Two ways.Both aspects must be combined. —The soul of the human statue is not yet emanating from the inner essence, not yet language, not yet the outer expression of the inner essence itself. —— And the inner essence, manifested in many forms, is still voiceless, indifferent to itself, and still separate from its external existence with all its differences. The artisan thus combines the two in the process of mixing natural form and self-consciousness, and this double-entendre, self-enigmatic nature: the conscious side struggles with the unconscious side, the simple inner essence and the self-consciousness. The accompaniment of multiple forms of outward manifestation, the obscurity of thought alongside the clarity of expression, all burst forth in a deep, incomprehensible language of wisdom. ① This refers to the ancient Egyptian Sphinx.This must be distinguished from the Sphinx monster in ancient Greek mythology on page 221 below. - translator In such a work there is no longer the instinctive activity which, in opposition to self-consciousness, creates the work without consciousness.For here arises the activity of the self-conscious craftsman confronted with an equally self-conscious inner essence capable of expressing itself.In his works, he has worked hard to split his consciousness into two (Entzweiung), so that spirit meets spirit. In this self-conscious mind and its own unity, because it is conscious of itself as the form and object of its own consciousness, it is purged of those immediate natural forms which are mixed in an unconscious way.These gigantic monstrosities with shape, language, and action then dissolve into (or transform into) spiritual forms, that is, into an external phenomenon returning to itself or an Inner essence; that is, becoming such a thought, which produces itself, maintains a form suitable to itself, and is a distinct and specific existence.In this way, the spirit is the artist.